Chairman & Co-Founder of Teliris
Chairman, NICE TV
Chairman and Founder of YouthNet UK
Chairman, The Beacon Fellowship Trust
Former TV reporter and news anchor

Martyn Lewis’s career is an unusual blend of the media, charitable and corporate worlds. Over 32 years as a television journalist he presented every mainstream national news programme on Britain’s two main terrestrial channels, before moving in 1999 into the world of business where he co-founded and is European Chairman of Teliris Inc., a company which is the major global pioneer and technology leader in a new “realtime” communications business space known as Telepresence. He is also Chairman of NICE TV, which works with ITN to provide high quality news videos for industry-wide conferences, exhibitions and events.

Martyn is the Founder and Chairman of YouthNet, the award-winning charity which, since 1995, has been providing a comprehensive internet site signposting 16-24 year-olds to every conceivable form of help, information or opportunity they might need – www.thesite.org <http://www.thesite.org> . It is accessed by more than half a million young people every month. YouthNet, which now has 60 staff, 200 volunteers and an annual budget of £5 million, also provides the UK’s national volunteering database - www.do-it.org.uk <http://www.do-it.org.uk> - listing and regularly updating over a million volunteering opportunities available across the UK ; and, more recently, www.lifetracks.com <http://www.lifetracks.com> - with comprehensive help for young people who are out of work.
Other charitable involvement includes : Chairman of the Awards Committee of the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service (the equivalent of an MBE for groups); Trustee of the Windsor Leadership Trust, bringing together and helping to develop the leaders of tomorrow across all sectors of society ; President of United Response, helping people with learning disabilities; Deputy Chair of the Lord Mayor of London’s Dragon Awards, honouring companies for the work they and their employees do to help disadvantaged areas of our community ; Vice-President of all three main national Hospice charities for whom he is a regular speaker at individual hospice fund-raising dinners ; and member of the External Advisory Board of the Long Room Hub, the Research Institute for the Arts and Humanities at his old university, Trinity College Dublin.

Martyn regularly chairs debates in the corporate, charitable and public sectors, including - for the World Bank on Leadership in Emerging Nations, for the European Commission (on stem cells) and for the European Brain Council (on Parkinson’s Disease and Depression).

He is the author of seven books, ranging from the humorous best-seller “Cats In The News” to “Tears and Smiles – The Hospice Handbook”, the first layman’s guide to the British Hospice movement, and “Reflections on Success” for which he interviewed 67 famous achievers from all walks of life.

In his broadcasting career, he also presented documentaries and special live programmes on major events, including the start of the first Gulf War and the death of the Princess of Wales. He also wrote and produced the best-selling 2-hour ITV video on the Falklands War – “Battle for the Falklands”.
“And Finally…..”, the book on the history of Independent Television News, describes him as “simply one of the best news story film-makers ITN ever employed”.

In 1993, he made the news himself with two controversial and widely-debated speeches arguing for a shift in the agenda of TV news programmes to achieve a fairer balance between the positive and the negative, and analyse success and achievement as well as failure.

Martyn holds an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Ulster and is a Freeman of the City of London, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Member of the Garrick Club and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He was awarded a CBE for “services to young people and the Hospice movement” in 1997.

Martyn believes passionately that the WLT has a unique role to play in helping to shape the leaders of tomorrow. He chairs the annual lecture at which a prominent leader is questioned by an audience of 500 guests.