Jon Farrar is Chief Content Officer, Direct-to-Consumer, at BBC Studios, where he leads programming across BritBox and BBC Select, overseeing the commissions, co-productions and acquisitions that drive the growth of these two streaming services, while also playing an increasingly important role in supporting the UK production ecosystem creatively and financially.

Over the past 12 months, Farrar has led a strategy focused on bigger, more impactful co-productions in partnership with the UK industry, building a slate of high-profile originals including The Other Bennet Sister, The Lady, International Emmy winner Ludwig and BAFTA-winning drama Code of Silence. At a time when financing premium television has become increasingly challenging, Farrar has helped position BritBox as a meaningful creative and funding partner within the market. Working closely with broadcasters, distributors and producers, Farrar has developed new partnership and co-financing models to help projects get made, often bringing together multiple international partners to unlock productions that otherwise may not have reached the screen.

This has included a new strategic direction for BritBox: developing and commissioning original dramas that are then sold back into the UK market. In recent months, fully BritBox-commissioned series Lynley and A Taste for Murder have launched successfully on the BBC and ITV respectively, with further titles to come, including Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence.

Farrar has strengthened BritBox’s relationships across the UK production community, working with leading producers including Bad Wolf, Left Bank, Mammoth Screen and Lookout Point, while helping reposition the service as a destination for premium British storytelling internationally.

Earlier this year, Farrar was promoted to Chief Content Officer, with BBC Select returning to his portfolio. Farrar is currently overseeing a more ambitious expansion into unscripted originals and factual co-productions, building a slate designed to strengthen BBC Select’s positioning within the global streaming market.

Prior to this role, Farrar was Global VOD Director at BBC Studios, where he conceptualised and launched BBC Select. Farrar was also the first Programming Lead for SkyShowtime, the European streaming joint venture between Comcast and Paramount, where he built the programming division and launched ten original dramas within the platform’s first 12 months.

Ed Wale has been the driving force behind the expansion of LG Ad Solutions’ global footprint since stepping in as VP International in 2022. With his strategic vision, he’s been leading the charge in accelerating revenue growth across all international markets, with a laser focus on the EU5 – Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK. 

Wale is a highly experienced digital advertising leader with over a decade in the field. He specialises in delivering advanced programmatic and addressable TV solutions to broadcasters and CTV media owners. He spearheads LG Ads’ international expansion by establishing strategic partnerships with brands, content creators, and data providers, focusing on deploying data-driven TV solutions globally.

Previously, as Managing Director for Europe at SpotX, Wale was instrumental in developing a prominent programmatic CTV ecosystem.

Under his leadership in the last 18 months, LG Ad Solutions’ international business grew by an impressive 90% year-over-year, with existing client growth reaching 300%. He has also built a 20-person centre of technological excellence in London, significantly expanding the team and driving international results.

This team played a crucial role in the company’s expansion into eight Central Eastern European and nine Latin American countries. 

Shaun Keeble serves as VP Digital at Banijay Rights, where he oversees the global distributor’s digital self-publishing commercial activities.

Working alongside Senior Management and the local sales teams, Keeble is responsible for all revenue share business models in the digital, AVOD & SVOD, social media and FAST channel space, globally.

Other areas that he oversees include Content Protection and Content ID across the catalogue as well as managing Banijay Rights’ incremental FAST and YouTube monetisation initiatives.

Previously, Keeble was Head of Audience Development at Endemol Shine Group. Prior to this role he worked across The Walt Disney Company’s digital marketing efforts for Disney Channels EMEA.

Keeble was the recipient of the TBI Rising Star Award in 2022 and has twice been shortlisted in our VOD Professionals list, since 2023.

Joe Harbinson is a digital video and commercial partnerships executive specialising in OTT, platform strategy, social video and content monetisation. He currently serves as Head of Commercial Partnerships at Sky News, working with platform, content and commercial partners to help deliver the broadcaster’s Sky News 2030 strategy across streaming, connected TV and emerging digital ecosystems.

Harbinson has become particularly well known for his work on YouTube, specifically helping broadcasters, publishers and rights-holders evolve the platform from a short-form clips business into a serious long-form and connected TV proposition. Prior to Sky, he led Channel 4’s strategic relationships with YouTube, TikTok, Meta and Snap, helping bring full Channel 4 episodes back to YouTube. Earlier, he co-founded the Group Digital team at Endemol Shine Group.

