Charleton, Isabel (Eurovision Teletext & Subtitling)

Joined the legal division in RTE in the 1980s, then moved to television production covering such positions as television director and promotions editor. As well as responsibility for access services she is in charge of weather presentation and manages the play-out of the two television channels, RTE One and RTE Two.

Chouchane, Fredj (Eurovision Science & Education Executives incl. Language Producers)

Fredj Chouchane was born in Kalaa-Kébira (Tunisia). Since 1996 he has been a scriptwriter, presenter and producer of radio and television programmes. His career has included positions at Radio-Télévision Tunisienne, in the Tunisian Ministry of Culture and at ASBU (Arab States Broadcasting Union).

Cleverly, Jesse (Eurovision Children & Youth)

Jesse Cleverly is Head of Co Production and Acquisitions for the Drama and Animation Department at BBC Children’s. The Drama and Animation Department produce, commissions, and acquires all live action drama and animated content for the 6 - 11 year old audience. During his time in this role, Mr. Cleverly has developed and executive produced six live action television series, and overseen the production and the delivery of a number of large animation commissions and acquisitions including Aardman Animation’s “Shaun the Sheep”. Prior to this he was a producer of adult drama for the BBC.

Coldefy, Hélène (Common Focus)

Hélène Coldefy is the Head of “Specialist Factual” department since May 2003 in Arte France. She is responsible for documentaries in science, ancient history and for the Sunday evening. After a Physics degree and practice in research and educational system, Hélène Coldefy 46 years old, worked from 1989 to 2000 as an author and a journalist for documentaries and scientific magazines for public TV channels. From 2000 to April 2003, she worked as a commissioning editor for France 3 and was in charge of the productions in “Science, Health, Adventure and Wildlife”.

Cook, Shelley (EBUconnect)

Shelley spent 8 years at Starcom Worldwide, a commercial media agency, working across both Australian and London offices before moving to the BBC in June 2007. She is now a Group Head in the Media Planning department of the BBC Marketing Communications and Audience (MC&A) division. She is directly responsible for delivering media strategy across new media platforms including bbc.co.uk.

Corton, Eric (Common Focus Day)

Presents That's Live on Radio 3FM every Saturday evening. He has been playing in a band for years and attends the Academy of Acting as he would like to be an actor. He also presents a music programme on TV.

Coursey, Sarah (Eurovision Formats Workshop)

Sarah Coursey is the Head of Formats and Acquisitions at Zodiak International, the super-indie format distributor of the Zodiak Group AB; and has a serious passion for comedy. She is proud to be working for a company that truly represents the perfect blend of nationalities and backgrounds, with 21 production companies from Finland to India in the group. She was previously Head of European Sales at Distraction Formats and continues to keep it real in West London. www.zodiakinternational.com

Creely, Marion (Eurovision Children Documentars Series)

Marion Creely, RTE TV producer and Executive Producer of the Eurovision Children’s Documentary Series, specialises since 2002 in children’s programmes. Under her leadership, the series has won awards at many international film festivals.
Marion has given master classes in documentary making for the EBU, the ABU, Zeppelin, NTU and RTE. She is also a speaker on child media issues and has presented papers for the European Media Forum in Barcelona, the Children’s Festival, Cape Town, the 5th World Summit on Media for Children, Johannesburg 2007. She is currently organising a conference on Youth Media in Dublin for April 2008 and is chair of Irish Youth Media Development. Marion.Creely@rte.ie

Crompton, Sally (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Sally’s teaching and research focus has spread from technology and its influence on environment, health, education and disability. She believes in using every means possible to inspire and open doors to education and in developing and sustaining partnerships for their mutual benefit. The OBU and the partnership between the OU and the BBC is a prime example where there are massive opportunities that can be gained by working together to reach and inspire audiences.
www.open2.net

DeCourcy, Sheila (Common Focus)

Sheila de Courcy has been making television programmes for over 20 years across all genre including Factual, Music, Documentary and Current Affairs. She has devised series for Drama, Arts, Entertainment and Childrens programming. Executive Producer credits include the year-long ‘40 Years of RTÉ Television’ event, and the creation of a Teen Soap for RTÉ. As Head of Young Peoples programmes, a position she took up in 2004, she commissions an average of 6 hours of original content every week for RTÉ’s THE DEN broadcast and on-line.

