ESG-implementering speakers

Why organisations work with Deborah Meaden Twenty years of unscripted investment judgement on Dragons’ Den, where she has personally backed dozens of businesses, given audiences a working language for evaluating risk, founders and growth. Operator credibility built on a £33 million sale of Weststar Holidays to Phoenix Equity Partners in 2005, after a management buyout she led from inside the family business. A consistent, public position on sustainability as a commercial question: through The Big Green Money Show on BBC Radio 5 Live she has interrogated CEOs of major UK and global businesses on what climate strategy actually costs and earns. Author credibility across audiences from senior operators (Common Sense Rules) to financial literacy for children (HarperCollins Little Experts series, including a Financial Times Book of the Year 2023 Critics’ Choice). A direct, plain-language style that translates entrepreneurial decisions into something a leadership team can argue with, not just admire. Biography highlights Investor on BBC’s Dragons’ Den since 2006. Led the 1999 management buyout of Weststar Holidays and sold the majority to Phoenix Equity Partners in 2005 for £33 million. Author of Common Sense Rules (Random House Business, 2009) and the HarperCollins Little Experts financial literacy series. Why Money Matters named a Financial Times Book of the Year 2023 Critics’ Choice; silver at the Made For Mums Toy Awards. Co-host of The Big Green Money Show on BBC Radio 5 Live with Felicity Hannah. Trustee of Tusk Trust, Fellow of WWF, Ambassador for the RSPB, Marine Conservation Society and World Horse Welfare, Compassion Visionary at CIWF. Honorary degrees from the University of Exeter Business School, Staffordshire University, Keele University and Bath Spa University. Biography Weststar Holidays was a single-site family business when Deborah Meaden joined its arcade operations in 1988. By 2005 it was a five-park operator hosting around 150,000 holidaymakers a year, sold to Phoenix Equity Partners for £33 million after the management buyout she had led six years earlier. The arc, from operator to owner to seller, is the spine of how she reads other people’s businesses. Two decades on Dragons’ Den have widened that lens. Since 2006 she has sat through several thousand pitches and put her own capital behind a long list of UK ventures, from artisan manufacturer Fox Brothers to consumer brands across food, retail and clean technology. The pattern audiences see, the questions about unit economics, founder discipline and market truth, is the same pattern she applies to her own portfolio. Her published work extends the argument into financial literacy and commercial sustainability. Common Sense Rules (Random House Business, 2009) sets out the operating principles she uses on the Den. The Little Experts series with HarperCollins takes the same plain-language approach to children: Why Money Matters was named a Financial Times Book of the Year 2023 Critics’ Choice. On The Big Green Money Show with Felicity Hannah, she presses senior corporate leaders on whether climate commitments survive contact with a profit-and-loss account. Trustee at Tusk Trust, Fellow of WWF, Ambassador to the RSPB, Marine Conservation Society and World Horse Welfare, and Compassion Visionary at CIWF: the environmental work is a working part of how she frames commercial choices. Honorary doctorates from Exeter, Staffordshire, Keele and Bath Spa recognise the same combination of operating record and public argument. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and scale-up leadership Investment judgement and growth strategy Building and selling a business Sustainability as a commercial discipline Brand, customer and consumer trust Resilience and decision-making in private companies Women in business and leadership Ideal for Founders, CEOs and senior operators of growth-stage and family-owned businesses Boards setting strategy on sustainability and long-term capital allocation Sales, partner and customer-facing leadership teams Annual conferences and leadership offsites for operating businesses Audience outcomes A practical view of how an experienced investor reads pitches, plans and people. Concrete reference points from twenty years of UK private investment, including her own deals. A clear-eyed framing of sustainability as a commercial choice, with named examples from major UK and global businesses. Confidence to ask harder questions of their own numbers, founders and customers. A memorable, direct keynote voice that audiences quote back inside their organisations.

