Benefits of mentoring
There are numerous benefits to mentoring including:
- Helping you to identify and achieve career goals;
- Gaining a broader perspective on career options, opportunities and paths to succeed;
- Boosting confidence and self awareness;
- Making new connections and broadening your networks;
- Gaining support that is tailored to your individual needs;
- Undertaking regular training sessions – from careers mapping through to creating your personal brand and boosting resilience and assertiveness.
How the Rise Mentoring Programme works
Our mentees benefit from a range of support, which is designed to fit around existing work commitments. This includes:
- Being matched with an industry mentor, with at least 12 hours one-to-one contact;
- Monthly mentee meetings and access to industry events to help broaden your networks;
- Regular, bite sized training sessions – from careers mapping through to creating your personal brand and boosting resilience and assertiveness.
- Peer-to-peer support from your fellow mentees, as well as guidance and support from the Rise team.
Mentees
Alice Rose
Alice Rose loves taking on new challenges, making new connections and being creative. Alice works in Events Marketing for Media Business Insight, covering media and television industry events including the Broadcast Awards and MPTS. She is passionate about creating fun and engaging content.
MENTOR: Louise Wells, Managing Director, Bubble Agency
Aoife Daly
Aoife Daly has been attending Rise events for years and this year has decided it is the right time to become a mentee. Aoife is ready to focus on her career, learn new skills, and expand her network in a safe and trusted space.
MENTOR: Sue Farrell, Technologist, Channel 4
Hannah Wells
Hannah Wells has been working in the broadcast industry for nearly 4 years and hopes the Rise programme can help give an insight into what can be achieved. Hannah is looking to boost her knowledge of the industry and gain new opportunities to grow.
MENTOR: John Griffiths, Chief Commercial Officer, Spicy Mango
Cloe Wood
Hello! My name is Cloe Wood and I am a Technical Operations Engineer at ITV Content Services. I’m originally from Cambridgeshire and I’m currently based in West Yorkshire. I also have an adorable pet hamster named Linda who loves carrots!
MENTOR: Elaine Sampson, Broadcast Engineering Manager, Timeline TV
Emma Weeks
Emma Weeks is currently an Account Executive at Bubble Agency, which specialises in PR and marketing for B2B media and entertainment, where she started her public relations journey nearly two years ago as a Junior Account Executive. Prior to entering the industry, Emma gained a BA in English and Media and MA in Public Relations and Multimedia Communications from Solent University.
MENTOR: Amisa Saari-Stout, PR and External Comms Lead, Vizrt Group
Iwona Czardybon
Iwona Czardybon has had a diverse career in the media and VFX industry, having worked on a variety of projects ranging from commercials and independent shorts to feature films, digital signage and cloud-based solutions. As Iwona gained more experience, she found herself increasingly drawn to the technical side of things, particularly software development. This led to a transition into a role as a Project Manager, where Iwona has leveraged her knowledge of both the creative and technical aspects of the industry to lead successful projects and teams.
MENTOR: Catriona Tate, Sales Director, UK & MEA, Accedo TV
Jessica Horst
Approaching her 20th year in Television, Jessica Horst has successfully established her career in Broadcast Operations with major Networks across Australia and the UK (Network TEN, Channel 7, ITV). Jessica has been responsible for the transmission of several major events, including The Queen’s Funeral. She is also an avid fan of travel, dogs and decent coffee.
MENTOR: Morwen Williams, Director of Operations, BBC News
Lorraine Panman
Lorraine Panman is an award-winning Programme Manager experienced in delivering and launching complex sports and entertainment video streaming services for external clients. She is a well-respected, detail-oriented, decisive and trusted team leader who builds successful delivery teams.
MENTOR: Rebecca Moore, Director of Technical Operations, Warner Media
Madeleine Chappell
Maddy Chappell is currently working as a Digital Marketing Assistant at Object Matrix. Although fairly new to the role, she is thoroughly enjoying the variety that the marketing role has to offer. Maddy works alongside the Marketing Manager who inspires her to do the best she can and to continue to improve herself. Working within the media technology sector, Maddy has found the industry to be incredibly interesting and has been learning new things every day. She is passionate about furthering her education, which is why she has joined the Rise Mentoring programme.
