Deb Hetherington is an award-winning facilitator of business support and growth consultancy with over 15years of experience supporting startup and scaling businesses. She is an active member of the northern tech scene, sitting on various boards and steers, proactively strengthening stakeholder collaborations across private, public and third sectors to build new partnerships, sector propositions and secure funding for business innovation and growth.
Deb is Executive Director of Leeds Digital Festival, Director of Innovation Ecosystems at Scarborough Group International, and supports research on innovation at Leeds Beckett University.
Deb’s passion for diversity within the digital space resulted in co-founding the community led organisation WILDigital, which aims to educate and encourage more diverse groups into digital roles to ensure the digital workforce is truly representative of society.
Andy Roberts leads marketing and strategy as Chief Marketing Officer for sports media and technology scaleup Planet Sport Group; an exciting, growing business that is focused on a mission to create the ultimate platform for sports fans.
In a career at Sky Sports, DAZN, 365 Media Group and KPMG amongst others; Andy calls on over 25 years of experience in the sports, media, music and gaming sectors. During that time, he's led the building of renowned brands, developed global teams and audiences, formulated innovative digital products and delivered captivating marketing campaigns.
Andy has also co-founded and exited several successful music and sports businesses, and more recently established Digital Sport North, to develop and support a thriving network of more than 1000 professionals working in the sports and tech ecosystem.
Planet Sport are a previous awards winner, picking up the Growth Company of the Year in 2024.
Fiona Haran joined Insider Media in 2021 and is the deputy editor of Yorkshire Business Insider. Born in Leeds, Fiona began her career after training as a journalist at the University of Central Lancashire. She has worked in copywriting and B2B media. At Insider, she primarily covers the corporate finance sector, as well as manufacturing and technology. Fiona regularly reports on the businesses and trends within these sectors, including emerging technological developments and M&A activity that could reshape entire industries.