Delfaud, Juliette (Eurovision Children & Youth)

Juliette Delfaud est au bénéfice de 8 ans d'expérience dans le secteur des médias en tant que Managing Consultant pour Capgemini Consulting Telecom, Media & Entertainment. Elle a beaucoup travaillé sur la définition des offres marketing pour les nouveaux médias (Internet, TV interactive, TV par Internet, TV sur les mobiles et vidéo à la demande), ainsi que sur le développement, les programmes et les stratégies de programmation pour des chaînes TV privées et publiques, au niveau national et international. Elle a également participé à des études de faisabilité pour ces chaînes TV thématiques destinées à la TNT ou à la Télévision mobile. Par ailleurs, elle a dirigé des études de marché et des études comparatives pour plusieurs groupes et institutions actifs dans le secteur des médias.

Dixelius, Malcolm (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

In 1971-93: SVT staffer working as news reporter, presenter and editor. Nine years stationed in Moscow as SR/SVT correspondent.
1993: Independent producer of documentary films, specializing in portraits, history and popular science. Internationally awarded for CCCP Hockey (FICTS 2004), nationally for Russian Mafia (1994) and The Laser Man (Kristallen 2006). Founder of Dixit International, manager of Deep Sea Productions.www.deepsea.se / www.dixit.se

Doutrelugne, Jean-Philippe (Eurovision Childen & Youth)

Cherry Picking is a new indie company specialized in the ‘character property management’ in Europe., the company will propose its expertise to several categories of rightholders including audiovisual producers, book publishers and toys companies. Prior to Cherry Picking, Jean-Philippe Doutrelugne has spent the last 14 years in the Dargaud-Dupuis Group (European leader of comic books publishing) and left in 2005 while he was. member of the executive committee and deputy general manager of all TV and ancilliary rights. He successively headed the book sales department in Belgium (1995), the licensing activities in France (1997), the international publishing rights management department (1999) and stetted up the Paris-based international TV distribution team in 2000. doutrelugne@yahoo.fr

Duignan, Clare (EBU TV Assembly)

With a career as a radio producer and as a television producer-director, periods as Head of Features Television, Head of Independent Production, and Head of Production, Television, Clare became Director of Programmes, Television in 2003. In this post she is responsible for all of RTÉ Television's home produced programmes, both in-house and commissioned, across RTÉ’s two television channels. In this role, she has delivered a significant increase home produced programming in peak time. In Irelands highly competitive television market, her commitment to high quality home production has reversed falling share and held RTÉ’s multi-channel peak-time share at 37%.

Dyrby, Michael (EBUconnect)

Michael Dyrby is head of News at TV 2 in Denmark. He started working as news editor at TV 2/News in 1994. Three years later he was promoted to managing editor and deputy head of News. Then in 2003 he became head of News and Current Affairs. In 2003–04 Michael was a member of the think tank set up by the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Development with the aim of promoting the understanding of scientific work.
www.tv2.dk / www.nyhederne.tv2.dk / www.news.tv.dk

El Saghir, Mona (Eurovision Fiction)

On June 1983 Mona El Saghir started its career in the Egyptian Radio and TV Union as a script review specialist in Foreign Production film and video classification dept. On January 1985, she became a Sr. script review specialist in addition to translation and editing activities in the same department. On March 2001, she took over the position of General Manger of the same department.On July 2005 she became the Head of the Egyptian TV Central Dept. of Film & Video Classification Arabic and Non Arabic Production).

Eriksen, Torben (EBU TV Assemby, Eurovision Fiction + Science & Education + Children & Youth + CrossMedia² )

Torben Eriksen, Master of Science in Economics, born 1958. Currently working at the EBU as Special project manager for the Green on Air project. 2001 – 2007: Deputy Managing Director at Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). Responsible for new media services at DR – web (DR's web portal www.dr.dk), mobile services (SMS, MMS and DR’s WAP portal mobil.dr.dk) as well as teletext and digital text for digital TV services. 2003 – 2007: Chairman of the Online Service Group at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU/EUR). www.eurovisiontv.com/en/eurovisiontv/green_on_air.php

Fenton, Danny (Eurovision Entertainment)

As well as being Managing Director of Zig Zag Danny has overseen the launch of Zig Zag offices in New York, Manchester and he Executive Produces all Zig Zag content. He is also the founder of NIPA (New Independent Producers Alliance). Zig Zag have produced over 300 hours of programming both UK and internationally and their programmes have ranged from successful entertainment formats like "Change the Day you Die", "Find Me a Family" and "Bad Boy Racers" through to internationally acclaimed factual programming such as "Hypno Surgery Live", "Virgin School" and "The Girl with 8 Limbs".