Why organisations work with Dhiraj Mukherjee He has done the thing most innovation speakers describe. Shazam was a category invention before mobile internet was mainstream, and it ended with a reported $400 million sale to Apple. A 250-company investment portfolio across AI, climate tech and frontier software gives him a working map of which emerging technologies are moving from pilot to operating substance and which are stalling. Direct line of sight into capital flows alongside Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, which is rare for a keynote speaker working on climate and AI together. Operator credibility inside large incumbents as well as start-ups, including Head of Banking Innovation at Virgin Money and senior roles at Bauer Media, Infosys and Reuters. Named to the Financial Times’ Top 50 European technology entrepreneurs, The Digital Banking Club’s Power 50 and Smith & Williamson’s Power 100, which positions him as a credible voice on UK and European innovation policy as well as commercial strategy. Biography highlights Co-founder of Shazam Entertainment, acquired by Apple in 2017 for a reported $400 million Named to the Financial Times’ Top 50 European technology entrepreneurs (2015) Elected to The Digital Banking Club’s Power 50 (2016) and Smith & Williamson’s Power 100 (2017) Angel investor in over 250 technology companies across AI, climate tech and “Tech for Good” Former Head of Banking Innovation, Virgin Money; previous roles at Bauer Media, Infosys, Reuters and Save the Children Mathematical Economics degree, Dartmouth College; MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business Biography Shazam was launched in 2000, before smartphones, before app stores, before mobile data was reliable enough to stream a song. The team built a service that recognised music by sound from a feature phone over a voice call. Eighteen years later, Apple bought the company for a reported $400 million. Dhiraj Mukherjee co-founded it. That history matters because it is the practical version of what most boards are now trying to do with AI. Identify a capability that the technology curve will eventually make obvious, build it before the market is ready, survive long enough to be right. Shazam went through the dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis on the way to Apple, which is why his perspective on category-building is closer to operating experience than to theory. Since exiting Shazam, Mukherjee has invested in more than 250 technology companies, with a declared focus on AI, climate tech and “Tech for Good.” He has co-invested into Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate vehicle backed by Bill Gates, and into Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, which gives him an unusual vantage point on where institutional capital is actually moving across the AI and energy transition curves. His earlier career sits inside large incumbents, including Head of Banking Innovation at Virgin Money and senior roles at Bauer Media, Infosys and Reuters. The Financial Times named him to its Top 50 European technology entrepreneurs in 2015, and he holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Mathematical Economics degree from Dartmouth. Key speaking topics Emerging technology and AI strategy Innovation and category creation Climate tech and the energy transition investment case Digital transformation inside large incumbents Resilience and the long arc of building a technology company Tech for Good and impact investing The future of work in the age of AI Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and innovation leads setting AI and emerging-technology strategy Boards and investment committees pressure-testing capital allocation across AI and climate Senior leadership teams inside banks, media and consumer businesses navigating digital transformation Founder and scale-up audiences inside corporate venturing and accelerator programmes Audience outcomes A sharper read on which emerging technologies are moving from pilot to operating advantage and which are stalling A working framework, drawn from Shazam, for how categories actually get built through downturns An investor’s view of where AI and climate-tech capital is concentrating, and what that signals for corporate strategy A more honest sense of the time, capital and persistence required to compound a technology bet into commercial outcome

Why organisations work with Diana Verde Nieto She has built the operating substance behind two commitments most companies treat as comms exercises. Positive Luxury and the Butterfly Mark turned sustainability claims into an audited certification with periodic re-earn cycles. Edify is now doing the same work for AI-driven capability, turning brand standards and SOPs into something frontline teams actually use. “Reimagining Luxury” (Kogan Page, 2024) is built on direct contributions from chief sustainability officers at LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal, alongside Harvard’s John P. Kotter and Paul Polman. The frameworks it sets out are drawn from how the major houses actually run sustainability, not how they describe it externally. Shortlisted, Business Book Awards 2025, Change and Sustainability category. Two founded-and-exited businesses (Clownfish, sold to Aegis-Dentsu in 2008; Positive Luxury) mean her thinking on commercial strategy has been tested by real investors and real markets, not consulting decks. Through Edify Collective, she is applying the same thesis to workforce capability, embedding policies and standards into the daily flow of work rather than relying on training events that fade within weeks. