JUNE 1 2023, County Hall LONDON
The world has gotten a lot more complex with the digital age. Across politics, government, and business, transformations driven by new technology are creating both new opportunities and new challenges for engaging with the public. In the face of pressing issues, leaders across the globe have to find new ways of reaching, inspiring and moving people.
Polaris Leadership Summit aims to provide political strategists, public affairs professionals, public sector communicators, and technologists a platform for exchanging ideas, benchmarking their work, and celebrating achievements that help set new standards for leadership in a connected world.
Keynotes and panel discussions exploring the global social, political, and economic shifts shaping public opinion and political action.
1Case studies from around the world providing insights and learnings from the field.
2
Issues and best practices in political campaigning, public sector communication, and issue advocacy.
Visions for the use of new technology in political communication, public engagement and governance.
4Across the world, trust in government, public institutions, and the media seems to be at an all-
time low. In a polarised society, driven further apart by a post-truth information environment, how can we
leverage communications and technology to rebuild trust?
Vice Presidential Candidate of Turkey, Mayor of Istanbul
Mr. Imamoglu graduated from Istanbul University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Following his undergraduate studies, he completed a Master of Science program on HR Management at the same university.
In 1992, he started working for the family business while he was still a graduate student. He then became the CEO of the group companies. Under his management, the company mostly operated on urban planning and housing projects.
While he was building and planning for housing complexes to raise the living standards of the people, he encountered problems related to political processes. This resulted in a decision to be involved in politics and he joined CHP, the main opposition party and worked on his party’s field campaigns. He was elected the district leader of CHP in 2009. In 2014 local elections he was elected the Mayor of Beylikduzu.
His success as the Mayor of district captured the attention of the public, media and the academia. Thanks to the positive changes he made in social life, public services and the living standards in Beylikduzu, he received a big support from the citizens of district.
His party announced him as the candidate for the Mayor of Istanbul for 2019 local elections. After a very inspiring campaigning process, he elected Mayor of Istanbul. But this did not last long; As a result of systematic pressure from the ruling party, the Supreme Electoral Court canceled the elections and decided to repeat the elections.
Mr. Imamoglu started his re-election campaign with a historic speech on May 6th, 2019. His speech organically became the hope for disappointed voters. His victory on June 23 with %54,4 support of votes became a milestone for the future of Turkish democracy. This was the highest percentage of votes that any mayor of Istanbul had received in over 50 years.
Having shown a very successful performance as the Mayor of Istanbul, despite President Erdogan and the government's numerous obstacles, Mr. Imamoglu was nominated as a Vice Presidential candidate by Turkey's 6-party opposition alliance on March 6, 2023.
Director-General, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
Dr Karin von Hippel became Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on 30 November 2015.
Karin von Hippel joined RUSI after serving for nearly six years in the US Department of State as a Senior Adviser in the Bureau of Counterterrorism, then as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and finally, as Chief of Staff to General John Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter-ISIL.
Prior to that, she co-directed the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC and was a senior research fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College London. She has also worked for the United Nations and the European Union in Somalia and Kosovo, and has direct experience in over two dozen conflict zones.
Dr von Hippel has numerous publications to her name, including Democracy by Force: US Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War World (2000), which was short-listed for the RUSI Westminster Medal in Military History. She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, an MSt from Oxford University, and a BA from Yale University.
Global CEO, Kantar Public
Michelle is the CEO of Kantar Public, the global evidence and advisory business supporting governments, multilateral organisations, corporations, and NGOs in the fields of public policy, the environment, and global health, across five continents.
Michelle led the divestment of Kantar Public from Kantar Group in 2022, to become a fully social impact focused, purpose based independent business, with private equity investment. Previously, Michelle was a member of the Global Executive Board of the Kantar Group, the $4bn global data and consulting business. She was also previously the Global CEO of the Government and Public Sector Practice at WPP, the world’s largest marketing services and communications group.
Alongside a career in public policy and social impact advisory and innovation, Michelle is a gender and diversity advocate and advisor. In partnership with the Reykjavik Global Forum, she created The Reykjavik Index for Leadership, which is the first international measure of how societies perceive the suitability of women for leadership. Listed as ‘Best of Davos’ in 2018 and presented by Michelle at UNGA, the G7 and the G20, The Reykjavik Index is now a go-to for reference in public debate, the media and policy development.
