The Global Auction House Summit brings together leading auction industry representatives to discuss strategies for innovation in the art world across two days of speakers, panel discussions, and interactive sessions from industry experts and global influencers. We look forward to seeing you again in 2020.
2019 Sponsors
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2019 Speakers & Moderators
JOHN ALBRECHT
Proprietor and Managing Director of Leonard Joel
JOHN ALBRECHT
Proprietor and Managing Director of Leonard Joel
John Albrecht is the Proprietor and Managing Director of Leonard Joel in Australia. His father, Kurt Albrecht, owned and operated esteemed jewelry retailer Kozminsky. Mr. Albrecht’s education culminated with an MBA thesis at RMIT on the commoditization of Australian art and its recent art fund activity, in addition to a bachelor of law degree and arts degree from Monash University. Mr. Albrecht founded the modern-day jewelry department at Leonard Joel over two decades ago. He also worked at Kozminsky, founding its art gallery and serving as director of the firm before returning to Leonard Joel in 2006. Mr. Albrecht established Joel Fine Art and conducted major auctions for two years before becoming Managing Director of Leonard Joel in 2009 and executing a successful takeover of the auction house in 2011.
Katherine Arnold
Co-Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe of Christie’s
Katherine Arnold
Co-Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe of Christie’s
Katharine Arnold is the Co-Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art Europe. She graduated with first class honours from the University of Oxford in 2006, gaining master’s degrees in both International Relations at the London School of Economics in 2007 and Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2009. Prior to joining Christie’s she worked in Global Equity Sales at Merrill Lynch in London.
Katharine began her career at Christie’s in 2010 and has always been dedicated to the Evening Auction: first, with a focus on research and scholarly writing for the auction catalogues and then as a specialist. She authored and designed many of the major vanity catalogues to accompany the sale of record breaking works in London. In 2013, Katharine was responsible for writing and creating the 200 page book which accompanied the sale of Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) by Francis Bacon, which made the world record for any work of art at auction selling for $142 million.
Katharine has worked on 18 successful auction seasons in London including several important single owner collections. Most recently she has been responsible for the Leslie Waddington Collection auction at Christie’s which sold 100% by lot and 100% by value. She was also head of sale for the Essl: 44 Works single owner collection auction, which represents the highest pre-sale value, single owner collection of Post-War and Contemporary Art, ever to be offered at auction in Europe. In July 2014, Katharine was closely connected to the successful sale of Tracey Emin’s My Bed, which resulted in an outstanding result of £2.5million, more than 3 times the low estimate and six times higher than the artist’s previous record.
Martina Batovic
Director, UK of Dorotheum
Martina Batovic
Director, UK of Dorotheum
Martina has more than a decade of experience at the high end of the international art world, having worked across all three major areas of the market: auction, gallery and advisory. Martina started her career with a Mayfair art advisory company sourcing artworks for private and corporate clients globally across all areas of the art market. Martina then moved to a role of a Sales Director in a prominent contemporary photography gallery in Mayfair, followed by work as a Contemporary Specialist in the Post-War & Contemporary Department of a major international auction house, where she was responsible for sourcing, valuing, cataloguing and selling artworks at auctions in London, New York and Hong Kong.
Martina is currently the UK Director for Dorotheum, one of the oldest auction houses in operation today. She comes to Dorotheum with a multi-faceted view & experience of the art world. As a Specialist and an expert in the field, Martina is passionate about art of the Post-War period, especially European avant-garde movements of the 1950s and 1960s, and the place of female artists in the (current) art market.
Evan Beard
National Art Services Executive of U.S. Trust
Evan Beard
National Art Services Executive of U.S. Trust
Evan Beard is the National Art Services Executive with U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management. Headquartered in New York City, Mr. Beard leads the bank’s outreach to private and institutional art collectors, investors and artists nationwide. He directs a team of specialists who provide a suite of tailored offerings to a select group of families, auction houses, museums, endowments and foundations. An authority on art-related investing and financing, Mr. Beard directs the end-to-end provision of services to clients in the art world, including trust structuring and estate planning services, art-secured lending, financing and philanthropic services. He also advises clients whose portfolios include exotic assets such as automobiles, wine, watches, coins, gems and precious metals.
Prior to joining U.S. Trust, Mr. Beard was the U.S. Art and Finance leader for Deloitte Consulting, where he directed strategy and implementation to hedge funds, private banks, art-secured lending firms, and private clients. He began his tenure as a Strategy Manager in the Private Banking Group at Deloitte. Previously, he served as a U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer in Washington, D.C., and the Middle East, advising the Pentagon, NATO and Joint Staff on bilateral intelligence-sharing agreements with Middle East allies.
Mr. Beard earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from the U.S. Naval Academy. He also holds a Master’s degree in Classics from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and a Master’s degree from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He speaks regularly on art and exotic asset classes at major art fairs and investment conferences worldwide. He is a frequent media contributor to national news organizations regarding the intersection of art and finance, and supports a number of arts organizations.
