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Meet the BCW Sport team
Lars Haue-Pedersen, Managing Director - BCW Sports
Lars leads the BCW Sports. With over twenty years of experience in the international sports world, Lars has distinguished himself as a master strategist and specialist in sports management and international sports events bids. He has a proven track record of success with bidding teams, including Los Angeles' bid for 2028 Olympic Games, Doha's bid for the IAAF World Championships in 2019, and Poland and Ukraine's UEFA EURO 2012 bid. Furthermore, he advises key sport leaders in achieving their goals, and those of their sport.
Lars is a graduate of Odense University (DK) and has an Executive Education at Harvard Business School. He is also a lecturer on sports events/bidding strategies at several universities across Europe.
Greg Curchod, CEO BCW - Switzerland
Greg is the CEO of BCW Switzerland, where he leads teams in Zurich and Lausanne. Over the years, he has led clients to success in various fields, including in international sports where he has advised ambitious host cities and organising committees on their bidding and hosting strategies for many years. He is also a lecturer on the organisation of sporting events in various academic institutions. He is fluent in French and English.
Greg holds a degree in International Hospitality Management (Lausanne, SUI) and executive training at Harvard Business School.
Tanya Heimlich-Ng Yuen, Senior Director - Switzerland
Tanya is a Senior Director at BCW Switzerland. In this role, she leads the team in Lausanne and works with a broad range of international clients in developing and implementing communications strategies. Her specialities include leading teams around major international sports events, focused on bidding & hosting. She has led several bid campaigns to success, including the China 2019 FIBA Basketball World Championships, the Pan-American Games in Lima 2019, Denmark and Germany's bid for the IHF World Men's Handball Championship 2019 and Germany 2024 UEFA European Championship bid. Most recently she has led the Lausanne 2020 Youth Olympic Games media team, the Gwangju 2019 FINA World Championships international media and PR team as well as various communications efforts supporting the leadership of several International Sport Federations.
Tanya has a Masters in International Management, Law and Humanities of Sport from the International Centre of Sports Studies and a Diploma in Advocacy and International Relations from the Graduate Institute of Geneva.
Cameron Angus, Account Manager - Switzerland
Cameron is an account manager at the BCW Switzerland. He advises many international sports organisations on the design and development of their strategies. He also works actively with host cities and countries bidding for events and establishing themselves within the international sports world. In his role, he has worked closely alongside a number of sports organisations and cities, such as International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Ski Federation (FIS) and the City of Lausanne.
Cameron is a graduate of University of Durham, where he studied Politics, and has a Masters in International Management, Law and Humanities of Sport from the International Centre of Sports Studies.
Caroline Anderson, Account Manager - Switzerland
Caroline is an account manager at BCW Switzerland in Lausanne. She has more than 15 years of experience consulting for international sports and health organisations and public sector bodies in the areas of strategy and communications. She recently spent three years at FIFA as part of the Executive Office team responsible for driving the organisation's transformation before returning to consulting.
Caroline is a certified management consultant from the Institute of Business Consulting. She holds a postgraduate diploma from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and certificates from the London College of Communication and the College of Media and Publishing in the UK. She attended Queen's University in Canada for her undergraduate studies (BA in Psychology), and has a Masters in International Management, Law and Humanities of Sport from the International Centre of Sports Studies.
Stefany Chatelain-Cardenas, Account Executive - Switzerland
Stefany is an Account Executive at BCW Switzerland. In this role, she works on various strategy and communications projects for international sports organizations, cities, and sport events. Stefany also collaborates closely with several sports' political campaigns. Before joining the BCW Sports Practice team, Stefany was in charge of the development and implementation of the engagement strategy of the 3rd winter Youth Olympic Games Lausanne 2020. In this role, she has worked closely with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to deliver the Lausanne 2020 Youth Engagement programs. Stefany is fluent in Spanish, French and English.
Stefany has a Master in Sports Management from the International Academy of Sport Science and Technology (AISTS) in Lausanne, as well as a Master in Marketing and Communication from the Neoma Business School in France.
Basil Hofstetter, Senior Account Executive – Switzerland
Basil is a Senior Account Executive at BCW Switzerland in Zurich. His focus is on various strategy and communications project in public and corporate affairs. He has experience in media and stakeholder analysis and engagement, campaigning, as well as digital communication with an excellent understanding of Switzerland's political systems. Before joining BCW, Basil gained initial experience with political parties and agencies in Zurich and Berlin. He is fluent in German and English.
Basil is a graduate of the University of St. Gallen (HSG) in International Affairs and Governance (BA and MA). His bachelor thesis analysed the effect of the 50+1-regulation on sustainable management in German football.