MENTOR: Lauren Carter Jones, Marketing Manager, Media Business Insights (MBI),
Marina Cantabrana
Marina Cantabrana is an entrepreneurial and resourceful leader, with expertise across B2B and B2C SaaS. She thrives in changing environments and excels at building from scratch, scaling and empowering teams. For the last 9 years, she led the vision and operations of cross-functional GTM programs globally, connecting the technical and commercial worlds with a customer-first, data-driven approach. A strong communicator, Marina builds trust and influence with key stakeholders, connects the dots, accelerates communication and drives tangible results.
MENTOR: Heidi Shakespeare, CEO, Memmon
May Coughlan
May Coughlan is a Video Technician currently working at Universal Pixels. May has over 10 years of experience in the AV industry. After starting her career in TV, she moved into live event video in 2021. May can usually be found touring the world, most recently with Robbie Williams.
MENTOR: Stephen Stewart, Media Consultant
Michelle Kegg
Michelle Kegg is a Sales Leader for Media at Endava, with 13 years of experience in the Media industry. She is responsible for shaping and executing complex propositions in software development and digital transformation. Michelle manages key accounts, drives new business, and develops partnerships through her extensive network. She specialises in Advertising, Broadcast & Sports and creates and executes go-to-market strategies in these areas.
MENTOR: Clare Butler, VP Marketing, Grabyo
Rebecca Hodgson
Rebecca Hodgson is an experienced Producer and Manager, now working on the Avid Workflow Consultancy team delivering advice and training to broadcasters across the EMEA region.
MENTOR: Kerry Shreeve, Vice President of Technology Operations, Discovery Inc
Sam Stafford
Sam Stafford is from Southampton and is currently an engineer for a post-production company based in Bristol. Sam went to university in 2016 where she studied Live Sound Technology and has been working in the industry for around two years.
MENTOR: Jackie Howes, Director Media Infrastructure Architect, Discovery Inc
Sophie Glaas
Sophie Glaas is a Delivery Manager at Hawk-Eye Innovations, and is responsible for the delivery of software development for Hawk-Eye’s tennis and tour sports systems. She has been in the tech industry for 5 years, and is looking forward to honing her career path with Rise. She also enjoys playing golf!
MENTOR: Nic Kemp, Senior Workflow Consultant, Adobe
Tazmin Ercen
Tazmin is an Innovation Designer at Adobe. Her mission is to empathise with their enterprise customers' challenges and map out their business landscape and objectives. She then translates this into bespoke customer experience journeys that support Adobe's clients’ strategic vision whilst also articulating the value of the Adobe experience cloud solutions. Tazmin has always had an interest in the creative side of the world so likes to always make a conscious effort to use creative tools to represent her work visually – She finds it not only helps her think but can actually be a much easier way for people to understand. Outside work, she likes to DJ as a hobby.
MENTOR: Mike Ward, Head of Marketing, Singular.live
Tia Shenton
Tia is a young broadcast Engineer apprentice, who’s just graduated college. She started from a creative background and is charging headfirst into technical engineering. Tia has been lucky to experience a large area of the industry and is eager to see more in her journey to complete her degree apprenticeship!
MENTOR: Carys Hughes, Principal Engineer, Video Presentation & PQ, Sky
Toria Farrell
From BBC, Red Bee and now DAZN, Toria has inhabited many TX suites and can talk Playout with a passion! She has launched channels, been part of migration teams and delivered hours of live sport, news and entertainment. Toria is good at partnering in technical environments and is now relishing the fast pace of DAZN. She looks forward to working with a Rise mentor to unlock new ways to approach her career growth.
MENTOR: Gabby Redfern, Group Content Services Director, Sky
Zoe Mumba
Zoe oversees PR and Communications at Bitmovin, an Emmy award-winning video streaming company, helping it maximise brand visibility among its target audience. Before joining Bitmovin, Zoe worked at a PR agency for seven years, delivering communication campaigns for renowned brands and dynamic startups.
MENTOR: Katie Tweedle, Head of Communications, Whisper TV
Zoë Kennedy
Broadcasting has been Zoë's home since leaving university over the last 12-13 years (with a brief sabbatical) and continues to be the industry that she is able to combine genuine interest with a career that has combined the disciplines of business analysis, change management and implementation consultancy.
