Trainer Profiles

Ian Jindal

Until recently Ian was group e-commerce director for Littlewoods and ShopDirect Group. Littlewoods and ShopDirect Group turnover more than £3bn per annum. As well as being leading multi-channel retailers, Shop Direct is the UK's largest online fashion retailer with online sales of over £100m.

Before that Ian was head of online operations at the BBC, establishing the team that built over 400 BBC websites. Ian was also business development director for Thomson Science and Professional, is a non-executive director of Business Link for London, and founder of www.electronicpublishing.org.

John Weir

John is a successful publisher of both magazines and websites, and for five years led the technology and internet strategy for one of the UK's biggest publishers, Future PLC.

During his time at Future, he led the Technology Group through its most profitable period, launching more than 25 new magazines and websites, including Internet Works, Linux Format, Digital Camera Magazine and Microsoft Windows XP - The Official Magazine.

He has also contributed articles to several leading magazines and journals, including The Guardian, Media Week and Campaign.

An accomplished presenter, John has spoken on media and technology issues at a number of industry events, including Magazines 05, FIPP , Internet World and OPP Live. He has also briefed members of Parliament on internet issues.

He is a trainer and lecturer for PPA in London, and a director of Excite Publishing, the digital publisher. He also advises a number of leading UK companies on their online strategies.

Andrew Hood

Still in his mid 20s, Hood already has an impressive ten year track record of taking high level business requirements through to effective solutions.

Renowned for his pragmatic skills in developing effective e-business strategies, Hood's marketing career began at All-Hotels.com. Fresh out of school, Hood developed the systems that led to All-Hotels becoming one of the biggest e-commerce sites in Scotland, selling for £1.425m in 2002 to Online Travel Corporation. Now owned by Lastminute.com, the systems Hood created are still used today.

At 22 years old and still an undergraduate, Hood joined one of Europe's leading search marketing specialists where he developed one of the first online return on investment tracking systems, pioneering the way in the emerging online marketing sector.

Ten months after graduation, Hood set up Lynchpin, a marketing company providing online analysis and consultancy using cutting edge techniques that Hood designed. Hood's vision for Lynchpin is to provide world class internet marketing capabilities for blue chip brands by providing succinct solutions that make best use of marketing budgets.

Out of the office, Hood is a keen musician, playing violin in an amateur orchestra that has seen him complete three European tours. He is also a self-taught pianist, and enjoys travelling when his work schedule allows.

David Hughes

David runs an independent digital marketing consultancy, Non-Line Marketing, which helps clients get the most out of their on and off-line integrated communications. His experience of off-line direct marketing allied to over 10 years experience in digital marketing allows him to identify and exploit cross-channel opportunities. In a world where digital and traditional worlds are beginning to collide, David helps clients optimise both these techniques.

David has been working in the digital marketing field for over 10 years, initially as the New Media Development Manager at Claritas (now Acxiom), and then for six years as a strategic consultant at Emailvision. Before this he was the data acquisition manager for Claritas Group Operations developing high-volume off-line consumer survey programmes across Europe.

In the data-driven digital world this breadth of experience gives David insight into the critical areas of on-line marketing:

Database strategy and management
Data gathering both on and off-line
Email marketing strategy, technical and operational issues
Creating seamless email and web customer journeys
Integrating digital with other channels

Over the past five years David has been working at the heart of the digital marketing world. He is the course tutor for the Institute of Direct Marketing's Diploma in Digital Marketing qualification as well as being a member of the Certificate and Diploma in Interactive Marketing Examination board and a member of their Digital Marketing Council. A number of professional short courses are run by David including BtoB Email Marketing, an advanced two day email marketing course and a three-day "Complete Digital Marketing" programme.

As a founder member of the Direct Marketing Association Email Marketing Council he has worked on many industry initiatives and is a regular speaker for the DMA on email legal, strategic, creative and multi-channel issues. He is the author of the DMA/tank! Email Marketing Benchmarking Report that provides insight into email key performance indicators on a quarterly basis.

David works with a number of organisations, both BtoB and BtoC, helping them to understand and optimise digital marketing opportunities. He also works with technology providers and agency partners to add a "professional services" dimension to their offering. Working directly with clients, David exploits the opportunities that digital marketing creates from gathering profile data, developing testing strategies through to building and analysing contact and conversion strategies. His specialist knowledge of email marketing data, creative and broadcast technologies allows companies to "fast-track" their email marketing programmes so they deliver better results more efficiently.

In 2006 the Chartered Institute of Marketing invited David to join their Faculty of Speakers of their Training Academy and David delivers in-company training and consulting for their client partners. Finally, David is director of the Tank! On-line Marketing Action Group, an invitation-only client-only marketing community. David develops "thought leadership" programmes so that members can understand and better manage critical on-line marketing issues in a 12-18 months time frame.

Bernhard Warner

(TBC)

Tim Fidgeon

Tim lives and breathes usability and copywriting for the web. He's been involved in several award-winning projects over his seven year career and regularly writes and publishes research articles on all aspects of usability. He's passionate about making the Internet better, because he sees it as his way of making the world a better place!

One of Tim's growing interests is 'e-inclusion' - specifically, how websites can be designed to support users with learning difficulties and low levels of literacy. He strongly believes that no-one should be left behind in the digital revolution. Tim writes regular articles and white papers that have been published by, amongst others:

.net magazine
Businesshighlight.org
E-consultancy
Netmag.co.uk
New Media Knowledge
Usability News
Web Standards Group

David Reilly

With over seven years' experience in the digital sector including senior positions at Associated New Media and SEO consultancy Weboptimiser, David is managing director of specialist search marketing agency, Barracuda Digital. Barracuda Digital provides dynamic search engine optimisation and paid search marketing solutions for both clients and agencies delivering exceptional return on investment. In plain speak this means Barracuda Digital gets websites top results in search engines, leading to more customer visits and sales.

David has spoken on search marketing subjects for leading internet authorities, Enhance Media and E-consultancy, written a number of leading SEO white papers for magazines and delivered tailored training courses for IBM, Haygarth Digital and Hatmatic. He is completely passionate about search with a special interest in new search marketing innovations such as optimised RSS, blogging and social search. In has spare time David likes to listen to music, practice his flamenco dancing and explore long-haul destinations. A lucky escape from the tsunami in Sri Lanka two years ago prompted him to set up Barracuda Digital.

Robin Richmond

Robin heads up bigmouthmedia's PPC team, handling clients including British Airways and Hilton. Robin joined bigmouthmedia following several years as a digital marketing manager in the telecoms sector. Robin's team is spread across the four bigmouth offices so he's often jetlagged, but never grumpy. Under Robin's watchful eye, his team at bigmouthmedia has tripled in size and won several industry awards.