Subjects we'll explore:
Many industries across New Europe continue to struggle through privatization, reorganization and restructuring. Against the backdrop of such wrenching change, we'll identify those which are critical to overall economic development and which therefore are in demand of sound and dependable sources for business information, education and training, assessing issues which signal viability for B2B media across the region.
Experience in the ascending new EU member states, led by Poland, give a clear roadmap as to how business media will develop in those nations which make up the next-wave of EU candidate countries. How did business media develop in the early stages in Poland and other EU ascendants throughout the 90s, and what does that portend for further development eastward?
In many parts of New Europe, the business media landscape is flat. Business publishers therefore have the opportunity to shape journalism, reader habits and advertising rates structures, and to establish positions of supremacy and dominance with highly-focused, fast-track initiatives. This summit will explore application of the integrated B2B publishing business models in virgin markets, with an emphasis on how the internet is shaping these developing markets.
How do business leaders across New Europe value and make use of information which can guide their strategies and fuel their businesses? What is the future of print vs. web-based delivery and what are the expectations of users across industries, across generational lines and across the region? What are the keys to creating and then fulfilling demand for objective, dependable business information to industry-focused constituencies?
As the last decade unfolded, Poles were bombarded with technological change, often with the result that whole generations of technology were jumped. In business, many Polish companies, with business media leading the way, embraced these technologies, played with them, learned from them and built business models and tools which are critical to their business today. The summit will provide an overview of technology's role in speeding up business media development. What does Poland's experience presage for the developing countries of New Europe.
The angel investor concept is an applicable one for development of independent business media in the markets of Central and Eastern Europe. Many local and migrant entrepreneurs have established beachheads in the region and only need the proper support to expand operations. The summit will explore the characteristics of early-level developers and give guidance as to how to assess their strengths and weaknesses.
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Confirmed speakers
Kehrt Reyher - Host and Moderator
President, VFP Communications
CEO, Modern Media Institute, Poland
Mr. Reyher and his wife Marzenna are the co-founders (1993) of VFP Communications, publisher of Media & Marketing Polska, Poland's leading magazine covering commercial communications. Upon relocating permanently to Warsaw in 1992, Mr. Reyher worked as a media consultant for the Polish-American Enterprise Fund, and later for Polish media and entertainment conglomerate ZPR's daily tabloid, Super Express. He is a two-time fellow in media programs at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies at St. Petersburg, Florida, and worked in the U.S. for daily newspapers The Providence (Rhode Island) Journal (1985-87), and The Detroit News (1987-1992). He holds a master's degree in journalism from Indiana University (1987). Mr. Reyher is also the founder of the Modern Media Institute, host of the Summit.
Michal Broniatowski
Managing Partner, MediaDim, Kiev
Michal Broniatowski is a 25-year veteran of media organizations in Poland and the states of the former Soviet Union. After a career as a journalist from 1979 to 1992, Mr. Broniatowski moved from his position as a Reuters correspondent to become Business Representative for then fast-developing Reuters operations in Poland. Throughout the early 1990s, he led development of Reuters' first commercial office in Warsaw before moving in 1997 to Moscow, where he assumed a dual role managing Reuters editorial and business operations across the former Soviet region. Simultaneous to his duties at Reuters, in 1994 he became an Independent Director of ITI Group, a publicly-traded Polish media conglomerate based in Luxembourg, which he also served as strategist and spokesman. Mr. Broniatowski has also held positions with the Swiss publishing house Edipresse and privately-held Interfax, Russia's largest news agency.
Thompson B. Barnhardt
Founder, majority shareholder, B2B Media, Poland
Mr. Barnhardt is the developer of city Biznes newspapers in Warsaw, Wroclaw and the tri-city region of Gdansk-Gdynya-Sopot through his publishing company B2B Media. B2B has pioneered a grass-roots business media model which includes the rapidly developing BiznesPolska.pl website as well as related conference and events businesses. Mr. Barnhardt, who has lived for the past nine years in Warsaw, previously was president of New World Publishing, publisher of the Warsaw, Budapest and Prague Business Journals, and their associated business directories; was a founding shareholder of City Magazines group in Warsaw; and is currently a director of Uproar, a Nasdaq-listed on-line gaming company. Mr. Barnhardt, who holds an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia, USA, has six years corporate finance experience with Bank of America and Arthur Andersen corporate finance.
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