Navigator London Agenda
From the chaos of identity to the reality of measurement, we’re not here to talk in circles—we’re here to get somewhere. Whether it’s market dynamics, practical innovation, or the stuff nobody wants to say out loud, it’s on the table. Want to know more about the event, how to request an invite, or get involved as a sponsor? Head to the main Navigator London page. As for the agenda, it’s solid (until it isn’t). You won’t find a list of every coffee break or snack table, but rest assured—there’s time built in to pause, connect, and network.
Tuesday, 9 June, 2026
| Session Time | Session Title | Session Description |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00 am | Breakfast & Registration | Someone said breakfast is the most important meal of the day. They’re probably sleeping in. Not you though! Get here and get ready for a big day! |
| 9:00 am | Welcome & Opening Remarks | Together, we’ll kick off Navigator, and how you can make the most of the day. Also, Rob will unveil his blazer, of course. Rob Beeler, Founder & CEO, Beeler.Tech |
| 9:15 am | The Human Edge: Navigating AI and Building the Future of Publishing | Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon, MBE, author of She’s in CTRL will empower you to reimagine your professional trajectory in the face of continuing technological change. She will share what this moment demands from the people keeping publishing moving now, including: how to future-proof yourself, build teams that can experiment with purpose, and make decisions that help your organization move forward… all without losing sight of the human judgment, trust, and connection publishing still depends on. Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon, MBE, author of She’s in CTRL |
| 10:15 am | The Media Company You’d Build: Table Talks | If you were to start a media company from a blank slate today, what would you do differently from what most publishers are doing now? |
| 11:00 am | Transition Break | Grab a coffee and a snack, chat with new friends, and then make your way to your next session. |
| 11:30 am Breakout Sessions | ||
| Building the Publisher Stack in the Age of AI | In the age of AI, publishers need to be prepared for agentic advertising transactions and LLMs scraping their properties. This session unpacks the IAB Tech Lab’s AI and Agentic Roadmap, including AAMP, CoMP, and ARTF. It will also outline the steps publishers should take to protect the value of their content from non-human traffic and to prepare for a future of agentic transactions with a robust agentic framework based on existing standards that can turn experimentation into durable, scalable intelligence. Shailley Singh, COO & EVP, Product, IAB Tech Lab | |
| Who Are These Humans in The Loop? | AI “experts” talk about the “humans in the loop.” Specifically, the part humans will play in our future. For publishers, what roles will remain, what skills will they need, and how do we prepare our teams? Angie Singh, Head of Revenue Operations, Planet Sport Group | |
| Monetizing the Addressability Gap: Recovering Revenue from ID-Less Traffic | As third-party cookies continue to disappear, publishers are facing a growing monetization challenge across browsers where traditional user identification no longer works. A larger share of inventory is becoming harder to address, reducing bidder competition and limiting revenue potential. This session will explore a way to recover value from ID-less traffic, improve monetization across previously underperforming inventory, and do it within a privacy-compliant framework—without adding operational complexity. Max Moody, Head of Customer Success EMEA, Publift Mikhael Shvartsman, VP, Customers, Intent IQ | |
| Transforming Legacy Bottlenecks into Portfolio-Wide Agility | Trusted Media Brands (TMB), the tech-first publisher behind iconic properties like Reader’s Digest and Taste of Home, found their programmatic growth tethered to a legacy “container tag” system that choked operational agility. Minor integration updates dragged into weeks-long engineering bottlenecks, whilst underlying infrastructure complexity made routine testing and optimisation incredibly cumbersome. By partnering with Assertive Yield, TMB executed a phased, risk-free rollout of the full AY stack across their entire website portfolio. This replaced rigid, external framework dependencies with a fluid, centralised setup. The net result: engineering speed bumps were entirely eliminated, machine learning began driving performance outcomes far beyond standard yield lifts, and the ad ops team secured the adaptable infrastructure needed to move at the speed the digital market demands. Steve Irenski, VP, Ad Operations, Programmatic Strategy & Revenue, Trusted Media Brands | |
| 12:15 pm | Transition | Join us back in the main room. It’s time to plan for our future. |
| 12:25 pm | Plans > Hope | Rob sits down with Anthony to discuss what it takes to plan for a future world, maintain clarity of approach to achieve revenue targets two to three years from now, while also ensuring you hit this quarter’s target. Anthony Hitchings, Global Revenue Operations Director, Financial Times |
| 1:10 pm | Lunch | Discuss your learnings from the morning, fortify new connections, and fuel up for the rest of Navigator. |
