Katy Tallon plays an operational management role at Bafta albert Ltd as well as looking after the Sports Consortium and Education Partnership. She has a background in both TV production and as a freelance sustainability consultant and holds an MSc in Carbon Management. Passionate about inspiring sustainability at all levels of society, she enables sports broadcasters to recognise how they are uniquely placed to mobilise audiences towards positive action for the planet.
Main Summit
Jennifer Amann
Jennifer Amann recently graduated from the University of Gothenburg with a Master of Science in Global Studies focusing on conflict resolution and sustainable development. Having started to look into the social and environmental commitment of German professional football clubs in 2018, she moved on to explore the potential of football fans in the fight against climate change as part of a research internship with Dr Mark Doidge from the University of Brighton. In her subsequent Master’s thesis she connected literature on mobilising climate action and football fandom to explore football fan communities’ potential to take collective climate action and bring about societal transformations using the UK-based charity Pledgeball as her case.
In addition to Pledgeball’s strategy, Jennifer’s research feeds into, for example, Spirit of Football’s The Ball journey, which aims to highlight the unequal impacts of climate change and possible solutions around the world. She’s a member of the Sport Ecology Group’s Graduate Mentorship Programme and has recently taken on the coordination of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Environmental Working Group.
Michael Gaughan
Michael Gaughan is working with Transport for West Midlands as Spectator Transport Manager, Active Travel and Accessible Transport for the next Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Michael has more than 10 years experience developing transport systems for major events in the UK and internationally.
Michael has worked across the full spectrum of event transport; developing transport systems for athletes and games family, workforce and spectators. He has taken his experience to work on the next Commonwealth Games to deliver an active travel strategy that builds on existing programmes and services to create an innovative and integrated active travel programme.
Sarah Hanffou
Sarah Hanffou, President of Ping sans Frontières (NGO created in 2006) is a French-Cameroonian with PHD in Public Law – Attorney in France. Her other sporting achievements include:
Team France:
Participation in the London Olympics and qualified for the Tokyo Olympics (Team Cameroon)
Participation in 7 World Championships
Ambassador of the International Table Tennis Federation Foundation (ITTF Foundation)
Member of the Athletes Commission of the International Table Tennis Federation
Member of the Incubator Paris 2024 / AFD
Team Cameroon:
African Champion 2010 – Team Bronze Medal 2010
Participation in the London 2012 Olympic Games
Silver medal at the 2019 African Games
Qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games
3rd place in the African Top 16 2020
She is also an Officer (captain) in the French Army (Land army) during 5 years (currently reservist).
Geert Hendriks
Geert is Founding Director and Board Member of Sport and Sustainability International (SandSI) where he spearheads the development of two programmes: Football4Climate and the Sustainable Sport Lab.
He worked for the past two decades in both the private, public and sport sector. Since 2012, he worked with 40+ different international sports organisations on projects in the areas of sustainability and education, including the IOC, UEFA, FIFA, FIBA, FIVB, World Rugby, professional sports leagues (US), cities and six (Youth) Olympic Games Organising Committees. He also (co-) authored several books and won the Peace & Sports Award for the project “From Refugee Camp to the Rio 2016 Olympics”.
He is based in Lausanne and currently works as Chief Engagement Officer with The SHIFT, a group of purpose-driven entrepreneurs in sport, sustainability and innovation.
In the past few years, he (co-)authored a variety of books and studies on sport and sustainability with a focus on the Olympic Games and International Federations. He is member of several advisory boards, co-founder of the Republic of Sport and vice-president of the Swiss Korfball Federation.
As a good Dutchman, he daily commutes by bicycle to work and like to practice nearly every sport that involves a ball.
Marisa Schlenker
Marisa Schlenker (USA /GER) – Community and program manager at the Yunus Sports Hub. With more than seven years experience in the sport for development sector, she has worked as a trainer, program manager, partnerships coordinator, gender specialist and more recently in monitoring, evaluation and learning roles.
She has a masters in sport for development and conflict resolution from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and is finishing her second masters at Konstanz University in Public Administration and Political Science. She has worked on many sustainability in sport research projects, is a member of the Sport Ecology Graduate Mentorship Programme, provides programme support to SandSI’s football4climate initiative and most recently joined the Sustainability Reference Group of the International Biathlon Union.
She is engaged in the FARE Network’s LGBTQI and Ethnic Minority Women in Football working groups. In 2018- 2019, she was the lead researcher of the EU funded Global Goals World Cup Erasmus + project.
Antti Autti
A professional snowboarder and entrepreneur with passion for culture of going up and down the hill. At the heart of my lifestyle is movement, through which I find a connection to nature. With my own work, I want to highlight he different possibilities of moving around in nature and encouraging people to believe their own stories.
Simon Futcher
Having started life and his early career as a professional footballer, his move off the pitch saw Simon delve into the world of sustainable solutions.
Simon joined Veolia 14 years ago, where he has worked in a variety of commercial roles before beginning his current expanded position as Commercial Business Development Director in April 2023. As well as the commercial sales and account management teams, he also has responsibility for customer experience and innovation, supporting the delivery of sustainable solutions to Veolia’s commercial portfolio. Simon’s teams support Veolia’s 60,000+ UK customer base.
Simon is committed to driving sustainable innovation and partnering with customers to reduce their carbon footprint, alongside developing circular projects and their journey towards ecological transformation. He is a passionate supporter of creating a more sustainable sporting landscape for the future.
Helen Falkus
Helen has worked in Sports broadcasting for over 20 years. She started at Sunset and Vine covering the Channel4 Cricket and Channel 5 football output.
A couple of years at Sky New Zealand followed before she joined Sky Sports in 2006. Helen is now Sky Sports Director of Multi Sports, was shortlisted for a WST ‘Ambassador for Women’s Sport’ award in 2018 and is a member of the Sky Sports Content Sustainability group, championing environmental issues within Sky Sports coverage.
She is a keen netball and tennis player and has 3 daughters.
Lauren MacCallum
