GEI11 Speaker Bios
Adrian Bossey
Is a Head of Subject at Falmouth University and a former artist manager whose clients included Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, Chumbawumba, Drugstore, My Life Story and The Senseless Things. He worked on 15 UK top forty albums and has both; managed the main stage headline act at Glastonbury Festival and written a chapter for The Routledge Handbook of Festivals (2018). Adrian has worked in academia for 15 years, leading a range of successful bids, including for the RELAYS Cultural Olympiad Project, and acted as Chair of the South West Music Industry Forum. At Falmouth, Adrian was Executive Producer at AMATA for 6 years; setting up the public programme and working with artists including Cara Dillon, Belarus Free Theatre, Theo Clinkard, Forced Entertainment, Bill Drummond, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, Pussy Riot and Elton John. His research interests include potential digital futures for live performance in the staging and consumption of music festivals. Adrian is currently Vice Chair for the Association of Events Management Educators, he blogs at http://www.tumblr.com/blog/futurefestivalsand is a guest blogger at https://www.agreenerfestival.com/blog/
Alex Hardee
Alex Hardee is a Partner/Agent at CODA Agency in London. He first started out in the comedy business booking acts such as Eddie Izzard, Frank Skinner and Steve Coogan before moving on to the music business in the 90’s. Alex’s first taste of success came when Roni Size won the Mercury Music Prize in 1997. Since co-founding CODA Agency in 2002, Alex has won the coveted prize of Agent of the Year numerous times at the Music Week, Live UK and Festival Awards, most recently at the 2018 Music Week Awards. He’s also been instrumental in steering CODA to win the UK Festival Awards Best Agency three times, in 2013, 2016 and 2017. His current roster includes a host of global stars such as Bastille, Sia, Liam Gallagher, London Grammar, Grace Jones, Clean Bandit, and Rag’n’Bone Man.
Andrea Carr
Andrea Carr, eco-scenographer, artist and facilitator, has worked across a broad spectrum of the performing arts. Designs created from reclaimed materials include: Ionesco’s The Chairs produced by Extant, selected for World Stage Design Exhibition ’17, Taiwain (UK contingent), Nodus Tollens for DH Ensemble, Liberty Festival, Olympic Park, Stuck by HOAX, made from abandoned sleeping bags and tents from Reading festival, selected for The Aesthetica Art Prize Anthology. Eco – scenography in Action, workshop leader with HOAX for ONCA, Future Fictions Symposium. New public engagement Art Action Rubbing Out Fridays launched on Lost Species Day hosted by STUDIO 73, Brixton. Current: Duende performance piece in collaboration with Outrider Anthems, multitrack story telling exploring our relationship to the earth. Andrea is also studying Process Orientated Psychology. She works from her Peckham Studio.
Ash Perrin
In 2007, Ash Perrin was on holiday in Cambodia and found himself performing some magic in an orphanage. The children were comfortable and happy, but it struck him that these were feelings they didn’t usually experience. He realised that as an entertainer and a clown who cares passionately about the health and happiness of children, he should do as much as possible to spread laughter to those who need it most. He launched The Flying Seagull Project three months later. Since then, the group has worked with more than 130,000 children in hospitals, orphanages, deaf/blind schools, refugee camps, and slums around the world.
Through The Flying Seagull Project, Ash has seen amazing transformations: the burden of premature adulthood lifted; children unable to engage, who do not want to speak, become vocal, loving and popular members of the group; frowns, fear and anxiety replaced by smiles, positivity and confidence.
You can find more about Ash’s work by visiting www.theflyingseagullproject.com, and you can connect with The Flying Seagull Project on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Ash’s philosophy about why traditional forms of play matter, and how we can preserve them, is the subject of his forthcoming book, The Real Play Revolution, due for release on 14th May 2019 by Watkins Publishing.
Ayanda Sithebe – Africa Rising International Film Festival ( Founder and Festival Director)
Ayanda Sithebe is the Founder and Festival Director for the Africa Rising Internaional Film Festival (ARIFF), the first film festival in Johannesburg. Through hisdigital portal, Actor Spaces, likened to a South African version of IMDb, his mission has been to encourage actors to engage in workshops within communities that didn’t traditionally get access to arts and culture. “His whole dream was making film accessible to people here in South Africa,” says film producer Kweku Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, who brought on board the late leader’s estate House of Mandela to support the project. “I took it to my family and said, ‘I really want to support this young man.’ A big thing for us is that we want to focus on how to empower the next generation, and give them a new voice and opportunity.” ARIFF was positioned as the official pre-event to the inaugural Global Citizen Mandela 100 Concert, and inspired hundreds of young filmmakers and event production trainees.
