Riah Pryor

Riah Pryor is a journalist and author specialising in the relationship between art and law, supported by her experience working at New Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Unit. She previously worked at The Art Newspaper as Art Market Assistant Editor and continues to write for them (and others, including contributions to Financial Times) on a freelance basis. She is also founder of  Sourced Thought, a consultancy supporting private and not-for-profit cultural organisations in strategy, content and business planning.

Marc Spiegler 

Photo credit: JR'S printing press

Marc Spiegler, Cultural Strategist

Having led Art Basel from 2007 to 2022, Marc Spiegler now works on a portfolio of cultural-strategy projects. He is President of the Board of Directors of Superblue and the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the future UBS Digital Art Museum in Hamburg. An external Senior Strategic Advisor for the Luma Foundation, he also serves on the boards of the ArtTech and Art Explora foundations. In addition to working with premium brands such as Prada, KEF Audio and Sanlorenzo, Spiegler has for almost a decade enjoyed being a Visiting Professor in cultural management at Università Bocconi in Milan.

Helen Mulcahy

Helen Mulcahy, Fieldfisher Partner in the Dispute Resolution team – Co-Head of Art Law with Pierre Valentin.

Helen has advised on commercial disputes in Australia and then England for almost 30 years. She represents companies, funds and entrepreneurs in commercial and finance disputes as well as collectors and artists involved in difficult and complex disputes.  Helen is also a mediator, helping parties find a resolution and avoid prolonged court or arbitration proceedings.

Chris Bentley

Chris Bentley is Head of Fine Art & Specie, UK & Lloyd’s at AXA XL. Previously, Chris held the role of AXA ART’s Director of Underwriting for Northern Europe, Middle East & Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining AXA Art in 2012, Chris worked for Hiscox Syndicate 33 at Lloyd’s as a member of the Fine Art underwriting team. In addition, he has held positions at Bonhams Auctioneers and also Aon Artscope as a Fine Art Insurance Broker specialising in art and antique dealers. 

He is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, an elected member of the LMA/ IUA Joint Specie Committee since 2015 and served as Chairman between September 2019 and June 2023, and a member of PAIAM (Professional Advisors to the International Art Market).

Lord Holmes of Richmond

Chris Holmes is a passionate advocate for the potential of technology and the benefits of diversity and inclusion. His core policy focus is on digital technology for the public good with a particular interest in technologies such as AI and blockchain and areas of application such as fintech and trade. In Parliament, he specializes in legislation that deals with technology. He introduced a private members’ bill that proposed the regulation of artificial intelligence and was integral to the passing of the ground-breaking Electronic Trade Documents Bill.  On technology, he has previously co-authored House of Lords Select Committee Reports on: Democracy and Digital Technologies [2020], Artificial Intelligence [2018], and Digital Skills [2015] and under his own auspices published an influential report encouraging government testing of blockchain solutions for policy delivery, DLT for Public Good: leadership, collaboration and innovation [2017] He is also adviser to several tech and fintech companies. 

On inclusion, and again under his own auspices, he has published influential reports on accessibility in the public realmand support for disabled students as well as Lords reports on Financial Exclusion [2017], Social Mobility [2016] and, for the Cabinet Office, The Lord Holmes Review on opening up public appointments to disabled people. He continues to advise the government on diversity and inclusion. An ex-Paralympic swimmer, Chris won nine gold, five silvers and one bronze medal across four Games, including a record haul of six golds at Barcelona 1992.

Jo Lawson Tancred 

Jo Lawson-Tancred is an experienced art journalist. She is currently European News Reporter at Artnet News and has previously written for Apollo magazine, the Financial Times, the Guardian and BBC Culture. Her book AI and the Art Market (Lund Humphries) is coming out this autumn.

