Simon Gill was BIMA President and EVP, Global Client Business Transformation at MRM//McCann. Having spent more than 20 years at the forefront of digital marketing, Simon was an award-winning creative professional with a PhD in Multimedia. Throughout his career, he delivered creative excellence for global brands including Apple, Cathay Pacific, EON, Honda, Lloyds Bank, Mattel, Microsoft, Selfridges and Sony.

Simon was also an active figure in the industry, serving on the BIMA Executive from 2015 and as an Executive Member of IADAS since 2014. He participated in multiple jury services, judging prestigious awards such as the BIMA Awards, Clio Awards, Creative Circle, Cresta, D&AD Awards, DMA Awards, IAB Creative Showcase, MAA Best Awards, New York Festivals, Lovie Awards, and Webby Awards. Simon was a valued member of the BIMA Creative Council and was recognised in the BIMA 100 in 2018 in the Creative Stars category.

Known for his dedication to digital excellence and commitment to nurturing industry talent, Simon’s mantra was “Hard on the work, kind to the people.” He was a mentor to many and was passionate about supporting young talent in the industry.

Amy Kean believes that life would be much better if we all gave ourselves permission to be weirder. She entered ad land nearly 20 years ago, and has been a pain in the arse ever since. She began her career at the IAB, leading their PR and marketing at a time of dial up speeds and gambling popups; helping to promote the medium as a maturing and compelling place for brands to spend their money. She then moved into the agency world, running social media for the Havas Media Group, and then launching their innovation lab, before moving to APAC to head up Mindshare’s strategy efforts across the region. After a decent stint at Coty, working in digital transformation (before it became a buzz phrase) she moved to Starcom to lead innovation and creativity, globally. Throughout her career she led work for some iconic clients, including Nando’s, Domino’s, Jean Paul Gaultier, the BBC, Clarks, Pernod Ricard, and helped launch One Direction’s first album.

But during two decades in one of the fastest and most stressful industries around, Amy developed a conscience and is dedicated to giving women and minority groups a voice, and fighting for those voices. She’s listed as one of Campaign’s 10 trailblazers for her diversity work as co-founder of DICE, which stands for Diversity and Inclusion at Conferences and Events, and is focused on eradicating manels (all male panels) from conference lineups. She’s taught two degree courses, at the University of Bournemouth and the Kingston University and was named one of LinkedIn’s top global voices in media and marketing.

Amy’s been seen in Grazia, the Guardian, Huffington Post and Woman’s Hour, and in her role as cultures editor for creative magazine shots, she challenges the status quo in the ad industry when it comes to mental health, bullying and bias. She cares about the way advertising talks to people, and how that needs to change. She’s author of the #1 bestselling feminist fairy tale The Little Girl Who Gave Zero F*cks, and her second book, a poetry collection called House of Weeds, came out in May 2020 with Fly on the Wall Press. She’s also a playwright: writing producing and starring in GROUP, a sold-out London play about life coaches.

Right now, Amy is the CEO and creative director of a social learning practice called Good Shout, which helps people find their voice and then use it to add value in their industry. It’s Amy’s hope that everybody in the world of work gets an equal opportunity to use their voice, and be heard, so we can have a more inclusive and interesting future.

Within Lush, Jack is perhaps best known as the man behind all things digital – including websites, apps and an in-shop till system. But he’s also the inventor of many of our best selling and iconic products, including Intergalactic, Black Rose and Dragon’s Egg bath bombs.

Jack made headlines world over when he led the team creating The Experimenter video,  and for taking a stance on Social Media for Lush. Driving new ways to connect with Lush communities online, he’s never afraid to challenge convention. “Be brave,” he says. “We’re here to experiment and explore and push boundaries. Make mistakes, make them again, and then learn and develop from them. I think that’s why our customers love us.”

