keynote speakers

Keynote sessions will take place from 13:00 - 14:00 on each day of the show in the Marketing & Keynote Theatre. Sessions are free to attend and seating is allocated on a first-come first-served basis. However these sessions are enormously popular so please arrive early to take your seat. 

Martin Bell is one of the best-known and most highly regarded names in British television journalism. As a BBC reporter, he has covered foreign assignments in more than eighty countries and eleven wars: including the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, Vietnam, Nigeria, Angola, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, El Salvador, The Gulf, Croatia and Bosnia, where millions of viewers watched as he was nearly killed by shrapnel.

In 1997, an ambush of a different sort led to another defining moment in television history: when disgraced “cash for questions” MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine famously waylaid him on Knutsford Heath during the Tatton by-election (immortalized by John Sweeney in Purple Homicide, Bloomsbury). Martin reversed a Conservative majority of 22,000 to become the first independent candidate to be elected since 1950. During his four years as a Member of Parliament he served on the Standards and Privileges Committee, where he worked with the new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Elizabeth Filkin. In his time as an MP, he is particularly proud of having helped to win compensation for survivors of Japanese PoW camps.

Perhaps uniquely for a journalist (and former MP) Martin commands great respect and deep affection from his very diverse audience: a true British institution.

Martin was born and educated in East Anglia. His father, Adrian Bell, was a noted novelist and the founder of The Times crossword puzzle. He gained a 1st Class Honours Degree in English from King’s College Cambridge, then went on to do his National Service in the ranks of the 1st Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment in Cyprus.

He joined the BBC where, in addition to serving as war correspondent, he was also the BBC’s Diplomatic Correspondent and then Washington Correspondent. Martin has reported on some of the grimmest conflicts in recent history: the Nigerian civil war, the brutal oppression by Soviet forces of the “Prague Spring” (he was arrested and deported), and the bitter fighting on the Golan Heights, where he was (again) injured by shrapnel. In 2001, Martin was appointed by UNICEF to be their Special Representative for Humanitarian Emergencies.

Other distinctions and awards include the Royal Television Society Reporter of the Year (which he won twice) the General Service Medal, the Gulf War Medal and the O.B.E. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Derby and the University of Kingston, and honorary degrees from the University of East Anglia, the University of North London and Robert Gordon University Aberdeen.

He is the President of the Japanese Labour Camp Survivors’ Association, the President of the Suffolk Concert Band, patron of Emmaus, the international charity for the homeless, and patron of the Georgian Social Fund. Martin is in constant demand to write op-eds for all the major national newspapers and is a regular guest on a wide range of television and radio programmes

On Tuesday 23rd February, Martin will take the audience on a recap through his extraordinary career and how he got into politics. He will also explore how it went so wrong for the Government and the economy in 2009.


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Arguably the most successful magazine editor of the modern era, Mark Frith began his career at Smash Hits and became editor at the age of 23. He then edited Sky Magazine and took charge at Heat in 2000, taking its sales from 50,000 to over half a million a week.In his ten years at the title he won nine major magazine industry awards including, in 2005, the Mark Boxer Award for outstanding achievement in magazines.

In July 2009 he became editor of the legendary London magazine Time Out Mark presented the BBC’s Liquid News for a year and is now a regular contributor to Radio Four’s Front Row, BBC2’s The Apprentice: You’re Fired and Radio Two’s Steve Wright In The Afternoon.

His first book, The Celeb Diaries: The Sensational Inside Story Of The Celebrity Decade became a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller upon its release in late 2008.

On Wednesday 24^th February, Mark will offer advice on reinventing your product, getting by on meagre resources, the best way to turn your team into TV and radio talking heads and the power of celebrity to leverage your brand.

View the powerpoint presentation here.


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In 1991, Jo Fairley co-founded the pioneering organic chocolate company Green & Black’s (with her husband Craig Sams), which has now gone on to be ‘bigger than Marmite’ (in sales terms) and ‘cooler than Prada’ (according to two Coolbrands surveys). In 2005, the brand was sold to Cadbury’s, but Jo remains in an ambassadorial role, travelling the world as the brand grows internationally in countries including the US and Australia. In 2008 Jo and her husband Craig Sams collaborated on Sweet Dreams: The Story of Green & Black’s (Random House).

Jo now runs Judges Bakery - an organic one-stop shop - and The Wellington Centre, an 11-room ‘boutique’ wellbeing centre, in her home town of Hastings. She continues to juggle this with her writing career: although she left school at 16 (with six ‘O’ Levels), by the age of 23 Jo was the youngest-ever magazine editor in the UK, editing first Look Now and then Honey Magazine. She is a Contributing Editor to the Mail on Sunday’s YOU Magazine, as well as to a very wide range of publications including the forthcoming National Geographic Green.

She is the co-author (with Sarah Stacey) of the bestselling Beauty Bible series of books, the world’s bestselling beauty books, including: The Beauty Bible, Feel Fab Forever: The Anti-Ageing Health & Beauty Bible, The 21st Century Beauty Bible, The Handbag Beauty Bible and most recently The Green Beauty Bible, which combines her ‘green’ expertise with her insights into the beauty world. She is also author of The Ultimate Natural Beauty Book (all these books published by Kyle Cathie). Jo and Sarah’s website, www.beautybible.com, is among the most successful beauty websites in the UK, with 55,000 subscribers.

For eight years Jo chaired the Soil Association’s Health Products Standards Committee, helping to set the standards for organic and natural bodycare in the UK. She is a ‘matron’ of the Women’s Environmental Network, runs makeover workshops for young women at Centrepoint and sits on the Human Rights Watch Film Festival committee.

On Thursday 25^th February, Jo will use her own experience to give tips on entrepreneurialism, how to grow a small business and leadership and motivation.

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