Speaker list 2024
Helen Ward
Head of Women’s Football at Watford FC
Having retired from football in the summer of 2023 I took up the role of General Manager for Watford FC Women as we played in the Women’s Championship for the 2023/24 season. This summer, the role has evolved as we try to continue to grow the women’s programme at the football club. My playing career spanned 22 years during which I enjoyed 2 spells at Watford, in between which I played for Arsenal, Chelsea and Reading. I enjoyed a 15-year international career with Wales where I played over 100 games. I had my two children during my playing career and I am a big advocate of mothers in football! Alongside my role at Watford, I am also an ambassador for the Football Association of Wales.
Fiona Green
CEO/Founder at Winners FFD
Fiona is the CEO and Founder of Winners FFD, a CRM and BI agency that provides a range of services to the sports industry. Winners have helped guide numerous rights owners to understand and implement CRM strategies, ultimately developing their data strategies for commercial success. Fiona has extensive experience helping sports organisations solve their unique data challenges, rooted in her time working for rights owners such as Notts County, World Cup 1994, and Man United. Most recently, Fiona founded ProDataStack, which aims to revolutionise how athletes navigate employment contracts and commercial deals.
Gareth Langley
CEO at Piing
Gareth is co-founder and CEO of Piing, creating mass-participation games for crowds in sports and live events. Client list includes Adidas, Charlotte FC (MLS) and Piing is the Official Crowd Games Supplier for Premier League champions Manchester City FC.
Jamie Dorsman
CRM and Performance Marketing Manager at Winners FFD
Jamie is a CRM and Performance Marketing Manager at Winners, who has an extensive career in the digital marketing space. Having spent his early career focused on pay-per-click, Jamie now focuses on performance marketing, working with rights holders to maximise their campaigns’ reach and impact. Jamie brings a wealth of knowledge from the FMCG world to AFC Wimbledon and other Winners’ clients on their data-led campaign strategies.
Tom Fox
Co-Founder at 53Six
Tom is the co-founder of 53Six – The Connections Agency for Sport. 53Six provides services across creative, media, content and data strategy to deliver high impact and effective work for rights holders and brands. Prior to 53Six, Tom led the Sports vertical for Twitter (X) in the UK market, as well as overseeing international growth markets for the tech company.
Paul Brierley
Sport CRM Consultant at AFC Wimbledon
A CRM & Digital strategy leader with over 18 years’ experience working with national & global sport and media brands. A sport industry-leading innovator in using data to engage fans and players. Led the development of CRM, membership and insight The FA, ECB & Eleven Sports.
Peter Kekesi
Product Manager at Data Talks
Peter is the Product Manager at Data Talks, where he leads the development of the company’s cutting-edge sports Customer Data Platform. With a robust commercial and technical background, Peter has successfully partnered with leading sports rights holders across three continents, focusing on fan data, digital transformation, and driving digital revenue growth. His experience includes recent collaborations with prominent organizations such as the Football Association of Ireland, Ferencvárosi TC, FC Magdeburg, and LOVB.
Dana Dar
Co-Founder at Kickoff Sports
Dana has extensive experience working in the Sports Media and Sports Technology industry, specialising in the use of technology and innovation across the sector and how it can support and enhance the overall sports experience. She started out her career as a sports television reporter and producer, covering major live events including NBA, NFL, Olympics, global football and more. The second part of her career focused on working in global technology firms that provide services to the sports and media industry, reaching senior-level positions at companies such as SES and Intel. With an emphasis on creating commercial strategies, she’s been an integral part of teams introducing new technologies dedicated to enhancing the sports experience within the entire ecosystem through storytelling, content creation and monetisation; media and digital strategies; fan engagement; player development and performance optimisation. Dana currently works as a consultant and advisor to sports tech start-ups and is the co-founder of Kick Off, a company set up to bring tech and innovation to sports organisations worldwide. As part of Kick Off, she’s also worked on projects dedicated to bringing a sports excellence mentality to youth development programs and developing sports communities.