Beginning his career working alongside his mum (and Inventor of the first bath bomb in 1989), Mo Constantine, Jack grew up in the midst of a company that likes to shake up the industry. From helping his mum in their garden shed to create bath bombs, Jack worked his way up through the company; designing labels and windows to working on the first Lush campaign.

As Chief Digital Officer, Jack believes his part of the business should be responsible for finding tech solutions that make Lush (and the wider world) a better, fairer and more sustainable place. “I’m all about finding tech solutions for real-world problems, staying true to the internet’s open-source roots and fighting for digital rights. If we can put a marker in the sand and strive to be better hopefully the rest of the market – and then the world – will follow suit.”

Mary Keane-Dawson has been variously described as an advertising and digital media maverick, maven and/or MADwoman as she has traversed the sectors ever changing landscape playing her part in web 1.0, 2.0 and now as we enter 3.0, she remains as enthused, relevant and as passionate as ever.

Mary’s unique career spans 35 years of female leadership experience in publishing, advertising and creative agencies, as well as martech, influencer, social platforms and performance media. Working with highly talented teams, she has built, led and sold three agency businesses as well as raising over £100+ million of  investment funding for both start-ups and established businesses.  Known for her candour and honesty, Mary is also a major ‘growth hacker’ – her early doors claim to fame is built on her winning a £20+ million contract from Ford of Britain, when she was only 27 years old and had a team of less than 10 people. She went on to lead the roll out of that programme across 3 continents  becoming that company’s Managing Director. From there she progressed to become Global MD of Spafax Airline Network, the world’s leading inflight entertainment and media business, with 70+ airline clients – which was sold to WPP in 1999. She spent the next 8 years between the USA and China leading Spafax and then building out the digital OOH network Global Cast, which was sold to JC Decaux in 2008. Later that year, she joined Steak Media as Global MD, and helped the founders build out one of the most successful independent Search agencies of the era, (now a part of Dentsu).

Mary completed her MSc in Human Resources in the Digital Economy in 2012, and over the last 10 years she has led several iconic business’- including, Collective London, Neo@Ogilvy (where she held a main Ogilvy board position ), TRUTH Media ( a programmatic tech built on blockchain), TAKUMI (the influencer marketing platform) and very recently as interim Global CEO of Time Out Media

Mary has an outstanding track record in improving commercial and team performance, planning and delivering investment strategies and achieving significant business development and growth – from start-up to mature businesses. Mary is committed to personal lifelong learning and development and mentoring talent, and frames herself as a coach, operational leader and board advisor. A committed advocate and ambassador of BIMA, as well as an advisor and mentor to MADFest, Performance Marketing Awards, The Drum Programmatic and AdExchanger Awards and a Board Trustee of the charity Digilearning, Mary is an impassioned believer in the super power of human creativity, delivering sustainable growth and making our world a better, fairer and happier place.

Steven Bartlett is the 29-year-old Founder of the social media marketing agency Social Chain. From a bedroom in Manchester, this university drop-out built what would become one of the world’s most influential social media companies when he was just 21 years old, before taking his company public at 27 years old with a current market valuation of over $600M.

Steven Bartlett is a speaker, investor, author, content creator and the host of one of Europe’s biggest podcasts, ‘The Diary of a CEO’. In 2021 Steven released his debut book ‘Happy Sexy Millionaire’ which was a Sunday Times best seller.

Steven is particularly focused on inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs and creators from a BAME background.

Steven has invested in and joined the board of Huel, which is the UK’s fastest growing e-commerce company internationally. He’s also invested in, and taken a role as an advisor in Atai life sciences – a biotech company working to cure mental health disorders. Other investments focus on blockchain technologies, biotech, space, Web 3 and social media.

At just 29 years old, he is widely considered one of Europe’s most talented and accomplished young entrepreneurs and philosophical thinkers.

Steven joined Dragon’s Den from Series 19 in January 2022, as the youngest ever Dragon in the Show’s history.

