Speakers

Es Devlin

Artist · Designer & Visionary

Es Devlin is one of the most extraordinary creative minds of our time, renowned for her singular ability to transform imagination into immersive worlds. Few artists have worked across sculpture, stage design, music, architecture and light with the same fluency, creating experiences that reach millions. Her achievements include the London Design Medal, multiple Olivier, Tony, Emmy and Critics’ Circle awards, and a CBE for services to design.

Her creative vision also extends to Homo Faber 2026: An Island of Light in Venice, where her work brings a distinctive artistic perspective to the celebration of craftsmanship and human creativity.

This October, the Design Museum in London celebrates her remarkable 30-year career with Es Devlin: Other Worlds, her first retrospective in Europe. Bringing together artworks, installations and her most extensive archive presentation to date, the exhibition offers an unprecedented insight into the imagination and creative process of an artist whose work continues to redefine the boundaries of contemporary creative expression.

Sebastian Conran

Industrial Designer · Inventor & Creative Visionary

Born into one of Britain’s most influential design legacies, Sebastian Conran has spent nearly five decades shaping his own remarkable path across design, engineering, entrepreneurship and innovation. A maker and inventor at heart, he has brought more than 2,500 designs to life, from everyday objects to pioneering robotics, always driven by the belief that design should improve the quality of life. His work has earned numerous international distinctions, including Red Dot and iF Design Awards, celebrating his ability to unite inventive thinking with purposeful, enduring design. A founding trustee of the Design Museum and Chair of the Conran Foundation, he continues to champion the transformative power of creativity and technology.

For Sebastian, design is not simply about creating beautiful objects. It is about imagining better ways to live and finding the ingenuity to make them possible. At the heart of his philosophy lies a simple yet profound credo: “Improve the Quality of All Life”, embracing both flora and fauna.

Alex Eagle

Creative Director · Cultural Tastemaker

Alex Eagle has built a distinctive creative world where fashion, art, design and culture come together. Moving effortlessly between fashion, interiors and lifestyle, Alex represents a new generation of cultural tastemakers who understand that true influence is not simply about what we create, but how we shape the way people see, experience and engage with the world.

Through Alex Eagle Studio and Eagle & Hodges, she brings her distinctive vision to life, from reimagining the traditional concept of retail to creating interiors and spaces that celebrate craftsmanship, individuality and the art of living. More than a creative mind, Alex is a cultural force who translates her instinct for what matters next into spaces, experiences and ideas that shape the way we live, discover and connect.

Jeremy King

Legendary Restaurateur & Hospitality Visionary

Few individuals have shaped London’s dining culture as profoundly as Jeremy King. Over five decades, he has transformed the art of hospitality, creating some of the capital’s most celebrated and enduring institutions, from Le Caprice and The Ivy to The Wolseley and The Delaunay. His remarkable ability to bring together architecture, design, atmosphere and human connection has redefined what a great restaurant can be, turning dining rooms into cultural landmarks and gathering places for generations.

Awarded an OBE for his contributions to hospitality and the arts, Jeremy continues to shape London’s restaurant landscape through Arlington, The Park and his extraordinary revival of the historic Simpson’s in the Strand.

For Jeremy, a restaurant is never simply about food. It is about creating a world people want to belong to, where every detail matters and hospitality becomes an art form. Behind his extraordinary journey lies an equally compelling story of resilience, conviction and an unwavering commitment to purpose. His career is a testament to the power of staying true to one’s vision, embracing reinvention and never losing sight of what makes something truly worth creating.

Harry Handelsman

Founder, Manhattan Loft Corporation · Visionary Developer

Harry Handelsman has built a career on seeing potential where others don’t. A pioneer of loft living in London, he has transformed overlooked buildings and unexpected locations into some of the capital’s most distinctive destinations. From the revival of St Pancras Hotel to Chiltern Firehouse and The Stratford, his work sits at the intersection of architecture, hospitality, culture and urban life. Guided by instinct, conviction and an eye for what a place could become, Handelsman has consistently challenged conventional ideas of development, creating places with character, relevance and lasting cultural resonance.

