Event Promoter and Pro Sailor, Peter Gilmour has been one of the key figures of the America's Cup since his first campaign, in 1987 on board Kookaburra III. He finished third of the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2003, running OneWorld's campaign. He was also part of Team Alinghi during the 2007 Defense.

Peter is also the only repeat champion of the World Match Racing Tour. He won the 2003-04 Swedish Match Tour championship, followed with victory again in 2004-05. He then went on to be crowned Tour Champion again in 2005 - 06.

Peter now runs the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia, an official stage of the World Match Racing Tour.

Thomas A. Whidden joined North Sails in 1986 and became President/CEO of North Marine Group when it was established ten years later. Whidden has earned many accolades throughout his sailing career including the prestigious "A Life for Sailing" Award at the Trofeo Zegna Regatta in Portofino, Italy in 2006, which is given biennially to a person who has devoted their life and career to sailing. Whidden's leadership in the design and manufacturing of superb, technologically-advanced sails at North Sails is significant. Since Whidden became president, the art and science of sailmaking has advanced so completely that every 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race competitor and eleven of 12 America's Cup teams in 2006-07 raced exclusively with North sails.

Whidden is one of the most experienced America's Cup sailors in the world and was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 2004. He has sailed with Dennis Conner in a total of eight America's Cup campaigns, beginning in 1979. He was tactician in five America's Cup series races and he has won the Cup three times.

Richard has been at the forefront of the sport and entertainment marketing industry for over seventeen years and has developed strategic campaigns and implementation for a wide number of award winning sponsorships.

Richard formed Capitalize Ltd in 1995 aiming to invigorate the sport and entertainment industry and develop creative and sustainable campaigns with a marketing backbone for corporate clients. Capitalize has grown organically and today has a full-time staff team of 25 executives and a turnover of more than £4million per annum. Clients include some of the world's best known brands including PUMA, Bacardi-Martini, Ray-Ban, Standard Chartered Bank, Yamaha, Schroders and Carlsberg-Tetley to name but a few.

Richard was a founding director of ESA, the European Sponsorship Association, and has been credited with helping to build sponsorship as a crucial element of the marketing mix. As Chairman of ESA's Training and Education Committee, Richard provided high quality and affordable training to all levels of staff interested in sponsorship. Richard is the founding Chairman of Future Sponsorship, Europe's leading conference for the sponsorship industry. Richard lives in West London with his wife Louise and their three children. He is a competitive sailor and keen cyclist.

Previous Volvo Ocean Race experience:
1989-'90 - Crewmember, Gatorade
1993-'94 - Crewmember, Brooksfield
1997-'98 - Shore Manager, EF Language (1st overall)
2001-'02- Project Director, Assa Abloy (2nd overall)
2005-'06 - Project Manager, Ericsson Racing Team
2008-'09 - Managing Director, Ericsson Racing Team

Born in 1968, Richard brings enormous experience and proven success to the role of Managing Director. Brisius was a crewmember in the 1989-'90 and 1993-'94 round-the-world races as well as the 1992 America's Cup. Since the 1997-'98 race, he has applied his knowledge to the management side. He was shore manager for EF Language when it won in '97-'98. Brisius managed the 2005/6 entry of Ericsson and was tasked to manage the overall commercial and sportive organization winning the 2008/9 VOR in what became his sixth consecutive race. In 1998 he co-founded, with Johan Salen, Atlant Ocean Racing, which has been managing entries for the Volvo Ocean Race as well us 60-feet multi-hulls in the Nordic region. In the 2001-'02 race, he was Project Director for Assa Abloy Racing Team, which placed second overall. He is also founder and director of various own companies in telecom and clothing.

Maria Moynihan Lee was Festival Director for the Volvo Ocean Race Galway Stopover, 23 May - 6 June, 2009. During this fortnight 650,000 people visited the race village in Galway Harbour, delivering a return on investment in excess of all expectations to the city. The Volvo Ocean Race Galway Stopover has been acclaimed as the definitive model for future stopovers and Maria will explain its economic impact for Galway and the unique marketing and programming formula which yielded these results.

