Brian Caplen has been editor of The Banker since 2003. He joined the Financial Times Group from Euromoney in 2000 where he had been executive editor of Euromoney magazine for five years. He also worked as a business editor and journalist in Hong Kong and the Middle East for 10 years. He has travelled extensively and done numerous high level interviews with prime ministers, finance ministers, central bank governors and senior executives. He has a first class honours degree In Development Studies from the University of East Anglia.

Samir is currently working at Brand Finance Singapore as a Managing Director. In this role Samir drives the business verticals including analytics, brand strategy, brand valuation, franchise strategy, brand scorecards etc across client segments and B2B environment. He has previously worked in various senior strategy roles including a Strategic Global Brand Marketing & Communications at Standard Charterd Bank in Singapore.

As a subject matter expert in brand management and an external speaker at global forums, Samir has contributed to thought leadership articles and have been featured in several regional and local publications. Samir is also a visiting faculty member and a guest lecturer for the executive MBA course at presitgeous MBA institutes.

David is the CEO and founder of Brand Finance plc, the leading independent brand valuation consultancy. David qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London. He has worked in the area of branded business, brand and intangible asset valuation since 1991 and since January 1995 has specialised entirely in this area. David has represented the British Standards institute on the International Standards Committee working party on the standardisation of brand valuation methods and practices, whose standard (ISO 10668) is due to be published in early 2010.

David is a passionate writer and has written many articles for the marketing and financial press on branded businesses and brand valuation and is the author of numerous publications. He also lectures on the subject of branded business, brand and intangible asset valuation at many of the leading business schools around the world.

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Sharanjit Leyl is a Singaporean Producer/Presenter, with BBC World News. She regularly anchors Asia Business Report and Newsday from the BBC’s Singapore studio. She is also a reporter and producer on the shows along with World Business Report. She has filed reports for radio on the BBC World Service business programmes as well as its arts and culture programme The Strand, and written for BBC news online.

Sharanjit began her broadcasting career at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1997. While there she reported for the award-winning show, “The Pacific Rim Report”. In 1999 Sharanjit moved to Singapore where she had a similar role at the financial news service provider Bridge Information Systems. She joined Bloomberg Television in March 2000 and moved to its headquarters in Tokyo. There she presented its main three-hour newscast, “On The Money Asia”, reporting on breaking financial stories as well as major news events such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Sharanjit played an integral role in editing and influencing the content of Bloomberg’s Asian programming.

Sunita's Asia-wide remit includes overseeing all advertising activity across BBC Worldwide' commercial businesses on multiple platforms. This includes television, online, mobile products such as World News, BBC.com, Worldwide Channels, Lonely Planet and BBC Mobile – under BBC Advertising, the newly launched the bespoke internal sales house for all wholly owned and operated BBC assets.

Prior to this role, Sunita was Vice President of Ad Sales, Asia for BBC Worldwide Channels. Sunita will continue to be based in Singapore.