The Guardian Media Group’s CEO David Pemsel was the guest speaker at a recent roundtable discussion dinner hosted by Propeller at the Club at the Ivy.

David opened proceedings with a passionate argument for the importance of independent news and journalism in world of likes and shares. Rightly proud of his company’s track record, he posed questions about the future of funding professional and investigative journalism. He touched on various revenue models such as advertising, subscriptions, paywalls and donation.  He talked about the importance of engagement and dwell time for news organisations, rather than the drug of absolute audience numbers (reach). He challenged advertisers and their agencies to remember the importance of quality context and surrounding environment when planning their campaigns.

There then followed a private round table discussion. Guests attending were (clockwise from centre):

Martin Loat, Founder, Propeller Group

Dara Nasr, MD, Twitter UK

Benedicte Autret, Head of Relationships & Partnerships, UK, Benelux & Google

Alicia Navarro, CEO & Founder, Skimlinks

Kerin O’Connor, CEO, The Week at Dennis Publishing

Mark Finney, Director of Media & Advertising, ISBA

Mike Colling, Founder & CEO, MC&C

David Pemsel, CEO, The Guardian

Stephen Woodford, CEO, Advertising Association

Ashley Mackenzie, CEO, Brave Bison

Kieran Kent, MD, Propeller PR

Zoe Harris, Group Marketing Director, Trinity Mirror

Spencer Berwin, Co-CEO, JCDecaux UK

Claudia Nicholls-Magielsen, Director of Marketing, Which