Michelle is a Non-Executive Director of Social Finance UK and of Big Win Philanthropy. Previous non-executive and advisory roles include: Nesta (the UK endowment for innovation); the Cabinet Office of the UK Government, and the UK Green Fiscal Commission. She is currently an advisor to the Discovery Decade programme for the Wellcome Trust in the UK and a member of the Reykjavik Global Action Advisory Board.
Founder, Campaign Solutions and President, Bear Flag Strategies
R. Rebecca “Becki” Donatelli is the Founder of Campaign Solutions / CDI Ads and Right Country Lists and President of Bear Flag Strategies. Celebrating more than tweny-five in the digital space, Becki was the first person to raise political money on the Internet. Virtually every online innovation for over twenty five years has come out of her team at Campaign Solutions and CDI Ads.
As chief internet consultant to John McCain’s two presidential races, she directed the online campaigns that brought the Internet to the forefront of politics and public affairs. Becki and her team also managed the successful online fundraising efforts for Bush-Cheney ’04, broke fundraising records in 2008 raising 100 million dollars for McCain-Palin. She has consulted to nearly all of the national GOP committees, and scores of Senate, House, and gubernatorial campaigns including the Republican National Conventions in 2004, 2008 and 2012. The 2012 cycle brought her focus to bear on advertising and social media in the new world of Super PACs and their impact on traditional political races. In 2016 Campaign Solutions worked with twelve of the sixteen Republican presidential campaigns. In 2020 and 2022 they set records again raising the most money online for GOP Senate candidates Lindsey Graham and Herschel Walker,
Becki brings three decades of political experience to Campaign Solutions. The Non Profit Times named her one of the top “12 most powerful women in direct response marketing”. She is the President of the American Association of Political Consultants’ as well as Vice President of the American Association of Political Consultants Foundation and spent nine years as a trustee of the George Mason University Foundation serving as Vice Chair of Governance. But among her most fun activities was serving for three years as the Chairman of the Circles Board at the John F Kennedy Center for the performing arts. A graduate of the University of Southern California, she proudly serves on the Board of Governors of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and was formerly Advisory Board of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard.
In 2022 she sold her company and became “a tiny bit” retired. She lives in Huntington Beach with her SC Alum husband Ken Stanford and is happy to be home!
Professor of Political Marketing and Deputy Dean (Strategic Projects), University of Leicester School of Business
Prof. Paul Baines is a Professor of Political Marketing and Deputy Dean (Strategic Projects) at the University of Leicester School of Business, UK and a Conservative Councillor and Cabinet Lead Member for Investment at Charnwood Borough Council in Leicestershire, UK. Paul’s research focuses on political marketing and propaganda. He has co-written and co-edited 27 books on (political) marketing topics, including the SAGE Handbook of Propaganda (SAGE, 2020, with Nicholas O’Shaughnessy and Nancy Snow). His research has been published in inter alia the Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, Marketing Theory, Journal of the American Statistical Association, and European Journal of Marketing. Paul has conducted strategic communication research projects for various UK government departments and research and consultancy work for large enterprises such as Glassolutions Saint-Gobain, IBM, 3M, and others. He is currently a Non-Executive Director at the Business Continuity Institute and Director, BainesAssociates Limited
UNESCO Chair on International Water Cooperation, Professor and Head of Department at Department of Peace and Conflict, Uppsala University
Ashok Swain is a Professor and Head of Department of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research. He is the UNESCO Chair on International Water Cooperation, and the Director of Research School of International Water Cooperation at Uppsala University. He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of 'Environment and Security' journal, jointly published by Sage Publishing and Environmental Peacebuilding Association. He has written extensively on new security challenges, climate change, transboundary water-sharing, environment, conflict and peace, and democratic development issues. He writes a weekly column for Dubai-based Gulf News. He has worked as a consultant on environmental and development issues for various UN agencies, OSCE, NATO, EU, IISS, Arab League, OXFAM, and the Governments of Sweden, Netherlands, the UK, and Singapore.