Tom Best
Director & Auctioneer of The Auction Collective
Tom Best
Director & Auctioneer of The Auction Collective
Tom Best is the founder of The Auction Collective, a primary market auction initiative that partners with artists, art advisers and galleries to run auctions of artwork from under-represented and emerging artists. The formation of The Auction Collective in 2017, was an opportunity to reinvent the auction model for today’s consumer behaviour. As such, The Auction Collective charge no buyer’s commission, have developed unique downloadable auction paddles and are incorporating the latest in FinTech and VR technology to enhance the user experience.
Tom first caught the auction ‘bug’ at 19, whilst selling fruit and veg at his local village hall. Several years later, and after a Masters in Art History from St Andrews University, he joined Christie’s Auction House as a specialist in Impressionist & Modern art then later Post-War & Contemporary art – he was one of the youngest auctioneers to take to a Christie’s rostrum.
In 2016, moved by the escalating crisis in Syria, Tom stepped away from the art world to join the humanitarian charity Start Network, where he worked for two years before dedicating his full time to The Auction Collective in 2018. Tom is on the board of Easel, a social mobility initiative for the art market that promotes equality in employment in the art industry. During his time as an auctioneer, Tom has also helped raise over £13 million for good causes through taking charity auctions.
Filippo Bolaffi
CEO of the Bolaffi Group
Filippo Bolaffi
CEO of the Bolaffi Group
Filippo Bolaffi is the CEO of the Bolaffi Group of companies, Italian leader in the world collectibles, with around 130 employees and premises in Turin, Milan, Rome and Verona. Founded in 1890 in Turin, Italy, Bolaffi’s core business is the retail trade of stamps and coins. With the opening in the early ‘90s of Aste Bolaffi, the group’s auction house, set up as a sister company, the traditional business has slowly expanded to include other collecting sectors.
After horizontal expansion through the opening of over 20 new departments in 10 years, the auction house has also initiated a vertical expansion, which in 2018 culminated in two international deals: the acquisition of two historic, specialized auction houses, one in Barcelona and one in London.
Filippo, great-grandson of the founder, represents the fourth generation to manage the company; he graduated from the University of Turin with a degree in Economics and Business and then got an MBA degree from Babson College in Boston. Although he doesn’t consider himself an expert in any sector, his DNA is surely philatelic and his more recent expertise is vintage technology. Throughout his career he has also worked in other industries, including that of renewable energy, and lived for an extended period in New York City. Passionate about dogs and sports, complaining about not having enough time to play them, at least at work he managed to have some contact with them again, opening up in 2016 the sports memorabilia department.
Anna Brady
Art Market Editor of The Art Newspaper
Anna Brady
Art Market Editor of The Art Newspaper
Anna is the The Art Newspaper’s art market editor and has reported on the art and antiques industry for over 10 years. She was previously features editor at Harper’s Bazaar Art and Interiors magazines in Dubai, and before that wrote for the weekly Antiques Trade Gazette. As a freelance journalist, she has written for Apollo, Wallpaper, BOAT International, House & Garden and World of Interiors among others.
Anthony Calnek
Sr. Vice President, Worldwide Director of Media Services of Sotheby’s
Anthony Calnek
Sr. Vice President, Worldwide Director of Media Services of Sotheby’s
In his 10-year tenure at Sotheby’s, Anthony Calnek has led initiatives that have transformed the way this 274-year-old company engages with its most important clients, attracts new audiences, and conducts business in a rapidly changing environment. He has primary responsibility for Sothebys.com, a web site at the center of the company’s digital strategy and that attracts more than 18 million visitors annually, and manages an award-winning video and content team based in New York, London and Hong Kong. In 2016, Calnek launched the Sotheby’s Museum Network, a unique online portal featuring information and content from more than 1,700 museums.
Calnek began his career in the art world 30 years ago, as an editor and writer for international art magazines. In 1990, he joined the staff of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, rising to become Deputy Director for Communications and Publishing. Over the course of 16 years, he built an international publishing program, launched the Guggenheim’s web site, and oversaw its retail, press, and marketing departments. Directly before joining Sotheby’s, he was Vice President for Communications and Marketing at the New York Public Library.
Alexandre Catsicas
Co-Founder and CEO of ARTMYN
Alexandre Catsicas
Co-Founder and CEO of ARTMYN
Alexandre Catsicas is co-founder and CEO of ARTMYN – a Swiss based company offering a new generation of technological tools and services for the Art ecosystem. Combining thousands of ultra-high resolution photographs captured with different light sources and spectrum, including UV lights, ARTMYN’s scanners allow to generate interactive 5D images and movies that provide an emotional experience on screen. The scanning process also extracts the “DNA” of an artwork by acquiring its unique features – hence making the original unfalsifiable.
Following his studies in Business and Finance at Fordham University NY, Alexandre began his professional career in the private banking and commodity trading industries. With the desire to combine his experience in business with his passion for Art and History, he pursued a Masters degree in History of Art and Art World Practices at Glasgow University, which then led him to join Christie’s London.
After realizing the importance and potential of new technologies for the Art ecosystem, Alexandre moved back to his hometown where he partnered up with a team of highly qualified scientists and engineers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). ARTMYN is the result of their collaboration.
Alex is also an advanced CMAS scuba diver, as well as a black belt and former captain of the Fordham University Taekwondo team.
