Rene Carayol

Why organisations work with René Carayol

• His SPIKE framework (Strengths Positively Identified Kick-Start Excellence) gives leadership teams a diagnostic for identifying the two or three individual strengths that drive high performance, rather than a generic conversation about development areas. It changes how teams are built, not just how leaders think.
• His case for inclusive leadership is grounded in firsthand board experience, including appointment as a Non-Executive Director of the Inland Revenue in 2001, at a time when no diversity representation existed at that level in UK public institutions. The argument carries a credibility that cannot be borrowed from research alone.
• Coaching and advisory engagements with senior leaders across business and government: clients and counterparts include Ralph Hamers (former CEO, ING and UBS), Sir Richard Branson, and Sir Tony Blair
• His “Everybody In, Nobody Out” framing positions inclusion as a performance architecture rather than an HR compliance function, directly relevant to organisations where DEI has stalled because it has not been connected to business outcomes.
• His executive and governance track from Marks & Spencer, PepsiCo, and IPC Media to Inland Revenue board and Computacenter plc, means his observations on leadership culture are drawn from the inside of institutions, not from coaching their periphery.
• His academic teaching (Cass Business School, MSc in Management) and media fluency (BBC, Channel 4, Sky News) mean he can move between rigorous argument and compelling narrative in a single session. His events consistently produce behavioural commitments rather than inspiration that dissipates.

Biography highlights

• Decade-long career at Marks & Spencer (Senior IT Manager); IT Systems Director, PepsiCo; CIO then Managing Director of IPC Electric, IPC Magazines, driving Europe’s largest MBO at £860m, culminating in the sale to AOL Time Warner
• Non-Executive Director, Inland Revenue (appointed 2001); current Independent Non-Executive Director, Computacenter plc (FTSE-listed), sitting on Audit, Nomination and Remuneration Committees
• Executive Vice President for ESG, Medallia; member of the Global Executive Leadership Team
• Visiting Professor, Cass Business School; lectured on MSc in Management programme
• MBE (2004), services to the business community; undergraduate degree, London School of Economics; Honorary Doctorate, University of Roehampton
• Author, SPIKE: What Are You Great At?; co-author, Corporate Voodoo (third edition) and My Voodoo
• Broadcaster and commentator: BBC Two, Channel 4, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, Sky News; former Sunday Telegraph Business Reporter columnist

Biography

Most leadership cultures are built around a small number of star performers at the top. SPIKE, René Carayol’s published strengths framework, challenges that model directly. The argument comes from someone who has led, governed, and coached at the highest levels of British and international business.

Carayol spent a decade at Marks & Spencer in senior IT roles, then moved to PepsiCo as IT Systems Director before joining IPC Magazines as CIO. He rose to Managing Director of IPC Electric, the internet business at the centre of Europe’s largest MBO, a £860 million transaction that ended with the sale to AOL Time Warner. He went on to serve as Non-Executive Director of the Inland Revenue through its merger into HMRC, and currently sits on the board of FTSE-listed Computacenter plc.

SPIKE (Strengths Positively Identified Kick-Start Excellence) is the framework that emerged from this experience. Its core argument: every person carries at least one genuine strength, and organisations that build around those strengths consistently outperform those that manage around weaknesses. For Carayol, this is inseparable from the business case for inclusive leadership. His mantra, “Everybody In, Nobody Out,” frames inclusion as a performance imperative, a position he holds with authority as one of the first Black men to serve at board level in a major UK institution.

As Visiting Professor at Cass Business School and a regular voice on BBC Radio 4, Sky News, and Channel 4, his thinking reaches well beyond the conference circuit. His books, SPIKE: What Are You Great At? and the co-authored Corporate Voodoo, now in its third edition, extend his frameworks to leadership teams at scale. He was awarded an MBE in 2004 for services to the business community.

Key speaking topics

• Strengths-based leadership
• Inclusive leadership and culture
• Leadership and business transformation
• Collaborative leadership
• Corporate culture and performance
• Executive coaching and personal effectiveness
• Diversity, equity and inclusion

Ideal for

• Senior leadership teams and C-suite executives in FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 organisations navigating culture change or post-merger integration
• CHROs and Chief People Officers building inclusive, high-performance leadership cultures
• Board directors and non-executive directors focused on governance, leadership accountability, and succession
• Transformation leads and executive development programmes where the shift from management to leadership is the central challenge

Audience outcomes

• A working understanding of the SPIKE framework and how to apply it to individual development, team design, and succession planning
• A reframed case for inclusive leadership as a performance architecture, not a compliance exercise – with the language to make that argument inside their own organisations
• Practical distinctions between management and leadership behaviours, grounded in frontline C-suite and board experience
• Insight drawn from Carayol’s direct coaching relationships with named CEOs and institution heads; World Bank, Barclays, ING, Generali, rather than theoretical constructs
• Clarity on how culture and leadership interact in practice, and what leaders can do immediately to change the pattern