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Harvard Kennedy School graduate. Non-Executive Director at the British Beauty Council and Watts 1874. Former adviser to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Biography highlights Co-Founder and CEO of Edify Collective, an AI-native frontline performance support platform that embeds policies, SOPs, and brand standards into the daily flow of work, bridging board-level strategy and frontline execution. Co-founder of Positive Luxury (2011), creator of the Butterfly Mark, the luxury sector’s best-known independent ESG certification. Founder of Clownfish (2002), one of the world’s first dedicated sustainability communications consultancies; built to a presence in five markets and sold to Aegis-Dentsu Group in 2008. Author of Reimagining Luxury: Building a Sustainable Future for Your Brand (Kogan Page, 2024); shortlisted, Business Book Awards 2025, Change and Sustainability category. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; degree in Global Leadership and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School. Non-Executive Director, British Beauty Council and Watts 1874; former adviser to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Biography Most organisations are excellent at deciding what needs to change. They write the policy, sign off on the strategy, brief the leadership team. The work that follows, embedding that decision into how thousands of people actually behave at the frontline, is where most of the value is either captured or lost. Diana Verde Nieto has spent two decades building businesses around this problem. In 2002 she founded Clownfish, one of the first dedicated sustainability communications consultancies, scaled it to five markets, and sold it to Aegis-Dentsu in 2008. In 2011 she co-founded Positive Luxury with Karen Hanton MBE and built the Butterfly Mark, an independent ESG certification now sought by over 100 brands across fashion, beauty, jewellery, and travel, awarded on demonstrated performance across nine criteria and re-earned every two years. Reimagining Luxury (Kogan Page, 2024), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2025, draws directly on contributions from the chief sustainability officers of LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal, alongside Harvard’s John P. Kotter and Paul Polman. As Co-Founder and CEO of Edify Collective, she is now applying the same thesis to workforce capability. Edify is an AI-native platform that embeds policies, SOPs, and brand standards directly into the flow of frontline work, replacing fragmented training tools with a single performance support layer. The argument is the same one she has been making for 25 years, but the domain has shifted: the strategy-execution gap is now also the gap between AI ambition and AI deployment, and the same operating disciplines apply. A World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Harvard Kennedy School graduate, she serves as a Non-Executive Director at the British Beauty Council and Watts 1874. Her previous advisory work includes the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Key speaking topics Closing the Strategy-Action Gap: From Boardroom to Frontline The AI-Native Workforce: Augmentation, Not Replacement Operationalising Purpose: Building Standards That Survive Daily Operations Lessons from Luxury: How LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal Run Sustainability as Commercial Strategy Trust as a Brand Asset: Why Operational Reality Determines Reputational Value The Entrepreneurial Journey: Building, Scaling, and Exiting Purpose-Driven Businesses Seeing Markets Before They Arrive: Strategic Foresight in Volatile Industries Ideal for CEOs and brand leaders responsible for bridging strategic intent and daily operational reality Chief Operating Officers and Chief Transformation Officers redesigning legacy systems and workflows for an AI-native workforce Boards and Non-Executive Directors whose governance responsibilities turn on whether operational substance backs board-level commitments Founders, investors, and venture partners examining purpose-driven businesses, scale-up discipline, and exit strategy Industry associations, regulators, and policy bodies operating at the intersection of corporate strategy and standards-based oversight Audience outcomes Diana’s focus is the final mile of leadership: the work between strategy being agreed and strategy being delivered through the daily behaviour of frontline teams. Her sessions are built for senior audiences who have already named the strategic problem and need to understand how to operationalise the answer. A working definition of The Action Gap, the space between board-level commitments and frontline reality, and the operating disciplines that close it. A direct view of how LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal turn sustainability commitments into auditable commercial strategy, drawn from her book’s primary research with their CSOs. A reframing of AI in the workforce from substitution to augmentation: what it means to put expert-level judgement into the hands of frontline workers in real time, and what that requires of the operating model. A founder’s view of scale, exit, and the discipline of building purpose-driven businesses that hold their commercial integrity through investor scrutiny and global expansion. A practical map of where brilliant strategies fail at the point of work, and what board-level leaders can do about it before the failure becomes a reputational event.

