Paul Samuels joined AEG Europe in November 2007. In his role as Executive Vice President for Global Partnerships, he is responsible for overseeing all Sponsorship Sales, Partnership activation & Premium Seating across all AEG assets internationally, outside of the US. In his current role at AEG, he oversees a team of 100 people across Europe, China, South America, and Australia, negotiating partnerships for AEG’s assets including sports teams, venues and festivals and works with some of the world’s largest brands including O2, Sky, Barclaycard, American Express, MBNA, Coca Cola, Heineken, Accor Hotels and AB Inbev

Alan Gilpin is the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Rugby World Cup at World Rugby, and is responsible for the day-to-day management of the globally-renowned Rugby World Cup brand, including the preparations and delivery for Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan and the conduct of the host selection process for Rugby World Cup 2023.

Previously a lawyer, and with a strong track record in sport and business, Alan has been involved in the management and delivery of Rugby World Cup since 2001 in a number of roles.

Alan joined the World Rugby from his previous role as Chief Operating Officer of official hospitality provider, Prestige Ticketing Ltd, where he oversaw the award-winning hospitality programme for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Prior to the London 2012 role, Alan spent nine years with IMG, including responsibility for commercial rights negotiation across Rugby World Cup 2003, 2007 and 2011.

Olympic Gold Medalist and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame with leadership positions at the highest levels of sport, including the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee, Angela guides the strategies of major sports organizations in her role as CEO and co-founder of the Sports Innovation Lab.

Bruna has over eight years of experience across media, advertising and most recently sport. Prior to joining Twitter in 2015, Bruna worked at Ogilvy London & São Paulo, and Publicis Brazil. She now leads content partnerships efforts at Twitter UK with a range of different sports partners including football clubs & leagues, broadcasters and key motorsports leagues. Her goal is helping sports partners to get closer to their followers in the one social platform conversations happen in real-time – through Live content, video, Twitter emojis or other innovation formats.

Christian Fuchs is an Austrian professional footballer who plays as a left back for English club Leicester City.

He began his senior career as a teenager at Wiener Neustadt before signing his first professional contract at 17 with SV Mattersburg, challenging for the Austrian Football Bundesliga title and taking part in European competitions. In 2008, he left for Germany, signing for VfL Bochum. After a season on loan at 1. FSV Mainz 05, he signed for FC Schalke 04 in 2011, where he contested the UEFA Champions Leaguebut suffered a serious knee injury. In 2015, he signed for Leicester, winning the Premier League in his first season at the club.

A full international for a decade starting from his debut in 2006, Fuchs earned 78 caps for Austria, making him their eighth-most capped player of all time. He played for the nation at UEFA Euro 2008 and UEFA Euro 2016, captaining them for the first time in 2010 and on a permanent basis from 2012, before retiring from international duty in 2016.

As an enthusiastic and energetic consumer products & merchandising leader from New Jersey, Collette is a sports industry disrupter. She’s played an intricate role in the explosive growth and product creativity at Converse, adidas, DC Shoes and most recently was the Head of Consumer Products at Red Bull; she has served in numerous executive design and merchandising creation roles.  Establishing long relationships with like minded innovators and brands is everything to Collette.  A lot of people claim to be creative, but there are few who decide to do anything with that creativity. Collette is a true entrepreneur a doer, not a dreamer.  Travel, Street Art & Food Culture has always been Collette’s main source of inspiration. Collette has visited (5) out of (7) “New Wonders of the World”.  Collette has attended 106 Grateful Dead shows and obsessed with Lego’s. Her new task is building the best eSports organization in the world.

Danna Rabin is a global business and technology executive, who most recently served as Chief Operating Officer at HEED (joint venture between AGT International and WME/IMG), AGT International (a pioneer in proprietary IoT, IoT Analytics, Deep Web Analysis, Machine Learning, Social Data Management, Big Data integration and advanced analytics), and the media-technology venture, Vocativ (www.vocativ.com – which utilizes proprietary technology to explore the deep web for original news, stories and video production).