Maria's area of expertise is as a producer of large-scale spectacle events and her other credits include civic celebrations such as Ireland's St Patrick's Festival; the celebration of the enlargement of Europe during Ireland's presidency of the EU in 2004; the centenary of James Joyce's Bloomsday and even the Eurovision Song Contest!

Austrian National Team 1989 - 1996 | Soling
Austrian Champion Soling (2x)

Awards:
Pegasus ( Austrian Economy Award) for the Organisation of the Traunsee-Sailing Week
Honor-Medal of Upper Austria for the RC 44 Austria Cup

Company:
Founder/Owner/CEO Profs-Marketing since 1996

Projects:
Allianz Traunsee Woche since 2004
RC 44 Austria Cup 2008|2009|2010
RC 44 Team Austria - CoOwner

Business graduate from New England College, Daniel is now Manager of Puerto Calero S.A.; a business that owns and runs marinas and real estate developments. Combining work with a fervent love of sailing, Daniel was instructive in bringing world-class sailing to a new destination in Lanzarote, organising championship events such as the TP52 and GP42 worlds, together with other events featuring the RC44 class series, Grade 1 Match Racing and J80 Nationals.

His successful Team Islas Canarias Puerto Calero races in both RC44 and GP42 class, and were victorious in the Audi Medcup this year. He has achieved a personal goal of being the principal team of the Canary Island Squderia, a local strategy created to promote the nautical aspects worldwide. Furthermore, he also manages the prestigious Canarian whale and dolphin museum, located in Lanzarote.

Uli Lacher has been involved in the sponsorship and research industry for approaching twenty years. Uli has been involved with the some of the largest investors in the sponsorship industry such as Deutsche Telekom where he managed its sponsorship strategy from 1996 to 2001. His areas of expertise include sponsorship strategy, media analysis, valuation, and project management. Relevant sailing projects he has been involved with include top-tier events such as the America's Cup or the Volvo Ocean Race, where IFM is providing research and counsel to a broad range of clients, as well as a couple of smaller racing series.

This 37 year old Swede has worked within the expertise of brand building since 1998, working with brands like Saab, Stora Enso, Bentley, Helly Hansen, Carlsberg and Lexus. Before joining his current assignment at the brand development agency of Grow in Stockholm, he worked for 8 years at the international IPG network at the Stockholm agencies of Lowe and Octagon. The passion for yacht racing, both competing and working with different aspects of it, has led to a more focused role of brand related commercial yacht racing consultancy for the past 5 years, involving work with clients like The Royal Swedish Yacht Club, Helly Hansen and Ericsson.

Chief Marketing Officer, VELUX CMO for the The VELUX Group, Michael has been responsible for the VELUX Group Brand Management, Communications and Corporate Marketing for more than a decade.

Joint Managing Director of Sunset+Vine|APP, host broadcasters for major international sailing event from the iShares Cup and Audi Med Cup to four major round the world races in the last three years; producing and distributing programming and international television news campaigns. Simmonds leads a global distribution team delivering programming and television news to broadcasters in over 140 countries, plus more than 35 airlines every month. Simmonds has managed projects and productions that have won awards both for the quality of programming and the effectiveness of broadcast and online television strategies for sponsors and events including the monthly magazine series Seamaster Sailing which is shown in 130 countries and sits alongside Gillette World Sport and The Business of Formula 1 as a benchmark series in its sector.

Simmonds has been the voice of sailing for the BBC at all major sailing events over the last ten years including three Olympic Games He has many television credits as Producer, from documentaries on Ellen MacArrthur's extraordinary round the world achievements to the Official Film of the Sailing Competition of the Olympic Games. He has also been responsible for the development of the company's television news division where a team is currently engaged on the 2008/09 Volvo Ocean Race.

Frostad, 40, who took up the role of Volvo Ocean Race CEO in early March following the departure of Glenn Bourke, has a wealth of sailing experience with the Whitbread/Volvo going back to the 1993-94 when he was helmsman on the second-placed Intrum Justitia. He was skipper and project founder/director on Innovation Kvaerner in the 1997-98 Whitbread and on Djuice Dragons in the 2001-02 Volvo. In 2005-06 he was watch leader and technical advisor with Brasil 1.

