James Baker is a leading figure in the UK media industry, with a broad range of experience in television, film and digital media. He has held senior management positions with Nickelodeon and BSkyB, and more recently worked with start-up media investment fund Fleming Media. James has recently joined Al Gore’s Current TV Network, heading up its new UK operation.

Marc Barber is managing editor of Vitesse Media and editor of Business XL.
Before joining Vitesse, he spent three years as editor of The Accountant and International Accounting Bulletin.

Bob Benton is currently managing director and head of media at Canaccord Adams Ltd, as well as being chairman of Clarksons. Until January 2008 he served as executive chairman of Talent Group Plc, an independent television company. Previously, he was chief executive of Ingenious Media Plc, prior to which he was chairman of Bridgewell Group Ltd, which he founded in 2002 and which was floated on AIM.
Bob was previously chairman and chief executive of Charterhouse Securities, global head of sales at ABN Amro and managing director of HSBC James Capel, before becoming CEO of the company at the age of 34.
Bob was educated at King's Canterbury and Exeter University.

Alex has a BA from Oxford University, a Master's in journalism from Columbia University and an MBA from INSEAD. His background in television and radio includes periods at Granada, the BBC and Planet 24.
He co-founded Ten Alps in 1999 with Sir Bob Geldof. Since 2001, Ten Alps has floated on AIM, grown revenue from £2 million to over £81 million and made 19 acquisitions.
Alex has been shortlisted for Entrepreneur of the Year several times and is governor of Manchester Metropolitan University.

Leslie has worked in the media sector for over 12 years in an array of roles, including journalist, analyst, editor and executive director. He joined Vitesse in 1997 as a journalist on Growth Company Investor, ascending to the role of editorial director of Vitesse Media Plc by 2000, with responsibility for the delivery of Vitesse’s products across all platforms – online, events and print. Since mid-2006 Vitesse Media Plc has doubled in size, and Leslie has played a significant part in the integration of What Investment (purchased by the company in December 2006) and Information Age (purchased in December 2007). He was appointed to the role of chief operating officer in March 2008.

Nick is managing director, responsible for corporate finance at Ingenious Media Plc, which he joined in February 2003. Nick has over 25 years' experience in mergers and acquisitions and has advised extensively in the media sector on mandates, ranging from multinational cross-border transactions to sales of owner-managed businesses, at values ranging from £50m to £1bn.
Nick began his career in corporate finance at S. G. Warburg in 1980, before joining private investment bank Granville in 1984 (which was subsequently acquired by Robert W. Baird in November 1999). Nick became head of corporate finance in 1990 and chairman of the Investment Banking division in 1997. He was primarily responsible for the bank's media activities: advising companies involved in marketing services, content, independent television production and commercial radio.

Stephen Hornsby is a partner in the Contentious Rights department of Davenport Lyons. He was an official in the EC Competition Department in Brussels, where he was responsible for two major enquiries (one of which led to the end of the UK's Net Book Agreement).
He has worked on a number of major contentious and non-contentious competition and EU regulatory matters, particularly in the media sector. Stephen also acted for Manchester airport in a competition investigation carried out by the Civil Aviation Authority. He has become one of the pioneers in the successful application of competition law to sport.

Neil Johnson is managing director and global head of the technology team at Canaccord Adams Ltd. Neil commenced his career as a technology analyst in 1993 and moved to London in 1999, where he has overseen the growth of Canaccord Adams to become one of the biggest advisers to growth companies, raising over £5 billion in the past six years.
Neil is a graduate of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and received his chartered financial analyst designation in 1997. He has over 15 years’ experience both in investment banking and research analysis.

Steve founded First State Media Group (FSMG) in Summer 2006 with Colonial First State Global Asset Management (100 per cent subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia) and is managing director.
He is also CEO of FSMG's dedicated music publishing operations, S1 Songs Group and State One Music Publishing Group, named as the eighth leading global music publishing corporation by Billboard in 2008.
S1/State One is directly represented by its own subsidiaries in major territories including the UK and Ireland, the US (New York, Nashville, LA), Germany, France, Spain, Scandinavia, Benelux and Australia.
Steve has a background and interests in the law and music (King's College School of Law and School of Sound) and his passion is Afro-Cuban percussion, playing congas, djembe and related instruments.

Simon Morris began his career at advertising agency Lintas Worldwide in the early 1990s. He became marketing manager at Virgin Games and subsequently UK marketing director of SEGA.
By 1994, Simon was consumer marketing director of BSkyB, a post he held for two years, and remained in television as managing director of Ginger Television Productions. From 1998 to 2001 he was a co-founder of the dot-com content super brand 365 Corp.
Today, Simon is the chief marketing officer of LOVEFiLM, the online DVD and games rental business he helped create and grow to become the UK's third-largest home entertainment subscription service with over a million customers.