Chris Cooke
Chris Cooke is co-Founder and MD of CMU, a company that helps people navigate and understand the music business. It does this through media like the CMU Daily bulletin, Setlist podcast and CMU Trends library; consultancy unit CMU Insights; and education programme CMU:DIY. Via CMU, he also programmes core conference strands at The Great Escape showcase festival and he wrote the acclaimed book ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’. CMU is part of Chris’s business 3CM UnLimited, through which he also publishes cultural media ThisWeek London and ThreeWeeks at the Edinburgh Festival; and teaches for PR training charity the Taylor Bennett Foundation
Dieter Castelein
Dieter Castelein is an aerospace engineer, driven by the ambition to make the world a better place. That is why he specialised in wind energy during his master. Together with his work experience as a financial consultant, he had the right tools at hand to co-found the company Greener power solutions. Greener and Dieter have the ultimate goal to run the world on renewable energy. As of now, they are tackling the energy problem on temporary event locations, by delivering a high-power industrial battery charged with renewable energy.
Etty Israeli
Etty Israeli is a nutrition, health and sustainable food professional, and former health consultant for Danish companies such as Organic National Association, Sæson and Arla. She is now part of the core team of the innovative and research based Swedish foodtech start-up CarbonCloud which mission is to support the world in a transition to climate smart eating habits. On a daily basis Etty helps restaurants, caterers, events and festivals to become part of the solution to climate change by implementing smart web based planning, calculation and nudging tools to inspire more climate smart food choices.
She is currently the planner for Roskilde Festival’s climate food strategy.
Etty has an educational background in Nutrition and Health from University College Copenhagen KP
Faas Moonen
Ass.prof. at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is the initiator of the PowerVIBES project (subsidized by Interreg NWE) in which a ‘Hybrid Unit’ will be built that combines a wind turbine, several types of more efficient solar panels and an improved battery. In PowerVIBES, 10 international partners from renowned festivals and all required disciplines combine forces to develop a unique unit, named GEM-tower (Green Energy Mill). These most competent partners bring in the latest developments in renewable energy production, storage and distribution. The result will be an efficient and economically attractive tower to produce large amounts of power from sustainable resources only. And a tall and very colourful tower that clearly stands out from a festival too; that will help to increase awareness of the sustainability of a festival. This year GEM will be built and tested on several festivals.
Gareth Williams
Worked as a sound engineer Fairport Convention from 1985 for a few years before chasing the cheque book like a true mercenary and touring with mainstream bands.
In 2004 Cropredy looked in danger. The organisers, FC bass player Dave Pegg and his wife Christine were getting divorced and the festival looked like it might not continue. I was asked to return to the fold and take over the helm.
The festival is now in it’s 40th year attracting 20k visitors and, although chiefly known for folk rock, we have had headliners such as Robert Plant, Alice Cooper, Steve Winwood, UB40, Status Quo and The Divine Comedy.
These days I mix my time working on the festival with doing Advance Production Management for Andrea Bocelli. A job which mercifully keeps me out of the office for roughly a week a month.
Gordon Masson
A former astronaut and stunt driver, Gordon has been a journalist for nearly three decades and has specialised in the music industry for the past 18 years.
When he is not saving the Amazon rainforest or rescuing kittens from trees, Gordon spends his time as editor of IQ Magazine, the International Ticketing Yearbook and the European Arena Yearbook, as well as being on the agenda team for the International Live Music Conference.
Prior to his much-publicised barefoot ascent of Mount Everest and his epic swim across the Pacific Ocean, Gordon was the live editor at Music Week and international editor for Billboard. In addition to his various United Nations ambassadorial roles, Gordon has also undertaken a number of consultancies for record companies and other music industry organisations.
Prior to moving to London, Gordon developed ground-breaking breeding programmes for a number of endangered species. He also spent two years in Washington DC where he established publications for the space and satellite industry, while in the early 1990s he was a reporter for The Courier and Evening Telegraph newspapers, among others, in his native Scotland.
Holger Jan Schmidt | GO Group, Take A Stand, Yourope, DE
Holger Jan Schmidt is one of Europe’s main networkers on festivals and sustainability. He is co-initiator and steering committee member of the pan-european think-tank GO Group (Green Operations Europe) and the anchorman for green issues of Yourope (the European Festival Association). Holger is one of the initiators of the international Take A Stand initiative and campaign for the (live) music sector, which was launched in 2017 to create a movement encouraging social cohesion in our society as well as promoting awareness and tolerance. He looks back at more than twenty-five years with two of Germany’s biggest festivals, RhEINKULTUR and DAS FEST. Holger wrote the „Sounds For Nature guidelines for environmentally friendly events“, is a lecturer for „Sustainable Festival & Event management“ and a performing and recording musician as well.
