
Line//Up
The Human Touch
You can spot it a mile away - the double hyphens, the mishmash of words into sentences that don't quite make sense, the internet being awash with daft videos of huge waves ridden by giant octopus destroying New York City - and now 'AI slop' has been revealed as the Macquarie Dictionary's Word of the Year (narrowly beating Ozempic Face).
MAD//Fest London’s 2026 theme is…drum roll…'The Human Touch'.
We're bringing together the best humans in the business to reclaim what sets us apart, and explore how to leverage the best tech + innovation to gain a marketing edge, rather than serve up generic slop.

2026 Stages










Louis Theroux
// Journalist + Broadcaster
Dr. Julia Shaw
// Criminal Psychologist & AI Futurist
Sir Martin Sorrell
// Executive Chairman & Founder, S4 Capital
Adam Swan
// Creative Partner, Derek & Eric
AJ Coyne
// Chief Marketing Officer, Monzo Bank
Alec Barr
// Head of Behavioural Science, OLIVER Agency
Amy Cheyne
// Senior Content Manager, NICE Drinks
Ben Bradley
// Head of Commercial Partnerships, England Cricket (ECB)
Ben Carter
// Chief Customer, Marketing + Media Officer, Carwow
Ben Fox
// Chief Marketing Officer, McDonald's
Bridget Hirst
// Brand Director, DASH
Carina De Oliveira Azevedo
// Senior Environment Lead Grocery, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
Catherine Loftus
// Brand Director, Bird & Blend
Charlie Rudd
// Chief Executive Officer - Creative Practice, Publicis Groupe
Charlie Morgan
// founder, Au Vodka
Charlie Smith
// Chief Marketing Officer, Nothing
Charlotte Pearce
// Founder + CEO, Inkpact
Charlotte Ford
// Senior Director of Brand, Content & Partnerships, Monzo Bank
Charlotte Tonry
// Head of Social and Influencer, M&S
Christina Habib
// Chief Insights Officer, Unilever Beauty + Wellbeing
Chris Delahunty
// Head of UK Marketing, Top Cashback
Claire Sadler
// Chief Marketing Officer, British Heart Foundation
Danielle Lee
// Brand and Marketing Director, Metro Bank
Daniel Blumer
// Chief Marketing Officer (EMEA), Restaurant Brands International
David Murdin
// Chief Marketing + Experience Officer, Warner Hotels
Dawn Paine
// Founder and CEO, Aurora
Diego Osorio
// Founder, Lobos Tequila 1707
Dr. Cecilia Dones
// Founder, 3 Standard Deviations
Ellie Norman
// Chief Marketing Officer, Formula E
Emily Churchill
// Head of Marketing, NICE Drinks
Emily Churchill is Head of Marketing at Nice, the B Corp female-founded, modern wine company built to liberate drinkers from wine headaches. Whether it’s inflexible packaging, confusing labels or next day regret, Nice exists to give people better ways to wine. She leads brand strategy, trade marketing and creative activation, helping Nice stand out in an industry that often takes itself too seriously.Emily has spent over a decade in food and drink, with senior roles at Caleño Drinks and Rude Health, where she worked on bold campaigns and drove brand growth and awareness. Starting her career in PR and agency roles, she’s worked with household names across FMCG and built her reputation on bringing personality and cultural relevance to the brands she champions.She’s particularly passionate about breaking category conventions, connecting with consumers and leading with creativity.
Emily Heath
// Global Brand Director, Rexona / Sure
Fin Wallace
// Lead Producer, The Sidemen
Gareth Maritz
// Executive Vice President of Marketing, Dazn
Geoff Bull
// Chief Marketing Officer, Confused.com
George Sullivan
// CEO, The Sole Supplier
George Dingle
// Account Director, SAMY
Ginger Johnson
// Drag Queen + Winner of RuPaul's Drag Race UK
Henrietta Corley
// Global Business Lead, AMV BBDO
Holly McKinlay
// Brand + Communications Director, WWF
Holly is responsible for brand, communications and engagement at WWF, the leading environmental organisation working to bring our natural world back to life. She’s led WWF’s major brand campaigns, creating the charity’s first sonic brand and logo while engaging new audiences through initiatives such as WWF’s Prescription for Nature, all with the goal of inspiring the UK public to reconnect with nature and help restore the natural world.Holly has worked in brand and strategic communications for over 20 years and has worked with organisations in the commercial, government and not for profit sectors in the UK, Middle East, Australia, Asia Pacific and North America.
