Brand Finance Annual Forum 2024

David is the Chairman and CEO of Brand Finance Plc – the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy. He has worked in the area of branded business, brand, and intangible asset valuation since 1991. He specialised entirely in the field after becoming the Director of Brand Valuation for Interbrand in 1995. He subsequently left Interbrand in 1996 to launch Brand Finance which is celebrating 25 years in business this year.

David represented the British Standards Institution in the working parties responsible for crafting international industry standards: ISO 10668 on Brand Valuation in 2010 and ISO 20671 on Brand Evaluation in 2019.

David is a passionate writer and has authored many articles on brand valuation, published in numerous marketing and finance newspapers and magazines, such as: Financial Times, Accountancy Age, and Marketing Week. He has also lectured on the topic of brand valuation for Harvard, Chicago, and London Business Schools.

David graduated from Bristol University with an English degree, qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London, and obtained a postgraduate diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He is a Fellow of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and has a practising certificate with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

Abhinav Kumar heads up the Marketing and Communications divisions for Tata Consultancy Service's 45 country international market presence, comprising the North America, Europe, UK, Latin America, APAC and MEA regions.

Recognized with over 70 awards for excellence in communications and branding, his team has established the company as the #1 fastest growing brand in the IT Services Industry from 2010-2020.

Under his tenure, the brand value of the company has risen from US$ 2.3 billion in 2010 to US$ 13.5 billion in 2020. He oversees the company's strategic relationships with multilateral organization such as the World Economic Forum and the European Union.

In 2019, Abhinav was accorded the SABRE award in London, towards outstanding individual achievement in his career as a CMO.

Abhinav has previously served in several leadership roles, including as the CMO for Europe, the CCO for Europe and as the CMO of Latin America at the company. He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and a degree in Economics.

He is based out of Brussels, Belgium.

Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk in 1965, aged 14 Will was awarded a bursary to attend a sailing course at the National Sailing Centre in Cowes, becoming the UK’s youngest sailing instructor and winning the NSSA Schools National championship, Nations Cup & National
Team Racing championship. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Portsmouth between 1984-87, with an early career in tele-sales, marketing and event management. He is the eldest of 3 brothers, who all went to Kirkley High School, a comprehensive school where his father Tony taught, who will be 92 in November.

Following redundancy, in 1993, he created the King of Shaves brand raising £17,500 from 2 friends & his parents; his first product was a shaving oil which he hand filled 10,000 of and got personally listed in Harrods by owner Mohammed Al Fayed, followed by listings in Boots and all the major UK retailers. He also secured the licensing rights for a (then) tiny brand called Ted Baker, which remains with the demerged company, KMI. In the 1990’s, King of Shaves was the only men’s grooming brand to launch and challenge Gillette, it remains highly regarded as a ‘challenger brand’ paving the way for hundreds of other startups to cut through and go global in subsequent years.

Buying shave.com for £18 in 1995, he found that “shaving’s a growth business”, the company started selling online in 1999, launched Azor (2008) and Hyperglide (2014) system razors, invented the debt instrument ‘Retail Mini Bonds’ with the launch of the ‘Shaving Bond’ and in 2024 King of Shaves celebrated its 31st anniversary. With more than 17Bn lives ‘shaved’ world-wide, the brand remains independent, always manufacturing its products in the UK.

In 2023 King of Shaves became the ‘Front of Shirt’ sponsor for Coventry City Football Club following it’s outright purchase by his middle brother Doug, the Executive Chairman. He returned as Founder, CEO that year, and remains in that position to date. Will was delighted to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate D.Univ by the University of Portsmouth in 2015 for services to Engineering and Entrepreneurship and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Suffolk. He has spoken at dozens of schools, colleges and universities to thousands of pupils and students and often starts out with a question, asking “Curiosity Killed The Cat…”

Will lives in Cowes, has a trait curiosity, constantly wonders why things are the way they are, is an admirer of the late Uffa Fox and sails as often as he can. You can follow him on X/twitter @iamwilliamking

Find King of Shaves at www.shave.com and major retailers including Boots, Sainsbury & Waitrose.

Martin has held a number of leadership positions in consumer goods. Most notably at Walkers Snackfoods/Pepsico and then in two private equity backed ventures -Birds Eye foods and United Biscuits.His last full time position was at the English Football Association between 2015-19 where he led a modernisation programme resulting in significant growth in Women’s football and much more tournament success of both men’s and women’s teams. Martin now has a non executive portfolio at Froneri ( a $6bn ice cream JV with Nestle and PAI partners)where he chairs the Audit Committee and is Chair of Chapel Down wines-Britain’s leading wine company. Martin also chairs a charity called the Football Foundation which channels £100m+ per year into initiatives to improve grass roots football infrastructure and recently became Non Executive Chair of PGMOL which manages and develops professional football referees in England.

