James Kirkham (GB)

James Kirkham is a brand strategist, business advisor, broadcaster and cultural commentator with twenty-five years at the front of culture, where digital, music, sport, TV and technology bleed into one another.

He co-founded the pioneering digital agency Holler at 23. Its work for E4's 'Skins' was the first time anywhere in the world a TV show was marketed through social media, a blueprint for the influencer era that followed. He sold Holler to Publicis Groupe and became Global Head of Social and Mobile at Leo Burnett, then help transform the YouTube Originals channel COPA90 into a global football media brand as Chief Business Officer, with a fan-first model that earned it a place on Fast Company's most innovative sports businesses.

As Chief Business Officer at house label Defected Records he led a digital reinvention whose defining moment came in lockdown: the Defected Virtual Festival, dreamt up on a Sunday and broadcast to the world by Friday from an empty Ministry of Sound, the rave that connected a shut-in planet.

Today he runs ICONIC, the strategic consultancy that gives brands an earned way into popular culture, with clients spanning Chelsea FC, Netflix, Adidas, LADbible and JD.

He writes the 'Inked In & Iconic' newsletter, featured in Fast Company and at Cannes Lions and now a sold-out live show at the Rio Cinema. He hosts 'StoryCo', the top-five Spotify video podcast on the business of storytelling, with guests including John Yorke, Julia Shaw and Oscar-winning director Mike Figgis. A regular on the BBC, CNN, Sky News, and TalkTV and multiple keynote speaker at Cannes Lions, SXSW and Web Summit.