| 2:10 pm | From the Other Side of the Auction | In digital advertising, you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s standard practice, but it costs publishers revenue and keeps advertisers from buying. Rory Latham is one of the few buy-side voices willing to say plainly how the auction looks from his seat. In this fireside chat, we cut through the noise. What signals does he need to see to allocate budgets? What would advertisers do more of if publishers gave them something different to work with? Let’s get honest input from the other side of the auction. Rory Latham, Senior Director, Global Investment, WPP Media |
| 2:50 pm | Transition Break | It’s time for a big afternoon of learning, so head to your next breakout session. |
| 3:00 pm Breakout Sessions | ||
| From the Other Side of the Auction: Continued | Now that he’s stepped off the main stage, we’ll talk with Rory further about how publishers and agencies can work better together. Rory Latham, Senior Director, Global Investment, WPP Media | |
| Revenue Lift Without Compromising Trust | Navigate Health’s Patient.info serves millions of users with medical content where trust and page experience are non-negotiable. Thomas Andrew Porteus walks through what changed in their stack, the reasoning behind each decision, and what the results actually mean. Olly Aulakh of Opti Digital joins to discuss the technical optimisations that delivered immediate gains as well as the strategies that compounded over time. The lessons learned extend well beyond the health vertical. Thomas Andrew Porteus, Director, Navigate Health Olly Aulakh, Chief Revenue Officer, Opti Digital | |
| What’s The Future of Direct Sales? | Let’s discuss our perspectives on the evolving direct sales landscape, including buyer expectations, monetization strategies, operational priorities, and partnership opportunities. AI is part of the conversation, but not all of the conversation. Weigh in on where you want this conversation to focus. Katerina Urbankova, Sr Advertising Operations Manager, The New York Times | |
| Our New Relationship with Data | Suddenly MCP, CLI and APIs are the most important acronyms for ad ops. Let’s talk about what we are now able to do with the data we use to make decisions, build vs buy, and what we need from our partners to get the insights we’ve been craving. It’s time we share notes on what is working and what’s not. Rob Beeler, Founder & CEO, Beeler.Tech | |
| 3:45 pm | Networking Break | We’re almost through the day! Take a moment to connect with your peers, quickly check your emails, and then prepare to end the day strong. |
| 4:15 pm Breakout Sessions | ||
| Plans > Hope: Continued | We’ll take ideas from the earlier keynote and apply them to our own organizations. How do we move from quarter-to-quarter to a multi-year strategy? You have more control of this than you think. Anthony Hitchings, Global Revenue Operations Director, Financial Times | |
| RFPs Right Now: AI Direct-Sold Workflow | Receiving and responding to RFPs is a real opportunity for publishers — not only to bring AI into their existing processes, but also to prepare for what comes next. Jason Tollestrup, Head of Monetization and Revenue Operations, The Washington Post | |
| The Attention Advantage: Why Buyers Are Coming Back to News | News publishers like The Independent are facing a perception problem with advertiser buyers. Despite boasting performant inventory and engaged audiences, advertisers are often still wary of sensitive content. In order to meet that challenge, The Independent embraced verification solutions and worked with DV to bring the value of premium news inventory to life with data. This session will explore how one of the UK’s largest digital publishers used brand suitability measurement and attention data to reframe buyer conversations, strengthen partner confidence, and unlock revenue from audiences that advertisers may be too quick to overlook. Meena Miles, Global Ad Ops Director, Independent David Goddard, SVP, Business Development, DoubleVerify | |
| Don’t Drop the Revenue: Migrating Your Ad Stack Without Tanking the Business | Most operators inherit their ad stack. Few ever get to build one from scratch. But growth changes the math, and at some point publishers start asking whether they can take monetization in-house and run it better than a third party can. This session is the real playbook for making that move without breaking revenue. Let’s walk through the full arc: discovery driven by analytics, building the blueprint and revenue projections, matching the right demand to the right supply, and a phased rollout that isolates errors before they spread. Marco Selci, Head of Programmatic Operations EU, Better Collective | |
| 5:00 pm | Transition Break | It’s time to head to our final sessions of the day, where we’ll bring everything together. |
| 5:10 pm | The News Opportunity: The Case For Investing in Journalism | Overly cautious approaches to brand suitability are costing some advertisers powerful opportunities to engage with valuable, engaged news audiences and highly performant inventory. This session will explore the research and data demonstrating the power of news for advertisers, and provide insight into buyers’ evolving perspectives and approaches. Jack Marshall, Head of News, DoubleVerify |
| 5:35 pm | Closing Remarks | We’ll reflect on the day, highlight key learnings, and look ahead to what’s next. Rob Beeler, Founder & CEO, Beeler.Tech |
| 5:45 pm | Evening Reception | After a long day of collaborative discussion and debate, we’ll come together one last time as a community. Make connections, share ideas, and exchange knowledge. |