Prof. Federico M. Winer is the Head of Entertainment Industries EMEA at SAP. He is a trusted industry advisor for both SAP customers in eSports, game publishers, sports betting, lotteries and others. He is visiting lecturer at Universitat Pompeu Fabra [Catalonia] and DeporTEA [Buenos Aires]. He graduated in Humanities and Arts [UOC, 2017], Executive Master in Business Administration [EADA&UCLA, 2014], Telecommunications and Computing [IES Guineueta, 2004] and Journalism [TEA, 2001]. Federico has developed international business for media, sports and entertainment firms since the start of his career, with a firm understanding of how humanities and IT coexist.

Steve Elworthy MBE has a plethora of global tournament experience – both playing and administrating. A former South African international, Steve won a gold medal in the 1998 Commonwealth Games for cricket and played in the 1999 Cricket World Cup in England. Since retiring from playing, Steve moved into cricket administration, playing an integral part in a number of global cricket events, including the inaugural World T20 in South Africa in 2007. In 2017, he was the Tournament Director of the ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC Women’s World Cup, helping put women’s cricket well and truly on the global stage. Steve’s outstanding contribution to the game resulted in him receiving an MBE in 2018 for services to cricket. In 2019, the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup will come to England and Wales, and Steve is leading the Organising Committee charged with showcasing the world’s greatest cricket celebration.

James Dean is the founder and Managing Director of the ESL UK subsidiary, building the ESL brand and community on a regional level.  James began his career in IT writing for UK’s largest computer magazine while studying for a Degree in Computer Science at Birmingham University. After graduating James managed the PC division of a well-known computer retailer in the UK and in 2004 launched a gaming brand of PCs increasing average margins from 6% to 20%.

Jonathan Levene is Managing Director, Business Development at Intel Sports Europe. Jonathan leads Intel’s mission to pioneer the digitization of sports in the EU by driving the next wave of powerful technologies that will allow fans to experience the game in a more personal and immersive way. His group is responsible for forming new key partnerships with international leagues and federations; including teams, properties, media-rights holders, broadcasters and networks.  Jonathan is leading the successful collaboration with the Spanish soccer league “La Liga” incorporating FC Barcelona, Real and Atletico Madrid clubs amongst others. Jonathan joined Intel in 2016 as part of the acquisition of Replay Technologies where he served as Vice President of strategy and business development responsible for driving the company’s strategic vision and the global partnerships of Replay’s Emmy-Award winning, volumetric video format.

Marina is the Director of Strategy and Propositions at NOW TV having assumed the role in December 2016 to shape the future of the OTT business, having joined from being Deputy Director of Strategy at Sky. In this role, Marina is responsible for managing and developing the streaming service’s end to end customer proposition, which includes the content, pricing, and positioning its five passes as well as the brand’s own line of streaming devices. Most recently she’s overseen the introduction of partner passes to NOW TV, with the launch of the hayu Pass, as well as the business’ first standalone broadband proposition, NOW Broadband. She is also responsible for building brilliant content and distribution partnerships and played a key role in establishing long term agreements and partnerships with the likes of BT and Netflix.

Russell leads development and strategy across all digital platforms for Paris Saint Germain with the aim of enhancing and increasing content for a global audience. This includes social media and platforms such as mobile, web, apps, games, e-commerce, VR/AR and messaging.

With an exceptional passion to be the best, Thomas “Hal” Robson-Kanu has gone on from his early days as a young professional in his journey to playing in the English Premier League and at elite international level. Throughout, he has always been a leader who offers inspiration at every opportunity on and off the pitch. Asides being an elite sportsman, Thomas is a veracious advocate and enthusiast of blockchain technology, becoming devoted to using the opportunities offered by blockchain technology to impact the world of sports. Thomas is certain that the application of this technology will help the sporting world break new grounds, enriching interactions and changing the scope of value for vested sporting stakeholders across all sporting paradigms such as fans, athletes, clubs, and corporations. Thomas is co-founder at Sports Ledger, becoming the first elite professional sportsperson to conceptualise and develop alongside an accredited team, a game changing blockchain-based platform set to score numerous blockchain goals for the sporting industry.

