James Arnold

head of marketing and communications

Halfords

James leads the marketing team at Halfords and, in his spare time, is non-executive director for BASI, the governing body for snowsports instructors.

Prior to this, he was director of integrated communications at B&Q and director of advertising & brand at SSE. James spent the first half of his career at Procter & Gamble with various 'soap led' roles in the UK and overseas, before moving into utilities and retail. In the last few years, his work has won multiple Cannes Lions, D&AD Pencils and Thinkbox awards and he has lectured on media buying at Postgraduate level.

Dr James Carney

founding director

Texture AI

Texture AI is a startup that blends state-of-the-art research in psycholinguistics and the psychology of culture with AI and machine learning. It works with industry leaders such as Google, Telegraph Media Group, Newsworks, McKinsey Consulting and YouTube.

James is also an academic researcher based at Brunel University London, where he is a Wellcome Trust Fellow. Prior to this, he has held appointments in the Department of Psychology at Lancaster University and in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford (where he was also a Fellow of Linacre College).

Both commercially and academically, James is particularly interested in developing robust techniques for capturing the richness of cultural data in way that allows human judgment to be augmented by artificial cognition.

Jo Elvin

editor-in-chief

YOU magazine

Jo has been editor of The Mail on Sunday’s YOU magazine since March 2018. Prior to this, she was editor of Glamour for 17 years, having launched the magazine in 2001. When she stepped down from the role, Albert Read, the managing director of Condé Nast Britain, said she had “launched a magazine that defined an age and a generation of young women”.

Jo started her career at Australian magazine Dolly, before going to launch and edit UK teen magazine Sugar. She has also edited B Magazine and New Woman.

Lorna Hawtin

disruption director

TBWA\Manchester

As disruption director for TBWA\Manchester, Lorna has been an outspoken promoter of effectiveness culture, both in her work with clients and across the broader creative community.

She is a member of the IPA's Value of Creativity Leadership Group and was Convener of Judges for the IPA Effectiveness Awards in 2014, having won a number of the awards as author in her formative years. She is also a Fellow of the IPA in recognition of her exceptional prolonged contribution to the industry body and her work in developing the Eff Test and the IPA's effectiveness strategy. As an invited member of the UK's Effie committee, she looks forward to extending her insight into the topic through this new channel.

In addition to her effectiveness work, Lorna is a regular writer and speaker on creative leadership and was also the recipient of the Sir John Hegarty Exec. MBA Scholarship to the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, where she took home the Michael Conrad Outstanding Thesis Award for her thought-provoking research on “Unpicking the Extrovert Ideal in ‘Adland’".  

Lorna manages to juggle all this with being a Mum of two and loves riding horses, even when they throw her against a wall and break her arm. Most importantly, she hails from Yorkshire, which is something she will never, ever let you forget.

Jon Kershaw

managing director

PHD Manchester

Jon became head of PHD UK’s Manchester office in 2017. Prior to this he was head of strategy for Havas Media in London and strategy director for Carat.

With over 18 years’ experience in media and communications, he is passionate about helping clients use communication effectively to drive commercial success and is leading industry best practice as the author of the IPA’s Advanced Certificate module on Approaches to Integration.

Jon has successfully worked with brands across many product categories and at all stages of business growth, from new start-ups to international blue chips.

Laura Russell

communications planning director

UM Birmingham

Laura joined UM Birmingham in the summer of 2014 and plays an integral role in the development of the team’s strategic media planning capabilities. She works on a variety of client accounts including Vaillant, Mappin & Webb, Sunseeker and Stanley Black & Decker.

Prior to this, Laura was an international account director at Havas in London where she led and oversaw all elements of client service, planning, buying and strategic development for on and offline global campaigns, with clients including Clarks, E! Entertainment, CNBC, BMI and BAESystems.

Having graduated from Aston University in 2001, Laura embarked on a career in marketing for the Austrian Embassy Chamber of Commerce in London before moving into advertising as a planning and buying executive at PSI Advertising. During her five years at PSI, Laura progressed to client services account director, heading up international accounts for JT International, Orange, BNP Paribas and DHL, among others.

Richard Shotton

head of behavioural science

Manning Gottlieb OMD

Richard is head of behavioural science at Manning Gottlieb OMD, the most awarded media agency in the history of the IPA Effectiveness awards.

He started his career as a media planner 17 years ago, working on accounts such as Coke, 118 118 and comparethemarket.com, before moving into research.

Richard is interested in how findings from behavioural science can be applied to advertising. He writes about the behavioural experiments he runs for titles such as Marketing Week, The Drum, Campaign, Admap and Mediatel. He tweets about the latest social psychology findings from the handle @rshotton.

His first book on applying behavioural science to advertising, The Choice Factory, was published in February 2018.

Outside of work Richard loves playing football, and can be found, most Sundays, on Brockwell Park, scoring own goals.  

Emma Slater

managing director

Wavemaker Manchester

With 25 years of industry experience, Emma is responsible for the growth and development of Wavemaker’s clients and people.

Emma’s passion lies in uncovering the human motivations that drive customer journeys, then unpicking the insights that enable our clients to develop a real-world competitive advantage.

She was appointed managing director of Wavemaker Manchester in 2016.