Leahann is Engagement and Stakeholder Manager, tasked with creating passionate Ambassadors for the area and engaging with 200+ Bondholder companies in promoting the Humber region on the national and international stage, as well as delivering various senior PR, marketing activity, campaigns, media visits and high-profile events in Westminster and the region. Leahann has led on the development, launch and embedding of the Humber Place Brand values and galvanising an ‘army of place ambassadors’.

Kathryn Davis has spent 25 years working in Destination Management and Marketing, previously working in hotels and sport.  As Visit West’s CEO, Kathryn oversees and manages the Local Visitor Economy Partnership (LVEP) within the company, representing the destinations and regional visitor economy at national, local, and international forums.  She is a Board Member of UKInbound, and currently President of the Tourism Management Institute. Kathryn’s strategic role includes the reduction in seasonality and extension of visitor stays, and enabling strong, supportive partnerships.  Her work includes a focus on sustainability and inclusivity, as well as identifying opportunities and trends across the visitor economy, particularly in the roles of culture, film, sport and culinary travel. As well as the LVEP representing the west of England, Visit West delivers 3 Business Improvement Districts in central Bristol.

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.

Wayne Hemingway MBE is a British designer with an international reputation for projects encompassing a strong community/social content through multi-disciplinary designers, HemingwayDesign, a medium sized family-owned business focused on place, people and positive social impact set up with his wife Gerardine who also received an MBE for their award-winning work.

In 2023 Wayne co-Founded www.CharitySuperMkt.com arguably the UK’s hottest retail concept taking the stigma out of pre-loved clothing and raising millions for charity as well as revitalising town and shopping centres

To understand Wayne’s drive for good design and good business it is worth going back to understand how it all started. Wayne and Gerardine as 20-year-olds set up a market stalls in Camden, Kensington Market and Affleck’s Palace in Manchester selling second hand clothes, Gerardine’s handmade designs and Dr Martens (yes they were behind the Dr Marten brand explosion) The story of a buyer from Macy’s New York turning up out of nowhere and putting in a large order is one in its own right! With family members and a few second-hand sewing machines they fulfilled the order and started the infamous and multi award winning Red or Dead fashion brand with 23 shops worldwide employing over 300 staff. Red or Dead was a groundbreaking global brand winning StreetStyle Designer of The Year awards for an unprecedented three consecutive years. They sold the brand in 1999.

Over the last 25 years, HemingwayDesign has worked with a variety of clients on projects that traverse most disciplines and sectors; including Shelter, Girl Guiding, Social Work England, The National Archive, The National Trust, TFL, St. Modwen, Taylor Wimpey, Argent, Landsec, Southbank Centre and Media City. The business has also advised over 40 local authorities across the UK.

Always believing that good house building design should never be compromised and can be achieved within budget, Wayne advised the House of Lords select committees, publicly shamed the house building industry then demonstrated (by master planning and designing a multi award-winning housing scheme in Gateshead).

Highlight projects include:  

Leading the coastal regeneration (master-planning), place-making branding for many towns and cities in the UK (think coastal Margate, Weymouth, Lowestoft, Morecambe, Boscombe, Cleethorpes and others from York to Southend)

Re-imagining of Dreamland, Margate, Europe’s first ever pleasure park (shortlisted for Design Museum’s ‘Design of the Year’ in 2017).

Uniform Designs of many large national institutions including the National Portrait Gallery, Natural History Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich. Collaborated on uniform design with TFL where it co-designed its new uniform with the input of 16,000 staff and for the Girl Guiding movement with the largest co-design project known where 53,000 girls and women have contributed

Established several highly successful place making festivals including Vintage Festival (Morecambe), Festival of Thrift (Teesside), Festival of Making (Blackburn), First Light (Lowestoft), Classic Car Boot Sale (Kings Cross) , Urban Village Fete ( London ) and We Invented the Weekend (MediaCity, Manchester).

Co-Founded www.CharitySuperMkt.com arguably the UK’s hottest retail concept taking the stigma out of pre-loved clothing and raising millions for charity. 

HemingwayDesign has tried and tested methodologies but are not restricted by a house style, or by process but have a subjective point of view that is considerate of diverse and divergent perspectives. They pride themselves on being plugged into the zeitgeist; understand cultural context and social issues that affect, and shape people’s lives every day.

The multidimensional way HemingwayDesign look at all projects comes from years of design experience and a highly motivated team that share their expertise and learnings.

Wayne has an extensive TV and radio background (from being a weekly presenter on the Big Breakfast, to a regular on Newsnight)

As a result, Wayne is a frequent keynote speaker on town centre and retail futures, entrepreneurship, purposeful business, housing and regeneration, brand, and more at corporate events and award ceremonies worldwide.

Barry Rogers is the Director of Destination Strategy with TOPOSOPHY with responsibility for Strategy and Research Projects across the UK, Ireland, and the EU. Barry has previously worked with Dublin City Council as the Head of the Dublin City Tourism Unit. He has an extensive background in destination development, tourism strategy and policy, smart tourism and tourism insights and analytics. He has a BA in Tourism from Munster Technological University and an MA in Tourism Economics and Policy from the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies at the University of Limerick.

Barry has previously held roles in Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s overseas tourism marketing organisation. Barry is also a Director on the Board of the European Cultural Tourism Network.

Luca Romozzi, Commercial Director at Sojern, manages the international sales team focused on Destinations & Corporate clients across Europe. He has almost 18 years of experience in the world of tourism, digital technology and destination marketing. Before joining Sojern, he worked for more than 10 years during the Expedia Media Solutions team's expansion into EMEA. He holds a degree in Business Administration from Bocconi University and completed a Master in Tourism Economics and Management from Ciset Ca' Foscari in Venice.

Diana is Managing Director of Future Humber, a dynamic and influential business-led organisation championing collaboration across the Humber to drive economic growth, accelerate investment, raise aspirations, and attract and retain talent. She leads the executive team that powers the region’s place leadership agenda.

With over 28 years’ experience working in the Humber, including two decades in a global blue-chip petrochemical company, Diana brings commercial insight, strategic vision, and an unwavering commitment to place. She is a passionate advocate for the Humber’s role as a pioneering, and remarkable powerhouse – championing the region on regional, national and international platforms.

Under Diana’s leadership, Future Humber convenes public and private sector partners to amplify the Humber’s voice and strengthen its position as the UK’s energy and innovation estuary. As the go-to place partner, Diana steers collective action across business, civic and education sectors to shape a confident, forward-looking narrative and promote the Humber as a place of opportunity, transformation and constant evolution.

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.