We're excited to see you there! Here is our social media toolkit to let everyone know you're attending.
Please note: we are always striving to create the best agenda, and so this agenda will be subject to change.
If you have a story to share, or would like to propose a speaker, please contact Clare.
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09:00
Optional morning activities to add to your conference booking!
Places are limited on both options so please do register early.
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CNP Lab: Re-thinking place branding KPIs
[For places only, sorry but no consultants to allow for free discussion]
Join us for a workshop session to focus on how KPIs for place branding and place marketing need to change to offer value. We’ll be bringing together different conversations, sharing experiences, and developing action points to help you reshape the way you demonstrate your place brand team’s impact.
- Laddering societal / economic impact down to project prioritisation
- Balancing long vs short attribution lines
- How can you measure if your place brand is resonating in an AI-driven world of discovery?
- Marketing your metrics to demonstrate impact and secure stakeholder support
Add to your conference booking for £155 (Excludes VAT @ 20%)
Speakers will include:
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Culture Mile BID Walking Tour: Smithfield - Where the past meets progress
Join Culture Mile BID for an exclusive exploration of one of London's most remarkable regeneration stories. From medieval markets and Victorian engineering to the transformation of the historic Smithfield Market buildings into the spectacular new home of the London Museum, this guided walk traces the evolution of one of the Square Mile's most iconic places. It reveals how Culture Mile BID is supporting the City of London Corporation, alongside other partners, to champion investment, animate public spaces and unlock the area's extraordinary potential. Join the tour to explore how thoughtful placemaking, adaptive reuse and cultural ambition are creating a destination that is both globally significant and unmistakably London and for an exclusive talk from the London Museum team, offering unique insights into one of Europe's most exciting cultural projects.
Discover why the world's most successful places don't choose between heritage and innovation – they use heritage as the foundation for the future.Add to your conference booking for £55 (Excludes VAT @ 20%)
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12:30
Conference registration for all delegates
Light lunch refreshments will be available
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13:15
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13:30
What the world thinks: a global tour of attitudes to nations, democracy, and the march of technology
Setting the scene for the conference focus on perceptions of place and strategic management of place reputation, hear what the Pew Research Center is learning about global attitudes, including…
- What makes people proud of the country they live in?
- How are geopolitics impacting on perspectives of different nations and geographies?
- What do people think about democratic values and place leadership?
- How do attitudes vary towards the growing impact of AI on the world that we live in?
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13:55
Building a place brand on an emotional foundation
It’s the chicken and egg question for place branding. What comes first – the strategy for the future of your place, or the understanding of what connects people to your place now?
- Why place brand custodians need to understand the emotion of place in order to build the narrative and shape intentional strategies
- In an age where the algorithms profit off negative emotions, owning the positive emotions and connections is key
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14:20
Panel discussion: strategies for tackling dis- and mis-information
The safety, stability, and reputations of nations and cities is under attack from a wave of dis-information and the algorithms that spread it. In this session we’ll be focusing on practical responses.
- How Brand Ukraine is taking the global lead on developing counter-intelligence and proactive strategies
- How London is taking a collaborative, place-led approach to defending and building Brand London
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15:00
Refreshments
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15:30
Ideas, solutions, and inspiring case studies
Choose your expert partner-led session
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15:30
Country reputation: From shared responsibility to shared value
A country’s reputation is a shared responsibility shaped by governments, institutions, businesses and citizens. But it is also a shared source of economic value. Join this session to learn from the RepCore Nations 2026 report and to explore how a strong country reputation creates tangible benefits not only for nations, but also for their businesses.
- Learn how country reputation strengthens the premium value of the “Made in” effect and how country brand licensing programmes create a virtuous circle of reputation and benefit
- Understand how a country’s positive reputation lowers government borrowing costs and creates better financial conditions for business and trade
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15:30
Why here, not there? What shapes corporate location decisions
Why does one place make the shortlist while another never gets considered? Drawing on new research into corporate executive decision-making, this session follows the journey from first impressions and initial consideration to research, shortlisting and final selection. Discover what gets places noticed, which sources shape perceptions, how AI is changing discovery, what knocks locations out, and what ultimately helps one place break through.
