Dianne Thompson Chief Executive, Camelot
Dianne joined Camelot in February 1997 and was the first female executive director on the Camelot board. As commercial operations director she was responsible for consumer research, marketing, new game development, sales and the 36,000-strong network of retailers. After Camelot was awarded its second licence in 2000, she took over as chief executive.
Dianne started her career as a marketing trainee at the Co-operative Wholesale Society. In a career spanning over 30 years, she has worked in marketing for a variety of companies such as ICI and Sterling Roncraft.
She was a lecturer at Manchester Polytechnic for seven years, during which time she founded and ran her own advertising agency. She was then managing director of Sandvik Saws and Tools for five years, before moving to London to take up the post of director of marketing at Woolworths. While she was there the company was named 'Advertiser of the Year' by Campaign Magazine.
She then spent three years as marketing director for the Signet Group, part of the team responsible for transforming Ratner's ailing jewellery business. In her three years there, a loss of GBP 120 million was turned into a profit of GBP 27 million.
Dianne Thompson was named 'Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year' in 2000 and the Marketing Society's 'Marketer of the Year' in 2001. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Marketing Society and the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and a Companion of the Institute of Management. She is also a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Marketors.
Dianne is a Council Member of ISBA and the Press Complaints Commission, and is a member of the CBI President's Committee. She is also a non-executive director of RAC plc.
Josh Bednash
Josh joins our panel for Healthy Eating competition only in order to view the entries from a young person's perspective.
Josh Bednash is 14. He loves Arsenal, Little Britain, Rap Music, Friends and good food. He hates McDonalds, homework and Spurs (UK football club).He lives in North London.
Frances Brindle Marketing Director, Financial Times
Frances started her marketing career as a graduate trainee with Nestle working on Lean Cuisine and Buitoni. This was followed by a stint with ICI paints before moving to Courage brewing as Marketing Controller for new product development. There she oversaw the launch of Fosters Ice, which was one of the most successful alcoholic drink launches of recent years, with a year one turnover in excess of L150M.
In 1997 Frances joined Allied Bakeries as Marketing Director, where she was responsible for an extensive programme of product development and brand re-positioning, culminating in the doubling of Kingsmill sales to L300M and Kingsmill overtaking Hovis as the number one UK bread brand for the first time since its launch in the early 1980's.
Most recently Frances was Marketing Director for Barclays International banking, where she developed high profile campaigns to support the successful expansion of the business in Africa Asia and the Middle East, before joining the Financial Times as Marketing Director for EMEA in 2006.
Steve Henry Creative Director of United
Steve was born in Hong Kong, September 1955, during a hurricane. He attained a double first in English Literature, Oxford University in 1978.
After working at GGT and WCRS, he set up Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury (on October 1st 1987). HHCL was voted Campaign's Agency of the Year three times and Campaign's Agency of the Decade in January 2000 'Campaign believes HHCL's iconoclastic attitude both to the work and the way it does business makes it the most influential agency of the decade'.
Steve has won most of the major creative awards, including: a Gold Pencil at D&AD, the Grand Prix at Cannes, the Grand Prix at the British Television Awards, the President's Award at the Royal Television Society Awards, and the President's Award at Creative Circle (twice).
He has spoken at advertising conferences in Britain, the United Sates, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Hong Kong, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand and China.
Steve has two daughters, is divorced, and lives in South Kensington, London.
Polly Cochrane Director of Marketing, Channel 4
Polly spent the first four years of her career in advertising, joining WCRS as a graduate trainee in 1988 after studying architecture at Cambridge. Two years later she moved to a new start-up.
Offered the opportunity to become UK communications manager for Vanity Fair magazine, Polly went client side and has not looked back since. She was product manager for The Observer and manager of the Guardian Development Unit. She then moved to Channel 5, where she masterminded the retuning campaign and launch advertising for Britain's fifth and last terrestrial channel.
Polly joined Channel 4 in 1998 with a brief to integrate on- and off-air marketing functions. She is now Channel 4's director of marketing with responsibility for marketing the organisation's network of channels and services, as well as managing the P&L for 4creative, an in-house creative advertising agency she founded in 2000.
Greg Delaney Chairman, Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners
Greg began as a copywriter at the creative consultancy Delaney & Delaney, which he founded with his brother Barry. This company then became Delaney Fletcher Delaney and, later, Delaney Fletcher Bozell. In 2000 he and a number of partners staged a management buyout, forming Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners.
DLKW is now one of the UK's most successful agencies. It has doubled in size in the last three years and now employs 175 people. Greg has worked on a multitude of accounts over the course of a long career, creating campaigns for many different brands both in the UK and internationally. DLKW's current major accounts are Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Vauxhall, COI, AA, Burger King, Capital Radio, Batchelors and eBay. In March 2005 the agency became part of the marketing services group Creston plc.
The 'Creative, Collaborative, Commercial' culture of DLKW reflects Greg's belief that ideas need to be judged by their commercial effectiveness as well as their creativity, and that teams, not individuals, produce great work.
Peter Lewis Head of Marketing, Financial Times
Before joining the FT in 1995, Peter was involved in a number of global brand research projects. He advocated reader and user research to help shape the evolution of the FT brand, and has worked on various marketing projects for both the FT and FT.com.
Tim Ashton Creative Director, Antidote
Tim has worked in advertising and design as an art director and executive creative director for 18 years. He started his career at Darcy, and has worked at Lowe, Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury and BBH. He has won many creative awards in advertising and design across all media, including the Cannes Grand Prix, the British Television Grand Prix, the IVCA Grand Prix and D&AD Silvers.
In 1991 he was instrumental in the hugely successful launch of First Direct Bank, which featured the world's first fully interactive commercial. At BBH in 1993 he created a new Europe-wide campaign for Levi Strauss, moving away from 50s Americana and back to the company's heritage. This included their first animated spot, Mr Boombastic, in 1994.
In 1995, at the age of 32, he became London's youngest executive creative director. At Bates UK he ran a department of 100 while also acting as European creative director on Compaq Computers. Between 1995 and 1998 he led successful pitches for Compaq, Royal Mail and Heinz, winning creative acclaim for all three. In 1996 The Independent voted Superdrug its 'Campaign of the Year', and Compaq was awarded the APG Grand Prix. In 1998 Bates UK secured more creative awards at Cannes than it had done in the previous four years; the UK office was also named 'best agency in the Bates network'.
In the same year, along with three partners, he launched Circus, The Brand Engagement Company. This was the first company to look at brands in a truly holistic fashion.
In 1999 he was engaged by Earl Spencer to compose five tribute films for the Princess Diana Memorial at Althorp.
In 2002 Tim created the 'Got to know?' campaign for Discovery Channel, which now runs in 42 countries. He was also appointed to oversee a complete rebranding of B.A.R, a leading Formula One motor racing team.
In 2004 he launched Antidote, a diverse creative company. In the past year he has redesigned The Lancet medical journal, launched a new vodka for Absolut, launched Rapha, a luxury cycling clothing brand, and written a bestselling book, 'Change The World For A Fiver', which spent ten weeks in the top ten.
Ford Ennals Chief Executive, Digital UK
Before joining Digital UK as chief executive, Ford Ennals was managing director of Universal Group Direct (the direct marketing division of Universal Music) and chief marketing officer of the group in Britain. Prior to that he was group marketing director of LloydsTSB, where he was responsible for the launch of the LloydsTSB brand and the successful post-merger integration of the two businesses.
His extensive career in marketing has also included positions as global marketing director of British Airways; senior vice president, worldwide marketing for Reebok; and brand director for Mars in both the UK and US.
