Ben Legg – Keynote Speaker

Ben Legg is the former COO of Google Europe. He is an accomplished author, entrepreneur and authority in the world of data-driven marketing, artificial intelligence, new business models and the future of work. He helps companies and entrepreneurs to survive and thrive in a world dominated by Google, Facebook and Amazon. Legg is also the CEO and Co-Founder of The Portfolio Collective, the world’s leading community of portfolio professionals.

Legg has deep expertise and an impressive track record in areas including global expansion (he has lived in 9 countries and worked in over 60); the sharing economy, entrepreneurship, the future of work, marketplaces; people-based marketing; digital strategy; product development; marketing transformation; e-commerce; big data; customer lifetime value; sales management; organisational transformation and culture.

Ben Legg is an engineer and former British Army officer who was instrumental in ending the Siege of Sarajevo in 1995. He started his post-military business career with McKinsey as a strategy consultant. After that, he joined Coca-Cola, holding various strategy, marketing and sales roles in Greece, Poland, and India, running a high-profile turnaround of Coca-Cola India. His performance piqued the interest of Google, where he became the COO of Google Europe 2007-09. Whilst there, Legg wrote the blueprint for Google’s monetisation of all major platforms, including Search, YouTube, Maps and Mobile. This approach is still the way Google (and its competitors) monetise audiences over a decade later.

Since 2010, Ben Legg has run various international businesses focused on data-driven digital marketing and technology, including European Directories, Adknowledge, AdParlor and Ola. AdParlor is a strategic partner of Google, Facebook, Snapchat and other major platforms. He also teaches and mentors entrepreneurs at Oxford University.

Ben Legg has helped and inspired many of the world’s leading executives to understand the threats and opportunities posed by changes in technology and society, then helped them build successful and profitable companies (and careers) within this new world.