About Olle

CEO of Stockholm Business Region is. Zetterberg was born in Stockholm 1951, and has worked for the City of Stockholm since 1981. He began his career as head of the revenue agency in the social department with a background as master of law degree from the University of Stockholm. He then worked as Director of Social Welfare in two different districts in the city. For two years he was also the city's refugee coordinator.

Subsequently, Zetterberg became in turn, Recreation Director, Culture and Sport Director, Director of city planning, Director of traffic and real estate. Since 2007 he is CEO of Stockholm Business Region with the affiliated companies Visit Stockholm AB and Invest Stockholm Business Region AB. The same year he became the Chairman for the Stockholm business incubator STING.

Maluquer was previously the managing director of the Economic Development Agency of the City of Barcelona, where he coordinated policies and programmes in Barcelona on employment, entrepreneurship, business, attracting foreign direct investment, the city’s brand, technological innovation, promotion and trading standards, city markets and tourism. As managing director of the Economic Development Agency, he was the executive vice president of Barcelona Activa, Mercabana, and had executive responsibilities in the 22@ innovation district. He previously developed his career at Barcelona Activa, the local development agency of the City Council, as managing director and executive director.

Maluquer designed and implemented policies to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in Barcelona, and was part of the leadership team designing a strategic plan for Barcelona, he was part of the team's bid to win the Barcelona Mobile World capital, and he has developed several innovative programmes to promote local and regional economic development. He graduated on an executive programme in Business Administration from IESE, and he also graduated in law from the University of Barcelona and has a Master’s in Public and Social Policy from the Pompeu Fabra University and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He has also taken part in various OECD studies on local economic development. In 2006, he participated in the Marshall Memorial Fellowship programme in the United States and teaches courses on public policy and local development.

Van der Avert received his degree from Reinwardt Academy of Museum Management in 1984, going on to specialise in cultural marketing. From 1991 to 2002, he worked at Amsterdam’s celebrated Rijksmuseum in public relations. In 2002, Van der Avert was named Director of Communication, Education and Marketing for exhibition centres De Nieuwe Kerk and Hermitage Amsterdam. There he was responsible for marketing the launch of the new Hermitage Museum, which opened in June 2009. For his success, he was awarded the title of Communication Person of the Year by the Dutch Association of Communication Professionals.

Since 2011, Van der Avert has been the Chief Marketing Officer at Amsterdam Partners of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. In this function, he was responsible for merging three marketing organisations into one new city marketing organisation, Amsterdam Marketing. In January 2013, he was appointed CEO of Amsterdam Marketing. Van der Avert resides in Amsterdam since 1984 and serves as a member on several different boards and advisory committees of the Dutch Museum Association and various companies.

Halliwell joined London & Partners from Visit London, the capital’s global marketing organisation. At London & Partners, she heads up London’s Convention Bureau and Major Events division, managing the event solutions team and a proactive global sales team focused on attracting discretionary business, cultural & sporting events to the capital. At the same time, she works with city stakeholders and member organisations to develop and build London’s business and major events tourism offering. In 2013, she was awarded the Eventia Outstanding Achievement honour and named in the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Event 100 list of the most influential people in the industry.

Born in 1972, Nöthen studied geography, economics and sociology in Berlin, New York and Havana. He started his professional career in a Düsseldorf based consultancy in the field of foreign aid, where he managed projects in international business development. A few years later, he exchanged travelling the globe for the microcosm of Hamburg where he joined the newly-founded Hamburg Marketing GmbH, a subsidiary of the City of Hamburg and the Chamber of Commerce. For the 2006 Soccer World Cup, he organised the official ‘Fan Fest’ public viewing area, creating a temporary stadium for 70,000 spectators gathered around a giant screen in the heart of the city. Subsequently, he went on to develop the Event Marketing Unit within Hamburg Marketing and created new events for Hamburg and supported existing, ambitious events with a strong brand fit.

From 2013, he has managed the city brand of Hamburg. Together with his team, he enhances the profile of Hamburg by setting the major marketing topics and developing the stories to be told. In 2015, Nöthen also became marketing director of the Hamburg bid committee for the Olympic Summer Games 2024, which came to an abrupt end when the citizens of Hamburg, in a referendum, voted against pursuing the bid. Hamburg experienced special attention when the new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie, opened in 2017. Hamburg Marketing made sure that this valuable addition to Hamburg’s place branding was properly channelled and communicated, leading to 4.5 million visitors to the building in its opening year.

Brown is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. After working in a number of Hotels as a General Manager, in 1999 he altered course to work in destination management. Initially, he worked for five years at The Mersey Partnership as Director of Tourism, Director of Operations and interim Chief Executive before taking the role of Chief Executive at Marketing Cheshire, formerly Visit Chester and Cheshire, in 2004.

He returned to Liverpool in 2013 to establish Marketing Liverpool and to promote the city as a first-class destination for leisure, business, and study. Chris is also responsible, together with key partners, for promoting the Liverpool brand nationally and internationally. He also works to deliver the Liverpool Plan, a series of transformational events designed to bring key organisations of the city together, helping to raise its profile at an international level.

He is a keen follower of all things ‘Scotland’ and covets a long-held ambition to see the country finally win something.

An Australian Swede Richardson has enjoyed diverse business experiences in Australia, including 10 years in the tourism industry on the Barrier Reef, and more recently in the arctic region of Scandinavia. He has been a contributor to the development of the tourism industry across a diverse range of destinations. He was previously Head of Marketing at the Swedish Lapland Visitors Board.