MENTOR: Dee Davison, Director of Sustainability, Deluxe
Kavita Dill
Kavita Dill is Head of Scale Programmes for the EMEA License Management team at Adobe. Her hobbies/interests including DIY/renovating, watching terrible reality TV shows, cooking, going for long walks with her dog and reading books. She loves to learn and believes you truly learn something unique every day. She is excited for her journey at Rise which will help in her personal and professional growth.
MENTOR: Laurissa Yeung Shea, Business Analyst, Warner Media,
Kerry Freeman
Kerry has had a 15-year-long career working with partners to implement strategies to help manage, preserve and monetise invaluable audio visual assets. She is delighted to be in the Mentoring program, having previously been a board member, illustrating that we all need guidance at any point in our careers.
MENTOR: Margaret Davies, Head of Market Area Operations UK, IE & APAC, Red Bee Media
Hitomi Hamaba
Hitomi is Head of Product at Sony looking after news solutions. She’s originally from Japan, and was a news correspondent for a broadcaster. After moving to the UK to pursue MBA, she changed her job function to product management in the tech/media sector.
MENTOR: Stephen Tallamy, CTO, EditShare
Deanna O'Brien
After university, Deanna worked in the MCR for 7 years as a first-line engineer before joining the second-line satellite engineering team 3 years ago. Outside of work, she is heavily involved in Scouting and enjoys spending her spare time outside and exploring new places.
MENTOR: Camilla James, Director, TechEx
Leila Ghazzawi
As a UK Rental Coordinator Leila helps coordinate the delivery of the full range of rental equipment across post-production and broadcast rental needed for our clients to deliver some of the worlds most watched content such as the FIFA World Cup. Leila joins us fresh from her studies where she studied Visual Communications at Birmingham City University.
MENTOR: Liz Clarke, VP Client Operations, Mirriad
Louise Jones
Working in the media/broadcast industry is Louise's passion and she has gained amazing experiences in many areas of the field. She wants to grow in her career and feels being a part of this mentoring programme will be a great opportunity to realise her potential and open her mind to possibilities for the next steps in her career.
MENTOR: Charlotte Wheeler, Event Director, Media and Production Show (MPTS)
Chrissy Agius
Chrissy is a 23-year-old broadcast engineer who loves working in the vision department, but is increasingly finding herself learning about all the other technical areas that contribute to the final broadcast. Outside of work, she loves to dance and bakes a really good cake!
MENTOR: Purminder Gandhu, Lead for BBC Edge Forum, BBC
Mentors
Amisa Saari-Stout
Amisa Saari-Stout is the PR and External Communications Lead at Vizrt Group. With several years of experience running proactive press offices and award-winning campaigns, Amisa has a track record of raising companies' profiles through integrated public relations efforts. Motivated by humanizing traditional tech brands, Amisa focuses on sharing customer-centric stories that make an impact.
MENTEE: Emma Weeks, Senior Account Executive, Bubble Agency
Camilla James
Camilla has 20 years’ experience in Strategy & Architecture, Project Management and Operations roles, starting initially in Financial Services and moving into M&A at PwC. She joined Techex in 2017 where they use their own in-house software and trusted partner technology to transport and transform mission critical live video workflows for the most innovative broadcast and media companies. Camilla’s roles have covered team leadership, business transformation and more recently securing Westbridge as a funding partner to support accelerated growth. Techex have an incredibly exciting year ahead and Camilla loves working alongside such a talented team who share the same passion for our customers, partners and technology. Camilla was delighted to be shortlisted for the Rise 2022 Business Award and is thrilled to be selected as a mentor this year in support of the fabulous work Rise continues to do. Having had strong mentors and role models throughout her career, she is passionate about empowering women in the workplace to become high performers whilst staying true to their values and goals.
MENTEE: Deanna O'Brien, Satellite Systems and IP Engineer, Arqiva
Carys Hughes
Carys is currently Principal Engineer, Video Presentation & PQ within Sky’s Display Engineering team. She focuses on image quality, from the perspective of Sky Glass’ panel and image pipeline implementation – but with an understanding of Sky’s “glass to Glass” video pipelines. Carys has previously worked in Content Engineering roles at Sky, with her work including solutions design, compression evaluation and a range of analysis, technical specification and demonstration activities. She worked alongside her colleagues to provide the research, solution development and subject matter expertise required to deliver HDR to Sky’s UK On Demand and Live Sports services. Whatever the role, Carys’ working motivation is to see engaging content being delivered to ordinary homes, in its’ best form. As a former Rise mentee herself (shout-out to Dee Davison!), Carys is also passionate about nurturing healthy technical community and enabling other engineers to find their own place within our sector. She currently channels that by working within the SMPTE UK management board, to foster common-sense student and early-career engineer engagement approaches. With that in mind, she’s really excited to get to know Tia this year!