Born in Harstad, Norway, Frostad has carved out a successful career in both sailing and business. He campaigned for the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 as a board sailor and represented Norway in the Flying Dutchman class in Barcelona in 1992.

His other sailing experience encompasses an array of offshore projects including 60ft trimarans. He has also won the Sydney-Hobart as helmsman/co-skipper in 1994 and 2000.

Born near Ipswich, Suffolk on England's East Coast , Josh has covered over 250,000 miles as a solo racing skipper with over 25 years experience as a skipper and project manager. He has competed in numerous ocean races including the Vendee Globe, BOC Challenge, Transat Jacques Vabre and OSTAR. In 2002, he was Project Manager for the Pindar sponsored Open 60, and in 2004, Project Manager for the Hugo Boss Open 60. Further Project Manager roles include "Gryphon Solo" Open 50, "Spirit of Yukoh" Open 60, and "Pegasus" Open 50 .

Spotting the need for a more 'affordable' round the world race, Josh created and organised the Portimao Global Ocean Race 2008-2009.

Dominique was born in Geneva on 4th July 1955 and today ranks among the most experienced offshore sailors. Born to an engineer father and a mother who was a Swiss tennis champion, his enthusiasm for sailing started at the age of 13 and his sailing accolades include embarking on Disque d'Or 3 alongside Pierre Felhman for his first round the world, which was to mark the start of a long and brilliant career. Dominique has also participated in 7 round the world races and numerous transatlantics in crewed, double and single-handed configurations. An 8-time skipper in the Tour de France à la Voile, he also put to use his talent as a coach for an America's Cup team in 1992. He finished 5th in the 2001 Vendée Globe and 4th in the 2005 race.

Currently President and CEO of b-plan sports & events, Riccardo Simoneschi was AD of Simbroker insurance broker; a firm specialized in third party liability for professionals and he has been consultant for 14 years of AUDI in the field of sailing.

In his sailing experience he is currently helming the "AUDI powered by Q8" TP52 in the AUDI MEDCUP and Melges 24. He has furthermore been active politically in the field of sport, currently as the VP of the ISAF Equipment Committee. He is also International VP of the Melges 24 Class Association, as well as a member of the board of directors of Yacht Club Porto Rotondo and of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda. Last but not least, he is a former President of the International Star Class Yacht racing Association and member of the board of directors of Yacht Club Italiano.

Scott Macleod joined the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour in 2008. In his new role as Senior VP Business Development, he is responsible for enhancing the Tour's revenue strategy and continued investment by the world's leading brands in women's professional tennis. Specifically, his role includes sponsorship sales development, online advertising sales and licensing.

Scott is also Principal and Founder of Force10 Marketing, a London based sports agency whose clients include UBS, BMW and Continental Airlines. From 1998-2004, He also held the position of Senior Vice President at the global sports and entertainment marketing agency Octagon, where he was responsible for sales and marketing activities across a range of sports including founding the World Match Racing Tour, a leading global sailing series featuring America's Cup sailing teams.

Scott has a track record of international sales success to his positions. During his tenure at Octagon, he played a key role in successful sports sponsorship sales with such brands as Cigna, Nautica, Tyco, UBS AG and Sanex. From 1988-1998, he served as Principal and Founder of Sail Sports International, a sports and events marketing agency specializing in professional yachting events. An accomplished sailor himself, Scott was also a member of the US National Olympic Sailing Team from 1985-1988.

A Dutch national, Jerome holds both a Bachelor's and Masters' Degree in Law from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He began his career in 1989 with the Royal Netherlands Yachting Union as Head Coach for the Netherlands Olympic Yachting Team progressing to the role of High Performance Director in 1992.

In 1997 he joined the ISAF Secretariat in Southampton as Events Manager / Head of the Competitions Department. He became Director of Sailing in 2005 and was appointed Deputy Secretary General in 2007. He assumed his current position as Secretary General on 1 January 2008. Jerome lives in Lymington with his wife and 2 children.

