Yuria Mizuta 

A manga aficionado and General Affairs Executive Director of VIZ Media Europe Group which handles Japanese manga and animation properties from initial production, television placement, distribution, merchandise licensing and promotions for consumers of ALL ages. An art historian, advertising agent, and quadrilingual (English, French, Italian & Japanese), Yuria has been a press attaché, webdesigner, art curator, fashion designer and held positions at the Italian Cultural Institute, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Orsay Museum, Vitra and Issey Miyake. She lived in Italy, Japan, US, UK and is currently a visual artist based in Paris.

Ashleigh Gardner

Deputy General Manager, Wattpad Studios, Publishing at Wattpad

Creates meaningful promotional and editorial partnerships with the publishing, advertising, and entertainment industries.

Before joining Wattpad, Ashleigh was director of content management at Kobo, where she focused on expanding Kobo’s existing catalogue, while developing new ebook stores in international markets.

Silvia Bianchi

A graduate in Semiotics, Silvia has more than ten years of experience in the fields of communication, creative direction, art curation and education. She is responsible for creating the editorial process of Freeda and managing the creative talents of the media company in Spain.

She has been curating Libros Mutantes Madrid Art Book Fair since 2011 and festivals about new technologies and arts & crafts, including the Alhajadú Kids Festival in Madrid in 2013 and 2014. She has a broad experience on lectures about self-publishing including events like New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, Los Angeles Art Book fair at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Encuentro de editores at Mexico D. F. and Guadalajara or Sprint Art Book Fair in Milan.

“Freeda’s mission is to use business to spread real women stories that inspire positive change. We believe rethinking the creative process behind the content distribution is fundamental to address millennials taking into account the tools and platforms they are on»

Piero Attanasio

Author’s right is freedom

After a degree in economics at the University of Bologna, Piero has been working in book publishing since 1986. In 1995 he joined AIE (Italian Publishers Association) where he is currently director of international affairs and R&D programmes and coordinates the activities of the academic publishing group. He is CEO of mEDRA (multilingual European DOI Registration Agency) and member of the Board of the Fondazione LIA, which provides services to enhance accessibility of ebooks for visually impaired people.
He has been the scientific director of the ARROW projects (www.arrow-net.eu), the leading European initiative to facilitate right information management in digital library programmes. He is member of the Board of the Federation of European Publishers, of the Executive committee of the ISBN International Agency, where he served as chair since 2006 to 2012, of the Membership Committee of the International Publishers Association, and the advisory board of the P&R Foundation. He was also board member of Editeur and of the International DOI Foundation and chaired the Standard and Technology Committee of the IPA.
He is author of many articles and two monographs about book industry, in particular about the impact of technologies on book trade and rights management in digital environment. He is lecturer in the Master course on publishing at the University of Milan.

Veronika Kartovenko

We believe that ‘social and mobile’ is the future when it comes to reading and writing. With Sweek, we are creating synergies between mobile, traditional and self-publishing

Co-founder of Sweek.com

A cum laude graduate in Business Information Management and International Business Administration from Rotterdam School of Management, Veronika is responsible for creating international partnerships and collaborations with publishers, advertisers and other parties.

David Streatfield

My consultancy work is guided by a throwaway comment made by an Irish banker (shortly before the international financial meltdown): “The trouble with planning is that it has to degenerate into action”.

David Streatfield has been involved with impact evaluation for more than thirty years.

He is Principal of Information Management Associates a consultancy, training and research team focused on evaluating information and library service provision and particularly on assessing the impact of these services. He has conducted impact evaluation consultancy work for the International Development Research Centre, IREX and the US Public Library Association as well as facilitating a two year university library self-evaluation programme (involving 22 UK university library teams). He is currently leading the programme evaluation for the IFLA International Advocacy programme and last December completed a ten-year spell as Independent Impact Consultant to the Global Libraries Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

His work with Global Libraries has included supporting impact development in Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, South Africa and Turkey, as well various countries in Eastern Europe and South Asia. He helped to manage the Cross-Europe survey of public perceptions of public libraries in 17 European Union countries; and edited two special issues of the journal Performance Measurement and Metrics devoted to impact evaluation work in Global Libraries countries. With his partner, Sharon Markless, David has distilled much of this experience into a new edition of their book, Evaluating the impact of Your Library published in the UK and USA by Facet Publishing in 2013 and they are currently working on a new book of case studies in library impact evaluation.