Anne Boden founded Starling in 2014 after a distinguished, 30-year career at some of the world’s best-known financial heavyweights, among them Allied Irish Banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and ABN AMRO. She sits on the board of UK Finance and is an adviser to the Board of Trade. She was awarded an MBE for services to financial technology in 2018.

As CEO, she oversees the Executive Leadership Team and is a member of Starling’s Board of Directors.

A computer scientist by training, she saw earlier than others in the industry the potential for digital technology to revolutionise the way people and small businesses do their banking. With the team at Starling, she built from scratch an app to help customers manage their finances in real-time. Her vision is to improve banking for all and to build Starling into a global brand.

She lives and breathes Starling, but if she had to do something very different it would be something entrepreneurial in the application of machine learning to fabric and fashion design.

From child prodigy to MBE, Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon is a keynote speaker, presenter and co-founder of Stemettes, the award-winning social enterprise inspiring the next generation of females into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) roles.
Being the youngest girl ever to pass A-level Computing, and going on to be one of the youngest ever to be awarded a Master’s degree in Mathematics & Computer Science by the University of Oxford, aged 20, Anne-Marie, unsurprisingly, continued to soar. In recognition of her influence and achievements, Anne-Marie was awarded an MBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours for services to young women and STEM sectors. In June 2017, she became an Honorary Fellow at Keble College, Oxford and in 2020, she was voted the most influential woman in tech in the UK by Computer Weekly.
She regularly appears in international media and is a sought-after presenter and conference facilitator. In addition to hosting the highly popular Women Tech Charge podcast for the Evening Standard, Anne-Marie featured on the 2019 Royal Institute Christmas Lectures and has conducted live interviews with famous faces from the tech world and beyond, including Jack Dorsey, Rachel Riley and Lewis Hamilton.
Not only a champion of getting women into STEM positions, Anne-Marie has previously worked with Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard and Deutsche Bank, amassing a wealth of experience. A recognised and respected thought-leader in the tech space and trustee at the Institute for the Future of Work, Anne-Marie has spoken across the globe for some of the world’s biggest digital companies and conferences, including Facebook, ASOS, Google, SXSW and Founders Forum.

Sherry Coutu is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who serves on the boards of companies, charities, and universities. She chairs Founders4Schools, Workfinder, The Scaleup Institute, Financial Strategy Advisory Group for the University of Cambridge and Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd. Sherry also serves as a non-executive member of The Royal Society, (Translation and Data Science Committees), Cambridge University (Finance Board) and the London Stock Exchange plc. She has invested in more than 60 companies as an angel (including Linkedin, Zoopla, Lovefilm (Amazon), New Energy Finance (Bloomberg)  and 5 venture capital firms.

Philanthropically, she supports the Prince’s Trust, the Crick Institute and Founders4Schools. Sherry has an MBA from Harvard, an MSc (with distinction) from the London School of Economics, and a BA (Hons with distinction) from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She has been awarded Honourary Phd’s from The University of Bristol, Manchester University and the Open University for her work in Education and Economy. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to entrepreneurship in the New Year’s Honours List 2013

An award winning Computer Scientist, Technology Evangelist and Digital Skills Expert, Professor Sue Black was awarded an OBE for “services to technology” in the 2016 Queen’s New Year’s Honours list. She is Professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist in the Department of Computer Science at Durham University, a UK government advisor, thought leader, Trustee at Comic Relief, social entrepreneur, writer and public speaker.

Saul is a Founding Partner at Localglobe, a new seed fund focussed on helping London’s great most ambitious founders build game changing businesses.

Previously, Saul was a Partner at Index Ventures from 2007 until May 2015. In 2012 David Cameron appointed Saul to be the UK’s first tech envoy to Israel and a Technology Business Ambassador.

Saul is serial entrepreneur with two decades of experience building and exiting companies in the US, Israel and Europe. He has a passion for working with seed and early stage businesses.