DJ Charles
Chief Technology Officer at Invaluable
DJ Charles
Chief Technology Officer at Invaluable
D.J. Charles joined Invaluable in April of 2013 and brings over 20 years of technical Interactive, e-commerce and enterprise mobility experience. Prior to Invaluable, Mr. Charles was the CTO at Perillon Software, provisioning high-volume SaaS-based systems for global companies. Before that, he served as Chief Architect at Intuitive Manufacturing Systems/SupplyWorks, where he developed e-procurement and shop-floor replenishment platforms for the retail and automotive industries. He has also contributed to technical solutions for hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies worldwide.
Brendan Ciecko
Founder and CEO of Cuseum
Brendan Ciecko
Founder and CEO of Cuseum
Brendan Ciecko is the founder and CEO of Cuseum, a platform that helps museums and cultural organizations engage their visitors, members, and patrons. Ciecko has been building technology since the age of 11 and has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as being one of America’s top entrepreneurs under 30. Ciecko has been featured in The New York Times, WIRED, The Guardian, Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Esquire, and PC Magazine for his work in design, technology, and business. In addition, Ciecko currently sits on the Steering Committee of the Museum Council at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Digital Advisory Board at the Neue Galerie New York, and the Community Advisory Board for the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts. He holds three patents in the area of mobile technology.
Andrea Danese
Chief Executive Officer and President of Athena Art Finance
Andrea Danese
Chief Executive Officer and President of Athena Art Finance
Andrea Danese has over 25 years of experience in specialty finance and financial technology. Andrea co-founded Athena Art Finance in March 2015 alongside Carlyle Group and Pictet Group. Until November 2014, he was Global Head of Enterprise Content and Distribution at Bloomberg LP. Prior to that, he was the President and COO of Creditex, a credit derivatives electronic trading platform. Creditex was sold to Intercontinental Exchange in 2008. Andrea started his career in London, where he worked in the Structured Products Group at JP Morgan and later became Chief Operating Officer at Deutsche Bank’s global credit derivatives business. Andrea earned a JD from the University of Rome (Italy) and an LLM from Queen Mary and Westfield College at the University of London.
Stephanie Dieckvoss
Senior Lecturer and Course Director, MA Art Market and Appraisal of Kingston School of Art
Stephanie Dieckvoss
Senior Lecturer and Course Director, MA Art Market and Appraisal of Kingston School of Art
Stephanie Dieckvoss is a German art historian living in London. She works as an academic, journalist and arts professional. She joined the department of the Creative and Cultural Industries, Kingston School of Art, Kingston University, in September 2017 as senior lecturer and course director for MA Art Market and Appraisal (Professional Practice). She oversees the management of the course and is responsible for the modules on History of the Art Market and Professional Practice. She furthermore teaches at Central Saint Martins on Art History, Art Markets and Globalisation; and at Sotheby’s Institute of Art Online Faculty and IESA (Institut d’Études Supérieures des Arts), Paris.
Her research interests centre around contemporary art markets, cultural globalisation and the art school as institution. She currently focuses her research on art fairs and power and on private museums in emerging markets. In addition to her academic work, she writes as a journalist for Handelsblatt and the Neue Zuercher Zeitung and runs Kunstburo consultancy. Before becoming an academic, she held numerous positions in the professional art market for more than a decade.
Jakob Dupont
CEO of Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Fine Art
Jakob Dupont
CEO of Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Fine Art
With a background in computer science from the University of Copenhagen and as co-owner of a software development company, Jakob Dupont was appointed IT manager at Bruun Rasmussen in 1995 – a job that allowed him to combine his technical expertise with a strong personal interest in art and antiques. Mr. Dupont was the driving force behind the launch of the online auctions in 2004 and joined the Executive Board in 2008. By virtue of his strategic skills and his great insight into the company and the auction industry in general, he was appointed Managing Director in the summer of 2013. It is his goal that traditional auctions and the online auctions continue to complement one another, and for him, it is vital that Bruun Rasmussen is at the forefront when it comes to expertise and customer satisfaction.
Richard Entrup
Global Chief Information Officer of Christie’s
Richard Entrup
Global Chief Information Officer of Christie’s
Richard Entrup is the Global Chief Information Officer with responsibility for the strategic vision and leadership of the Christie’s Technology Group, a global team focused on exploring how technology, digital transformation and data can support and enable the business via operational excellence, innovation and the creation of engaging digital products.
Prior to Christie’s, Richard held various technology leadership roles at prominent global brands including Disney/ABC TV Group, Time Warner, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Viacom, and Tiffany & Company. He also served as CIO at a major global law firm and several healthcare companies with documented success aligning technology investment to strategic business objectives.
Richard has significant experience managing all traditional areas of a global technology function as well as Digital Media, Broadcasting, Omni-channel Retail systems, Digital Marketing, Emerging Technologies (AR, VR,AI, Blockchain), Data & Analytics, Cybersecurity, Audio Visual and Live Event/Venue Management.
Richard is a frequent speaker at various media and technology conferences and an active CIO Advisory Board member for HMG Strategy, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Evanta and CIO Perspectives. Richard is also a Mentor to students in the Executive Master of Science in Technology Management Program at Columbia University.
