Speakers | Digital Media Europe 2017
Digital Media Europe 2017
CEO, VICE Media Scandinavia, Denmark
Frederik is an executive level director with 15 years of International experience as Chief Executive Officer and Executive Creative Director. He's now Chief Executive Officer of VICE Scandinavia headquartered in Copenhagen and with offices in Stockholm and Oslo. VICE Scandinavia is part of VICE, the world’s leading next-generation youth-media company, with offices and operations in 30+ countries across every continent influencing what a whole generation of young people see, hear, wear, think, eat, dream.
Frederik Andersen works cross media, cross industry in the junction between branding, design, product innovation and marketing.
Managing teams in Copenhagen, London and New York, Frederik prefer working with successful growth companies where creativity and branding plays a key role in facilitating or transforming a business. Thorough experience with setting up, merging and turning around creative organisations and building next-gen creative teams.
Frederik has led creative organisations to go from good to great, which have allowed him to develop big ideas and implement creative strategies for ambitious clients like Lexus, Clinique, Finlandia, Johnson & Johnson, Faberge, JoMalone, Unilever, Google and Cisco, always centered around growth, creativity and branding.
International awards for marketing, communication, visual design, product design and innovation.
Head of Digital Video, TV 2, Denmark
Head of DNI Innovation Fund, Google, France
Before joining Google Ludovic Blecher was the director of the FINP, a digital press fund for French publishers backed by Google. Ludovic is a journalist and has spent the past 15 years working in the news industry. He started as a reporter at Liberation.fr, rising to Editor in Chief then Executive Director. He's a 2012 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and he was a member of the French Digital Council an independent advisory commission for the French Government.
Executive Vice President, COO, JP/Politikens Hus, Denmark
Dorthe Bjerregaard-Knudsen is COO at JP/Politikens Hus, one of Denmark's leading media companies in printed and digital publications. JP/Politikens Hus publishes three of Denmark’s leading national news brands; Ekstra Bladet, Jyllands-Posten and Politiken. The group’s activities also include local newspapers in Denmark and Sweden, a publishing house, operation and development of a range of digital activities and news services as well as other business areas.
Prior to joining JP/Politikens Hus Dorthe Bjerregaard-Knudsen was Managing Director at OMD Denmark. Before that, Dorthe held a number different positions at Omnicom Media Group; amongst others she was Managing Director of Insight Group.
Dorthe holds a master’s degree in Economics & Business Administration Economic Marketing from Copenhagen Business School.
CEO and co-founder, KIT, Sweden
CEO and co-founder of KIT, a digital media startup focused on high-quality journalism. Prior to that, most recently he ran the digital business division at Bonnier Tidskrifter. He has held marketing and digital media roles at Unilever and NBC Universal, among others. He currently serves on the board of Bonnier Corporation in the U.S., Mediafy, Beckmans College of Design and IAB Sweden. He has a B.S. from the London School of Economics and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Chief Digital Officer, Business Unit, Vocento, Spain
Roberto Leads the Digital Business Unit at Vocento since 2012, where he oversees the company's Digital Business Development department: namely business, innovation, technology and new product development.
Roberto has over 15 year experience in digital business, implementing diversification strategies in media with a high turnover on e-commerce. He was the brains behind successful business models such as: Oferplan, Guapabox, ticketing or LocalDigitalKit.
His professional carrer has always been linked to online media within the Management team of ABC.es and Leading the Area of Internet for Vocento's Regional Newspapers.
Roberto is as well specialist on startups and leads Digital Media Ventures, the first Spanish Hedge Fund in the format of media for equity, that counts with advertising assests from the main media groups in Spain.
Deputy Managing Director, Condé Nast, France
Violaine Degas joined Condé Nast France (Vogue, AD, Glamour, GQ, Vanity Fair) in February 2016. As Deputy Managing Director, her role is to reinforce the group's digital transformation by exploring and developing new advertising products and businesses for Condé Nast brands and advertising clients. Before joining Condé Nast, Violaine managed OgilvyOne Paris and spent 20+ years in digital agencies working on local and global clients.
