Consuming Passions - Our Team

Ian Parmenter

Producer/Presenter of Consuming Passions Pty Ltd and Festival Director/Board of Management of Tasting Australia (1997-2012). Very well respected by the Australian Food and Wine industry with extremely good contacts throughout the world. Prior to Consuming Passions and Tasting Australia, Ian was a senior television producer/director with ABC Television specialising in coverage of major events: World Swimming Championships, America's Cup, Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, arts programmes, and concerts, most notably featuring Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and James Galway. Ian is in demand throughout Australia as a speaker/presenter and has much experience at MC'ing major events. He is a frequent broadcaster on ABC Radio and commercial stations and a regular contributor to magazines. He is a WA Ambassador of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation. In 2011 Ian was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for services to the Australian food and tourism industries.

David Evans

Executive Producer of Consuming Passions Pty Ltd and Board of Management of Tasting Australia (1997-2012). He continues (2004 - ), in association with Marina Libia, to be responsible for all of the food, beverage and chefs at the G’Day USA events in Los Angeles and other cities in the US. David has 30 years experience in international sports, event and television marketing in UK (Festival of Thailand, Mary Rose Trust, Les Miserables, and America’s Cup). Since arriving in Australia, David has worked on 2 x World Swimming Championships, Rally Australia, the Hopman Cup, 2 x Whitbread Around the World yacht race, World Match Racing Championships and many other sports and cultural events. He was an inaugural director of the Western Australian events arm – Eventscorp. He has held senior executive positions in London, Barcelona, New York and Australia.

Marina Libia

Marina has 20 years experience in Public Relations and Marketing with Perth’s leading PR Agency Ward Holt, moving across to join Consuming Passions as manager of production and resources in 1992.

Marina was appointed Executive Event manager for the inaugural Tasting Australia event in Adelaide in 1997. Marina was responsible from day one for all aspects of Tasting Australia, working closely with Festival Director Ian Parmenter and building Tasting Australia into one of the world’s top Food and Wine events. She took a festival containing a total of six events in 1997 to an event with over 70 events in 2012. She was responsible for the parallel running of the World Food Media Awards from 1997 to 2012.

Marina has worked closely with members of the media from 40 countries, she has managed and provided production management for TV crews from around the world. Marina is recognized as the most complete event manger in Australia.

Marina works with David Evans on all food, beverage and chef aspects of the G’Day USA 2017 programme. She has worked on the G’Day LA/USA events since 2003.

Marina has worked with many of the world’s top chefs including:

• Rick Stein
• Ferran Adria
• Juan-Marie Arzak
• Neil Perry
• Luke Mangan
• Guy Grossi
• Shannon Bennett
• Madhur Jaffrey
• Paul Rankin
• Sophie Grigson
• Rachel Allen