MENTEE: Tia ShentonBroadcast Engineer Apprentice, Channel 4
Catriona Tate
Catriona (Cat) is the Sales Director UK and MEA at Accedo. She has always loved TV and has been very lucky to work at the cutting edge of telly and how we consume it since the birth of “on demand.” A senior business developer with a strong sales and marketing track record in TV tech, OTT and streaming media, she’s proud to have worked with some of the best brands and companies in business. She’s been involved with Rise for nearly 4 years, as part of its advisory board to increase Rise's funding and growth, mentoring some amazing women as they work to realise their true potential.
MENTEE: Iwona Czardybon, Senior Technical Project Manager, Pixomondo
Charlotte Wheeler
Charlotte Wheeler joined the Broadcast brand and what was the Production Show in March 2004. Since then, over the last 19 years, Charlotte has worked across many iterations of the UK show (Broadcast Production Show & BVE) to deliver a singular UK trade show for the conte, media and entertainment industries. Launching the Media Production Show in 2016, under an MBO, Charlotte set out to continue to deliver for the industry and after purchasing the assets to BVE in 2019, The Media Production & Technology Show as it is known today, once again became the UK’s biggest and only trade show for the markets it serves. Now in 2023 it is sold out in the Grand Hall of Olympia and continues to grow from strength to strength.
MENTEE: Louise Jones, Content Operations and Previewing Supervisor, WBD
Clare Butler
Clare Butler is an award winning marketer with 30 years B2B experience, most of which has been in the tech/telco space within multinationals and startups. A commercially-focused and customer-centric marketer, she is well versed in bringing the full end-to-end spectrum needed to drive growth, and believes in data to accelerate change in organizations. In recent years, mainly because she has 2 young girls and years-worth of wishing there was more representation of women in the industries worked in, she has become interested in ways to actively address gender inequality in the hope for a brighter future for her kids, and others that are currently experiencing challenges. Clare is grateful that Grabyo is a supportive employer in helping her, and other colleagues, drive initiatives to upskill women in the sector and people from diverse backgrounds to help drive change. She is privileged and honoured to be a Rise mentor for 2023, and is looking forward to developing new friendships and really moving the needle in a subject that is important to all of us. From a personal perspective, Clare is a friendly, people person, and has had the privilege of representing her country at Softball for 7+ years and been National Champion for 10 years. She has jumped out of a perfectly sound aircraft in the name of charity, has been lucky enough to have travelled to many countries in all continents of the world, all of which has helped shape her into the person she is today - a kind, grateful mum who is committed to enjoying work and life in general.
MENTEE: Michelle Kegg, Sales Lead - Media, Endava
Dee Davison
Director of Sustainability - Global, Deluxe Media Entertainment. Dee has worked in the film and broadcast industries for 20 years in commercial and public sectors. Highlights of her career include advising the late Tessa Jowell DBE on film policy for the UK Government, investing funds in growth strategies at the UK Film Council and leading on accessibility and energy conservation for the UK cinema trade body. Dee has held several corporate level roles in strategy at Deluxe before taking the global lead on sustainability in 2021, driven by her passion for businesses to thrive from a triple bottom line (People, Planet, Profit) and her long standing personal commitment to charitable work. She is Chair of the SMPTE Cloud Sustainability Working Group and a Trustee of Age UK Croydon.