SVP, Technology & Ad Operations, IAB, and General Manager, IAB Tech Lab, USA
Before joining IAB, Gombert was CEO of Gombert Consulting, a full service digital media consulting agency and she is Founder and Co-chair for the IAB Programmatic Council.
Prior she was Head of Digital Sales and Strategy at Conde Nast and founder of CatalystDesk, Condé Nast’s digital media trading platform. Gombert joined Condé Nast in March 2013 from Google by way of Admeld, where she ran the trading desk, agency, and demand-side platform relationships and helped grow RTB from an idea to a killer business.
Prior to Admeld, Gombert worked at Right Media, the first online advertising exchange, where she focused on ad selection algorithms and market dynamics. Right Media was acquired by Yahoo in 2007. Her early career included stints with Nielsen, DoubleClick, and the finance world with JP Morgan Chase and Commerzbank. Advertising has allowed her to travel the world, and she has experience in international markets, including EMEA, APAC, and Latin America.
VP of Business Development EMEA, Wochit, UK
Garrett Goodman is VP of Business Development for EMEA at Wochit, the video creation platform used by media leaders including Bauer, Financial Times, and France24 to make engaging video for social and mobile audiences. He has worked for The New York Times and a series of cutting-edge tech and media startups across Europe, and blogs for The Media Briefing and INMA on innovations in the media.
Executive Vice President Digital, Aller Media AS, Norway
Stephan Granhaug (born 1972) was assigned his current role in 2015, after being CEO and Editor in Chief at Scandinavia Online AS where he had run a major turn around case since 2012. At Aller Media he has P/L responsibility for all digital media outlets, including tech and product development, as well as maintaining major partnerships with external players such as Google’s Digital News Initiative and various social media.
Aller Media’s Norwegian operations has managed to drive a digital growth case along the print decline that has led the company to a state where more than 70% of its advertising revenue stems from digital, while delivering a healthy profit margin from its digital activities.
Stephan’s professional carrier started in Schibsted ASA in 2000, where he worked with corporate and business development within digital media. After covering several roles accross Schibsted’s operations, he left the media conglomerate after 7 years, to become CEO at DB Medialab in 2007. From 2009 to 2012 he was VP of digital business, product and tech development at A-pressen (today Amedia), the largest local and regional news publisher in Norway.
Stephan has a keen strategic eye and draws his energy at the intersection of technology, editorial and commercial.
Director Product Management and Technology, OMS Vermarktungs GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
Dirk Hellmann has been the Director of Product Management and Technology at OMS Vermarktungs GmH & Co. KG, Germany since 2009. He is responsible for Publisher Consulting and Product Management.
OMS belongs to the Ströer Digital Group GmbH and is the leading ad sales and consulting unit for more than 300 German and international brands- mainly newspapers and radio stations- with high quality editorial content.
Executive Managing Director, Styria Content Creation, Austria
In addition to his role at styria content creation gmbh, Alexis is a Behavioural Designer / Partner at FehrAdvice and Partners in Vienna. He was previously managing director of Styria Digital One, Austria’s number one digital publisher regarding reach with a portfolio of 35 general interest, lifestyle and niche portals with premium content.
The author of books and articles on online advertising started his career as a business and finance journalist. He then soon realized the potential of video and co-founded an online TV platform in 2000. Alexis later became part of the editorial board of the Austrian business paper “WirtschaftsBlatt” and reorganized the digital content activities of Styria Media Group, one of Austria’s top media companies.
His passion is journalism and he loves the new possibilities digital news and advertising offer.