Hugo Inglis
// Olympian and Founder, High Impact Athletes (HIA)
Ian Russell MBE
// Molly Russell’s Dad, Co-Founder, Molly Rose Foundation
Iesha White
// Director of Intelligence, Check My Ads Institute
Imme Ermgassen
// Co-founder, Botivo
Jake Dubbins
// Co-Chair, Conscious Advertising Network
James Tyler
// Co-Founder, Drink Local
James Tyler is the Founder and Head of Marketing at Local; the beer brand on a mission to make lite beer cool.James spent 15 years in creative roles across TV, advertising & branding; creating award-winning work for beer brands like Budweiser, Stella Artois and Camden Town Brewery. Local was born after a 5k run made him realise he'd just jogged the pounds off… only to pile them back on in the pub.
Johanna Gerhold
// Brand and Communications Director, HelloFresh UK
Johanna heads up Brand and Communications at HelloFresh, bringing the magic of delicious homemade dinners to tables up and down the country. Throughout her career, she has honed her craft at making brands successful. A Comms Planner at heart she started in the media agency world working on clients like Honda and Nokia before moving to Google for 11 years in a number of commercial, strategy and marketing roles. To complete the holy trinity of agency, media owner and client side, she now heads up Brand Merketing teams - starting with a stint at Candy Crush (King) and now at HelloFresh.
Johnny Winn
// Head of Advertising, Virgin Media O2
John Vincent
// CEO + Co-Founder, LEON Restaurants
Jono Yates
// Owner, Only Scrans / YRDS
Julia Linehan
// CEO & Founder, The Digital Voice
Kate Dale
// Director of Marketing, Sport England
Katie Evans
// Chief Marketing Officer, Burger King UK
Katie Jackson
// Chief Marketing Officer, Channel 4
Kelly Chandaria
// Vice President, Bloom
Kim-Lin Capes
// A&I Community and Loyalty Manager, NYX // L'Oreal
Laura Jordan Bambach
// Co-founder & Chief Creative Officer, Uncharted
Laura Pinnell
// VP, Consumer Group, Europe & Middle East, NBA
Lee Bokfin
// Chief Executive Officer, Global Street Art
Luciana de Azevedo Lara
// Senior Global Communications Manager, Essity
Lucie Leverton
// Head of Partnerships Development, Harrods
Lucy Litwack
// Owner and CEO, Coca de Mer
Margaret Jobling
// Group Chief Marketing Officer, NatWest Group
Mark Lester
// Co-founder + CSO, Squint
Mark Brown
// Chief Marketing Officer, Hovis
Mark Denton
// Executive Creative Director, COY! Communications
Mary Keane-Dawson
// Chair, BIMA
Matt Stone
// Senior Director - Creative, Design & Experience, Kimberley-Clark
Matt Stone leads Creative, Design and Experience for Kimberly-Clark’s Global portfolio of Family Care & Professional brands. Prior to his time at KC, which has spanned all sectors, Matt started his career in the agency world, working across a range of brands and industries. Matt loves brand-building, using creativity to drive business growth…and his family (not in that order).
Matt Bulcroft
// Marketing Director, Global Brands
Mays Elansari
// Marketing Director, Wasabi
Michelle Marks
// Chief Marketing Officer, Trinny London
Michelle Marks is the Chief Marketing Officer at Trinny London, a global, digital-first beauty brand on a mission to help customers fearlessly feel their best self. In her role, Michelle leads the company’s global marketing strategy, driving brand awareness and customer growth as it expands into new markets, including the US.Michelle has extensive experience in marketing and creative leadership. Prior to joining Trinny London, she was Director of Creative Strategy for EMEA at Meta, and Global Director for Digital Brands at Charlotte Tilbury. Her work has been recognised with a place on The Drum’s Rebel 50 list of top CMOs.
