Riah Pryor

Riah Pryor is a journalist and author specialising in the relationship between art and law, supported by her experience working at New Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Unit. She previously worked at The Art Newspaper as Art Market Assistant Editor and continues to write for them (and others, including contributions to Financial Times) on a freelance basis. She is also founder of  Sourced Thought, a consultancy supporting private and not-for-profit cultural organisations in strategy, content and business planning.

Jennifer Schipf

Jennifer Schipf is AXA XL’s Global Chief Underwriter for Fine Art & Specie. In this role she is responsible for setting worldwide strategy, Underwriting guidelines and ultimate profitability. She’s been dedicated to the highly specialized market of fine art underwriting for nearly twenty years and helped establish the AXA Art Prize. She previously led the organization’s North American Fine Art & Specie team while also serving as leader of Broker and Client Management for North American Specialty.  Prior to joining AXA XL in 2008, she led the US Fine Art underwriting practice at another carrier and held various roles in claims, settling losses and performing loss control assessments for private collector clients. 

She started her career with a research position in the Old Master Drawings department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. followed by development roles at both the Chazen Museum and Tandem Press, in Madison, WI.

Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and Economics from Georgetown University with a concentration in the Italian Renaissance and Patronage of the Papacy. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Interior Architecture from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is actively engaged in various arts organizations, teaches fine art underwriting courses and regularly participates in industry educational conferences. 

Margherita Barbagallo

Margherita Barbagallo is a dual-qualified lawyer in England & Wales and Canada. She is the Head of Litigation, IP & Art Law at Dragon Argent, where she leads legal strategy for tech startups, SMEs and art market clients navigating digital transactions. A recognised expert on AI, NFTs and regulatory frameworks in the creative industries, she advises businesses, investors and creators on commercial transactions involving digital art, intellectual property and compliance risks. Previously, Margherita practiced in art law at a leading firm, handling title disputes, restitution claims, and fraud litigation for galleries, collectors, and artists’ estates. 

Margherita is a Trustee of Fevered Sleep, an award-winning arts organisation that creates insightful, interdisciplinary work to challenge perceptions and spark dialogue on contemporary issues. She is also an active member of PAIAM (Professional Advisors to the International Art Market).

Marc Spiegler

Having led Art Basel from 2007 to 2022, Marc Spiegler now works on a portfolio of cultural-strategy projects. He is President of the Board of Directors of Superblue and the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the future UBS Digital Art Museum in Hamburg. An external Senior Strategic Advisor for the Luma Foundation, he also serves on the boards of the ArtTech and Art Explora foundations. In addition to working with premium brands such as Prada, KEF Audio and Sanlorenzo, Spiegler has for almost a decade enjoyed being a Visiting Professor in cultural management at Università Bocconi in Milan.

Adam Prideaux

Adam Prideaux is the Managing Director of Hallett Independent.   He has worked in art insurance since 1991. With considerable experience in art insurance, Adam lectures regularly to museums and galleries. He has also co-authored the Guide to Museum Insurance published by the Museums, Archives and Libraries Council (MLA) and the Association of Independent Museums’ (AIM) Focus Paper: Risk Management and Museums.

Adam started his working career at Spink & Sons, fine art dealers, in 1986 and has maintained very close contact with the art world ever since. He is passionate about museums and, as well as being a Founding Patron to restore the Watts Gallery, he is also a Trustee of the South London Gallery. He is a patron of Tate, the Chisenhale Gallery, Nottingham Contemporary, the Showroom and the Contemporary Art Society.

He is on the board of the Professional Advisors to the International Art Market (PAIAM) which is a networking platform for professionals working in the art world.  

Jean-Baptiste Costa de Beauregard

Jean-Baptiste Costa de Beauregard is a partner at ArtNova, the 100m€ evergreen investment fund dedicated to the creative industries. ArtNova operates under ArtNova Capital (investment in startups and mature companies), ArtNova Patrimoine (investment in heritage real estate), fully owns Beaux Arts & Cie (the leading media and services group for the art world) and controls Art Market Minds (organizer of The Art Business Conference). Jean-Baptiste is also the deputy CEO of Beaux Arts & Cie since 2021, in charge of its media division.

