Giovanni Tavani has been working for some major U.S. corporations since 1997 and he is an enthusiastic social media user and professional. An Italian based in Montpellier, France, he has covered different management roles in customer services, programs, executive escala­tions and social media. In 2010, Giovanni was appointed leader of the social media support team for Dell, which is currently up and running in 15 different languages with 250-plus specialists. Recently, Giovanni joined Royal Canin, a division of Mars Petcare, as the global customer care and social media director. Prior to Royal Canin, Giovanni spent 17 years with Dell and five years at Compaq/HP in Europe and in the Middle East, with a background in foreign languages, management and communication as well as a passion for photography. Today, Giovanni is regularly invited to international events and university master’s degree classes to share the Dell social media experience in customer services and to deliver lectures on the impact of social media customer experience in the B2C and B2B business.

Michael Gamböck (@mgamboeck) works with strategic accounts and partners in EMEA. He liaises directly with brands, broadcasters and creatives to address their needs and shape their strategies. Michael consults closely with Adobe engineering, product management and management on the growing usage of Creative Cloud Video products, actively working on several released and upcoming products and services like Team Projects and cross-device editing platform Project Rush. Michael has been in the industry since 1994 in sales, marketing and management roles at organisations including Bavaria Film, Studio Babelsberg TMT, Annova, Getty Images, Avid, P+S Technik and others, and he has a deep understanding of all aspects of media and entertainment. He managed several big innovative projects before and was a managing director for one of the biggest post-production facilities in Germany before joining Adobe in his strategic role, which also covers exciting new technologies like Adobe Sensei. As a father of an 8-year-old girl, he wants to actively help to change things. That’s why he is part of Adobe Germany ́s diversity team. He’s passionate about diversity, inclusion and creativity, and believes that teams can only be successful if they make these things a priority.

Freddie Hoff is head of content at Expedia. She’s previously worked as content director for a social media agency, the LEGO Group, Guinness World Records, Danmarks Radio (the Danish BBC) and several computer game companies. She went to the IT-University, speaks geek and loves TV shows with girls’ names in the title. And superheroes.

Giuseppe Caltabiano is a global marketing VP with more than 20 years of success spearhead­ing instrumental B2B and B2C operations, specialising in IT, software, industrial automa­tion and energy. As a renowned content marketing/global marketing speaker and writer, he achieved a place among the 2017 Top 25 Masters of Multichannel Marketing and was voted as one of most influential B2B marketers by software companies Onalytica in 2018 and Traackr in 2016. Giuseppe is currently head of content strategy for EMEA and APAC at Con­tently, the content marketing solution of choice for the world’s most valuable brands. He is an innovative creative strategist who produces world-class content and digital marketing strate­gies with a passion for advising top global brands across the technology, financial, industrial and consumer sectors, including Schneider Electric, Cisco, LinkedIn, Airbus, Vodafone, Gen­erali, Cardinal Health, Capgemini, Motability, Grant Thornton, MergerWare and many more.

Giuseppe is a renowned, powerful motivator who has spoken at an array of global marketing conferences, including Content Marketing World 2017, CMA Digital Breakfast, and Summit on Content Marketing, Festival of Marketing, B2B Marketing Ignite 2018 and the Content Strategy Summit. Giuseppe has an MBA from Milan’s SDA Bocconi School of Management and he trained on mergers and acquisitions at the London Business School. He currently lives in London.

For five years, Christian Schneider has been working in different positions at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Austria. In 2018, he became the head of digital and customer experience. Together with his team, he is responsible for all brands of the company and a broad field of activities, such as digital advertising, websites, SEO/SEM, performance marketing, content marketing, social media, CRM and the loyalty program. The optimisation of the customer journey and the targeted interaction with various target groups is always a focal point for the multi award-winning marketing pro. In parallel, Christian, who started his career with international advertising agencies such as JWT and Wunderman, is a lecturer at the University of Vienna and a keynote speaker on numerous marketing conferences like the Fifteen Seconds Festival.

