Aleksander Čeferin
Bio
Aleksander Čeferin was elected as UEFA’s seventh president at the 12th Extraordinary UEFA Congress in Athens in September 2016. A forward-looking UEFA, he emphasised, would be pro-active, move with the times and lead by example. A graduate of Ljubljana University’s law faculty, Aleksander Čeferin went on to work for his family’s law firm, and developed a special interest in representing professional athletes and sports clubs. He later took over from his father as company director. He was elected as Football Association of Slovenia (NZS) president in 2011. He also served as a second and third vice-chairman of the UEFA Legal Committee from 2011 to 2016.
Sam Seddon
Bio
Sam Seddon manages IBM’s sports rights agreements in the UK which include Wimbledon and England Rugby. He has responsibility for managing the client relationship year-round and for all the services that IBM provides to The Championships. He also oversees the digital strategy and award-winning marketing and innovation program. During the Championships he manages a team that is 180 people at peak on site. Sam Seddon was recognised in 2015 by Information Age as being one of the UK’s top 50 data leaders and influencers. In 2017 his marketing campaign at Wimbledon was recognised by Campaign Magazine as the “Best Digital Innovation” of the year.
Carsten Thode
Bio
Carsten Thode is the Chief Strategy Officer at Synergy, one of the leading sports and entertainment marketing agencies with clients including Bose, Under Armour, Accenture, BMW, Mitsubishi, BP and Just Eat. Thode started his career as a strategy consultant for Marakon Associates, working on clients including Diageo, Schweppes, Boots and Lloyds TSB before spending seven years at Reuters in roles including Global Sponsorship Manager for Reuters’ golf and F1 sponsorships. He was also Head of Strategic Relationships at Manchester United.
Ian Mollard
Bio
Ian Mollard has over 25 years of experience in the sports event industry working with clients including the NBA, adidas, Nike and Budweiser. In recent years he has focused on the production of Sports Presentation at a series of world stage events which have included the 2017 IPC & IAAF World Athletics Championships, the London 2016 and Rio 2016 Olympics & Paralympics, the 2015 European Games and the Invictus Games. The “Hero the Hedgehog” mascot activation (at London 2017 IAAF World Championships) was awarded “Entertainment Experience of the year 2017” at the BT Sports Industry Awards.
Kenny Ager
Bio
Before joining Publicis, setting up the group’s new sports division, SMG Sports, Kenny Ager worked in Formula One and English Premier League. Moving to the Far East in 2010, he developed a network of satellite offices across South east Asia, packaging and selling EPL TV advertising contracts.In 2014 he returned to the UK where he joined Snack Media, a leading digital sports publisher. In 2016, Kenny joined WePlay, the leading digital sports engagement agency, as Client Services Director (clients iclude LaLiga, FC Barcelona, PGA European Tour, Red Bull and Yokohama Tyres).
Luka Dukich
Bio
Luka Dukich is the Senior Manager of Digital Content for the Chicago Bulls, overseeing the team’s social media channels and content offerings, from basketball coverage to sponsored content. Dukich has been with the Bulls since 2015 and during his team with the team, the Bulls have become an industry leader in differentiated content, receiving SportsBusiness Journal’s 2017 “Best in Sports Social Media” award and receiving a nomination for the same honor in 2018. Prior to his time with the Bulls, Luka spent five years with United Entertainment Group, the sports & entertainment marketing arm of Edelman Worldwide. Luka is a fan of doing things differently.
Tomislav Pacak
Bio
Tomislav Pacak is the spokesperson of the Croatian Football Federation (HNS) and the media manager of the current FIFA World Cup silver medalists. As a head of HNS communications team, Pacak is responsible for media and public relations and all digital platforms. Since taking his position at HNS in 2013, he implemented the digital strategy #BeProud which was rewarded by UEFA as the best fan engagement digital campaign in Europe in 2014. Croatia’s social media channels remained among Europe’s best ever since, confirming that status with a strong digital campaign named #Family during FIFA World Cup 2018.
Paul Rogers
Bio
Paul Rogers is Head of Digital Media at AS Roma, one of the world’s most famous football clubs. Prior to joining Roma in January 2015, Paul spent 14 years working for Liverpool Football Club in the English Premier League. As LFC’s Head of Content, he was responsible for the club’s output on TV, digital and social and was later responsible for developing and leading the club’s international media strategy – helping the club to communicate with over 25 million followers in 18 different languages every day.
