CX / UX / MR Conference 2026

Tracey Allen, Associate Director, Service Design

Elle Atton, Marketing Insights Director, Pepsico

Fiona Blades, President & Chief Experience Officer, MESH Experience

Chris Bush, Design Lead, Nexer Digital
Chris Bush leads the Design Group at Nexer Digital in the UK, working across research, service design, content, accessibility, and UX. He helps teams create digital services that work for everyone by focusing on clear evidence, inclusive research, and practical delivery. Chris has worked with organisations such as the BBC, NHS England, Nest, and Auto Trader to shape accessible products, stronger design capabilities, and better end to end journeys. He speaks regularly at industry events and is active in community projects that promote inclusive design and responsible technology.

Matteo Cera, Founder, Glaut
Matteo Cera is the CEO and co-founder of Glaut, an AI-native Market Research Platform for experienced researchers. Since 2023, Glaut has pioneered AIMIs, a hybrid data-collection methodology based on AI-moderated voice interviews, in more than 50 languages. Glaut software allows researchers to add a qualitative layer to large-scale research projects and analyze insights at scale. With over 15 years of experience in tech, Matteo began his career at McKinsey & Company and graduated summa cum laude from Bocconi University.

Emily Chapman, Head of Consumer Closeness, The Mix Global
Emily is a product designer by training and uses this to deliver easily actionable strategy with clarity. Having worked both client-side and agency-side, she’s known for her curiosity, ability to connect with anyone (including strangers on trains), and passion for creating immersive consumer-connection experiences that help brands truly understand consumers.

Yasmine Djadoudi, Platform Insight Manager, UKTV
Yasmine is a platform insight manager at UKTV, whose leading TV brands have been entertaining the nation with programmes they love for over 30 years. She's passionate about helping media organisations understand who their viewers are, how they behave and why. In her current role, she leads UX and CX research across UKTV's video on demand service, U, not only observing how users interact with the service but also gauging how satisfied they are with it. In this role, she champions the voice of U's users, striving to provide them with the best experience possible to keep them coming back to the service.  Yasmine helped set-up and embed UKTV's first in-house Community, providing a regular touch-point with viewers to harness feedback and bring the audience closer to decision making. She draws from several years' experience working in the media industry for the likes of the BBC and BBC Studios, across some of the world's biggest TV brands.

Gillian Drewett, Global Head of Offer & Innovation, Ipsos

Ali Fawkes, Head of Social Innovation, Humanly
Ali Fawkes is Head of Social Innovation at Humanly. Ali is an expert communicator who specialises in designing creative and inclusive approaches to research, co-creation and prototyping. She has extensive experience of working with a wide range of people, and specialist skills in working with autistic people and people with learning disabilities. Ali has developed a unique skill set both academically and professionally. Prior to starting her career in human-centred design in 2015, she worked as a teacher in specialist schools, at the national charity VoiceAbility, and as Asperger's Syndrome Project Officer at the University of Cambridge.

Marco Gastaut, CEO, EUMETRA
Marco Gastaut is a seasoned executive with over two decades of international experience in research-based consultancy, driving growth and leading operations across diverse regions, including the UK, DACH, Southern Europe, MEA, and South America. He is currently spearheading the international development of Eumetra, a full-service research agency headquartered in London.
Previously, Marco served as Managing Director of Growth for Europe at Toluna MetrixLab, where he managed a £150 million revenue portfolio, driving significant P&L, revenue, and EBITDA growth. His career highlights include launching operations in new markets, developing high-performing commercial and research teams, doubling market share, introducing innovative products, and transforming traditional businesses into agile, tech-driven organizations.
With expertise spanning secondary and primary research, Marco has spent years at technology-focused agencies developing SaaS and AI-enabled agile research tools and communities. His leadership roles in companies like Eumetra, Toluna MetrixLab, Holden Pearmain Research, and GfK reflect his ability to deliver impactful results consistently.
Marco holds a First-Class Honours Degree in Business & Economics from the University of Turin. He is fluent in Italian and English and possesses intermediate proficiency in French. His leadership style is defined by strategic vision, innovative commercial strategies, and a relentless focus on customer satisfaction. 