Lucas Schärf has been intensively involved with content marketing and audience targeting for more than 10 years. Inspired by the technical possibilities and the need for a scalable native advertising platform, together with his business partner Sonny Damiri in 2013, he founded Content Garden, a content marketing company specialised in digital content strategy, technology and distribution. In the following years, Content Garden established cooperation with numerous media throughout the DACH region from its headquarters in Vienna and Lucas was able to convince a large number of well-known national and international customers of his marketing approach. Lucas’ areas of activity as CEO at Content Garden include the strategic alignment of the company, product development and the acquisition of new clients. Together with Sonny, he forms the management of Content Garden.

Over the past nine years, Caitriona O’Connor has been working at a senior level with some of Sweden’s biggest international corporations helping them connect with their external stakeholders and build their digital brands. She has worked in trade development with the Irish government and been part of developing the global social media presence for the Ericsson Group, all while heading social media at one of the Nordics’ leading content agencies. More recently she joined Saab to develop their global digital brand. In her current role at Skanska, Caitriona is responsible for leading the strategy and development of communications across the Skanska Group, which is a global project development and construction company with over 38,000 employees worldwide. Skanska was recently recognized by Fortune magazine and the Shared Value Initiative as one of the top 20 companies ‘Changing the World’. Born in the USA and raised in Ireland, she holds a degree in business, economics and social studies from Trinity College in Dublin.

Niels Klamma, head of brand and marketing communication, is responsible for strategic brand and operational product communication. Besides his operational work, he also takes care of the future development of the Toyota brand in Germany. He joined the Toyota organisation in 2007, after having worked in agencies on strategic and international brand management for many years.

Dr. Juliane Howitz is a content marketing expert and strategist with 13 years of marketing experience. With a background in science and a passion for travel, she devotes her strategic and analytical skills to an environment where the corporate travel industry pushes into digital transformation. She leads the content marketing team at HRS, after holding roles as content strategist, content marketing manager and social media manager within the global HRS Group marketing team. Since 2017 she has been responsible for the entire content strategy for all brands, business units and markets of the HRS Group. Before that, she has been a key driver in introducing content marketing to the company, being one of the starting members of the 2015 launched content marketing team. She currently focusses on driving joined B2C/B2B processes, the implementation of agile marketing processes and data-driven content optimisation, striving for the next level of an integrated marketing process where content is front and centre of all marketing activities.

Jürgen Sorg is a digital media, social web and communication technology enthusiast with more than 10 years of professional experience. He is fascinated by big data, connected devices and strategies of media usage. After studying media science and economy in Siegen and Southampton, Jürgen has worked as a scientific coordinator and employee at the University of Siegen on the transition from analogue to digital media. After intermediate positions as education consultant and project manager in the digital economy, he was responsible for social media activities at the Techniker Krankenkasse from 2012-15 and now works as head of marketing communications truck tires EMEA at Continental Reifen Deutschland GmbH.

Agenda surfing instead of agenda setting: in her role as a global stories coordinator, Ines van Neuss is helping to pave the way for the B2B company towards an agile and effective setup that puts reverse storytelling into practice. Before taking on this task, she spent the last year building up the global and completely in-house-maintained content hub www.siemens.com/stories. Being with Siemens communications for seven years, the former journalist is experienced in content marketing, strategy and change comms and internal comms. She’s closely connected with the several Siemens businesses and regions to provide headquarter support and leverage synergies.

Ana Clara Martines is corporate communication director at L ́Oreál Portugal. She started her career in 2002 in the marketing department at the professional products division at L ́Oréal. In 2007, she created a communication department at this same division moving to corporate communication in 2012. Since 2017, Ana has integrated the executive committee, assuming ethics and social responsibility as well. Her main mission is to build the reputation of L ́Oréal Portugal, which had a moderate score in 2012 and reached a Reputation of Excellence this year.

Marie Lagache has a PhD and an MBA in marketing. She’s had the opportunity to drive inspiring initiatives, test, learn about and run emerging ways of thinking and working to contribute to her company’s performance. A multichannel marketing leader who’s passionate about people, Marie likes to work in a deep changing environment while acting in a multi-cultural team at the affiliate (France, Japan) and corporate levels.