John Hegarty has been central to the global advertising scene over six decades working with brands such as Levi’s, Audi, Boddingtons, Lynx, British Airways and Johnnie Walker. 

He was a founding partner of Saatchi and Saatchi in 1970.  

He founded Bartle Bogle Hegarty in 1982 with John Bartle and Nigel Bogle. The Agency now has offices in London, New York, Singapore, Stockholm, Shanghai, Mumbai and Los Angeles. 

John’s creative awards are numerous. He has been given the D&AD President’s Award for outstanding achievement and in 2014 was admitted to the US AAF Hall of Fame. 

John was awarded a Knighthood by the Queen in 2007 and was the recipient of the first Lion of St Mark award at the Cannes Festival of Creativity in 2011.

John wrote his first book ‘Hegarty on Advertising – Turning Intelligence into Magic’ in 2011 and his book “Hegarty on Creativity – there are no rules” was published in 2014. 

In 2014 John Co-founded The Garage Soho, an early stage investor company that believes in building brands, not just businesses. 

John has just launched a new online 8-week course, entitled The Business of Creativity, aimed to equip people with tangible tools to help win through the application of creativity.

Cathy La Torre* is Lawyer and consultant, she has founded and directs the law firm Wildside Human First Milano, Bologna and Roma that follows people all over Italy thanks to the online.

She designs Diversity & Inclusion pathways for companies and public institutions, and is a business consultant on equal treatment, reputation, ESG corporate social responsibility and personal data processing. In 2019 she was awarded the Good Lobby award in Brussels as the best pro-bono lawyer in Europe, and in 2020 with the Emanuela Loi Courage award.

She published “No cause is lost” (2020) and “There are more important things” (2022) for Mondadori. She writes and produces the podcast “Inverted – stories of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and transvestite who have reversed the course of history” with Guglielmo Scilla, on all streaming platforms. On social media, she talks about rights and is known as @avvocathy.

Manuel Agnelli is a singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and writer, best known as founder and frontman of Afterhours, Italy’s premier rock band of recent decades, which he founded in 1985.

In 1989 Manuel founded together with other ‘cultural agitators’ the Vox Pop record label, which over five years has produced ninety records with bands such as Ritmo Tribale, Africa Unite, Mau Mau, Prozac +, Casino Royale and Sottotono.

In 1998 Afterhours took part for the first time in the celebrated May Day concert  in Rome. They were to return four more times. 

In 1999 they released their album Non è per sempre, which to this day remains in Italy’s 100 greatest records of all time, compiled by Rolling Stone Italia.

At the end of summer 2000, Mondadori published Manuel Agnelli’s book entitled Il meraviglioso tubetto, which went on sale combined with a special version of their last album with several previously unreleased tracks.

In 2001 at the the Italian Music Awards he won Best Italian Producer after producing Verdena’s album Solo un grande sasso.

In 2007 Afterhours were selected to perform at the SXSW South By South West Festival, the industry’s most important event in the world, held in Austin, Texas. From here they set off on a tour that made a stop at

every American major city.

The influential American publication Spin Magazine included Afterhours in their “100 Greatest Bands You’ve Never Heard Of”, a list of the best bands they considered deserved to be heard by the mainstream public.

Manuel Agnelli was one of the judges at the 10th edition of the musical talent show X-Factor, a role he covered in the two subsequent editions (2017 and 2018).

In December Manuel was appointed artistic director of Open Future, Together!, where with his band Afterhours he sang with Daniele Silvestri, Carmen Consoli, Rancore, Lous and the Yakuza, Fatoumata Diawara and Damon Albarn.

In January 2020 the duo Agnelli-D’Erasmo won the Press Award for “Best Italian Live” at the 2019 Rockol Awards for their tour An Evening With Manuel Agnelli.

In September, Afterhours took the stage at the Arena di Verona with Heroes, the first on demand live streaming concert, held to raise funds for the categories of the music sector most affected by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In October Manuel Agnelli returned as a judge on X-Factor, after a year’s absence, for the 14th edition.

In May 2022 the documentary “Tutankhamun – The Last Exhibition”, narrated by Agnelli, had its cinema release.