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Profiles
Workshops, Seminars and Masterclasses

EM Ekong, Director, Urban Inclusion

Em has worked as a business advisor for over 10 years in Tower Hamlets. In recent years her experience has involved project management for regeneration agencies including setting up and developing enterprise projects that target BAME communities, women and youth.

Areas of expertise include business start-up, business mentoring for existing businesses, business planning and raising finance, business growth strategies, research/market research, marketing strategies, social enterprise development and community capacity building.

Keith Benson, Managing Director. K. Benson Associates

Keith has been working exclusively in the fashion and creative industries since 1968 and established his consultancy company, K Benson Associates, in 1991. In recent years, he has concentrated on assisting businesses in the creative sector to obtain external funding for their companies.

KBA provides practical advice to small and medium sized creative companies and start-up businesses that are seeking various forms of finance, thereby enabling them to present their case for external funding more effectively. So, whatever type of external finance your business needs, K Benson Associates can help you find a solution.
K Benson Associates works on an associate basis with a number of London-based consulting organisations and is heavily involved in the subsidised LDA Access to Finance program, which is aimed at preparing a business to become "finance ready". K Benson Associates is listed on the National Business Link Consultants Register and is an accredited consultant with Business Link for London.

Beth Dincuff Charleston, Adjunct Professor, History of Fashion, Department of Fashion Design Parsons The New School of Design

As the manager of the Calvin Klein Archives, Beth Dincuff Charleston maintained a large garment archive that served as a creative catalyst for designers from every division of the company. Working with Mr Klein and the company’s creative directors she created a design timeline for the company’s that helped to identify classic elements of the brand in regard to garment design and image. She participated in acquainting senior design staff with the history of Calvin Klein, Inc and was responsible for creating a 10,000 plus image database to facilitate designer research, as well as to ensure that Calvin Klein’s legacy as pre-eminent American designer is preserved for future generations.

Ms. Charleston is a frequent contributor to scholarly publications and has written entries for the Encyclopaedia of Clothing and Fashion (Scribner, 2004), and the Timeline of Art History founded on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website, as well as authoring the 19th Century section of the college textbook History of fashion (Greenwood). Ms. Charleston is currently an adjunct faculty member in the Fashion Design Department at Parsons, the New School of Design in New York City. She lectures frequently and has taken part in fashion related panels for such varied institutions as the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York; The Banaki Museum, Athens, Greece; The Arts of Fashion annual student competition and Jamaican Style Week. (taken from last years brochure)

Kingsley Cooper, Managing Director, Pulse Investment Ltd

Two young attorneys, Kingsley Cooper and Hilary Phillips founded Pulse in Kingston, Jamaica, in the January 1980. In the early years, Pulse promoted concerts and fashion shows. Acts such as the Commodores, Run DMC and Chaka Khan first appeared in Jamaica at Pulse concerts.

Pulse pioneered, defined and developed an international modelling industry for the Caribbean, in the process discovering and developing supermodels and other international stars. The company created a new opportunity for local and international modelling and the current plethora of model agencies in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean is testimony to the quality and extent of Pulse’s work in this arena.
Currently, the company represents several of the most important new stars in world modelling including Vogue and Gucci models Nadine Willis and Jaunel McKenzie as well as Sports Illustrated swimsuit model & Esquire covergirl Carla Campbell, Arena covergirl Nell Robinson, Abercrombie & Fitch campaign star Oraine Barrett and Cosmo covergirl Sunna Gottshalk.

Pulse started life as an idea - that Caribbean talent could compete effectively with the best in the world. With $2,000.00 in capital, Pulse commenced operations in Cooper’s tiny law office and grew to become a public company and a Caribbean fashion and entertainment industry icon. It is listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange as Pulse Investments Ltd.

Carmela Spinelli, Chief Creative Officer, Three Wildcats LLC

Carmela Spinelli is an international fashion education professional with extensive experience of the luxury goods, retail sales and management sectors. As the former associate chair of the department of fashion at Parsons The New School for Design in New York, Spinelli led the school's international programme. She has worked with and been responsible for a variety of special projects for clients that include major luxury brands such as Solstiss/ Bucol, Van Cleef and Arpel, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, the Italian Trade Commission and Swarovski. She is now the chief creative officer of Three Wildcats LLC, the company behind Deegie's Carma, a 18,000-square-foot operation that will combine a fashion boutique with a beauty salon and café

Ursula Hudson, Director of Fashion Business Resource Studio, London College of Fashion

With more than 20 years experience in the fashion and lifestyle industries, Ursula joined London College of Fashion in 1998 as Course Director for BA Product Design and Development. Under her leadership the course won the Graduate Fashion Week Marketing award for 6 years running.

Ursula is now the director of the Fashion Business Resource Studio at LCF which acts as a single point of contact for sharing the creative, business and technical expertise of LCF with the fashion and lifestyle industries. Through her role at LCF she has enjoyed a secondment to the British Council’s Creative Industries unit, and led the curriculum development for the first Fashion Retail Academy London. As a fashion-marketing specialist her background includes strategic design and marketing consultancy.

Jenny Tooth, Business Development Director, GLE Growth Capital

Jenny Tooth has 16 years experience of supporting small business growth and innovation in both the UK and Europe in Brussels and London. She has worked with a wide range of organisations in both the private, public and not for profit sectors. Jenny’s work has been especially focused on early stage finance and she has developed and operated a number of programmes on investment readiness and access to investment for SMEs. For the past 18 months, Jenny has set up and directed the pilot Creative Business Accelerator with funding support from the London Development Agency aimed at supporting growth and access to finance for entrepreneurs in the Creative Industries. Jenny has also played a key role in taking forward the British Business Angels Association as a new Trade Body to promote business angel finance and the early stage investment market across the UK.

