Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

The Top Cats are in town and meeting again on the usual hot tin roof this week.

Each month I host a very exclusive invitation-only event with Robert Loch called Top Cats in London. The goal of the event is to forge stronger ties and greater collaboration between the internet start up, mobile, interactive marketing, TV and advertising communities.

Check out the cool venue and take a look at the 4 minute video that newspepper.com shot at the last event.

[Update, names marked with ** were added after the post was published]

- Alex Hoye, Chair, Faction/Buildersite
- Alexis d’Amecourt, Head of New Media, 19 Entertainment
- Andrew Doe, Founder, PCIQ
- Andrew Romans, General Partner, Georgetown Ventures
- Ann Jameson, Director, Pricejamieson - an Aquent company
- Aoife O’Sullivan, Partner, Gates & Partners
- Caspar Craven, Co-founder, Trovus
- Catherine Toole, MD Sticky, Content
- Cathy Grimes, Marketing Manager, Equifax Personal Solutions
- Charles Billot, Marketing Director, Soup
- Chris O’Rourke, Founder / MD, User Vision
- Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist, Vodafone Group **
- David Hart, Director, Codegent Ltd
- David King, Director, APCO Online
- Edward Charvet, Co-founder, Trovus
- Elizabeth Varley, Editorial Director, Online Content UK
- Ellie Kaye, Marketing Manager, Soup
- Felix Velarde, Founder, Underwired
- Giles Palmer, Managing Director, Magpie.net
- Grant Currie, MD , Inferno PR
- Gurpritpal Singh, Director, of Emerging Microsoft Technology Developer & Platform Group (DPE)
- Hugo Burge, COO, Cheapflights **
- Ian Wallis , Editor, Growing Business
- Jasmine Birtles, Founder / MD, Moneymagpie.com
- Jemima Kiss , New Media Reporter, Media Guardian
- Jon Watts, Founder, MTM London
- Justin Champney, Head of Brand Innovation, EMEA, McCann Worldgroup
- Justin Cooke, Founder / Fortune Cookie
- Mark McDermott, Director, Codegent Ltd
- Matthew O’Riordon, Founder, The Lemon Foundation
- Matthew Thomas, Editor, Startup.co.uk
- Mike Butcher, Editor, TechCrunch
- MT Rainey, MD, Horsesmouth
- Neil Hughston , Managing Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive
- Neil Svensen , CEO, Rufus Leonard
- Nic Brisbourne, Partner, DFJ Esprit
- Nick Farnhill, Partner, POKE
- Oli Barrett
- Paul Birch, Founder, Cominded
- Richard O’Connor , Founder, Tablina
- Richard Titus, Acting Head of UX&D, BBC FM&T
- Rob Corradi, Founder, Preloaded
- Robin Howard, Client Services Director, BT
- Roger Thelwell, Founder / Operations, mook
- Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology Correspondent, BBC
- Simon Murdoch, Founder, friendsabroad **
- Stephanie Bouchet, Head of Marketing, Joost
- Steve Schlenker, Chief Investment Officer, DN Capital
- Syd Nadim, CEO, Clock
- Tom Holmes, Founder & Chairman, Creativebrief
- Tom Nixon Founder, Nixon, Mcinnes
- Will Jeffery, Managing Director, Maverick Media
- Will McInnes, MD, Nixon McInnes
- Yoyo Allalouf, Director, Allalouf Investment Group

Hosts

- Robert Loch, Founder, Internet People & Founder, That’s Useful
- Paul Walsh, Chair, BIMA & Founder, Segala

Thanks again to Soup for sponsoring this month’s gather of the Top Cats. Thanks to them, we’ll be nibbling on Sushi and drinking fine wine.

My apologies as usual for the duplication of a post between here and the BIMA blog.

The quality of people at this months Top Cats was excellent as to be expected. Click on the video to get a feel for the type of people who attend and to hear what they think about the importance of networking.

Here’s the list of confirmed attendees for this month’s Top Cats. I’ll post a comprehensive list in the next day or so. Names marked with * have been added after this post was originally published.

Quick overview

Robert Loch and I host many different types of events and felt that something was missing. We felt something little different and exclusive to the real decision makers within the Industry was needed. So, Top Cats was born.

Read more…

I’ve just announced the date for the next Top Cats exclusive ‘invite only’ event on the BIMA blog. I’d link to the Facebook group where you can see all the photos of the recent one, but the site is down.

In the picture above you can see Steve Clayton, CTO, Microsoft UK Partnerships, Charolette Hands and myself (co-host with Robert Loch).

I wonder if Steve would rate this photo higher than his album with Bill Gates and Steve Balmer.