Bal Srai
Head of Revenue and Operations at AFC Wimbledon
Bal started his career in the events space, founding an event promotions business before becoming a partner in several venues. After completing a master’s in sports management, his first role in sports was with Fulham FC where he worked across their commercial team. Bal joined AFC Wimbledon at the start of the 21/22 season in time for the first matches with fans at the Cherry Red Records Stadium. He is responsible for all stadium revenue including ticketing, merchandise and events and manages the relationship with the caterers.
Martin Geisthardt
Managing Director at 1. FC Magdeburg
Martin Geisthardt was a professional football player and played among others for Hallescher FC, VfL Osnabrück and 1. FC Magdeburg. Alongside his professional career, he began a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Sports, and Psychology. Simultaneously, he worked on several projects, including with the German Football Association (DFB). After completing his Bachelor’s degree, he pursued a Master’s in Sports Management in Heidelberg and Linköping (Sweden), and in 2013, he joined the sponsorship consulting agency akzio! (now Sportfive) in Frankfurt. From 2016 to 2019, he worked as a Senior Sales Consultant at Nielsen Sports & Entertainment in Cologne and later in Hamburg, before permanently relocating to the northern Hanseatic city in 2018. At FC St. Pauli, Geisthardt initially served in 2019 as Head of Sales Partnerships and Hospitality. From July 2021 until the end of February 2024, he was responsible as Head of Marketing & Sales for all activities, including digital and e-sports. Since March, Geisthardt has been the managing director of the second-division club 1. FC Magdeburg.
Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg
Co-Founder and CEO at TicketCo
Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg has worked in events since he was 16. He started his entrepreneurial journey at 19, renting cruise ships and filling them with passengers travelling between Norway, Denmark, and the UK. With a background from the Norwegian Business School and seven years as a Marketing Director for one of the largest restaurant groups in Norway, he founded TicketCo with former CEO Kåre Bottolfsen in 2012. After almost 10 years as the company’s CSO, Carl-Erik took over as CEO at the start of 2022.
Shrey Nilvarna
Fan & Community Engagement Manager at Lewes FC
Shrey is the Fan & Community Engagement Manager at Lewes FC and has worked at the club over the last 3 seasons to build the fan base and improve the matchday experiences. He has overseen a growth of nearly 70% in attendances including 4 sellouts in the last 3 seasons. The club has also won the Best Fan Engagement award at the Football Business Awards in 2022 for its work on its ownership model and fan experiences. Shrey has a Masters in Sport Business and Innovation from Loughborough University, London and has a strong passion for doing football in the right way and increasing the profile of women’s football.
Param Kanabar
CEO and Founder at NOQ
Param began his career at PwC before moving to Kantar, where he ultimately became the youngest CFO of the North America division. However, driven by his family’s entrepreneurial spirit, Param left New York, moved back to his parents’ house to focus full-time on NOQ. In just three years, NOQ has grown into an industry-unique system servicing some of the country’s largest events, including LIV Golf, The PGA Tour, and Eurovision and many more. The platform is now expanding into stadium and arena operations: revolutionising service speeds, centralising all sales channels into one system, and creating unique data warehouses by linking every purchase made back to ticketing records.
Aidan Boxall
Women’s Team General Manager at West Ham United
Aidan Boxall has worked in Football & Education for over 25 years across the globe. He came back to the UK and began working in women’s football in 2009 as head coach of Millwall Lionesses after 2 years there he joined Chelsea as an assistant coach in 2012 and helped them reach their first-ever FA Cup final. He has seen the evolution of the women’s game from part-time to the full-time professional game we have now. During that time, he helped write two WSL license applications to join the league before its inauguration in 2011. He joined West Ham in March 2020 as General Manager and has helped the establishment of the club and the provision for female footballers within the club and the WSL.You don't want to miss this conference!