Ferm, Jonna (Eurovision Science & Education Executives inc. Language Producers)

Jonna Ferm works as an executive multimedia producer in YLE's Learning & Science Department. She is in charge of maintaining and developing learning tools and the Science Department´s Internet solutions. Previously she worked in radio as a journalist, host and producer and she has also worked in TV productions.

Forsman, Liselott (Eurovision Fiction)
© Jyrki Valkama-YLE

“Solidarity and sharing might be key words in the fast-changing and demanding media world of today”.Within YLE / Finland, Liselott Forsman worked with both factual and fictional programmes, both for TV and radio, and in two languages (Finnish and Swedish). She has a vast experience of making, presenting and producing youth, culture, drama and crossover programming. Today she is the head of Fiction within the Swedish programming in YLE. As a freelance writer, she has written plays, audio plays, scripts and the libretto to a children's opera. Before taking the chair of the EBU Fiction Group, she was the chairperson of the Northvision Drama Group (the Scandinavian public service collaborative body).

Fitze, Urs (Common Focus Day)

Mr Urs Fitze was born on 21 April 1957. He studied Media & Education at the University of Zurich and the Sorbonne/Paris III, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in Cinema. From 1990 to 2005 he worked in a variety of fields as director, editor, author and producer.
Since 2005 he has been developing programmes for Swiss television in the arts and entertainment sectors.

Flindt, Jannik (Eurovision Teletext & Subtitling)

Masters degree in English from Copenhagen Business School 1982. Has worked in subtitling since 1983. Joined DR in 1988, subtitling for fiction and non-fiction. Since 1990 has also been subtitling news at DR. Since 1998 mainly working with news subtitling and since 2006 also doing live news subtitling using speech recognition.

Giussani, Bruno (Eurovision CrossMedia²)

Bruno Giussani is a writer and the European Director of the TED Conferences. He has authored books and articles on technology-led innovation and its social impact. He is a member of the Board of the Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. He lives in Switzerland and blogs at www.LunchOverIP.com.

Gonnet, Laeticia (Eurovision CrossMedia²)

Laetitia Gonnet has a postgraduate degree in Business Law from the Jean Moulin University in Lyon, France, and a postgraduate degree in Copyright & Related Rights Law (UK, USA, and EU) from King’s College, London. She started her career as a lawyer at Danone SA and Evian. She joined the EBU in 2004, where she works in the Legal Department as a contract lawyer. Her main role is to draft contracts negotiated by Eurovision TV.

Gustavson, Stig (Eurovision Science & Education Executives inc. Language Producers)

Stig Gustavson is Chairman of the Board of the Technology Academy Finland. He is also Chairman of the Board of several major Finnish corporations, Chairman of the Board of trustees: Tampere University of Technology and Arcada University of Applied Sciences. www.millenniumprize.fi

Haltia, Leila (Eurovision Science & Education Executives inc. Language Producers)

Leila Haltia works as Project Manager for Teachers' TV / Finland. She's been working at YLE - Finnish Broadcasting Company, as Journalist, Producer and Managing Editor for Educational Programmes.

Harris, Alan (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Dr. Alan Harris is a Senior Scientist at the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin. He leads research projects in Solar-System science, supervises research students, and lectures at universities. His present research interests include observations and modeling of the physical properties of near-Earth asteroids. In January 2004 Dr. Harris was appointed Chairman of the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Mission Advisory Panel, and he was recently invited by the International Astronautical Federation to establish and chair a Technical Committee on near-Earth objects. In recognition of his research the asteroid 7737 was named after him in July 1999. http://solarsystem.dlr.de/KK/

Helsingen, Arne (EBUconnect)

Arne Helsingen (49) has been working at Norwegian broadcaster NRK since 1998. He has been channel controller, commissioning editor in such diverse genres as News, Sport, Entertainment, Regional information, Culture and Drama, and is currently head of Programming and head of Television. www.nrk.no

Hofverberg, Gunnar (Eurovision Formats Workshop)

Gunnar Hofverberg is executive producer of programs that deals with society in the aspects of religion and outlook on life at SVT in Umeå.

