Speakers

Mohamed Al Ayed

Chief Executive Officer, TRACCS

A passionate communicator, prominent strategist, experienced advisor, and empowering leader, with deep knowledge and understanding of the MENA Region’s communications industry, Mohamed Al Ayed came to prominence in 1998 when he established TRACCS in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Since then, he has grown the single operation to become the largest independent and homegrown communications consultancy in MENA, with 14 offices across 13 markets, serving a diversified portfolio of clients including government entities, MNC’s, family run businesses, corporate giants, local companies, and NGOs.

For the past 25 years, under Mohamed’s leadership, TRACCS has been inspiring, driving, and leading the evolution of communications in the Middle East and North Africa into a game-changing industry with the power to influence positive change and deliver present and future impact. He has built a team, comprising local market experts and Arabic-speaking communications professionals, that continues to provide real time, strategic communications insights and develops and deploys optimal, high-return communication programs for some of the most influential, complex, and mission-critical organizations operating in the region.

Mohamed has helmed TRACCS’ efforts in becoming the preferred communications partner for several national champion organizations in Saudi Arabia, and in sustaining its commitment to nurturing the talent of young communicators across region.

Mohamed has provided counsel and communications training to hundreds of senior government officials and C-suite executives and led strategic communications program for a wide array of high-level government and private organizations across the region, including the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Mastercard, Pepsi, Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (KSA), Olayan Group, Diriyah Gate Development Authority, Toyota Motor Corporation, DHL, Careem and Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts among others.

Mohamed also serves as the principal trainer for ENRICH, the proprietary communications training program of TRACCS, and to date, has conducted over a thousand individual and group training sessions delivered exclusively and through workshops, seminars, and webinars, covering more than 2,500 beneficiaries.

Mohamed is a certified trainer of the Public Relations Communications Association (PRCA).

Andy Barr

CEO, 10 Yetis Digital

Marie De Cordier

Director of Government Relations and Public Policy, Nielsen Europe

Marie De Cordier is a public affairs professional based in Brussels. She started her career representing European press publishers and has defended positions that seek to strengthen and ensure the viability of professional media, especially in the context of digital transformation. Since 2019, Marie has represented Nielsen, an international market research company and independent third party that provides market-agreed transparent audience measurement for media operators on traditional and digital media markets in Europe and around the world. 

Sybille Dinzer

Planning Director, Edelman

Sybille Dinzer is a Planning Director in Edelman’s Berlin office.

As a strategist and communications expert, she assists local and international companies in comprehending their stakeholders and crafting successful corporate reputation initiatives, purpose campaigns, and sustainability programs.

With more than 12 years of experience corporate strategy and communications, she serves as a trusted advisor to local and international companies, guiding them in the comprehension of their stakeholders and the creation of impactful campaigns that earn trust.

Since joining Edelman in 2011, Sybille has worked with a variety of institutions as well as corporate and non-profit clients, including the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the Federal Network Agency, MSD, Unilever, Schleich or Ferrero Rocher.

Prior to joining Edelman, Sybille worked for a communications agency in the field of political communications and consulted multiple clients such as the Federal Government, the Federal Parliament or the European Commission. Sybille Dinzer is a qualified banker and holds a master's degree in Culture, Communications and Media Science. 

Jay Gallagher

Chief Strategy Officer, EMEA, Edelman

Jay has worked as a planner, strategist and consultant with clients across the private and public sector for more than 20 years. He has developed audience positioning and brand behaviour models based on latest knowledge of how people make decisions.

He leads the Strategic Planning function at Edelman London. He and his team work to make brands and businesses relevant, compelling and credible to their demanding audiences. They draw insight from the vast wealth of client, consumer and market data available, making sense of the confusion of sources and turning these into the building blocks for great ideas and solutions which build more powerful brand relationships with their customers and stakeholders.

His background includes, consumer, business to business and healthcare category experience, in the UK as well as globally and in emerging markets.

David Gallagher

Managing Partner and Global CEO, Purpose, Next Practices Group

David is Managing Partner with the Next Practice Group, an investment and agency development team, and CEO of Next Purpose, a new consultancy committed to unlocking organisational value through material purpose. He is also co-chair of the Ukraine Communications Support Network and a corporate advisory board to several leading NGOs and academic institutions focused on global health. 