Editor-in-Chief, Zetland, Denmark
Lea Korsgaard is Editor In Chief at Zetland. Zetland is a Danish journalistic startup that was established in 2012 by some experienced journalists from the traditional Danish news media companies to give their version of what the future news media could look like. Zetland is a membership based brand. It was relaunched in 2016 as Denmark’s slowest news media that cuts through the news noise with few, in depth stories about the most important events. As they say: All you need to know. No more than you can make.She has worked for major Danish newspapers like Politiken and Berlingske.
Head of Paid Content, Ekstra Bladet - EKSTRA & Print, Denmark
Lisbeth Langwadt, born 1979, is head of the paid platforms of the Danish tabloid newspaper, Ekstra Bladet. She is in charge of the development of Ekstra Bladet’s digital paid subscription model, Ekstra Bladet+, which you find at ekstrabladet.dk – Denmark’s largest news site. Additionally, she is head of the print paper and a member of the Editorial Board and the Business Management Board of Ekstra Bladet.
She was the editorial lead of a team developing the concept of Ekstra Bladet+ which was launched back in 2013, and is now head of both the editorial and commercial departments of the digital subscription platform.
Ekstra Bladet’s newsroom organization has gone through huge changes the last five of years, and all functions and workflows are now ‘digital first’. Lisbeth Langwadt has been in charge of most of these organizational changes and has led a number of strategic product development processes during the years.
Lisbeth has a cand.comm degree in Journalism. She joined Ekstra Bladet in 2005 and has worked as a reporter, editor and managing editor.
Ekstra Bladet is part of ‘JP/Politikens Hus’ – one of Denmark’s leading media houses.
Director Development, WeltN24, Germany
Lajos Lange is leading the development at WeltN24. Since 2012 he has been responsible for the production systems for the CMS, Web and native App Products. In 2016, he transformed the development unit from a classical IT operations model towards a cloud based DevOps culture. In 2011, he became Project Manager at Axel Springer IT and introduced agile methodologies to his organization. He started his career in 2007 at the Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS in the field of telecommunication networks (NGN). Before he studied multimedia engineering at the University of Wismar.
Editorial Director, La Factoría (Grupo Prisa), Spain
Virginia Lavín Amirola is an editorial strategist for online and off-line media. She is the Editorial Director of La Factoría, the content marketing business unit at Prisa Noticias, Spain's leading news media company. The team creates multi platform owned media for major brands. Their strengths are high editorial standards, a thorough understanding of the online, offline and broadcast production and strong expertise in understanding the role of editorial content to create brand and company value.
Some of La Factoría’s international clients are: Netflix, Mazda, Siemens, Renault, Air Europa, Amadeus, and national: BBVA, El Corte Inglés or Aena.
VP, Media & Publishing, MPP Global, UK
Ana Lobb is a VP, Media & Publishing, at MPP Global, specialising in cloud subscription and billing technology to maximise customer acquisition. Over the past 5 years she has worked closely with Publishers to drive print and digital subscription revenue. With a strong focus on personalisation and data-led strategy, she works with clients; offering insight into emerging digital business models, best practice access management, streamlining omni-channel user journeys and market trends.
Executive Vice President, Amedia AS, Norway
Director, Journalism Leaders Programme | Co-convenor: Digital Editors Network, UK
Dr François Nel and Dr Coral Millburn-Curtis lead the Innovation Research Group which is a partnership between applied researchers from Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford and the University of Central Lancashire, where François is the founding director of the pioneering Journalism Leaders Programme. He has worked with WAN-IFRA since 2009 to research the priorities of news executives worldwide and is the editor of the association's World Press Trends initiative. François is the first academic to become an executive member of the World Editors Forum and works to support entrepreneurial individuals and forward-thinking organisations worldwide, including News UK, Trinity Mirror, Johnston Press, CN Group and Times Media Ltd (South Africa).
Sr. Research Associate, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, UK
Nic Newman is Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism where he writes on the future of digital media. He is lead author of the Digital News Report the world's biggest and most authoritative survey of changing news consumption and was joint author of a recent report on the Future of Online Video.