Hogenboom, Erik (Eurovision Intercultural and Diversity Group +City Folk)

Erik Hogenboom is chief editor of "PREMtime" a weekly TV programme of NPS about Dutch multicultural society. He is also the executive producer of "City Folk", a co-production of the Eurovision Intercultural and Diversity Group, and coordinator of the PRIX EUROPA IRIS, the European media award for multicultural TV programmes. Erik Hogenboom studied Political Science at the University of Nijmegen in The Netherlands. After his graduation he worked for about ten years as a freelance documentary radio maker for several Dutch broadcasting companies, before joining the Netherlands Programme Service (NPS) which is bound by government to allocate a major part of its broadcasting time to multicultural issues.

Holland, Agnieszka (Common Focus)

Agnieszka Holland is one of Poland's most prominent filmmakers. She began her career as an assistant director for the Polish film directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda. Her first major film was Provincial Actors (Aktorzy Prowincjonalni, 1978), which won the International Critics Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1985 for Angry Harvest. Her best-known and well-regarded film was Europe Europa (1991), which became one of the most successful German films released in the USA, winning a Golden Globe and being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. She has recently shot three episodes of the major HBO series The Wire. Ms Holland is currently on the faculty as filmmaker-in-residence at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

Iacobacci, Nicoletta (Eurovision Science & Education Executives inc. Language Producers + Fiction + Children & Youth + Teletext & Subtitling + CrossMedia²)

Since 2006 Nicoletta Iacobacci has been in charge of Eurovision TV Interactive at the European Broadcasting Union. Born in Rome, she obtained a BA in fine arts then moved to the USA where she worked as a journalist/reporter, covering US and Central America for RAI, organized and produced TV series and live events. She obtained a Masters degree in communication arts (computer graphics) in 1987 and was one of the web pioneers. After that, her career changed and she became more and more involved in digital TV activities. In 2002 she moved back to Italy to take charge of RAI Interactive Factory. Today, she coordinates some experts groups for European public broadcasters, developing compelling content and a solid infrastructure for the TV of the future.

James, Alan (EBUconnect)

Alan James started his career in advertising, after graduating in Economics from University College London. He worked for Dorland and then moved onto to Ogilvy and Mather, where he became Television Buying Director for its media arm, The Network, handling negotiations for clients such as Guinness, Ford and IBM. Mr. James joined the BBC in 1998 as its first Head of Media Planning. He oversees the use of promotional airtime across all BBC Television Channels; domestic, international and commercial including UKTV, national radio networks and BBCi, the BBC’s online and interactive service.

Jämtelid, Maria (Eurovision Formats Workshop)

Maria Jämtelid is leading the program developing unit at SVT in Umeå. She has worked as producer of entertainment programmes, musical documentaries, gameshows and factual programmes.

Jay, Philip (Eurovision CrossMedia² )

Philip Jay has worked in television and new media in the UK for over 10 years. Now at the BBC he is responsible for developing and launching new strategies, services and new forms of distribution for the BBC’s content, on television platforms. He launched the BBC's first on-demand/catch-up TV trials on cable TV platforms in the UK. Currently, the work of his team includes developing the BBC iPlayer on TV, Push VOD on PVRs, and a number of IPTV initiatives at the service and platform levels. www.bbc.co.uk

Jennekens, Frans (Common Focus + Eurovision Intercultural and Diversity Group + City Folk)

Frans Jennekens has been manager of Diversity at Dutch public broadcaster NPS (Netherlands Programmes Service) since 2008. He is also chairman of the EBU’s Eurovision Intercultural and Diversity Group. Jennekens has been initiating and organizing projects concerning diversity in the company since 2001. He has also commissioned several multicultural programmes on prime time Dutch television. Some programmes attract a great deal of attention. He has also been chief editor of a daily news programme, is an award-winning radio and television documentary maker, and studied educational sciences at the University of Nijmegen. www.nps.nl

Jörg, Daniele (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Daniele Jörg is currently working as series editor for diverse science TV formats at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR-TV), Germany’s largest Public Broadcaster. Her experiences include more than ten years as the series producer of Quarks&Co, the flagship science magazine on WDR, and three years as commissioning editor for science documentaries for WDR and Arte. Jörg was previously a science producer for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) and has reported for the Deutschlandradio. Her scientific research includes a thesis in the evolution of marine worms as well as extensive work at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. She has won numerous prestigious awards for her journalistic work. www.quarks.de / www.wdr.de

Joslet, Laure (Eurovision Children & Youth)

Laure JOSLET is a Principal for Capgemini Consulting France. She has 10 years of consulting experience in the Telecom & Media industry. Her expertise ranges from strategy, marketing as well as transformation.