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15:30
How AI can listen to your audience and promote your destination at the same time – learnings on where AI fits in your marketing mix from Visit Tampa Bay
Join this session for learnings from a leading destination marketing organisation on where AI belongs in the marketing mix [and where to hold back]. Hear how Visit Tampa Bay’s most effective AI execution turned traveller questions into the fastest research the team have ever run, delivering surprising findings…
- Your media buy is sitting on top of your best research panel
- Markets you buy together don’t behave together
- The most valuable signal is usually the smallest one
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16:10
Round table discussions
Join a group of fellow delegates for peer-to-peer discussion moderated by our knowledgeable expert partners. Choose from the following topics:
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Media strategies that put your place on the map for AI-led algorithms and discovery
Given the changing digital landscape and continued impact of AI-led algorithms on how visitors, investors, and talent are learning about places and the opportunities they offer, how should your media strategy respond? In these discussions, we’ll focus on reviewing the balance of paid vs earned media, and discuss where your media spend will have the most impact in the decision-making journey.
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Structural approaches to organisational collaboration and good brand governance
It’s always been important for all the key stakeholder voices in your nation, region, or city to support and amplify your brand narrative for it to be successful – and this consistency of narrative is becoming even more important to ensure that your place is known and that you can manage and influence perceptions of your place. In these discussions we’ll focus on how place brand teams are developing effective organisational structures to ensure a coalition of support.
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Human vs machine: how to be an AI-ready and operationalised organisation
How are place teams taking control of the evolution of AI within their own team structures and initiatives? What are places learning in terms of skills development, applying tools to open up new, effective opportunities and ensuring the right balance between machine and human ownership, oversight, and connection?
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17:05
Strengthening national and regional profile through a collaboration of unique urban identities: the South Holland Alliance
Hear how Delft, Leiden, Rotterdam, and The Hague have joined forces with the Province of South Holland and the national New Dutch movement to strengthen international perceptions…
- Why a network approach was chosen vs a new regional place brand
- Creating a shared story that builds on each city’s story
- Sharing data, insights, and marketing assets – delivering practical advantages through place-to-place collaboration
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17:30
Close of day one, followed by our official Welcome Reception for all delegates, details to be announced.
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09:00
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09:10
Building an international profile through city and region collaboration: Liverpool
How can a city and a region build a combined narrative to build global reputation?
- Defining joint objectives
- Building a place narrative that reflects both the city’s character and the diverse regional strengths
- Initiating the Global Liverpool Partnership to bring together stakeholders, create ambassadors, and support the strategy in practical ways
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09:35
Panel discussion: strategies for tracking place brand perception
In this discussion, we will focus beyond the rankings – which have a clear value and contribution to make but are not accessible to every nation, region, or city.
- Why is perception tracking important?
- How should it impact on strategy?
- What are we learning about the frequency, depth, and focus of brand tracking research?
- What are the pros and cons of AI-led tools for social listening and perception tracking?
Panellists will include…
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10:15
Building connections between internal and external perceptions: How Marca Chile is building a firmer foundation for an authentic nation brand
- Why and how Marca Chile is working to understand civic pride
- Understanding the “what” and crucially the “why” of the drivers of civic pride
- Learnings from five years of the Chilean National Pride study
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10:40
Refreshments
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11:10
Ideas, solutions, and inspiring case studies
Choose your expert partner-led sessions
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11:10
Understanding governance models for nation and city brands: insights from Bloom Consulting’s new global report
The question is not whether good governance for nation and city brands matters, but which governance models are best suited to each place’s specific context, ambitions, and institutional realities. Join this session to hear insights from a new global report on Nation and City Brand Governance based on a comparative review of more than 40 countries and cities.
