City Nation Place Global
9th annual City Nation Place Global, London
We are currently building the agenda and confirming new speakers – SIGN UP HERE to stay in touch with the developing program. If you would like to suggest a speaker, please contact clare@citynationplace.com.
WEDNESDAY 9 NOVEMBER
Morning: Optional additions to your City Nation Place Global experience!
| Join the City Nation Place Think Tank with a small group of place brand and marketing leaders to learn from our workshop leaders and from each other. | Or join one of our special place-shaping tours, led by the respective business improvement districts to provide an insider’s guide to their economic development plans. |
Please select and pay for these when registering your conference place.
City Nation Place Think Tank: Building an effective place brand narrative
A full morning session incorporating two workshop sessions, both designed to help you engage your stakeholders in building a collaborative vision for your place brand. Your Think Tank fee includes both sessions, morning refreshments, and lunch.
9.00am: Registration
9.30am – 11am: What do we mean by a "place brand narrative" and how do we build it?
Led by:
This workshop will give you the tools to connect your strategy with your identity in order to engage your stakeholders more effectively.
- First lesson: how to listen
- Breaking down the steps to developing a unifying narrative
11.15am – 12.45pm: Unlocking data to tell stories to inject smarter thinking into the implementation of your place vision
Led by:
This workshop will open your eyes to the power of data and how place brand, destination marketing, and economic development teams can work together to tell better stories to engage stakeholders in the vision for the place economy and to demonstrate the impact of your strategies. Learn to unlock the hidden potential for places through insights built on five common and core foundations. Join this session to discover what they are, how to gain stories from the insights and how you can begin to transform your place with a stronger visitor economy
- Understand the five foundational pillars of smarter thinking
- How to gain insight from data to transform your place economy management and marketing
Or join one of our tours...
9.30am – 12pm
Place Shaping Tour A | BRIXTON
Hosted by the Brixton Business Improvement District [BID] team, this tour will provide an insider’s guide to the distinctive south London district, famous for its markets and Caribbean culture. How is the BID team working to build economic opportunities whilst retaining the distinctiveness of the area and engaging the community?
OR
9.30am – 12pm
Place Shaping Tour B | CLERKENWELL & FARRINGDON
Hosted by the Central District Alliance, the Business Improvement District for Holborn and Clerkenwell, anchored by two major new Elizabeth Line stations at Farringdon and Tottenham Court Road, working with titans of industry such as Google, Rosewood Hotel, WPP and more to champion business growth in London. Join the CDA team on a tour talking you through some of the district’s iconic sights and innovative projects. Visiting locations such as Renzo Piano’s (designer of the Shard) iconic Central St Giles, new public realm investments such as Princes Circus, ESG initiatives, and historically significant locations like the British Museum.
Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday will be the conference. Please click between the tabs to see the agenda for both days.
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08:00
Morning: Optional extra opportunities to network and learn:
- A two-hour walking tour of a London district exploring an emerging placemaking and economic development vision
OR - Morning workshop session[s] exploring key implementational challenges for place brand and marketing strategies
- A two-hour walking tour of a London district exploring an emerging placemaking and economic development vision
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13:30
Registration & networking
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14:00
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14:10
Opening keynote
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14:30
Measuring the success of tourism strategy against wealth and wellbeing KPIs Case study: Destination Canada
Hear how Destination Canada have created and launched a more holistic yardstick to measure the success of tourism marketing
- Socialising the key framework for the wealth and wellbeing index with all place stakeholders
- Gathering data from stakeholders to measure the pulse of sentiment
- Creating a reporting process to share success and provide direction
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14:45
Redefining success for investment promotion / economic development
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15:00
Joint Q&A
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15:10
Refreshments & networking
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15:40
Roundtable discussions
Join a small group of delegates for peer-to-peer learning and discussion on shared challenges and emerging opportunities – moderated by our expert partners
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16:40
Panel discussion: People, Places… and Technology
- How are places leveraging new technologies to engage with citizens, and potential visitors or investors
- Which emerging tech do our panellists feel offer the most exciting opportunities for place brand marketing?
- How do you balance tech and human touchpoints with your brand?
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17:20
Networking drinks reception
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08:00
Morning
More keynote presentations, panel discussions and expert-led sessions
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13:00
Afternoon
More keynote presentations, panel discussions and expert-led sessions
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09:00
Opening leadership panel: Nations, regions, cities: managing the brand relationships
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15:40
Engaging your private sector in your place brand – leveraging and building the place of origin effect
- Whether a legal designation, a licensed brand, or an export promotion platform, how can a place of origin program support your place brand strategy and build your place reputation?