Professor of Political Science at University of Kent and Senior Visiting Fellow at Chatham House
Matthew Goodwin is an academic, bestseller writer and speaker known for his work on political volatility, risk, populism, British politics, Europe, elections and Brexit. He is Professor of Politics at Rutherford College, University of Kent and has previously served as Senior Visiting Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House and Senior Fellow with the UK In a Changing Europe.
Matthew is the author of six books, including the 2018 Sunday Times bestseller, National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy, listed by the Financial Times as a politics books of the year and translated into multiple languages. He is also the co-author of the 2015 Political Book of the Year, Revolt on the Right, which was also long-listed for the Orwell Prize. He has published books with Oxford and Cambridge University Press, dozens of peer-reviewed academic studies in top-ranked journals, research reports and briefings. These include major studies of Brexit, British politics, terrorist attacks, rising ethnic diversity across the West, and the future of Europe.
Matthew engages widely with business, policy and media. He has consulted more than 300 organizations around the globe, from the UK Prime Minister's Office to the President of Germany, U.S. State Department, European Commission, Deutsche Bank, UBS, JP Morgan, Rothschild and Cie, Trilateral Commission, Goldman Sachs and Clifford Chance. Matthew regularly interviews politicians, activists and campaigners from across the spectrum and appears regularly in international media including BBC News, Financial Times, New York Times and Politico. He lives in London and tweets @GoodwinMJ
Founder, Trusted News Initiative
Biog/Jessica Cecil February 2023
Jessica is a leading media industry figure and an expert in the field of disinformation, currently working as a consultant to media and tech companies. She founded the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), the world’s only alliance of major international tech companies and news organisations to counter the most harmful disinformation in real time.
The TNI’s membership includes Meta, Google, Twitter and Microsoft alongside the BBC, AFP, AP, Reuters and other leading global news providers, and its members have a fast-alert system to counter the most harmful disinformation.
Jessica’s media industry leadership experience was honed over a long career at the BBC, which serves an audience of 450 million people around the world. As Chief of Staff to four Directors-General, she had a track record of creating and leading global alliances responding to the changes tech is having on audience’s lives. Before the TNI, she led a 30 partner-strong initiative to get the world to learn how to code. The result was the creation, manufacture and distribution of a codeable computer, the micro:bit. 6 million micro:bits have now been sold in 50 countries and are used by 25m children from Singapore to Finland.
Jessica’s background is as a news journalist and documentary maker. She was an international news producer and assistant editor of BBC Newsnight. She is an Emmy nominee for the prime time TV science documentary Human Instinct. Jessica is a Non-Executive Director of the Digital Catapult, the UK authority on advanced digital technology. Jessica is also a Trustee of the University of Bristol, where she chairs the Equity, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Oversight Committee. She sits on the Council of Advisors for RAND Europe and is an Adjunct Fellow of the Queen Elizabeth II Leadership School at Chatham House, the Royal Institute for International Affairs.
Where it all takes place.
As one of the major global cities, London is at the centre of many of the trends shaping international politics and economy, as well as the innovations in media and technology that influence how organisations around the world connect and communicate with their publics.
With it’s rich history, vibrant culture, modern infrastructure and excellent international travel connections, London is the perfect place for political and public communicators from different countries to meet up.
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamics change? Find out from those leading the charge. How you transform
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamics change? Find out from those leading the charge. How you transform
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamics change? Find out from those leading the charge. How you transform
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamics change? Find out from those leading the charge. How you transform
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamics change? Find out from those leading the charge. How you transform
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamics change? Find out from those leading the charge. How you transform
A trip to the heart of the city.
Situated in the Southbank, etc. venues County Hall served as the headquarters of London County Council and later the Greater London Council. An impressive building with rich history, it sits just across the Thames from The Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye, boasting breathtaking views of some of London’s most important landmarks.
Address
etc. Venues County Hall
Belvedere Road
London, SE1 7PB
Polaris Awards is a global competition celebrating exceptional work in political and public sector communication. Since 2017, Polaris Awards seeks to highlight the best use of communication techniques and technologies in election campaigns, public affairs, and issue advocacy around the world.
We look forward to working together to help
raise the bar for political and public communication. If you are interested in partnering and want to
learn more, please get in touch:
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