Chris Eastham 

Chris Eastham is a partner in Fieldfisher's Art law practice and has been a part of the firm's market-leading Technology and Data group for over a decade. Chris is an expert in advising art market participants on contractual and technology-related matters—from advising on the impact of AI on the creation of artistic works, and the creation of NFTs and digital assets, to the distribution of content via digital platforms, arrangements with agents and galleries, and immersive experiences. He is independently recognised as a 'Global Market Leader' in Artificial Intelligence and leads Fieldfisher's international cross-practice working group on AI and emerging technologies.

Annie Armstrong 

Annie Armstrong is a journalist specializing in the art market, based in New York City. Her gossip column for Artnet News “Wet Paint” is an industry must read, delivering weekly scoops on the fine art world in New York and beyond. Her work has also been published in the New York Times, The Art Newspaper, Frieze, ARTnews, and New York Magazine.

Adelaide Damoah 

British-Ghanaian artist Adelaide Damoah RWA is a London based multidisciplinary artist, using research based practices spanning painting, performance, collage, and photographic processes. Key areas of interest are colonialism, ecology, joy and feminism. Damoah has artwork in national and international public and private collections including the UK Government Art Collection. Exhibited in national and international galleries/institutions including Gagosian, she serves on the board of an art charity and is regularly involved in judging art competitions and public speaking.

Lanre Bakare 

Lanre Bakare is a correspondent covering arts and culture for the Guardian where his writing focuses on the intersection of art, race and culture across multiple disciplines. He was senior correspondent on the award-winning Cotton Capital project, which looked into the Guardian's and Britain's connections to the slavery economy. His debut book We Were There is out next April and is a social and cultural history of Black Britain during the Thatcher era, and is published by The Bodley Head.

Gonzalo Herrero Delicado 

Gonzalo Herrero Delicado is a curator, educator, and architect based in London, with over 15 years of experience developing curatorial projects and creative strategies for leading museums and cultural organizations around the world. His recent work explores the impact of the climate crisis and digital technologies on the world around us through design, architecture, and art practices.​ He is Curator of Art Dubai Digital 2025 and an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins. Previously, he was a Design Fellow at the University of Cambridge and held different curatorial positions at the Museum of the Future in Dubai, and Royal Academy of Arts, Design Museum and Serpentine in London.

Benedetta Ghione  

Benedetta Ghione is Executive Director at Art Dubai and is responsible for the strategic direction and delivery of Art Dubai with a focus on year-round programming and partnerships. She joined the fair team in 2015 and now leads Art Dubai’s institutional, governmental and commercial partnerships, with a focus on the development of the Art Dubai Digital initiative and its broader strategy. She also spearheads Art Dubai’s professional development and education initiatives.

Benedetta has nearly two decades’ experience in a range of international art businesses. Prior to joining Art Dubai, she worked at Sotheby's London, was a director at Luxembourg & Dayan gallery (now Luxembourg + Co) and was head of department, contemporary art, at Bonhams auction house.

Ben Cullen Williams  

Ben Cullen Williams is a London based artist, whose practice consists of sculptures, installations, photography and video. In his work, Williams explores humankind’s relationship to the world in a rapidly changing environment; he focuses on the intersection between space, technology and landscape. He has collaborated with Wayne McGregor, Polar Explorer Robert Swan and Google Arts and Culture and MIT Media Lab amongst others. His work has been shown internationally in a range of spaces, galleries and environments. Exhibitions, performances and screenings include Musée d’arts de Nantes, CAFA Art Museum Beijing, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Los Angeles, Somerset House London, Shinjuku Vision Tokyo and the Venice Biennale.

Tamar Clarke-Brown  

Tamar Clarke-Brown is an artist, writer and Curator (Arts Technologies, Serpentine). Her work centres alternative mythologies and diasporic practices, with a special focus on platforming underrepresented and overlooked imaginaries. At Serpentine, her work involves commissioning new artworks, events, research and R&D projects engaged with experimental worldbuilding and exploring the untapped civic and social potential of technologies. Most recently she commissioned and curated the collaborative video game project, web3 tokens and exhibition Third World: The Bottom Dimension, led by Brazilian artist Gabriel Massan. Currently she is working with artist, game designer and archivist of Black trans stories, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley for a new interactive game commission and exhibition opening at Serpentine North Autumn 2025. 

