Jess is committed to generating business-critical events that provide value and key insights for commercial success. She has created international events and led innovative teams at Informa, Energy Intelligence, Risk and The Telegraph. 

Now, more than ever, face-to-face interaction is a valuable and increasingly rare commodity. In an era of rapid innovation and unprecedented challenges, sharing inspiration and best practice is essential for progressive organisations and ambitious professionals. Not just for commercial success, but to create a sustainable and forward-focused strategy and culture.

Alison McCarthy ACA is a finance director with many years’ experience helping companies in the media, entertainment and events sectors build viable commercial businesses. Over the years, her roles have included the financial leadership of businesses ranging from start-ups to listed companies, operational leadership roles in television and post production, and work within accountancy practice where she specialised in the UK creative industries tax credit. 

She works closely with a number of investment funds and M&A advisory firms, assisting their investee companies and clients.

Mark Carawan has a wealth of experience in governance, regulatory compliance and ethics, and conduct and culture matters globally, and has served as the chief audit executive for two global financial institutions. From the late 1980s to 2002, as a partner at Andersen and then Deloitte, Mark led and managed multi-disciplinary financial sector and individual institution restructuring, resolution, and privatisation programs on behalf of ministries of finance, central banks, regulatory authorities, and restructuring agencies. In developed and developing economies in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, these programs introduced new legislation, regulation, governance, and risk management requirements, often in response to financial sector crises. In many of these jurisdictions, Mark worked with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Mark is currently a Senior Fellow at the New York University School of Law Program for Corporate Compliance and Enforcement (PCCE). Most recently, from 2017 to 2020, Mark served as Citigroup’s Chief Compliance Officer with responsibilities spanning Citi’s financial crime, regulatory compliance, conduct, and ethics programs. Mark was previously the Chief Internal Auditor for Citigroup from 2011 to 2017, and prior to that, the Barclays Group’s Chief Internal Auditor from 2003 to 2011. Mark’s earlier consulting career included roles such as Managing Partner responsible for Enterprise-Wide Assurance to wholesale financial services institutions at Deloitte (UK), and Managing Partner for Andersen’s global Privatisation and Emerging Markets practice, overseeing mandates and consulting activities in over fifty non-OECD countries.

Simon is a journalist, editor, content and event creator and publisher specializing in wholesale financial markets and technology. He has been working for 1LoD since its inception, researching, writing, editing and moderating content and events both in physical and digital formats. He has also sat as an Executive Director on the main board of a FTSE-250 listed media company and has spent two decades travelling the globe talking to CEOs, CFOs and government ministers about the trends driving business and finance.