Jerry Daniel Newman
Bio
Leading Sport for Facebook across EMEA, Jerry has over 15 years of sports media and marketing experience. Prior to joining Facebook, Jerry led the Digital Strategy for Chelsea FC where he focused on driving the relationship the club has with its millions of fans globally and leveraging this asset to drive greater commercial value for the club. The experience he has gained working for both governing body (The Football Association) and club in Media, Marketing, CRM, Digital and Sponsorship gives him a unique understanding of each of these verticals and how digital can blur and disrupt traditional models to drive innovative experiences for fans and greater value for rights holders and sponsors.
Neil Morley
Bio
Neil runs his own marketing consultancy and specializes in content marketing. Amongst his current clients is Adria Mobil, where he oversees all their global marketing and personally drives their content marketing approach. Prior to establishing his own company, Cat’s Eye Communications, he was Marketing Director for Akrapovic and formerly Head of Marketing for Triumph Motorcycles. Originally a writer, Neil continues to focus on creating original and engaging content for his clients. He regularly works in the area of sports and partnership marketing, with recent projects involving KTM Motorcycles at the Dakar Rally, and in MXGP.
Vlatka Kamenić Jagodić
Bio
She is the Deputy Director of Marketing and Business Strategy Department at Croatian national energy utility Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP). She has managed establishment of Product and Service Development Department in HEP. Under her leadership at time of electricity market liberalization HEP launched first marketing campaigns, issued business and marketing strategic guidelines and retained customers.
Jeremy Edwards
Bio
The co-founder of sponsorship and sports business activation intelligence Activative, is also the Director of Content and Consulting at company. Before founding Activative, Edwards was the Director of the Consultancy at the media and marketing agency Xtreme Information and prior to that worked for media consultancy Human Capital. Before working in marketing and sponsorship, he was a journalist and an editor in the media, financial, legal and political arenas.
Aleksandar Boričić
Bio
President of European Volleyball Confederation (CEV) and vice-president of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), Aleksandar Boričić was a national team player and european championship medallist and coach. He held many positions in sport of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro and consequently Serbia. He was the president of the Crvena Zvezda Sport Society, president of the Sports Association of Belgrade, vice president of the Sports Federation of Yugoslavia and Yugoslav Olympic Committee. He was the president of the Yugoslav Volleyball Federation and then of the Volleyball Federation of Serbia until 2016. He received numerous national awards and recognitions. Boričić is also the president of the Union of Philatelists of Serbia and passionate philatelist and exhibitor.
Kenechi Belusevic
Bio
Kenechi Belusevic leads Discovery’s business operations in Ex-Yugoslavia, Albania, Mediterranean and Israel. Her experience in the content media business started with the sports media rights and licensing industry, where she covered countries in Eastern Europe with key partners in broadcasting, rights holders and media agencies, and then she joined Discovery Inc.
Having an educational background in legal, business and European studies, her career journey has taken her through corporate law, education, and business, giving her valuable exposure and experience in a variety of fields.
Metod Ropret
Bio
Metod Metod Ropret became President of the Volleyball Federation of Slovenia (OZS) in November 2012. With extensive experience from the business world, he knew how to listen to and effectively support good ideas in order to create, together with his colleagues, the best possible conditions for the development of Slovenian volleyball. His work is reflected in the greatest successes for Slovenian volleyball, achieved during his term. In 2016, he was elected for a second four-year term as president of one of the largest umbrella sports organisations in Slovenia.
Blaž Jarc
Bio
After a many years of working as a news journalist and editor and presenter of documentary shows, Blaž Jarc became the creative head of research panel debates on Planet TV in 2015. Blaž than became editor-in-chief of news and sports at Planet TV in 2017, to which he added the chief editorial post of Siol.net in August of the same year. In addition to being editor-in-chief of two media outlets Blaž is the creative author of multiple shows, including a sports magazine show Goool!, which represents an upgrade to the media pillar built around the 1st football league Telekom Slovenije by Siol.net and Planet TV.
Kris Schoeters
Bio
Kris Schoeters, more known by nickname Mister Kris, is a well known deejay, born in Antwerp in Belgium. He started deejaying in the late 80’s, when he discovered also attractive sports shows, especially in United States by NBA matches. He combined those two aspects and quickly became one of the most respected professionals in international sports entertainment. He’s English and Dutch speaker and sports DJ for the past 25 years. One of his latest experiences was in Slovenia by entertainming the crowd at UEFA Futsal Euro 2018.
