If you’ve ever sat through a PowerPoint presentation, you’ll be familiar with the voice in your head pleading “just get to the point!”.

In our “Get to the Point” event, for the Leeds Digital Festival on 27 September, we guarantee an evening of presentations, with a twist so significant, that this thought couldn’t be further from your mind.

Get to the Point gives speakers a unique set of guidelines to follow, making for a unique format, and fast-paced, fun, and fascinating presentations.

• Speakers have only 5 minutes to “get to the point”
• They have exactly 20 slides, which change automatically every 15 seconds
• Speakers can’t pitch their business

Working within these constraints, you can expect pin sharp speakers, delivering interesting and intriguing presentations on a topic of their choice within the digital tech, culture, marketing and business space, and an evening of fun and anticipation, as speakers navigate our guidelines in real time.

When their 5 minutes are up, they leave the stage. No Q&A. No chatter. Will they get to their point?

The fun commences from 6pm at 2-Work, 27 King Street, 3rd Floor, Leeds LS1 2HL

Book your free tickets here

Meet your speakers (so far)

Richard Michie

CEO and Founder of The Marketing Optimist a digital marketing agency. Richard has 20 years marketing experience. He’s great at taking complex marketing problems and cutting right through to the core of the issue. Not one to hang around, he likes to begin creating and testing strategic marketing plans quickly so that he can begin to generate return on investment quickly.

Katie Thompson

Katie Thompson is the founder of Katie Lingo, a freelance outsourced content marketing service for agencies. Katie has a background in journalism and digital marketing, having trained with the NCTJ and the CIM.

Katie has worked on several award-winning content marketing campaigns and has partnered with brands including SAP, Reuters and HSBC.

Daniel Merriman

Daniel started his career as a sociologist, teaching and performing research at the University of York. During this time he became fascinated with the social implications of digital technologies and their impact on the world, and it wasn’t long before he was drawn into product management where he could put his research into practice.

After leaving academia Daniel worked in partnership with organisations such as Sony, Sky Sports, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and Teaching.com to shape their product practice and delight their users, whether that’s bringing music to millions or running experiments on the International Space Station.

Daniel now runs a product coaching and consultancy practice, working with experienced leaders and aspiring product people alike to overcome obstacles, set goals that matter to them, and guide them on their journey. He is also an engineering manager with Citizens Advice, the UK’s largest advice provider.

Paul Brown

Founder and CEO of 6B, a rapidly growing digital product consultancy specialising in accelerated digital delivery for ambitious organisations.
I started the company in 2014; 6B is now a team of 50+ people, spread across different cities and countries.

I love what I do at 6B and I’m fortunate to work with some amazing people. I’m striving to build a new type of digital agency, a place with purpose, where building people and products to unlock positive change is the priority.

Jag Panesar

In 2007, Jag set out to make his mark on the world, inspired by his late Grandfather’s success and commitment to do right by the people in his community. With extensive knowledge of business and how digital marketing aids its growth, he single handedly set up Xpand, a digital agency based in the historic village of Saltaire. Never taking his focus off his mantra ‘purpose beyond profit’, Jag built a reputable business now recognized as one which not only delivers return on investment but integrates itself within the local community.

In 2021 Jag further pursued his mission by supporting local entrepreneurs through the Northern max 10×10 mentoring programme. In this year, Jag was also appointed to the Chamber Bradford Leadership group, a role which sees him help to shape chamber policy and act as a voice for local business people.

John Burgess

John is a Connector at Sagars Accountants – helping put people in touch with those who can add value. As well as everything you’d expect from an accountancy firm, Sagars are often helping businesses and other accountants with complicated tax projects, automating accounting systems and helping to plan for a business exit

John is a nature lover, a board game fanatic and he once got locked in a glass coffin on stage with Derren Brown…

Phil Parker

Phil is Head of Deliver for Equal Experts where he advises on a wide range of technology and digital delivery topics. Starting his career as a developer and fulfilling many different roles in development teams and organisations over the past 20 years, Phil punctuates a life of constantly being nerd-sniped with servitude to his 11 and 9 year old children!

Jonathan Leafe

Jonathan spent three years in a big advertising agency from 1985, and 3 years in Spain and then set up his own agency in 1989, one of the very first to universally use Macintosh for digital artwork. Starting with two going on to be 40 strong and innovating services along the way. The first website built in 1996, and digital marketing over 15 years ago. The business grew every year and has been above benchmark profitable throughout that time. Strawberry regularly featured in the Drum Top 100 independents and the Prolific North Top 50 agencies.

Jonathan exited the business in 2017 and over the last four years has helped numerous Digital Marketing and Creative agencies fulfil their potential with some superb success stories.

Antonia Gifford

Antonia is the Group Senior Marketing Manager at Halston Group, a cutting-edge digital marketing agency. The agency predominately works within the technical space, with clients including tech companies, manufacturers, alongside those in the healthcare sector. Antonia brings her creative expertise for all Halston Group brand outputs and clients across the board, primarily focusing on branding from both design and strategic points of view, as well as heading up the entire creative team and signing off all creative assets from videos, animation, ads, and more. With her creative flare, Antonia brings strong insight into any design aspect of the marketing world.

Haroon Rashid

Haroon Rashid set up Business Fixer as part of his mission to help small business owners to run their businesses in a smarter way, get shit done and chase fulfilment, not success. He’s a business coach. Armed with his mantra, ‘Clarity is King and Simplicity is Queen,’ Haroon coaches small businesses around the world to be happier, more productive and achieve their goals.