Georgina Adam 

Georgina Adam has spent many decades writing about the art market and the arts in general. She is editor-at-large for The Art Newspaper and a contributor to the Financial Times. She initially studied Islamic Art at the Ecole du Louvre and also lived for five years in Japan. She has written two books about the art market – Big Bucks (Lund Humphries, 2014) and Dark Side (Lund Humphries, 2018) and a third book, The Rise and Rise of Private Museums, came out in September 2021. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and The International Art Market Studies Association (TIAMSA).  Georgina has a new book about NexGen Collectors due out at the end of 2025. 

Martin Wilson    

Martin Wilson is the Chief Executive Officer of Phillips, appointed in December 2024. Based in London, he brings nearly three decades of experience in the international art and auction business, with a long-standing reputation as one of the leading legal minds in the field.

Prior to his appointment, Martin served as Chief Legal Officer and a member of Phillips’ Executive Board. Since joining Phillips in 2018, he has played a key leadership role across the business, offering strategic, commercial and legal direction at the highest level.

Before Phillips, Martin spent two decades at Christie’s, where he was a trusted advisor to the global executive team, on many of the firm’s most significant initiatives. Throughout his career, he has led on high-profile sales, complex transactions and important client relationships across the global art market.

Martin is a founder and co-chair of the Art Lawyers Association and an Arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Art. He is also the author of the textbook Art Law and the Business of Art, widely regarded as a leading reference in the field. He holds law degrees from the Sorbonne and King’s College London.

     Tristram Hunt     

Dr Tristram Hunt is Director of the V&A – a family of museums dedicated to the power of creativity. Since taking up the post in 2017, he has championed design education in UK schools, encouraged debate around the history of the museum's global collections and overseen the transition to a multi-site museum. Six UK venues now include: V&A South Kensington, the V&A Wedgwood Collection, V&A Dundee, Young V&A (formerly V&A Museum of Childhood), and the development of V&A East – two free cultural destinations: V&A East Storehouse (opening 2025) and V&A East Museum (opening 2026).

Prior to joining the V&A, Tristram Hunt was Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central and Shadow Secretary of State for Education. He has a doctorate in Victorian history from Cambridge University. In addition to numerous radio and TV programmes for the BBC and Channel 4, he is the author of several books, including Ten Cities That Made an Empire (2014), The Lives of the Objects (2019) telling the story of the V&A collection, and The Radical Potter: Josiah Wedgwood and the Transformation of Britain (2021).

Dr Hunt is a member of the UK Soft Power Council, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of Queen Mary University London, a member of the Council of the Royal College of Art, a member of the Court of Imperial College, President of the William Morris Society, Patron of the British Ceramics Biennial, and Honorary Patron of the Chamberlain Highbury Trust. He is a Cavaliere of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and has been awarded honorary doctorates by Staffordshire University, Northumbria University and Keele University.

      Thangam Debbonaire     

Baroness Thangam Debbonaire is a Labour Member of the House of Lords and was MP for Bristol West 2015-2024. She runs Red Frock Ltd., providing strategic assistance to arts and culture organisations and to businesses. Current and recent arts and culture clients include: national network of UK performing arts organisations; Scottish Opera; The Southbank Centre; national network of Opera and Musical Theatre and The Art Fund. She writes for national publications and occasionally appears on broadcast media.

She served all Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinets, most recently as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, produced Labour’s Creative Sector Plan and manifesto commitments for the department.  She was a high-profile media spokesperson for the Labour Party in the years running up to the successful 2024 General Election. 

Thangam’s current portfolio includes arts policy and financing, international cultural partnerships and diplomacy, copyright and AI, the challenges of freedom of speech in arts, culture and media. She chairs Labour Women’s Network, co-chairs the Parthenon Project and sits on the boards of Sadler’s Wells and LabourList. She is a senior advisor to the international business client base of FGS Global and Forward Global and to UKAI. Before parliament Thangam worked for 25 years in nationally and internationally on gender equality and domestic violence prevention, and as a professional cellist. 

📧 thangam@redfrock.net | LinkedIn  | 📞 +44 (0) 7894472376 | Instagram | Substack | X 

  Alison Cole     

Alison Cole is Director of The Cultural Policy Unit, and Editor-at-Large at The Art Newspaper. She previously established the Arts and Creative Industries Policy Unit at the Fabian Society and is the former Editor of The Art Newspaper. She has worked as an Executive Director for some of the UK's leading cultural organisations, including Art Fund, London's Southbank Centre and Arts Council England. She served as a trustee of the Foundling Museum and is currently adviser to cultural education charity Art UK, originator of 'The Superpower of Looking' visual literacy programme, and a member of the Critics' Circle. She is also a writer and art historian. Her books include 'Michelangelo: The Taddei Tondo' (2017) and 'Italian Renaissance Courts: Art, Pleasure and Power' (2016).

Jane Morris  

Jane Morris is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and editorial strategist who specialises in the visual arts. She is an editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper and Cultureshock and contributes to the Economist, Monocle, Apollo, the Art Newspaper and Tortoise. She was the editor of The Art Newspaper for almost a decade. She was previously head of editorial at the Museums Association, and a judge of the European Museum of the Year Award. She has contributed to BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and Monocle 24 radio, and has written for national newspapers including The Guardian and The Independent. She studied fine art at University of the Arts London (Central St Martin’s), and journalism at City University, London.

