Testimonials

People say the nicest things. In case you’re thinking of booking me for a speaking or presenting event, or you are still wondering whether to buy a copy of Working the Cloud, here’s a selection of testimonials from people I have worked with previously. If you’d like to add your voice email info@katerussell.co.uk. If you have time to watch me in action I have posted a selection of different videos at the end of this page, covering the types of events I usually do, like this TEDx talk from 2014.

 Speaking & presenting

Jaisica Lapsiwala Head of Event Content
IBC, Sept 2018

“Amazing! Kate was fantastic to work with and truly contributed to the success of the 2018 edition of IBC in Amsterdam.  Her commitment and research into the topics and personalities on stage really shone through, as she led dynamic discussion and engaged with the audiences.  I’d 100% ask Kate to participate in future IBCs and would recommend her for other events.”

Intel Cyber Security Summit UKI 2015

“Kate was very professional and engaging. She was well prepared and kept our speakers on track. She was very approachable for us and our audience. She contributed significantly to the great day that was had by everyone.”

Head of Press & PR
BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

As the Chartered Institute for IT, it is important our events are hosted by a professional who is credible within the industry. Kate is a consummate professional and brings that credibility and knowledge to our events whether they are discussion forums or celebratory events.  Kate is very thorough in her preparation and research for events and is accomplished at helping other speakers and guests feel at ease. She works hard to entertain the audience and keep things running to schedule.  For this reason she is on our list of top event hosts.

Harriet McKenzie, Head of Events
Policy Exchange

With her experience, knowledge and clear passion for all things technology related, Kate made a fantastic Chair for our discussion on the future of Britain’s broadband.  Using her journalistic acumen, Kate asked all the right probing questions of our panellists and facilitated a lively debate. As both an informative and entertaining speaker, we were delighted with Kate’s contribution to the discussion.

Fran O’Leary, Co-Founder and Director of Lodestone, providing secretariat services to

Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum (Pictfor) All Party Parliamentary Group

We were delighted that Kate Russell Chaired the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum Annual Dinner in the House of Lords in 2016. The insight, depth of knowledge of the sector, experience and expertise that she brought to Chairing this All Party Parliamentary Group event was invaluable. Attended by MPs, Members of the House of Lords, policy-makers, business people, journalists and other stakeholders, the event covered a wide range of issues – from ethics in innovation to copyright – and Kate ensured that discussion progressed smoothly.

Emma Hosgood,

KNect365 – Broadband World Forum session chair

Kate was professional, dynamic and engaging. She had done her research well and knew everything she needed to know about the topic, event and panelists. She really livened up a panel discussion which was very male-dominated. Would highly recommend her to anyone and welcome her to future events.

Emma Lowther, Director of External Relations

Internet Watch Foundation

When we held a global conference to discuss worldwide efforts to remove child sexual abuse images from the internet Kate was the obvious choice to chair discussions. She is immersed in the issues, extremely knowledgeable on both the policy and technical aspects of internet discussions and she oozes professionalism. Indeed, working with her was effortless and we had absolute faith in her abilities. The conference was a massive success. It resulted in praise and recognition for our organisation as well as an offer by a multinational, high profile company to sponsor our next event. Kate’s contribution in helping us gain this cannot be understated. We would work with her again without a second’s thought.

Andrzej K. Moyseowicz,  Co Founder
Freemavens

I was in a desperate hunt for a dynamic, talented, tech & business savvy presenter who was as comfortable in a fast paced studio environment as she was on a live event stage. Luckily, I was introduced to Kate Russell who is not only super professional, adaptable, and an incredibly engaging interviewer; she is a stand out talent behind and in front of the camera. She puts the team around her at ease and never loses her cool that makes her so approachable you will find additional opportunities to work with her. She participated in a multinational campaign for a top 20 global brand while also hosting a live event with 2000 attendees. One second she was interviewing the #2 in command at a company that makes over $35B dollars in revenue and then interviewing a panel on stage two seconds later. On top of all this, her social media presence (she has >30k followers on Twitter for example) ensures that she can help generate reach but also engage with other influencers. She is a generous soul who has produced great content for us and used her social presence to amplify our campaign.

Sophie Lawson, Senior Director, EMEA Marketing

ForgeRock

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Kate in a corporate capacity on a couple of occasions this year. Firstly, for an exclusive networking event where we needed a pre-dinner speaker. Secondly, for our Identity Summit world series, where Kate provided the closing keynote. Kate is tech savvy as well as commercially aware, a thought-provoking and entertaining speaker who easily engages with audiences at various levels. She takes the time to understand what you are trying to achieve, who your audience is and what channel you are communicating through. Kate is a true professional and a joy to work with. Her content is current, relevant and appealing. Rarely have I worked with an industry speaker who is so adaptable and collaborative in her approach.