Paul Holmes

Founder & Chair, PRovoke Media

Paul Holmes, founder and chair of PRovoke Media, has been writing about public relations for more than 25 years. Paul began his career in local newspapers in the north of England and also worked for a newspaper group in South London before joining PR Week as news editor in 1985.

In 1987 he moved to New York to launch the short-lived US edition of that publication, and after that project came to an inglorious end worked with Adweek and Adweek’s Marketing Week for a year.

In 1989, he launched his own company, initially publishing Inside PR, and later Reputation Management magazine, both focused on providing analysis of critical trends and issues in the public relations industry. He created the annual Public Relations Agency Report Card, which included profiles of the leading PR firms in the US, and the Creativity in Public Relations Awards, which grew to become the largest in North America.

Early in 2000, Holmes launched The Holmes Group, which provides knowledge and insight to public relations professionals across a variety of platforms, including a website, an e-newsletter, events, printed reports, research and consulting assignments, and the SABRE Awards competition. The group’s flagship title, PRovoke Media (p/k/a The Holmes Report), covers the public relations business in the Americas, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and the Asia-Pacific region. In 2011, Paul was inducted into the ICCO Hall of Fame.

Abhinav Kumar

Chief Marketing & Communications Officer - Global Markets, TCS

Abhinav Kumar heads up the Marketing and Communications divisions for Tata Consultancy Service's 45 country international market presence, comprising the North America, Europe, UK, Latin America, APAC and MEA regions. Recognized with over 70 awards for excellence in communications and branding, his team has established the company as the #1 fastest growing brand in the IT Services Industry from 2010-2022. Under his tenure, the brand value of the company has risen from US$ 2.3 billion in 2010 to US$ 17.2 billion in 2023. He oversees the company's strategic relationships with multilateral organization such as the World Economic Forum and the European Union. In 2019, Abhinav was accorded the SABRE award in London, towards outstanding individual achievement in his career as a CMO and in 2021 and 2022 was listed in the Influence100 – a listing of the world’s most high impact CMOs/CCOs . Abhinav has previously served in several leadership roles, including as the CMO for Europe, the CCO for Europe and as the CMO of Latin America at the company. He serves as a Board member of the Europe India Business Council and on the advisory boards of ITSMA, the Ipsos Mori Reputation Council, and Free Trade Europa. He is also a member of the IMD business school CMO roundtable, the Brand Exchange CMO club and of the Global Communications Directors Network ( GCDN) in Switzerland.  Abhinav holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and an honors degree in Economics. He is based in Brussels, Belgium.   

Shayoni Lynn

CEO and Founder, Lynn

Shayoni Lynn is CEO and Founder at multi-award-winning behavioural science consultancy, Lynn.  She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) and is Chair of PRCA Cymru.

Shayoni is listed in the PRWeek Power Book (2021, 2022, 2023) – the definitive list of the most influential and respected communications professionals in the UK. In 2022, PRCA awarded her across two categories in their DARE Awards: Outstanding Contribution during COVID-19 and Professional of the Year.

Also in 2022, Shayoni was presented with the Mark Mellor Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Industry, and listed in Provoke Media’s list of 25 innovators in EMEA.

Shayoni represents Wales at the UK PR Council and is a founding panel member and Vice-Chair of CIPR's Behavioural Insights Interest Group. She also sits on CIPR’s ESG Expert Panel.

Shayoni is a global thought leader and speaker on the effective use of behavioural science, data analytics, misinformation strategy, and measurement and evaluation in PR and Communications.  

Adrian Monck

Ex - Managing Director, Head of Public And Social Engagement, World Economic Forum

Nevashnee Naicker

Head of Corporate Communications, Anglo American

Nevashnee Naicker leads group corporate communication for Anglo American, based in South Africa, where she is responsible for external communication and reputation, digital and social media, internal communications and employee engagement, and marketing communication (which includes advertising and sponsorships). South Africa represents around 60% of the profit of the Anglo American group and around 40% of its employee base globally.

In this role, Nevashnee actively leads positioning and engagement efforts to support Anglo American’s global ambitions, which includes achieving net zero carbon neutrality by 2030. She works closely with C-suite and communication leads and teams across the Anglo American group (with two businesses separately listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in South Africa). Part of this included delivering the multi-stakeholder global launch of the world's first hydrogen-powered mine haul truck in 2022. This is the first time that a 500-tonne vehicle has been operated by hydrogen, and once rolled out to the broader Anglo American fleet, will be the equivalent of taking over 80 000 vehicles off the road.

