Speakers

Sir Richard Needham

Deputy Chairman, Dyson Ltd and former DTI Minister

Sir Richard Needham’s ambition has always been to stand up for industry particularly manufacturing, in both Parliament and politics. He started a packaging design company with three friends when he was 23 and went on to grow it into a silk screen, litho printing and laminating business before entering Parliament.

Sir Richard Needham’s ambition has always been to stand up for industry particularly manufacturing, in both Parliament and politics. He started a packaging design company with three friends when he was 23 and went on to grow it into a silk screen, litho printing and laminating business before entering Parliament.

From 1985 to 1992 Richard Needham was the Minister responsible for redesigning and rebuilding Northern Ireland’s shattered towns and cities. He is widely recognised throughout Northern Ireland as the man responsible for turning round and regenerating both the North’s infrastructure and its economic base.

He took significant risks in insisting that Belfast’s bombed out City Centre should be reconstructed in glass, steel and other modern materials. Belfast is now recognised as having one of the finest City Centres and waterfront redevelopments of any city in the UK.
In 1992 Richard was promoted to becoming Minister of Trade and became Michael Heseltine’s Deputy. Over three years he overhauled and reinvigorated the whole of Britain’s’ export strategy. He is accepted in Whitehall as Britain’s most successful Minister for Trade since the War. In recognition of his work in Northern Ireland and at the DTI he was made a Privy Counsellor in 1994 and knighted in 1997.

Since leaving politics he was involved in a number of businesses both large and small, including being Chairman of the London Heart Hospital and Biocompatibles PLC, a manufacturer of sophisticated medical devices. He is Chairman of Avon Rubber Plc, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of military respirators; he is Deputy Chairman of NEC (Europe) Ltd, the Japanese electronic giant.
Over the last ten years he has been at Sir James Dyson’s right hand, for four of them he was Deputy Chairman and was largely responsible for the development of the company’s overseas operations in Europe and the Far East, particularly Japan, Malaysia and China. He is now the independent Director for international and commercial affairs.

Richard Needham’s broad experience at the sharp end of government and business will give you a fascinating and unique insight into turnarounds, risk taking and maintaining innovation in the public and private sectors both at home and abroad.

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Ignacio Germade

Ignacio Germade Design Studio
former Senior Design Director at Motorola

www.germade.net

Ignacio Germade is an award winning designer and creative director specialised in interaction design and innovation. he has over 20 years of experience designing a wide range of projects; from electronic books or interactive showrooms to some of the world's best selling mobile phones.

Ignacio is an independent design consultant specialised in Interaction Design and Innovation. Before going solo, Ignacio was Motorola's Senior Design Director for Experience Design heading their London, Singapore and Bangalore studios. Prior to Motorola, Ignacio was Lead Creative Director for Sapient's headquarters in Massachusetts and Head of Interaction Design at IDEO in Boston.

He has received prestigious design awards such as the IDSA Design Excellence Award, ID Interactive Media Award and i-D Magazine Award. His work has been often reviewed in magazines such as i-D, Domus, Wallpaper and Design Week as well as books such as IDEO Masters of Innovation and ON-OFF New Appliance Design. Some of his work has been exhibited in London, Madrid, Boston and Hong Kong

Ignacio has lectured in leading design school including the Rhode Island School of Design, the Massachussets Art Institute and the Art Institute of Boston. He often gives lectures about design and innovation at conferences around the world. Ignacio has also curated a design exhibition in Tokyo and has been a member of the advisory boar for technology at the British Design Council.

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Ian Livingston

Creative Director, Eidos and Founder of Games Workshop

Ian Livingstone is currently Life President of Eidos and one of the UK’s founding fathers of interactive entertainment.

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In 1975 he co-founded Games Workshop and launched Dungeons & Dragons in Europe.  He sold his remaining interest in Games Workshop in 1991.

In 1977 he published White Dwarf, the UK’s first interactive games magazine and was its editor for 5 years.

In 1982 he co-wrote The Warlock of Firetop Mountain with Steve Jackson, the first in the Fighting Fantasy series of interactive gamebooks with sales in excess of 16 million copies in 25 languages. He wrote more than 20 books in the series.

In 1984 he invested in Domark, one of the first UK computer games publishers, designing the company’s first game Eureka. He joined the board in 1992 and helped merge the company with Eidos Technologies in 1995 with a full listing of the merged entity on the London Stock Exchange. He served as Executive Chairman of Eidos plc from 1995 until 2002 and subsequently as Creative Director.  At Eidos he helped to secure many of the company's major franchises including Lara Croft:Tomb Raider and Hitman.

