Sarah Ellis MBE - Director, CoSTAR National Lab

Sarah Ellis MBE was appointed Director of CoSTAR National Lab in July 2026. She joins at a defining moment for CoSTAR and the UK's creative industries, marked by the imminent opening of its flagship AI-enabled converged production facility at Pinewood Studios in Autumn 2026. This will become a national centre for research, innovation and industry collaboration in converged media production.

Sarah has extensive experience in immersive storytelling, audience engagement and creative technology. Most recently Sarah was Director of Creative Innovation at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), where she worked for over 14 years.

During her time at the RSC, she was Project Director for the Audience of the Future Live Performance Demonstrator, funded by Innovate UK, she led a consortium of arts organisations, research partners and technology companies to explore the future of performances and real-time immersive experiences. That resulted in Dream - a virtual performance to a large scale online global audience during the pandemic. She led a cross-industry collaboration with the RSC, Intel and the Imaginarium Studios for the RSC's 2016 production of The Tempest. She executive produced Lili, a convergence of theatre and gaming adaptation of Macbeth by INK Stories in collaboration with the RSC and Alambic Productions, becoming the first ever video game exhibited at Cannes Film Festival in 2025.

Widely regarded as a leading voice in the creative industries, Sarah currently serves as member of DCMS' College of Experts, is a Principle Investigator for an AHRC funded Future of Performance Institute feasibility study and is an Industry Champion for the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, which helps inform academic research to lead to better policies for the sector. Her mentorship and advisory roles include being a board member of Figurative, an independent charity finding imaginative ways to grow the cultural and creative sectors’ financial resilience and social impact and is an advisory council member for the Academy of Live Technology based at Production Park.

Deborah Shaw - Head of Creative Programming, Historic Royal Palaces (inc. Tower of London, Kensington Palace & Hampton Court Palace) (UK)

Deborah is changing the way we tell and experience stories. She is the Head of Creative Programming at Historic Royal Palaces (inc. Tower of London, Kew Palace, Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace), where she is responsible for artistic interventions, performances and new forms of creative interpretation at the historic, iconic royal palaces of London.  

In this latter role, Deborah has been responsible for bringing together the team to execute ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’, from a concept from ceramicist Paul Cummins seen by an estimated 5 million people.  His idea was to ‘plant’ the moat at the Tower of London with ceramic poppies, one poppy for each of the 888,246 British soldiers lost during the 1914-18 war. The Poppies installation won over a dozen national awards, including the Sky South Bank Award for Visual Art. She was named one of the UK’s top ten most influential creatives in art and design in the Hospital Club’s h.Club 100 Awards 

She is a theatre director, festival director, producer and writer by background who was an Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Director of the acclaimed World Shakespeare Festival 2012 for London2012 and is Executive Producer and founder member of the Iraqi Theatre Company.    

HRP are pushing the boundaries around using technology to create new forms of story-telling such as the award winning 'Lost Palace' experience an interactive exploration of Whitehall Palace’s spaces and stories…300 years after they burnt to the ground. The project uses haptic technology and 3D binaural sound to lead visitors on a augmented journey through British history.    

https://creators.vice.com/en_au/article/nz4g9m/londons-lost-palace-art-experience

Historic Royal Palaces looks after the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, the Banqueting House, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace and Hillsborough Castle. Their aim is to help everyone explore the story of how monarchs and people have shaped society, in some of the greatest palaces ever built. 

Each of the six royal palaces in their care has survived for hundreds of years. They have witnessed peace and prosperity and splendid periods of building and expansion, but they also share stories of more turbulent times, of war and domestic strife, politics and revolution. www.hrp.org.uk 

Marc Fennell - Creator of No.1 global podcast hit 'Stuff the British Stole' & Walkley-winning journalist

Marc Fennell is a Walkley-winning journalist & documentary maker.

A 5-time medallist at the New York Festivals TV and Radio Awards, Marc has been nominated twice for Europe’s prestigious Rose d’Or. He is a recipient of America’s coveted James Beard Foundation Award, an Asian Creative Academy National Award, and Webby Award Honors. The Times (UK) has called Marc the “cheerful Aussie version of Louis Theroux”.