- What are the recurring patterns in how brands are organised, coordinated, and implemented?
- Learn from a typology of governance models: what are the strengths, limitations, and risks of each type?
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11:10
Keeping score with the AI Destination Index
Ask an AI assistant where to go, where to invest, or where to move, and it hands back a shortlist. Those shortlists are already steering decisions, and most places don't know where (or even if) they appear on them. Join this session for insights from the first results of the Resonance AI Destination Index - tens of thousands of questions run weekly through the major AI platforms across leisure, investment, talent and events, from four origin markets. Find out which destinations AI recommends most, the smaller places outranking far bigger ones, and the famous names that come up far less than you would expect.
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11:10
The future of destination partnerships: How VisitScotland is reimagining collaboration
Join this session to learn how VisitScotland is reimagining partnership marketing, from national campaigns with rail providers to regional co-branded initiatives designed to drive visitor dispersal across Scotland…
- Bringing partners together around shared goals,
- Measuring the impact of collaborative campaigns
- Balancing destination priorities like sustainability, regional economic growth, and marketing performance
Whether you're looking to strengthen existing partnerships or build new models of collaboration, you'll learn practical ideas for creating programs that deliver greater value for destinations and their partners.
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11:50
The Beehive or the Horde? Moving beyond the obvious to understand your place personality and identity
Identifying what is distinct, real, and inspiring will lay the foundation for an impactful place brand strategy. Every place has landmarks and history – but how do you get beyond the obvious to understand and articulate your place identity? INSTID’s 15 years of experience of studying the interaction of people and place has led to the design of The Place Compass – a system for communicating place personality, with and without words.Join this session to gain new direction for articulating your place identity to better reflect what your place does best and what you can share with the world.
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11:50
Session hosted by Gravity Global
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11:50
Building the next generation of destination intelligence with transaction data and AI
Combining transaction data with mobility signals enables destination marketers to build richer, more resilient views of visitor behaviour and their economic impact. At the same time, advances in AI are changing how quickly destination marketers can turn data into intelligence. Join this session to learn from global case studies…
- Explore how destinations are combining data and AI-driven analytics to build more accurate marketing strategies
- Learn how destinations are building a better understanding of visitors to reach high-value travellers
- Understand how to create more precise, measurable campaigns
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12:30
Session hosted by Brand Finance
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12:30
There’s no saving Detroit
Because unlike what you may have heard, Detroit didn’t need to be saved – it needed to be understood. After decades of being told what it wasn’t, this American city reminded itself, and everyone else, who it’s always been. This session explores how Detroit defined itself not by what happened to it, but by what it made happen – and how that continues to move people around the world.
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12:30
Check your vibe before your visitors do: how destinations should respond to AI-powered personalisation in travel marketing
Join this session to move past the hype cycle to look at how predictive personalisation, AI-assisted planning tools, and autonomous booking agents are changing how destination brands reach and interact with travellers.Learn from concrete, working examples how you should be responding….
- Understanding what visitors are learning about your place through AI
- Structuring content so AI systems can parse and personalise it correctly
- Rethinking creative and media planning around segments of one rather than broad audience buckets
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13:05
Lunch
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14:05
From "You may not know us" to global attention: The Vilnius Pink Soup story
Discover how the Go Vilnius team transformed an authentic local tradition into an internationally recognised place-branding platform.