Having started his career in digital rights and platform partnerships across music and media, including roles at EMI Music and Rightster (now Brave Bison), he’s built a reputation for helping traditional media businesses find their footing as platforms, audiences and the economics of streaming keep shifting under their feet.

Under Matthew Quinn’s management, Liverpool FC’s Media Team continue to provide best in class content for fans and partners alike which was recognised by winning the coveted title of “Best Digital/Social Team in football” this year at the football business awards. 

The past two seasons have seen Liverpool at the top of the Premier League engagement charts with 1.6bn in 2024/25 and 1.5bn the previous season. LFC regularly create content that transcends fandom with Isaac’s video at Christmas gathering over 122m views, being picked up by the world’s media and getting support from fans of rival clubs and celebrities such as Stormzy and Khloe Kardashian.

This season also saw LFCTV GO launch across Roku, Fire, Google TV and more, but also evolving and merging with the club membership offering to create “All Red” which provides even more value for money for fans who want to connect with their team.

As EVP of Media Cloud Services, Nick Thexton drives Synamedia’s ambitious agenda of technology innovation and investment, and leads the development and delivery of Synamedia’s SaaS Cloud-first products that help customers transform their business models and accelerate their transition to OTT. 

He joined Synamedia in April 2020 following a stint as Group CTO at German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1. His previous positions were Chief Digital & Product Officer at satellite operator Inmarsat, and CTO for UK TV platform YouView. 

From 1994 to 2012 Thexton worked at NDS, then at Cisco until 2014 in the position of VP and CTO of Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions. He started his career working with UK broadcasters Channel 4 and Thames Television having graduated in engineering from Imperial College, London. 

In 2024 Thexton was at the forefront of launching Synamedia’s new cloud video platform, Synamedia Senza. Senza’s revolutionary design removes the common technical and business model challenges of today’s device platforms that limit the reach and experiences of today’s streaming services. Senza unlocks new user experiences and AI integration capabilities that leverage the processing power of the Cloud, marking a step change in the art of the possible for streaming providers.

Fahad Durrani is Head of Product at Google TV, where he is responsible for the overall strategy and development of the platform’s end-user experience, spanning search, recommendations, discovery and monetisation.

Durrani has been with Google TV from its early days, helping take the platform from launch to more than 250 million active devices globally. He has also championed a range of Generative AI features, from higher-quality media responses through Gemini conversational search to more useful discovery experiences such as AI Overviews, while spearheading the development of Google TV’s display ads business.

Before joining Google TV, Durrani led teams across Google Play and YouTube’s transactional business. Earlier in his career, he held product leadership roles at Amazon, playing a key part in the launch and scaling of Prime Video.

Durrani has more than 15 years’ experience scaling products across digital media, e-commerce, telecoms and aviation. He also serves on the Board of DEG International in support of the broader entertainment ecosystem.

UK based, Australian Lucas Bertrand is the Founder and CEO of Looper Insights, a company that helps major Hollywood studios, global streamers, local broadcasters, and entertainment platforms understand how content is promoted across connected TV and digital storefronts and how that visibility translates into audience engagement and viewership.

Under his leadership, Looper Insights has become an essential tool for measuring the impact of marketing campaigns in the digital age, providing media and entertainment companies with invaluable data to optimise their content performance.

Prior to Looper Insights Bertrand built and sold a digital Film and TV aggregator MoMedia, ran the European operations of a computer peripherals and home security company and built and sold Australia’s 2nd largest mobile coffee cart company C&B.

His career has focused on leveraging new technologies to deliver unique solutions into fast growing markets and building teams and companies to capitalise on them.

Shaun Keeble oversees Banijay Rights’ digital self-publishing commercial activities.

Working alongside senior management and the local sales teams, Keeble is responsible for all revenue share business models in the digital, AVoD and SVoD, social media and FAST channel space, globally. 

Other areas Keeble oversees include content protection and content ID across the catalogue as well as managing Banijay Rights’ incremental FAST and YouTube monetisation initiatives.

Previously, Keeble was head of audience development at Endemol Shine Group. Prior to this role he worked across The Walt Disney Company’s digital marketing efforts for Disney Channels EMEA. 

Keeble was the recipient of the TBI Rising Star Award in 2022 and has been shortlisted in VoD Professional’s Top 50 List for four consecutive years since 2023.