Alex Balfour

Head of New Media, London 2012 Organising Committee

Alex joined the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) as Head of New Media in September 2006. Alex oversees the online delivery of all LOCOG’s major consumer programmes including communications, ticketing, volunteering, ecommerce, torch relay, mascot, ceremonies and education. In 2012 he will oversee London 2012’s Games time Internet results and information service which is expected to reach over 100 million visitors.

Previously as co-founder of Emerging Media Alex conceived and delivered the world’s first international 2020 cricket tournament which was televised to 200 million viewers in 20 countries, developed a reality TV concept broadcast by a major Indian TV network.

Before that as co-founder and latterly Chairman Alex turned CricInfo from a raw start up into a profitable business with 20 million customers and 65 staff in eight countries. He raised £25 million in four funding rounds and generated £1.7 million pounds of profitable turnover making CricInfo the only independent sports dotcom to survive the boom and bust of the early 2000s. CricInfo was sold to ESPN in the summer of 2007.

Alex was also a senior member of a team that built the Guardian newspaper’s websites.

Alex has worked for 16 years in new media and was also responsible for award winning websites including the UK’s first general election website and the first online government white paper consultation.

Alex is married with two young children and is a keen competitive road and track cyclist.

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Paul Bristow

Managing Director, Deltatre Media

Paul Bristow has over 20 years experience in the international sports business and is a co-founder of the UK office of deltatre – deltatre media, which was established in 2002. He is responsible for the management of the UK office, with focused energy and attention on strategy and new business development. Paul started his career at the International Amateur Athletics Federation (1986-1992) and then moved to Switzerland to join T.E.A.M. Marketing (1992-2001) where, as Director of TV and Special Events, his responsibilities included television rights sales and the event management of the UEFA Champions League. Being married with 3 young children, he can no longer claim to be an athlete – but still enjoys “jogging”, loves skiing and wishes he could spend more time on the golf course.

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Simon Crane

Chairman, IPTV Communications

Simon is non-executive Chairman of two companies, San Fermin Films and IPTV Communications Limited, and he is on the board of INplc (a narrow-cast network owner) and ENS Limited (a sports and entertainment PR agency).

Back in 1991 Simon Crane joined Bass Brewers limited where he conceived, negotiated, secured and led the activation of the original FA Carling Premiership sponsorship.

In 1994 Simon was lured away to join The Coca-Cola Company initially as European Head of Sport and Entertainment and latterly as Director Of Rugby, Cricket and Tennis Marketing Worldwide. Simon led the utilization of properties that included The Olympic Summer and Winter Games, FIFA World Cup, Rugby and Cricket Worlds Cups, Euro ’96, Tour de France and Wimbledon.

In 1998 Simon became CEO of AIM listed Loftus Road plc and in 2005 Simon joined NASDAQ listed Tickets.com. The business was successfully sold for $86M to Major League Baseball within 9 months.

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Inma Martinez

President, Stradbroke Advisors

Inma Martinez is the President of Stradbroke Advisors, a corporate advisory and fund-raising firm based in London with aworldwide portfolio in Telecoms, Media, Internet (TMI) and emerging technologies (BioTech, Neurosciences). After holding executive positions in financial institutions (Goldman, Sachs) and the telecommunications sector (Cable & Wireless), Inma left the corporate world in 2000 and became one of the UK flagship entrepreneurs. Her first company Escape Velocity, funded by 3i, provided real-time personalisation software to international mobile operators and handsets manufacturers and was depicted by Lehman Brothers as one of Europe’s top 20 companies to follow.

Inma continued founding and leading at the helm two other companies, the latter one in Finland, Visual Radio, who later sold to NOKIA and whose software can be found in every multimedia handset of the Finnish mobile giant. Her advisory work accounts from multinational companies, European investment funds and startups. She is an advisor to the EU Technology Commission and to SPORT ENGLAND for their Innovation Investment Fund.

FORTUNE and TIME have described her as one of Europe’s top talents in Human Factors and Social Engagement through technology; Red Herring has ranked her amongst the top 40 most influential women in technology and FastCompany has defined her as a “fire-starter”.

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David Shield

Global Director Engineering and Technology, IMG Media

David is currently Global Director of Engineering & Technology for IMG Media. After studying electronic engineering at City University and computer science at the Open University he joined the BBC as a technical operator in 1979. He left the BBC in 1990 as a sound supervisor after 10 years of experience in the studios and OB environment in all genres. He joined Champion TV, formed to provide the UK’s first satellite sports channel on BSB, as Head of Sound.

He has successfully expanded the satellite distribution business of IMG Media which includes Premier League Football, Rugby World Cup and Wimbledon.

David was part of the team to stage the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 and was Head of Production Facilities for the Asian Games in Doha in 2006. This was arguably the world’s largest sporting outside broadcast with 42 concurrent live sports OBs.

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Digitising Sports

The traditional ideals of sport are being challenged by the digital revolution. Today, there are real-time results on our smart phones, digitised replays, computer-aided analysis, and digital sport visuals that never existed before. In this panel, we will examine the impact of these new and emerging media trends in the sports industry.

The discussion will include:

• What are the new developments in virtual sports and sports visuals?
• What new forms of digital broadcasting rights are being produced and leveraged?
• How important is sport to drive the adoption of new delivery platforms such as 3D, HDTV, IPTV and mobile?
• Are these new forms of media changing how the business of sport is being done?