Contagious Magazine was conceived in 2005 with the idea of rounding up and reporting on the entire spectrum of innovative, effective and non-invasive strategies in advertising and branding, and the most exciting developments in design, technology and pop culture.
Jess came to Contagious via several other industries, having spent a stint teaching music and drama in France and Italy before returning to London to work as a music producer and occasional writer. One more career change landed her in the advertising industry as Editor of The Reel (a monthly publication showcasing the best global creative in advertising, music videos and short films), before helping to launch the award-winning Contagious. She now runs the Contagious consultancy, offering advice and insight to a number of clients from both agencies and advertisers.
Jess is addicted to the radio and the internet in equal measure, and has a sideline unearthing the ways in which sport is interesting for people who don’t like sport.
www.contagiousmagazine.com

Until recently, Alan was the Strategic Brand Manager for IBM in the UK, with responsibilities that included advertising, the IBM Forum Customer Centres and IBM’s sponsorship activities. He has been with IBM for most of his career and for the past 15 years in various Services Marketing and Brand Management roles. He was closely involved with IBM's transformation from a product company to a market driven, consulting led organisation and launched the successful first campaign for IBM Global Services in 1999 which featured real IBM people.
He worked on the brand repositioning following IBM’s acquisition of PwC Consulting and then on various brand and advertising related projects.
He has recently taken on the role of IBM Client and Programme Executive for the All England Lawn Tennis Club, who host The Wimbledon Tennis Championships. IBM are the Official Technology Partner to the AELTC and this is one of IBM’s biggest global brand events. It’s also an ideal platform for demonstrating applied innovation - for this year’s Championships, IBM developed various ‘apps’ for mobile phones, including an ‘augmented reality’ app and a live scores app for the Apple iPhone.

David Rowan is editor of the UK edition of Wired magazine, which won 2009 Launch of the Year at the British Society of Magazine Editors Awards. He has edited The Guardian's websites, written tech and trend-watching columns for The Times, made TV films for Channel 4 News, and produced satisfyingly long features for The Telegraph Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, The Observer and elsewhere. Trained at The Times, he edited The Guardian's op-ed, education, analysis and Saturday features sections. Most recently he edited The Jewish Chronicle. He curated an exhibition of British creative talent for the Government’s Cabinet Forum conference in October, where he was a speaker, and often chairs and gives keynote speeches at conferences - recent engagements having included the Hello Digital Conference, the Luxury Briefing Conference, the Association of Online Publishers Conference, events for the Marketing Society, Channel 4, and the European Cultural and Creative Industries Summit.

Mark started his career in product design as a designer and engineer with Apple, after designing rockets for NASA. He spent several years there before moving into the agency business at IDEO, fusing technology, design, and innovation with business and consumer insights.

After two startup companies, he moved to Asia to take up the post of general manager for a design & manufacturing firm in Malaysia, VS Industries. Mark started his career with OgilvyOne in 2006 as Digital Lead, founding the Ogilvy Digital Innovation Lab, institutionalizing and enabling innovation & product design capabilities in brand communication, marketing, and advertising, as well as incubating new business models.

His educational backgrounds are in mechanical and electrical engineering, product design, and business management (all at the undergraduate and graduate level).

Marko is Head of Innovation at lastminute.com, leading the lastminute.com labs innovation team currently focused on developing new mobile experiences. Previously he worked on personalisation and search engine optimisation systems for lastminute.com and Travelocity sites across Europe. Prior to lastminute.com, Marko led the development team at Cellectivity and product design at flutter.com/betfair.com. His innovation experience has also included stints at Xerox EuroPARC, Ricoh Innovations and some of the early work on recommender systems during a PhD at Stanford University.

Born in Usk, Monmouthshire in 1965, Rory read Classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge, before joining Ogilvy as a Graduate Trainee in 1988. After 18 months spent as the world’s worst account handler (as a desperate remedial measure he was once booked onto a time management course, but got the date wrong) Rory became a copywriter in June 1990.

He has worked on Amex, BT, Compaq, Microsoft, IBM, BUPA, easyJet, Unilever, winning a few awards along the way. He was appointed Creative Director of OgilvyOne in 1997 and ECD in 1998. In 2005 he was appointed Vice Chairman on the Ogilvy Group in the UK in recognition of his improved timekeeping.

By an amazing stroke of luck (his brother is an academic) Rory first used the Internet in 1987. Hence he had the advantage in 1994 of knowing what it was and what it might do a few years ahead of many colleagues. Most people would have combined this knowledge of marketing and technology to make a fortune; not Rory. Instead he became the first Briton to have his credit card details stolen online, thereby losing £22.45.

In his spare time, Rory collects self-aggrandising job titles. He was President of the Direct Jury at Cannes in 2007, and was elected President of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising in 2009. He is also the Technology Correspondent of the Spectator, the world’s oldest English language magazine. At quiet moments in the proceedings over the next few days you may like to pay a furtive visit to his blog

Rory is married with twin daughters of 7 (Hetty and Millie) and lives in the former home of Napoleon III in Brasted in Kent. Unfortunately in the attic.