Ian Bates – Co-founder – Reelbrands
Ian has over 30 years’ experience at board level, working primarily in the packaging industry, specialising in sustainable packaging.
In 2005 Ian founded the specialist sustainable packaging innovations/marketing company ‘PortaBrands Ltd’, where a number of products received Starpack Innovation Awards, which are still in use today. Today, aside from co-founding ‘Reelbrands’, (a sustainable packaging consultancy and product design company) he is also the co-owner of ‘The Delicatessen Magazine’ and an advisor to the board of the sustainable packaging start-up company ‘Transcend Packaging’ as well as an advisor to ‘APP – A Plastic Planet’.
Jamie Hall
Jamie co-founded Pentatonic with Johann Bödecker IN 2017 after leaving Nike where he had been most recently a Global GM. At Nike he launched and led the NikeLab business category (Nike´s consumer platform for innovation seeding and testing). He also held leadership roles in Brand, Marketplace and Business leadership at a European and UK level during with the company.
Extensively experienced and trained in corporate brand marketing, business and operations, Jamie has been involved in over 10,000 product launches in the sport, fashion and consumer retail during his career.
Jacquii Eldridge
Jacquii Eldridge has a variety of experience working within the arts, entertainment and music industries. She currently works as an Agent’s Assistant at Coda and deals with the in-house environmental matters. Jacquii’sinterest and concerns regarding the environment, animal welfare and ethical issues were formed at an early age. She recently obtained a degree in Fashion Design at London College of Fashion where she explored concepts concerning sustainability within her studies. She continues to work on sustainable fashion and textile projects in her spare time.
Karin Koopman
I’m an artist manager for clients like; Sam Feldt, Dante Klein, Cat Carpenters and Bender. In October 2018 together with my client Sam Feldt we launched a foundation where we aim to be a platform for influencers adapting a sustainable lifestyle. The foundation is structured around 4 pilars, DO – GIVE – EMPOWER – INSPIRE. After working in music for over 14years its very fulfilling to give back and make a contribution to the wellbeing of this planet and the people living on it.
Kierra Box
Kierra Box currently leads the Brexit campaign at Friends of the Earth, and represents the organisation on the Greener UK and Brexit Civil Society Alliance coalitions. In recent months she has coordinated FOEs work to influence government thinking on the new environmental watchdog, feed in to the development of future UK trade policy and engaged with EU governments to lobby for a commitment to non-regression in the future UK-EU relationship. She has been a campaigner at FOE for 3 years, working additionally across food, behaviour change and trade issues.
Kierra has been campaigning for over 15 years, since co-founding Hands Up for Peace, a youth campaign against the Iraq War, in 2003. She ran youth campaign group Hands Up until 2009, for which she won the Sheila McKechnie Campaigning Award in 2006. Following this, Kierra led on the youth programme and headed up communications at voluntary sector infrastructure charity Community Matters and spent two years as a campaigner on housing and welfare issues at Citizens Advice.
Lala Tuku – Africa Rising International Film Festival ( Co-chair)
Lala Tuku is a seasoned professional in the creative and communication industry with a passion for the arts that dates over 2 decades. Lala is currently the MD and Executive Producer at Clive Morris Productions (CMP), with a core focus on developing a new business strategy for the company as an industry leader and global competitor. As an outspoken advocate for women and youth in the southAfrican film and televisionindustry, Lala is co chairperson of Africa Rising International Film Festival. A festival that centersyouth and women , giving a platform to their work and creating distribution channel for their films, Audience development is atthe heart of the festival and young school children are the focus as attendees. Representation matters and all stories need to beseen and heard. Training and development for the young filmmakers takes center stage.
Maarten Arkenbout
Started in 1982 as a professional sound engineer for a theater company in the Netherlands.
Worked in the nineteens a couple of years for Pieter Smit as driver and sound engineer.
Returned in 2010 to Pieter Smit to become CEO for the Pieter Smit Group until the end of 2016.
Started in 2018 in the management team of the German branch of the Pieter Smit group.
Specialized in the development of new buildings on Pieter Smit properties in Europe.
Maeve O’Brien
Maeve O’Brien is one half of Giant Triplets and an arts facilitator, she is studying an MA in Applied Anthropology & Community development at Goldsmiths.