Nevashnee is a seasoned results-orientated senior business executive with a proven track record as a reputation, PR, and communication strategist consulting to boards, CEOs, and executive leadership on a variety of organisational and societal issues – often beyond just where they impact reputation.

Under her leadership, she has refocused Anglo American’s reputation-building efforts on building greater resonance with its diverse stakeholder base, with an emphasis on developing unique and tailored stakeholder listening and reputation analysis capabilities.

She understands the business and its environment beyond the communications function and actively balances where she is able to help motivate direction for an organisation or create the context in terms of its reputation. Her experience includes managing significant crises, stakeholder issues management, business-wide transformation initiatives, corporate marketing, CSR, and strategic projects, including the sale of international and local businesses across some of the biggest companies on the African continent.

Prior to joining Anglo American, Nevashnee was Corporate Communications Director for Tiger Brands - the largest food producer on the African continent. In this role, she acted as the central point of integration for the management and co-ordination of all high-profile issues between the company and its internal and external environment.

This included executive accountabilities for all strategic communication (crisis management, divestment/ unbundling projects, major business transformation initiatives); employee engagement, external engagement with all stakeholders, managing the media, corporate marketing, and corporate digital assets as a Centre of Excellence for strategic stakeholder engagement, crisis mitigation and management, and communication best practice and governance. Most notably, Nevashnee played a critical role in steering Tiger Brands’ reputation recovery after the 2017-2018 listeriosis outbreak and class action. This resulted in her being recognised as one of 25 innovators in PR and Communications in EMEA by PRovoke Media in 2020.

She has held senior communication, stakeholder engagement and public affairs roles at Sasol Limited, one of the largest listed petrochemical organisations on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. 

Maja Pawinska Sims

Associate Editor, PRovoke Media

Maja Pawinska Sims has been the EMEA editor of PRovoke Media since January 2018. She has been writing about public relations and communications for 22 years, first as features editor of PRWeek and then as a freelance writer and editor for PR agencies and their clients around the world, including three years as Weber Shandwick’s EMEA editor. She was named Journalist of the Year at the Global Women in Marketing Awards in 2019, where the judges noted: “Maja proves how empathy can drive brilliant editorial thinking. She is clearly an absolute expert in her field and proves that you can challenge an industry while also championing it.”

Fiorenzo Tagliabue

Group CEO, SEC Newgate

Fiorenzo Tagliabue is the founder of SEC back in 1989 and continues at the forefront of the development of SEC Newgate SpA acting as Group CEO. He also holds other executive roles in several boards of the Group’s subsidiaries.

Fiorenzo Tagliabue designed the project and played a pivotal role in the internationalization of SEC SpA that he steered across several crucial stage from 2013 onward, including the listing at the London Stock Exchange (AIM Segment) on 26 July 2016, the merging with Porta Group, listed in London, that brought to the formation of SEC Newgate on 4 September 2019 and finally the engagement of PE Fund Three Hills Capital Partners as one of its minority shareholders, after the delisting.

Prior to founding SEC, Mr. Tagliabue, who is a philosopher, started his career more than 50 years ago in the publishing industry. He was managing director of an Italian daily newspaper and spent also some time running the start-up of the Vatican Television Centre.

He was a member of the board of directors of the Fondazione Teatro alla Scala of Milan for 11 years, and as well of the Fondazione Banco Alimentare onlus and the Board of IUAV (Istituto Universitario Architettura Venezia) one of the most important architectural Department in Italy, based in Venice. Currently he sits in the Board of Action Contre la Faim (ACF).

Gregor Wills

Head of PR & Communications, Allianz X

Gregor Wills is the Head of Public Relations & Communications at Allianz X, the digital investments arm of leading global insurer and asset manager, Allianz. It’s here he’s delighted to indulge his twin passions for technology and communications. He previously worked at the Group’s headquarters, Allianz SE, as a media spokesperson for tech topics and, before that, helped roll out the company’s social intranet globally. Prior to joining Allianz, Gregor had freelanced as a language consultant. He migrated to Germany from Australia where he had worked in financial services and studied business management at the University of Queensland.