Santiago Navarro
I am the Lighting Designer and Creative Director at Casual Lighting Limited, where I bring creative vision and technical expertise to every project. In 2019, I graduated with First-class Honours in Business Management from Kingston Business School, and recently completed an MSc in Light and Lighting from University College London.
As a proactive and dynamic individual, I combine strong leadership abilities with excellent teamwork skills to drive innovation and deliver impactful results. I am motivated by the pursuit of excellence, always striving to make a meaningful contribution to both my projects and the people I work with.
Dan Lister
I am a lighting designer/consultant within the specialist lighting studio at Arup, responsible for the lighting teams across UK.
Over the past 25 years I have worked on a large number of projects across the breadth of sectors including education, healthcare, historic restoration, arts & culture, transport, commercial, hospitality, retail and exterior spaces. Though I have developed a particular interest in lighting for large public realm and a passion and expertise in catering for large crowds; creating safe yet engaging urban environments for people.
Having spent a large proportion of my career developing unique lighting solutions for the education sector, across the range of learning levels, I now share this extensive experience across the UK by leading Arup's lighting input into the education sector, coordinating activities with other Arup disciplines and talking to education institutions about light and supporting our lighting design studios in the successful delivery of these projects.
Melissa Byers
Melissa has been designing with light for over 25 years. At Michael Grubb Studio, her expertise includes work on an array of prestigious, large-scale projects including; lighting masterplans, commercial developments, public realm, brand, retail, museum and visitor experiences.
Her breadth of experience, past and present, working within the lighting industry as a Lighting Designer, Cinematographer and Stereographer on high profile projects provide her with a unique skillset that is focused on inspiring a lit narrative, delivering a pragmatic approach, and collaborating with teams to balance the creative, technical and organisational requirements of any project.
Notable recent works include Lighting Masterplanning and Lighting Design for Newcastle City Centre, London’s West End, Silvertown, Brent Cross South and St Pancras Hospital, Kings Cross. Alongside creating and delivering the Lighting Design for the iconic Lift 109 Visitor Experience, a new major London attraction, located at the iconic Battersea Power Station she has been working on visitor experiences at whisky distilleries in the UK and Ireland.
Her previous work in film and television, developed her skills in connecting people, stories and narrative through light. Credits include: Alfonso Cuarón’s, Oscar and BAFTA winning film “Gravity.” BAFTA winning Natural History Documentaries featuring David Attenborough, Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride,” and Commercial Promos for major brands including Google, BT, Land Rover, Orange, Audi, and Amnesty International.
Patrick van der Meulen
Patrick’s passion for working with people is as great as his passion for technology. For example, after studying mechanical engineering in Eindhoven, he worked as a medic during his compulsory military service. In 1994 he stepped into the lighting industry as an engineer. However, as he increasingly developed his people skills, he came to the conclusion that his job lacked the human interaction he finds so inspiring. This led him to enter the Sales arena.
He isn’t the type to promote ‘me-too’ products – he only advocates products that are truly special and have an interesting story behind them. This is what attracted him to eldoLED.
As Director of Business Development, Patrick loves motivating teams to push technical boundaries while learning from each other’s expertise. He especially enjoys the direct interaction with customers as well as colleagues across different departments, from engineering to marketing, and visiting interesting countries and places he might not normally visit. His sense of humour has definitely proven very useful in working with so many different people!
Leela Shanker
Leela Shanker leads the Design Lab with WAP Sustainability. Synthesising architectural design, sustainability analytical frameworks and speculative material investigations, the Lab implements strategies that progress decarbonisation, circularity and material health in the built environment.
Based in New York, with collaborators globally, Shanker and WAP's team develop pilot initiatives between leading stakeholders from design, manufacturing and real estate. Through the GreenLight Alliance - an international network of lighting professionals progressing industry-led standards, research and advocacy - she founded the Lighting Industry Life Cycle Assessment Incubator while practicing as a lighting designer with consulting engineering firm BR+A. She holds a M.Arch (Hons) and MFA - Lighting Design from Parsons School of Design and Bachelors of Law and Commerce from Sydney University.
Shanker continues to advise the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (U.S. Department of Energy) as technical expert to their Life Cycle Assessment and light research team and is a Steering Committee member of the American Institute of Architects’ Decarbonization Subcommittee and Carbon Leadership Forum NY chapters. As Founder of non-profit, Flint Collective NYC Inc, her work has been awarded by the IES with a Special Citation for Lighting as a Tool for Social Impact. She is a current member of the Social Architecture track of the New Museum’s NEW INC incubator.
Jean-Luc Lambert
Jean-Luc Lambert has been a member of Schréder and the lighting industry for over 35 years. Having gained a wealth of experience and knowledge from multiple roles, Jean-Luc is currently the Business Segment Manager for Urban Deco at Schréder’s head office in Belgium.
Mo Islam
With 21 years in the lighting industry, Mo began as a product development engineer before transitioning into sales. Now Head of Sales at XAL, where he’s spent 13 years and specialises in collaborating with consultants to deliver complex solutions, leveraging his engineering background. His main clients are lighting designers, though he also works closely with architects and end users. Prior to lighting, Mo gained experience in facilities management, production and manufacturing processes.
Karen Cawley
Almost 20 years in the lighting industry - including 17 at Osram and over two at XAL- Karen brings deep expertise from across traditional and LED technologies. Karen’s career has taken her to iconic locations like Buckingham Palace, cruise ships, Gatwick Airport, and McLaren HQ. Now focused on the UK specification market, she thrives on collaborating with customers from concept to installation, especially when delivering sustainable solutions -a passion close to her heart.