He is the Non-Executive Chairman of SocialGO.com, Non-Executive Director of UKIE, Chair of Skillset’s Computer Games Skills Council, Vice Chair of the BAFTA Games Committee and an advisor to the British Council.

He was awarded an OBE, a BAFTA Special Award, a British Inspiration Award and an Honorary Doctorate of Technology by the University of Abertay, Dundee for his contribution to the UK computer and video games industry.

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Marek Reichman

Design Director, Aston Martin

Profile will be updated shortly

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David Kester

Chief Executive, Design Council

David was appointed Chief Executive of the Design Council in May 2003. He has refocused the organisation as the national strategic body for design, leading central government policies and regional programmes that strengthen competitiveness, drive innovation and support growth in the creative economy.

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Prior to the Design Council, David has held senior leadership roles within business, design and the environmental sector including nine years as Chief Executive of D&AD and four years at the pressure group Friends of the Earth. His tenure at the design and advertising organisation, D&AD, is associated with a turnaround in performance and reputation, including internationalising its award scheme and building its education programmes.

He is a council member of the Royal College of Art and The Royal Society of Arts, a trustee of the Kingston Rose Theatre, board member of the Design Business Association and regular commentator and advisor to government on the creative economy, enterprise and innovation.

Mike Addison

Procter & Gamble

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Richard Heayes

Global Design Director, Hasbro

Profile will be updated shortly

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Kevin McCullagh

Founder, PLAN

Kevin is founder and director of Plan, a product strategy consultancy based in London.

While at Plan and in his previous position as Director of Seymour Powell, he has helped the following brands work out what to do next: Ford, HP, Mars, Lenovo, Nokia, Orange, O2, Psion, Samsung, Shell, Unilever and Yamaha.

His background spans design, marketing, engineering and academia; and he writes, speaks, broadcasts and curates conferences on design, business, and society. He is a columnist for core77; and teaches at CASS business school, London, and is a visiting fellow at his old design faculty at Northumbria University. 

www.plan.bz

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Will King

Founder and CEO, The King of Shaves Company

Profile will be updated shortly

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Alastair Curtis

Creative & Innovation Leader, Alastair Curtis and former Chief Designer at Nokia

Alastair is Co-Founder and Executive Director of OFFFICIAL, an innovation & Investment company based in Manchester. Alastair is also the Co-Founder of AllBabble, a social network and micro-blog service.

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Alastair worked for Nokia for 16 years; over the last 3 years as Chief Designer for Nokia he successfully reshaped Nokia Design into a truly global and multidisciplinary team and fully integrated it within the wider Nokia business. He established world-class design studios in London, Helsinki, Beijing and Los Angeles, and built a truly international design team representing 34 nationalities.  His leadership of Design has led Nokia to a strong position across the whole portfolio for 2010 and 2011.
 
As Nokia's business transformed, he ensured Nokia Design has played a leading role in stimulating consumer focus and innovation beyond physical design and into digital and user interface design. The forward looking strategic design teams that Alastair established have played a key role in generating new innovations and business opportunities for Nokia.

Alastair is now working as Director for Offficial and AllBabble. He also consults as a Creative and Innovation Leader, working globally with clients to create the Extraordinary, by applying ‘Total Design’ to explore & drive innovation and growth for the Business, Brand, Experience and Product.

In 2009 Alastair was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Brunel University.

In 2007 Alastair was in TIME Magazines top 100 for Design and Style.

Alastair has a Masters degree from the prestigious Royal College of Art.

Ami Brabbins

Senior Consultant, forward thinking inc

Graduating from Bristol University with a First Class degree in History of Art, Ami  joined Sotheby’s and over the course of 2 years developed her career with the group, handling a broad range of International projects.

From Sotheby’s Ami moved to Deutsche Bank where she worked on a series of commercial projects before joining forward thinking inc in 2008. There, Ami has brought to bear her fist class analytical and creative skills on projects for a range of clients in the areas of strategy development, business analysis, business and workplace change, human dynamics and employee effectiveness.

In October / November 2009 Ami completed a two month tour of Asia Pacific for forward thinking inc, delivering thought leadership seminars on a range of strategy areas in Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney. Attendees included executives from HSBC, Microsoft, Barclays Capital, Cisco, CBRE and UBS amongst other blue-chip firms. 

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Mark Catchlove

Director, Herman Miller

Profile will be updated shortly

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