- Creating ambassadors for your brand: tips for engaging your private sector through a place of origin platform
- How a place of origin platform can work more effectively for domestic and international audiences
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15:10
Refreshments and networking
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13:50
Expert-led sessions
Your opportunity to choose from a wealth of expert-led sessions learning from new research, strategic advice, and client case studies
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13:30
Benchmarking investment in place brand and marketing vs economic outcomes: an update on the Measuring Effectiveness project
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12:30
Lunch and networking
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11:10
Expert-led sessions
Your opportunity to choose from a wealth of expert-led sessions – learning from new research, strategic advice, and client case studies
Session details to be confirmed: hosts include Adara, Brand Finance, C Studio, Crowdriff, IPSOS, Simpleview, Zartico
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10:50
Case study: Changing perceptions of your place through a collaborative place brand strategy
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10:20
Refreshments
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10:00
Case study: Leveraging cultural assets to build the reputation of an edge city and drive sectoral economic development
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09:40
Case study: Building a city brand platform
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17:00
Announcing the winners of the City Nation Place Awards 2023 and closing drinks reception
Confirm cancellation
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Todd Babiak is CEO of Brand Tasmania. He made the switch from place branding and economic development consulting, with Story Engine and Places are People, where he had worked with clients in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Australia. Why did he move to Tasmania, to join his former client as CEO? He had never implemented a strategy before, and he was inspired to understand why people didn’t always take action on his “brilliant advice.”
Now he gets it.
See tasmanian.com.au and toddbabiak.com.
Jay specializes in developing imaginative and innovative solutions to complex problems. At Zartico, he is creating software to help the ecosystem of destination organizations focus the economic engine of the visitor economy to make it more beneficial to communities, more valuable to visitors and more equitable and open to entrepreneurs in rural and urban communities. Drawing on his years at the Utah Office of Tourism, experience guiding professional photographers in their transition to digital businesses, Jay's vision is helping to shape solutions for the tenth largest industry in the world.
Whether we’ve recognized it or not, COVID-19 has completely revolutionized the expectations consumers have for brands and destinations. In light of this next normal and the evolving state of the travel industry, this is precisely where Josh Collins, TEDx Alum, Experience Architect and Chief Product Officer for Zartico, comes alive.
Having worked with some of the most powerful and influential brands like Stevie Wonder, The Roots, John Legend, Jay-Z and many others for nearly 20 years, Josh now takes his deep understanding of human connection and experience design to Entrada Insights leading the team in educating DMO’s, both large and small, on how to become better stewards of their destinations.
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, white papers, 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. 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.
Sirpa Tsimal is an economic development and foreign direct investment specialist. Currently, she is Director for Investment Promotion at Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), where she leads the Global Marketing team.
At S-GE, Sirpa focuses her work on emerging technologies and ecosystems such as AI, blockchain, health and robotics in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to Switzerland. Sirpa is a board member of the Home of Blockchain initiative, on the steering committee of the Swiss Biotech Report, and on the advisory board of CityNationPlace. She is a frequent speaker at industry events.
Sirpa has 18+ years of experience working with and leading international teams in marketing communications, business development, market entry and strategic innovation projects. Prior to S-GE, Sirpa was the founder of The Location Lab, an innovation consultancy, and co-founder and Managing Partner at TSIMANN LLC, a communication agency in New York/Washington DC. Sirpa worked as a consultant for various economic development agencies such as BaselArea and Health Industries South Australia. She also ran and scaled the mentorship program at two health tech accelerators, in New York City (ELabNYC) and in the State of Connecticut (ABCT).
Sirpa graduated from the University of Zurich in 2003 with a master’s degree in communication sciences, international law and social anthropology.
Jean Scheltema is Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer at Wesgro: the Official Tourism, Trade, Investment, Film Promotion Agency for Cape Town and Western Cape. She has 18 years' experience in strategic direction and marketing - overseeing approaches to enhance competitiveness and improve efficiencies. She champions transformative initiatives by aligning business strategy with innovative thinking.
Jean is an Oxford Said Business School Graduate, a Board Member at Silicon Cape, with significant time spent in the private sector before moving into the public sector.
She has won multiple local and global awards over the past decade for tourism, investment promotion, digital strategy and innovation. Wesgro became the first Tourism, Trade and Investment Promotion Agency to market a tourism destination in the Metaverse under Jean’s leadership. She has also driven the development of the Western Cape’s “Made in the Cape” region of origin exports brand, which uses product to tell the story of place and connects international buyers to the CapeTradePortal.com – a virtual matching platform, which has been locally and internationally lauded as an example of trade innovation.
Jean leads the Marketing, Research as well as the Policy and Advocacy units within Wesgro. She is also responsible for the data science capability, implementing a fully data-led approach to the mandates of the organisation. She has experience in managing complex stakeholders and delivering effective strategies that enhance the competitiveness of a destination. She has taken on the roles of IT Steering Committee Chairman, Member of the Global Tech Positioning project with the Western Cape Government and is the creator of Pioneers Magazine, profiling innovative tech companies in the Cape.
She has a passion for work that creates meaningful change.