- From "You May Not Know Us" to celebrating local identity: how embracing cultural confidence helped shift global perceptions of Vilnius
- Learn how one cultural phenomenon became a strategic tool to achieve multiple place-branding objectives:
- Strengthening civic pride
- Changing international perceptions
- Generating global media attention
- Attracting visitors
- Supporting investment, talent and business events attraction
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14:30
How the nation brand is driving international attention by empowering regional brands: Embratur and the development of the Amazonia place brand
- Why and how Brazil’s national tourism board has developed a strategic decentralisation strategy
- Balancing the nation brand with regional and destination brands
- Developing the Amazonia place brand – managing the challenge of working with 9 regions
- Ensuring the regions’ voices co-lead the creative and development process
- More than a tourism marketing brand – developing the identity as a product of origin brand
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14:50
How Thailand’s Creative Economy Agency is developing and activating city brands as creative assets for the nation
- Working with local creators, businesses and communities to map out and brand cities as distinct creative assets
- Building a narrative that drives local pride, attracts targeted investment, and stimulates more sustainable tourism
- Activating festivals as scalable economic infrastructure, and as catalysts to activate and revitalise neighbourhoods to deliver a more sustainable socioeconomic footprint
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15:10
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15:25
Refreshment
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15:45
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16:25
Closing keynote
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16:45
The City Nation Place Awards
Our celebration of the very best in place branding and place marketing – announcing the winners of this year’s Awards
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17:15
Close of conference, followed by farewell drinks
Confirm cancellation
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Clare is the Founder and Director of City Nation Place, the global forum for the people and stories behind places.
City Nation Place creates connections and shares best practice between country brands, regional brands, and city brands around the world through articles, interviews, surveys, benchmarking reports, awards, the advisory group network, 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, the first City Nation Place Americas conference was launched and 2019 saw the first City Nation Place UK, specifically for towns, cities and regions across the UK. In 2025, the first Australasia conference was held in Sydney, and one-off events have been held in Singapore and Costa Rica.
Book Clare as your speaker
Get in touch to schedule Clare for your conference, board meeting, or virtual training programme.
Fabienne Bernet is a B2B marketer with 15 years of experience, including 9 years in foreign direct investment (FDI). Currently, she heads digital marketing initiatives at Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), the official Swiss organization for export and investment promotion. She develops paid media concepts and helps advance digital approaches for investment promotion, including emerging tactics like GEO and AI discoverability, with a clear focus on making impact more measurable and visible. Guided by the Swiss values of quality and innovation, Fabienne is passionate about strengthening Switzerland’s reputation beyond chocolate and mountains, positioning it as a stable, highly innovative, and easy-to-do-business location where companies can grow for the long term. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Tourism Management.
Lene Lyck Fasting is Head of Communications & Branding at Oslo&Co. Oslo&Co is the official business development and promotion agency, owned and funded by the City of Oslo. It attracts investors, talent and visitors, and manages the Oslo brand and its international outreach.
She joined in 2025 after almost 30 years in strategic communications, working across reputation management, positioning, PR, employer branding and campaign development for public sector, NGO and commercial clients, earning multiple international awards along the way. Before Oslo&Co, she spent over a decade on the leadership team of one of Norway's leading communications agencies (Trigger), responsible for client development and contributing to the agency's strategy and growth. She now leads communications and branding for Oslo&Co.
Clare is the Founder and Director of City Nation Place, the global forum for the people and stories behind places.
City Nation Place creates connections and shares best practice between country brands, regional brands, and city brands around the world through articles, interviews, surveys, benchmarking reports, awards, the advisory group network, 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, the first City Nation Place Americas conference was launched and 2019 saw the first City Nation Place UK, specifically for towns, cities and regions across the UK. In 2025, the first Australasia conference was held in Sydney, and one-off events have been held in Singapore and Costa Rica.
Book Clare as your speaker
Get in touch to schedule Clare for your conference, board meeting, or virtual training programme.
Richard Wike is Director of Global Attitudes Research at Pew Research Center in Washington, DC. He manages the Center’s international survey research and writes about public opinion around the world on a variety of topics, such as democracy, international cooperation, technology, and attitudes toward the United States and China.
He is an author of numerous Pew Research Center reports and has written for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Nikkei Asia, Politico, Journal of Democracy, Journal of Politics and other publications. Wike has been interviewed by a variety of U.S. and non-U.S. news organizations.