Nic was a founding member of the BBC News Website, leading international coverage as World Editor (1997-2001). As Head of Product Development and then Future Media Controller for BBC News (2001-10), he helped introduce innovations such as blogs, podcasting and on-demand video. He works on digital, product and engagement strategies for a wide range of media companies across Europe.
CEO, JP/Politikens Hus, Denmark
Stig Kirk Ørskov is the CEO of JP/Politikens Hus, one of Denmark's leading media companies in printed, digital and mobile publications. JP/Politikens Hus publishes three of Denmark’s leading national news brands; Ekstra Bladet, Jyllands-Posten and Politiken. The group’s activities also include local newspapers in Denmark and Sweden, a publishing house, operation and development of a range of digital activities and news services as well as other business areas.
Before becoming CEO of JP/Politikens Hus Stig Kirk Ørskov was COO and member of the executive board in JP/Politikens Hus A/S with head responsible for the commercial activities in JP/Politikens Hus’ three national news brands. Previously, Stig has held different positions at Politiken throughout the years such as editor in chief, business editor, and editor of analysis.
Prior to joining Politiken Stig co-founded the online newspaper Infopaq and worked at different newspapers and news agencies as a business reporter. In addition to this Stig has been co-author of several books, e.g. a bestselling biography of the Danish ship magnate Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller.
Stig holds a degree in Public Economics and Regulation from Roskilde University and has studied Economics at the University of Copenhagen and History at the University of Melbourne
Media researcher and consultant
Greg Piechota is an academic researcher, a media consultant and a writer. As a researcher and an ex-fellow at Harvard and Oxford universities, he studies technology-enabled disruption patterns across industries, with a focus on business model innovation in news media. Mr Piechota is a former media executive with 20+ years of industry experience. He began his career at Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza in 1996 as a reporter in one of the smallest local offices rising to a news editor and a vice-president of Agora Foundation. The book, Unlocking the Customer Value Chain, which he wrote together with Professor Thales Teixeira of Harvard Business School was released in 2019 by Currency, a brand of Penguin Random House. Mr Piechota lives in Oxford, England.
Digital Editor, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Editor in-Chief, SZ.de, Germany
Deputy Executive Editor, Publico, Portugal
Diogo is helping the legacy title transition to a digital-first media operation with a renewed focus on multimedia and storytelling. Before that he was the creative director who launched Observador.pt in 2014, and a creative consultant for the launch of Eco.pt in 2016. Diogo is also the organizer of the Portuguese group of the Online News Association and the author of Manual de Jornalismo Digital, a guidebook for digital journalists (in Portuguese). He has over twenty years of experience as a journalist, a multimedia producer and a documentary director - and he is also a PhD Student in Digital Media.
Executive Director of Europe and Africa, WAN-IFRA, Germany
As Director of Europe and Africa for the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), Ralf is responsible for the organisation's numerous activities in the region. He has over a decade of experience in digital media working in varied roles. After completing a journalistic apprenticeship at a regional newspaper, Ralf began his career as an editor and editorial team leader for T-Online in Germany. He went on to hold leadership positions at Coop Press, ETH Zurich, Information Architects and Denon Allmedia in Switzerland. Ralf has a Masters Degree in Political Science and Rhetoric from the University of Tübingen.
Strategy & Operations Director, News UK’s Commercial department, UK
Shannon Riley is the Strategy & Operations Director of News UK’s Commercial department, recently re-branded as The Bridge, and responsible for the strategic direction of News UK’s advertising business. After leading an extensive transformation programme of the Commercial business last year, Shannon is now focused on its constant evolution as opposed to further transformation and diversification into new revenue streams based on fit with News UK’s strategy as opposed to hype.
Prior to News UK, Shannon has worked for and advised 50+ companies while living in San Francisco, Zurich, New York and London in a variety of roles across corporate development, corporate strategy and management consulting with her most recent role working in Yahoo’s corporate development team, where she was heavily involved in the technology, media and start-up community to grow the business via acquisition.