MENTEE: Zoë Kennedy, Senior Business Analyst, BBC Studios
Elaine Sampson
Elaine Sampson has worked in the Broadcast Industry for almost thirty three years and witnessed it change dramatically. After graduating from Ravensbourne, she worked at Sky, Panasonic (on-site at the BBC) and Telecine-Cell, where she covered a number of events including the Olympics, Wimbledon and the Brit Awards. At first Elaine specialised in VTRs, working as the only female Engineer at both Panasonic Broadcast and Telecine-cell, she often took calls from clients who assumed she was secretarial, but it didn’t take them long to realise that she was a confident engineer! Elaine then moved to Formula 1 where she worked for twenty two years, travelling to almost 300 motorsport events during this time. Considering Formula 1 is a male dominated sport, there were a few female engineers before her, but very few women in authority. She was however, promoted a couple of times to Engineering Supervisor of one of the largest outside broadcasts in the world. As well as enjoying dance, music and time in Dorset, Elaine is passionate about education completing a BSc and an MBA in her spare time. At the start of 2020, Elaine joined Timeline as Broadcast Engineering Manager at Stratford (BT Sport). This role moved her into management just before the Pandemic, which was an interesting time! Elaine felt the Broadcast Industry adapted well, with Timeline at the forefront of remote operations. Alongside managing two fabulous teams, she has run a number of projects for Timeline. She was also involved in BT Sport’s ST2110 project, which required much finessing and training following installation. Now BT Sport are themselves in a transitional period, so every day she looks forward to new challenges!
MENTEE: Cloe Wood, Technical Operations Engineer, ITV Content Services
Gabby Redfern
Gabby is Group Director Content Services at Sky, with more than 30 years’ experience in media operations having previously held several senior international technology and operational roles in the television industry. Gabby joined Sky early in 2022 from BBC Studios where she was EVP of Global Operations. Prior to this she was SVP of Media Operations at Discovery, overseeing teams based in Europe and the Middle East. And before that Gabby was VP of Technology & Operations at Turner Broadcasting, responsible for the media technology strategy and management of tech and operations for EMEA. During her career Gabby has launched more than 150 TV channels and overseen the launch of numerous VOD services and other products. She’s worked in more than 25 different departments spanning creative, engineering and operations.
MENTEE: Toria Farrell, Operational Lead, DAZN
Heidi Shakespeare
As Memnon's CEO, Heidi Shakespeare spearheads the company's overall operations and strategy. With 25+ years of executive expertise in driving sales growth across the broadcast and digital archiving industries, as well as a strong background in marketing, Heidi is pivotal to the company's ongoing growth and planned international expansion. Prior to joining Memnon, she held key leadership positions at Iron Mountain and Bonded Services Group, as well as sitting on the board of AFL's European Commission.
MENTEE: Marina Cantabrana, Head of Product Marketing, disguis
Jackie Howes
Jackie has over 20 years of experience working in the broadcast industry and has worked for a number of different companies, always working in a role that bridges the gap between traditional IT and broadcast engineers. Today, as the Senior Director of Media Infrastructure Architecture at Warner Bros. Discovery, Jackie is directly responsible for scoping, defining and coordinating both large and small Infrastructure systems that have a direct impact on the company’s technical capabilities and profitability. She works alongside global teams and external suppliers to architect infrastructure ecosystems that support the technical and operational aspects of production and broadcast systems. Jackie is a strong believer in sharing knowledge and endeavours to create an environment where every individual is able to choose the path they wish to take.Jackie is recognised as a person who is at the forefront of disruption and innovation within the broadcast and media industry. Through inspired leadership she has helped to deliver ground-breaking technology and business benefits.
MENTEE: Sam Stafford, Engineer, Evolutions Post Production
John Griffiths
John, who is based in United Kingdom, has 28 years’ experience in the telecommunications, media and technology sector. After obtaining a degree in Electronic Engineering he began his career with Kingston Communications and has subsequently worked in various departments and roles including engineering, product management and business development at start-up businesses through to large multinationals including BT Plc, NDS Limited and Cisco. Currently, John serves as Chief Commercial Officer for Spicy Mango Ltd, a leading specialist software development and media technology consultancy business with clients including, Dyn Media, ITV, Discovery and RTL, where he is responsible for leading the commercial side of the business.