Dylan Jones

Editor · Author · Cultural Curator

For decades, Dylan Jones has had a front-row seat to British culture and helped shape the conversation around it. From fashion and music to art, lifestyle, politics and society, his world has always been about the people, ideas and encounters that define an era. An editor, author and cultural connector with an instinct for what and who matters next. Such as his latest book, Table Hopping: The Secret History of London Restaurants, exploring the places and personalities that have shaped London’s cultural and social life.

Alfhild Külper

Textile Artist & Designer

For Alfhild Külper, softness is more than a material quality — it is a way of seeing the world. The Swedish-born, Amsterdam-based artist transforms wool, memory and emotion into tactile landscapes that blur the boundaries between art and design. Working with leftover yarns and surplus wool, she gives forgotten materials new life, making sustainability part of her creative language. A former Head of Design at Viktor & Rolf, her work explores craft, human touch, comfort and connection.

Tony Chambers

Creative Director · Editor & Founder of TC & Friends

Tony Chambers is one of the most influential voices in contemporary design and visual culture, a creative visionary whose instinct for what matters next has helped shape the global conversation around design, architecture, fashion and lifestyle. As former Editor-in-Chief of Wallpaper, he transformed the magazine into a global cultural authority, championing exceptional creative talent and bringing together some of the world’s most influential designers, artists and architects. His vision extended beyond publishing with the creation of Wallpaper Handmade, a celebrated platform connecting designers, artists, craftspeople and manufacturers through extraordinary collaborations.

Today, as founder of the multidisciplinary creative agency TC & Friends, he continues to bridge creativity, culture and commerce, working across design, branding and visual storytelling. A recipient of the prestigious Mark Boxer Award for outstanding services to publishing, Chambers has built a career around a singular conviction: great design has the power to shape not only what we see, but how we live, think and experience the world.

Çağdaş Ertuna

Journalist & Brand Strategist

Çağdaş Ertuna moves between two worlds: observing culture as a journalist and shaping how brands communicate as a strategist.

With more than two decades of experience across journalism, communications, strategy and brand building, her career has developed between Istanbul and London. Alongside her long-standing writing for Milliyet, she has worked closely with brands on positioning, communication and building relevance across international audiences.

Known for her sharp instinct, clear understanding of people and culture, and ability to read change with unusual precision, Çağdaş combines intellectual curiosity with the wisdom of experience. Her approach is insightful, precise and often one step ahead, connecting the signals of today with what they might mean for tomorrow.

Kent Jackson

Architect · Climate Action Leader

Kent Jackson is a Design Partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), leading projects across Europe and internationally from the firm’s London studio. SOM is a global architecture, engineering and sustainability practice with more than 1,200 people worldwide.

His work spans major civic, cultural and urban developments, including the renovation of the United Nations’ Palais des Nations complex in Geneva; Karlatornet, Scandinavia’s tallest building, in Gothenburg; and Charenton-Bercy, Paris’s first net-zero-carbon district.

A member of SOM’s core team developing Urban Sequoia — a radical, systems-based approach to creating resilient, carbon-positive cities — Kent is passionate about cross-sector collaboration and developing solutions that can be implemented at scale. He also leads SOM’s Climate Action Group, advancing the firm’s commitment to achieving net-zero whole-life carbon across all active work by 2040.

Kent is a frequent speaker at international conferences and architectural schools. In 2021, he was invited by the United Nations to speak at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), and in 2022 he spoke at TEDxGoodenoughCollege about Urban Sequoia. As a Global Ambassador for the World Green Building Council, he works to amplify the call for governments and policymakers to accelerate the transition to net-zero-carbon buildings and a more resilient built environment.

Tom Atton Moore

Artist & Designer

Tom Atton Moore is a London-based artist and designer redefining the rug as a contemporary art form. With a background in fashion, his instinctive approach brings together bold colour, abstract forms and expressive mark-making, creating a distinctive dialogue between art, design and function.

His outstanding approach has led to collaborations across art, fashion and design, including with Burberry. At MARKA London, Tom will share the creative journey behind this collaboration and how the craftsmanship and technical expertise of STEPEVI in customising each individual piece helped transform his artistic vision into reality.

Through his story, he explores a wider question: how do you turn an idea into something that has never existed before?