Samiha Dabholkar, Account Executive - Switzerland
Samiha is an Account Executive at BCW Switzerland in Lausanne. Her role focuses on working on various strategies and communications' projects for international sport entities like federations, cities, and sport events. Samiha is a former professional football player and lawyer from India. To pursue her passion for sport, she completed a Masters in Sport Administration & Law 2017 and joined EKS/Lagardere in Switzerland. She was largely involved with the delivery of the media and commercial rights for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and was based out of Singapore for the same. In addition, she worked with various stakeholders in the sport industry on bid management, event delivery, and other legal matters.
Samiha is a double graduate in law from ILS Law College, Pune in India. She graduated from the International Academy of Sport Sciences and Technology (AISTS) in Lausanne, Switzerland with a Masters in Sport Management in 2017. She is also a holder of diplomas in Intellectual Property Rights and Cyber Law.
Luis Abello, Account Executive - Switzerland
Luis is an account executive at the BCW Switzerland in Lausanne. He works on various creative and design projects for international sports organizations and sports events. Luis' creative expertise spans across the board from creating logos to entire brand identities, strategies, and campaign development. His skills, ranging from static graphic design to motion design and video editing, allow him to meet the creative requirements needed to visually optimize brand campaigns. He speaks fluent English and Spanish.
Luis is a graduate of York University in Toronto and holds a Masters in International Management, Law and Humanities of Sport from the International Centre of Sports Studies.
Mattias Källman, VP and Practice Lead, Sweden
Mattias is a VP and Practice Lead at BCW Sweden, leading the Stockholm-based team and working closely with key accounts in the fields of technology and sports, as well as supporting on proactive and reactive strategic crisis communication across the agency. Before joining BCW Group in 2010, he had a long career as a journalist, covering general news, sports and entertainment for newspapers, including the national dailies Aftonbladet and Expressen. With his dual practice role he has particular expertise in how technology advances sports for athletes and spectators alike. This ranges from groundbreaking design of new equipment, from vaulting poles to running shoes, to how emerging technologies within AI and machine learning rapidly develop what's possible to achieve in live statistics and predictive modelling for sports fans.
Mattias has an MA in Journalism from the University of Stockholm.
Tiina Nurmi, VP, Director - Finland
Tiina Nurmi has diverse set of skills ranging from strategic planning to creative implementations and managing media relations both in traditional and digital media. She leads the consultant team focusing on Consumer Brands and Companies. Before joining BCW Finland Tiina has worked as a journalist in Finnish Broadcasting Companies and as a content producer in Finnish Olympic Committee and Olympic Academy. Tiina has a Master's degree from University of Jyväskylä, Finland with major in Speech Communication. She has published academy study where she examined the communicational relationships between athletes and their personal coaches.
Moritz Miebach, Senior Account Director - Germany
Moritz is an Account Director at the corporate solution of BCW Germany based in Frankfurt. As a trained journalist he is specialized in strategic topic development, storytelling, content creation, media relations and corporate publishing. He brings a wealth of contacts in German media, using this expertise to create opportunities for his clients. Moritz provides extensive expertise in building resilient contacts with top-tier journalists. He counsels numerous international companies on the design and development of their communication strategies across finance, insurance, health, and production.
From his studies at the universities of Cologne, Frankfurt, and Southampton (UK) he holds a M.A. in Political Science and a B.Sc. in Economics.
Emma van den Aakster, Account Executive - The Netherlands
Emma is an Account Executive at BCW in The Netherlands. She monitors and analyses policy developments at the national and EU level for various clients in the tech sector and chemical industry. Emma also support the implementation of public affairs and corporate communication programs by defining policy interests, supporting media relations and mapping stakeholders. Emma enjoys watching ice hockey and is a committed supporter of the Dutch national soccer team.
Emma holds a BSc. (hons.) in Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE) from the University of Amsterdam.
Nevena Vukašinović – Senior Account Executive - Belgium
Nevena works as communications and public affairs consultant at BCW in Brussels. She is working on a variety of sports clients from sports federations to brands, as well as in green sports and esports, engagement and gaming. Nevena is leading the European Commission's campaign European Week of Sport's since 2018. She is one of the co-founders of the Green Sports Hub Europe, pioneering sustainability efforts for European sports. Over the past 10 years she had an executive role within sport boards of ENGSO Youth, International School Sport Federation and UNESCO Asia-Pacific Youth and Sport Task Force. She has worked on the international development and projects for the Olympic Committee of Serbia and served as General Secretary at European Olympic committees and sports federations' umbrella organisation – ENGSO.
Nevena is UNAOC fellow since 2018, UNMGCY's alumni, mentor at Sport Integrity Association and an observer/consultative member in CIGEPS UNESCO sport.
