Speakers | Video Action Days
Video Action Days
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.
General Manager for Croatia, Styria Media Group, Croatia
Media expert with strong editorial background, both in print and digital. In recent years fully dedicated to management roles.
He became General manager for Styria Media Gruop in Croatia in January 2011. In the past five years he centralised media business of Styria in Croatia into a one organisational structure.
Since January 2008 till present day he is also a CEO at 24sata, the biggest newspaper and digital publisher in Croatia and the most profitabile media house in the region. He was also Editor-in-Chief of 24sata newspapers from 2005 till 2009, making a threefold growth of circulation and growing digital media to market leadership.
Director of Video Operations and media brands JoomBoos & miss7, 24sata, Croatia
Matej Loncaric is Director of Video, Innovation projects, JoomBoos in 24sata, leading media company in Croatia, owned by Styria Group. Matej joined 24sata in late 2014 to transform cable news TV channel into modern and agile digital video department. Since then 24sata video started to grow exponentially; From two FTE's to 30 FTE's plus more than 40 contractors; from 500k video views per month to 100 M video views per month on all platforms from Facebook, Youtube and internal web player.
Matej is author and founder of today biggest YouTube network in Croatia – JoomBoos. Just one year since the launch, JoomBoos has won a particularly prestigious prize: the accolade of being among the most innovative media projects in the world at the INMA Global Media Awards in New York in 2017. – which is confirmation of the outstanding spirit of innovation. Video department has won more than 30 awards for it's drama series, musicals, talent shows from Digiday, Wan-ifra, INMA, Effie etc. Matej is today responsible for all innovation projects within 24sata.
Managing Editor, VGTV, Norway
Rolf Soenstelie is the editor of VGTV, a subsidiary of VG, Norway's leading digital media house. With 2.5 million daily users across all platforms, VG reaches half of the population in Norway. VGTV reaches over 2 million unique users per week. Soenstelie is a former managing editor at VGTV, at VG and head of the newspaper's political journalism.
Mobile Editor, BBC World Service, United Kingdom
Now at the forefront of the BBC News’ mobile video output, Sarah Austin has a career that has spanned radio, TV and digital.
As mobile editor for the BBC World Service, Sarah is leading the strategic direction for video across 40 language services. The World Service is undergoing a huge expansion and transformation as it adapts to the digital news habits of younger consumers in emerging markets, and mobile video is central to the ambition.
Previously, Sarah has worked as a video journalist, commissioner and output editor and in the last year played a leading role on the team that launched the new BBC News video app, which revolutionised the look and feel of BBC News’ digital offerings.
Head of Aftonbladet TV, Aftonbladet, Sweden
Lotta Folcker has a long experience in TV-broadcasting. Before joining Aftonbladet TV, she was the head of Sweden´s largest morning show at TV4. She joined Aftonbladet in 2014 as the head of the Swedish election-related program, and is now managing the whole TV department.
Aftonbladet TV has a leading online position in Sweden. The strategy is to hold and develop the leading news position for online video, and at the same time to create video that drives new digital revenues.
The last six months Lotta Folcker has developed a new video strategy for the corporate group Schibsted, the leading media house with the most visited news sites in the Nordic region and with classified sites all over the world.
Deputy Editor, EL PAIS, Spain
Carlos de Vega is the deputy editor at EL PAIS, in charge of the Video and Photography department. He worked before in Berlin as an anchor and editor at Deutsche Welle, the international news network of German public television. Prior to that, he was the US correspondent for the Spanish network CNN+/Cuatro. He worked in Washington for seven years, where he covered three Presidential campaigns. Carlos de Vega was editor-in-chief of “Efecto Naím” the TV program directed by Moisés Naím in NTN24 and worked as reporter and anchor in CANAL+ Spain. He teaches journalism at El País and EAE University in Madrid. He completed the law degree in León, Spain and the Master of Journalism at UAM University-El País.
News Editor, Expressen TV, Expressen, Sweden
Johan Eslander is the News Editor at Expressen TV since 2015. His career at Expressen began seven years ago when he started as a reporter and as an editor of the online and print departments.
Eslander started his professional career as a news reporter intern at the local daily Smålandsposten.
He holds two Bachelor´s Degrees in Journalism and in History of Ideas by the Södertörn University, Stockholm.
He also has studies in Political Science (Humboldt University, Berlin).
Head of Web TV, BILD, Germany
Research fellow, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, UK
Dr Antonis Kalogeropoulos is a Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. His PhD was focused on the effects of exposure to economic news. His research interests include political communication, journalism, and audience research.
Founder and CEO, Longtail Media, Switzerland
Pascal Fessler joined the online and mobile video world at its very beginning in 2006.
He is the founder and CEO of Longtail Media, a media production agency which enables, coaches und supports newsrooms around the globe in lean and effectiv production of web-, mobile- and socialvideo. Longtail Media operates own production facilities in Germany, Slovakia and Switzerland.
His career started as a TV journalist and editor-in-chief followed by leading Ringiers entire webtv activities for over six years.
So far he has trained several hundred journalists, photographers, editorial staff and sales reps in smarter ways to sucessfully publish online videos.
Actor, writer, influencer, model, Vienna, Austria
Maximiliam Ratzenböck works as a testimonial and scriptwriter for big Austrian companies. He tours the country with his own comedy programme, and does Youtube and Satire Videos for JoomBoosTV.
Instagram: maximilian.ratzenboeck
Snapchat: Ratzenboeck
YouTuber and influencer, Croatia
Davor Gerbus is one of the Croatia’s most popular youtuber and influencers with more than 540k followers. He’s only 19 years old and already made a living out of his hobby. After one year doing youtube he catched Matej Lončarić’s eye and started working with Joomboos. In just two years he worked with many big brands , hosted an award winning online talent show “Videostar” , had the leading role on the first regional youtube series “Isti san” and also recorded the series anthem “Isti san” that was listened over 1 million times in just few months. With Joomboos, he grew a serious career as online creator but he’s only just starting!
Instagram: davorgerbus
