Judges

Ali McClintock Warner is a freelance copywriter and editorial consultant working with B2B clients. Ali has produced content for the Chemical, Banking, R&D, IT, HR, Construction, Marketing and Funeral industries. She also spent seven years in Further Education as a senior lecturer in journalism at The University of Roehampton. During her tenure, she was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence.

Cobus Heyl is founder of That Coalition, a fractional events business built on a network of senior event specialists, and co-founder of Ingedelo, a media-tech platform. He was previously co-founder of Mx3 and held senior executive positions at FIPP and the multinational media and technology group Naspers.

I currently work on the Financial Times' newsletter team but have done a number of editing and writing roles since joining the news organisation in 2001. 

Before joining the newsletter team I worked on the social media desk, the world desk and the main news desk in a variety of writing and editing roles. 

Prior to joining the FT I worked for the Press Association, where I trained as a business journalist and ran the financial listings desk. My first entry into online journalism was working at the The Street.co.uk, a US-owned market news website, at the height of the dotcom boom in 2000. I moved  from there to FTMarketWatch, a joint venture between CBSMarketwatch and the FT before moving to the FT in DEcember 2001.

Jacqui was recently appointed Executive Editor at The Independent. She is an experienced newsroom leader with a particular passion for building communities, developing direct relationships with readers and telling stories that matter.

Previously Director of AI at Mail Metro Media, she was responsible for leading AI strategy, adoption and transformation in the commercial team. She was also responsible for commercial and editorial integration at the Daily Mail, Metro, The i Paper and New Scientist, giving her valuable insights into the newsroooms, revenue generation and media partnerships. 

Prior to this, Jacqui held numerous roles at Reach Plc, including Editor in Chief of the Live network (South) and Audience and Content Director for the South West. She was the launch editor of CornwallLive and introduced the first happiness correspondent to a UK newsroom. She was later appointed Discovery Director at Reach plc, responsible for developing new audiences and leading SEO strategy across their network of more than 50 regional news brands. 

She started her career with a brief spell at the Coleraine Chronicle in Northern Ireland, before moving on to the Press Association. After a short period at ITV News, she joined the Nottingham Post as deputy news editor and was appointed editor of The Cornishman newspaper in Penzance in 2009.

She holds a Masters in Journalism Innovation Leadership with distinction from the University of Lancashire, where she delved deep into journalism sustainability and the tensions between audience perceptions and newsroom adoption of artificial intelligence. Her final thesis was entitled ‘Who cares if AI writes the news?’ 

Jocelyn Florence is a producer, strategist, and creative executive based in LA. A translator between the creatives and the suits, her career combines twenty years developing theater, podcasts, editorial, and digital with experience building brands, deals, and the infrastructure that keeps ambitious companies running. She led Quartz's branded content studio to $20M ARR. At Parallel she built and managed a portfolio of CPG investments, led talent partnerships with Venus Williams, Busy Phillips, @bigtimeadultying, and others, and created and produced a podcast with Flea. She also built Prism, a Webby-winning newsletter about being human in inhumane times. Earlier in her career she produced theater, comedy, and music at Ars Nova in New York. She holds an MBA from Chicago Booth and a BA from Middlebury, and sits on the board of Elysian Theater in LA.

With a career in publishing that spans 30 years, John has huge experience helping consumer membership bodies create content programmes that engage members, add value and achieve the aims of the membership body.

Throughout his career John has worked closely with a range of clients including Benenden Health, Historic Scotland, Whale & Dolphin Conservation, GWR and National Trust for Scotland, helping them develop award-winning magazines, online content, podcasts and events.

John Rahim is the founder and editor of The Media Stack. A writer and consultant with 35 years of industry experience, he has interviewed senior executives from the Financial Times, the Guardian, Prospect, and others. He has spent his career working for marketing and technology agencies and has held senior positions at WPP, Publicis and IPG. 

Katie Binns is an award-winning editorial leader and newsletter strategist with 17 years' experience across national media. As former Deputy Editor of Times Money Mentor, she created the industry-recognised Pension Power-up and Couch to £5k audience engagement initiatives and helped grow the publication's newsletter audience significantly. She is now the founder of Pensions & Prosecco and works across editorial, audience and newsletter strategy.

A journalist of 25 years experience, Laura is the co-director of Raised Voices CIC, a non-profit organisation set up to empower those under-represented and or misrepresented in traditional media to tell their own stories. Raised Voices helps charities and non-profits lacking the time, skills or confidence to connect with their communities, through training, tailored communications strategies, tools and resources. It also runs projects taking journalism outside traditional media settings and into communities, working with groups to record and share their histories, memories, opinions and ideas.

Laura was previously Senior Editor (Customer) North West and North Wales for Reach Plc, devising and implementing audience development strategies for two of the UK’s biggest regional news brands, the Liverpool Echo and the Manchester Evening News. She is also a freelance arts and heritage writer with bylines in The Nerve, the BBC and many more, and writes her own newsletter, Stored Honey, about the arts in the North West of England.

Luke is an editor of hyperlocal news platform Blog Preston, editor of The Lead's local network of newsletters and lectures for journalism students in the North West. 

Michelle Manafy has nearly three decades of journalism and publishing experience, more than half of which has been focused squarely on the business of digital media. In her role as editorial director, Michelle is responsible for DCN’s content-related initiatives, including the InContext and InsideDCN newsletters.

Her career has included leadership roles at the Media Industry Newsletter (min), where she concentrated on digital strategies and revenue channels for magazine media; UK-based digital publisher FreePint Limited, where she focused on the  information industry; and Information Today, Inc.‘s Enterprise Group, where she provided content direction on publications and events in the areas of content creation, management, discovery and delivery strategies and tools, enterprise search, and the business of content.

Michelle has written extensively about digital marketing and the future of work at Inc.com, is the co-author of the book Standout Virtual Events, and an academic researcher on AI. She holds a BA in journalism from San Francisco State University.

Find her on Mastodon.

Founder of the International Magazine Centre, supporting independent magazine publishers through events, training, connections and mentoring.

Content strategist, trainer and copywriter for B2B publishers and membership organisations. I'm a former award-winning business journalist and editor as well as digital and communications leader and expert.

1997 - 2017: Legal and tax journalist, Euromoney Institutional Investor

2017 - present: Freelance journalist, writer, editor and proofreader 

My areas of responsibility have included:
 

• Editorial team management (UK and international)

• AI Search Visibility Optimisation - AIO, GEO, AEO

• YouTube Optimisation

• Content Strategy: competitive analysis, defining the audience needs model, defining tone of voice/content strands, recruitment of team to deliver on required objectives.

• News SEO, Tech SEO,

• Product Ownership (building new Content Management Systems)

• Defining editorial best practice around copyright issues

• Media law training for editorial teams

• Managing Picture and Video desks

• Enabling editorial teams to be the best they can be by improving newsroom workflows or partnering with third parties to super-charge coverage and productivity

Thomas Baekdal is a media analyst and publisher of 'baekdal.com', a trade journal for media executives.