Linda Camilla Strømsod, Account Director - Norway
Linda Camilla has background from the forest industry where she was a communication manager in Viken Skog for 10 years.
She has a comprehensive CV that lists leadership roles in both the Army and the Navy for 12 years, in addition to sales and product development. For three years she worked as sales manager for Renault and for three years she worked as a product manager in Synthes with medical rep.
In the Armed Forces, she has participated in several international operations in both Kosovo and Afghanistan working with press and information and PSYOPS (Psychological operations).
Linda is educated officer in the Armed Forces in Norway, a diploma marketer and a real estate agent at BI / NMH Business School, Oslo.
Linda has a genuine passion for PR, sports and outdoor activities. She is a cross country coach and soccer coach for juniors.
Jessie Gogan, VP, Consumer Practice Director, Australia
As Consumer Practice Director AUNZ, Jessie brings experience in campaign management across sports and fitness brands as well as PR execution for sports event sponsorship activity.
With an MA in Public Relations, Jessie pairs the strategic and practical facets of the PR discipline across global and national campaigns, building brand equity through purposeful and impactful integrated work relating to the needs of diverse target groups and addressing client's business goals.
Jessie has multi-market experience, previously working in Ireland and the UK, and before joining BCW Jessie lead integrated PR teams across Hong Kong and Singapore for lifestyle brands.
Paloma Vega, Technology & Innovation Director, Brazil
Paloma Vega has about 25 years of public relations experience, working at some of the leading international agencies and in companies like Netflix and Natura.
With a degree in journalism she began her career in corporate communication in 1998. Since than, she served clients such as Sanofi, Uber, Visa, PayPal, Nike, P&G, Nestle, and Boeing developing and implementing communication strategies, both to build and care for the reputation as well as to give visibility and relevance to the brands.
At corporate field, the executive was responsible for clients such as Sanofi, 99Taxi, Movile, Moovit, CPTM, FedEx, Cetip, 3M, Masisa, Mexichem Brazil, Liberty Seguros, Nippon Steel, among others. In the consumer goods area, she worked with brands such as Under Armor, Ebay, Revlon, Warner Consumer Products, Bayer, Danone, Bimbo, Gatorade, ESPN, etc.
She was responsible for special projects for Visa (London Olympic Games, 2012), Nike (Olympic Games Rio 2016), Saudi Arabia Olympic Committee and Nissan (Olympic and Paralympic Games, 2016).
Mario Paradinas, VP, Director - Spain
Mario currently leads the Consumer and Tech practice at BCW Spain. Over 12 years' experience in Comms and PR with special focus on Consumer, Corporate and Tech Communications. He works for a variety of leading companies in different industries, from tech to manufacturing, consumer goods, media and advertising, sports and automotive among others, having managed both EMEA and Spanish campaigns. He is experienced in working with international clients and has excellent speaking and writing skills in English.
Mario holds a degree and a master degree in Communications and in Advertising and Corporate Communications, respectively.
Alessandro Conte, Senior Account Manager - Italy
Alessandro is a Senior Account Manager at BCW Italy´s Issue and Crisis Management department. He is a journalist who worked as contributor at La Gazzetta di Parma daily and as contributor and social media manager at the political information site Il Retroscena. For 10 years in the PR, Alessandro has gained expertise in various fields specializing in corporate and institutional communication. As an external consultant, he supported the corporate communication of ACI ( Automobil Club d'Italia) and its main projects such as the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Italy, the development of media relations for Italia Unica and PSI political parties, contributing to the definition of positioning strategies ad personam.
Svetlana Bobrova, Director International Promotion (Mikhailov & Partners) - Russia
Svetlana is heading the International Promotion department for Mikhailov & Partners. Her projects consist of a wide range of services, including the communication strategy development, cooperation with international media, PR-support of international events and special projects. She also worked closely with the Sochi 2014 Olympics Organizing Committee where she was responsible for the brand and image, communications, strategic planning, and crisis management at the international level. She also provided local communication support during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Svetlana graduated with honors from the Russian State Humanities University, specialization in international management. She studied international management at St. Gallen University and a major in international marketing at the University of Konstanz. She is fluent in English and German.
Levent Gürün, Content Director - Turkey
Levent is a Content Director in Effect BCW in Turkey. He is experienced in working in public relations, customer service and providing communication consultancy services in the insurance, finance, accounting, oil and gas, agriculture and construction sector as well as educational services. He managed advertising and public relations activities of magazines at Hearst Publishing (now Turkuvaz Magazine Group). Levent has served the Antalya Metropolitan Municipality and managed communications activities of the Golden Orange Film Festival and the International Antalya Piano Festival.