Prior to joining Pew Research, Wike was a Senior Associate for international and corporate clients at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. Wike got his start in public opinion research with Schapiro Research Group, an Atlanta-based polling firm. He received his PhD in Political Science from Emory University.
Todd Babiak is the co-founder of Story Engine, a consultancy based in Vancouver that uses narrative to solve business problems and build brands. In 2011, one of his clients, the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, changed his life because he fell in love with place-branding. Many clients later, his strategy work for Tasmania turned into a job, which led to another job, possibly the best job in the world: CEO of Brand Gold Coast.
Maria is a strategic communication and nation branding expert.
With over ten years of professional experience in both public and international sectors, Maria has expertise in global PR and communications, public administration, and nation branding. Maria has managed international projects and communication activities for Vice-Prime-Minister’s Office on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
As a Strategic Communications Advisor to the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Maria provides policy advice on public diplomacy and country promotion. Over the last three years, she has set up an official digital ecosystem of Ukraine Ukraine.ua that has reached unprecedented global audiences of 700 mln, developed the Public Diplomacy Strategy of Ukraine, and launched a range of successful country promotion campaigns.
Currently, as the Head of BRAND UKRAINE, Maria is responsible for Ukraine’s brand development.
Maria holds a Master in International Relations from Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University, Ukraine, and Master in Communication for Development from Malmo University, Sweden.
Rose Wangen-Jones is the Managing Director, Marketing, Destinations & Commercial at London & Partners, the official promotional agency for London. Working with the Mayor of London and a network of partners, she promotes London as a leading world city in which to study, invest, work, and visit. Previously, she was the CEO of The Writer, a global brand language consultancy. Before joining The Writer, she was Global Business Director at WPP, responsible for the communications and marketing of one of the group’s largest global accounts. She has spent most of her career in the private sector, leading the development of marketing communications for top national and multi-national brands in the US, Latin America and Europe. Rose holds a BA in Economics and an MBA (Marketing).
Fernando Prado is one of the most recognised international experts in reputation and brand management. He is co-creator of cutting-edge reputation measurement tools such as RepTrak® and RepCore®. His branding and communication strategies, as well as his research projects on reputation and sustainability have won several national and international awards for their effectiveness and innovation.
Fernando has helped many of the largest companies in Spain and Latin America, as well as relevant multinational companies, in their reputation management. He is also an expert in the reputation of nations and has helped different governments in the management of their country brand.
Before joining Reputation Lab, he headed Reputation Institute (a world leader in corporate reputation measurement and management) in Spain and Latin America for 13 years. During his time at Reputation Institute, Fernando also led the company's global place reputation practice.
Previously, he worked for 10 years at WPP Group in positions related to brand strategy: CEO of Kantya Brand Strategies (Spain), Head of Strategic Planning at JWT Spain, Global BRANDZ Coordinator at Millward Brown Chicago and Strategic Planner at Ogilvy New York.
Fernando Prado holds a BA (Hons.) in International Business Management from ICADE (Madrid) and Middlesex University (London), and an MBA from IESE (Barcelona).
Steve Duncan is Managing Director of C Studios (www.c-studios.com), the marketing communications agency for places. With over two decades of expertise in place marketing, Steve has collaborated with cities, regions, countries, research parks, and real estate developments across virtually every major world region to reach executives and skilled talents.
A vocal advocate for digital place promotion, Steve has authored multiple studies on investment promotion, talent attraction and digital marketing. Those include "What Talent Wants: Capturing What Europe's Workforce Seeks in Jobs & Locations," “Winning Strategies in Investment Promotion Marketing,” and "The State of Digital Advertising in Economic Development." His speaking roles on these core topics have featured at City Nation Place Global, FDI Leaders Network, IEDC Annual & Leadership Conferences, MIPIM and various client stakeholder events.