Emilia De Stasio

Emilia De Stasio, CFA is the Founder and COO of art collecting platform Artscapy, the award-winning alternative investments platform for Art. She has been actively collecting contemporary art for the past decade and previously worked as an investment manager at a venture capital family office, investing into technology-driven startups across a varied spectrum of industries. At the professional root, her background is in the financial sector, having worked as a quantitative researcher and market analyst at the European Central Bank and Moody’s Investors Service. She completed her graduate studies with distinction in economics at the University of Warwick.

Chris Bentley

Chris Bentley is Head of Fine Art & Specie, UK & Lloyd’s at AXA XL. Previously, Chris held the role of AXA ART’s Director of Underwriting for Northern Europe, Middle East & Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining AXA Art in 2012, Chris worked for Hiscox Syndicate 33 at Lloyd’s as a member of the Fine Art underwriting team. In addition, he has held positions at Bonhams Auctioneers and also Aon Artscope as a Fine Art Insurance Broker specialising in art and antique dealers. 

He is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, an elected member of the LMA/ IUA Joint Specie Committee since 2015 and served as Chairman between September 2019 and June 2023, and a member of PAIAM (Professional Advisors to the International Art Market).

Melanie Gerlis became the weekly art market columnist for the Financial Times in 2016. She was previously Art Market Editor for The Art Newspaper (2007-2016), before which she was a financial communications adviser at Finsbury in the City of London (1996-2005). She has a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University and an MA in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art. 

A freelancer, Gerlis also writes about the art business for The Times, Vanity Fair and Spear’s Magazine. In addition to her work as a journalist, Gerlis has authored books on the art market including Art as an Investment? (2014) and The Art Fair Story: A Rollercoaster Ride (2021), both published by Lund Humphries. She is a regular commentator on art market trends and developments, frequently appearing on television and radio programmes to discuss the latest news in the art world.

Dr. Roman Kräussl  

Dr. Roman Kräussl is Professor of Finance at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass), City, University of London. He is also Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and Research Fellow at the Center for Financial Studies (CFS). He received his PhD in Financial Economics from Goethe-University, Frankfurt. 

His research focuses on Alternative Investments, including private equity, infrastructure, art, and green finance. When he engages with the industry, he mostly consults on art as an asset class, dealing with valuation of artworks and construction of art market indices. His work analyzes the market performance of art and of individual artists in order to help investors evaluate and optimise different portfolio allocations. 

He regularly writes for Manager Magazin, the leading German monthly business magazine, on art as an investment. His academic research has been published in leading economic journals such as The Journal of Finance, The Review of Financial Studies, and Management Science. Some of his research has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Economist, the New York Times, Forbes' Annual Investment Guide, Fortune, the Guardian and on CNBC. 

In addition to this experience, he has taught numerous Executive MBA courses at the Amsterdam School of Finance at VU University Amsterdam, at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, Atlanta, USA, and at Bayes Business School. He has recently developed the Art & Finance Executive Teaching Program in cooperation with Christie's Education London. 

Meg Molloy  

Meg Molloy is a communications professional with a decade of experience. Born in Margate, Meg is currently Director of Communications and Development at Josh Lilley in London. She has also worked at galleries and cultural destinations such as Stephen Friedman Gallery, Studio Voltaire, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dreamland Margate and Turner Contemporary. 

In addition to her gallery and institutional roles, Meg is the founder of the Working Arts Club, a network dedicated to supporting professionals from working class backgrounds in the arts. With around 900 members, the club hosts events for networking, socialising and professional development, partnering with the likes of Christie's, the V&A, Hayward Gallery and Frieze.

David Field  

David Field is a leading independent communications strategist and consultant. Over the last two decades he has led long-term brand-building for businesses and non-profit clients in the international art world. He is the founder of David B Field Consulting, which focuses on providing bespoke senior-level strategies for arts businesses including art fairs, commercial galleries, publishers and brands. Earlier this year he co-founded the Creative Freedoms Collective, which exists to build a new, more supportive and sustainable ecosystem for entrepreneurs, consultants and the freelance curious. 

Naomi Rea  

Naomi Rea is Editor-in-Chief of Artnet News, where she has worked since 2017 and became newsroom leader in 2023. Known for her strategic vision and journalistic rigor, she oversees an award-winning team delivering breaking news, agenda-setting market analysis, and conversation-shaping multimedia to a global audience. 

She holds master’s degrees in Arts and Lifestyle Journalism (London College of Communication) and English Literature and Philosophy (Trinity College Dublin). Her reporting has also appeared in The Guardian, Los Angeles Magazine, and other leading outlets, establishing her as a trusted voice in arts and culture. 

Margaret Carrigan  

Margaret Carrigan is the News Editor at Artnet News, based in London. She writes regularly about the complexities of the international art trade, offering clear, incisive analysis of market trends and business developments in The Back Room, Artnet PRO’s weekly industry-insider newsletter. She's also the host of Art Market Minute, Artnet’s micro podcast delivering essential art market updates every Monday morning.

Before joining Artnet in 2024, Carrigan served as senior editor and deputy art market editor at The Art Newspaper. Her writing on arts and culture has appeared in The Observer, Frieze, Cultured, and other publications. She holds an MA in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

Toby Monk  

Toby Monk has been at Christie’s for 13 years. He is the Global Head of Recruiting & Staff Engagement. In addition, he is Chair of the cross-industry Trailblazer committee for the ‘Art Market Coordinator’ apprenticeship, and of the Arts Education Charity ‘ Art history Link-Up.