IIC Combined Chapter Meeting: Online safety – restricting Social Media Use – issues for parents, users, funders and advertisers

Almudena Lara is Ofcom’s Online Safety Policy Director and co-leads the Online Safety Policy Development unit which leads on developing and implementing policy and regulatory tools relating to the protection of children online.
Almudena has previously worked at Google as global lead on child safety public policy and NSPCC, where she led its public policy team and championed reform to protect children.

Augusto Preta is a consultant, economist and market analyst, with long-established experience in the field of content media and digital markets. As Founder and CEO at ITMedia Consulting, he has assisted and advised for almost 30 years, public institutions, authorities and major companies in media, telecommunications and the internet industries.

Mr Preta is Member of the SIE (Società Italiana degli Economisti).  He has been a visiting professor on Media Economics at Urbino University, Sassari University e Università Cattolica di Milano for almost 20 years, and has been involved in many research projects, writing influential papers and cooperating with organisations such as: Aspen Institute, European Law and Economics Society, Luigi Einaudi Foundation. He is author of “Economia dei contenuti” (2008) and “TV and relevant markets” (2013). He co-authored with Gerard Pogorel the Fondation Robert Schuman research report  “Convergence in Media and Telecom in face of Covid-19” (2020).

Mr Preta is President of the International Institute of Communications Italian Chapter, and served on the board of Directors 2006-2023.

Dr Catherine Page Jeffery is a senior lecturer and researcher in the Discipline of Media and Communication. Catherine’s current research explores digital media and families, with a particular focus on parenting and family dynamics in the digital age, and sexually explicit material online.

She is currently a Chief Investigator on an ARC-funded project ‘Improving Digital Sexual Literacy in Australia’ (2024-2026). Previously, she was lead chief investigator on an innovative project funded by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner which worked with families with teenage and pre-teen children to promote intergenerational understanding about digital media use, with the aim of reducing media-related conflict at home.

Catherine’s work on digital media and families has been published in leading international journals, and she is regularly sought out for expert commentary by Australian and international media outlets.

Her most recent book, published by Routledge in 2025, is titled Parenting in a Digital World; Beyond Media Panics Towards a New Theory of Parental Mediation.

Prior to entering academia Catherine worked in online content regulation and cyber safety education for the federal government, as well as at Australia’s ICT research centre of excellence. Her prior academic appointments include as a lecturer in media and communications at the University of Canberra.

Elisa Giomi is an Associate Professor at Roma Tre University, Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts, where she teaches Sociology of Media and Communication, Television Narrative, and Advertising. Prof. Giomi also teaches at the MA course in Cultural Leadership Research, a double postgraduate degree programme (University of Groningen and Roma Tre University) and coordinates the Media and Communication module of the MA in Gender and Political Studies.

Prof. Giomi is the author of more than 60 publications for major italian and international publishers and peer-reviewed journals.  Her latest publication is “Male and Female Violence in Popular Media” (Bloomsbury 2022) and “The Media today. Technologies, markets, socio-cultural issues and regulatory responses” (forthcoming).

Prof. Giomi has coordinated national and international scientific projects aimed at studying the media and identifying good practices in the sector, on behalf of various bodies and institutions including: European Parliament, EJC-European Journalism Center, EIGE-European Institute for Gender Equality. She has coordinated television content analysis projects on behalf of italian broadcasters, including monitoring the representation of women in public programming.

Prof. Giomi has collaborated with the “Commission of enquiry on feminicide, as well as on all forms of gender-based violence” of Italian Parliament; she is a member of the board of the “Gender Studies” section of the AIS-Italian Association of Sociology and of the magazine “AG.About Gender-International Journal of Gender Studies”.

By decree of the President of the Republic, Prof. Giomi was appointed on 15 September 2020 as a member of the Board of AGCOM- Authority for Communications Guarantees.

Lynn Robinson became Director General of the International Institute of Communications (IIC), in March 2020.

Lynn is an experienced senior director and trustee / non exec-director, having held key senior leadership positions in the technology, built environment, regulation, accreditation and dental industries. She has extensive experience of professional membership bodies working within the full spectrum including, Regulatory bodies, Industry associations and Chambers of Commerce. Lynn is a well-known and established ambassador in these areas having led on many strategic programmes to aid engagement, growth, retention, change management, stakeholder and political engagement.

Michael Coonan joined Free TV Australia in January 2024 as Director of Public Policy, having previously held policy, regulatory and government affairs roles at SBS and Foxtel. Prior to Foxtel, Mr Coonan worked at the Australian Communications and Media Authority, in both broadcasting and telecommunications regulation.

Michael is Chair of the Australian Chapter of the International Institute of Communications, and a member of the Board of the Restless Dance Theatre.

Robert is a Director in Deloitte’s EMEA Centre for Regulatory Strategy, where he leads the Centre’s work on regulation in Digital Markets. Prior to joining Deloitte, Robert spent eleven years at Vodafone Group, setting Group policy positions across a wide variety of regulatory initiatives relevant to the promotion of competition and protection of consumers in digital markets. Robert has over a decade’s experience working at regulatory bodies relevant to the sector, spending eight years at Ofcom (and its predecessor Oftel) and four years at the UK’s competition and consumer protection authority. This included a secondment to the US Federal Trade Commission working on technology topics in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Sean Kennedy is a Partner at DT Economics LLP, based in the UK. He is a telecommunications regulatory specialist with more than 22 years of wide-ranging international commercial and regulatory experience in public and private sectors. Mr Kennedy has specialist skills in network economics, cost modelling, telecoms strategy development, interconnection agreement negotiations and the economic impact of regulatory interventions in digital markets. His clients include leading telecoms multinationals such as Vodafone, BT and Etisalat and regulators such as Ofcom (UK), ICASA (South Africa), NCC (Nigeria) and CRA (Qatar).

Mr Kennedy also served on the International Institute of Communications Board of Directors 2016-2024, and is currently Co-Chair of the IIC UK Chapter.

Chair of the Antitrust practice at Preiskel & Co LLP, Tim Cowen is independently recognised as one of the UK’s leading regulatory and competition lawyers focusing on the Technology Media and Tech sectors. He has vast experience of both in-house and private practice, having been a General Counsel at BT, a former Partner at Sidley Austin, and a member of the Competition Appeal Tribunal. He now specialises in complex second phase merger cases and competition cases in the courts.

Mr Cowen also served as a International Institute of Communications Board Director 2009-2023, and is currently Co-Chair of the IIC UK Chapter.