Judging Panel

Al Gosling - CEO and Founder of Extreme Group

Passionate about extreme sports and unable to find a job that interested him, in 1995 at age 24, Al set up this entrepreneur led collection of companies.  Al started out by working with a number of TV producers selling TV programs to broadcasters all over the world, this then led onto the Extreme Sports Channel, which launched in 1999 and is now broadcasting in over 60 countries.

From there, Al has expanded Extreme into a number of sectors and today it delivers a range of branded lifestyle products and services including, Extreme Entertainment (TV), Ex Stores, Extremepie.com (online retailer), Extreme Mob (an MVNO mobile phone network), Extreme Drinks, Extreme Hotels, Ex Parks (sports based theme parks), Ex Freshies (cafés), Extreme Cred, Ex Travel, Ex Time, Extreme Element (sports courses and experience voucher service), Viledge.com (first ‘real time live’ social network), Extreme Mayhem (paintball), Extreme Medics, Ex Decko (large pic and graphic service), Ex Raw State (apparel and footwear range).  

Andreas Bernström, Group COO TradeDoubler

Starting a career in the City of London, Andreas worked at Merrill Lynch, followed by a three year stint at Goldman Sachs firstly as an analyst within the equities division, followed by becoming an equity repo/securities lending trader.

Andreas joined TradeDoubler in 2000 in the role of sales director and was one of four people who set up TradeDoubler’s UK operation. In 2002 he was appointed MD of the UK business and was appointed to the Group Management Board in 2005. In April 2007 Andreas was promoted to Group COO, where he has responsibility for all company operations.

Andreas holds a BA in Economics and French from the University of Manchester; and an MA in Finance from Websters University in London.

Anil Hansjee - Head of M&A Emea, Google
Anil is Head of Corporate Development at Google for Europe, Middle East and Africa, based in London. Prior to joining, Anil was a Director at the boutique investment banking firm GP Bullhound and immediately before that he was a Principal with the venture capital firm IDG Ventures, where he was board director of one of their portfolio companies, the mobile music company, Shazam Entertainment. Between mid 2000 and end of 2001, Anil was a Vice President for corporate finance with Bear Stearns International in London. Between mid 1997 and mid 2000, Anil was a member of Chase Manhattan Bank's corporate finance group both in New York and London.  Anil joined Chase's corporate finance team after spending the first 7 years of his professional career as a software engineer first with UBS then Chase. Anil has a BSc.(Hons.) in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science from Edinburgh University and has an MSc. in Finance at London Business School.

Manish Madhvani, Co-founder and Partner, GP Bullhound
Manish is a co-founder and partner at GP Bullhound, the specialist investment bank focused on providing fundraising and mergers & acquisition advice to public and private companies in the technology sector. Manish has worked on a number of high profile fundraising and M&A transactions in the digital media sector. Prior to co-founding the company Manish worked in the venture capital markets working in Europe and Asia working for Barclays Capital's Technology & Media Private Equity team.  Manish recently advised the Treasury on “Entrepreneurship and Funding” and was short-listed for business person of the year in the KPMG London Business Awards.

Michael Nutley, Editor-in-Chief, NMA
Michael Nutley, Editor-in-chief - New Media Age, has been a business journalist for 22 years, covering a number of areas including software, telecommunications, construction and leisure. He took over as editor of New Media Age in July 2000, and was promoted to editor-in-chief earlier this year. As editor-in-chief he maintains a strategic overview of the entire new media sector, from both a client and a service provider perspective. He’s also particularly interested in online advertising, the convergence of TV and the internet, and the transformative effect of interactive media on organisations.

Mike Reid, Director, 3i

Mike is one of 3i's key Digital Media investors (web, mobile & other platforms), and is a part of 3i's team that delivered recent successes like Screentonic's sale to Microsoft.

With 10 years of Venture board experience behind him, Mike has extensive hands-on knowledge of working with fast growing companies.

Businesses where Mike's input has been critical include SBL Vaccine (acquired by Crucell Grp), Q-Matic (acquired by Altor), Hotsip (acquired by Oracle), Magic4 (Acquired by Openwave), Adaytum (acquired by Cognos), Marlborough Stirling (LSE IPO), Instone International, Xenicom (acquired by Andrew Corp.), CDC Solutions (acquired), Kaisha (acquired) amongst others.

Mike's current board appointments include Connectivity, Editopia, Instone International and Mobile Commerce, and is part of the deal team on Taptu, Receiva and Cachelogic.

Parminder Vir OBE, Executive Producer and Financier, Ingenious Media
Parminder, is an awarding winning film and television producer with 20 years of production experience of drama, documentary, current affairs and entertainment working for the BBC, ITV, Channel Four, major international channels and her own independent production company.  At Ingenious Media, she is responsible for establishing Ingenious World Cinema, investing in films from the new voices of international cinema, including India, China, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and the Diaspora. She is responsible for identifying potential films for production, developing relationships with producers of crossover films for the global market and attracting new investors to the company.  She served as a Board director of the UK Film Council (1999-2005) and was appointed Non-Executive Director to the Board of DCMS advising on creative economy, international policy and diversity strategies.

Parminder was awarded an OBE in the Queen's birthday honours list for her services to the Film and Broadcasting industries.

Paul Wright
Head of Business Development at Sky Media

Seb Bishop
Seb is President and CMO of MIVA (NASDAQ:MIVA), the global online advertising network formed following the merger of Espotting Media and FindWhat.com in 2004. Seb co-founded Espotting Media in 2000 which pioneered Search Marketing and Pay-Per-Click Advertising in the UK. As one of the youngest President of a NASDAQ listed company at 32, Seb has also been Mr. Bishop has been the recipient of numerous accolades which recognise his achievements in the new media and advertising industries, including the Financial Times' “Top 50 Creative Businesses,” Campaign Magazine's “Faces to Watch,” Media Week's ”30 Under 30” and Media & Marketing Europe's “40 Under 40.”

Tim Green - Executive Editor, Mobile Entertainment
Tim Green is currently the executive editor of Mobile Entertainment, the leading trade publication for the wireless content sector. He has been writing about mobile entertainment since the market’s inception in 1999, first as mobile editor of MCV (the games industry trade magazine) and then as a senior analyst with market forecaster Screen Digest.

Tina Cowen - Partner, Olswang
Tina has been a Partner at Olswang since 1998. She specialises in advising companies on all aspects of corporate law including joint ventures, acquisitions, disposals and fund raisings but with a particular expertise in advising entrepreneurial high growth companies in the media and technology sectors. Recent deals include acting for iTouch on its acquisition of Ostrich Media from Channel 4, and for the Polish owners of QXL Poland on the settlement of their dispute with QXL Ricardo plc.