Giant Triplets creates memorable and sustainable merchandise through interactive live screen-printing that doesn’t cost the earth, with the aim to put a spotlight on the environmental and human cost of the textile industry. They also host screen-printing workshops and work on Glastonbury festival’s sustainability initiative, the ‘Worthy Warriors’, alongside Oxfam and Greenpeace and have worked in collaboration with Larmer Tree Festival and Ecotricity amongst others. Outside of festival fields we have hosted events at youth centres, galleries and music concerts and are always looking for the next printing challenge.
Mark Laurie
Mark Laurie is a Director of the Nationwide Caterers Association, the trade association for Festival Caterers and Street Food. He represents the catering industry on various panels at the Food Standards Agency, BEIS/Regulatory Delivery, CIEH and EIF. He is a director of the Birmingham Food Council which speaks truth to power on food security.
After working for NCASS to support Greenpeace on the Glastonbury Green Traders Awards he partnered with the SRA to develop the first online sustainability training course for festival caterers.
He co-founded the original 8th Plate scheme alongside A Greener Festival and Fareshare SW which salvaged over 27 tonnes of food from 7 festivals. In 2018 AGF & NCASS trialled a more streamlined version of the scheme salvaging nearly 10 tonnes at just 3 events. The target is now to salvage 100 tonnes of food from festivals and 400 tonnes of CO2 by 2020.
Meegan Jones
Meegan Jones is an event sustainability professional focussing her efforts on using the power of events for positive action while also ensuring that events themselves are produced sustainably.
She provides advice, tools, systems support, training and practical solutions to the event, screen, and sport sectors. Credits include Sustainability Manager for Festival Republic (Glastonbury, Reading, Latitude Festivals, UK), Live Earth Greening Guidelines, project consultant for the UNEP Music & Environment Initiative, sustainability strategy for Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup, and external assessment of ISO 20121 for Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. She consulted to Volvo Ocean Race 17/18 and their award winning Clean Seas programme.
The third edition of her book Sustainable Event Management: A Practical Guide was published in Dec 2017 by Taylor & Francis and is an adopted text for many university degrees in event management. In 2018 Meegan authored the guide to avoiding single-use plastics at sporting events. She has also contributed the sustainability chapters to books Routledge Handbook of Festivals and Festival and Special Event Management.
She was a sector expert in the global working groups developing the GRI Event Organizers Sector Supplement and ISO 20121. She is founder and chair of the Sustainable Event Alliance and has trained more than 1000 events organisers in sustainable event management through 40 local governments.
Nika Brunet
Project & event manager by title, with wide experience from music industry business, social sciences, marketing and communication, IT and even aeronautical science, today responsible for organization and promotion of 4 biggest music festivals in Slovenia: MetalDays, Bluesland, Winter Days of Metal and Overjam Reggae festival. Vegan by heart, photographer by quest.
Passionate about ecology, sustainability, and environmental science, with a mission to create a sustainable, low carbon footprint, zero waste large-scale event (like a music festival 
) in the very near future.
Paul Denney
Paul Denney is a self-confessed geek with a passion for knowledge and a love of all things environmental. Over the years he has worked in R&D for the likes of Hewlett Packard, Dyson and ZF. His current role as head of research for Snow Business allows him to design winter special effects for the planet’s greatest sporting events and biggest block buster movies. Snow Business trades in 37 countries around the world and its work has been seen by most of the planet. Increasingly however what Snow Business sells is coming under close scrutiny as consumers become more aware of the environmental impact of the purchasing choices they make. As Paul says “As head of R&D It’s my responsibility to ensure that our fake snow falls as lightly on the planet as the real thing. Sustainability isn’t a nice to have for us it’s our future because without it we haven’t got one”.
Paul Schurink,
ZAP Concepts, Green Events Nederland (NL)
Paul Schurink is an expert in the field of temporary energy supply, sustainability and innovation. He holds an MBE in energy systems and has been involved with a variety of large-scale events including the Olympic Games, UEFA EURO 2012 and Volvo Ocean Race. Within Green Events Nederland, Paul takes a role as project leader and is project leader of Green Deal Waste Free Festivals since 2015. Green Events is an organization which helps event organizers to make their operations more sustainable and is the initiator of Plastic Promise. Paul is owner of ZAP Concepts, is an accredited professional of the Sustainable Event Alliance and co-founder of Green Events Nederland.
Raiche Mederick–Founder Rchai Foundation
Raiche Mederick, 25, Burns Ambassador, Events Enthusiast and Charity Founder
The Rchai Foundation is a charity that supports adult burns survivors mental health and social well being through events promoting independence and inclusion.
