Digital Media Awards Europe

Kevin Anderson is the Consulting Director for Pugpig, a company that builds apps, websites and digital archives for hundreds of newspapers, magazines and membership organisations. He and his team work with customers to develop their app strategy and optimise their app operations. Before joining Pugpig, he was the digital products and platforms director for Ideastream Public Media, a regional TV and radio group serving an audience of almost 3 m viewers and listeners each month. He has had editorial and leadership positions with the BBC, The Guardian and Gannett, and as an independent consultant worked with clients across North America and EMEA including Al Jazeera, India’s Network18, Reed Business Information, CNN International and the UK’s Reach.

Since joining WAN-IFRA in 1997, Valérie has accrued more than 20 years of experience as a media journalist. Currently, she is a team member of WAN-IFRA’s Global Advisory division where she works with the Advisory Team in leading global consulting projects. She is also the Programme Lead for WAN-IFRA’s top global conferences including: World News Media Congress and our Digital Media Event Series. She has contributed to numerous research reports, including Alternative Revenue Streams for Publishers. As part of her research, Valérie interviewed numerous publishers who had found success discovering new business models – whether its through events, e-commerce, video or marketing services – Valérie has experience taking the pulse on what generates revenue for publishers.

Sylvia Binner is a team player, a training junkie, a notorious seeker of innovation and development potential and a member of the General-Anzeiger’s editorial team. The regional media house in Bonn, Germany, is a subsidiary of the Rheinische Post media group. As deputy editor-in-chief, she is responsible for staffing and training the editorial team as well as for further developing the content of all channels. The humanities graduate loves journalism, people, travel and is curious about almost any topic, especially AI at the moment.

Anja joined Ippen Digital GmbH & Co KG in July 2022. As  Director of Platform & Data, Anja Bonelli is part of the Ippen Digital management team. In this capacity, she is responsible for the management and transformation of Germany’s leading digital publishing product platform, currently used by more than 80 publishers in Germany – from tz, Münchner Merkur, HNA and Frankfurter Rundschau to verticals such as BuzzFeed, Einfach Tasty, Serienjunkies and ingame.de.

The editorial network, known under the brand IPPEN.MEDIA, generates an audience of over 300 million visits per month and reaches half of Germany’s online users. It is also one of the largest regional publisher networks in Europe and currently has nine own and twelve partner sites.

Danuta is a brand strategist and subscription expert with experience in leading news and lifestyle media in Europe and global industry organizations. Currently, Danuta holds the position of Expert-in-Residence at the Media Development Investment Fund and serves as the Head of Digital User Market Senate at Ringier AG in Zurich.

Michael is a Marketing and Customer Strategist, NED and Board Advisor. He was previously Managing Director of Times Newspapers Ltd, responsible for the financial performance of The Times and The Sunday Times, and for defining and implementing brand strategies for long-term multi-platform growth.

Prior to running The Times and The Sunday Times, Michael was publisher and chief operating officer of The Economist. He joined the Economist Group in 2006 and has held a number of senior positions, including marketing director and managing director of circulation.

Henning Bulka is Head of Digital Desk at Rheinische Post (RP), the largest newspaper in the Rhineland region and one of Germany’s most respected media publications. Before heading the digital desk, he worked as a site manager, social media editor and podcast host at RP. Henning Bulka holds a B.A. in Sociology and English/American Studies from the University of Münster and completed his journalism training at the local radio station Antenne Düsseldorf, including an internship at the German Press Agency in Berlin. He grew up in Leipzig.

Jeremy is a certified executive-level coach and founder of Chrysalis Transformations – a training, coaching and leadership consultancy for leaders and managers.

More than 15 years in the world of new technologies, online business development and digital transformation of media organizations. Cerezo has worked as a consultant for the main media in Spain and Latin America. He was director of research and digital strategy at Prisa between 2007 and 2012. Has extensive knowledge on digital business, reader revenue, marketing and online advertising, and web analytics and wide experience in the implementation and development of digital projects through their strategic design, planning, implementation and monitoring phases. Is the author of the books: The Liquid Media, the transformation of business models (2018), Subscription Models in the Press (2019) and Deconstructing the media: How to adapt communication companies to the digital environment (2022).

Steffen Damborg (MBA) is a digital transformation specialist with 10 plus years of experience in all aspects of running an online business in the media industry. He is a former Digital Director and Chief Development Officer at the leading Danish publisher, JP/Politikens Hus, and is currently focusing on Digital Transformation for global media organisations accrued from his knowledge of working extensively in the Scandinavian market. His digital transformation experience includes different aspects of online media management, strategic development and emergent approaches towards new sustainable digital business models in the disrupted Nordic media market and beyond.

Martin Fröhlich leads the Digital Revenue Network at WAN-IFRA. He joined WAN-IFRA in the summer of 2022 after 25 years in the news media industry. His team organizes events like Digital Media Europe, the Newsroom Summit, Digital Media Africa, supports the Paris Forum and hosts the Table Stakes Europe program. They also coordinate initiatives like AI Unlocked and Innovate Local.

Teemu Henriksson is a Research Editor at WAN-IFRA where he covers news media leadership, business trends, change management and newsroom transformation. He contributes to the World Press Trends research project and has also worked on the association’s research and innovation initiatives. He has also worked as a project manager for a data journalism platform at the Global Editors Network.