Keller-Reddemann, Birgit (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Birgit Keller-Reddemann is now head of TV editorial department Education at WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk), conceptional and editorial supervision of Planet Wissen and Planet Schule. She is working as an editor and TV producer since almost 20 years after Studies in the field of political sciences, communication sciences and history at the Westfälische Wilhelms Universität, Münster from 1978 to 1985. www.planet-schule.de / www.planet-wissen.de

Kujala, Tapio (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Tapio Kujala is the Head of Learning and Science Department in Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE). Previously, he worked as Commissioning Editor of Learning and Science for YLE Teema channel. Before YLE, Mr. Kujala worked as the Head of Training in the Media department of a polytechnic school for nine years.

Künstler, Izabela (Eurovision Teletext & Subtitling)

Pianist, theatre historian, journalist and screenwriter. Since 1991 has been working for Polish Television. Joined the Captions Department when it was founded in 1994. In August 2006 she became chief editor of the Captions Department and since 2007 she has been one of the first audio describers in Poland.
www.napisy.itvp.pl

Laroes, Hans (EBU TV Assembly)

Hans Laroes (52) is editor-in-chief of NOS-News.
He has that job since the end of 2006, when NOS brought all of its news departments together to form a cross medial news organization. He is also president of the NewsCommittee of the EBU. www.nosjournaal.nl / Blog: weblogs.nos.nl/hoofdredactie/

Leigh, Alison (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Alison Leigh is Editorial Director of the annual WORLD CONGRESS OF SCIENCE and FACTUAL Producers, where leading international producers and executives join together to share experiences and ideas about the latest trends in our genre. Previously Alison was Executive Producer of the ABC TV Science Unit, in Sydney Australia. www.wcsfp.com

L'Hostis, Henri (EBUconnect)

Henri L’Hostis has over 20 years of experience in radio & TV. Currently, he is Head of Broadcasting and Sound Design at ARTE, where he is responsible for on-air design, programme trailers and promotions, broadcast scheduling, management of audio-visual archives, programme copies and technical quality checks as well as the multilingual broadcast control room. Before joining ARTE, he worked as sound designer for La Sept and as sound designer and director at Radio Notre Dame in Paris. Since 1985, he has freelanced for various French radio and TV channels as sound director and sound designer. Mr. L’Hostis has a degree from the Ecole Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle in Paris. He has won a range of awards with his work, including Promax, from ADC Art Directors Club in Berlin, Medientage in Munich, EBU “Presentation”, EBUconnect, and the Red Dot Award in Essen.

Linsey, Mark (Common Focus)

Mark became Executive Editor for BBC Entertainment Commissioning in February 2007. He has been in television for 20 years and during that time built up a reputation as a quality producer in Entertainment programming. Mark has a wide range of formatting and production experience and has made programmes for most of the main UK channels. Mark won a Silver Rose at Montreux for Best Entertainment Programme in 2001 with the hidden camera comedy game show "Obvious".

Locke, Bill (Common Focus)

Bill Locke is head of History and Special Projects at Lion Television. Recent productions include Ape to Man, a special film for the History Channel telling the story of the discovery of human evolution (recent winner of an Emmy for best documentary script and the US Academy of Science's best television programme award). Bill is executive producer of the international Schools series. This began with African School, a series following life in the Ugandan town of Masindi for the BBC's Africa Lives season (the series won two One World Awards). The second series, Indian School, went to Pune and Chinese School has recently began broadcasting on BBC4.From 1995-97 Bill lived in Ethiopia, making films for the BBC World Service, a variety of non-governmental organisations and the United Nations. www.liontv.co.uk/_london/about/bill_locke.html

Luyckx, Florent (Journée "Point Commun")

Since January 2003 Station manager/Project manager of Radio 3FM. Responsible, together with the editorial staff, for the policy of the station. His background is the pop music business and he was a DJ in the early days of his career. For Radio 3FM he has introduced several successful cross-media concepts.

Maniura, Peter (Common Focus Day + Eurovision Music & Dance)

Peter Maniura is currently the Head of Television Classical Music and Performance for the BBC. His production department is responsible for all the BBC’s key factual and performance output of music and dance programmes including The BBC Proms, opera from the Royal Opera House and Glyndebourne and ballet productions. He has over 15 years experience as a director and producer of both documentary and live event programmes and pursues his programme making alongside his current managerial and strategic commitments at the BBC. Peter was appointed a member of the Royal Victorian Order in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Honours for his work in producing Prom at the Palace at Buckingham Palace as part of the Jubilee celebrations.