At C Studios, Steve leads a team specializing in elevating place brands globally, focusing on strategy and implementation for international talent attraction, investment promotion, and trade promotion initiatives. Previously, he spent 19 years with Development Counsellors International (DCI), the New York-based leader in marketing places. His strategic approach and innovative thinking have made him a trusted advisor to organizations like Costa Rica's CINDE, Austrian Business Agency, Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency, Luxembourg Let's Make It Happen, EDB Singapore, Invest Alberta, and Invest Puerto Rico.
A journalism graduate from Pennsylvania State University, Steve has dedicated his entire career to place marketing, continuously adapting strategies to meet the evolving digital landscape. His experience spans lead generation, public relations and advertising, all aimed at enhancing a destination's findability, credibility and lovability among decision-makers in an increasingly online world.
When not working to put places on the map, Steve is usually trying to put himself somewhere on it. He has cycled some of the world's most famous passes and mountain roads, is a wine enthusiast that has tasted grapes on four continents, and is known to get up before dawn to capture the perfect sunrise photo.
Kim Heinen works as Manager Media Relations & Public Affairs at Rotterdam Partners. She has played a key role in international city marketing and putting the city of Rotterdam on the map in a positive way for more than 15 years.
Her approach is characterized by authenticity. She strongly believes that a city does not have to please everyone. It is precisely by embracing the raw, unique, and sometimes idiosyncratic sides of Rotterdam that she creates a credible and compelling city narrative.
Marco Esser (1971) is director of The Hague & Partners. He was responsible for the merger of The Hague Marketing Bureau, The Hague Convention Bureau, and The Hague Business Agency into one foundation. The aim of The Hague & Partners is to increase welfare and the wellbeing of the citizens. They do this via marketing & acquisition, aimed at inhabitants, visitors, congress organizers, and foreign businesses and organizations. Marco Esser was (and is) member of Supervisory Boards in tourism, sports, culture, and welfare. Before he became the director of The Hague & Partners, Marco was political advisor, spokesperson and campaign manager of the Dutch Labor Party. Marco lives in the city center of The Hague with his wife and two kids.
Clare is the Founder and Director of City Nation Place, the global forum for the people and stories behind places.
City Nation Place creates connections and shares best practice between country brands, regional brands, and city brands around the world through articles, interviews, surveys, benchmarking reports, awards, the advisory group network, 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, the first City Nation Place Americas conference was launched and 2019 saw the first City Nation Place UK, specifically for towns, cities and regions across the UK. In 2025, the first Australasia conference was held in Sydney, and one-off events have been held in Singapore and Costa Rica.
Book Clare as your speaker
Get in touch to schedule Clare for your conference, board meeting, or virtual training programme.
David Gilbert serves as President and CEO of Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, an organization dedicated to making Greater Cleveland the nation’s foremost destination for amateur sporting events and activities, and Destination Cleveland, the region’s destination marketing and management organization. He re-established the Sports Commission in 2000 and assumed his role with Destination Cleveland in 2011. From April 2015 through December 2017, David also served as the president and CEO of the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee for the Republican National Convention.
Greater Cleveland Sports Commission is responsible for attracting, creating, managing, and enhancing significant sporting and competitive events. Since 2000, the organization has attracted over 200 events including the NFL Draft, MLB All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Weekend and NCAA Women’s Final Four in addition to the upcoming 2024 Pan-American Maters Games. These events have contributed more than $820 million in local economic impact.
At Destination Cleveland, Gilbert is responsible for carrying out the organization’s mission to drive economic impact and stimulate community vitality by positioning and promoting Cleveland as an exciting, vibrant destination. Under his leadership, visitation and economic impact increased dramatically for nine consecutive years (2011-2019) before the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. During that time, annual visitation grew at a pace greater than the U.S. visitation growth rate.
Gilbert serves as vice president on the board of the International Children’s Games, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, and sits of the boards of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland and the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board of the Department of Commerce. He was named by Crain’s Cleveland Business as one of Cleveland’s “30 influencers of the past 30 years,” Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and in 2016, he received the SME Cleveland Business Executive of the Year Award.