MENTEE: Hannah Wells, Bookings Coordinator, Timeline TV
Katie Tweedle
Katie Tweedle is Head of Communications at leading sports and unscripted Production Company Whisper. Katie joined the team in 2018 and helped spearhead its re-brand, ensuring Whisper had a brand look, language and values that truly reflected its ambitious aims and which would enable the company to clearly communicate its strong messaging about what it wanted to be and where it wanted to go. Passionate about brands and how communications can make people feel, Katie manages Whisper's brand messaging and day to day communications. She is also one sixth of the company's diverse Senior Management Team. Prior to working at Whisper, Katie was Head of Communications for the Red Bull Racing Formula One team, a position she held for ten years. During her time with Red Bull, Katie helped train many younger team members, equipping them with the skills and experience needed for enduring in a fast-paced, and often unforgiving, environment. She is looking forward to being part of the programme.
MENTEE: Zoe Mumba, Senior Manager, PR & Comms, Bitmovin
Kerry Shreeve
Kerry Shreeve is a winner of the latest award celebrating the Future CIO 100, who are the rising stars of the technology and business world, honing their skills to be tomorrow’s leaders. Kerry, has over 25 years experience in the IT and Broadcast Media sector. Starting on a Service Desk and working her way up over the years to manage global technology teams. She now provides mentoring to others and strives on spotting and helping young talent follow in her footsteps, something she’s renowned for. She’s worked in insurance, banking, healthcare, digital and broadcast in many global companies. Kerry was never trained in technology, she left school and grew into her roles, gaining and sharing experiences on the way. She’s worked for a number of startups and uses a common sense approach to programmes she oversees. Known by many as a doer, failure is alien to her. She loves change and transformation, helping organisations strive to next levels whilst streamlining the way they work. At the same time, it’s important that staff are involved and taken on change journeys as these are key to success. We see it so often- changes are done to people, this is why so many fail. Last year she won a Woman in Technology award for Rise, a group for Gender Diversity and is keen to help children in education move into roles in Technology.
MENTEE: Rebecca Hodgson, Workflow Consultant, Avid Technology
Lauren Carter-Jones
After finishing her degree in ‘Spanish for International Business’ Lauren was offered a 1-year internship with a Cambridge Tech start up, she jumped at the chance to get involved in all aspects of the marketing mix. Three years later she had experienced so much and was loving the opportunity but needed to take the next step. Lauren then landed a 9-month contract with another Cambridge Tech start up with a tiny 2-person global marketing team and tons of possibility! Having travelled the world, seen so many amazing places, and had the opportunity to grow her marketing skills and develop a wonderful network of contacts, Lauren took maternity leave and had her son. After a year out being a ‘mama’, Lauren returned to her role post pandemic, and it just wasn’t the same. Prompting her to get on the job hunt… A contact posted they were looking for a marketer and as they say the rest is history – Lauren is now Head of Events Marketing at Media Business Insight. She loves her job and oversees the marketing for a varied portfolio of events including the well-known large-scale tradeshow, MPTS, as well as multiple regional brand events right through to their renowned industry awards. Lauren is trilingual, speaking Spanish and French, and she loves to travel, network and learn!
MENTEE: Madeleine Chappell, Digital Marketing Assistant, Object Matrix
Laurissa Yeung Shea
BUSINESS ANALYST with WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY - With over 20 years of broadcast and gaming experience ranging from roles from an Editor to Transmission Controller, to establishing the Field Department providing training to gather video research for augmented reality and computer vision, Laurissa is utilising her skills having pivoted into her current role as a Business Analyst with Warner Bros. Discovery specialising in content systems covering the UK, Nordic and EMEA regions. She has always has an appetite for understanding how technology and systems are connected and integrated, as well as for problem solving. Her experience brings a combination of team leadership and project management having led technical projects such as System Upgrades, Workflow Migrations, and Channel Management system development and improvements. She is a mother of 2, and currently working on new personal challenges outside of her comfort zone by trying new activities including: Fencing, Clay Pigeon Shooting, Floristry and Zumba. Previously a Mentee in 2020 with Rise, and having had opportunities to mentor also, she understands how exciting and important it is to be part of a group of like-minded individuals where you can share knowledge, support and challenge each other. She feels that no matter where you are in your personal or professional life, you can make a positive change for yourself, through learning skills to take you on your next adventures, which can in turn help and benefit others.