Pierre Fautrel
Co-Founder of Obvious
Pierre Fautrel
Co-Founder of Obvious
Pierre Fautrel co-founded the French art collective Obvious with two childhood friends, Hugo Caselles-Dupré and Gauthier Vernier. Working with a group of artists, researchers and friends, they are using AI to create original artworks. At the center of their efforts is a central question: “How creative can machines be when creating art?” Obvious is exploring this question by lowering the level of human intervention in the creative process as much as possible. The collective made global headlines recently when an AI piece it created, “Portrait of Edmond Belamy,” became the first-ever computer generated work of art sold at Christie’s – fetching a staggering $432,500, more than 40 times its high estimate.
Andy Foster
Chief Digital Officer of Phillips
Andy Foster
Chief Digital Officer of Phillips
Andy Foster focuses on the digital and online aspects of Phillips’ growth strategy. In this area, the auction house’s capability and delivery has dramatically expanded over the past two years, centered on state of the art online transaction capabilities and featuring substantial increases in content and context, all resulting in much deeper client engagement. Prior to Phillips, Mr. Foster worked closely with the government of Doha for several years on key art projects. Before that he held a range of senior management responsibilities at Christie’s for more than a decade.
Melanie Gerlis
Columnist of the Financial Times
Melanie Gerlis
Columnist of the Financial Times
Melanie Gerlis became the weekly art market columnist for the Financial Times in 2016 and also contributes regular articles for the paper. She was previously Art Market Editor for The Art Newspaper, reporting on auctions, art fairs and market news globally since 2007.
Before entering the art world, Melanie worked for ten years at Finsbury, a strategic communications and investor relations firm, advising investment banks, hedge funds and other financial services clients.
She has a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University and an MA in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London.
Melanie is a trustee of The Art Academy and Art360 and a member of the governing body for Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
Her book, ‘Art as an Investment? A Survey of Comparative Assets’, was published by Lund Humphries in 2014.
David Goodman
EVP, Digital Development & Marketing of Sotheby’s
David Goodman
EVP, Digital Development & Marketing of Sotheby’s
David Goodman joined Sotheby’s in May 2015 as Executive Vice President, Digital Development and Marketing. Over the past two years, he has spearheaded numerous initiatives aimed to drive growth by incorporating best-in-class technology into client-facing products and processes. Under his leadership, innovations have included: the launch of apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android phone, Amazon Fire, Samsung Smart TV and Apple TV, which was named one of Apple’s “Best New Apps”; the launch of the Sotheby’s Museum Network, the premiere online destination to discover information and video content about the world’s leading museums; the development of a powerful publishing company within Sotheby’s that is driving registration for auctions and significant visibility for clients and events; the implementation of sophisticated internal digital advertising and analytics programs; and online sales that exceeded $150 million in 2016. Mr. Goodman came to Sotheby’s from The Madison Square Garden Company, where he was the President of Productions and Live Entertainment. Prior to his role at MSG, he was President of CBS Live Experiences, following key positions at the company including President of CBS Interactive Music Group and President of Digital Media and Integrated Marketing for CBS Radio. Mr. Goodman has also served as an executive at Warner Bros., The Warner Music Group, Saban Entertainment, and in the US and international television business.
Sarah Greenberg
Founder & Director of Evergreen Arts
Sarah Greenberg
Founder & Director of Evergreen Arts
Sarah Greenberg, a former arts journalist, founded Evergreen Arts in 2015 as an alternative to traditional PR. A consultancy specializing in international arts communications and content, Evergreen Arts focuses on creating museum-quality content across a variety of media to help clients tell their stories. Selected clients include public art spaces and events, such as the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art and the Carmignac Foundation, as well as commercial galleries including Tornabuoni Art, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert and Lyndsey Ingram. In addition, she works with collectors building private museums and sculpture parks, such as Donum Winery in Sonoma and the Foster Foundation in Palo Alto, and with a variety of businesses in the arts and luxury fields. A Californian transplanted to London, she has worked in the international art world for over 20 years in journalism, museums and the art market and has long-standing relationships with key players in these areas. Before founding Evergreen Arts, Sarah served as Director of Communications and Marketing for Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art, Europe. Previously, she worked for over a decade at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, where she edited the RA Magazine and worked at a senior level of the organisation. She also worked for many years as a journalist and editor at publications such as The Art Newspaper, The Economist (where she was the first dedicated art correspondent) and Tate Magazine (which she helped found). She has also written for publications including Art News, W, Harper’s Bazaar Art China and Condé Nast Traveller (US and UK editions). Having lived and worked in Paris and in Italy, she speaks fluent French and Italian. Educated at Brown University (BA in Classics), the Courtauld Institute and University College London, she holds an MA in the History of Art and has expertise in both the cultural and commercial aspects of the art world.
