Gary Leih began his career at Ogilvy Cape Town in 1980 and progressed through the ranks there and later at Ogilvy Johannesburg (then South Africa’s largest agency), rising to Group Account Director.

In 1989 he co-founded The White House which grew from nothing to become one of the country’s hottest agencies. The White House won Agency of the Year awards in South Africa in ’91, ’92 and ’93.

Roger Sjögren is Head of Education at Hyper Island. More than 10 years ago (1995) he was part of setting up the school in an old military remand prison in Karlskrona in the south east corner of Sweden. His main contribution during the initial years of the school was to develop the experience and reflection based learning concept used at Hyper Island. He is also one of the driving forces behind the successful inclusion of and cooperation with industry professionals on a daily basis at the school.

During 2004 - 2006 Roger left Hyper Island and moved to Jerusalem to perform cooperation development and international aid work in the Middle East commissioned by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. His main task was to manage the planning and performance of a UN conference and mapping of the media situation in seven Arab states.

The passion for education lead him back to Hyper Island in 2007 with the mission to establish the school in Stockholm. Now he is enjoying his days at Hyper Island with guiding and monitoring the process of supporting students in - learning to learn, developing stronger skills in handling change, gaining greater self insight, strengthening their abilities in solving problems, developing a self management approach and entrepreneurial skills as well as being at the edge of digital and interactive media.

Pieter Goiris (34) is the founder & Chief Executive Officer of the advertising & communications agency Boondoggle and also sits on its Board of Directors. He holds a Master Degree in Organisational Psychology from the KU Leuven and a Bachelor Degree in Agriculture Engineering from the University Gent.

In his current position, Pieter is responsible for the General Management, Business & Strategy in Belgium and for the Development of the Internationalisation Strategy of  Boondoggle (Ireland & Netherlands). Pieter has made of Boondoggle a leading advertising & communications agency with offices in 4 countries.  He currently manages a team of about 65 employees, with a revenue exceeding 7 Mio Euro.

Between 2000 and 2005, Pieter held the position of Client Service Director. Together with his team he was responsible for the Account Management for big clients such as Volvo, Rabobank International Direct Banking,  The Belgian Post Group… He was also in charge of New Business Development and increased benefit levels from 1Mio to 4Mio Euro.

Prior to joining Boondoggle (i-merge), in 1998, he was  Founder & Managing Partner of Sign, a web developing company, based in Leuven.. From 1997 to 1998, Pieter was a Recruitment and Training Coordinator for Group 4 Securitas.

Pieter is currently involved in several organisations that support the development of the marketing communications industry including Medianet Vlaanderen, the  Association of Communication Companies (ACC) & the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Martin Florek is currently finishing a Master Degree in Corporate Economics and Management at the University of Economics in Prague. This degree covers consumer behaviour, campaign effectiveness, media strategy, brand management, account management and legal aspects of advertising.

He started an internship at Carat London in February 2008 thanks to the EFCCE internship scheme.

Dr. Gray joined the European Advertising Standards Alliance as Director General in 1993. He has a BSc in Social Science with History and Philosophy and a PhD in European Political Management, both from the University of Bath, and combines his academic achievements with significant professional experience of European affairs. At EASA, Dr Gray is responsible for providing strategic input, lobbying the EU institutions, and managing the work of the secretariat. He acts as an advisor in the creation and development of self-regulation, particularly in the new Member States and applicant countries of the EU.

Dr Gray is also co-chair of the International Chamber of Commerce’s Code Revision Taskforce which helps revise and establish ICC codes of marketing and advertising practice.

Prior to joining EASA, Dr Gray was Senior Committee Coordinator at the American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels, where he was responsible for coordinating the views of 140 European companies of American parentage on intellectual property, data protection, competition, trade, financial services and taxation. Previously he was Deputy Director General at the European Glass Confederation (CPIV).

Dr Gray maintains his involvement with academia as a visiting professor at the KUL University in Leuven, Belgium, where he has lectured on EU representation, lobbying, and ethical issues within the European Studies Masters programme. He has also been a visiting speaker on the ECPAB Public Affairs programme. A native English speaker, he is fluent in French, and also speaks Dutch and German.

Jean-Claude Hamilius graduated from the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach in Germany. Over the years, he has been Artistic and Creative Director at Young&Rubicam, Leo Burnett, Saatchi, DMB&B and McCann Erickson in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, in charge of the creation and/or creativity locally and at European level.