Ayşe Şengör Onger

Group Managing Director, STEPEVI

As the fourth generation representative of the Şengör family’s carpet-making legacy, Ayşe Şengör Onger brings a distinctly international perspective to the company.

Before joining the family business, she spent nearly a decade studying and working across the art, interiors and design industries in New York, Milan and Istanbul. With extensive knowledge of the luxury industry and a deep understanding of the company’s capabilities, she occupies a unique position at the intersection of heritage, creativity and strategic growth.

Today, based at the company’s Paris headquarters, she leads the Group’s international growth, strengthening the position of STEPEVI within the global luxury industry while translating generations of manufacturing expertise and artisanal heritage into a contemporary, globally relevant vision for the brand.

Shayne Brady

Founder & Creative Director, Studio Shayne Brady

Shayne Brady creates narrative-driven hospitality interiors shaped by history, craftsmanship and a strong sense of emotional connection.

His design language brings past and present together. Drawing inspiration from historical architecture and classical interiors, while remaining deeply attuned to materiality, people and place, Shayne creates spaces that feel timeless yet unmistakably contemporary.

That philosophy can be seen in the revival of Simpson’s in the Strand, one of London’s most iconic restaurants, as well as his work with Belmond, including The Cadogan in Chelsea.

For Shayne, true hospitality design should endure. It should tell a story, create a sense of belonging and, ultimately, have the potential to become part of a city’s fabric.

A conversation about the emotional power of interiors, designing with history rather than simply preserving it, and how the hospitality spaces of today can become the institutions of tomorrow.

İrem Kınay

Founder, Madame Malachite

Istanbul is more than the birthplace of Madame Malachite. It is part of the brand’s character.

İrem Kınay talks about building a brand shaped by the city she comes from, a city she sees through a distinctly female lens: layered, sensual, confident, contradictory and constantly evolving.

Bold, charming, fun, deep and sexy, the character of Madame Malachite draws from the many faces of Istanbul and translates the city’s energy into its own distinctive visual language and attitude.

A conversation about how a deeply local source of inspiration can shape a strong brand identity and ultimately speak far beyond borders.

Fat Tony

DJ & Cultural Icon

For more than four decades, Fat Tony has been at the heart of London’s music, fashion and nightlife, helping shape the soundtrack and spirit of a constantly changing city.

From the legendary clubs of 1980s London to international dance floors, fashion shows and some of the world’s most celebrated parties, his career has connected music with fashion, creativity and culture. Along the way, he has become as recognised for his fearless personality, humour and honesty as for the music itself.

A DJ, author and outspoken cultural voice, Fat Tony’s extraordinary personal journey is also one of reinvention, resilience and authenticity, proof that staying relevant is not about following culture, but continuing to live, challenge and contribute to it.

Caroline Rush

Creative Industries Leader · Entrepreneur & Advisor

Caroline Rush is a leading figure in the global creative industries, with a career spanning fashion, culture, business and entertainment.

As former CEO of the British Fashion Council, a role she held for 16 years, she played a defining role in positioning London Fashion Week as one of the world’s most influential platforms for creativity, culture and business, championing British talent and strengthening London’s international creative presence.

Today, Caroline is developing UNation, a music and entertainment business focused on talent, intellectual property and globally relevant cultural platforms, while advising organisations across the creative industries on talent-led strategies, partnerships and event IP. She is also Co-Founder of SurpRice and holds Non-Executive Director and advisory roles across the creative and consumer sectors.

Known for bringing together talent, brands, government, investors and cultural leaders, Caroline has built an international network spanning fashion, music, entertainment, technology and the wider creative economy.

She was awarded a CBE for services to fashion and continues to champion the economic and cultural power of creativity on the global stage.

Seda Gazioğlu

Contemporary Artist

Seda Gazioğlu is an Istanbul-born contemporary artist working across painting, sculpture, installation, video and digital media. Educated at Parsons School of Design in New York and Central Saint Martins in London, she brings cultural memory into dialogue with contemporary experience.

Through her reinterpretation of antique Anatolian carpets and found objects, Gazioğlu explores how inherited beliefs, rituals and social structures shape individual identity. Her practice examines cognition, the gaze and control, revealing the often-unseen systems that influence how we perceive ourselves and the world around us.

