Jean Philip De Tender has been EBU Media Director since 2015, overseeing strategy, management, networks and content. In 2021 he was nominated Deputy Director General of the organization.

For more than 25 years Jean Philip worked for VRT, the Flemish public broadcaster in Belgium. He started his career as a journalist working on various television and radio programmes. Later on, as television programme manager, he was responsible for a wide range of programmes covering all genres, from fiction to entertainment, current affairs and reality.

From 2007 to 2013, he was the channel manager of Eén, the biggest television channel in Flanders. During his tenure, Eén grew to achieve enormous success, cornering a share of more than 33% and plotting a clear course for public broadcasting. During his last two years at VRT, he was in charge of all television channels (Eén, Canvas and Ketnet).

Jean Philip loves writing and sharing his ideas. Social media has become second nature to him. In 2010, he published his first book, Alles is een verhaal (Everything is a story). An inspiring personality, he often lectures internationally, both inside and outside the media industry.

He loves reading and is inspired by everything that crosses his path. His motto in life is to “create order in the chaos and chaos in the order”.

Liz Corbin is the Deputy Media Director and Head of News at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). She oversees the Eurovision News Exchange, the Eurovision News Events broadcast services team, Radio News, and digital transformation projects. She is also regularly involved in advocating for public service media and trusted, quality journalism.

Liz joined the EBU in January 2020, coinciding almost exactly with the biggest global news story we’ve seen in years: COVID-19. For Eurovision News, the rapidly escalating situation meant a rapid change in working practices, as the team had to find a balance between workplace restrictions and technical challenges with the need to deliver creatively to an unprecedented demand for 24-hour coverage.

Says Liz of that time, “It was an extraordinary time because the absolute basics of broadcast journalism were tested. TV journalism is teamwork. People working physically close to each other, on the road, in the edit suite, in the studio. We had to switch to makeshift arrangements that, by necessity, had to frequently take place in people’s homes. Every part of the news operation had to be reimagined – but it also showed public service journalism at its best, when the need for trusted, reliable information had never been greater.”

Since then, Liz has overseen the Eurovision News response to the election of President Biden; the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban; the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; and, of course, the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. All against a backdrop of changing work methods, evolving priorities and increasing pressures on public service newsrooms.

“No-one is in any doubt that we are living and reporting in a time where the sands shift so quickly under our feet, we often wonder how we remain upright at all! But change is not only necessary, it’s desirable. And it must be perpetual. For me, change brought me to this career in the first place. I never wanted a job that was the same, day in day out.”

Prior to joining the EBU, Liz worked at the BBC for 18 years, most recently as Head of News at the international channel, BBC World News. Previous roles include Editor of BBC Reality Check where she oversaw a large expansion in the team. She was also the BBC Singapore Bureau Editor for four years where she created an integrated newsroom.