Alan is the co-founder of HBM Advisory, which partners with news providers to help them maximise the value of their digital content. He advises publishers and other subscription businesses on aligning

Lyndsey Jones is a publishing consultant, digital transformation expert, strategic advisor and coach, working with media groups in Africa and Europe either independently or via WAN-IFRA, Women in News, FT Strategies and other consultancy agencies.

Ivar Krustok has worked in the digital marketing and information sector for some fifteen years. He was Head of Resolution Media in Estonia and Head of Digital Media at OMD Estonia (both part of the Omnicom Media Group). He worked on an innovative mobile advertising platform – Nexd/Adcanvas. He launched a programmatic advertising platform – Frank.ai. At Delfi Meedia, he is responsible for IT and data science. He also teaches at the Estonian Business School as a lecturer and is a mentor in the Technopol AI mentoring programme.

Nokuthula Manyathi has a decade-long media career, working in digital, broadcast and print newsrooms. At News24 (South Africa’s most trusted news brand as awarded by the Reuters Institute, 2019 – 2023), she’s the multimedia editor, where she spearheaded the publication’s audio department. Work produced through the hub has won several awards, including a gold and bronze statue at the New York Festivals Radio Awards. In 2022, she was chosen by the Online News Association as one of 26 women globally leading change and innovation in journalism. As a reporter, her investigative work exposed a Christian cult masquerading as a mission station and a ring of sports coaches with predatory behaviour at elite schools in South Africa. She’s a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and speaks German, Zulu and Afrikaans. Her proudest achievement? She’s the reigning champ of her family’s annual board games day.

Stéphane’s professional DNA is rooted in 25 years of BBC international journalism. He went into broadcast media after a pan-European MBA that took him from France to the UK and Germany. He has spent more than half his life abroad, including post-apartheid South Africa and likes to call himself a serial foreigner. He puts warmth, authenticity and performance at the centre of his coaching work. He enjoys looking at events and the world from as many perspectives as possible and very much welcomes coaching clients from diverse frames of reference. He has co-designed and co-facilitated workshops focusing on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within and outside the media industry.

Paul McNally is the Founder of Develop AI, an innovative company that reports on AI, builds AI focused projects and provides training on how to use AI responsibly. He is also the Founder of Develop Audio that produces investigative podcasts and guides journalists to produce audio projects of their own. In 2019 he created the voice note disinformation podcast What’s Crap on WhatsApp? And in 2017 he created the award-winning investigative podcast Alibi. In 2015 he started Citizen Justice Network, a project based at Wits University that trains community paralegals in South Africa and Kenya to be radio journalists. He has 16 awards, was a Visiting Nieman fellow at Harvard in 2016 and is the author of the non-fiction book “The Street” that exposed the corrupt relationship between the police and drug syndicates in Johannesburg.

Rachel is a commercial strategist and has led multi-disciplinary teams in B2C and B2B media,  as well as brand content teams (retail, professional bodies, sports). She delivered an award-winning data transformation project whilst CCO at PA Media. Her speciality is developing product strategies that deliver greater customer engagement as well as solid business revenues. She now runs The Positive Consultancy and sits on WAN-ifra’s expert panel.

Leonardo Pescante is deputy editor in chief, in charge of digital at 24heures.ch, a French-speaking media in Switzerland. After studying mathematics and management at the University of Lausanne, he worked for almost 15 years at Swiss Radio International. He contributed to the transformation of this radio station, broadcasting in nine languages, into an internet platform that became swissinfo.ch. Leonardo also participated in the launch of the national music website Couleur3.ch and the website of the French-speaking Swiss television rts.ch. In 2011, he joined the editorial staff of 24heures, where he accelerated the digital transition with the move to the paid web.

Penny Riordan is the Director of Business Strategy and Partnerships for Local Media Association. She runs the LMA Digital Club, including two web conferences per month where members collaborate with industry peers on important digital revenue, product, audience and content topics. Penny also supports the work of the Oklahoma Media Center and LMA’s new initiative on locals news startups with the Tributary in Jacksonville, FL.

Dean is Director of Insights and Editor-in-Chief of WAN-IFRA, he is responsible for coordinating all activities related to the organisation’s array of multimedia publications. He has more than 25 years’ experience working in the news publishing industry, much of that time spent researching, analysing, identifying and ultimately reporting about global media developments.

Thomas Seymat has over a decade of experience working in international, multilingual newsrooms. There, he led innovative projects such as the implementation of new tools or new storytelling formats and piloted digital transformation efforts. He’s also a former RJI fellow, a speaker, and a mentor and has taught numerous classes on digital journalism and innovation in the media at the MBA and graduate levels.

Brian is a Senior Editor at WAN-IFRA and specialises in reporting about reader revenue, advertising and general management topics for our website and reports. He is the editor of WAN-IFRA’s Reader Revenue newsletter and a contributor to our daily Executive News Service newsletter. Before joining WAN-IFRA, he worked as an editor at several daily newspapers.

Gregor Waller provides consulting services to international media businesses for developing their digital strategy and transforming their business models for the digital era.