Martin was also President of the Marketing Society 2014-17.

Founder, NED - Tortilla Mexican Grill plc

NED ;  Red’s True Barbecue, Thunderbird Fried Chicken, Mama Roma Pizza.

Operating Partner - TriSpan Private Equityr

Alongside Tarek Gjonnes and Tim Prior, Brandon is a co-founder of Big Black Box, a startup which aims to be the ‘IMAX of Immersive Entertainment.’ Brandon is also the Founder and a Non-Executive Director of Tortilla Mexican Grill (LSE: MEX), the second largest fast-casual Mexican chain outside the United States. He sits on the board of Thunderbird Fried Chicken, a TriSpan portfolio company, and is a Non-Executive Director for Mamma Roma, a Belgian-based pizza business. He was previously founder/CEO of REVL, the UK’s largest events marketplace; Chairman of Red’s True Barbecue, the largest BBQ chain in the UK; and interim Director of eCommerce for Arcadia Group.

Brandon is a native Californian and began his career in Silicon Valley where he worked in a range of senior positions at several high-profile technology startups. He has also served as a consultant at Accenture and Booz Allen Hamilton. Brandon is a dual US/UK citizen, has an MBA from London Business School, and is a graduate of Princeton University.

Annie is a qualified management accountant and has worked on Brand and Business valuation projects serving global clients, including Barclays and Shell. She is experienced across of variety of services including brand licensing, research analytics, rebrand uplift and balance sheet valuation. Annie heads up various studies at Brand Finance, including the annual Global Intangible Finance Tracker (GIFT™) and the Brand Guardianship Index. In addition, Annie has conducted research and analysis for the Brand Finance brand rankings, specialising in Banking, Retail and Oil & Gas sectors. Annie has served clients worldwide, with a particular focus on the USA and the Middle East. Annie joined Brand Finance as an Analyst in August 2017 after graduating from The University of Edinburgh with a Masters degree in Philosophy and Economics. She has since completed her CIMA professional qualification.

Neil has been a front-line Banker for 30 years and for the last 10 years, has been responsible for the strategy, proposition, and risk for the global TMT sector.  A portfolio with a balance sheet of c£19bn & over 25,000 customers.

Bucks born & bred; he learnt his trade with the early technology firms who based themselves in the Thames Valley Tech cluster (being Oracle’s first UK banker) & is applying this experience to his UK role.  His team are the no.1 supporter of the Tech sector & help businesses from university spin out to FTSE100 to get the 3B’s – get Backing, get Big & get Bought.

As a Freeman of the City of London (International Bankers) he likes to give back to the banking industry and the tech sector that have both served him well in his career.  He’s a strong advocate of the bank’s apprentice programme, Entrepreneur Accelerator and Mentor on the Imperial Ventures Mentoring Service (IVMS) for world class Imperial College spin outs.  He’s accredited by the Institute of Enterprise & Entrepreneurship and Board Advisor to some of the UK’s most exciting start-ups.

An Intellectual Property (IP) evangelist he has been the UK’s leading banker in developing innovative IP debt propositions to help unlock the £15bn funding gap for UK Scale Ups and recently shared his success at the World IP conference (WIPO) in Geneva.

Ben Llewellyn-Jones is the Director for Business and International Policy at the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO), responsible for the IPO’s international engagement, business support, action to assist SMEs and the IPO’s approach to IP finance and Standard Essential Patents.

Ben is a British diplomat with a varied career covering many countries and issues. Most recently he was British Deputy High Commissioner (head of office) in Lagos, Nigeria.

He was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2009 for his service to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (now Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office).

Marcus Stuttard is Head of AIM and has responsibility for Primary Markets in the UK  across both AIM and the Main Market. He is responsible for the management and development of AIM, London Stock Exchange’s international growth market for  small and medium sized enterprises.

Marcus has a particular focus on boosting access to finance for ambitious growth  companies. He is a regular speaker on growth and business funding issues and sits  on a number of industry and policy advisory bodies including the ScaleUp Institute’s Access to Finance and Growth Capital Committee and the IoD’s Centre for Corporate Governance Advisory Board.

He has played a leading role in key capital market developments such as the launch  of the High Growth Segment and policy changes such as making AIM shares eligible for inclusion in ISAs and the abolition of stamp duty on the trading of shares admitted to Recognised Growth Markets such as AIM.