Henry Highley
Senior Specialist, Director, 20th Century and Contemporary Art, and Principal Auctioneer of Phillips
Henry Highley
Senior Specialist, Director, 20th Century and Contemporary Art, and Principal Auctioneer of Phillips
Henry Highley joined Phillips at the start of 2008 and is Senior Specialist, Director, in the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Department. Based in London, Henry is active in consigning and selling works at all levels with a focus on 1980’s to the present day. He also acts as Phillips Principal Auctioneer, taking a variety of sales including the Contemporary Art Evening sales in London and New York. Through his work as a charity auctioneer, Henry has helped raise millions of pounds at galas and philanthropic events. Prior to Phillips, Henry received his BA (Hons) in History of Art.
Anna-Sophie Hollenders
Senior Associate of Raue LLP
Anna-Sophie Hollenders
Senior Associate of Raue LLP
Dr. Anna-Sophie Hollenders is a Senior Associate at Raue LLP, one of the leading German law firms in the field of media, arts and cultural institutions. She advises on all matters of media and intellectual property law.
Anna-Sophie studied at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany and at the Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. She acquired her Dr. iur. at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany.
Anna-Sophie has many years of experience and a special understanding of the interests of artists and cultural institutions, private collectors and auction houses whom she advises on all matters of copyright law, restitution law and cultural property law. Her expertise ranges from the drafting and negotiating of agreements to the representation in court and out-of-court disputes and the advice on cultural policy matters. Another further important aspect of her work is the support of companies during the development and implementation of digital business models providing advice on IT law and data protection law.
Bas Kuiper
Founder of Amsterdam Fashion, Art & Design (AMFAD)
Bas Kuiper
Founder of Amsterdam Fashion, Art & Design (AMFAD)
Bas Kuiper started collecting at 16. In his collecting he feels unrestricted by medium or style (but with a leaning towards painting), owning a great variety of works from the 1990s to the present day, including pieces by Jonathan Meese, Allison Schulnik and Nick van Woert. Now a regular in the international artscene he is also co-founder of AMFAD and Rembrandt’s Dog and involved with the Rijksmuseum, EYE Filmmuseum and the Museum Van Loon.
Michelle LeBlanc Leckert
Vice President and Director of Finance & Administration of Neal Auction Company
Michelle LeBlanc Leckert
Vice President and Director of Finance & Administration of Neal Auction Company
Michelle has over twenty years’ experience in the auction industry. She began her career in 1995 as Neal Auction Company’s receptionist. Today, she is the company’s Vice President, its Director of Finance & Administration, and one of its chief auctioneers. Michelle also specializes in Southern Regional art and 19th century American furniture.
Sophie MacPherson
Founder and Managing Director of Sophie Macpherson Ltd.
Sophie MacPherson
Founder and Managing Director of Sophie Macpherson Ltd.
Sophie started her career as an assistant to a Bond Street dealer in 2000. In 2002, after noticing the haphazard nature of traditional gallery recruitment she launched SML as a recruitment agency dedicated to serving the London art market. Since then, the business has expanded exponentially to include executive search, consultancy, board appointments, property search for a range of museums, auction houses, public institutions, collectors and dealers across four continents. Sophie now focuses on the most senior headhunting briefs and business development.
Marion Maneker
Publisher of Art Market Monitor
Marion Maneker
Publisher of Art Market Monitor
Marion Maneker is the publisher of Art Market Monitor, an information service covering the global market for tangible assets. Art Market Monitor provides an authoritative and opinionated synopsis of the news, economic trends and cultural patterns that influence the international market for art, gems and jewelry, classic cars and other valuable collectibles through its website, daily email newsletter and weekly podcast.
Anne-Laure Marchal
Head of Business Development of ARTA
Anne-Laure Marchal
Head of Business Development of ARTA
Anne-Laure Marchal is the Head of Business Development at ARTA, a contemporary logistics platform for shipping specialized items used by hundreds of galleries, museums, collectors and institutions around the world. Prior to joining ARTA, she was part of the Business Development team at 1stdibs, where she was in charge of acquiring new designers, galleries and large manufacturers for the New & Custom vertical. Anne-Laure spent over five years at AirSea Packing, where she was the Head of US Operations, overseeing sales, marketing and operations for the US market. She holds a Master’s Degree in Business Law from Aix-Marseille University as well as a Master’s in International Business from l’Institut d’Administration des Entreprises. She currently lives in New York with her fiancé and son.
Christopher McKeogh
Special Agent, Art and Antiquities Crimes of the FBI
Christopher McKeogh
Special Agent, Art and Antiquities Crimes of the FBI
Christopher McKeogh is a former university science professor and possesses two Master’s Degrees in Physics. As a Special Agent with the FBI, he has over 15 years of experience working investigations. SA McKeogh currently exclusively investigates art crime matters in the FBI’s New York Office. His efforts have led to the arrest and conviction of numerous perpetrators of art crime and have led to the recovery of countless works of art, from antiquity to modern on.
Scott Miles
EVP Partnerships & Emerging Markets of Invaluable
Scott Miles
EVP Partnerships & Emerging Markets of Invaluable
Scott Miles is Invaluable’s EVP Partnerships & Emerging Markets of Invaluable, responsible for driving growth opportunities through global strategic partnerships with leading auction houses and industry organizations. Over two decades, Scott has cemented a reputation as an authority in auction technology and marketplace business development. Prior to Invaluable, Scott was SVP of Sales at LiveAuctioneers, where he spent 10 years overseeing global expansion of the client base. He has also held senior business and corporate development positions with global auction houses.