Mollie Kmita
// Founder, The Powerhouse Project
Naomi Walkland
// Chief Marketing Officer, Motorway
Natalie Tyre
// ex Meta
Nathalia Amadeu
// Global Brand Director, Vaseline
Ndidi Oteh
// Chief Executive Officer, Accenture Song
Nick Bain
// Head of Creative Strategy, TimeOut
Nick leads Creative Strategy at Time Out Media UK, building branded content partnerships that sit across cultural intelligence and commercial ambition. Before Time Out, he spent a decade as a senior strategist across agencies, including Sticky and Third City, and a stretch of high-functioning freelance roles — working with agencies such as Platform 13 and FleishmanHillard, and brands like Guinness, HSBC, White Claw, Nestlé, and CNN International.
At Sticky he co-developed the Power of Curiosity® framework, which reframes audience segmentation around human behaviour rather than demographics, and has numerous award winning campaigns in his portfolio.
Outside strategy, he does stand-up comedy — which, it turns out, is surprisingly good training for writing a brief that someone will actually read.
Nick East
// European Head of Retail Media, MARS
Nina Bibby
// Group Chief Marketing Officer, Barclays
Patrick Williamson
// VP of Performance Marketing, MPB
Paul Stafford
// Head of Very Media Group, The Very Group
Pete Harbour
// Chief Marketing Officer + Head of Global Condiments, Unilever
Radha Davies
// Marketing Director: Brands & Creative, Sainsbury's
Rajeev Sathyesh
// Marketing Director (CMO), Heineken
Rani Al Hajji
// Chief Growth & Transformation Officer, Unilever Personal Care
Rebecca Ferguson
// MARS
Rebecca Rowntree
// Founder, Get Sh*t Done
René Hisserich
// Senior Director Media, Content & Digital Marketing, MARS
Rory Sutherland
// Vice Chairman, Ogilvy UK
Rosie Kmita
// Founder, The Powerhouse Project
Ruby Furby
// EU PR and Influencer Manager, Panasonic Europe
Ruby Furby is a PR, social and communications specialist with over 5 years’ experience across consumer lifestyle and technology brands. Within her current role as European PR and Influencer Manager at Panasonic, Ruby runs multi-market campaigns that span PR, social media, creator partnerships, content strategy and experiential activations, from early-stage concept development and data-driven insight through to culturally relevant execution.
Sally Barton
// Director, Marketing Growth Strategy, Mondelez International
Sally Henderson
// High-stakes leadership mentor
Sam Kelly
// Chief Experience Officer, Virgin
Sam Wahab
// Global Head of Gaming + XR, Charlotte Tilbury
Sam is a Senior Marketing Professional with over 20 years of experience at the forefront of the gaming and entertainment industry, holding pivotal roles at Showtime, MTV, and Red Bull. He joined Charlotte Tilbury Beauty four years ago as their Global Head of Gaming & XR, where he launched the gaming department. Specializing in Gaming, XR, and Entertainment, Sam excels in developing strategic partnerships and innovative campaigns, leveraging trends and digital innovation for impactful marketing strategies, as well as leading and launching new departments.
Sarah Barron
// Chief Commercial & Operating Officer, Dominos
Sarah joined Domino’s in January 2021 as Chief Marketing Officer, where she leads a team of 120 people across Marketing, Innovation, Digital, Data, Communications and Commercial Trading.Since joining Domino’s, Sarah has overseen the digital and data transformation to maximise the return from the brand’s over 12 million active customers base, with 75% of customer orders now coming from the app. Under her leadership, brand love and consideration have both spiked driven by the launch of the ‘Domin-Oh-Hoo-Hoo’ yodel brand campaign, new sponsorship deals including ITVX and Channel 4 streaming services as well as with award-winning creative PR and social.She has nearly 30 years’ experience across retail, consumer and hospitality industries, working for international market-leading brands such as Boots, Cadbury and Green & Blacks. Until 2020, Sarah was Chief Growth Officer of Costa Coffee, responsible for the Global Marketing and Growth team. Sarah sits on the Advisory Council of ISBA, and she is also the Chair of The Partners Foundation - an independent charity that provides help for Domino’s colleagues who may be experiencing personal hardship or need financial assistance.Outside of work Sarah enjoys long distance running and can often be found clocking up the miles doing marathons and ultramarathons. Most recently she completed the 2025 London Marathon, where she proudly supported Teenage Cancer Trust.