He is the founder and Creative Director of Consumers (Ges.f.gute Werbung mbH) in Düsseldorf and in October 2007 he was named Professor of “Kommunikationsdesign” at the faculty “für Gestaltung” of the Hochschule Mannheim.

Niklas Frings-Rupp started his career as an account manager working for agencies such as DDB London, TBWA Germany, Springer & Jacoby and Jung von Matt. Over the years he worked for a large number of clients including BMW, Mini, Apple, Media Markt, GlaxoWelcome, Weihenstephan, Der Spiegel, Unicef and many more.

In 2003 he founded the Miami Ad School Europe together with Oliver Voss, one of Germany's leading creatives. The school was first set up in an old hospital in Hamburg with only 12 students. Ever since then, the school has grown rapidly and now gathers together over 70 students from 30 countries. Recently Niklas and Oliver expanded the school and created sub-branches in Stockholm, Vienna, Amsterdam and Brussels and are planning to create a school in Shanghai.

After its second year of existence, the school was already the most awarded school in the world, collecting the top prizes at all major student award shows. Titles won by the students so far include nominations as German “Student of the year” (twice in a row), Dutch “Student of the year”, the first ever Lüerzers Archive “International Student of the Year” and last year’s “Student Young Gun of the Year”. The school is the only advertising school outside the US which is always mentioned in the Gunn report among the best advertising schools worldwide. Work done by students interning have resulted in 5 Lions at Cannes, 5 Pencils at the One Show, Andy & Clio nominations, 2 Pencils at the D&AD Awards and a couple more at the German ADC.

In his spare time, Niklas likes to race his dusty somewhat old Porsche on the German Autobahn and professional race tracks.

Francisco Perez Latre is Professor of Advertising and Media Planning in the School of Communication at the University of Navarra, Spain, where he was also Assistant Dean between 1996 and 2004. He has also served as Academic Director at the Institute of Media and Entertainment (IME) in New York City (2004-2005). He teaches regularly in graduate programmes such as Media Management and Corporate Communication degrees in Navarra and in the Journalism for Editors programme, Centro de Extensâo Universitária in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

He earned his Ph. D and a Master of Arts in Marketing Communications/Advertising at Emerson College, Boston in 1993. He is the author of four books, eleven book chapters and forty-four articles about advertising, corporate communication and media market analysis.

Helga Van den Bulck graduated from the Free University of Brussels with a master degree in Communication Sciences. Her university education included an internship at the research department of the Flemish public broadcasting company and open programme courses in international political sciences at the University of Cambridge and at the Université de Caen (France).

For two years she worked in the printed media sector as an advertising consultant. From that time on she started teaching advertising courses at graduate and postgraduate level in various institutions.

Currently she teaches advertising, international corporate and intercultural communication at the Plantijn University of Applied Sciences in Antwerp for Belgian and international students.

To keep up with continuous changes in the communications landscape she has taken part in various programmes in Amsterdam and worked briefly in New York. She is extensively involved in many national and international projects with advertising agencies, which are all focused on strategy development and campaign planning.

Sandra Femenía Almerich has a Bachelor Degree in Advertising and Public Relations from the CEU Cardenal Herrera University. She trained in advertising and public relations in Valencian agencies. She has been co-manager on various projects in relation to culture and sporting events.

She is Lecturer for the Advertising and Public Relation degree in the Social Sciences and Law Faculty of CEU Cardenal Herrera University, Manager of the Erasmus programme for Advertising and Public Relations Degree and Coordinator of external relationships and training for the Advertising and Public Relations degree at CEU Cardenal Herrera University.

David Roca Correa received his PhD in Audiovisual Communication and Advertising from the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona in 2000.
His research areas include creativity, advertising creativity, radio and interactive advertising, in four main areas around creativity: person, process, product and press. He is part of the GRP (Advertising Research Group), and the Publiradio (Radio Adverstising Research Group).
Since 1996, he is professor at the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona and has been invited at University of Porto Alegre (Brazil), UFRS (Brazil) and UNAPEC (Santo Dominican Republic).

Daniel Tena Parera has been a Professor at the University Autònoma of Barcelona since 1992. In 1989, he obtained a License in Advertising and Publicity and in 1998 a Doctorate in Audiovisual Communication at the University Autònoma of Barcelona. He is specialist in teaching and research on the design and production of visual and audiovisual messages in mass media from a formal perspective. He is an active member of various research groups including the GRP (Group of Investigation in Advertising and Publicity), Simbol (Group of Investigation of the reception of communication), and the GRPCP (Group of Investigation in Psychology and Advertising Communication)