Farah Nayeri
Culture Writer of The New York Times
Farah Nayeri
Culture Writer of The New York Times
Farah Nayeri writes on culture for The New York Times. She was previously a correspondent of Bloomberg in London, Paris and Rome, and has also written for the arts pages of The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. A conference speaker and moderator, Farah chairs panel discussions for The New York Times, and has also moderated talks at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Pompidou Center, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the Women’s Forum. She is a classical pianist and a member of the U.K. Critics’ Circle.
Megan Newcome
Director of Digital Strategy of Phillips
Megan Newcome
Director of Digital Strategy of Phillips
Megan Newcome is the director of digital strategy at Phillips auction house, where she leads global digital content, communications and marketing initiatives for the company. In 2013, Ms. Newcome produced Paddles ON!, the first auction dedicated solely to digital art at a major international auction house. Credited by Wired Magazine as an “art breakthrough”, Paddles ON! is still widely considered a ground-breaking moment in the field of digital art.
Prior to Phillips, Ms. Newcome managed digital content development at Christie’s where she established the company’s first corporate social media channels and digital publishing program. Previous to working in the auction business, Newcome led global PR efforts for the renowned digital film and design festival, RESFEST, and its associated bi-monthly digital film, art and culture magazine RES.
Nicholas M. O’Donnell
Partner, Litigation Department of Sullivan & Worcester
Nicholas M. O’Donnell
Partner, Litigation Department of Sullivan & Worcester
Nicholas M. O’Donnell is a Partner in the Litigation Department of Sullivan & Worcester and the leader of the firm’s Art & Museum Law practice group. His practice focuses primarily on complex civil litigation, where he has served as lead counsel on a variety of lawsuits concerning restitution and fine art sales and has advised museums, dealers, auction houses, and collectors worldwide about restitution, copyright, and de-accessioning issues. He is Vice-Chair of the Arts, Cultural Institutions and Heritage Law Committee of the International Bar Association. Mr. O’Donnell is the author of numerous articles and papers on the subject of Nazi-looted art disputes, and the author of the book he will discuss today: A Tragic Fate—Law and Ethics in the Battle Over Nazi Looted Art (Ankerwycke 2017), the first comprehensive overview of disputes in the U.S. over allegedly Nazi-looted art.
Morgan O’Driscoll
Managing Director of Morgan O’Driscoll Fine Art Auctioneers
Morgan O’Driscoll
Managing Director of Morgan O’Driscoll Fine Art Auctioneers
Morgan O’Driscoll heads up one of Ireland’s leading auction houses, specialising in Irish Art with both live saleroom and online auctions. He grew up in Skibbereen, attending Castleknock College in Dublin before studying auctioneering and estate agency at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He took his degree, a Bachelor of Science in Valuations and Estate Management, at the University of Greenwich in London in 1992 and is a member of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland.
His main area of interest is modern and contemporary art and sculpture, this stemmed from a school trip to the Louvre in his teens that opened his eyes to the power of art and signaled his future.
In 1994 he opened his own fine art auction house in Skibbereen and now has offices in Cork and Dublin. Seeing the growth of the use of the internet made him aware of it’s potential as a marketing tool and in 2011 he became the first Irish auction house to introduce online only sales. Bidding for art online has clear advantages for buyers enabling them to participate in the auction regardless of their location and he now sells to buyers in 43 countries on five continents. Due to the increase of UK buyers the firm now holds biannual viewings in London in advance of the Dublin sales.
Isabelle Paagman
Senior Director, European Head of Private Sales of Sotheby’s
Isabelle Paagman
Senior Director, European Head of Private Sales of Sotheby’s
Isabelle Paagman is a senior director and experienced auctioneer at Sotheby’s who has taken auctions in major cities across Europe, making the most of her knowledge, charisma and fluency in five languages. She joined Sotheby’s in 1999 as a European Fine Arts business advisor developing Internet auctions and moved to the Contemporary Art department as a Specialist in 2002. Heading up the day sales from 2007 to 2011, Sotheby’s saw a significant growth in this sector under her leadership and one that has continued to flourish. In 2012 she took on the role of Head of Private Sales for Contemporary Art in Europe and has been instrumental in expanding the private sales realm for Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s, placing renowned artists such as Keith Haring, Lucio Fontana, Jean Dubuffet, Gerhard Richter, Alexander Calder and more in important private collections around the world. In 2014 she masterminded the selling exhibition Dadamaino at Sotheby’s S2 gallery, showing her consistently strong passion for Italian Post-war Art. This has also enabled her to contribute significantly to Sotheby’s Italian Auctions held in London since 1999.
Adriano Picinati di Torcello
Director, Global Art & Finance Coordinator of Deloitte
Adriano Picinati di Torcello
Director, Global Art & Finance Coordinator of Deloitte
Adriano is the Art & Finance coordinator for the Deloitte group of member firms and has over 20 years of professional experience.