Richard Cassar
Richard Cassar has worked with music merchandise for over 20 years. Clients include/have included Record Store Day, Ladytron, Michael Franti, New Mexico University, Women’s Speaker Collective, Noisely Festival, Nano Records, The WhiteStripes, Adele, New Order, Editors, NME, Lou Reed, Ben Harper & many others.
Enjoying a 3 year stint traveling around Asia, grudgingly Richard returned to the UK and in 2018 started www.ethicalteecompany.com.
The Ethical Tee Company work with collectives, creatives, bands, brands, artists, festivals, museums, & yoga schools,supplying a full merchandise service including tour supply, silk screen printing, eCommerce, Direct To Garment printing, & fulfilment.We only supply apparel brands that are members of www.fairwear.org further encouraging clients to use the EarthPositive & Fairshare options as we feel these are the best ‘off the shelf’ options for re-branding.
Rob Scully
Rob has an honours degree in Environmental Science and over 20 years experience in festival production and site management.
He currently heads up the UK arm of ZAP Concepts, an award winning live event energy & environmental consultancy working across high profile events in the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe, the US and Asia to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon footprint & air pollution at events. Rob and his team have contributed extensively to industry publications & reports, including Powerful Thinking’s Energy for Festivals & Events Report & Meegan Jones’ industry standard handbook Sustainable Event Management. In 2018 they received the Green Supplier Award at both the UK Festival Suppliers & the Event Production Awards.
Shanthi Annan -“The future belongs to the abundant.”
Shanthi Annan is a global entrepreneur who works with charities to promote entrepreneurship amongst young people.She has an extensive portfolio of commercial interests and leads the strategy of several charities.
In 2015, shefounded Kin of Kush (www.kinofkush.com): a not for profit initiative to encourage and engage young Africans worldwide to lead change in their communities whilst strengthening the idea of a ‘Global Family’.
In addition to her commercial portfolio, Shanthi has a number of charitable interests. Shanthiis presently, an Advisor to The Uncondemned (http://www.theuncondemned.com) a documentary that tells the story of three courageous women from Rwanda and young lawyers who provoked a transformation in global justice for women everywhere.
In 2017, she was appointed as an Advisor to the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust (https://www.queenscommonwealthtrust.org): a new charity supported by Prince Harry as President, established in recognition of its Patron Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’slifetime of service to the Commonwealth and her belief in young people as leaders for good in the world.
In July 2018,Shanthilaunched #MandelaMile in partnership with UNA-Westminster, Women Walk Together, University of East London and The Walk Together Campaign.She is married to Kojo Annan, son of late Kofi Annan.They have two children.
Stephen Budd
Is a veteran British music industry executive and music manager based in London.
He is a director of artist and producer management company Stephen Budd Music Ltd, the OneFest Festival, of Damon Albarn’s Africa Express project and is the co-founder of the NH7 Weekender festivals in India and an advisor to DMZ Peace Train Festival in Korea. He is a recognised TV commentator on music industry issues, regularly appearing on a variety of British TV news shows. In June 2017 he completed his 3-year term as co-chairman of the MMF (Music Managers Forum). He is a co-executive producer of Amnesty International and Sofar Sounds‘ ‘Give A Home’ global concert series and created WarChild’s “Passport Back To The Bars” concert series.
Teresa Moore – Director, A Greener Festival.
Teresa is Director of A Greener Festival, and co-founder of the European sustainability think tank GO Europe. She is a writer, speaker and researcher on sustainability and event management
Formerly Head of Music and Event Management at Bucks New University, Teresa has undertaken many pieces of research into sustainability, live music and events. She recently co- authored “A Case Study of the A Greener Festival Initiative” (2018) a qualitative assessment of the impact of A Greener Festival on festivals efforts to reduce their environmental impact. Previously she has published the findings of a Live Music Census of the City of Bristol, UK (March 2016) with UK Music highlighting the economic and social contribution of grassroots music venues to local the economy. She has carried out a series of festival surveys focusing on audience attitudes to environmental issues at music events including Campsite Waste (2013, 2012 and 2008) with A Greener Festival
Teresa is currently undertaking a PhD in sustainability and event management focusing on pro environmental behaviour change.
Xander Kotvis
Xander is Revolution Manager at the Revolution Foundation, which makes him responsible for sustainability strategies of festivals such DGTL. The Revolution Foundation provides sustainable and circular systems for festivals and events. The foundation works together closely with events, companies and governments to design and implement circular blueprints, accelerating the transition to a sustainable economy.