Mark Turner was born on the Isle of Wight in 1967. After gaining a BSc Physics/Maths at Exeter University, Mark served with the Royal Navy for six years. He started his first company - Winning Winches - in 1990, moving on three years later to become Marketing Director at Spinlock. While working at Spinlock, Mark founded Offshore Challenges and in 1998 left Spinlock to focus fully on OC Group business. The Offshore Challenges Group, which he runs together with Ellen MacArthur, started at the same time, when the Group created and managed Ellen's benchmark sailing campaign, Kingfisher Challenges. It is under this banner that Ellen participated in the 2000/2001 solo Vendée Globe race on the monohull Kingfisher. Mark has competed in numerous Grand Prix events including The Whitbread Round the World Race and the Mini-Transat.

Career History
2009
Brawn GP F1 Team, Chief Executive Officer.

2006
Honda Racing F1 Team, Chief Executive Officer.

2005
B·A·R Honda, Chief Executive Officer.

2002
Appointed Managing Director, B·A·R F1 in addition to Prodrive responsibilities.

2001
Managing Director, Prodrive Automotive Technology, leading to position of Group Managing Director, overseeing both the company's engineering and racing operations.

1999
Product Planning and Business Director, Ford Europe based in Cologne, Germany

1998
Brand Manager for Large Cars, Ford Europe.

1996
Service Director, Ford Europe.

1993
Managing Director, Aston Martin - overseeing the development of the DB7 which has since become the best-selling model in the company's history.

1992 Director of Operations, Aston Martin - following Ford's acquisition of 50% of Aston Martin Lagonda Limited.

1979
Moved to Product Development as a Product Planner and developed a variety of models over the next 12 years including several performance models - Escort Cosworth, RS2000 and others.
1978
Joined Ford Motor Company working in Sales and then Market Research.

1977
Graduated from University of Wales.

Cam Lewis is a world class sailor, author, public speaker and original holder of the Trophee Jules Verne Record. Known throughout the sailing community as a top racing skipper, Cam is a past winner of the America's Cup & has set numerous ocean sailing records and won many world titles in a variety of boats- from Finn dinghies to large Catamarans, most recently he won the 6 Meter World Cup on Sophie 11.

OC Group, Events Director • Merchant Navy Officer • MBA HEC (Hautes Etudes Commerciales-Paris) • Winner of the Mini Transat • Project manager Gitana (Baron de Rothschild fleet) • 2nd Figaro (2002) single handed race (8 participations) • Holder of 2002 Trophée Jules Verne as watch captain & navigator/weather man • Project manager 60' IMOCA campaign Delta Dore • OC Events Director, in charge of the iShares Cup

Bio coming soon.

Founder and former organiser of the Louis Vuitton Cup, Bruno Troublé is one of the key figures of the America's Cup. Troublé started his sailing career in the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games, finishing sixth in the Flying Dutchman Class. He then participated in the 1972 Games, before moving on to the America's Cup. He took part to three editions of the Cup as skipper, in 1977, 1980 and 1983. He managed to reach the challenger's finals with France 3 in 1980 - the best result ever achieved by a French team in the America's Cup.

In 1983, Troublé created the famous 'Louis Vuitton Cup'; a competition aimed at selecting the best Challenger to sail against the Defender of the America's Cup. In 2008, Louis Vuitton ended their involvement in the Louis Vuitton Cup and in 2009 Troublé helped form the Louis Vuitton Trophy Regatta, a set of regattas for current and past America's Cup teams.

Aged 64, Bruno Troublé is a member of the America's Cup Hall of Fame.

Born in San Francisco in 1959, Paul Cayard is a famous navigator. He skippered Team EF Language to victory in the 1988 Whitbread round the world, and finished second in the 2005-2006 season edition of the Volvo Ocean Race as skipper of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean. He was twice Olympic sailor and seven time world champion. He has competed in six Americas'Cup's and won the 1992 Louis Vuitton Cup as skipper of the Italian Team "Il Moro di Venezia".

