Big Think at BAFTA 2022
Agenda
9:30: Welcome
Lindsey Clay, Thinkbox
9:40: Big TV Thinking
Boyd Hilton, heat magazine & Empire magazine
10:00: Lisa McGee in conversation with Boyd Hilton
10:35: Go Luck Yourself
Andy Nairn, Lucky Generals
11:00: Coffee Break
11:20: The industry of the future
- Ally Owen, Brixton Finishing School
- Jake Dubbins, Conscious Advertising Network
- Fiona Ball, Sky
- Chaka Sobhani, Leo Burnett
12:00: Breaking news
Rachel Corp, Editor ITV News and Nina Hossain, ITV News
13.00: Thank you and goodbye
Meet the speakers
Ally Owen. Founder, Brixton Finishing School
Brixton Finishing School’s award winning family of programs finds, trains and places ‘under-represented’ talent in roles across marketing, advertising and communications ecosystem. Recognising the impact that COVID-19 had on young people’s futures, Ally has also launched the game-changing AD-Cademy program which gives over 2500 students a year across the UK a fairer chance to succeed. 2021 also saw the launch of ADventure, which aims to introduce our industry to 100k diverse 14-18 year olds and Visible Start for women over 45s which is fighting ageism.
Andy Nairn, Founder, Lucky Generals
Andy has led a charmed life. He stumbled into advertising after studying Law at Edinburgh University. Almost 30 years later, he's a founder of one of the UK’s most successful creative agencies. He’s also been named the country's top brand strategist on four occasions. Now he wants to share his good fortune with others, so he’s written Go Luck Yourself, with all the royalties going to Commercial Break: an organization that helps working class talent break into the creative industries.
Boyd Hilton, Entertainment Director, heat magazine and Contributing Editor, Empire magazine
Boyd Hilton is a journalist, author, critic and broadcaster. As well as his two day jobs of Entertainment Director of Heat magazine, where he has worked since its launch in 1999, and Contributing Editor of Empire magazine, he has also written the book ‘Inside Little Britain’ with Matt Lucas and David Walliams. He has been a regular contributor to BBC Radio 5 Live and Radio 4, reviewing television, books and films for over two decades. He has written for GQ, Man About Town, The Guardian and Observer, co-hosts the weekly Pilot TV podcast, and a podcast about Arsenal Football Club. He also frequently hosts TV and film events for BAFTA, the RTS and the BFI, among many others.
Chaka Sobhani, Global Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide and Chief Creative Officer Leo Burnett UK and Fallon UK
Before joining the ad industry, Chaka spent over a decade as an award winning film-maker and in television. She set up ITV’s first in-house creative agency then spent a number of years at leading independent agency Mother, running a number of key accounts and building their content ability, before joining Leo Burnett.
She has worked on countless brands including McDonalds, Coca Cola, Kelloggs, Samsung, Boots, Skoda, AXA, Co-op, TUI, Premier Inn, Sky, P&G, General Motors, Stella Artois, Agent Provocateur, The Design Museum and Adidas.
She has featured in Campaigns Top 10 Creative Leaders consistently for the past 5 years, as well as Adweek’s Creative 100 and the Creative Pools Top 100 Influencer list. She is also a regular speaker at Cannes, AdWeek, the One Show Exec Summit, D&AD, The Big TV Festival, Google Rare, the IPA, Creative Equals and Facebook’s Internationals Women’s Day.
Fiona Ball, Group Director of the Bigger Picture, Sky
Fiona is responsible for Sky’s sustainability strategy and performance, spearheading the group’s responsible business, social impact and cause-related strategy, marketing, plans and campaigns.
The Bigger Picture strategy focuses on three material issues - Young People, Environment and Communities, and under Fiona’s leadership, has delivered world-leading strategies and campaigns including Sky Zero, Sky Ocean Rescue, Sky Cares and Sky Academy Studios. Fiona was also responsible for Sky Rainforest Rescue, Sky’s six-year campaign and partnership with WWF.
Alongside this, Fiona is responsible for Sky’s environmental impact, through sustainability of its product and services, access services, responsible sourcing, child safety, stakeholder engagement and reporting, and maintaining Sky’s leadership position on climate change.
Jake Dubbins, Co-founder and co-chair, Conscious Advertising Network
Conscious Advertising Network (CAN) is a leading global movement in human rights based advertising. CAN is a cross industry group of over 150 brands, agencies and civil society members including GSK, Virgin Media O2, Group M, Havas Media and the United Nations Human Rights team. We work to create a safe, inclusive and commercially viable information ecosystem for advertisers and society that supports quality journalism and content, diversity of media and scientific consensus.
Jake is also the Co-founder and Managing Director of Media Bounty which is on a mission to be the leading independent ethical creative and media agency by 2023 as well as NED at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit.
Lisa McGee, Award-winning screenwriter and playwright
Lisa is the creator, writer and executive producer of the acclaimed Derry Girls. She co-created, co-wrote and was executive producer on The Deceived with her husband Tobias Beer and was creative director, executive producer and wrote an episode of the BBC monologues on poverty Skint. Her other TV credits include London Irish, Raw, Being Human, The White Queen and Indian Summers.
Rachel Corp, Editor, ITV News (incoming Chief Executive Officer of ITN)
Rachel oversees one of the largest television production companies in the UK and the producer of live network news programming for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. As well as its broadcast news division, ITN is also a market leader in factual programme-making, sports production, advertising production and business-to-business content. She takes up the post of Chief Executive Officer of ITN on 1st September 2022.
Before becoming ITN’s CEO, Rachel was Editor of ITV News, produced by ITN, where she had overall responsibility for the vision, strategy and direction for all of ITV’s award-winning national news programmes and digital output, as well as overseeing ITV News London, ITV News-produced Tonight programme episodes, current affairs series On Assignment, and special live programmes such as General Elections and Royal events - leading a team of over 300 people in the UK and abroad while overseeing a multi-million-pound budget.
Nina Hossain, Lead Presenter, ITV Lunchtime News
Since joining ITV News in 2004, Nina has played central roles in ITV’s acclaimed coverage of Elections 2015 and 2017, the 2016 EU Referendum, and the Royal weddings of Princes William and Harry. She presented ITV News London’s RTS award winning programme on the night of the Grenfell tower tragedy in 2017.
Lindsey Clay, Chief Executive, Thinkbox
Following a career in advertising, Lindsey's love of telly drew her to Thinkbox, the UK marketing body for commercial TV, where she now leads the brilliant team who make it their mission to help brands get the best out of today’s TV.
She is a member and former President of WACL (Women in Advertising and Communication Leadership), a member and former President of the Global TV Group, a Fellow of the Marketing Society, an Honorary Fellow of the IPA and a member of the Marketing Group of Great Britain.
Lindsey is a Trustee of the Rank Foundation and Chair of the Rank Fellowship, its school leadership award alumni programme.