Martic, Zvezdan (Eurovision Teletext & Subtitling)

Zvezdan Martic (1963) joined TV Ljubljana, later known as TV Slovenija (part of RTV Slovenija) as an electronics student at the University of Ljubljana and was a journalist for the daily newscast. After his engineering degree, he specialized in science and technology. In 2001 he inaugurated the multimedia centre at RTV Slovenija.

Mathieu, Pierre (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers + CrossMedia²)

After a masters in applied management IT from Lyons University, Pierre Mathieu joined La Cinquième in 1996 where he developed the channel’s Internet activities and its first website. After the channel’s merger with Arte, he was appointed head of the Internet service at La Cinquième-Arte in 1999. In 2001, he was appointed head of Internet services at France 5. He moved to France Télévisions Interactive in 2005 as head of interactive programming for France 5. He took charge of the France 4 website in 2006, then in February 2008 he became head of Internet programming. He is also the chairman of the CTF Multimedia Group and worked with NHK on the Japan Prize. www.linkedin.com/in/pierremathieu / www.france5.fr

McCarthy, Catherine (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Catherine McCarthy is a Commissioning Executive for the BBC. She commissions programmes on behalf of the BBC/The Open University partnership, particularly in the areas of Science,Technology, Arts and History. She has a background in Educational Broadcasting and has worked at the BBC in a number of commissioning and production roles. She has been involved in many of the BBC's Landmark series such as; Life in Cold Blood and Nature of Britain. www.bbc.co.uk

Merkel, Klaus (Eurovision Teletext & Subtitling)

Klaus Merkel, born in 1966, graduated as an telecommunications engineer from the Technical University in Munich. He joined IRT in 1992. Since 1995 he has been working in programme distribution over various digital platforms, including interactive applications. Since 2004 IPTV has been the main focus of his work.

Mol, Michel (Eurovision CrossMedia²)

Michel Mol was appointed as Director of Innovation and New Media at Netherlands Public Broadcasting (NPB) in March 2007. Mol, previously with McKinsey&Company, director of Grey Interactive and formerly a private entrepreneur, joined Netherlands Public Broadcasting in 2001 as head of the Internet Division. In this role he was responsible for developing and implementing its online strategy, including the country's prime content portal Omroep.nl and its largest VOD service Uitzendinggemist.nl, serving 9 million video streams monthly to the Dutch audience. www.linkedin/in/Michel Mol

Neumann, Dirk (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers + CrossMedia²)

Educated as a marine biologist, Dirk Neumann had his first film experience as field assistant and scientific advisor for part of the BBC's "Life of Mammals" in New Zealand in 2000. Since 2002 he has been working as a writer/director/producer in the science and education department of SWR German public television, creating films on nature and science subjects, as well as developing new educational multimedia products. www.planet-schule.de

Nikel, Markus (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Since graduating in Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg, Germany, Markus has been working as an author, producer and editorial supervisor of educational and factual television programmes and multimedia productions. For RAI, he has worked on a variety of programmes and websites for schools and adult education, and he represents RAI Educational in EBU projects. Since 2004, he has also been the programme manager for the annual Basel_Karlsruhe Forum on Educational and Societal TV and Media. www.educational.rai.it / www.bakaforum.net

Nilson, Christer (Common Focus + Eurovision Fiction)

Christer Nilson is currently managing Director of GötaFilm. Having spent 10 years freelancing in the film and TV business, he worked at the Gothenburg City Theatre for 6 years as producer and marketing manager. He set up Götafilm in 1989. Since then he has been the managing director and has produced and coproduced a great number of feature films, prime-time drama series, documentaries and short films. He was chairman of the Swedish Film Producers Association from 2005 to 2008. He has been a member of the ACE (Ateliers du Cinéma Européen) Producers Club since 1996. In 2007 he sat on the Media TV Distribution panel of experts. He is also visiting professor in The Production of Film at HV, University West in Sweden.