Stephane Kandler, 38, started working in the family business "K-Yachting", a company specialised in the charter and brokerage of racing yachts. K-Yachting is operating in La Seyne sur Mer in the South of France. Amongst the successes of K-Yachting were the election of the Mumm 30 as the official boat of the Tour de France à la Voile, the organization of international events (Mumm 30 Worlds and Europeans, One Ton Cup), and the participation to international events (Admiral's Cup, One Ton Cup (2 victories), Key West etc.).

K-Challenge was created in 2001 with the intention to build a permanent professional structure dedicated to take up international sailing challenges. K-Challenge was the French National Team in the last 32nd America's Cup (with +200 million Euros of advertisement equivalent for its sponsors) and is preparing the next edition. Current or former team members selected by K-Challenge have achieved great successes with medals in the Olympic Games, top scores on the World Match Racing Tour and offshore sailing events.

Born in 1969 in Athens, businessman Sotiris Buseas is CEO of BBI TELECOMMUNICATIONS INC headquartered in Toronto, Canada. A graduate of the University of Colorado and aviation pilot, Sotiris has been involved in many projects including the organization and sponsorship of major events such as "The Molson Indy" (Formula Racing) and "Taste of the Danforth" (The largest Hellenic festival in the world). In 2004, Sotiris was involved in the distribution and promotion of the ATHENS 2004 Olympics official licensed products in Canada for the first time in Canadian Olympic Sports history.

He has recently developed and promoted the GREEK CHALLENGE to compete in the America's Cup.

Sotiris is a resident of Canada since 1989.

Jean-Dominique Lauwereins, 43, is the CEO and co-founder of BeTomorrow, a French company specialized in broadcasting live sailing events over mobile, Web and TV in 3D. Jean-Dominique has been involved in major events such as the Olympics in Beijing and previously in Athens, the last Vendée Globe, the MedCup , the Barcelona World Race, the Oman Sail round the World, and 32nd America's Cup. He managed a multimedia team which covered the 32nd America's Cup for Alcatel-Lucent as the new media sponsor. Their mobile coverage of the Cup was awarded at the Mobile World Congress as best mobile application and at Sportel. Addicted to sailing and to video games, Jean-Dominique and his team also created "LiveSkipper", a massive multiplayer game available on the web and on iPhone. "LiveSkipper " is a game in which players compete not only with other players but also with real skippers, within the same weather conditions. In 2009, Jean-Dominique's penchant for new technologies made him involve his company in strategic projects linked to GPS/Galileo positioning systems, new mobile devices like iPhones, cloud computing...

Jose was born in Sevilla, Spain, 50 years ago. He studied Sport Medicine in the University of Porto Alegre in Brazil. Rowing is his main sports background, a sport which he started practising when he was 8. After more than 10 years coaching, he became the Female National Coach in Spain and in Brazil. Event manager of the most popular rowing event in Spain, the Boatrace Sevilla-Betis during 6 years, Director of the Sevilla`s High Performance Centre for Rowing and Canoeing during more than 14 years and General Manager of the 2002 World Championships in both sports. He has been an active member of the International Rowing Federation, FISA, for many years, taking part in the technical area at the Sydney Olympics. Since 2005, he is General Manager of the Andalucia Sports Bureau, a project supported by the Andalusian Regional Government, specially focussed on the promotion of international events held in the region.

This year he was Local Event Manager of the iShares Cup in Almeria, held therefor the first time.

Sir Robin is Executive Chairman and Founder Director of Clipper Ventures. He has been involved in sailing all his life and holds a Department of Transport Master’s Certificate. He is the first person to sail solo and non-stop around the world in 1968/9 and has also set the record for the fastest circumnavigation with Sir Peter Blake. In 2007 he completed his second solo circumnavigation when he competed in the VELUX 5 OCEANS race. Sir Robin has considerable experience of the administration of round the world races having served on the Whitbread Race committee from 1990 to 1994 and having organised the BOC Challenge Round the World Race in 1982 and 1986. He has been named RYA/YJA Yachtsman of the Year an unprecedented three times.