Levent received his undergraduate education in Public Relations and Publicity at Marmara University. He also completed his master's degree in Advertising at the same university.
Karl Haechler, Co-market Leader and Managing Director, South Africa (Africa hub office)
Karl has fifteen years' experience in the communications industry. He is a member of the Executive Committee for BCW in South Africa and the Corporate, Technology and Sports lead across Africa. Karl has cross sector experience, having led multiple consumer and corporate accounts across Africa. He is an accomplished media trainer having prepared many executives for journalist interactions at leading companies in South Africa. Karl has worked in multiple industry sectors including sports, motoring, technology, healthcare, energy, education, property development, media and marketing, legal and defence. He brings significant skills in the understanding of journalism and its practices in the context of the current news agenda and the requirement for transparency to bear on his issues based work.
Karl has a degree in Corporate Communications from The University of Johannesburg.
Jemma Chalcroft, Associate Director – Dubai
Jemma is based in our Middle East office, located in Dubai. With over 12 years' communications experience in the sports and automotive industries in both the UK and the Middle East, Jemma has a varied experience from working with Formula One and World Rally Championship teams to launching Abu Dhabi's first-ever Marathon. Jemma has worked with major global brands on a variety of sports sponsorship strategies and activations including the London 2012 Olympic Games, Royal Polo Tournaments, Red Bull Extreme Sports Athletes, as well as brand partnerships with Manchester City Football Club and Arsenal Football Club. Most recently, Jemma and the BCW Sports team worked alongside Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Sport on its bid to host the 2027 AFC Asian Cup.
Nithin Rajasekaram, Director Brands Sports & Entertainment – India
At Genesis BCW, Nithin Rajasekaram currently leads four of the biggest client relationships in the Brands, Sports and Entertainment Practice for the past three years after having spent four years in the Delhi office. Nithin has more than 10 years' experience in public relations across both agency and in-house positions at technology brands. He has a refined all round skill set in communications and desires to succeed in deliverable measurable results for clients.
Nithin´s education was built on the strong principles and values of being in a boarding school and this has helped shape the person he is today – very structured, focused, and with a lot of self-confidence to push boundaries to do new things.
Dolly Tayal, Senior Director, and Regional Lead Sports and Entertainment – India
Dolly Tayal leads Brands, Sports & Entertainment practice at Genesis BCW. With more than 12 years of communications experience, Dolly is highly skilled at relationship-building with clients, across organizations and teams. She has managed clients across diverse domains—from automobiles to aviation, energy to tech brands, consumer brands, sports to entertainment, and more. Dolly has extensive experience in managing large-scale projects as well as events from the requirements-gathering phase to completion. With brands increasingly integrating digital outreach in their campaigns, Dolly's strength in digital domain as well as her ability to integrate digital, traditional and influencer programmes make her an invaluable counsellor to her clients.
Dolly holds a post-graduate degree in mass communication and marketing along, and a degree in e-commerce.
Aymen Alfaraj, Senior Account Manager - Dubai
Aymen is a Senior Account Manager who joins ASDA'A BCW from Performance Communications having spent the past three+ years working on consumer brands like Bentley, Cadillac, GMC, MG Motor, Volvo Group Trucks and Breitling. He was named one of the Campaign Middle East Magazine's PR Faces to watch in 2019 and the agency's first Saudi National based in Dubai.
Since joining ASDA'A BCW, Aymen spent his time working on a variety of clients from various sectors including General Authority of Sports (UAE), Huawei, Snapchat, Jumeirah Group, RAK Tourism, and has been leading the regional and domestic communication for Saudi's bid to host the 2027 AFC Cup for the first time in the Kingdom's history.
From event planning, media landscape knowledge and a deep understanding of the GCC market, Aymen will support with strategic planning and creative development to deliver fully-integrated communications campaigns.
Aymen started his passion for PR in West Virginia University, USA where he studied the fundamentals of communication in one of the best media programs in America.
Aymen has a genuine passion for PR, sports and outdoor activities. In his spare time, he enjoys the outdoor lifestyle; Football, Kick-boxing and exploring the never-ending new hotspots in Dubai.
tennis, going to the beach and eating out at her favourite restaurants.
Email: info@bcw-sport.com
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About Burson Cohn & Wolfe
Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW) is one of the world's largest full-service global communications agencies.
Founded by the merger of Burson-Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe BCW delivers digitally and data-driven creative content and integrated communications programs grounded in earned media and scaled across all channels for clients in the B2B, consumer, corporate, crisis management, CSR, healthcare, public affairs, sport and technology sectors.
BCW is headquartered in New York City (USA) and is a part of WPP (NYSE: WPP), the world's leader in communications services.
For more information about BCW: www.bcw-global.com