Most recently Saul co-founded Kano and Seedcamp, as well as a co-founder and original CEO of Lovefilm International (acquired by Amazon). He was also part of the original executive team at Skype (acquired by eBay).

Dame Stephanie Shirley is a successful IT entrepreneur turned ardent philanthropist. Having arrived in Britain as an unaccompanied child refugee in 1939, she started what became Xansa plc (now part of the Sopra Group) on her dining room table with £6 in 1962. In 25 years as its Chief Executive she developed it into a leading business technology group, pioneering new work practices and changing the position of professional women (especially in hi-tech) along the way. Her Dameship in the Millennium honours was for services to IT.

Kathryn Parsons MBE is a British tech entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and co-CEO of Decoded, a London-based tech startup which aims to increase digital literacy. Decoded’s signature one-day course claims to train participants without any background in computers to “code in a day”. The company is now a global brand hosting technology masterclasses in 85 cities across the world reaching 250,000 people face-to-face, as well as hundreds of thousands more online.

Founder of King Digital Entertainment Plc and Midasplayer.com Ltd., Riccardo Zacconi is a businessperson who has been the head of 5 different companies and currently occupies the position of Investment Committee Member at Sweet Capital Ltd., Managing Director at Midasplayer Vertriebs GmbH, Chief Executive Officer for King.Com, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer for King Digital Entertainment Plc. In his past career he held the position of Managing Director at Spray Network GmbH, Chief Executive Officer & Director at Midasplayer.com Ltd. and Vice President-European Sales & Marketing at Udate.com, Inc.

Sir Martin Sorrell is the entrepreneurial founder and former CEO of WPP. Under his leadership, the company has become the world’s largest communications services group, with over 200,000 people working across some 150 companies in 112 countries. He is one of the most respected global industry leaders whose views on business and the world economy are widely sought.

Jamal Edwards established SBTV, the online music platform, when he was 15 years old after he was given a camera as a present by his parents. He started filming and uploading videos to YouTube of his friends rapping on the estate he grew up in Acton, West London. Since 2006, Edwards has grown his youth broadcasting channel, SBTV, from the inner confines of his bedroom into a renowned brand with global reach. Edwards has now been awarded an MBE for services to music, as well as releasing a best-selling book and fronting a Google Chrome Advert alongside Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.

Andrew joined Shazam in 2005 as CEO and in the last ten years he has transformed the company from a small music start up with global ambitions to a $1 billion advertising giant. The London-based company is credited with helping Europe become a leader in audio over the internet and currently handles 10% of all digital music sales worldwide.

Justin Cooke is a digital expert and entrepreneur. He founded global digital media agency Fortune Cookie, which he sold to WPP in 2012. He was chief executive of digital agency Possible UK from 2012-15, before becoming a Venture Partner with the technology investment partnership, Northzone, where he supports tech start-up businesses. Justin’s extensive non-executive experience includes being a digital advisor to the government, the British Museum and Age UK.

Kate is one of the best known Internet advertising pioneers in Europe. After early success at Alta Vista and DoubleClick Kate joined Google as Director, UK, Ireland and Benelux in 2001, notably as Google’s first employee outside the U.S. At Google she drove strong international success. After Google Kate was Vice President & MD Europe Bebo and then CEO AOL Europe.

Baroness Shields has recently been very involved in the UK political and tech world, serving almost as a bridge for the two. She is the UK Minister for Internet Safety and Security, and just before this appointment she served as Prime Minister David Cameron’s Digital Advisor and the CEO and Chair of Tech City UK. In this position she was responsible for leading the UK’s digital economy strategy, which included a number of successful initiatives such as the Future 50, Tech Nation, the Digital Business Academy, and more.

Prior to taking up this role as global chief executive of DigitasLBi at the start of 2013, Luke Taylor was chief executive of public-listed LBi, where he implemented a series of successive strategic transformations to ensure that the agency thrived in the rapidly evolving digital ecosystem. Following his appointment as LBi chief executive in 2008, Taylor installed a new global management team and implemented a single vision, single brand, consistent service model and shared organisational design across LBi’s global footprint.