He is in charge of the Art & Finance activities within Deloitte Luxembourg, an initiative he has been coordinating since its inception in 2008. Adriano also coordinates the development of the Art & Finance activities at the Deloitte group level. Over the past decade, Adriano has been working towards the creation of an Art & Finance/Business cluster in Luxembourg.
To create public awareness of the Art & Finance subject, Adriano initiated the international Deloitte Art & Finance Conference cycle that has become the annual benchmark event in the field. He has also developed Art & Finance seminars for professionals seeking guidance about the global art market and he is the co-author of the Deloitte and ArtTactic Art & Finance Report. As the spokesperson of the Art & Finance initiative within Deloitte, he regularly speaks at national and international conferences.
Eleni Polycarpou
Partner, London of Withers Worldwide
Eleni Polycarpou
Partner, London of Withers Worldwide
Eleni is a partner in the litigation and arbitration team and focuses on international arbitration and art.
She has long standing expertise in commercial arbitration as party appointed Counsel under various institutional rules as well as ad hoc arbitration proceedings. Eleni is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and takes arbitrator appointments.
Eleni specialises in international commercial disputes both in the English Courts and in international arbitration. She acts for high net worth individuals and their companies often advising on shareholder and joint venture disputes and she has a particular expertise in art law and is responsible for contentious art matters in the London office. Eleni currently acts for several collectors, galleries, artists and dealers in the London art market on a wide range of disputes. Eleni is also well versed in mediation and has a track record of achieving a successful settlement of disputes via this method.
She has been described in the directories as someone who ‘just gets it, knows how cases should be handled especially when it comes to the very sensitive ones’. In art law she is described as someone who is ‘highly respected within the sector’.
She is from Cyprus and speaks fluent Greek and English and some Italian!
Julian Radcliffe
Chairman of Art Loss Register
Julian Radcliffe
Chairman of Art Loss Register
Julian Radcliffe started Investment Insurance as the leading political risk broker in 1972 and still acts as an expert on major political risk claims such as Cuba, Indonesia, Russia and South America. He founded Control Risks in 1976 to specialize in international risk management including kidnap negotiations and became a Director of Hogg Group Plc, a leading Lloyd’s broker. He initiated the Art Loss Register in 1990 as an initiative for the Insurance industry and Art trade to reduce the theft of and trade in stolen art and became the majority shareholder in 2004. He is also Chairman of The Equipment Register which undertakes the same task for stolen construction equipment.
Mr. Radcliffe has acted as an expert witness in major international fraud, political risk, negligence and art theft court cases. He served as a Colonel in the Ministry of Defence and was awarded the OBE in 1999 and the QVRM in 2004. Recently he has supervised some 50 Art Loss Register recoveries including the return of the Hooke manuscripts for the Royal Society, missing since 1662, the seizure of the pictures stolen from the Bakwin collection, valued at £18m, and many cases for Lloyd’s and other insurers including recently a Klee, Dufy, Alma Tadema and Gerome.
Mr. Radcliffe wrote the forward to “Stolen” published by Madison Press Books in 2008 and has contributed articles such as Ethical Issues – The Art Trade and Stolen Art, Under Duress – Art and Extortion, Attitudes to Art Crime – The Romantic versus the Realist. He collects early English Watercolors and Old Master drawings. He graduated with an MA from Oxford in Politics and Economics and joined Hogg Robinson as a Lloyd’s insurance broker in 1970.
Scott Reyburn
Arts Correspondent of The New York Times
Scott Reyburn
Arts Correspondent of The New York Times
For the last four years, Scott Reyburn has reported on art and its markets for The New York Times, writing a weekly column for the paper’s International Edition. Prior to The Times, Mr. Reyburn worked for seven years at Bloomberg News, based in London. Among myriad key arts and cultural events, he reported on “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever,” Damien Hirst’s two-day auction at Sotheby’s in 2008. He also featured in the 2009 TV documentary “The Great Contemporary Art Bubble” directed by art critic and filmmaker Ben Lewis, and has written numerous articles for publications that include The Economist, The New Statesman and Art + Auction magazine. Mr. Reyburn is a former lecturer at the National Gallery in London.
William Ruprecht
Chairman of the Invaluable Advisory Board
William Ruprecht
Chairman of the Invaluable Advisory Board
William F. Ruprecht, the Chairman of the Invaluable Advisory Board, has spent his entire adult life in the art and auction world. He joined Sotheby’s in 1980 in the rug department, rising through the ranks to be appointed president and chief executive officer in 2000. He was elected chairman of the board in 2012. During his time leading Sotheby’s, he grew the business across 40 countries and expanded the company’s offerings to include private gallery sales and global education programs. Prior to that, he served as an executive vice president of Sotheby’s and managing director of Sotheby’s North and South American divisions, following time in Sotheby’s marketing department. Ruprecht stepped down from Sotheby’s in 2014. Since then, he has been advising families on art collections and business leaders on strategy and opportunities. He also sits on the advisory board for Palate Wizards and the board of directors for Bessemer Trust.