MENTEE: Kavita Dill, Head of Scale Programmes - EMEA License Manager, Adobe
Liz Clarke
Effective, future-focussed and adaptable Senior Client Operations/Production Management/Client Service/Sales leader with extensive experience of building enduring, productive relationships globally in the Post Production, Film, TV and Advertising industries. Skilled at negotiating budgets and resources and managing projects from client brief through to delivery, including building, enhancing and advising on appropriate management systems and workflows. Possess a strong work ethic, set high standards for self and others and drive a continuous improvement culture. Proven success in securing new business and growing revenue from existing accounts and at working with and influencing at all organisational levels, including C suite. Client-centric trusted advisor who adds value by leveraging depth of experience, intuition, listening and communication skills to facilitate identification and resolution of potential problems which encourages customer loyalty. A calm, empathetic leader who creates and leads collaborative, accountable teams which consistently deliver KPIs. Change agent able to navigate the uncertainty of organisational transformation with confidence and bring team on the journey to ensure seamless customer experience.
MENTEE: Leila Ghazzawi, Rental Coordinator, Gravity Media
Louise Wells
Louise is the Managing Director of Bubble Agency, a global PR, marketing and events specialist for the media and entertainment technology and services sectors. Her career in B2B media and entertainment technology PR began 17 years ago, 15 of which she has spent agency-side. Since joining Bubble Agency in 2017, Louise has been instrumental in building Bubble’s talented team, implementing procedures and processes and overseeing client services. During her time agency-side, Louise has worked with many leading companies in the media and entertainment sector including Ateme, Avid, Cinesite, CVP, Deluxe, dock10, EMG, Ross Video, Signiant and Telstra.
MENTEE: Alice Rose, Events Marketing Assistant, Media Business Insight
Margaret davies
Margaret is Head of Market Area UK, Ireland and APAC at Red Bee Media and is responsible for the customer relationships and service delivery performance across those territories. Margaret joined Red Bee’s leadership team in November 2018 as CMO and took responsibility for the company’s largest Market Area by revenue in April 2021. During her 20+ years’ career in sales, account management and sales support, Margaret has held commercial roles focused on linear playout, distribution and OTT, and worked at BBC Technology, Ascent Media, Red Bee Media and Brightcove. Her early career was in Account Management at Ericsson in Ireland and Germany, before joining Ericsson in the UK in 1998. Margaret holds a BA International Marketing & Languages from Dublin City University, Ireland.
MENTEE: Kerry Freeman, Head of Sales UKI, IMES
Mike Ward
Bringing over 20 years of experience in the broadcast space, Mike Ward is the Head of Marketing for the revolutionary digital overlay platform Singular.live. Mike established and runs the UK HQ of Reality Check Solutions (RCS) - the leading graphics, video and data solutions provider - as MD for Europe and the Middle East. Following RCS’ investment into Singular.Live, Mike is responsible for all Singular.live’s marketing activity. Prior to RCS, Mike headed up a design agency and spent ten years at Sky, starting in media sales before moving to Italy to establish their in-house media sales function.
MENTEE: Tazmin Ercen, Innovation Designer, Adobe
Morwen Williams
Morwen Williams is Director of UK Operations for BBC News, leading the technical and studio teams of BBC News. She is responsible for creative technical news gathering as well as all news studios in London and Salford at MediaCityUK and editing in London - a team of more than 750 people. She is the bridge between the BBC’s journalism and technology- using technology to its fullest to tell stories better for audiences. Previously she was BBC News’s Deputy UK Editor and led on major special (particularly Royal) events in the UK, and has worked as a programme output editor and producer in the BBC Regions. She is chair of the WBU (World Broadcasting Union) International Media Connectivity Group, working with other broadcasters to find common solutions in this area. She hascompleted the Media Transformation Challenge at Harvard University’s Kennedy School as well as visiting Stanford University to share learning there. Morwen is a keen supporter of the BBC’s apprentice schemes to deliver new and more diverse technical talent in the BBC. She’s been a mentor for RISE Women in Broadcasting and the John Schofield Trust for young journalists. She is proud to have been named RISE Women in Broadcasting Woman of the Year 2019 at IBC. Morwen is married, with two sons. A keen road cyclist and loves swimming and skiing, she comes from a family of award-winning cheesemakers and grocers in the north of England.