Saskia Jones
// Deputy CSO, BBH
Sedge Beswick
// Founder, Consultant, Advisor and Investor, Sedge Consulting
Sedge Beswick is a consultant, exited founder, brand advisor and investor, operating at the intersection of brands, culture, business growth and motherhood. With a career spanning senior in-house brand roles, building, scaling and exiting her own agency, and building a portfolio career alongside raising two children, Sedge brings lived experience from every side of the table. She works with founders, senior leaders and brands navigating growth, change and inflection points, helping them make clearer decisions without burning out or buying into outdated success narratives. Known for her straight-talking, commercially rigorous and human approach, Sedge cuts through noise, jargon and hype to focus on what genuinely moves the needle. Her perspective is grounded, earned and practical, shaped by real decisions made under real pressure. She doesn’t deal in fluff or performative motivation; she offers challenge and structure for people who want ambition to work alongside real life, not in conflict with it.
Shamil Thakrar
// Founder, Dishoom
Sharry Cramond
// Marketing Director Fashion, Home & Beauty; Director of Loyalty, M&S
Shona Campbell
// Chief Marketing and Growth Officer, Ottolenghi
Sophie O'Brien
// President, Bloom
Sophie Giddings
// Marketing Director, Little Dish
Swagat Choudhury
// Global Director - Digital Commerce, MARS
Thom Elliot
// Co-Founder, Pizza Pilgrims
Tim Ovadia
// Global Vice President, Stella Artois / AB InBev
Tom Johnson
// Head of Marketing & Commercial Director, Ascot Racecourse
Tom Goodwin
// Founder, All We Have Is Now
Tom Fenwick- Smith
// Creative Director, Three Mobile
Tony Barr
// Managing Director Commercial, Wasabi
Tony Cortizas
// Chief Marketing Officer, Sandals Resorts
Vicki Maguire
Wilkin Lee
// Head of Marketing UK & Ire, Motorola (Lenovo)
Mike Pearson
// Head of Creative, Media & Promotions, Wayfair EU
Ed Tate
// Senior Customer Success Director, Optimizely
Jan Schoenmakers
// Managing Director, HASE & IGEL
Rachel Pettit
// Director of Consumer Marketing, Bank and Borrow, Lloyds Banking Group
Sam Fletcher
// Director of Customer Insight, Planning & Effectiveness, Lloyds Banking Group
Max Ottignon
// Co-Founder, Ragged Edge
Jack Cully
// Marketing lead, Granola
Amanpreet Singh
// Global Digital Brand Experience Lead, Unilever
Jonathan Gustavii
// Director of Strategic Partnerships, The Gang
Jascha Bräker
// Senior Partnerships Development Manager, ESL FACEIT Group
Alessandra Di Lorenzo
// Digital Media Executive & Author
Will Lenney
// Co-Founder, Rodd's Coffee
As one of the UK’s most recognisable digital personalities, Will has built an audience of millions through sharp storytelling, cultural relevance, and an ability to consistently stay on the pulse of online trends. Having co-founded Rodd’s Iced Coffee with fellow internet personality James Marriott in 2025, he brings a rare combination of creator instinct, and entrepreneurial credibility to the stage, understanding how to capture and maintain attention, converting online hype into real world impact, and scaling influence into long-term commercial opportunity.
James Marriott
// Co-founder, Rodd's Coffee
Known for his intelligent commentary and deeply engaged community, James has a powerful online brand rooted in authenticity, consistency, and trust. Starting in the digital space, he is now primarily a touring artist and entrepreneur as co-founder of Rodd’s Iced Coffee - where he applies his incredible creative mind to growing the challenger brand with a thorough understanding of how to make an impact through content and develop the brand into a successful business.
