clare shephard

clare shephard started her career in pr back in January 1996. her early experiences in the agency world included delivering pr programmes for clients such as Samsung, Thorn and Cable & Wireless amongst others. she then decided to experience the practice from another perspective and moved in-house; managing EMEA PR Programmes for 3Com Corporation, Corel Corporation and VERITAS Software (now Symantec).

on both sides of the pr function, clare has been responsible for driving dynamic and creative, business objective-related pr campaigns that require an eye for detail but capture the interest of even the busiest journalist.

chris bignell

chris has over 15 years pr experience, including 4 years heading up the IT & Telecoms division of a major UK agency. his past clients include blue chip companies like Microsoft, Nokia, Toshiba, Kodak and Intel. he also works closely with the UK Government through BERR and DCMS and has an enviable list of media contacts in both the tech and telecoms markets.

chris’ in-house experience includes taking responsibility for communicating Motorola’s vision and strategy to key audiences including the media, UK and Ireland Governments, internal audiences and other key stakeholders and the role of Head of Marketing Communications for Toshiba Mobile (2001-2006).

he also now contributes regularly to a number of publications on the impact of communications technology on business and consumers.

gary marshall

gary also has 15 years media experience and specialises in the tech and telecoms space.

his telecom experience encompasses UK and Pan European media combined with analyst outreach programmes across the breadth of the industry, whilst his wider technology remit has seen him taking topics such as customer relationship management, storage, security, business intelligence, the channel and data centre management (amongst others) to press with outstanding results.

andrea burton

andrea burton is a senior consultant with over 20 years experience of managing pr and marketing programmes on a local, European and global level for technology companies. her experience includes time spent in-house – first as marketing director for Ardent Software and latterly as EMEA AR and pr director for BEA Systems where she was responsible for the appraisal and management of retained agencies in eighteen countries across Europe. whilst working in agency, andrea worked for large corporates such as IBM, 3Com, Business Objects, SAS Institute and Sybase as well as small to medium sized UK based businesses.