Christian Zimmermann

Christian Zimmermann is Chief Executive of DACS. He has spent his career protecting artists’ rights, having worked at DACS for 18 years. He is a qualified solicitor in the UK and Germany with a Masters in Intellectual Property Law. Before joining DACS in 2006, he worked at the Association of Photographers (AOP).

As a skilled and experienced negotiator, Christian has defended and advocated for artists’ rights throughout his career. He led negotiations with the government to fully implement the Artist’s Resale Right in 2012, which culminated in more artists and beneficiaries being able to benefit from the Right in the long term. He also steered DACS through an industry-wide valuation with the Copyright Licensing Agency to protect visual artists' share of collecting licensing revenue.

Christian is a Board Director of CISAC the world’s leading network of collective management organisations. He is Vice Chair of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations' (IFRRO) Visual Working Group. He is a Member Director of Online Art and the Educational Recording Agency (ERA) and is on the Editorial and Advisory Board for Journal for IP Protection.

Christian is also an Observer Member Representative at the European Visual Artists (EVA) Board and Observer Member on Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Board.

Vivienne Chow

Vivienne Chow is an award-winning journalist and the London Correspondent for Artnet News, where she covers the art market and art world with a particular focus on Europe and Asia. She co-authors The Asia Pivot, Artnet Pro's biweekly members-only newsletter, offering essential analysis, insights, and exclusive intelligence on developments in Asia's art markets, with an emphasis on business opportunities and challenges. Previously based in Hong Kong, Chow brings over two decades of experience in arts and culture reporting. Her work has appeared in various publications such as BBC Culture, Variety, The Art Newspaper, Quartz, and the South China Morning Post. In addition to journalism, she founded a non-profit and served as an honorary lecturer at universities.

Chris Bentley  

Chris Bentley is Head of Fine Art & Specie, UK & Lloyd’s at AXA XL. Previously, Chris held the role of AXA ART’s Director of Underwriting for Northern Europe, Middle East & Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining AXA Art in 2012, Chris worked for Hiscox Syndicate 33 at Lloyd’s as a member of the Fine Art underwriting team. In addition, he has held positions at Bonhams Auctioneers and also Aon Artscope as a Fine Art Insurance Broker specialising in art and antique dealers. 

He is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, an elected member of the LMA/ IUA Joint Specie Committee since 2015 and served as Chairman between September 2019 and June 2023, and a member of PAIAM (Professional Advisors to the International Art Market).

to help teams better understand a project's climate impact and is the Director of Strategy at Art into Acres.  

Sylvain Levy  

Founded in 2005 by Dominique and Sylvain Levy, dslcollection is an ongoing cultural and entrepreneurial project that embodies a family adventure and a collection of art and science. Dslcollection wants to establish a model that makes collecting art continuously active and meaningful, always moving with the shifting times.   This collection has the particularity to use all the innovative tools to share with the public. Some dates : 2011 Ipad application, 2012 Creation of a museum on Second Life 2013: Creation of a museum in vr 2015, and in 2021 a video game and the metaverse. Dslcollection has been experiencing  the impact of the digital transformation on the art, the art market and the collectors.

Charlotte Stewart  

Charlotte Stewart has 17 years’ experience in the secondary fine art market, including a decade at Christie’s auction house before moving into consultancy for art market platforms. Since 2019, she has served as Managing Director of MyArtBroker, the art-tech business now celebrating its 15th year. The company trades blue-chip prints through a platform that treats them as transparent, investable assets. Under her leadership, MyArtBroker has built a team of leading specialists and developed proprietary algorithms for real-time valuations, launched the first fully 100% ownership trading floor, and created MyPortfolio, a dynamic collection management system. This combination of cutting-edge technology, a human expert team, and an unwavering dedication to the collector has been key to the company’s success in one of the fastest-growing sectors of the art market.

Callum Hale-Thomson  

Callum Hale-Thomson is the founder of First Thursday, a sales intelligence platform that leverages AI and automation to help commercial art galleries identify and nurture their most valuable collectors. By improving internal efficiency and cutting out manual tasks, the platform enables sales directors to focus on growing their most important relationships.

Since its launch during Frieze London in 2024, First Thursday has grown rapidly to support leading international galleries both online and at major art fairs like Frieze, Art Basel, and The Armory Show.

Before founding First Thursday, Callum spent a decade honing his expertise in AI, data analysis, and strategy at early-stage startups, most recently leading Strategic Operations and International Expansion at Otta.com.