Jens Andersen, Managing Director, Mobile People A/S

Jens Andersen is the Managing Director of Mobile People. He has 16 years of international telecom background working in various positions in Europe and the US with companies such as TeleDanmark, Telia and Ericsson as well as a start up company, Realtime.

In 2002 he was part of the management team that founded Mobile People, based on a firm belief that Mobile Media is the new and complementary opportunity for e.g. Yellow Pages providers in taking their customers online using the power of mobility.

Today's focus of Mobile People is on connecting mobile users with internet media increasing exposure and revenue generation. Mobile People has, among other services, launched Wireless Yellow Pages with Eniro in Sweden,

Finland and Denmark and with Yell for the UK market. Similar services are in progress for a number of additional markets.

Marie-José Cocquyt, President and CEO, Kompass International

Ms Cocquyt started her business career with Kompass in 1976 and has managed Kompass publishing operations in Benelux, France and Spain. It was in fact she who created Kompass Luxembourg in 1978 and also the Yellow Pages in Luxembourg in 1981.

She went to France in 1985 to reorganize the Kompass business there and transformed it into one which was to succeed in providing major market exposure for the products of French companies locally and worldwide.

In her near thirty years experience at Kompass, Ms Cocquyt has led large management teams and small, created products, transformed enterprises and moved the business from print to electronic; one can truly say of her that she understands directory publishing from top to bottom and inside out!

 Kompass International is the owner and worldwide franchiser of the Kompass trade name and system. 

Nigel Dickinson, Dun & Bradstreet, UK

Nigel Dickinson is the European Leader of D&B's Sales & Marketing Solutions, the business which comprises marketing lists, directories and value added analytical services. In this role for three years he has been responsible for re-engineering the product portfolio, and developing partnerships, to create a new web based business. Throughout his twenty year career at D&B Nigel has held a variety of sales and marketing positions, including the position of Manager of the UK directory business for seven years. Nigel is currently a Director of the (UK) Directory & Database Publishers Association and is a former committee member of the UK Online User Group and the Business Information Network. Before working for D&B he was educated at Keele University and Warwick Business School.

Patrick Dixon, Founder and Chairman Global Change, Ltd.

Patrick Dixon is the author of many books and a futurist who has been dubbed the global change guru. He is also a fellow of the Centre for Management Development at the London Business School. He is ranked among the world’s most influential thinkers.

He studied medicine and information sciences at Cambridge and 25 years ago founded Medicom, which played a leading role in equipping Britain and Asia with computer systems for general medical practice. He did research in artificial intelligence, before delving into multiple areas of the economy and providing consultancy services to pre-eminent companies and organizations, including the World Bank. 

Dixon, no stranger to most of the issues which exercise the minds of directory publishers, prides himself on preparing presentations tailored to the interests of his audience.

He has developed projects and proposals on subjects as diverse as internet marketing strategies, e-business, interactive multimedia kiosks, sales training, information management and knowledge management, corporate branding and the globalization aims of multinational companies.

Jim Easton, Manager, AMR International Ltd

Jim Easton is a Manager at AMR International Ltd, a London-based management consultancy which specialises in media and publishing. Jim has provided strategic market information on a number of major European telephone directory acquisitions, including the acquisitions of Fonecta, De Telefoongids, Verizon European Properties and the Yellow Brick Road recapitalisation in 2004. In 2003, AMR published the first European Telephone Directory Market Report which provides an in-depth analytical view of the 18 largest European B2C directory markets.  The report is now used by most of Europe’s B2C directory publishers. Jim has also done an analysis for one client of the impact of the internet and new search products on directory revenues and margins.

Mr Martini has been the Managing Director of the Italian subsidiaries of both Yahoo! and Kelkoo since October 2004. He was, in fact, responsible for the successful launch of Kelkoo in Italy in May 2000, which became the blueprint for later launches in Germany and Belgium. Kelkoo now distributes over 4 million leads per month to Italian businesses and is a major player in the Italian e-commerce market.

A graduate of Bocconi University, Mr Martini began his business career with IBM as an e-commerce analyst. Before joining Kelkoo, he was a financial analyst for Interbanca and later held product marketing positions with Infostrada and Planetwork.

Enrico Orlando, Marketing Manager, Specialized Products,  SEAT Pagine Gialle S.p.A. (IT) 

Mr Orlando is responsible for marketing ten or more different brands or product lines of SEAT Pagine Gialle, covering both B2B and B2C.  They include directories, direct marketing and business information products. 

He began in the early nineties with the re-launch of SEAT’s Electronic Yellow Pages and was next involved with the division of the paper Yellow Pages into B2B and B2C segments.  Towards the end of the decade Mr Orlando took charge of the project and launch of Pagine Gialle Professional, a regional business to business directory, and was responsible for the implementation of a new Yellow Pages pricing strategy. 