Nixon, Tony (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

M. Nixon is a senior lecturer in Information Systems, a member of the Department of Systems and Communications. He chairs the Postgraduate Information Systems Programme and taught courses across a range of subjects including Astronomy, Engineering Mechanics, Nano Technology and Logic Design. His main research interest are in XPS Xray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Open source teaching, Complex systems and emergence.http://systems.open.ac.uk/page.cfm

O'Connor, Karen (Common Focus + Eurovision Documentary Workshop + Documentary Bureau)

Karen O'Connor is the Head of London Factual at the BBC. Karen is responsible for London Factual Production – its content, its people and its ideas – and aims to drive quality and innovation in content and across platforms. Prior to taking up this position Karen was Acting Commissioning Editor for BBC News & Current Affairs where she oversaw a wide portfolio of diverse strands and landmark series including Panorama, Equator, Conspiracy Files, Andrew Marr's History Of Modern Britain and seasons for younger audiences on BBC Three. Her television career began over 20 years ago and her credits include being Deputy Editor on Panorama and Newsnight and Editor of the international documentary strands Correspondent and This World. She has devised and executive produced a range of programming across the BBC's four channels including factual content and was Creative Director for News & Current Affairs before taking up the Commissioning Editor role.

Olding, Paul (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Paul Olding is a documentary film maker working within the science department at the BBC. His credits include ‘What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity’ (2008), a road trip across the USA with Physicist Dr Brian Cox; the HiDef exploration of the most powerful force on our planet in 'Earth: The Power of the Planet' (2007); the dubious story of millionaire Robert Clarke Graham and his quest to breed intelligence in the drama documentary 'The Genius Sperm Bank' (2006); the story of the NASA/ESA mission to land a probe on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan in 'Titan - A Place like Home?'; the emotional story of the forensic scientists drawn from all over the globe to help identify the final remaining bodies of the Boxing Day Asian Tsunami in 'Naming the Dead'. www.bbc.co.uk/horizon

O’Sullivan,Thaddeus (Common Focus Day)

Thaddeus O’Sullivan is one of Ireland’s most prominent film directors. Starting out a cinematographer on some of the most memorable independent productions of the 1980s – Traveller (1981), Pigs (1984), On the Black Hill (1987) – he moved across to the director’s chair in the early 1990s with a multiple prize-winning film, December Bride, set in rural Ireland. Since then he has made his name in both film and television as, among other things, a brilliant chronicler of crime and the underworld, both in Europe (mainly Ireland) and in the United States. His two-part series Witness to the Mob (1998), made for NBC and Tribeca, is generally reckoned to be one of the best films about the Mafia. Currently he is finishing coproduction on Churchill at War, a continuation of the prize-winning television drama The Gathering Clouds.

Paradisi, Alessandra (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

International Relations and Media Expert: since 2004, Alessandra Paradisi is Secretary General of COPEAM, the permanent conference of audiovisual operators in the Mediterranean area, with a wide network of broadcasters and other players in the audiovisual sector on all sides of the Mediterranean Sea. She has also worked at RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana) for several years. Since 2008, she works in the Institutional Department as Head of International Relations.

Philips, Kate (Eurovision Formats Workshop)

Kate Phillips is currently an Executive Editor for Development, BBC Entertainment. Kate oversees development for all of BBC In House Entertainment. She creates development that’s focused, formatted, slot driven, with interactivity and the international market at its heart. From 2005 – 2007 Kate was Head of Development at BBC Children’s, incorporating CBeebies and CBBC. She was responsible for all in-house development teams including entertainment, factual, events, Scotland and worked on the pre-production of new programmes. Previously Kate owned her own format company Mast Media and ran the company with two colleagues, executive-producing many of their shows. She has produced entertainment shows that include Comic Relief and The Big Breakfast.

Podevyn, Yves (EBUconnect)

Yves Podevyn is creative director at VRT. He started as a director of news and current affairs. Later on he specialized in directing multi-cam productions (talkshows, entertainment, etc.). His last production was the Junior Eurovision Contest 2005 for EBU. After that he became art director for VRT and branded several programmes. Since last March he has been creative director for VRT-Production.

Poubeau, Perrine (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Commissioning Editor, Acquisitions and International Co-productions, France 5 Perrine Poubeau began her career in the television industry in 1997 at La Cinquieme, now known as France 5, one of the France Televisions Groupe channels. Initially, Perrine was involved in video, DVD, book publishing and marketing of the channel's programmes for France Televisions Distributions. In 2001, Perrine's interest in the international side of the business led France 5’s Department of Acquisitions and International Co-productions, headed by Ann Julienne to recruit her. Perrine's work takes her to international programme markets and festivals in search of the best documentary films and projects covering wildlife, nature and the environment, archaeology, science, people, places and cultures from around the world. In recent years Perrine has developed a number co-productions with international partners.