Hazan Aydin Yesilova
// Head of Baileys, Diageo GB
Holly McKinley
// Brand and Communications Director, WWF UK
Rahul Gursahani
// Marketing Lead, Ben & Jerry's
Jack Finger
// Co-Founder, Go Places
Sam Jacobs
// Co-Founder, Go Places
Eugene Knippel
// VP of Global Voices & Industry Relations, Kolsquare
Fiona Macpherson
// Global Head of Influencer Marketing, Free Soul
Laura Montarroso Daher
// Co Founder, CULTURD
Fouad Hammoud
// Co Founder, CULTURD
Sheeraz Gulsher
// Co Founder, People Like Us
Yasmin Ali
// Spoken Word Artist
Joy Osinloye
// VP of Customer Success, CreatorIQ
Jane Harper
// Communications and Digital Engagement Director, Shisedo
Jini Sanassy
// Head of PR, Space NK
Sean Fenny
// Senior Brand Manager Hennessy, Moet Hennessy / LVMH
Born in Cork, Ireland, Sean Fenny has over 10 years international marketing experience spanning 5 countries, 3 organisations and 2 continents.
Having worked as an International Brand Ambassador for Jameson Irish Whiskey (Pernod Ricard) in both India and Germany for 2 years at the age of 21, Sean then moved to Vienna, Austria to specialise in luxury marketing - leading to employment as Brand Manager for Belvedere Vodka, Glenmorangie and Ardbeg in the Austrian Market.
5 years later, Sean is now the Senior Brand Manager for Hennessy in the UK, running Hennessy's commercial programmes and ensuring that Hennessy remains a contemporary luxurious, lifestyle and elevated product while staying connected to its roots in culture.
Desh Govender
// CEO, Studio 545
Deshnie Govender is an ex-L’Oréal Luxe CMO and former TikTok marketing leader, now Founder and CEO of Studio 545, a culture intelligence studio helping emerging markets brands grow by shaping the future of attention, influence and culture.
An emerging markets marketing leader, Deshnie has built her career across some of the world’s most influential brands and platforms, with experience spanning luxury beauty, technology, FMCG, media, creators and culture-led growth across Africa, EMEA and global markets.
At TikTok, Deshnie was Head of Marketing for Sub-Saharan Africa, helping shape the platform’s growth, brand presence and creator ecosystem across the region before moving into the global marketing function, where she worked across market and brand initiatives in multiple regions. At L’Oréal Luxe South Africa, she served as its first Chief Marketing Officer, leading marketing across a portfolio of luxury beauty brands including Prada, Armani, Yves Saint Laurent Beauty, Lancôme and Valentino, and bringing together brand strategy, digital transformation, retail experience, creator ecosystems and cultural relevance.
Through Studio 545, Deshnie helps brands and agencies build cultural fluency, creator ecosystems and modern content capability for the markets shaping the future of attention and influence.
Her work sits at the intersection of culture, influence and modern brand building, with a particular focus on how global brands grow in emerging markets. She has been recognised as an Advertising Week Future is Female winner and has served as Chair of the IAB Bookmark Awards, as well as a judge for leading creative and effectiveness awards including the Effies, Loeries and AB InBev CreativeX.
Deshnie also hosts a Marketing Masterclass series on YouTube, featuring conversations with global marketers, cultural leaders and creators, including Gary Vaynerchuk and Grammy-nominated artists such as Fireboy DML.
Krum Dzhermanov
// Director Client Strategy, impact.com
Krum is a content creator who is passionate about menswear, travel and lifestyle. Being himself a full-time working professional in London, his content focuses on finding beauty in the everyday, as he inspires his followers to dress intentionally with minimal effort through a combination of relatable videography and editorial photography. Besides his take on menswear he also shares his travel and lifestyle experiences following the same content style and voice, which appeals to an audience across different industries.
As a result, he has gained a wide breadth of experience partnering with brands across multiple sectors, most notably Abercrombie & Fitch, Amazon, Barbour, Bell & Ross, Mazda, LG, The Dalmore, Jack Daniels. Besides his work as a creator, he is also the Director, Creator Consulting at Impact.com, which makes him a great resource for all things influencer marketing given his close relationship with some of the most influential brands in the space who use Impact.com's software for their creator partnerships.
Manal Saho
// Regional Sales Director, Preciso
Manal is an experienced digital marketing professional with a proven track record in driving growth and customer retention at leading e-commerce companies. As Regional Sales Director at Preciso, she is responsible for executing the company’s sales strategy, selling the benefits of Preciso’s bidding platform to media agencies, e-commerce businesses and digital marketers, who leverage it to run efficient and effective programmatic advertising campaigns.