Fnatic is one of world’s largest and most successful eSports organizations. Wouter joined Fnatic in 2015 and is taking the Fnatic brand and organisation to the next level with his vast leadership and marketing experience. He also recently joined the Executive Board of the World Eports Association (WESA). In his previous position, Wouter played a crucial part in the success of Skrill (former Moneybookers) as the VP Marketing and now is making great strides in the evergrowing eSport scene.

Andreas Heyden has been CEO of a company that may not immediately stand out to you. Called DFL Digital Sport GmbH, it’s better known as the digital arm of the German Football League, the Bundesliga.

Now 2 years into his first role in sport, he’s been an integral part of the drive to develop an engaged community of fans of the league, and obviously its 36 teams who are all stakeholders in the business.  They’ve succeeded in bringing more production in-house as they look to control their destiny in an ever changing media landscape.

He’s passionate about taking down the silo’s we see in production, where you have separate TV, digital, partner and social teams. Stating that, “The more you break the structure up the more you can re-use and re-utilise content to create interesting, compelling and highly engaging content either for B2B or for B2C”.

Before he ended up in football, Andreas built up almost 20 years of experience with internet businesses. Starting out with I-D Media and Microsoft before spending 6 years at German broadcaster RTL. Rising up to become a leader of people at a young age.

Olympic Gold Medalist and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame with leadership positions at the highest levels of sport, including the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee, Angela guides the strategies of major sports organizations in her role as CEO and co-founder of the Sports Innovation Lab.

Bruna has over eight years of experience across media, advertising and most recently sport. Prior to joining Twitter in 2015, Bruna worked at Ogilvy London & São Paulo, and Publicis Brazil. She now leads content partnerships efforts at Twitter UK with a range of different sports partners including football clubs & leagues, broadcasters and key motorsports leagues. Her goal is helping sports partners to get closer to their followers in the one social platform conversations happen in real-time – through Live content, video, Twitter emojis or other innovation formats.

Danna Rabin is a global business and technology executive, who most recently served as Chief Operating Officer at HEED (joint venture between AGT International and WME/IMG), AGT International (a pioneer in proprietary IoT, IoT Analytics, Deep Web Analysis, Machine Learning, Social Data Management, Big Data integration and advanced analytics), and the media-technology venture, Vocativ (www.vocativ.com – which utilizes proprietary technology to explore the deep web for original news, stories and video production).

George started his career at DDB Worldwide, New York where he gained valuable marketing and advertising experience.

During his fourteen years at the ATP, George has played a vital role in strategic planning for ATP’s Brave New World (the biggest strategic change process in the organisation’s history), the introduction of the new ATP branding in 2009, creation of the new categories of tournaments (Masters 1000, 500 and 250) and the relocation of the Nitto ATP Finals to London.

George is currently responsible for driving ATP’s business development and marketing, production of the weekly ATP World Tour Uncovered TV show, editorial management of ATP digital & social channels as well as marketing and show production at the Nitto ATP Finals, the world’s biggest indoor tennis tournament. Most recently George co-led the launch of inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan last November, a pioneering new event that trialled numerous innovations in the game as well as serving as a global platform to promote the future stars of the sport.

Michael was appointed CTO for the PGA European Tour in Nov2017, with responsibility for Digital, Scoring, Infrastructure and Data Management including Official World Golf Rankings. Formerly, Michael was the London 2012 Marketing and Communications Director for BT Global Services, and responsible for activating BT Global Services’ highly successful London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games marketing campaign worldwide, as well as being responsible for operational and crisis communications across BT’s highly acclaimed London 2012 Delivery programme. Michael then went on to form TrueGold Communications, a sports marketing agency specialising in technology-based global sport sponsorship.

Bio coming soon…