Lory Martinez is a Colombian-American journalist and podcast producer from Queens, NYC. She is the Founder of Studio Ochenta, a brand new multilingual podcast studio dedicated to raising voices across cultures. She is the executive producer on a number of podcasts for the studio in French, English and Spanish, and hosts Mija Podcast, an audio drama that follows the immigration journey of one family from Colombia to the United States. The podcast is available  3 languages and hit #1 in Fiction on Apple podcasts in both Spain and France.

Currently based in Paris, France, she combines nearly a decade of content production experience for radio, (NPR, UN Radio), publications ( Bustle, PopSugar), podcasts (A Poêle, Dinner for One, ExExpat…) to create engaging content in French, English and Spanish.

Carlo Carrenho is an international publishing consultant based in Stockholm, Sweden. He has been working in book publishing for 30 years and his experience is particularly strong on digital strategy, business development and general management.

He is Frankfurt Book Fair’s Audio Ambassador for the 2023 and 2024 editions. Besides that, he has been consulting for companies and organizations such as Dreamscape (USA), Beletrina (Slovenia), Arabic Language Center (Abu Dhabi) and Meta Solutions (Brazil). As a publishing expert, Carlo has moderated or lectured in events such as Digital Book World in the U.S., China’s First World Conference of Digital Publications and South Africa’s Digital Technologies Summit, as well as book fairs such as Frankfurt, London, Guadalajara, Buenos Aires, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. He has also co-authored several publishing studies and reports.

He founded the online book trade media PublishNews in Brazil and Spain and recently sold his equity in these companies. Carlo has a degree in Economics from the University of São Paulo and attended the Radcliffe Publishing Course in Cambridge, US.

To publish is to connect authors to audiences. As simple as it sounds, it is extraordinary complex: many professions, many processes, many technologies are involved, all to serve the creator and the reader. How do we integrate into the equation the issues of sustainable growth, social responsibility and freedom of thought in this new era of IA, immediacy and resource shrinkage?

 

Marie-Pierre Sangouard has been working in the publishing industry for more than 25 years. With a 360° background in the industry in France – starting in marketing for Hachette (Book for Children), then General Manager of a paperback publishing company, Director of Book Purchasing for a cultural retail chain, Director of Kindle in France, VP digital marketing  and now General Manager of a French book distribution company, she has a global overview of the main challenges the industry is facing …in a book fixed price environment.

She is currently General Manager of Interforum, a 100% subsidiary of Editis Group in France and manages sales forces and the distribution activities in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada .

She holds a business degree from HEC (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales) as well as a Master  Degree in EU Law.

Chantal Restivo-Alessi is Chief Digital Officer and CEO International Foreign Language for HarperCollins Publishers, leading the overall global digital strategy and foreign language publishing program for the company. She works with each division around the world to manage commercial relationships with new and existing digital partners, grow digital revenues, oversee the company’s developing foreign language publishing program. She is also a member of the company’s executive committee. She was appointed Chief Digital Officer in May 2012 and expanded her role to CEO, International Foreign Language in April 2015.

Since joining HarperCollins, Restivo-Alessi has pioneered the use of new digital sales channels, signing numerous deals with new distributors, such as subscription services Scribd and Storytel, and growing digital sales exponentially (175%). In addition, she led the launch of the company’s e-commerce platform on HC.com and has spearheaded efforts for the company’s other direct-to-consumer programs across the globe.

Shauna works as a Trends Manager at a London-based audience profiling company. After completing a Master’s Degree in International Relations, she started working at GWI, and developed a passion for social media, tech, and finance trends. She spends the bulk of her time analysing GWI data and using it to tell powerful stories.

Alyna Wnukowsky, 44, has been the managing director at Libri since April 2022 and CEO since July 2022. Prior to this, she worked for the French Quadient SA company, where she was the managing director for Germany and Austria, before also becoming a member of the worldwide executive committee being in charge of business process automation. After starting her career at AOL Germany in Hamburg, Alyna Wnukowsky worked for the Bertelsmann Direct Group in Paris for many years. She was responsible for the e-commerce and e-book activities for the book club and bookstores. After Bertelsmann sold the French Direct Group, Alyna Wnukowsky became a member of the executive board of the successor company Actissia. Having studied internationally, she has a degree in business administration and is the mother of two children.

Kurt Thielen is the founder and Managing Director of Zebralution, one of the biggest Digital Distributors for music and audiobooks in the World. He started his career working in a record shop in 1979 and was the Head of Rough Trade Records and later Zomba Records in Germany, Austria and Switzerland for more than 20 years, working with a wide range of acts from New Order and The Smiths to Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. After the company had been sold he founded Zebralution as the first real digital distribution company in Germany with a Worldwide focus. In 2007 the Warner Music Group acquired Zebralution. Since 2010 digital audiobook and especially streaming has become an important factor in Zebralution’s portfolio. In April 2017 Thielen bought Zebralution back from Warners together with experienced industry executives. Zebralution works with all big and many smaller audiobook publishers in Germany but the focus is becoming increasingly international. In October 2018 IG Hoerbuch, the body of the German audiobook publishers, awarded him as ‘Audiobook Person of the Year 2018’.

María Álvarez is the Head of Insights and Digital Business for ¡HOLA! and HELLO! brands. She has many years of experience in the media and the digital ecosystem, with a focus on data, programmatic advertising, ad operations, digital marketing, SEO, subscriptions, affiliates, insights and advertising marketing. In her current role, she collaborates with teams in Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Mexico, which gives her a broader perspective on how things work worldwide and enables her to apply her knowledge and learnings across different markets. Over the past years, she has actively participated in various Spanish Industry Committees such as GFK, Comscore, AIMC, ARI, AMI and online audience measurement pitch.

C.T.O/IT director at Il Mulino publishing house, responsible for the development of Il Mulino digital delivery multi-publishers platforms (Rivisteweb, Darwinbooks and Pandoracampus).
Graduated in Computer Science in Bologna, he has spent more than 20 years working in digital publishing and on how to automate it, developing specific web platforms in order to manage and control all the production chain and their contributors.
In the last 5 years, in collaboration with Fondazione LIA, he managed the transformation of all Il Mulino digital platforms to be accessible, considering accessibility the new frontier for innovation in digital publishing.

In 2022, Elias received his master’s degree in Communication Studies: Media, Strategic Communication and Marketing at the VUB. Since October 2022, he works as a user researcher at IMEC-SMIT-VUB. His main research activities focus on the innovation of the media landscape through the use of new technologies. He is currently working on the European Möbius project, which attempts to modernize the European book publishing industry. There is a strong focus on uncovering the prosumers potential and delivering new enriched media experiences.