Chris Bentley  

Chris Bentley is Head of Fine Art & Specie, UK & Lloyd’s at AXA XL. Previously, Chris held the role of AXA ART’s Director of Underwriting for Northern Europe, Middle East & Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining AXA Art in 2012, Chris worked for Hiscox Syndicate 33 at Lloyd’s as a member of the Fine Art underwriting team. In addition, he has held positions at Bonhams Auctioneers and also Aon Artscope as a Fine Art Insurance Broker specialising in art and antique dealers. 

He is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, an elected member of the LMA/ IUA Joint Specie Committee since 2015 and served as Chairman between September 2019 and June 2023, and a member of PAIAM (Professional Advisors to the International Art Market).

to help teams better understand a project's climate impact and is the Director of Strategy at Art into Acres.  

Steven Hawkins 

Steven Hawkins is presently the Head of Specialty Lending for the International Private Bank as well as responsible for Emerging Markets Lending Advisory for Wealth Management at JP Morgan. Before transitioning to his current roles, he spent 5 years as a Senior Credit Executive and EMEA Head of Credit Risk, responsible for Wealth Management Credit Risk in EMEA.  Prior to that, he held various roles in Corporate and Investment Banking with J.P. Morgan in New York and London advising sovereigns, corporates and private clients in debt restructuring having originally joined Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000.  Steven graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1999.

Harco van den Oever 

Harco van den Oever is the founder and CEO of Overstone, a regulated company committed to unlocking the full potential of art as a valuable asset for its institutional clients through the combination of data analytics, art expertise and financial advisory. Harco brings over two decades of expertise at the intersection of art, finance, and technology to his current role.

His extensive career journey includes over a decade of leadership at Christie’s, where he served as the Continental European Head and Global Managing Director of the Impressionist and Modern Art Department. He has a solid foundation in debt capital markets, with twelve years of experience at leading financial institutions including Paribas, Bankers Trust, and Credit Suisse First Boston where he was head of LatAm structured debt distribution.

Harco pioneered the digital landscape with the founding of Fredfinds.com, the UK's first online mortgage brokerage business, acquired in 2001 by Netwindfall Ltd.

Harco has an MBA from University of Hartford, CT, is an INSEAD alumnus and member of PAIAM.

Nathanael Price  

Dr Nathanael Price - Director Hallett Independent Insurance Brokers 

Nathanael’s role is to negotiate and manage insurances for large private and corporate collections, galleries, museums and exhibitions in the UK and abroad.  

His academic background (PHD thesis dealing with Reformation era image controversies)  informs a wide-ranging interest in ancient, modern and contemporary art and architecture. In 2021 he joined the board of directors of the Burlington Magazine.  

Charlotte Black  

Charlotte Black is Co-Founder and Director of Artclear. Her background is in investment management and financial services infrastructure, as a former Director of Brewin Dolphin and the Euroclear Group, where she met Artclear Co-Founder Angus Scott. 

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and is Non-Executive Director of Abrdn Asia Focus PLC.

Charlotte’s previous roles include Non-Exec Director of Euroclear; the CISI and WMA variously between 1996–2016 and the senior management team of Brewin Dolphin for 28 years, where she headed its Marketing and Public Affairs teams and chaired its Stewardship Committee.

Sal Usmani

Sal Usmani, Chief Technology Officer, White Cube 

With over two decades of experience in the fashion industry, Sal Usmani is a self-proclaimed 'business technologist' who is passionate about leveraging technology to drive business innovation and operational efficiency. Throughout his career, he has been at the forefront of transforming how businesses utilise technology to adapt to market changes and increase profitability. Now, Sal is exploring how the art world can modernise its approach to attracting collectors. With a focus on data-driven analysis and digital transformation, he aims to help galleries and artists connect with collectors in new, innovative ways, enhancing the overall consumer experience. 