Gilbert has a Bachelor of Arts degree in marketing from The Ohio State University and an MBA from Cleveland State University.
My background is in political science and integrated communication.
I have more than 15 years experience in communication working within different areas - public and digital diplomacy, stratcom, government affairs, media relations, PR, country branding.
Together with my team in 2019 we have launched a new brand strategy and platform - Lithuania Co-Create.
Constanza Rojas Bravo is a Chilean international affairs professional specialising in strategic alliances, international relations, and nation branding. She currently serves as Strategic Alliances Manager for Chile’s Country Brand, Marca Chile, where she leads the foundation's international relations, manages strategic partnerships with public and private actors, and oversees Chile's positioning in key international spaces.
With experience in political and strategic analysis, Constanza has built an extensive career working with international organisations, including IOM and UNHCR, as well as the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, developing expertise in multilateral negotiation, network building, and the design of international strategies. Her work at Marca Chile places her at the intersection of diplomacy, civic identity, and the authentic projection of Chile to the world.
Since 2003 Mr. Torres has been advising Countries in the field of Nation Branding and City Branding, working directly with heads of state, directors of National Tourism Organizations and Investment Promotion Agencies.
His clients include Countries, Regions and Cities such as Australia, Brazil, Cleveland, Costa Rica, Finland, Jamaica, Oman, Poland, Riyadh, South Africa, Stockholm and many others spread across all five continents.
Mr. Torres collaborates directly with the World Economic Forum in the matters of Nation Branding and is a guest speaker in some of the most prestigious universities in USA and Europe, such as NYU, HARVARD, the London School of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics and many others, being interviewed by The Economist, BBC, Guardian and CNN.
He is the co-author of the recently published textbook Nation and Place Branding: An Applied Approach to Building the Image of Countries, Regions, and Cities, author of the Nation Brand Builders and co-author of several academic papers covering Nation and City Branding.
Bloom Consulting lead manager on the first-ever study on the impact of Nation Brands and City Brands on local and global economies.
Find out more on Bloom Consulting website: www.bloom-consulting.com
Dr. Keith Dinnie is a renowned authority in the field of Place Branding, with an extensive track record of academic and practical experience. He is the author of “Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice,” the first textbook on Nation Branding and a seminal work in the sector, now in its third edition (Routledge, 2022), and editor of “City Branding: Theory and Cases” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
As a global speaker, Keith has presented his work on City, Region, and Nation Branding in numerous countries across Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa. His research focuses on applying strategic brand management to drive tourism, attract investment, promote exports, and strengthen public diplomacy.
Since 2018, Keith serves as a Reader in Marketing at University of Dundee School of Business.
Stefan Hawes is Resonance's Chief AI Officer. He works with destinations, cities and developers on how they show up when AI platforms recommend places, how to bring AI into the way their organizations work, and what AI will mean for their business as it changes how people choose where to travel, invest and live.
He arrived here through 30 years of brand building. He ran creative and digital agencies in Vancouver, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Shanghai for brands from Nike to Michelin, then crossed into destination marketing as Vice President, Global Marketing at Destination Vancouver. There he led a full brand transformation and the organization's move into AI, from AI-powered visitor servicing to AI visibility to adoption across the whole organization.
He writes and speaks internationally on AI and the future of place marketing.
Stefan lives in Berlin.
Dr Natasha Norman is the Director of Institute for Identity (INSTID), which she co-founded in London in 2012. She is a proponent of the people-focused approach to place branding that upholds place’s way of life rather than infrastructure. Trained in national identity (a Lord Dahrendorf Scholar at LSE), Natasha leads INSTID’s qualitative research and speaks at conferences and in the media from the anthropological angle of the place branding field. She has been both a recipient and a judge at City Nation Place awards, and is a longstanding member of The Place Brand Observer Expert panel. Natasha has run projects across 3 continents with the combined population of 20+ million people.