Since September 2006, Jenny has also been directing the EASY project on behalf of GLE Growth Capital, supported with EU funding. The project is focusing on piloting cross–border investment for innovating early stage businesses among 17 SME finance partners across 11 countries in Europe. Jenny has a first degree in modern languages and an MSc in Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science

Clare Douglas, Placement Manager, London College of Fashion

Clare Douglas has a wealth of knowledge and experience around the issues of employability and entrepreneurship both at student and graduate level and over the past three years this has been focussed within the fashion and lifestyle sector.
She has 6 years experience of working within Higher Education focusing on student employability, employer engagement, work based learning student recruitment and graduate enterprise.
For the past 3 years Clare has worked as Placement Manager at London College of Fashion. She manages a team that supports the curriculum through the delivery of employability workshops, tutorials and student work placements, industry-sponsored projects and graduate recruitment.

Hannah Clayton, Marketing Manager, London College of Fashion

Hannah Clayton has been working in education for the last six years where she has focused on developing communications with prospective students across the FE and HE sector. Before this, she was a broadcast journalist working for the BBC, ITN and various commercial radio stations. After graduating Hannah worked in the theatre for five years working with a number of touring companies and delivering drama-based educational workshops for people of all ages. She is currently Marketing Manager at London College of Fashion where she regularly advises students on routes in to the industry as well as developing projects with schools, colleges and industry.

Babafemi Amure, UN WFP Coordinator, United Nations World Food Programme

Babafemi Amure a British born Nigerian has been a consultant to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) for the past four years. His first assignment was in the donor relations division, developing relations with African governments in support of WFP. He later moved over to the School Feeding unit. In 2004 he was transferred to the newly established Walk the World Division as the coordinator for Africa. He successfully organized several high profile walks to raise funds for WFP programmes aimed at ending child hunger.

In 2006 he teamed up with a number of African friends to establish an advocacy event called ‘CatWalk the World (Fashion for Food)’. The objective is to use the glamour and media generated by the fashion industry to create awareness of child hunger, while raising funds to help WFP fight it. Two successful ‘CatWalk the World’ events have been held, with several more planned.

Funmi Odulate, Author & Fashion Writer

Funmi Odulate, fashion writer and long-time lover of vintage fashion who has an an extraordinary knowledge of fashion from working as a fashion journalist. She has written Shopping for Vintage, a definitive guide to vintage fashion beginning with a look at the legacy of over 70 seminal designers covering every major epoch and the key fashion pieces that defined each decade with 60 beautiful illustrations to demonstrate the most salient looks. Funmi has worked for and contributed to major titles such as Harpers Bazaar, InStyle, Vogue and Stella Magazine.

Conrad Clifford, Chief Executive, Virgin Nigeria

Conrad Clifford is the Chief Executive of Virgin Nigeria, the country's private sector-owned flag carrier. The airline was formally established on 28 September 2004 after the Federal Government and Virgin Atlantic Airways signed a Memorandum of Mutual Understanding in Abuja.

Virgin Nigeria flies to Accra, Ghana; Douala, Cameroon and Dakar, Senegal on the regional routes. On the international routes, Virgin Nigeria flies to London Gatwick daily while it flies three times a week to Johannesburg, South Africa.

Sonya Beard, Style Editor & Screen Writer

Formerly of the New York City-based In Style magazine, Sonya Beard is a freelance writer, editor and nationally award-winning newspaper reporter. She left the grind of hard-core news to pursue the posher side of journalism: She served as Copy Chief at the urban upstart, Honey Magazine. Most recently, Sonya worked on the editorial staff of In Style, the fashion magazine of the Time Inc. empire. She also has been a freelance book editor who has worked on beauty and fashion titles, including Soul Style: Black Women Redefining the Color of Fashion and Black Hair: Art, Style and Culture. Sonya is now jump starting her career as a screenwriter and playwright.

Janet Narh, Television and Radio Presenter

Janet Narh is a professional Radio and TV broadcaster, specialising in gender affairs, she has her own production company producing adult talk shows and videos for children. Programmes such as talk Ghana, one to one with Janet and Kelwele Children's programmes are among several that Janet has produced, which has been broadcasted on the sky satellite channel – OBE. Currently Janet hosts and co produces women's hours on Ben Television (sky channel satellite channel 194). Janet also is the co-host of platform Africa on www.jfmradio.com.

Marsha Tonkins, Creative Office Administrator, Liz Claiborne Inc.

Marsha Tonkins is the Creative Office Administrator of Liz Claiborne Inc., partnering with Chief Creative Officer, Tim Gunn in the formulation of the overall purpose and mission of the Creative Office. Ms. Tonkins joined the Company in May 2007. In this position, she is responsible for facilitating the development and implementation of design curriculum for the Company, as well as serving as a liaison within the Liz Claiborne Inc. community and externally.

Prior to joining Liz Claiborne Inc., Ms. Tonkins was most recently Assistant Chair of Advising, Department of Fashion Design at Parsons The New School for Design where she counseled many of the new and rising talent in the fashion industry. In this role, she placed Parsons graduates with premier fashion design companies on Seventh Avenue including Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren as well as international companies such as Dolce & Gabbana, Helmut Lang and Hugo Boss. She also regularly liaised with international affiliate schools, Parsons Paris and Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, to place students in study abroad programs.

Ms. Tonkins has been a workshop presenter at the Mayor’s Office of London’s Kulture 2 Couture Conference in 2006. She was also an international judge at the 2007 Avant-Garde Designer of the Year competition in Kingston, Jamaica. Ms. Tonkins graduated from The American University in Washington D.C. with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, and is a board member of The Artists Forum, an international artists networking organization.

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