Archives: Speakers

Laura Willoughby MBE is the founder of the world’s largest mindful drinking movement, Club Soda, and the UK’s foremost expert in low and no alcoholic drinks.  Club Soda runs the new Low & No Tasting Rooms in Covent Garden. 

Laura was named number 16 in 2023’s Drinks Retailing’s latest Top 100 Most Influential People in Drink, one of the 100 most influential women in hospitality by CODE, and is a Trustee for The Drinks Trust. The Club Soda Tasting Room was Drink Retailing’s Independent Retailer of the year 2023. 

Receiving an MBE for services to the community in 2004, Laura’s devotion to Club Soda means hundreds of thousands of people are supported in their journeys to live well by being more mindful about drinking alcohol. 

Luke Boase is the founder of Lucky Saint, the UK’s award-winning 0.5% Superior Unfiltered Lager. The brand launched in October 2018, however the story of creating this exceptional alcohol-free beer started much, much, earlier.

Way back in 1842, in the city of Pilsen in the Czech Republic, a revolution happened. Following years of sub-standard beer, a group of residents undertook to brew their own beer. That beer was unlike any beer-style that had been brewed before: golden in colour, crisp, dry and refreshing. Pilsner was born. And it has gone on to influence 80% of the beer we drink today, what we know as lager.

Fast forward to 2016, and the world has a drinking problem. So Luke had a thought: what if all the occasions on which he drank lager, could come with… or without alcohol?

Even in 2016, this was an unlikely idea. While alcohol-free beer was nothing new, it had never gained wide appeal. But against the advice of many, including one particular industry leader who suggested making fizzy sodas would be a better idea, he set out to discover just how hard it would be to brew a great tasting alcohol-free lager. And then build a brand that would empower people to drink it.

He spent the next two years working with six different brewers in three different countries, with this singular mission in mind. Ultimately joining forces with a 400 year old brewery in Bavaria who shared his passion for brewing beer of the highest quality.

Lucky Saint is a 0.5% Superior Unfiltered Lager. It’s brewed in accordance with German Purity Law, Reinheitsgebot, using the four natural ingredients you are supposed to find in a classic pilsner: Bavarian spring water, pilsner malt, Hallertau hops, single use yeast. That’s it, there’s no flavourings, no additives, no adjuncts. It is fermented for two weeks, and cold stored (or ‘lagered’) for a further four weeks, just like that original pilsner in 1842. And then it’s left unfiltered to retain as much flavour and character as possible. They call it heritage brewing for modern drinking.

Lucky Saint launched in October 2018 and has achieved wide success. It is listed leading on-trade accounts including 30 Michelin starred restaurants, some of the best bars in the world and some of the most brilliant local pubs. It is regularly voted the best alcohol-free lager, it was welcomed as the British Beer and Pub Association’s first alcohol free member and is on the journey to be accredited as a B-corporation.

Luke is driven by an entrepreneurial, and sometimes obsessive, curiosity for solving problems. Having worked across a range of industries from advertising, through fund management to oil & gas, solving the world’s drinking problem became that obsession in 2016. He lives in London with his wife and two young daughters.

Emma is Managing Director of Lucky Saint, the multi-award winning 0.5% superior unfiltered lager listed in +2500 bars/pubs and restaurants across the UK in bottle and on draught.

Emma has worked in consumer goods for 20 years across Europe and Africa: in the blue chips of Tesco and Diageo, and grown fledgling brands into household names such as innocent and Graze. It is the gritty challenging world of scaling start-ups that Emma loves and the reason she joined founder of Lucky Saint Luke Boase as MD in February 2020.

Emma has 2 young girls and is a passionate advocate of championing women in industry: as an Ambassador for Retail Week’s Be Inspired programme and Steering Group Member for The Grocery Girls.

Dagmar van Heur is a strategic marketer globally responsible for L&L Products’ Commercial Vehicles and Rail activities. His responsibilities include developing and leading global go-to-market strategies for the target market segments as well as identification of trends and transferring these into opportunities for L&L Products. He leads several transformational projects globally, where L&L Products’ material science and engineering support customers with new innovations up to and including their market introduction.

Dagmar started with L&L Products in 2018, after leading Trinseo’s Performance Plastics division for 7 years. Before 2010 he worked at Dow Automotive in a variety of technical and commercial leadership roles for both automotive and commercial vehicle/rail markets.

Dagmar holds an MSc in Aerospace Engineering from the Delft University of Technology, and an MBA from the Devos-Dow MBA program at Northwood University. He is now located in Germany with his wife Hinke. They have two children at university.

For over 25 years, Hans has worked in a variety of customer service roles at Swedbank. Most recently, he has led the adoption of Nina, Swedbank’s virtual assistant. Working as a manager, Hans and his team blend the conversational AI powered technology with banking-specific content to enable the virtual assistant to answer questions, conduct transactions and guide customers. Launched in 2013, Nina has improved the customer journey at Swedbank, and will continue to be optimized by Hans and his team with the most advanced AI capabilities to meet evolving customer needs.