Speakers

A former Brit School pupil and fashion stylist, Gemma has presented across the breadth of the BBC and is host of The Leisure Society (BBC6 Music) and The Sound Odyssey (BBC Radio 4). 

She has written for, edited, and contributed to The Guardian, Company Magazine, Red, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan. She has won Sony awards for her documentaries on subjects such as domestic abuse and produced podcasts and theatre productions. 

She was the previous Southbank Artist in Residence and on the Women Of The World (WOW) committee. In 2017, Macmillan published her first book, Open: A Toolkit for How Magic and Messed-Up Life Can Be, giving advice and personal insight on subjects ranging from grief, depression, body image, sex and relationships, and everything in between. With the hope of starting a movement to get young people to open up and communicate better, Open came out in paperback in 2018, in two books, published as Open Your Heart and Open Your Mind. Gemma is also the co-author of Hometown Tales: South Coast. 

Gemma hosts the podcast Dream Space, in which she poses questions to some of the world’s most exciting minds and asks them what kind of art the world needs now.