Gene Shapiro
President of Shapiro Auctions
Gene Shapiro
President of Shapiro Auctions
Gene Shapiro has been the president of Shapiro Auctions, a fine and decorative arts auction house in New York City, since 2007. Shapiro Auctions focuses on European, American, Latin American, as well as Russian and Asian paintings and works of art. In recent years, the auction house has sold objects as varied as a Camille Pissarro pastel for $905,000, an Alfons Walde Tyrolean Snow Scene for $275,000, a Soviet “AGITLAK” gift set from 1931 for $305,000, and a Chinese Celadon and Russet jade carving for $102,400. Gene is Board Director of the American Appraisers Association and regularly appears as an art appraiser on the US version of Antiques Roadshow, watched weekly on PBS by over 9 million viewers.
Mary-Alice Stack
Chief Executive of Creative United
Mary-Alice Stack
Chief Executive of Creative United
Mary-Alice Stack is Chief Executive of Creative United, a community interest company that supports economic growth and social impact in the arts, cultural and creative industries across the UK. She is a specialist in the use of retail finance as a mechanism for building consumer engagement and sales within the contemporary art sector.
Prior to the establishment of Creative United, she spent 8 years working for Arts Council England leading on the development of a range of pioneering public engagement and access to finance initiatives including Own Art, Take it away and Creative Industry Finance.
Mary-Alice is a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art and a Trustee of the charity New Contemporaries which supports the professional development and career opportunities of fine art graduates from across the UK.
Rebecca Tooby-Desmond
Specialist and Auctioneer, Modern & Contemporary Editions of Phillips
Rebecca Tooby-Desmond
Specialist and Auctioneer, Modern & Contemporary Editions of Phillips
Rebecca joined the Phillips Editions department for its London inception in 2012, after completing her MA in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute. With six years of cataloguing expertise and nearly twenty sales under her belt, Rebecca is now a Specialist, bringing her hands-on experience to the fore. A champion of the medium and a scholar of its technical complexities, Rebecca is passionate about elevating the status of Editions within traditional art market hierarchies and the democratic character of Edition-making and distribution. In addition to her Specialist role, Rebecca is also an Auctioneer, leading the Evening Editions sales in both New York and London.
Rob Weisberg
CEO of Invaluable
Rob Weisberg
CEO of Invaluable
Rob Weisberg is the CEO of Invaluable, which he joined in October 2012, bringing over 20 years of executive experience to the Invaluable brand. With a passion for revolutionizing the art market, Mr. Weisberg has delivered unparalleled consumer marketing expertise and valuable Internet technology to the industry. Prior to Invaluable, Mr. Weisberg served for three years as Chief Marketing Officer at Zipcar, where he led the company to 730,000 members and through its successful IPO in 2011. Before Zipcar, he was Vice President of Multimedia Marketing at Domino’s Pizza, launching online ordering and digital practices.
Sarah Wendell Sherrill
Co-Founder of Lobus
Sarah Wendell Sherrillz
Co-Founder of Lobus
Sarah Wendell Sherrill is co-founder of Lobus, a data and analytics company created for the art industry. She began her career at Christie’s, where she rose to be one of the youngest Vice Presidents at Christie’s, managing the New York Post-War & Contemporary Art department during a key period of growth for the global art market, surpassing $1bn in sales in May 2015 and oversaw a number of record-breaking sales for 20th and 21st century artists, such as Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Cy Twombly, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Christopher Wool and Jeff Koons. After her time at Christie’s, Sarah returned to the west coast and served as President of Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. Wendell Sherrill is a graduate of Phillips Academy Andover and Williams College. She serves on the Board of Trustees for the Noguchi Museum and the advisory board for CESTA, a digital research center for the humanities at Stanford University.
Richard Whittle
Director of Marketing, UK and Europe of Invaluable
Richard Whittle
Director of Marketing, UK and Europe of Invaluable
Richard Whittle has over 20 years of experience in marketing and media. He joined Invaluable in March 2014. Richard has spent his career delivering innovative and efficient marketing strategies to valuable customers. He was previously the Marketing Director at ATG Media and prior to that the Head of Content and Media at iProspect UK, part of the Dentsu Network. Before that, he worked at Sotheby’s New Bond Street and Time Inc. after graduating in Fine Art (painting).
Georgina C. Winthrop
Fine Art Director of Grogan & Company
Georgina C. Winthrop
Fine Art Director of Grogan & Company
Georgina C. Winthrop is the Fine Art Director of Grogan & Company, Fine Art and Jewelry Auctioneers. The company, established in 1987, is headquartered on Charles Street in Boston’s historic Beacon Hill neighborhood.
Ms. Winthrop holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University, where she majored in The History of Art and Architecture and minored in The Classics. During her undergraduate studies, Ms. Winthrop served as a tour guide for the Harvard Art Museums and completed internships at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and at Sotheby’s New York.
As Fine Art Director at Grogan & Company, Ms. Winthrop oversees the appraisal, research, and cataloging of paintings, prints, photographs, and sculptures for auction. She is also an auctioneer for the firm and is passionate about exposing the next generation of consignors and buyers to the auction industry through strategic partnerships and events. Ms. Winthrop is USPAP (Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice) compliant, a member of the Museum Council Steering Committee at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and is on the Board of Governors of Beacon Hill’s Nichols House Museum.
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