Matt Brittin is the President of EMEA Buisness and Operations at Google since December 2014. Matt heads up Google’s business and operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa ­ helping consumers and businesses make the most of the digital opportunity. Joining Google in 2007 to help build its business in the UK, Matt became Managing Director of Google UK two years later. In 2011, Matt was promoted to Vice President of Northern and Central Europe, before taking over as President of Business and Operations in EMEA in December 2014.

Nigel is CEO of Publicis Sapient (SapientRazorfish, Sapient Consulting), he is also a member of the Publicis Groupe Executive Committee and leads Global Business Transformation for the Groupe. He is responsible for developing and executing business strategy and identifying market opportunities to drive the growth of the business. Nigel drove the evolution of Sapient’s EMEA business, helping build Sapient Consulting into one of the premier digital consulting firms, and growing SapientNitro to be one of the largest agencies in the UK from a startup a decade ago. He led Sapient’s expansion beyond the UK to be a significant presence across Europe and in Asia.

Ajaz Ahmed was only 21 when he dropped out of college to start AKQA in 1994. Today, over two decades later, he is still at the helm of the agency, which works with clients like Nike, Rolls Royce, Google and Starbucks.  AKQA today employs over 1,500 people in 15 offices around the world. In 2014 AKQA won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation.

Alan Rusbridger became editor of the Guardian in 1995. He first joined the paper in 1979 as a general assignment reporter, feature writer and columnist. He briefly moved to the sister paper, the Observer , followed by a stint as Washington correspondent for the London Daily News . He returned to the Guardian as a feature writer in 1987. He helped to launch the earliest version of what would become the online news website guardian.co.uk. Rusbridger has been named editor of the year three times.

Andrew co-founded i-level, the UK’s most successful online media agency, building it to £100m turnover before exiting in 2008. (at which point it was the biggest independent buyer of online media in the UK, eight times Agency of the Year and winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise)

Andrew John “Andy” Hobsbawm is an entrepreneur, writer and musician from London, England. He co-founded Online Magic, a British new media company, which was acquired by Omnicom in 1997. Hobsbawm is also a founder of EVRYTHNG and Do The Green Thing.

Inducted: 2012

Brent Shawzin Hoberman CBE is a British entrepreneur. Together with Martha Lane Fox, he founded Lastminute.com in 1998, an online travel and gift business. As CEO, Hoberman successively floated and later sold Lastminute.com Ltd to Sabre who purchased the company’s equity and bond debt for £577 million

Catriona Campbell is a behavioural psychologist who specialised in human computer interaction. She has designed and built the first internet bank, worked with Sir Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the internet, and ran GE Europe’s digital platforms, at the time the world’s largest company. She developed the first interface for Skype and the Red Button for Sky. Catriona is a founder of the International Design Consultancy, EY-Seren and a digital advisor for EY.

Helen Louise Milner OBE is the Chief Executive of the Good Things Foundation (formerly Tinder Foundation), a digital inclusion and social inclusion charity based in the UK. Following a 30-year career working on the internet and with communities, in 2012 Milner was inducted into the British Interactive Media Association’s Digital Hall of Fame, and in 2013 became a member of The House of Commons Speaker’s Commission for Digital Democracy. In June 2015 Milner was appointed an OBE for services to digital inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Prior to mySociety, Mark has had a diverse 20-year career in digital encompassing stints as COO at BERG, the technology and design consultancy, and as a senior advisor at Blue State Digital, the team responsible for the digital strategy used in President Obama’s electoral campaigns. He started out in 1996 working for a small web design agency in Birmingham before setting up glue London, a digital advertising agency in 1999, and going on to become global managing director of Isobar, following glue’s acquisition in 2005.

Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, CBE is a British businesswoman, philanthropist and public servant. Lady Lane-Fox is founder and executive chair of Doteveryone.org.uk, an independent think tank and charity championing responsible technology for a fairer future. Lane Fox co-founded Last Minute during the dotcom boom of the early 2000s and has subsequently served on public service digital projects. She sits on the boards of Twitter, Donmar Warehouse and Chanel, as well as being a trustee of The Queens Commonwealth Trust. She previously served on the board of Channel 4

Nick has a noteworthy list of highly successful digital business ventures from the CEO and Founder of The Search Works, Europe’s largest search marketing company to President, CEO, Founder of Overture Europe, a paid search industry in Europe & East Asia sold to Yahoo for $1.63 billion in 2003.

Nicolas is a London based cross-disciplinary creative entrepreneur behind influential and acclaimed companies Poke, Hulger, Plumen, Antirom and the Lovie Awards. His work has been recognised by prominent media titles, prestigious museum collections and international awards across his portfolio. Nicolas’ main interests are located at the crossroads between art, design and technology in this period of intense change.

Pete Cashmore is the founder and CEO of Mashable, the leading source of news, information & resources for the Connected Generation. Pete founded Mashable in 2005 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland when he was 19. His passion for sharing how web tools and social networks were transforming human interactions and reshaping cultures drove him to create Mashable.

Phil Jones, is founder of the infamous Podge Lunch, which has expanded from design and digital into the sports and music industries, Jones has been a leading figure in the design and digital industry for decades. After selling his studio APT Photoset in 1990, in the 1990s he became a visiting lecturer and ran studios for clients including WCRS, Euro RSCG, Diesel and Condé Nast. He now advises leading agencies of all types and is a regular on industry lists of influential figures from the likes of The Drum, Design Week and BIMA.

From unlikely beginnings as a classics teacher to his current job as Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group, Rory Sutherland has created his own brand of the Cinderella story. He joined Ogilvy & Mather’s planning department in 1988, and became a junior copywriter, working on Microsoft’s account in its pre-Windows days. An early fan of the Internet, he was among the first in the traditional ad world to see the potential in these relatively unknown technologies

Jonathan Ive is Apple’s chief design officer, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. Jony is responsible for all design at Apple, including the look and feel of Apple hardware, user interface, packaging, major architectural projects such as Apple Park and Apple’s retail stores, as well as new ideas and future initiatives. Since 1996, Jony has led Apple’s design team, which is widely regarded as one of the world’s best.

Stephen Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director and all round national treasure. As well as his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, appears frequently on radio, reads for voice-overs and has written four novels and three volumes of autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles and his latest, More Fool Me.

One of the inaugural inductees into the Bima Digital Hall of Fame, Tomas Roope has long been admired for the quality of his work and his influence on the industry. In November 2012, Roope was one of 12 leading industry figures named Royal Designers for Industry, an honour bestowed by the Royal Society for Arts. He received the title for his ‘innovative work in taking computer interactions beyond the desktop and into communities and shared spaces’. A founder of the enormously influential 90s interactive collective Antirom, today Roope is the creative director at The Rumpus Room, which has worked with the likes of Bon Jovi, Nike and Coca-Cola and been honoured by D&AD, Cannes Lions and Designs of the Year.

Warren is an engineer and joined ARM Holdings plc in 1994 where he served as CEO from 2001 until 2013. He has a deep understanding of technology and has proven strategic and leadership skills in a global business. He is a fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology; the Royal Academy of Engineering; the Royal Society; and of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He was awarded a CBE in 2014 for services to the technology industry.

Having co-founded Profero with his brother in 1998, Wayne is regarded as one of the industry’s most respected and experienced practitioners. He has successfully supervised local and global campaigns for an enviable client list including Apple, Diageo, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever and Western Union.
Wayne expanded the MullenLowe Profero client base by carefully positioning the company as the only independent global digital agency of its kind, covering each of the media, creative and technology disciplines, now with 16 offices in U.S, Europe, Asia and LATAM.