Craig has seven years' corporate finance experience. During this time he has specialised in the small- and mid-cap media and technology sectors, advising on a number of sell side, buy side and fundraising mandates. He has recently advised on the sale of a significant minority investment in Complinet Ltd to Fidelity Equity Partners, the sale of VNU Business Media Europe to 3i, a capital raising and subsequent sale of Amaze TV to Palamon Capital Partners, and the successful sales of Sibelius Software to Avid Technology Inc, Librapharm to Informa Plc and Hodder Arnold Journals to Sage Publishing. He joined Quayle Munro following the sale of The van Tulleken Company in April 2008, where he had been a director since 2006.
Craig began his career as an analyst for a number of large international banks. He joined The van Tulleken Company in 2000 and in 2001 he left to join Regent Associates, an independent M&A specialist in the IT, new media and telecommunications sectors. At Regent, he was involved in a wide range of mid-cap transactions, working on both the buy and sell sides for private and public companies. He rejoined van Tulleken in 2002.
He is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Natal, South Africa (finance and economics).

Mark is one of the founding partners and a director of Bond Capital Partners Ltd, a provider of late-stage structured finance to mid-market companies in Europe. He was appointed as a non-executive director of Rambler Media in June 2005 and assumed CEO responsibilities from March 2007 to March 2009.
Mark has extensive knowledge of internet, communications and media markets in many different countries and has provided Rambler Media's board with direct experience of these industries since 2005.
He has over 25 years of corporate operating and dealmaking experience, including his time as managing director and regional vice-president of Yahoo! Europe from July 2001 to December 2003, where he successfully restored profitability and growth by focusing on specific product lines.
Prior to joining Yahoo! Europe, Mark was deputy chief executive of Hodder Headline Plc, an LSE-listed book publishing company, and previously commercial and finance director of Sega Europe Ltd and commercial director of Virgin Communications Ltd.
Mark is also a director of Blinkx Plc, Web Reservations International Ltd, Newbay Software Ltd and Entertainment One Ltd. He is a chartered accountant and has an MBA (IMD Lausanne). 

Charles Severs heads the London corporate group at law firm DLA Piper. He is a media and technology sector specialist, having worked in house at a tech/media fund and having been seconded to both BSkyB and, as acting general counsel, to Pearson Plc.
His practice extends from investment work and both domestic and cross-border M&A to IPOs and public fundraisings. Recent transactions have included advising on the acquisition by 2waytraffic of the global rights to Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Charles is quoted in a recent edition of the Legal 500 2008 as a lawyer who 'clearly knows his business' and in Chambers Directory 2008 as 'a great leader and someone who keeps his focus well in hostile situations'

Lorna Tilbian is an executive director of Numis Corporation Plc and has worked as a media analyst in the City for 25 years, at Sheppards (1984-88), SG Warburg (director, 1988-95), WestLB Panmure (executive director, 1995-2001) and Numis Securities (2001 to date).

Lorna leads Numis’s Media Research team, which has been ranked in the top three for its analysis of UK media companies since 1987. Lorna appears in the Campaign ‘A List’ and the Financial News FN 100 list of the most influential women.

Lorna was also recently listed as the 19th most influential person in a Daily Telegraph poll of the ‘Media Industry’s Top 100’ and appointed a cabinet ambassador by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport as part of its commitment to support the development of the creative economy.

Lorna was educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College and holds a BA honours degree in English and history, as well as a PGCE from Southampton University. Lorna has been a non-executive director of Jupiter Primadona Growth Trust since 2001.

Sara founded Vitesse Media Plc in 1997 and is its chairman and chief executive. Her role includes developing the acquisition strategy, as well as leading the 50-strong team based in London. She is also editor in chief of the company's publications. Sara is a well-known business author. Over two million copies of her book, FT Guide to Small Business (formerly the Lloyds TSB Small Business Guide) have been published. She is a member of the London Stock Exchange's AIM Advisory Group, holds an investment advice certificate and an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics.

Patrick Yau is currently director, equity research at Canaccord Adams, responsible for heading the Media research team. He has more than ten years of financial services experience, starting as an institutional equities analyst in 1997 in the Technology and Healthcare team at Nomura International. He focused on pan-European IT hardware and worked to establish the Nomura Technology Index as a performance benchmark for the sector.
This sector coverage was continued following a move to Credit Suisse First Boston in 1999, where he was named techMARK Analyst of the Year in 2000 and runner-up in 2001. Patrick also achieved top-three individual and team rankings in the Reuters UK surveys in 2000 and 2001.
In 2003, Patrick moved to Bridgewell Securities to develop the UK mid-cap Media franchise, growing it to a team of three analysts and a specialist sales function. In 2006, the team achieved number two ranking in the Thomson Extel UK survey in media and Patrick achieved an individual ranking of seventh overall (second in media) in the Sunday Times/StarMine UK survey, which tracks the accuracy of analyst stock recommendations.
Patrick graduated from London University with a BSc in human sciences, followed by an MSc in business finance from UMIST.