 

Kazuyuki Masuda

Let’s think about how to make a market where paper and digital comics coexist positively:

Hint 1: Digital distribution could be also an integrating part of promotion for paper sales

Hint 2: People who read comics in paper and in digital formats are quite different

Kazuyuki Masuda has been working from 1985 to 2011 for Shueisha Inc., a major Japanese Publishing Company in the Manga (Japanese  Graphic novels, Comics) Editorial Team, he has then greatly contributed to the Digital Business Department until 2
016, launching «Jump & Margaret Digital Book Store», etc. In view of the International expansion of Manga properties, he joined the Rights Business Department in the Overseas Publishing Division to finally come to Europe at VIZ Media Europe Group, as Managing Director of Publishing licensing, Direct Publishing and Sales.2) short motto on the Round Table, 7th June 2018 morning, “Development and commercialization of Digital Comics” .

James English

Program Manager Ebooks

The New York Public Library

James came to the New York Public Library in May 2013 and serves as Product Manager – National Platforms.   His primary duties were as product manager for SimplyE – an open source e-reading platform and IMLS grant-funded project which aims to simplify the experience of discovering, borrowing and reading an eBook from the library.  Today this open source software and related technologies are being rolled out across the country by libraries and library consortia as well non-profit and for profit service providers.  As Program Manager EBooks, James oversees that expansion as well as new intiatives aiming to improve acces to ebooks for research as well as digitized (out of print) e-materials.  James represents NYPL on the Board of Directors for the Readium Foundation which is an industry nonprofit seeking to bring reference technology standards and interoperability to the broader digital publishing industry.  James came to the Library from Atlanta, GA where he served as COO and CEO for two privately owned software technology companies.  He holds a BSE from The United States Military Academy, West Point, NY and an MBA from Goizueta Business School, Emory University, GA.

Orna Ross

Every business is now in the publishing business

ORNA ROSS is a bestselling and award-winning novelist and poet and founder of two influential online creative communities: the Alliance of Independent Authors and The Creativist Club. A storyteller, word lover and creative connector, she shows indie authors and other creative entrepreneurs how to make a living doing the work they love… the creative way. “One of the 100 most influential people in publishing.” The Bookseller-

Previously Orna Ross publishes guidebooks for self-publishing authors and creative entrepreneurs as well as cross-generational, trans-Atlantic, historical fiction, multi-layered stories in which buried secrets from the past erupt into the present. She also writes inspirational poetry and has recently begun adapting her novels for screen.

The power and potential of digital publishing led her to take her rights back from her publisher in 2011 and she founded the Alliance of Independent Authors at London Book Fair in 2012. She is now a passionate advocate for self-publishing as artistic expression, viable business option for authors, and necessary skill for every business in today’s digital, networked economy.

Linda Corugedo

Linda Corugedo Steneberg, Director, DG Communications networks, Content and Technologies.

Born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden. Has mostly lived abroad since late twenties.

Studies at the Stockholm School of Economics where she also chaired the Students Association during her last year.

Joined the Swedish Foreign Service and served abroad in Bangkok, Brussels, Madrid and Geneva. Specialised in EU matters, politics of South East Asia and trade negotiations.

Joined the Commission in 1996 and worked as Head of representation in Stockholm, Head of Unit for three different Units in DG COMM, Director of Resources in DG ECFIN.  Joined  DG CONNECT on  1 April 2011 as Director for General Affairs and since the 01July 2012 as Director for Cooperation.

Since July 2016, Director for Policy Strategy & Outreach.

Married with two children born 1982 and 1985.

Interests are literature, music, family and friends, big and small cats, new trends in general.