The Crescent faculty
Your Crescent programme of 1-2-1 mentoring, workshops, assignments and business planning is powered by an expert Faculty from the Collingwood Advisory team, chosen for their experience in helping smaller or earlier stage companies like yours succeed.
Piers Bearne
Founder of Collingwood Advisory, Piers built and sold multiple media businesses and led many M&A deals both as buyer and adviser. Formerly CEO of Clarion Conferences, he led Clarion’s buy-and-build strategy in the LSE sector. He hosts the Media Entrepreneur Meetup and is a regular speaker and judge at media and information industry events and awards.
Fergus Gregory
An experienced business leader who has spent over 15 years in the world of B2B media. Fergus has a strong track record as a hands-on director with responsibility for commercial activities, memberships and subscriptions across publishing and events brands.
Daniel Pitchford
An entrepreneur and tech VC, Daniel co-founded Futurum Media and launched the AI Business brand, which was sold to Informa within 18 months of launch. Daniel is CEO of Collingwood Advisory and a Venture Partner with SuperSeed, which focuses on early stage B2B SaaS companies, investing capital and operational expertise to fuel growth.
Jenefer Thoroughgood
Jen has over 20 years’ experience in digital media and SaaS, with hands-on expertise in content, marketing and sales. She has run market-leading global products at Informa and helped launch leading media startup Zapnito. She now advises media firms on how to understand and engage their customers to develop great products.
Andy Baker
Andy has over twenty years’ experience of starting, turning around and acquiring digital media businesses; he led the sale of HSJ from Ascential plc to Wilmington plc for £19m in early 2017. He has led the development of multiple market-leading subscription and information businesses, achieving double-digit increases in subscriber usage, outstanding retention rates and yield increases.
Rebecca King
Rebecca has over 17 years’ experience in global B2B media as a marketing and project management leader. Former Group Marketing Director at Terrapinn, she was responsible for marketing across verticals and regions. As Chief Marketing and Operations Officer with Collingwood Advisory she works with clients to develop creative marketing solutions and advises on how to build, strengthen and future-proof marketing strategies and functions.
Carolyn Morgan
Carolyn launched a series of specialist websites for Bauer (previously Emap) to complement their print business and drive incremental revenue. She launched the Specialist Media Show in 2010 to bring together experts and executives in specialist media, and moderated the Specialist Media Network on LinkedIn. In 2013, Carolyn sold the Specialist Media Show to SIIA and helped them launch a series of London-based events for European publishers.
Chris Kilbee
Chris is an internationally experienced business leader with an extensive background in large-scale, global exhibitions and B2B media across multiple sectors and regions. Most recently, Chris was based in Singapore as Executive Director of Informa Market’s ASEAN business. Prior to that, Chris led the construction business for DMG Events based in Dubai, and had a 5-year period leading UBM’s flagship Pharma event portfolio globally.
Darren Johnson
Darren has over 20 years’ experience within international B2B media, events and service businesses, latterly as CEO of Reed Exhibitions UK. Darren has a cross-functional background with particular expertise in customer-led business transformation to drive sustained, profitable growth. Prior to Reed Exhibitions, Darren was Chief Growth Officer for Kodak Alaris, a $1bn Imaging, software, and digital printing business. He is acting as Senior Adviser for Collingwood Advisory, helping businesses scale up.
