Media Leaders Summit Middle East 2023

Alan Hunter

Co-founder, HBM Advisory, UK

Alan is the co-founder of HBM Advisory, which partners with publishers to help them maximise the value of their digital content. He advises publishers and other subscription businesses on aligning their content and product strategies for growth, paywall modelling, customer journeys, data insights and revenue development.

Ellen Heinrichs

CEO, Bonn Institute, Germany

Ellen is the founder and CEO of the Bonn Institute for journalism and constructive dialogue. She started her career at a regional newspaper and came via positions at international organizations to Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, where she was head of editorial innovation until 2021. The journalist and media manager has been a fellow at the Danish Constructive Institute. Ellen is also a qualified mediator and a solutions journalism trainer.

Gabriele Kahlout

Head of Audience Development & Engagement, Al Jazeera Media Network, Qatar

Since 2021, Gabriele leads data-driven initiatives to retain, engage and grow the Arabic-speaking audience of www.aljazeera.net. This includes analyzing traffic patterns and data about the audiences’ interests and rallying editorial and technical teams to translate data insights into content and features that work. Prior to that, Gabriele led a similar effort for Aljazeera’s English website, placing a successful bet on reaching new audiences from Search. Gabriele is a published book author and speaks four languages.

Hamoud Almahmoud

Chief Content Officer, Majarra, UAE

Hamoud is the editor in chief of Fortune Arabia, a Majarra brand. As chief content officer, he leads content, Hamoud is responsible for managing content production following the highest standards across all of Majarra’s websites including Harvard Business Review Arabia, Popular Science Arabia, MIT Technology Review Arabia, and Nafseyati in partnership with Psychologies.

Kathrine Hammerstad

Executive Editor for Live News and Digital Development, NRK, Norway

Kathrine is executive editor for live news and digital development in the Norwegian broadcaster NRK. She is a true digital first media executive with experience from a number of Norwegian media houses the last 20 years, including BA, VG and TV2 and the last 11 years in NRK. Here she has been working with digital news both as reporter and in various leader positions such as desk editor, deputy news editor, executive front page editor and now as head of live news and digital transformation of the newsroom and news story telling. She also established NRKs first editorial climate change group, working with climate related news topics.

McKinley Hyden

Director of Analytics Business Impact, Financial Times, UK

McKinley Hyden is the director of the Analytics Business Impact team which she launched in 2021 in order to increase the value and impact of the FT’s data & analytical capabilities. Based in London but originally from New York City, McKinley has driven a range of transformational projects, particularly in enabling non-analysts to benefit from advanced data capabilities through self-service and analytical fluency.

Steffen Damborg

Digital Transformation Specialist, Denmark

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.