François J. Dessart

EU Policy Lab, European Commission

François J. Dessart is a policy analyst at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. After a career in the opinion polls industry (Ipsos, GfK), he obtained his PhD in management and economics from the University of Namur. His dissertation proposed a social signalling perspective on sustainable consumption. He was a visiting scholar in 2013 at Tilburg University (Department of Social Psychology). At the Joint Research Centre, François is now in charge of transferring scientific knowledge from behavioural sciences to EU policy-makers.

Professor Alan Tapp

Bristol Social Marketing Centre, UK

Mika Pyykkö

Senior Lead, Impact Investing - Sitra, The Finnish Innovation Fund

Mika Pyykkö leads Sitra’s Impact Investing focus area. Impact investing is a way of stepping up collaboration between the public and private sectors in order to prevent or solve societal problems. The focus area’s activities have culminated in an emerging ecosystem that fosters collaboration between the private and public sectors, non-profit actors and funding providers, in order to bring about positive changes for citizens while saving on the cost to society. Mika has previously worked in leadership positions in organisations such as Finland’s Slot Machine Association from 2008 to 2012 and the Finnish Centre for Health Promotion between 2003 and 2008. He has also worked in Finland and abroad, particularly as a champion of health and well-being promotion and preventative action. In addition, Mika has been engaged in the development of collaboration between the public, private and third sectors. One of Mika’s most public achievements is the Heart Symbol system – he headed its development and start-up when working for the Finnish Heart Association between 1995 and 2003. Mika believes that it is important to be aware of the multidimensional potential of promotional and preventative work and to be bold in seeking new opportunities to act, rather than getting bogged down in listing the risks and snags.

Marsha Smith

Super Kitchen, UK

Marsha Smith is the founder of the Super Kitchen social eating movement which supports groups to showcase surplus foods for social good. Through our growing network of members we encourage people to ‘just come and eat with us’; at mealtimes, together, like a family and to make impacts on food waste and social isolation. By using surplus food to power social eating cafes and kitchens, we fulfil the fundamental human need to eat together and share stories, and ensure that no good food is thrown away. Marsha is a passionate advocate for social bonding, attachment, neediness and of course, good food.

Johannes Parkkonen

Finnish Association for Mental Health

Johannes has been involved in setting up ESMA over the last five years and was elected on the ESMA Board in 2014. He works for the Finnish Association for Mental Health and has played a key role in bringing the European Social Marketing Conference to Finland. In addition to advocating the use of social marketing in mental health context, as a representative of a small Nordic country that is quite new to social marketing, his key interest is strengthening the skills base and application of social marketing in the smaller countries of Europe. Prior to returning to Finland in 2013, Johannes worked for seven years at Scotland’s national See Me programme tackling the stigma and discrimination that people with experience of mental health problems still face too often. Johannes holds MA (socsci) Honours from the University of Glasgow, MA from the University of East Anglia and Postgraduate Certificate in Management from the Open University.

Professor Gerard Hastings

Stirling University, the Open University and L’École des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique, Rennes

Gerard Hastings is Professor of Social Marketing at Stirling University, the Open University and L’École des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique, Rennes. His academic career has focused on researching the impact of marketing on society – both for good and ill. To this end he founded and ran the Institute for Social Marketing. This has involved him in advising Government and working with policy makers and civil society nationally and internationally. He has also acted as an expert witness in litigation against the tobacco industry. He was awarded the OBE for services to health care in 2009.
In 2014, he was appointed as an expert member on the WHO Ad Hoc Working Group on Science and Evidence for ending childhood obesity and joined the British Medical Association Board of Science. He also accepted the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education on behalf of the University of Stirling for the ground-breaking critical marketing research conducted by the Institute for Social Marketing.

Professor Victoria Wells

Sheffield University Business School, UK

Victoria K. Wells is a Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at Sheffield University Management School.  Her research interests lie in the environmental behaviour of employees, corporate social marketing and CSR. She joined Sheffield University Management School in 2016 after holding the post of Reader in Marketing at Durham University Business School and Research Associate and Lecturer in Marketing and Strategy at Cardiff Business School. Prior to joining Cardiff Business School she worked in Marketing Communications as an Account Executive.  She has published in a wide range of journals including Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Marketing Theory, Journal of Business Ethics, Tourism Management and Psychology & Marketing amongst others.

Bernadette Schomaker

Huis van Sociale Innovatie, Netherlands

Bernadette Schomaker was born in a small town in the northern province of the Netherlands. After completing high school she moved to Leiden and studied international sociology. A few years later followed by strategic marketing.  After graduating from university she worked in different posts in public offices, like the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Ministry of Justice, the Netherlands Court of Audit and the Centre for Crime Prevention and Safety. From 2011 until 2016 she was head of the Expertise Centre against Violence and Aggression in the Public Sector. She is especially interested in creating social innovation through combining insights from different scientific and practical angles.

Professor Bo Edvardsson

Karlstad University, Sweden

Päivi Sillanaukee

Permanent Secretary at the Ministry Of Social Affairs and Health, Finland

Dr Päivi Sillanaukee was appointed as the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry Of Social Affairs and Health in 2012. Between 2008 and 2012 she was the Director General of the Department for Social and Health Services at the Ministry. Prior to that, she was the Deputy Mayor and the Director of Social and Health Services in the City of Tampere.

Juha Metso

Espoo Deputy Mayor

Philip R Holden

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business, University of Greenwich

Philip is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Business at the University of Greenwich. He leads the undergraduate course in social marketing and courses in contemporary issues in marketing. He has been a member of ESMA since its formation and his career has spanned commercial organisations, charities and running a communications agency. Most recently he has consulted on the promotion of health screening in London.  He is currently researching and writing on applications of Bourdieusian theory to social marketing, the use of Healthy Foundations segmentation model and round the world sailing.

Drs Julie Huibregtsen

Huibregtsen Sociale Marketing

Dr. Julie Huibregtsen has spent a lot of her professional time making social marketing more known and accessible in the Netherlands. Therefore she was very proud to welcome the second European Social Marketing Conference to her country, the Netherlands, in the city of Rotterdam, where it all started in 2008. As an ESMA Board member and member of the ESMC 2016 committee, Julie has been working hard to make this the third European Social Marketing conference a great success.

As a Social marketing expert for the Netherlands, Julie Huibregtsen has extensive experience in social marketing and project management. She has strong national and international networks and supports Dutch organizations in the application of social marketing. Her mission is to help professionals with their behavioral goals: “…all professionals I advise face the same challenges; get through to their target audience effectively and having to ‘sell’ their products succesfully. As their trainer and coach it always hits me how much professionals impose on themselves. It’s my mission to ease and enlighten their daily work”

Julie Huibregtsen shares her knowledge and experience also in other ways. She acts as a speaker at conferences, networking events and team days. She advices a wide variety of organizations on a diversity of subjects. For more information: visit www.socialemarketing.nl