Mark Riley has worked in the drinks’ industry for 21 years. He joined Diageo in 1997, starting in the Scottish on-trade where he held customer facing roles across the UK wholesale and retail channels. In 2008, he joined Beam Inc as UK sales director, before joining Maxxium UK in 2009 as commercial operations director where he led the provision of customer focused insights and trade activation, as well as being involved in developing in-market strategy and growth plans. He was appointed sales director off-trade in April 2012 and was promoted to Managing Director in April 2015 where he continues to lead the business through a period of accelerated change.

Mark is married to Caroline and has three children, George, Sophie and Jo Jo and a golden Labrador called Woody. In his spare time, Mark enjoys running around after his children, going to the rugby and tolerating the trials and tribulations associated with supporting Sunderland.

Pierpaolo Petrassi MW has worked in the Wine & Spirit industry for 33 years. He was born in London of Italian parents and holds dual Italian & British citizenship. He followed his father into the wine industry in 1983 and having worked in both sales and buying roles for the Carnevale Group (1987-1997), International Wine Services (1997-2003), WaverleyTBS (2003-2007) & Tesco (2007-2010), he became Head of Buying for Beers, Wines & Spirits at Waitrose in 2010. He was also Chairman of the Italian Wines Committee of the Wine & Spirit Association from 1998 to 2005.

Pierpaolo became a Master of Wine in 2007 and was the first Italian to achieve this qualification. He has been consistently placed in the top 5 of OLN’s most influential people in Wine, coming in at number 2 in 2016.

Miles joined the WSTA in 2012 from the Defra. He has overall responsibility for the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. Miles was previously Deputy Director for EU and international agriculture policy, including reform of the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy. He was previously deputy director for European and global issues at the Cabinet Office and spent much of his early career at the Department of Communities and Local Government.

Miles has worked across a broad range of public policy, including urban regeneration, drugs policy and social exclusion, and has been involved in significant negotiations at national and European level. He worked closely with senior Ministers in successive governments – including as private secretary to two Cabinet Ministers.

Email: miles@wsta.co.uk

After entering the container glass industry as a project engineer, Adrian has enjoyed more than 20 transformational years in the food and beverage sector.

During this time, he has led the growth of a new entrant from start-up to c 35% market share with revenues in excess of €450m and a manufacturing footprint in the UK and Italy employing more than 1500 people.

Adrian is a huge advocate for decarbonising the Glass Industry with pioneering projects in furnace melting, such as the adoption of biofuels and Hydrogen.

He is well respected in the glass industry, having previously held the position of President of British Glass. Currently a member of the Vidrala SA (Spanish PLC) Executive Committee, and sits on the boards of British Glass, Glass Futures Limited, the WSTA (Wine and Spirits Trade Association) and NWBLT (North West Business Leadership Team).

Jason has spent nearly three decades in the retail industry and has worked at Tesco for 24 years. He joined the supermarket in 1995 and has held a number of high profile roles in the business since, in both the UK and Asia.

Jason led the Tesco wine business from 2004, following senior buying roles across the impulse categories. In 2009 he became a director and in 2011 relocated to Asia to take the role of Commercial Director for Tesco Malaysia. Returning to the UK in 2016, Jason became Tesco Convenience Product Director and in the same year was appointed Commercial Director of Tesco subsidiary business One Stop, a board position he still holds. Jason was reunited with his old team in early 2019, when he took the role of Director for Beers, Wines and Spirits.

Jason cites his time in the Tesco wine team as a particular career highlight and was eager to return to a role working with the UK drinks industry and to reigniting a personal passion for wine.

A keen foodie and global traveller, when he’s not exploring the world with wife Jodi, Jason can be found on the golf course or else experiencing the highs and lows of life as a Manchester City supporter.

Brad Madigan is the Managing Director for Campari Group UK, a position he has held for the past 12 months. Brad recently relocated to the UK from Australia where he lead the Commercial Function for one of Campari Group’s Largest Business Units.

Brad started his career at Unilever, working across several customer and people management roles before moving to Diageo, where for six years he worked across National On Premise and led the National Independent Channel, managing both retail and wholesale accounts.

Brad joined Campari Group as part of the Australian start-up team in January 2010, responsible for setting up the Independent and On Premise channel teams before taking the lead for the Commercial Function in 2014.

Brad was a previous board member of the Australian Drinks Association and the Diversity & Inclusion Council for the Drinks Industry.

With over 20 years experience in the FMCG industry, 14 of which have been in alcohol industry, Brad has a strong understanding of the current opportunities and challenges facing the industry.

