Anita Marinelli | Founder & Trustee | My Shining Star Childrens Cancer Charity
In 2014, I raised 600,000 in 9 months for a child diagnosed with cancer.
As a result of this, I decided to start My Shining Star Childrens Cancer Charity in 2016 and have raised 1.5 million to day for children affected by the hardship of cancer along with their families.
The charity's purpose to support with financial stability for families during the worst time of their lives. It became clear that while there is help out there for treatment, no one is going to help the families when a child needs extra care or when a parent has to give up their job to do this and keep the family together.
I have helped to fulfil many wishes for cancer in my spare time, including those for dying children, sending Disney and Marvel to a terminal child's home for a private showing of an unfinished film (we later found out it was End Game), as well as wishes with Premier League football players, You Tubers and other famous stars.
Celia Warrender | Scrum master | whg
I am passionate about the role that the public and third sector have to play in building stronger communities and have dedicated my career to date, to work across this sector in a variety of roles.
My early career started in offender rehabilitation at HMP, working in education and employment before moving into accredited programme delivery, first as a Psychological Assistant and later as Deputy Treatment Manager.
Following this, I worked for many years in community substance misuse and floating support services, again specialising in work related to offender rehabilitation, as well as working to form better partnerships between substance misuse and other public and third sector organisations to improve outcomes. During this time I also completed a secondment at Birmingham City Council as lead for Domestic Violence, within their new homeless gateway service.
On my return from the council to substance misuse services, I worked as a performance improvement and implementation manager, supporting the transfer and increase in performance of new services into our organisation, finishing as team leader of a new floating support service for people with life-long illnesses.
On deciding to move on from front-line services and progress into a career of project management and agile transformation, I still wanted to be able to contribute to these services, taking my first role as an associate project manager with West Midlands Police and then moving across to social and affordable housing first at Midland Heart and subsequently to my current role of Scrum Master in IT at whg.
Dolly Carter | Reporter | Newsquest
Dolly Carter is a reporter for Newsquest's Suffolk titles - the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star. Described by national award judges as a “tirelessly dedicated and constantly creative journalist," she is currently working towards her NCTJ qualification.
In her first year working in the industry, she has achieved over 50 front page articles and her stories have been picked up by an array of national publications. She has played a role in co-ordinating the paper's International Women's Day coverage and fought to hold the local hospital to account in reinstating gas and air for women on the maternity ward.
Dolly recently graduated with a First Class Honours in BA English Literature with Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. During her tenure as Editor-in-Chief of her student paper, it was shortlisted in the top ten student publications in the UK. Dolly was also shortlisted for a further three categories at the 2022 Student Publication Association Awards and was highly commended for the Billy Dowling-Reid Award for Outstanding Commitment.
Eloise Hunte-Wood | Producer | POW TV
As an ambitious media professional with a strong commitment to diversity, equality, and women's empowerment, I obtained a degree in Media and Communications from Bournemouth University and have since built a successful career in the industry.
My work with Faiths Forum for London involved creating informative social media videos about the charity's events and COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as a project commemorating the anniversary of the Finsbury Park Mosque attacks.
At POW TV, I helped to produce Driving Force, a groundbreaking series that tells the inspiring stories of some of the UK's most accomplished female athletes, going on to develop innovative shows, events, and charity fundraising ideas that support organisations both within and outside of the sports world, championing women's visibility.
In my day to day, at POW TV, I take immense pride in planning women-focused events, panels, and networking opportunities that celebrate the achievements of women in collaboration with organisations such as The Ned and Soho House. Through this, we offer women the opportunity to learn from successful women, regularly providing a plethora of women with my own mentorship and support.
My work reflects my unwavering dedication to driving positive change and creating opportunities for women, a passion that continues to motivate me as I progress in my career.
Emma Saddleton | Global Media Strategy Director | dentsu
My passion and enjoyment in life comes from asking two questions: “Why?” and “Who With?”
I changed career at the age of 25 following completion of a MSc in Mental Health, because I strongly felt a pull to this industry and a desire to develop my personal interest in technology and media. A vocation in a faster paced environment and one which allows me to ask these questions more and more drove me to take a leap of faith in 2014 and start at my current company.
Why facilitates my curiosity and get to the heart of a problem, to work out what the next best steps are. I am a natural organizer and someone who strives for continued development and feel most fulfilled when building on my current knowledge and sharing this knowledge with others.
Who With refers to my passion for bringing people together and working out how to help them fulfil their potential. I believe the best projects and outcomes are results of collaboration, shared goals and purpose – either at work when coordinating teams, in life with friends or in sports such as rock climbing or most recently, completing (and winning) a White Collar charity boxing fight, raising over £2,000 for a suicide bereavement charity.
