Our Speakers

 

Headline Speaker

Clive Myrie Broadcaster, Journalist, Presenter and Author

Clive Myrie is a multi-award winning journalist, one of the BBC's most experienced foreign correspondents and a recognised face as a BBC News presenter. In 2021 he took over as Host of the long running BBC series, Mastermind and Celebrity Mastermind. A keen fan of the Arts & music, Clive is a regular host of The BBC Proms, and has made documentaries on jazz for Radio 2 and Jazz FM. Born in Bolton, Lancashire he studied law at the University of Sussex. Clive has served as the BBC’s Asia, Africa, Washington and Europe Correspondent. He has a particular interest in US politics, having covered the administrations of three Presidents (Clinton, Bush and Obama,) and reported on seven Presidential races, including the election of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. As well as presenting the One, Six and Ten O’Clock News bulletins on BBC One, Clive continues to travel the world as a reporter, and makes features and programmes for Panorama, Newsnight and Radio 4. In 2022, he presented the main BBC One bulletins live from Kyiv during the war in Ukraine. He also presented the documentary, The Crown Jewels for BBC1, screened as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022. In May/June 2023, his travel series ‘Clive Myrie’s Italian Roadtrip,’ was a huge hit on BBC2, one of the most popular shows on the BBC.

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The in-house Public Relations team of four at apetito, (the UK's leading provider of meals to the Healthcare, Care Homes, Education and Social Care sectors alongside its consumer business, Wiltshire Farm Foods), is responsible for managing all internal and external communications including reputation management and stakeholder engagement for the business. In 2023, apetito undertook its first-ever lobbying campaign on the proposed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) packaging legislation that faced unfairly penalising the business alongside its world-first Industrial recycling scheme, Boomerang. 

Its dynamic high-impact campaign took it deep into the corridors of Government and Defra influencing opinion and garnering X-party support from backbenchers to ministers.  Extensive work was carried out by the whole team, without any reliance on external support, to drive a stand-out campaign that influenced positive change. This campaign went on to win the Public Affairs Campaign award at the 2024 CIPR Excellence Awards.

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Iain Anderson FCIPR, FRSA
Founding and Executive Chairman at H/Advisors Cicero

Iain has over 30 years' experience as a political adviser, business journalist and CEO and Board level counsel for some of the world’s leading business and not-for-profit organisations. He focuses on corporate strategy and messaging. Last year, Iain led an independent review for the Labour Party – A New Partnership – exploring a long-term plan for how industry and Government can better collaborate. In 2024, Iain was recognized as the Number 1 Public Affairs practitioner in the PR Week PowerBook – a position he has held on several occasions. Iain was previously Chair of Stonewall and served as the previous Government’s first LGBT+ Business Champion.

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Mark Earls

 Mark Earls is HERDmeister, award-winning writer and consultant on human behaviour, contemporary communications and behaviour change.

Mark's insights on how and why we choose to behave as we do are as relevant for voting decisions, states of happiness and satisfaction, or attitudes to climate change, as they are to consumer choices.. Much of the most pioneering work in behavioural economics has been developed between Mark Earls and Rory Sutherland, another legendary international creative figure.

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Peter Heneghan
Founder of The Future Communicator and former Chief Digital Communicator for the UK Government

Peter Heneghan is a distinguished AI and communications expert with a rich background in prestigious roles at BBC News, Channel 4, BuzzFeed, and 10 Downing Street.
Heneghan played a pivotal role in transforming the UK Government's digital communication during the COVID-19 pandemic through tech advancements and audience-centric campaigns. In Spring 2023, he founded The Future Communicator, an innovative agency focused on AI and digital communication strategies. Their clients include a UN agency, The British Chamber of Commerce, Arts Council England, a NASDAQ-listed company, and major media and tech players like Virgin Media and Mailchimp. Heneghan noted that many organisations struggle in the "messy middle" of their AI journey, caught between selecting the right AI technology and preparing their employees for this transformation.
Testament to its early successes, PR Week named The Future Communicator as an “agency to watch in 2024.”
Peter is an award-winning communicator, having received a Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Public Relations.
He is also a guest lecturer on AI and Communications at London Business School.

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Laurian Hubbard
Head of Engagement Services, Welsh Parliament

Laurian is a CIPR Fellow and an award-winning Chartered PR Practitioner, recognised in the PR Week Power Book. She currently leads one of the largest departments in Welsh Parliament and serves as the Chair of the Senedd Commission’s Diversity & Inclusion Steering Group. Laurian’s career includes notable roles at 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office. She is also the Co-Founder of Women in PR Cymru. As a Chartered Assessor for CIPR, Laurian contributes to the professional development of others and is a mentee in the CIPR x Taylor Bennett Foundation Reverse Mentoring Scheme this year.

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Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy MCIPR
Head of Media and Public Affairs at London Council

Gemma is a media relations and public affairs professional with a decade of experience working in London local government. After receiving a Scott Trust bursary to study journalism at the University of Sheffield, she worked for the Observer New Review before securing a junior role in a busy London borough press office. In 2015 she started working as a press officer at London Councils, the cross-party group representing the 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation.

She has worked there for seven years and is now Head of Media and Public Affairs. In 2022 she participated in The Xec, the first leadership scheme for UK-based Black, Asian, Mixed Race and Ethnic Minority (BME) PR and comms pros.

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Prof. Juergen Maier CBE, FRS, FREng, FIET, FCGI
Industrialist, Chair of Great British Energy, Co-founder of vocL and former Chief Executive of Siemens UK

Juergen is an Industrialist and served as the former Chief Executive of Siemens UK. He is Chair of Great British Energy and Chair of the Digital Catapult. He advises tech start-up and scale-up businesses which are a key part of the industrial ecosystem creating the green 4th Industrial revolution.

Juergen takes a strong leadership role for UK’s industrial, infrastructure and manufacturing community. He has served on the Board of the Department of Business and Energy from 2014 to 2016. His work supported several previous Government Industrial Strategy initiatives. In 2017, he was asked by the then Government to lead a review into how to increase the digitalisation of the UK manufacturing sector.

In the Autumn of 2023, Juergen was commissioned by the Labour Party to lead in independent review on improving the state of the UK’s Urban and Rail public transport. Juergen believes that businesses should play an active role in society and community matters. To further this mission, he co-founded the social enterprise vocL.

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Dr Hannah White 
Director and CEO at Institute for Government

Hannah is the Director and CEO at Institute for Government, leading its work to make government more effective.  
Hannah is a regular commentator on the radio and television and writes regularly for a wide range of print media. She hosts the Institute’s weekly Inside Briefing podcast and co-hosts The Expert Factor briefing with Paul Johnson of the IFS and Anand Menon of UKICE. 
Hannah is a non-executive director of the Law Commission and also serves as deputy chair of trustees for the public participation and deliberation charity Involve. She received an OBE in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to the constitution, and in 2022 she published her first book Held in Contempt: what’s wrong with the House of Commons?.

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We are committed to ensuring representation at our events - look out for details of future speaker announcements.