Marc is the creator of the popular, award-winning television series & podcast Stuff the British Stole for ABC Australia and CBC Canada. He is also seen each weeknight as the quizmaster of SBS TV’s iconic game show Mastermind.

Marc has fronted groundbreaking docs like the Logie & AACTA nominated School That Tried to End Racism (ABC 2021), The Kindom (SBS 2023) The Mission (SBS 2023) Rose d’Or shortlisted art-heist docu-series Framed (SBS 2021) as well as the hit Audible Original Podcasts It Burns (2019) Nut Jobs (2020) and House of Skulls (2023)

Marc anchored SBS TV’s national current affairs program The Feed for 9 years (2013-2022). He has reported around the globe from the 2019 Hong Kong protests to food crime in California to survivors of ISIS torture. Marc’s one-on-one interviews with the likes of Al Gore, Tom Cruise, Julian Assange, and Jennifer Lawrence have generated over 30 million online views.

A well-known voice on ABC Radio, Fennell has presented the technology program Download this Show since 2012 and was triple j’s Movie Guy from 2006-2017.

Marc has written 2 books and has also appeared on ABC’s The Drum, Network Ten’s The Project, SBS’s Dateline and Insight, and heard on top-rating ABC Radio Sydney.

Marc is the dad of 2 kids and lives in Sydney, Australia. He also helped found the not-for-profit advocacy group Media Diversity Australia.

Marc had an unusual path into journalism. He won an AFI Outstanding Young Film Critics Award back in high school. His broadcasting career began as the film critic for Sydney community radio station FBi 94.5. At 19 years old, Marc was recruited to SBS's rebooted version of The Movie Show (2004). He then jumped to the ABC's national youth broadcaster triple j to present film content across its radio, television and print arms. For 11 years, Marc was Australia's most listened-to film critic - better known to over 3.1 million triple j listeners as ‘That Movie Guy’. He also hosted the largest short film festival in the world Tropfest 2014-2016

Marc was a presenter and producer for all 3 seasons of ABC TV's ground-breaking journalism experiment Hungry Beast (2009-2011) under Executive Producer Andrew Denton.

Away from the camera, Marc has been an art director, web developer, magazine and newspaper writer and oh-so-briefly a hand model. Ask him about it sometime.

Beatie Wolfe - Musician & Technologist, collaborating with Brian Eno - 'Musical Weirdo & Visionary' (Vice); 'Profound' (BBC); 'Inspired' (New York Times); 'Pioneering' (NASA)

“Musical weirdo and visionary" (Vice) Beatie Wolfe has beamed her music into space, been appointed a UN role model for innovation, and held a solo exhibition of her ‘world first’ designs at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Named by WIRED as one of "22 people changing the world,” Wolfe is at the forefront of pioneering new formats that bridge the physical and digital. Wolfe's latest innovations include a visualisation of 800,000 years of NASA’s CO2 data, which premiered at the Nobel Prize Summit; a Brain Installation which was exhibited at the London Design Biennale in Somerset House and is currently on show at the Museum of Science Boston, and a Big Oil x Methane project which won Prix Ars Electronica’s Golden Nica. Other recent projects include the world's first bioplastic record with Michael Stipe and EarthPercent, a collective mail art project with DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh and a new body of work with Brian Eno. Wolfe is also the co-founder of a groundbreaking research project looking at the power of music for dementia... beatiewolfe.com

Rosie Dennis - Artistic Director/CEO, Urban Theatre Projects

Rosie Dennis creates work renowned for distinct beauty, universality and currency. Prior to joining UTP Rosie’s work was presented at more than 25 festivals across Central Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. She has received a number of new work commissions including: Carriageworks, Channel 4 (UK), ABC TV Arnolfini (UK) and Mousonturn Kunstlerhaus (GER). Most recently she has directed two documentaries, Bre & Back and One Day For Peace.