Rodrigo Esmela

Rodrigo Esmela, Chief Commercial and Product Officer | Arcual

Rodrigo is a dynamic commercial and product leader with a proven track record in driving hyper-growth strategies across innovative sectors. With a foundation in software engineering, Rodrigo transitioned early into product management, building deep expertise in innovation, finance, e-commerce, and since 2016, blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Currently serving as the Chief Commercial and Product Officer at Arcual, Rodrigo leads the development of Arcual’s blockchain platform that enhances the art community by providing digital infrastructure and tailored digital solutions that support ownership, participation, and sales.  Prior to Arcual, Rodrigo held pivotal roles in product leadership and innovation at Digital Asset and Thomson Reuters. He has consistently championed digital innovation throughout his career. In 2015, as Senior Innovation Manager, Rodrigo was part of the founding team of Thomson Reuters’ Startup Incubator. His experience also includes consulting for the Digital Government Agency in Uruguay between 2009 and 2014, where he led groundbreaking digital transformation initiatives such as the Presidential Cloud, the national mobile network, and the digital vehicle and public transportation registry.

Originally from Montevideo, Uruguay, Rodrigo holds a degree in Software Engineering from ORT University in Montevideo. He currently resides in Zug, Switzerland, where he continues to blend his passion for technology with a commitment to innovation.

Sammi Liu

Sammi Liu founded Tabula Rasa Gallery in Beijing in 2015, which has since expanded to London in 2021. The gallery showcases contemporary art from emerging and mid-career artists. She also co-hosts the Mandarin art book review podcast Art is Poison (since 2017), exploring art literature and critical ideas. Prior to this, Sammi was a journalist for The Art Newspaper Chinese edition in Beijing, covering art market trends. 

Carrie Chan

Carrie Chan is the Contemporary Programme Curator at the V&A Museum, London. She curates and commissions arts projects to activate the museum’s spaces. The projects include Friday Lates, V&A's programme during London Design Festival as well as other site-responsive installations and displays in the museum.  Her curatorial focus is on the fusion of digital and physical approaches to design, making and world-building. She is currently working with a broad array of London-based digital artists on a live programme reimagining technology's role in our lives at V&A South Kensington. 

While she was a Curator-in-Residence at FACT Liverpool, she looked into how interactive technologies and gaming enable Asian artists to challenge dominant, Western narratives. She was previously the Senior Curator at Design Society - a major design institution in Shenzhen co-founded by China Merchants Group and the V&A Museum - where she curated the opening show 'Minding the Digital' featuring over 50 local and international creative practices. She was a judge for Jerwood Arts / FACT Digital Fellowship, a nominator for London Design Museum's Beazley Design of the Year Award and an advisor for Collect in London.

Sougwen Chung 

Sougwen 愫君 Chung (b. 1985) is a Chinese-Canadian artist and researcher, widely recognized as a pioneer in human-machine collaboration. Their work explores the relationship between hand-made and machine-made marks, using this as a lens to understand the dynamics between humans and systems. One of their notable works, MEMORY (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 2), is part of the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the first AI model to be collected by a major institution. Recently, Chung was named a Cultural Leader at the World Economic Forum and one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI.

An award-winning artist, Chung has exhibited globally across institutions in North America, Europe, and Asia, with their work featured in numerous international publications such as The New York Times among others. They have held Artist-in-Residence positions at Google and other top institutions. Chung is also the founder of SCILICET, an experimental studio based in London.

Vivienne Chow

Vivienne Chow is an award-winning journalist and the London Correspondent for Artnet News, where she covers the art market and art world with a particular focus on Europe and Asia. She co-authors The Asia Pivot, Artnet Pro's biweekly members-only newsletter, offering essential analysis, insights, and exclusive intelligence on developments in Asia's art markets, with an emphasis on business opportunities and challenges. Previously based in Hong Kong, Chow brings over two decades of experience in arts and culture reporting. Her work has appeared in various publications such as BBC Culture, Variety, The Art Newspaper, Quartz, and the South China Morning Post. In addition to journalism, she founded a non-profit and served as an honorary lecturer at universities.