Prior to joining Preciso, Manal was responsible for creating and running a number of loyalty programmes in the retail and hospitality sectors for Lyoness Europe AG, and myWorld LLC.
Andy Squire
// Regional Lead, EMEA, Brave Browser & Search Engine
Andy Squire is Regional Lead at Brave, heading up the search engine ad platform. Andy has worked in digital media for two decades, operating as a commercial lead across publishers, SSPs and DSPs. Prior to joining Brave, Andy was Commercial Director, EMEA at RainberryTV, launching the linear and VOD platform in Europe. Other roles include UK Sales Director at the international customer insight and next-generation programmatic media activation company Audience Store, Programmatic Lead, EMEA at publishing platform Flipboard, and VP Programmatic Sales at the programmatic company Unruly.
Caro Wagner
// Client Strategy Lead, EMEA, GumGum
Carolin offers over 12 years of expertise garnered within Europe’s premier media hubs. An Austrian native raised in London, she bridges the gap between Continental European market nuance and the high-velocity strategic landscapes of the UK and Benelux.
After honing her craft at Wavemaker and Dentsu in London, Carolin spent seven years at Publicis in Amsterdam. There, as Strategy Director, she was instrumental in unifying Brand, Creative, and Media strategies for a portfolio of local and global clients. Driven by a desire to pioneer the next chapter of digital advertising, she joined GumGum two years ago. Now based in London, she leads the EMEA Strategy Team, helping brands harness contextual intelligence and creative excellence to deliver meaningful, lasting impact.
Suzanna Chaplin
// CEO, esbconnect
Suzanna is CEO of esbconnect, a role she assumed when she led a management buyout of the company in 2003, after almost nine years with the firm. Since then, she has transformed esbconnect from a legacy email marketing company into a strategic data and technology business that’s helping brands overcome today’s marketing challenges, while remaining centred on email.
Suzanna’s vision was to recognise that the humble email address is the passport to the internet – a critical piece of information can be used to identify real individuals online, irrespective of the device or platform they are on. In doing so, it can be used as a central identifier across digital and offline channels. Suzanna is steering the company’s evolving suite of products and services through the cookieless marketing ecosystem - helping brands to achieve KPIs across social and programmatic environments, thanks to first-party data strategies fit for the modern age. Since taking on the role of CEO, Suzanna has also transformed how the company operates, investing vast amounts of time in helping people think, sell and approach the business differently, and instilling in the team the confidence to challenge clients and deliver real value. She also continues to work closely with the tech team on product and market innovation. Prior to esbconnect, Suzanna spent just over five years at Freemax Media, working on lead generation and business development by building in-depth partnerships across Freemax Media’s in-house brands. Suzanna also managed and grew Freemax Media's expansion into overseas markets, including Denmark, Italy and Spain, and built and managed a diverse portfolio of accounts across many different verticals, including Land Rover, Halifax, House of Fraser and Achica.
David Schulman
// Global CEO, Havas
Claire MacArthur
// Landscape Architect
Can Akar
// Marketing Director, EMEA, Uber
Mark Sinnock
// Global Chief Strategy, Data & Innovation Officer, Havas
Lea Karam
// Behavioural Scientist, Founder + CEO, Mindscope
Hussain Manawer
// Poet, Author + Spoken word artist
Jordan Peters
// Senior Director, Marketing Partnerships, EMEA, Netflix
Nicky Bullard
// Founder, Elevator
Kenyatte Nelson
// Chief Membership & Customer Officer, Co-op
Elliot Moss
// Partner and Chief Brand Officer, Mishcon de Reya
Paris Parmer
Kyle Fiore
// Principal Brand Strategy,, Booking.com
Emma Sexton
// Founder, Inside Out
Jonathan Wicks
// Creative Director, The LEGO Group
Elfried Samba
// Co-founder + CEO, Butterfly Effect
Guillaume Furminger
// Executive Creative Director, Brand Potential
Rob Calder
// Chief Growth Officer, PREM Rugby
Brand Challenges
Want to see real brand challenges tackled in real time? Then you'll love our Brand Challenges. We'll be back with a fresh mix of challenges, pitches + pilots in 2026. In the meantime, here's 2025's line-up:
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