🟢 Learning + Work Festival 2025 Special 🟢

Hi friends,

Welcome to this Special Edition newsletter, brought to you as we are making the final preparations for our Learning + Work Festival 2025. We really hope you will join us for one or more of the 7 online Sessions we are hosting across two afternoons next week, on Tuesday, 7 and Wednesday, 8 October.

To kick it all off, there will be a Brighteye update on our thesis and approach to backing Founders building the Future of Learning + Work, before we head into a selection of operational areas relevant to building and scaling your business.

All sessions are online and free to attend, full details and registration👇🏽.

See you next week?

Best,
👋🏽 The Brighteye Team

🟢 Pre-Session: Welcome to the Festival + Brighteye Update
We’ll run through what’s in store for the Festival, followed by an update on Brighteye and our approach to investing in the Learning + Work landscape.

Speakers:
🟢 Ben Wirz, Founding Partner, Brighteye
🟢 Rhys Spence, Head of Platform & Research, Brighteye
🟢 Hege Tollerud, Head of Community & Events, Brighteye

🟢 Session 1: How Strategic Communication can help Attract Funding
Communications leaders will walk through some basics of PR and how to maximise the reach and impact of your media work with your target audiences.

Speakers:
🟢 Eleanor Warnock, Freelance Journalist and Communications Advisor
🟢 Jörn Dunker, Managing Director, Ballou Spain
🟢 Hege Tollerud, Head of Community & Events, Brighteye

🟢 Session 2: Product Market Fit
We will dive into how companies can reach PMF faster and more efficiently, using a data-driven approach to run and understand rapid experimentation.

​Speakers:
🟢 Pavlo Pedenko, CPO & Co-Founder, Mathema (Ex Wise)
🟢 Scott Eblen, VP of Product, Monzo Bank
🟢 Rhys Spence, Head of Platform & Research, Brighteye

🟢 Session 3: B2B Sales
This session focuses on leveraging data to drive sales priorities (funnel and performance management) and building executive relationships to turn global companies into lasting customers​

Speakers:
🟢 Edward Kyei, Global Engagement Manager, N47
🟢 Mathieu Parin, Global Sales Operations Director, PayFit
🟢 Frank Visciano, Former COO, Udemy

🟢 Session 4: Customer Success
We will address how AI is reshaping the customer success function in leading organisations, enabling increasingly personalised relationship management and support.

​Speakers:
🟢 Jeremy Ambrose, Senior Partners Manager, Zendesk for Startups
🟢 Benjamin Hempel, Senior Director – Customer Success & Solutions Consulting (APAC &EMEA), Scandit
🟢 Andrea Spillmann-Gajek, Founder, Success Accelerators

🟢 Session 5: AI in Marketing
Hear how senior marketers are integrating AI within the function, featuring examples and insights on how leaders are building and shaping teams capable of realising AI’s marketing potential.

​Speakers:
🟢 Lauren Crichton, Director of Marketing, Sana
🟢 Sophia Ahrel, Fractional CMO
🟢 Amy Spurgeon, VP of Growth, WPP

🟢 Session 6: How to raise a Series A-B in 2025
We dive into what it takes to raise a successful Series A-B round in 2025. ​Sdui recently secured €95M in fresh funding, in a round led by Bain Capital. In this session, Daniel Zacharias, Founder and CEO, will share some of the experience from the process.

​Hear from:
🟢 Daniel Zacharias, Founder & CEO, Sdui
🟢 Ben Wirz, Founding Partner, Brighteye