These two questions have helped me progress through my career so far, and facilitate my passion for continued development. I want to continue developing my skills in order to help others to reach their goals, across clients and my own teams.
Jessica Rhodes | Head of Marketing | BR-DGE
Throughout my career I have been pursuing my passion for creative communication, from sending a Lego pension man to space to managing nationwide CRM integrations and pioneering international campaigns.
As a highly motivated and ambitious individual, I have led successful multi-channel campaigns across FMCG, Finance, Languages and SAAS sectors. I am passionate about visually stimulating, insight driven marketing, delivering strategic communications and brand management to target persona behaviour, demonstrate financial accountability, and secure revenue.
I have over 10 years’ experience in Marketing and I’m currently a marketing leader in FinTech, directing the team at Scottish payment orchestration business, BR-DGE.
Throughout her career, I have designed and deployed multi-channel campaigns on complex financial concepts, across the UK, Europe, US and Australia. With experience both in B2C and B2B, I have had great exposure to varying marketing needs of international businesses, their different audience personalities, and is an advocate of simplicity in marketing using insight to drive relevant and engaging campaigns.
My portfolio is built on clear and creative campaigns; including virtual reality games educating audiences on financial models, sending a Lego man into space to amplify creative communications, and launching industry movements that promote community and collaboration, such as thebigleaders and The Marketing Meetup.
As Head of Marketing at a fintech firm, I lead a small team of marketers in curating hyper-personalised, content driven workflows and event campaigns to increase lead generation, client loyalty, and to inspire and educate the wider market on the evolving digital ecosystem.
Karimah Bangura | Journalist and Digital News Producer | ITN
I am currently a journalist and digital news producer at ITN Productions where I mainly edit news packages for social media about daily newsworthy events.
Prior to that, I worked as a junior journalist apprentice at Channel 5 News where I gained many practical and technical skills and graduated my apprenticeship with a distinction in early 2023.
I did my apprenticeship after leaving sixth form in 2020 because I was keen to get experience in working in the media industry. I always enjoyed creating engaging news content for people and telling stories in school so I love that it’s now my career.
Kelly Ling | Head of Dynamic Creative | Dentsu
My career started as an animator in Singapore before relocating to the UK to pursue a Master of Arts degree (Animation).
Upon graduation, I landed a job as festival producer in June 2006 where I gained experience in event planning and management, marketing and sponsorship, product distribution, volunteer management.
In March 2010, I took a break from marketing, and joined the Fringe Society as an Office and Retail Manager. I supported customer relations, administration, operations, retail and merchandising, staff development, and management.
In May 2013, I returned to my creative roots at Whitespace a marketing agency, as Account Manager. During this time, I led a range of marketing projects and campaigns for clients across the public and private sectors including the mobile application 'Greener Journeys' that won the 'Best App Design' at the Scottish Design Awards 2014.
In September 2016, I joined Dentsu as Dynamic Creative Manager, where I served as the strategic lead on large client accounts. I went on progressing through several roles, leading to my current role as Dynamic Creative, Partner. Over the years, I have been instrumental in the growth of the dynamic creative product offering, operations, and team, delivering year on year profits of at least 20%. Addition to my role, I voluntarily contribute to various employee-led committees spanning Diversity, Equality and Inclusion, Mental Health, and Parents and Carers. More recently, I launched #IAmRemarkable, a Google initiative that empowers women and underrepresented groups to self-promote in the workplace, and challenge gender and cultural modesty norms.
Runako Celina | Investigative journalist
Runako Celina is a multilingual producer and investigative journalist based in Bristol.
Her debut documentary, Racism for Sale, broke several records for BBC Africa Eye, becoming the most watched, saved and commented-on video of all time on the BBC Africa Instagram account. Her work has seen her short-listed and receiving a special mention at the 2022 BBC News Awards as a rising star.
She holds a Masters in Investigative Journalism from City University, and another in International Politics and African Studies from Peking University, China.
When she isn’t producing factual documentaries, she is an avid narrative filmmaker, visual storyteller and a hobbyist genealogist.
Sarah Painter | VP, Experience Marketing | Merkle
Sarah leads dentsu and Merkle’s Experience Marketing team, developing and executing the commercial and experiential marketing strategy to support the growth and innovation strategy.
She also chairs the Parents & Carer’s ERG and recently launched dentsu’s Women in Tech network. Sarah previously led Merkle’s UK Customer Experience practice, which included teams across digital experience, creative, merchandising, and search engine optimisation (SEO). Before her CX role, Sarah led the UK SEO practice, building the team from the ground up and growing the Merkle SEO presence across EMEA. Prior to joining Merkle, Sarah worked in legal marketing at Covington & Burling and in the Finance and Strategy practice at CEB (now Gartner).