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Shannon has an MBA from University of California, Berkeley and a BA in Business Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara.
CEO, ZEIT ONLINE, Germany
Christian Röpke has been CEO of ZEIT ONLINE since 2009 and also of academics and ze.tt since 2015. His focus has been on growing qualified reach and significantly increasing monetarization of ZEIT ONLINE. One of his priorities was the development of new business models and innovative products, for example ZEIT digital subscriptions and numerous classified ad markets.
Before he started working for ZEIT ONLINE in February 2009 Christian Röpke built experience in different media enterprises such as the Financial Times Deutschland. As Head of Electronic Media it was one of his core responsibilities to strengthen and further promote FTD’s digital activities.
In 2007 he switched positions within Gruner + Jahr and moved from FTD to Gruner + Jahr New Media Ventures.
Social Media Writer and Managing Editor of The Economist on Medium, The Economist, UK
At The Economist, James is tasked with helping a 173-year old newspaper make its voice heard on the social platforms where new, young audiences spend their time. As Managing Editor of The Economist on Medium, James curates and oversees the content strategy and delivery of one of the most-followed publications on the platform.
CEO, Chartbeat, USA
John is Chief Executive Officer of Chartbeat. He has worked on the cutting-edge of media and technology for 17+ years, setting the daily operations and business development agendas of companies as diverse as Google, NBC-Universal and vente-privee. John received his undergraduate degree in History from Haverford College and a joint degree in Law and Business from Columbia University.
VP Product Management, Schibsted, Norway
Espen Sundve, VP Product Management, is leading product development for all Schibsted's media houses and the build up of "Next Gen" publishing products. He has been with Schibsted since 2008 and led product & technology initiatives in both marketplaces and publishing (lastly as Chief Product & Technology Officer in VG). He's passionate about the opportunities Internet gives in terms of disrupting established models, but stresses that this is as much about a radical change in mindset and how we work together across functions as it is about deep understanding of tech.
Director of Subscriptions & Paid Content, L‘Equipe, France
Christina has more than 14 years of experience in Customer Marketing (CRM, acquisition strategies, loyalty) and management of digital business. She is currently the Marketing Director of the digital paying offer at L'Équipe having gained extensive experience working at a variety of prior publishers.
Digital publishing consultant and trainer, United Kingdom
Adam Tinworth is one of the UK’s leading trainers in journalistic analytics, and has more than 12 years’ experience in training journalists in social media, SEO and digital journalism.
He is a magazine journalist by background, having worked in magazines for nearly 20 years, before going into full-time digital consultancy. Adam now works as a consultant and trainer in digital journalism, social media and content strategy, and clients have included The Times, Mail Online, The Financial Times, Euromoney Institutional Investor as well as B2B publishers, charities and international brands. He is a visiting lecturer at City, University of London on the journalism MA courses.
Manager Data Intelligence & CRM, NRC Media, The Netherlands
Matthijs van de Peppel has been working in the newspaper industry for over ten years. Starting his career as a circulation marketer, he quickly developed as a online shop manager, online marketer, and project manager. Now, as the manager of the data intelligence and customer relationship management team at NRC Media, a quality Dutch news organisation, Matthijs is responsible for bringing data insights into decision making and amplifying the voice of the customer. Together with two coauthors he just published the book How to Succeed in The Relationship Economy.
Director of Digital Ad Operations and Development, Alma Media Corporation , Finland
Johanna Vartiainen has been with Alma Media since 2005, holding different positions of Sales, Digital Advertising and Development. Vartiainen is responsible for digital ad operations, ad technology and digital advertising development at Alma Media. Alma Media is a media company focusing on service business and journalistic content, with the mission of boosting the sustainable growth of individuals, companies and society. In addition to journalistic content, the company provides services related to lifestyle, career, competence and business development. Alma Media has been a pioneer in digital advertising in recent years and overall the company’s transformation into a provider of digital services began already in the mid-1990s. In 2016, digital business accounted for 40 per cent of our revenue. Vartiainen is also a member of Member of the Board at IAB Finland.