In the past year Mr Orlando has been dealing with the the re-organization of the product portfolio and the development of a new local product line, called INZONA

A long-time eBay employee, Gil Penchina has served in a number of executive positions at eBay.  Currently based in Europe, Mr. Penchina directs eBay’s presence in Southern Europe, and oversees the company’s expansion efforts in Eastern Europe.  In the past year he was responsible for launching websites in Hong Kong and Singapore, and facilitated the company’s entry into India.  Penchina also played a role in eBay’s entry into the South Korea and China markets.

Prior to joining the international division, Penchina was vice president and general manager of eBay.com’s home and collectibles business.  In this role he was responsible for marketing, product development, seller outreach and business development for several of the company’s most popular shopping categories.

Penchina came to eBay in 1998, first working in business development and then running the mergers and acquisitions department.  In 2001 he was named vice president of business development where he built business and marketing relationships for eBay with a number of the top brands in the U.S.A including Microsoft, AOL, Disney and Yahoo.

A native of Amherst, Massachusetts, Penchina holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business.  

Edouard Prisse, President & CEO, Eurédit S.A.,  France

After an early career in market research and media planning, Mr. Prisse moved to ITT-Promedia, the publisher of the Belgian Yellow Pages, in 1976. As New Business Development Manager, he took part from the outset in the pan-European “EUROPAGES” project, which involved the official telecom directory publishers of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

In 1982, Mr. Prisse moved to Paris to be the Secretary General of the coordinating structure set up there, to implement EUROPAGES.

When Eurédit was founded in 1986, Mr. Prisse was appointed General Manager and since 1998 he has been its President and CEO.

Today, three Yellow Pages publishers are shareholders in Eurédit, the publisher of EUROPAGES : Seat-Pagine Gialle (Italy), T.P.I. (Spain) and De TeMedien (Germany).

The company has a Sales Partners network covering 36 European countries. EUROPAGES is now in its 22^nd edition, with a turnover of 27 million euros and growing circulation through three media : print – 470,000 copies, CD-Rom – 691,000 discs and internet – with an average of near by 60,000 visits per day.

Lars Save, CEO, Bonnier Business Information, Sweden

Mr Save has over 20 years experience in the digitized business information industry. Since 1987 he has held various managerial positions within the Bonnier publishing group and in his present position heads a group with an annual turnover of 300 million euros. The group sells digitized business information in 18 European countries. He graduated from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, with an M.Sc degree in Engineering.

Barbro Sjölander, CEO, Eniro 118 118 AB

Ms. Sjölander has been CEO of Eniro 118 118 AB (formerly Respons AB) since 1998.

Other positions held in the industry have been: Head of Customer Service Development, Telia Nära AB; Head of Customer Service (Stockholm region), Telia Mobitel AB; Head of Purchasing, Sales Operations Manager, and Head of Customer Service at Digital Equipment AB.

Ms. Sjölander has pursued educational opportunities in Statistics and Economics as well as attending the Advanced Management Program at The Stockholm School of Economics

Christopher Scotton, President & Chief Executive Officer, Innovectra Corporation

After seventeen years building directory businesses in Europe and the US, Mr. Scotton led the management buy-out of Innovectra in March 2001.  Before Innovectra, he was President of The Phillips Group, a London-based publishing company he started in 1994.  Beginning with a $2.5 million capital investment, Mr. Scotton and his team built The Phillips Group into a $47 million global technology directory and tradeshow business which became one of the UK’s fastest growing private companies.  In November 2000, Scotton and his partners sold the firm to the New York media investment bank, Veronis Suhler & Associates.  Prior to starting The Phillips Group, Mr. Scotton was Vice President and Group Publisher at PPI, a $300 million consumer and business-to-business directory publisher located in suburban Washington D.C.

Mr. Scotton is a founder and director of the UK Electronic Publishers Association as well as founder and director of the Edinburgh-based Global Billing Association.

Dirk VAN SCHIL, Vice-President Product Management, Tele Atlas Europe, Belgium 

In his present position, Mr Van Schil is responsible for all market segments, from Geo Markets through to Vehicle Navigation.

His career with Tele Atlas began six years ago when, as business development manager, his main focus was on developing sales in North America.  In 200O Tele Atlas acquired a US mapping company, ETAK Inc. which later became Tele Atlas North America. Mr Van Schil lived for a time in the USA to integrate the sales activities of the European and American arms of the business, before moving back to Europe as Product Manager for the GEO and LBS markets.

After acquiring GTD Inc., another US-based mapping company, in 2004, Tele Atlas went through a major re-organization and appointed Mr Van Schil Vice-President Product Management Europe.

Mr Van Schil's Marketing and Sales career began in 1992 at Toyota Motor Europe, first in Belgium and later in the UK, where he was Country Manager responsible for the entire Toyota dealer network.