Profitt, Emma (EBUconnect)

Emma Profitt is a senior account director at Red Bee Media and has been with the company for five years. She has worked on TV channel identity branding for BBC & UKTV, most recently managing the re-launch of BBC Three, alongside running promotional campaigns for Sport, Children’s, Comedy and Youth programmes. In 2006 she worked as marketing manager at BBC Three. Previously working in advertising agencies on global advertising with multinational clients such as Unilever, she has ten years’ experience in advertising & TV marketing. www.redbeemedia.com

Radjabali, Caroline (Eurovision Science & Education inc. Language Producers)

Communications Senior Consultant, AthenaWeb Coordinator: A journalism and criminology graduate, Caroline works in the area of communication strategy and management, and media networking. As an officer working in the field for the United Nations Development Programme, she specialized in public affairs and communication. During the last four years, she has held the position of coordinator of the European Association of City Televisions, covering the development of common tele-visual projects.

Randisi, Jean-Philippe (Eurovision Children & Youth)

Jean-Philippe Randisi is senior vice-president and managing director, Nickelodeon and Viacom Consumer Products, Europe, Middle East, Africa (NVCP EMEA). Randisi oversees MTV Networks International’s (MTVNI) licensing efforts across EMEA, retail partnerships and key client relationships such as Mattel, THQ and Paramount. He also directs all strategic planning and business operations for NVCP EMEA, and the management of NVCP EMEA offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, London and Paris. Based in London, Randisi is responsible for developing licensing and merchandising opportunities for MTVNI’s properties such as Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants and South Park.

Richards, Beryl (Eurovision Children Drama Series)

Beryl has been executive producing the Children’s Drama series for the last four years. She also writes and directs TV drama, specialising in children’s drama and comedy. Beryl has helped create many popular series, for which she has been awarded three BAFTA’s, an RTS, a British Comedy Award, the Prix Jeunesse, and two International EMMY nominations. Her recent credits are All about Me, The Franken Twins, and My Life as a Popat. Beryl also consults on children’s drama for ITV, Ragdoll Productions and The Foundation/RDF. She has written three feature scripts, two are currently in development.

Ruijsenaars, Heijo (Eurovision CrossMedia²)

Heijo Ruijsenaars has been a Legal Advisor at the EBU since 1998. His legal expertise lies in the new media and new technologies sector, international copyright, and sports and news broadcasting. Specializing in intellectual property law, Heijo worked in entertainment law for a German law firm in Munich and during an internship at the Walt Disney Company, Burbank (USA). Until 1997 he worked at the renowned Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property Law in Munich. In 1997, he obtained a doctorate with a comparative law thesis on character merchandising from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

Sadowska, Katarzyna (Eurovision CrossMedia²)

Katarzyna Sadowska has worked for Polish Television for 3,5 years. She currently manages a team responsible for marketing and development in Interactive Media Department. www.itvp.pl

Schmidt, Markus (EBUconnect)

Markus Schmidt worked in advertising before he became Creative Director of Germany´s leading entertainment channel ProSieben. In 1999 he founded the award winning in-house agency SevenSenses. Since 2005 he is CEO and Creative Director of UnitedSenses, the global creative network with offices in L.A., New York, Munich, Copenhagen, Moscow, Johannesburg and Beijing. He has won over 100 BDA & Promax awards and together with his partners, recently finished major media-branding projects around the world.

Schneider, Beat (Eurovision Teletext & Subtitling)

Since 2001 Beat Schneider (1960) has been working with SWISS TXT, Swiss Teletext Inc., a subsidiary of Swiss public broadcaster SRG SSR. He started out as head of Human Resources and coordinated the subtitling services at national level. From 2005 to 2006 he headed the project for the creation of four language-regional multimedia centres within SRG SSR. The teletext editorial staffs are now integrated into these multimedia centres. In December 2006 he became CEO of SWISS TXT.

Schneider, Martin (Common Focus Day + Eurovision Music & Dance)

After a few years as a teacher and lecturer for Music Education Martin Schneider joined ZDF's music department in 1986, developing and introducing formats like the Music Quiz "Allegro", a Music Magazine and the Award Winners' Show "ECHO". As an author and director he has a strong preference for documentaries with a "human touch" approach. In recent years he was responsible for international documentary (co-) productions and for "event" productions like the New Year's Eve Concert of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra or EBU's "Welcome Europe!"-Show on the occasion of the European Enlargement (broadcast in 35 countries).