WXO Team
- The WXO is run by a growing team of writers, editors, designers, developers, and visual researchers.
James Wallman
CEO
Experience evangelist, strategist, designer, and author. Clients range from Accor to Zurich, via Disney, HSBC, IDEO, KPMG, Kuoni, Marriott, the National Portrait Gallery. Written two international bestselling books on experiences: Stuffocation (2015) & Time And How To Spend It (2019) - which the Financial Times named a 'Book Of The Year'. Given talks from the Royal Academy to the Royal Society for the Arts, Google HQ, 10 Downing Street, TEDxManchester, TEDxLondon School of Economics.
Mike Goldsmith
Head of Content
A confident and innovative creative, Mike has a proven track record of delivering commercially successful products and experiences across the media and broadcast industries. With expertise spanning online, events, agency, and editorial, he seamlessly aligns audience needs with commercial goals to create engaging, high-impact content.Previously, Mike held leadership roles at Beano Studios, Local World (now Reach plc), and Future plc, where he spearheaded major digital transformations, product launches, and editorial strategies for leading brands like BBC, Sony, Sky Movies, and O2.
Sam Fay
VP Marketing
Sam is a powerhouse in the entertainment, gaming, and hospitality industries working with high-profile brands, including LEGO, Guinness World Records, Electronic Arts, EIDOS, Mecca Bingo, Grosvenor Casinos, and Layered Reality, where she has driven creative, high-impact marketing campaigns. An inclusive leader, she has held board-level roles, including MD, CMO, and SVP and is currently a Trustee at the Old Royal Naval College a 600-year-old UNESCO world heritage site. Passionate about female leadership and collaboration, she is also a founding member of The Girl’s Club and Mums in Marketing, championing female leadership and inclusivity in business.
Pippa Wong
Operations & Marketing Executive
A recent graduate from Oxford University, Pippa brings fresh insight and strategic thinking to her role at the WXO. During her time at Oxford, Pippa was deeply involved in student life, serving as Vice President of her college’s student community, where she managed internal communications and events both online and in person. She also led entertainment & design for her college’s Commemoration Ball, transforming the campus into a dazzling 1920s Parisian soirée.
Tizz Raj
Brand advisor
Award-winning content and creative strategist at IDEO, the BBC, McCann Erickson, JWT, Mindshare, Publicis.At the BBC, she proposed a transmedia storytelling approach to increase Top Gear’s commercial value by elevating the brand’s editorial ambitions in innovative ways. At IDEO, she prototyped an AR location-based app that offered place-relevant pop culture content for its community in collaboration with a major European broadcaster.
Lucy Shaw
Writer & researcher
Former editor of The Drinks Business magazine, Lucy is a freelance editor and writer specialising in food, wine and travel with 15 years of experience in the drinks industry. Having started out as editorial assistant at Decanter magazine, she has written for the likes of Newsweek, GQ, Marie Claire and the Evening Standard, and has been shortlisted for the Louis Roederer Emerging Wine Writer of the Year award four times.
Champ Camba
Developer
Champ is a WordPress plugin developer based in the Philippines. Currently, a lead developer at Ultimate Member( The #1 User Profile & Membership Plugin for WordPress ). He has 10 years of experience in developing WordPress membership and community sites. Champ is a volunteer at Food Not Bombs.
Jessica Smith
Visual Editor
Jessica is a freelance brand consultant and visual editor with 6 years experience working at The Future Laboratory both editorially at LS:N Global across wellness, beauty, food & drink and brand-side in content strategy and communications to help future-proof organisations. Following her Masters in Trend Forecasting at Polimoda Institute of Design and Marketing in Florence, Jessica worked at Telegraph Events as a Marketing Executive on health and fitness shows.
Rory Brown
Strategic Advisor
Co-founder of AgriBriefing, Rory built a global market data powerhouse from a kitchen table startup, securing three private equity rounds, eight acquisitions, and a successful exit in 2023. Now, he invests in and advises high-growth businesses in data, media, and events, helping turn big ideas into market leaders.
Capella Andrean
Brand & Design
A seasoned graphic designer and illustrator, Pel brings her keen eye for design and love for print to the WXO. With extensive experience as a senior designer in publishing, her work has graced the shelves of John Lewis, Paperchase, and Oliver Bonas, blending creativity with commercial impact. Passionate about visual storytelling and craftsmanship, she ensures that WXO’s brand identity is as bold, dynamic, and immersive as the experiences we create.
Our Legacy Team
- While their journey with us has taken them in new directions, these valued team members have left a lasting impact on our company. We’re grateful for their contributions and wish them continued success in their next chapters. Once part of our team, always part of our story!
Olivia Squire
Head of Content
Olivia is an award-winning editor, writer and content strategist obsessed with connecting disparate ideas, people and places to create work that sticks. Olivia was previously Editor-in-Chief at global travel magazine SUITCASE, and led the editorial strategy at experiential events company This is Beyond. She also loves articulating brands beyond the page, having organised supper clubs with MATCHESFASHION, The Ned and The Thinking Traveller, a dinner party with Bompas & Parr, a travel writing workshop with citizenM, an innovation summit for PURE Life Experiences, and panels for Desmond & Dempsey, Bamford Spa, Killik & Co, MUJI, Hay Festival, and of course, the World Experience Summit.
Fabiën Vlems
Operations & Communications
Armed with a Masters in Experiences from Breda University, and after a busy year in New York creating events across the US, Fabiën now runs our operations and communications. This comment by a WXO member sums up Fab's impact: "I’m fairly certain Fabiën Vlems never sleeps. It's as if she’s made a pact with some mythical operations deity, always ready to tackle my dumb questions, user-error disasters, or the sudden need for introductions to people I didn’t even know existed. She's like the omnipresent operations guru we all need but definitely don’t deserve."
Barri Coen
Growth Marketing Consultant
With 20+ years of experience driving measurable growth, Barri is a Growth Marketing Consultant at Rise, helping startups and SMEs across edtech, marketplaces, ecommerce, and gaming scale with data-driven marketing strategies.From seed-stage startups to blue-chip brands, Barri specializes in performance marketing, SEO, social media, content, email/CRM, partnerships, influencers, affiliates, and mobile marketing—optimizing user acquisition, retention, and lifecycle marketing across multiple channels.
We're Growing!
- The WXO is now 940+ members in 43 countries (updated Feb 15, 2025 - adding this because the numbers grow every week), and we're aiming to be 1,000 members before our next World Experience Summit.
- We firmly believe in the idea that Ken Kesey & the Merry Prankster's idea that, "You're either on the bus, or you're not on the bus." If you're on the bus with experiences - that is, you believe in the potential of better experiences to create a better world - and you want to work to make that happen, we're interested to hear from you. Email our CEO James at james.wallman@worldxo.org