Robert Loch and I came up with the idea of getting top industry people together at a new exclusive event. So, BIMA and Internet People are coming together to host a new exclusive event called Top Cats, which is for top individuals from the UK’s Interactive sector.The goal of the event is to forge stronger ties and greater collaboration between the internet start up, mobile, interactive marketing, TV and advertising communities.Top Cats will be held every four to six weeks starting with the first event tonight from 7pm. The event is free of charge and drinks and nibbles are being provided.

The first Top Cats is exclusively sponsored by Podcast Voices who ‘were the UK’s first dedicated audio and video Podcast Production Company and have clients ranging from Lonely Planet to the NHS.’

Intruders.tv will be there to captures interview with top industry people.

Here’s a list of the Top Cats attending this evening.

1. Alastair Duncan, CEO, mrm Worldwide
2. Amit Shah, VP Business development, Openads
3. Andrew McFadyen, Technology Producer, ITN
4. Andy Evans, Founder / MD, Net Communities
5. Andy Oakes, Publisher, NMA
6. Avid Larizadeh, Associate, Accel Partners
7. Benjamin Cohen, Technology Correspondent, ITN
8. Carl Taylor, Director, Hutchison Whampoa Europe
9. Charles Astwood, Founder, London Eating
10. Chris Mooney, International Editor, FHM
11. Chris Seth, European CEO, Piczo
12. Chris Wood, CEO, Top Table
13. Daniel King, Director, Hitwise
14. David Lethbridge, Managing Director, Confetti
15. Dennis Greene, Head of E-business, Royal Mail
16. Ed Freyfogle, Co-founder, Nestoria
17. Giles Palmer, Managing director, Magpie.net
18. Hilary Birch, Safety Project Manager, Bebo
19. Ian Hayward, Founder / CEO, Glaxstar
20. James Brown, Creative Director, Podcast Voices
21. Justin Champney, Head of Brand Innovation EMEA, McCann Worldgroup
22. Ken Blakeslee, Founder, Web Mobility
23. Michael Collins, Director, i-Publishing Consultants (BIMA Executive)
24. Michael Nutley, Editor in Chief, NMA
25. Michelle Acton Bond, Head of Marketing, Wonga
26. Mustafa Mustafa, Publishing Director, IDG Communications
27. Nenad Marovac, Founder and managing partner, DN Capital
28. Paul Fisher, Venture Capitalist, Advent Ventures
29. Philip Wilkinson, Founder, Crowdstorm
30. Pietro Peligra, Associate, DN Capital
31. Richard Sedley, Director, cscape (unable to attend)
32. Richard Spalding, Founder, Kontraband
33. Ryan Carson, Founder, Carson Systems
34. Scott Rutherford, Product Architect, Cominded
35. Sean Seton-Rogers, Associate, Balderton Capital (aka Benchmark)
36. Simon Grice, Founder / CEO, Midentity
37. Sutha Kamal, CEO, planQ
38. Syd Nadim, CEO, Clock
39. Tom Adams, Founder / MD, mook
40. Tom Evans, Founder / Creative Director, mook
41. Tom Sacchi, Director, Unit9
42. Matthew Bagwell, Director, Conchango (BIMA Executive)
43. Steve Clayton, CTO, Microsoft Partnerships UK (BIMA Executive)
44. Tony Cocks, Solution Specialist: Unified Comms & Mobility, Microsoft
45. Roger Thelwell, Founder / Operations Director, mook
46. Robert Dirskovski, Head of Interactive Media, Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
47. Neil Hughston, Managing Director, Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive
48. Mark Fallons, Head of Interactive, McCann Europe
49. Julie Lane, Sales & Marketing Director, Lbi (BIMA Executive)
50. Sam Sethi, Founder / Publisher, Blognation
52. Andrew Romans, General Partner, Georgetown Ventures
53. Judith Clegg, Founder, Venturing Unlimited
54. Mike Butcher, Editor, Tbites.com
55. Cathy Grimes, Marketing Manager Personal Solutions, Equifax
56. Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist, Vodafone / Founder of Mobile Monday London
57. Jason Dunne, Publisher, “… for Dummies” and Capstone Business Books
58. Juliet Blackburn, Head of Digital, AAR (BIMA Executive)
59. Alistair Gammell, Managing Director, Map Media
60. Darren Gerry, Client Partner, Lbi
61 Peter Ward, Co-founder, WAYN
62. Craig Hill, Founder / Chairman, Digital Outlook
63. Anthony Robb-John, Managing Director, easyGroup IP Licensing
64. Jasmine Birtles, Founder / MD, moneymagpie.com
65. Felix Velarde, Founder / MD, Underwired
66. Dr Charles Wiles, Product Manager, Google
67. Robert Loch, Founder, Internet People (new startup in stealth mode)
68. Paul Walsh, Founder / CEO, Segala (BIMA Chair)