Elizabeth Newman is Category Director for Beers, Wines & Spirits at Sainsbury’s.  Back in 2013, whilst heading up the trading insights team at Sainsbury’s, Elizabeth worked with the BWS team to develop its 5 year alcohol strategy.   It was a natural step to later join to the BWS team to deliver the strategy and was promoted to Category Director in June 2015.   Elizabeth leads a large multi skilled team responsible for partnering with global alcohol producers to enable Sainsbury’s to provide the best drinks choices to its customers; developing and delivering strategies for growth of branded and of course Sainsbury’s own label drinks. Developing a sustainable and responsible industry is a top priority for Elizabeth. Elizabeth is passionate about the industry and recently achieved her WSET Level 3 qualification. Prior to Sainsbury’s, Elizabeth held various roles in the market research and media industries.

Tamara began her career by obtaining a degree in Law & Accountancy, initially working in the London financial services industry and then finding work nearer home, joining Moody International Limited as Divisional Financial Controller.

In 2004 Tamara joined her family’s business Ridgeview Wine Estate as General Manager and was promoted to CEO in July 2014. Tamara has overseen the growth of production in that time from 25,000 bottles per annum to nearly 250,000 bottles with plans to double production incrementally over the next 5 years.

Being actively involved with the local community is important to Tamara and she is also on the board of English Wine Producers. She is regularly asked to speak about her experience and the success of Ridgeview at business events. As a testament to Tamara’s experience, professionalism and reputation she was recently awarded ‘Sussex Business Woman of the Year 2016’.

Lizzy Rudd started her career at Berry Bros. & Rudd in the marketing team, where she was responsible for building the global reputation of the firm’s renowned whisky brand Cutty Sark.

When Lizzy left the company almost a decade later to concentrate on her young family, she was appointed to the Board as a Non-Executive Director. She was appointed the role of Deputy Chairman in 2005, working alongside Chairman Simon Berry and in December 2017, Lizzy took on the role of the company’s Chairman following Simon’s retirement and in January 2019 she was announced as the Company’s Executive Chairman.

Lizzy has played a fundamental role in the establishment of the Family Board which sits alongside the Executive Board and has played an integral part in the work carried out on the restructuring and governance of the Executive Board.

Lizzy has also been central in communicating the vision of Berry Bros. & Rudd on behalf of the Rudd and Berry families.  This vision has been essential in guiding the planned direction of the company and feeds directly into the overall strategy for Berry Bros & Rudd.

When back home in Norfolk and well away from the wine and spirits industry, Lizzy has a particular interest in plants and botanicals. She is a qualified nutritionist and naturopath and enjoys creating tinctures and infusions with a wide variety of herbs and botanicals that she grows and collects herself.

James Miles was born in Hong Kong and attended school and university in the UK. He started his career with Jardine Fleming Investment Management in Hong Kong in 1991, before becoming an equities analyst and strategist with Asia Equity (which later became Banque Paribas and then BNP Paribas). He moved to London in 1997 and left banking in March 2000 to set up Liv-ex. Liv-ex is the global marketplace for the wine trade. We help more than 500 wine merchants in 40 countries to price, buy and sell wine.

Caroline brings a range of leadership, innovation, commercial and customer skills to the role of Managing Director, Europe at Accolade Wines. With 18 years’ experience in the drinks industry – mainly in wine – Caroline leads Accolade Wines European commercial business with a focus on customers and consumers. Caroline was previously Marketing Director for the European business working on brand, customer and consumer strategy. Before joining Accolade Wines, Caroline worked at Treasury Wine Estates and Diageo across the Europe and Americas regions. Caroline holds an executive MBA from Cass Business School in London, graduating with a distinction.

In May 2020, Moët Hennessy UK Ltd. appointed Alexei Rosin as the new Managing Director for UK and Ireland, leading the third largest market in the world for premium wines and spirits. With over 25 years of experience within the industry, Alexei will manage the Moët Hennessy portfolio in charge of iconic brands including Dom Pérignon, Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot and Hennessy.

Cotswolds Distillery founder Daniel Szor was born and raised in New York City and has spent most of his professional life living in Paris and London, specializing in the sales & marketing of currency investment management services. He was a member of senior management of New York-based Currency Manager FX Concepts for over 25 years, setting up and running offices for them in both Paris and London. It was during his years in Paris that Daniel was first bitten by the whisky bug. Years later, while living in London Daniel and his wife purchased an old farmhouse in the North Cotswolds and gradually fell in love with this most beautiful corner of Britain. Aware of the phenomenal growth of interest in craft spirits in the USA, Daniel decided to combine his love of whisky and the Cotswolds by creating the first-ever full-scale distillery in the region, with a focus on premium small-batch gin and single malt whisky made with local ingredients. His Cotswolds Distillery is now one of the fastest-growing premium spirits brands, thanks to their award-winning spirits which are now sold in over 30 countries. The distillery receives over 30,000 visitors every year, and is now a top-rated attraction in the Cotswolds per TripAdvisor.