His new business TravelCo in Swedish Lapland has two core missions. One is as a partner for tourism companies in Swedish Lapland helping develop and market new and innovative products and packages for international distribution. The other is as a partner to inbound agents and tour operators helping on the ground in Swedish Lapland to find new and innovative products and packages with local partners.

Julian Stubbs is a brand strategist, writer, and presenter who has worked with developing brand strategies and identities for a wide range of organisations and places. From Technicolor, the Hollywood movie company, to the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, to the city of Stockholm, in Sweden. Today he is working with a number of brand and identity projects across the world from California to Switzerland, from biotech and healthcare companies to places and cities. He is also a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and seminars and moderator of workshops. His first business book, titled ‘Wish You Were Here’, explores the branding of places and destinations as well as his work for the city of Stockholm, where he created the brand positioning and tagline ‘Stockholm, The Capital of Scandinavia’.

Stubbs is the founder and CEO of UP THERE, EVERYWHERE, the global cloud-based brand and digital communications group which today has over 160 people based in 19 locations around the world. He is a firm advocate of digital content and inbound marketing and his company is a HubSpot Platinum Partner agency. He travels about 120 days a year from his home just outside of Stockholm, Sweden. He is married, with two boys, and in his free time his passion is watching Liverpool FC, playing tennis, reading history and anything to do with The Beatles.

Marcus Lyon (b. 1965) is a British artist. Commissioned and exhibited globally, his works and publications are held in both private and international collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

Born and raised in rural Britain, Lyon studied Political Science at Leeds University & Leadership at Harvard Business School and Kennedy School of Government. His early working life with Amnesty International and the International Children’s Trust in Latin America was the inspiration for his thirty-year exploration of the issues at the heart of globalisation.

In the early 90’s he founded the Glassworks, a multidisciplinary atelier and production house for commissioned and original art. As a portrait artist, he has photographed a diverse range of public figures from Queen Elizabeth II, to Bill Nighy and the last four British Prime Ministers. He has created extensive bodies of work around dance, disability sport, science and development. The early 21st century saw his work move from the micro to the macro with the formation of the large-scale BRIC, EXODUS, TIMEOUT & FUEL series: explorations of the modern world and our global mass behaviours. In recent years, he has undertaken significant collaborative commissions, most notably his RAMBERT, SOMOS BRASIL and OPTOGENOME series.

Outside the art world, Lyon is a determined social entrepreneur and an active public speaker on both photography and development. A TEDx speaker, he currently serves on the boards of Somerset House and Leaders’ Quest and is a Founder Ambassador for Home-Start UK, Photovoice, Blesma and The Consortium for Street Children. Lyon lives between central London and São Paulo with his wife Bel and their children Florence (b. 2010) and Arthur (b. 2012).

Warnaby graduated in history from the University of Newcastle in 1983. After completing postgraduate studies in marketing, he spent a few years in stores management with BHS plc in a variety of locations across the UK before settling down into higher education in 1991. Since then, he has worked at the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, the universities of Salford, Liverpool and Manchester, where he was Professor of Marketing in the School of Materials. He is now Professor of Retailing and Marketing, based in the Institute of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University.

His research interests focus on the marketing and branding of places (particularly in an urban context) and retailing. Results of this research have been published in various academic journals in the management, architecture and geography disciplines, including Environment and Planning A, Journal of Business Research, Tourism Management,

Journal of Service Research, Marketing Theory, Consumption Markets & Culture, European Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Management Reviews, Area, Cities and Local Economy. He is co-author of Relationship Marketing: A Consumer Experience Approach (Sage, 2010), Pop-up Retailing – Managerial and Strategic Perspectives (Springer 2017), and co-editor of Rethinking Place Branding: Comprehensive Brand Development for Cities and Regions (Springer, 2015), and Designing With Smell: Practices, Techniques an Challenges (Routledge 2017).

Kim Heinen has been an International Press Officer with Rotterdam Partners since 2010.  

Rotterdam Partners work to strengthen the Rotterdam economy and promote the region to businesses, visitors and residents. Rotterdam Partners promotes dialogue and exchange of knowledge and experience between partners and networks in the city and the local authorities from a regional, national and international perspective. 

Ritula Shah is an award winning BBC journalist and broadcaster.

She is currently the main presenter of the World Tonight, Radio 4’s main evening news programme, which has a focus on international affairs. She's presented the programme from countries including Brazil, Jordan, India, China, the US, Finland and Germany.

She's also regularly presented Woman's Hour, PM and Any Questions on Radio 4 and has made a number or documentaries and series for the station.

Ritula was the launch presenter of the World Today, a daily news programme on the BBC World Service and spent a decade reporting for and presenting for the network. 

Ritula has chaired events on international issues at a number of think tanks and universities, including Chatham House, Carnegie Tsinghua  Centre, the Asia Society and Kings College London.

She's a trustee of the International Institute for the Visual Arts and an ambassador for the British Asian Trust. 

Working as a BBC staff journalist in London for more than a decade, Maddy reported for UK and global TV news programmes and anchored BBC World Service radio shows reaching 50 million people a week. Based in Stockholm since 2014, she now works as a freelance journalist for media including BBC, Monocle, Time Out and NPR, focussing on Swedish business, current affairs and lifestyle trends. 

Voted one of the 100 most impactful and influential figures in the Nordic startup scene in 2017, Maddy produces and hosts The Stockholmer Podcast, interviewing the Swedish capital’s most inspiring creatives and entrepreneurs, and works as a moderator at some of the region’s most prominent tech and media events.