After Dinner Speakers: Lynne Franks, Ellen Degeneres, The Weather Girls

Lynne Franks worked in her father’s butcher shop at the age of twelve, left school at sixteen, worked as a young journalist on Petticoat, the UK’s first weekly young women’s magazine when she was eighteen and started her own public relations firm from her kitchen table at the age of twenty-one. One of the best-known public relations consultants in the world, Lynne is also a highly reputed newspaper columnist, author and authority on women in business, sustainability and consumer life styles. In the years since she began building her PR agency, she has advised and guided multinational and non-profit organisations around the globe. Lynne also created the major U.K. event What Women Want in ’95 to draw attention to the changing position of women in society. Prior to attending the Beijing women’s conference, she chaired the UK’s first women’s radio station and became a spokesperson on women’s issues, life-work balance and socially responsible business practices. She has written several books including The SEED Handbook: The Feminine Way to Create Business published in 2000 throughout the English speaking world, Germany and Japan, to be followed by other countries including China. SEED, an acronym for Sustainable Enterprise and Empowerment Dynamics, is also a global network aimed at training and empowering women. In 1998 Lynne founded Globalfusion in California, a communications and PR consultancy specialising in "new marketing" – connecting people, ideas, businesses and community. In Spring 2002 she returned to her London base and is currently working on a number of projects including her new book, The Wise Woman’s Handbook: Connecting with Self, Lovers and Others; consulting on corporate cause-related marketing; lecturing on other areas of expertise and teaching workshops. Lynne Franks is currently based in London. She has two children, Joshua, a TV presenter, writer and stand-up comedian and Jessica, an author specialising in personal development for teenage girls