Stewart leads MMGY Global’s brand strategy efforts. He has created brands for destinations, hotel companies, attractions and sports franchises around the world, including Vancouver, Cleveland, Bermuda, Los Cabos, Homewood Suites by Hilton, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Prior to MMGY Global, he served as international creative director at Dentsu, Inc. in Tokyo. He has received awards at the most prestigious advertising competitions, including Best of Show at the HSMAI Adrian Awards, twice.
Ieva Davydenko is Head of City Events at Go Vilnius, the city’s official tourism and business development agency. She leads the development of major city events and festivals that strengthen Vilnius’ identity and attract international attention. Her work brings together event creation, city marketing and partnerships.
At City Nation Place Global, Ieva will present Vilnius Pink Soup Fest – the flagship event she leads. Built around Lithuania’s iconic cold pink soup, the festival grew from 15,000 attendees to more than 176,000 visits in just four years, engaged over 330 city partners and generated an estimated €10 million in economic value. Her case study will show how an authentic local tradition became an internationally recognised festival and an effective place-branding tool.
As Embratur’s Business Development Manager for Europe, Lilas Nascimento drives strategic growth across 9 priority markets on the continent, specialising in unlocking high-value opportunities and connecting European business networks, investors, and partners to Brazil’s dynamic commercial and tourism ecosystem. Having successfully led Embratur’s UK office for 5 years, she has developed solid market intelligence and established deep ties with key British stakeholders. Today, Lilas bridges her local and continental expertise with the innovative national management team, celebrated for breaking the global growth record for international tourist arrivals in 2025. Operating under the strategic framework of the Plano Brasis (2025-2028), her work focuses on market expansion, multi-regional brand governance, and strategic decentralisation — offering practical benchmarks on how national organisations navigate global competitiveness, balance macro-destination brands with local micro-identities, and transform complex assets, such as the multi-state Amazon brand, into powerful, authentic travel products for discerning travellers.
As Embratur’s Business Development Manager for Europe, Lilas Nascimento drives strategic growth across 9 priority markets on the continent, specialising in unlocking high-value opportunities and connecting European business networks, investors, and partners to Brazil’s dynamic commercial and tourism ecosystem. Having successfully led Embratur’s UK office for 5 years, she has developed solid market intelligence and established deep ties with key British stakeholders. Today, Lilas bridges her local and continental expertise with the innovative national management team, celebrated for breaking the global growth record for international tourist arrivals in 2025. Operating under the strategic framework of the Plano Brasis (2025-2028), her work focuses on market expansion, multi-regional brand governance, and strategic decentralisation — offering practical benchmarks on how national organisations navigate global competitiveness, balance macro-destination brands with local micro-identities, and transform complex assets, such as the multi-state Amazon brand, into powerful, authentic travel products for discerning travellers.
Claire Prentice co-leads the Scottish Government's central Brand, Marketing & Campaigns team, with Brand Scotland and the nation's international reputation at the heart of her remit to drive economic growth. Her team leads the development and cross-sector delivery of Scotland's nation brand strategy, building a distinctive, coherent brand identity and story across trade and investment, tourism, culture, education and talent through a partnership-led, collaborative approach to international marketing.
Brand Scotland won Best Communications Strategy, Place Brand at the City Nation Place Global Awards in 2022 and 2024, and was highly commended in the same category in 2023. Brand Scotland is also part of the City Nation Place Advisory Forum.
Beyond Brand Scotland, Claire is also responsible for the delivery of multiple award-winning behaviour change and public information campaigns across a wide range of Scottish Government priorities, including climate action, economy, health, road safety and equality.
Claire was Chair of the Marketing Society Scotland Advisory Board from 2023 to 2025. Prior to joining the Scottish Government, she spent 5 years as an Account Director at one of Scotland's leading advertising agencies, the Union.