Connecting personal experience with symbols and behavioural patterns embedded in everyday life, her work opens new ways of looking at familiar materials and the histories, meanings and relationships they carry.

Johanna Agerman Ross

Conran Foundation Director of Curatorial and Collection, the Design Museum

Johanna Agerman Ross is a curator and editor whose work uncovers the stories, perspectives and cultural meanings behind design. At the Design Museum in London, she oversees the exhibition programme, collection and archives. Her recent curatorial projects include Wes Anderson: The Archives and Es Devlin: Other Worlds, and she is leading the development of a new collection gallery scheduled to open in 2029.

Previously, she was Curator of Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Furniture and Product Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she launched Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures, a ten-year research project exploring design and the climate emergency. In 2011, she founded the international design journal Disegno, which she edited for five years and continues to lead as director.

Her practice brings overlooked narratives into focus, an approach that also shaped Design Stories, the collection gallery at Sweden’s Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, which opened in 2024.

Originally from Sweden, she studied at the London College of Fashion and holds an MA in History of Design from the Royal College of Art.

Annie Doble

Founder and Designer, Annie’s Ibiza

Annie Doble is a British fashion designer, entrepreneur and vintage collector whose distinctive eye has shaped Annie’s Ibiza into an international destination for expressive, individual style.

She began buying and selling vintage clothing as a teenager, running her own stall at London’s Spitalfields Market at just 15. After working in fashion in London and New York, including an internship in Calvin Klein’s buying department, she opened the Annie’s Ibiza flagship in Ibiza’s historic Dalt Vila in 2018. The brand has since expanded to London’s Carnaby Street and New York’s Mercer Street.

Alongside her curated selection of vintage and contemporary designers, Doble creates her own collections, presented at London Fashion Week. Her designs bring traditional textile techniques, intricate beadwork and meticulous handcraft into a contemporary wardrobe defined by imagination and a sense of occasion.

Her approach centres on individuality and longevity: creating pieces to be treasured, worn across generations and valued beyond a single season.

BJ Cunningham

Entrepreneur · Brand Strategist & Moderator of MARKA Conferences Since 2000

BJ Cunningham is a British entrepreneur, brand strategist and speaker known for his provocative thinking and direct approach to business and communication.

He first gained recognition as the founder of DEATH Cigarettes, a deliberately confrontational brand that challenged the conventions of tobacco marketing. He went on to establish a brand marketing agency and advise international businesses. His approach centres on the belief that a brand is a promise; one that must be reflected in how a business acts and the relationships it builds.

As the moderator of MARKA conferences since their inception in 2000, Cunningham has been a defining presence on the platform for more than twenty-five years. Bringing wit, curiosity and an instinct for challenging questions, he connects speakers from different disciplines and draws out the ideas and personal convictions behind their work.

Cem Mirap

Restaurateur & Founder, Lucca and Cantinery

Cem Mirap is a hospitality entrepreneur whose venues have helped shape Istanbul’s dining and social culture. He founded Lucca in Bebek in 2004, bringing together food, music and a distinctive atmosphere to create one of the city’s enduring meeting places.

Following Cantinery in 2014, he extended his hospitality vision to Bodrum with Lucca Beach and Lucca by the Sea. His approach combines an international outlook with a sensitivity to place, creating destinations with their own character and a strong sense of belonging.

He is now preparing for his next adventure beyond borders: Lucca London, set to bring the energy and spirit of its Istanbul roots and a fresh zest to London’s social life.

Ayşegül Yürekli Şengör

Founder of MARKA · Co-Founder & President, STEPEVI

Ayşegül Yürekli Şengör is an entrepreneur whose work spans business, design and culture.

She founded MARKA in Istanbul in 2000, creating a platform that brings together voices from business, design, fashion, art and culture around ideas and conversations that cross disciplines. After more than two decades in Istanbul, MARKA London marks the platform’s first international edition.

As Co-Founder and President of STEPEVI, together with her husband and business partner, Cem Şengör, she has led the evolution of a family heritage in rug-making into an international luxury design brand, connecting contemporary Turkish craftsmanship with a global design community.

Across both MARKA and STEPEVI, her work is shaped by a consistent interest in bringing different worlds together, challenging established patterns and creating new possibilities through ideas, design and collaboration.