MENTEE: Jessica Horst, Network Director (Broadcast Services - ITV), Red Bee Media
Nic Kemp
Nic works as a Global Workflow Consultant for Adobe Inc, she leads the technical and creative work using Adobe Creative Cloud tools for their largest account, WPP. Prior to Adobe, she has worked as a Product Director for IPV, a leading media asset management system leading the Adobe integrations, at the DPP running the Next Generation Production network and 15 years as a workflow consultant for system integrators and her own company leading large-scale transformational change projects for enterprises such as BBC, Disney, Warner Media and News Corp. She hosted events for Rise in lockdown - the ‘Rise In-Conversation’ series interviewing female leaders in the media tech industry. Then she went on the run two Rise mentoring programmes in the UK and the first one in North America in 2021 - 22. She is also a mum of two daughters.
MENTEE: Sophie Glaas, Delivery Manager, Hawk-Eye Innovations
Purminder Gandhu
25 Years of Audio Expertise in Broadcasting and now working to help shape broadcast technology solutions for now and the future. Purminder joined the BBC as a trainee studio manager in the early 1990’s, progressing through to a senior studio director. A varied career, she’s provided audio expertise for 25 years across domestic and World Service BBC radio output. This has included recording, editing and mixing in live studios, operating radio trucks and building broadcast facilities on location domestically and overseas for major events. Purminder now leads the BBC Edge Group, a pan BBC forum of live contribution and connectivity subject matter experts. The group engages with the wider broadcasting industry and manufacturers; and aims to learn and share through piloting innovation in tech and steering the workflows across the BBC. Purminder was part of the award winning team that championed the development of a 5G non public network, which was deployed successfully to provide coverage for the Coronation. Purminder also regularly speaks on technology panels at industry events, and is part of BBC R&D’s D&I working group.
MENTEE: Chrissy Agius, Junior Broadcast Engineer, Limitless Broadcast
Rebecca Moore
Rebecca is director of technical operations at CNN International, based at the network’s London bureau. As part of her role, she is responsible for the day-to-day leadership of the London and Abu Dhabi control rooms, studios, lighting, and makeup teams. She has been with CNN for over 25 years, and is skilled in the fields of broadcasting, communication, change management, and television. She has a BA in communications and media studies from Birmingham City University.
MENTEE: Lorraine Panman, Programme Manager, Pulselive
Stephen Stewart
A television and radio professional with over 40 years in the industry, Stephen has enjoyed roles as varied as commercial producer, gallery director for tv programmes ranging from Formula 1 to UK Parliament. As well as TV production, Stephen is experienced in TV playout and media services having worked for the BBC, Channel 4, Thames Television and Deluxe. The lure of AI and machine learning saw Stephen move into the advertising technology space with Mirriad Advertising before becoming COO at Take 1 where he was responsible for leading and restructuring the Operations, Product and Media Technology teams and launching Access Services and Localisation/Dubbing, delivering thousands of hours of content for some of the world’s largest production companies and networks. The resulting growth in revenue led to the successful acquisition of Take 1 by Verbit.ai Stephen is now an advisor to Media organisations, a Rise Advisory Board member & mentor, an active contributor to the Rise Up Academy, as well as being Vice Chair of the Royal Television Society’s Technology Centre.
MENTEE: May Coughlan, Video Technician, Universal Pixel
Stephen Tallamy
Stephen Tallamy is the Chief Technology Officer at EditShare and has two decades of experience in the media and entertainment industry. He has pioneered cloud and hybrid systems for both media delivery and production industries. Stephen holds a range of patents in the areas of metadata management, intelligent video content generation and video access control. At EditShare Stephen is responsible for driving innovation, architecture and cloud which led to EditShare winning an Emmy Award in 2022 for cloud enabled workflows.
MENTEE: Hitomi Hamaba, Head of Product, Sony
Sue Farrell
Dr Sue Farrell is the Broadcast Engineering Manager at Channel Four, where she leads a technical team working with partner companies to specify and deliver on-air services. She was previously a media and technology consultant, providing strategic business and technology advisory services to media companies worldwide. Prior to that, Sue was Head of Architecture at Red Bee Media, reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, managing a team of business analysts and technical architects responsible for broadcast and information technology architecture. She began her career in broadcasting as Technical Manager in the BBC, where she was responsible for the technical delivery of interactive television services and online publishing systems. Her previous experience was as a postdoctoral research scientist in geophysics, working with the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado, following a PhD in Science at Monash University in Melbourne.
MENTEE: Aoife Daly, Senior Media Coordinator, UKTV