Overlaps – Services and Harms in Scope

Michèle Ledger is a researcher at the CRIDS research centre of the University of Namur where she also lectures on the regulatory aspects of online platforms at the postmaster degree course (DTIC). She has been working for more than 20 years at Cullen International and leads the company’s Media regulatory intelligence service.

Sally Broughton Micova is a CERRE Academic Co-Director and an Associate Professor in Communications Policy and Politics at the University of East Anglia (UEA). She is also a member of UEA’s Centre for Competition Policy.

Her research focuses on media and communications policy in Europe.

She completed her PhD in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), after which she was an LSE Teaching and Research Fellow in Media Governance and Policy and Deputy Director of the LSE Media Policy Project.

Matt Allison is Senior Public Policy Manager at Vodafone Group, covering Data, Platforms and Artificial Intelligence. Matt has worked at the cutting edge of tech public policy for a decade in a variety of roles spanning industry, consultancy and NGOs. During this time, he has grappled with some of the key public policy challenges facing the technology sector and helped shape the policy landscape as governments and regulators look to confront and harness the rapid growth of digital services.

At Vodafone, Matt is responsible for developing policy and regulatory strategies for data, AI and digital platforms, influencing new regulation and creating alignment between Vodafone’s local market activities. Prior to joining Vodafone Matt was a Manager in the International Public Policy team at Access Partnership, the leading government affairs consultancy in the technology sector where he helped to establish and grow the firm’s Brussels practice, as well as working in the NGO sector focused on the development of Internet safety policy. Matt holds a Master’s degree in Politics, Security and Integration from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), part of University College London. His studies focused on Russian and Eastern European politics, European integration and national identity. Prior to this Matt obtained a Bachelor’s degree in History at the University of East Anglia where he specialised in Soviet history and English economic and social history.

Owen Bennett is International Online Safety lead at Ofcom, the UK’s independent communications regulator. Previously, Owen was a senior policy manager at Mozilla, the public benefit technology company and maker of the Firefox web browser. He is based in London, and prior to that he spent eight years in Brussels’ EU quarter.

His substantive expertise is policy issues related to the regulation of illegal and harmful content online, but he has worked across the full range of contemporary digital policy issues, including cybersecurity; competition; and privacy.

He holds a first class LL.M degree in Information Technology law from the University of Edinburgh. He also holds a first class honours undergraduate major degree in Philosophy and a second class honours undergraduate minor degree in Economics from Trinity College Dublin.

Alexandre de Streel is the Academic Director of the digital research programme at CERRE and Professor of European law at the University of Namur where he chairs the Namur Digital Institute (NADI). Alexandre is also visiting professor at the College of Europe (Bruges) and SciencesPo Paris. Besides, he chairs the expert group on the online platform economy advising the European Commission and is a part-time judge at the Belgian Competition Authority.

His main areas of research are regulation and competition policy in the digital economy as well as the legal issues raised by the developments of artificial intelligence.

Previously, Alexandre held visiting positions at New York University Law School, European University Institute in Florence, Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and University of Louvain. He also worked for the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, the Belgian Permanent Representation to the European Union and the European Commission.