Jamie Halliday, Behavioural Science Director, Walnut, part of Accenture Song
With a degree in Psychology, Jamie is passionate about harnessing the power of human empathy, enhanced by science to provide more tangible and actionable insights to his clients. A One of Walnuta€™s senior team, Jamie has two decades of research experience, much of it with a Behavioural Science element and he brings incredible enthusiasm and rigour to all of his projects.

Alex Hardy, Consumer & Market Insight and Analytics Director, Nomad

Erika Kennington, Head of Research + Innovation, Asthma + Lung UK
Dr Erika Kennington heads up the research team at Asthma + Lung UK and is responsible for the organisation’s portfolio of funded research. Erika holds a PhD from Kings College London and has worked as a research funder in the charity and not-for-profit sector for 13 years. Prior to joining Asthma + Lung UK, she worked as a published researcher in both industry and academia across a number of biomedical and health disciplines. She regularly comments on respiratory research in national and regional media in relation to all aspects of lung health.

Tanya Lidstone, Head of UX, Ipsos

Elwin McSheffrey, Research Lead, ImpactSense

Natalie Methley, Principal User Researcher and Accessibility Lead, Autotrader
Natalie is a principal UX researcher at Autotrader, where she champions inclusive research and accessibility across one of the UK’s largest digital marketplaces. She leads research strategy that helps teams design user journeys grounded in real human needs, ensuring products work for people of diverse abilities, backgrounds, and contexts.
Natalie also runs Autotrader’s Accessibility Working Group and has played a key role in building awareness of accessibility across the organisation, embedding it into everyday practice and shaping a more inclusive culture. Partnering closely with design, product, and engineering, she turns insight into action and drives meaningful, sustainable change.

Anna Murphy, Network Audience Insight Manager, UKTV
Anna is an experienced insight professional with over 10 years focused on the long-form content market. Over the course of her career, she has developed an affinity for blending rigorous research with strategic thinking, striving to bridge the gap between data, human behaviour and impactful storytelling. Her passion lies in deciphering the complex ways that societal shifts influence audience motivations, micro trends and preferences across media brands. 

 Veronica Naguib, Managing Director, ImpactSense
Veronica Naguib, Managing Director of ImpactSense, with a background in service design and CX, now leads a pioneering market research consultancy delivering actionable insights for global brands. Combining multidisciplinary expertise with innovative methodologies, ImpactSense bridges insight and application, transforming research into business impact. Veronica’s trailblazing vision drives authenticity, usability, and results, empowering confident decisions and measurable success in market research.

Sherissa Naicker, Head of Insights, Traction

Jenni Parker, Founder & Director, Humanly
Jenni Parker is the Founder and Director of Humanly, a design studio specialising in human-centred design for social impact. She is an award-winning designer, social innovator and systems thinker. Jenni is passionate about the power of human-centred design to develop solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems. She has over 15 years of experience in participatory research, co-design and social innovation, having started her career at the UN in 2011.

Hetal Patel, Associate Director, Research and Insights, Transform UK

Mark Perry, Director of Category & Brand Insight, Molson Coors

Chris Rourke, Executive Director, Industry Engagement, User Vision
Chris Rourke is the Founder and Executive Director, Industry Engagement for User Vision, a leading UX and service design consultancy specialising in user research, user-centred design and accessibility.  With over 30 years of experience, Chris helps clients such as Emirates Airline, Sky, the NHS, Lloyds Banking Group and Visit Scotland to deliver exceptional customer experiences through UX strategy, user research, and human-centred service design. 
He is passionate about using customer insight to drive innovation and has guided teams in developing intuitive, inclusive, and effective digital services. In addition to consulting, Chris regularly shares his expertise through training, speaking engagements, and industry events — championing best practices in UX and research across sectors.

Olga Smits-Möhlmann, IKEA Retail Experience Insights leader, Inter IKEA

Louise Stone, Senior Insight Manager, Silverspoon

Michael Thompson, Head of UX Research, MTM
Over a 20+ year career, Michael has worked with Google, the BBC, Disney, ebay and McDonald’s. He is committed to putting human experiences at the heart of product and service design. At MTM, he specialises in TV user experiences and has spoken on the subject at Product Design Week and the MRS UX conference.

Serena Verdenicci, Behavioural Design Lead, Experience Design, HSBC