Clare Dewhirst Director City Nation Place +447455 232830

Clare is the founder and director of City Nation Place, the global forum for place branding and place marketing.  City Nation Place creates connections and shares best practice between country brands, regional brands, and city brands around the world through articles, interviews, surveys, white papers, a membership group, and conferences.  

Clare’s interest in the complex area of place branding was sparked whilst working on a series of Nation Branding Masterclass events, led by Simon Anholt, one of the first thought-leaders to speak about and promote the concept of place branding.  Having listened to Simon address audiences in Accra, Delhi, Dubai, London and Singapore on how policy, governance, and symbolic actions need to combine with branding and marketing to create a competitive identity and drive economic growth, she continued to follow the growth in this sector.  Clare launched the first City Nation Place Global conference in London in 2015: CityNationPlace.com has been steadily building followers and in 2017, she launched the first City Nation Place Americas conference, in 2018 City Nation Place Asia Pacific took place in Singapore, and 2019 saw the first City Nation Place UK, specifically for towns, cities and regions across the UK, and the launch of the first City Nation Place LatAm & Caribbean event.  Clare manages the small team at City Nation Place alongside providing event consultancy and management for a number of clients in the publishing and trade association sector, including running the World Media Awards for the World Media Group  and event consultancy for the UK Association for Online Publishers.

John Till Founding Director thinkingplace

As founding Director of thinkingplace, John has directed the development of over 80 place brands over the last 16 years across the UK. He is active in promoting and implementing this best practice approach of creating a shared place story, widening place leadership and creating active collaboration as a key part of growing a place’s economy and promoting local pride. He has led projects for places as diverse as Hampshire, Nottingham, Torbay, Harrogate, North Cambridgeshire, Newhaven, Medway, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Harrogate, Perth and all three UK Cities of Culture.

John has also been working with places to help them develop their response to the Towns Deal, Future High Streets Fund, Levelling Up Funding and Shared Prosperity Fund and is a Mentor to the High Streets Task Force helping to support local authorities and communities to transform their places.

Dr Martin Reeves Chief Executive Oxfordshire County Council

Martin has been Chief Executive of Oxfordshire County Council since March 2023. He was previously Chief Executive of Coventry City Council for over 14 years and was also the Chief Executive of the West Midlands Combined Authority from March 2016 to September 2017. He had previously been with Bedfordshire County Council for three and a half years as Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Executive.  

Martin has held strategic leadership roles in a District and an outer London Borough and was Programme Director for Work Smart, Westminster City Council’s flagship transformation programme.

Martin spent much of his early career as a lecturer and researcher and has a PhD in applied economics.

He has an Honorary Doctorate from Coventry University in recognition of his service and commitment to the City of Coventry and is the first Honorary President of LARIA (Local Area Research and Intelligence Association).

He is a former President of SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives & Senior Managers) and is the current Local Government Association (LGA) National Procurement Champion.

Alex Harvie Head of Marketing Communications & Destination Marketing Glasgow Life

Alex Harvie is Head of Marketing, Communications and Destination Marketing at Glasgow Life.

As one of Scotland’s largest charities, Glasgow Life is dedicated to improving people’s lives through culture and sport, operating the city’s cultural venues, sports centres and events; as well as supporting the city’s economy by running destination, tourism, and conferences.

Alex is passionate about Glasgow’s marketing, brand and place, and recognises its important role at the heart of Scotland’s economy.

Formerly Head of Communications at Wembley, Alex has thirty years’ experience delivering complex communications projects, from creating the first definitive cultural study of Iran to setting the UK Government’s language of mourning after 9/11.

Kate Taylor Tett Director GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland Campaign

Kate is Director of the GREAT Programme, the UK government's flagship marketing campaign, designed to encourage an international audience to visit, study, trade, invest, live and work in the UK. In FY22/23, the GREAT programme returned on average £15 to the UK economy for every £1 spent.

Kate joined government in 2020 and within 6 months led the successful refresh of the GREAT brand, which has since been rolled out to over 150 markets, promoting everything from UK science and technology to the arts and values.

Prior to joining Government Kate held a variety of marketing and leadership roles in the private sector, developing award-winning marketing for Heinz, Mars, Sainsbury’s, House of Fraser and The Metropolitan Police Service among others.