Principal Consultant, WAN-IFRA Consulting, Germany
Gregor Waller provides consulting services to international media businesses for developing their digital strategy and transforming their business models for the digital era. Before this, he worked for more than six years in various management functions for Germany's Axel Springer publishing corporation. Most recently, up to February 2011, as a member of the management team of the WELT group, Berliner Morgenpost, Hamburger Abendblatt, he was responsible for strategy & innovation and commercial management of the Zeitungsgruppe Hamburg. After testing a "prototype tablet" with his core newspaper readers – one year before the iPad – he focused on the topics of digital strategy, digital business models and paid content, bringing his experience in these areas to bear also in strategic group projects.
From 1998-2004 he worked for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH in positions such as commercial manager for publishing houses Prestel and Xenos Verlag. Waller has a graduate degree in business administration from the University of Augsburg and an undergraduate degree in philosophy from the Munich School of Philosophy.
Chief Content Officer, Content Insights, UK
Jon Wilks is Chief Content Officer at Content Insights, a tech company that is shaking up how we think about editorial analytics. Formerly the editor of Time Out Tokyo and Time Out Abu Dhabi, Jon worked the traditional route through print journalism to running Time Out Tokyo as a digital-only publication, before setting up one of London's first content marketing departments at Arena and Havas Media. Having spent time on both sides of the journalism/marketing divide, he brings a unique take on some of the difficulties the industry is facing.
Dr. rer. nat., Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science at NTNU, Norway
Kerstin Bach (Dr. rer. nat. from University of Hildesheim, Germany) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science at NTNU. Her research interests are intelligent decision support systems, data analysis and knowledge-based systems, particularly case-based reasoning. She teaches machine learning and advanced knowledge-based methods at NTNU and supervises students in the field since 2007. Her genuine interest in machine learning techniques and their application lead into participation in various EU and industry funded projects at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence as well as NTNU. Currently, among other research activities, she is the project manager of the selfBACK EU project that develops an eHealth application for low back pain patients. She enjoys discussing AI methodologies and applications with fellow researchers, but more importantly teaching it to students and bringing it into multidisciplinary projects and thereby shaping the new digital world.
Affilated Researcher, Nordicom, Sweden
Dr. Carl-Gustav Lindén is a media and journalism scholar at the Swedish school of social science, University of Helsinki. During recent years, he has mostly focused his research on news automation and business models for media based on fieldwork conducted in EU and the United States. Dr. Lindén has a background in business journalism and has worked as a communications consultant to United Nations University, among other clients. He is also an affiliated lecturer at the Södertörn University in Stockholm.
PhD student, the School of informatics and member of the research group MTEC, Media, Technology and Culture, University of Skövde, Sweden
Project Director, Global Alliance for Media Innovation, WAN-IFRA
Founder & CEO, Lighthouse8 - Business Engineering, Norway
Freddy is an active blogger at The Lighthouse8 Blog (available at: http://www.http://lighthouse8.com/blog/ and provide insight to some of the worlds leading industry websites, including Social Media Today. All updates posted to
Specialties: Digital Marketing, Digital Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Digital Media, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Commerce, E-commerce, Mobile Marketing, Media Planning, Media Buying, Search Marketing, SEO, Website Development, Sales Management, UX, Online PR, Business Intelligence
Project and Innovation Manager, Gothia Innovation AB, Sweden
Johan Hoffman is a Project and Innovation Manager at Gothia Innovation AB, the company managing and developing Gothia Science Park in Skövde. He is working with strategic consulting to develop and implement innovation management in businesses as well as project management and process development in order to create and develop cooperations for innovation, primary within video games industry and academia. Hoffman has eight years of experience as a journalist. Since 2011 columnist in a local newspaper.