Roger Brown, CEO
Peerius

We invited Kate to deliver this class [Perfect Presentations: Address to Impress] to our Sales, marketing, business development and product management staff recently and it was a complete success. Not only was it a fun and engaging session but she shared some of the secrets of confident presenting that she has picked up during her years of being on television and in front of live audiences. Everyone benefited from the simple tips she shared to engage and make an impact. As well as this she shared an amazing collection of websites and software tools to help create stylish and dynamic presentations and promo films. No more ‘death by PowerPoint’, we have not only given our presentation style a complete makeover but we can now save money making promo films and simple animations ourselves instead of contracting expensive graphic artists and animators. I would definitely recommend this class to anyone who wants to have more fun creating and presenting sales and marketing material.

Education

I frequently get asked to speak at schools and education events, inspiring the next generation of tech enthusiasts (I hope!). It’s incredibly rewarding work, especially when you get letters of thanks like this, published with the kind permission of the school:

Dear Miss Russell,

On behalf of the year 11 students from Stainburn and Southfield schools, I would like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come to Workington and speak with our young people. We have had excellent feedback from our students who were highly impressed and motivated by your presentation, especially with the background information you addressed, about employment prospects in our area, as well as how much coding affects other areas of the work place.

Here is an unedited selection of their reflections on your visit:

Female student: “In the future, I would like to go to university to study film production and editing. I did not know a lot about how I could go about this because I was not aware that editing involved a lot of skills, one of these being coding. The presentation by Kate Russell really inspired me to carry on researching film production and it also made me want to visit some coding websites and learn how to code using the online lessons. I felt like I could relate to Kate’s ambition and love for technology. I learned a lot about technology through the ages which fascinated me on how people have brought their dreams to reality. Kate’s success has inspired me to go to university and try my hardest to achieve what she has and, hopefully, end up doing a job I love that I will be happy to do for the rest of my life.”

Male student: “Some of the other students, that I have asked, and I really enjoyed your presentation and I know that my friends and I have started using the Codecademy website; I have really enjoyed learning how to code in Java. I had been considering coding as a job for over the past year but I wasn’t really sure how I could start and this has really helped me with a place to start; I am really grateful for you coming and giving us your presentation because if you hadn’t, I would probably have not bothered looking into coding too much. I would like to thank you for coming and giving this presentation to Stainburn School and Science College and Southfield School and Technology College.”

Female student: “I think that the talk that we had was very inspiring and it has made me become more interested and aware of what coding is and how it could benefit me. Also, it has made me consider whether to look on the coding sites on the Internet to find out more information.”

Male student: ”I thought the talk with Kate Russell was very beneficial as it gave us a detailed insight into the world of technology and the opportunities that are available. I also learned about how to get into computer coding and what kind of jobs today’s technology can lead to.”

It is rare for our students to have the opportunity to meet someone of your experience and talent; I am sure that the experience will remain with many of them for some time to come.

David Whale, IET Schools Liaison Officer, Essex

STEM Ambassador, Essex and Herts.

“In July this year, we ran a computing enrichment day for a couple of hundred school children, where they attended a range of technology workshops including using the Raspberry Pi computer. We were looking for an engaging and up-beat speaker to give a final inspiring talk at the end, and Kate kindly agreed to help!

Kate did such a fantastic job of inspiring our budding engineers, setting technology in a context that made sense to them and she really connected with everyone in the audience. She is very knowledgeable about technology and very approachable, and also spent time at the end talking with a number of the children about their ideas and how to develop them further. 

It was fantastic to see everyone so enthusiastic about taking what they had learnt from the day and heading off to invent the future! There is the added bonus that through BBCClick and her website and other projects, Kate is a great positive role model for children to follow and continue growing their learning and enthusiasm for technology beyond the event.

If you are looking for someone to come and inspire your audience, get in touch with Kate – she far exceeded our expectations of what we thought would be possible in the time available!”

Letters of thanks

I bought a copy of ‘Working the Cloud’ and I am really enjoying it and learning a lot from it. On chapter 7 at the moment and it is helping me slowly migrate my grandma’s business onto the cloud. We’ve already started work on a Twitter and Facebook page and she seems to be gathering a crowd some of which are engaging with us which is great.

Thanks again,

Liam Pape, Editor of Darlington School of Maths and Science newspaper ‘The Wyvern”

TWITTER TESTIMONIALS

Alun Hughes @Alun_Hughes

Panel discussion moderation at the EBLIDA conference in Latvia

Panel Chair: Will Virtual Environments Replace the Classroom? Global Education and Skills Forum 2018

Panel Contributor: How Students and Educators can Combat Fake News. Global Education and Skills Forum 2018