Alexandra Borchardt a senior journalist, keynote speaker, media consultant and Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. As a Director of Leadership Programmes at the Institute until July 2019 she developed and led on the seminar series “Oxford Perspectives”, targeting senior journalists, editors and media managers. Prior to this, she was managing editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), Germany’s leading quality daily.

Alexandra’s main focus is digital transformation and how it impacts the media, democracy, the workplace and human behaviour. She teaches “Leadership and Strategy in the 21st Century” at TU Munich, gives lectures and talks on digitisation and the media and publishes opinion pieces with Project Syndicate, NewsMavens and theEuropean Journalism Observatory. She is the author of Mensch 4.0 – Frei bleiben in einer digitalen Welt (Freedom in a digital world), Guetersloher Verlagshaus (Random House), 2018. She serves as vice chair of the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on Quality Journalism in the Digital Age.

At SZ she held several functions in the politics and business sections. She was also founding editor of Süddeutsche’s ‘Plan W’, an award winning quarterly magazine for women and business. In her reporting she has focused on internet and democracy and the future of work. In 2015 she published Das Internet zwischen Diktatur und Anarchie: Zehn Thesen zur Demokratisierung der digitalen Welt (The Internet between Dictatorship and Anarchy: Ten Assertions about Democracy in the Digital World), Süddeutsche Zeitung Edition Streitschrift. Before joining SZ she worked for Financial Times Deutschland and Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

Alexandra holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Tulane University, New Orleans (1994), and in 2013 completed a Programme for Management Development at IESE Business School, Barcelona.

Davide Casati is Digital Editor at Corriere della Sera, whose main work focuses on maximizing reader engagement and increase subcriptions. He graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism in New York City with a Business Journalism degree.

Founded in 1876, the Corriere della Sera is Italy’s most widely-read daily newspaper and an international reference point and is seen as Italy’s most authoritative daily, given the breadth, depth and quality of the information it provides. Through its website, digital editions, magazines, vertical channels, local publications and presence on social networks, the Corriere della Sera provides a complete and continually evolving information.

Filippo Davanzo head of “la Repubblica and Magazines” Digital Business Unit at GEDI Digital - the Italian company who ensures the digital development for all the titles of GEDI Group including la Repubblica, the leading news site in Italy. More than 20 years experience in digital media, has contributed to the successful launch of the Italian edition of Huffington Post, Business Insider and Mashable. Coordinator of Audiweb Technical Committee, the Italian Joint Industry Committee that collects and distributes quantitative and qualitative information on the use of the Internet and on-line systems in Italy.

Warren Fernandez joined the paper in 1990 as a political reporter and rose to become a News Editor. He went on to serve as Foreign Editor and Deputy Editor.

Fernandez then joined Royal Dutch Shell in 2008 as a Global Manager for its Future Energy Project, before returning to the paper in February 2012 as its Editor. He assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief of Singapore Press Holdings’ (SPH) English/Malay/Tamil Media group (EMTM) from July 2016.

Fernandez graduated with First Class Honours from Oxford University, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He also holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Alison Gow is Audience and Content Director North West with Reach plc (formerly Trinity Mirror). She has experience implementing and assessing new ways of engaging audiences across the newsrooms, working with external partners to bring new ideas and technology to their journalism. This includes working with editors to champion exciting new ways of telling stories across multiple platforms, promoting a strong editorial culture of storytelling, reader awareness and collaboration across Reach plc's brands.

A journalist and blogger who has worked in the UK regional press for more than 20 years, she is a former editor of the Daily Post and Wales on Sunday.

Angela Pacienza is the Executive Editor at The Globe and Mail. The role includes oversight of the programming, editing and visual journalism teams. From breaking stories as a beat reporter at The Canadian Press to launching Canada’s first video wire service and overseeing a massive newsroom re-org at The Globe and Mail, Angela’s speciality is driving culture change to create more nimble, inclusive and forward-thinking newsrooms. Angela is a graduate of the Online News Association’s Women’s Leadership Accelerator program and a mentor with Digital Women Leaders.  

Synthesia is a start-up founded by a team of researchers and entrepreneurs from UCL, Stanford, TUM and Cambridge. Their mission is to take the lead in using artificial intelligence and video synthesis to create a new generation of content creation tools — tools that are empowering, effective and ethical, for everyone.

Dmitry is an expert in digital transformation, content strategy, and innovation. He worked for 21 years at the BBC in London where he was responsible for developing and implementing the BBC’s digital editorial offer for 40 non-English foreign language new services. Originally from Moscow, Russia, Dmitry worked in various editorial-development roles for the digital section of BBC News. These roles required liaison between editorial, product and strategy teams in order to drive innovation and develop new ways of reaching audiences, increasing engagement across the world and, crucially, driving culture change is newsrooms. He is an experienced digital leader in content creation, specialising in growing audiences across the world, driving editorial changes in newsrooms and adapting the way organisations work in digital space, especially around content innovation and audience engagement.
After his years at the BBC, he joined Culture Trip, a startup operating at the intersection of media and travel. He is now pursuing new adventures. Dmitry's main area of expertise is on the intersection between Editorial, Organisational, Strategy and Product sectors.

Live is editor storytelling and feature journalism, Dagens Næringsliv, Norway. Live has been central in developing the first couple of “content universes” across DN’s publishing platforms. Prior to joining Dagens Næringsliv thirteen years ago, she worked at VG.

Elite Truong is the newly appointed director of strategic initiatives at the Washington Post. She heads their most cutting-edge digital experiments while serving as the newsroom’s liaison to the advertising department. She experiments with technology-driven editorial projects working with The Post’s journalism, technology and advertising teams.

Before joining The Post, Truong spent four years at Vox Media, three as the product manager for off-platform storytelling. She set product strategy and led the launch of nine editorial networks on new platforms including Apple News, AMP and AMP Stories, Facebook Instant Articles, live blogs and newsletters. She worked on revenue initiatives on emerging platforms and managed partnerships with Apple and Google. In 2017, Truong hosted and produced the Next Steps podcast for Poynter, where she interviewed journalists on their non-traditional career paths in and out of media. She wrote a column about media innovation for Poynter for two years. She served as a board member and education adviser for Online News Association and a career coach for the Digital Women Leaders program.

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.