William joined Clipper Ventures early in 1996, joining forces with Sir Robin in the initial stages of production of the original fleet of Clipper 60s. He has brought to Clipper a commercial background gained in the property investment arena where he successfully ran a number of different companies. William has taken the Clipper Race to a global audience by developing the international city sponsorship model that has proved so successful.

Karin Bäcklund has been in the automotive business for 14 years. She has held management positions within Marketing and Public Affairs at Volvo Cars. Her experience includes market research and business intelligence, customer satisfaction and quality, new car launches, brand and product communication, corporate and executive events, sponsoring incl Volvo Ocean Race, golf, cultural sponsorship and product placement.

As responsible for Volvo Ocean Race at Volvo Cars, Karin has taken the project to unprecedented levels of commercial utilisation. She says; "The Volvo Ocean Race provides us with a unique global platform to showcase our brand and products to the millions of enthusiasts that follow the race in the stopover, via TV or other multi-media tools. Also, as the pinnacle within ocean racing, Volvo Ocean Race is all about 'Life at the Extreme'. The race is about adventure, excitement, performance and endurance, and we want to highlight these attributes in our cars, in addition to our traditional turf of safety and environmental care. We want to infuse our brand with emotions, and the Volvo Ocean Race is all about human drama and emotions. There are also parallels between the race and the Volvo Cars brand with regards to the importance we place on safety, environmental care and premium quality and technology. Most importantly, however, are the business results, we believe that the race provides us with a valuable tool to market and sell cars."

Karin Bäcklund has managed many different situations like organizational-, process-, strategy and structure changes. She was the architect of the Market Intelligence Business Service Centre, which is a benchmark within Volvo Cars when it comes to new innovative organisational solutions in an international environment. She managed the development and implementation of the global customer satisfaction tool, Customer for Life. The project's implementation of a global approach, new technology and cost-efficiency was awarded in the Volvo Cars Quality award 2001.

In addition to Swedish and English she speaks some French.

Bio coming soon.

Educated in Communication and PR, Nathalie Quéré has built through the years a solid experience in the international corporate communication field, from operational activities to strategic management, with an unique expertise in global sponsorship deals.

Started with the public relations of France Telecom in Albertville during the Winter Olympic Games in 1992, her career highlights include the implementation of the partnership of France Telecom with Eurodisney from 1992 to 1996, the management of the sponsorship of Infonet with Volkswagen during the Dakar Rally and World Cross-Country Rally Championship in 2005 and the management of the sponsorship of Infonet with Alinghi for the two successful 31st and 32nd America's Cup campaigns from 2001 to 2007.

Within BT Global Services, she continues in her area of expertise with the management of BT's sponsorship with Montreux Jazz Festival in 2008, and since 2007 the management and exploitation of BT Team Ellen, the international sailing sponsorship with a focus on sustainability between BT and Offshore Challenges, with Ellen MacArthur as BT’s ambassador for CSR and Sustainability. Nathalie is also currently in charge of the plans for the international exploitation of BT's partnership for the upcoming Olympic Games in London in 2012.

Brad Butterworth OBE, born in 1959, is a world-renowned yachtsman best known as tactician and team skipper for the Swiss America's Cup Defender Alinghi. In the Cup's 157 year history, no other afterguard member has won so many races in succession; as tactician on New Zealand's Black Magic in 1995 and 2000, and Switzerland's Alinghi in 2003 and 2007, Butterworth set a new Cup record with 16 consecutive America's Cup race victories. For the last five America's Cups Butterworth has been involved in negotiating the competitive issues with both defenders and challengers; he worked closely with the NYYC as Challenger of Record in 1995 and then Luna Rossa in 2000, before sitting on the board of CORM (Challenger of Record Management) for the organisation of the 2003 Louis Vuitton Cup in New Zealand. After the win with Alinghi in 2003, he thrashed out the rules with BMW Oracle racing for the 32nd America's Cup, said to be the most successful in history. Brad Butterworth was awarded an OBE in 1995 and was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 2004.