Why organisations work with Didem Ün Ateş She has operationalised responsible AI inside three of the world’s largest organisations (Microsoft, Accenture, and Schneider Electric) as an executive with direct accountability, not as an external advisor. That gives her a precise understanding of where enterprise AI governance breaks down in practice. Her role as Advisor and Generative AI Council Member for Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, working with over 300 portfolio companies, gives boards and investment teams a live investor-grade view of how AI strategy translates, or fails to translate, into commercial value and risk-adjusted returns. LotusAI’s documented methodology, running 60 co-creation workshops across more than 200 SVPs and VPs to identify and prioritise 200 generative AI use cases inside a single Fortune 500 company, is a concrete, tested model for enterprise AI adoption, not a conceptual framework. As an accredited algorithm auditor and former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow, she connects organisations to the governance principles emerging at the regulatory and multilateral level, including the responsible-AI debates shaping how the technology is regulated globally. Her dual degree from the University of Pennsylvania (BS in Engineering from the Moore School and BS in Economics from the Wharton School), combined with an MBA from Columbia Business School, means she can engage credibly at both the technical architecture and commercial investment layers of an AI decision, a combination that is genuinely uncommon. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of LotusAI Ltd, advising private equity firms, hedge funds, financial institutions, and Fortune 500 companies on AI strategy, responsible AI governance, and talent transformation Former Vice President, AI Strategy & Innovation at Schneider Electric, where she defined the company’s AI and generative AI strategy, innovation roadmaps, ecosystem partnerships, and responsible AI programme Former Head of Data & AI / General Manager, Data & AI at Microsoft (EMEA) and former Managing Director of Data & AI, Europe at Accenture’s Microsoft Business Group; earlier roles at Capgemini, EY, BT, and Motorola Advisor and Generative AI Council Member for Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, working with the firm and over 300 portfolio companies Board member of the Edge AI Foundation, the Wharton AI Alumni Studio, the Columbia Business School Women’s Circle, and the Hg Foundation Technology Advisory Board Certified Algorithm Auditor and Executive Coach; former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow; Forbes Technology Council member TechWomen100 Champion and Trailblazer 50 honouree; 2025 recognition includes CEO of the Year Awards UK in the AI Advisory category, Responsible AI Innovation & Growth in Business Award, New Technology Consultancy of the Year, Best New Business of the Year, and British Business Excellence Award Alumna of the University of Pennsylvania (Management & Technology dual degree: BS in Engineering from the Moore School and BS in Economics from the Wharton School) and Columbia Business School (MBA) Biography Most enterprise AI strategies stall in the same place: at the gap between approved roadmap and accountable delivery. Didem Ün Ateş has worked on both sides of that gap inside organisations large enough for every failure to matter. As VP, AI Strategy & Innovation at Schneider Electric, she held direct accountability for the company’s generative AI strategy and innovation roadmap, its ecosystem partnerships, its responsible and sustainable AI programme, and the upskilling of its global workforce. Before that, she served as Head of Data & AI and General Manager, Data & AI at Microsoft EMEA, with revenue accountability of over $2.7 billion across more than 70 subsidiaries, and as Managing Director of Data & AI, Europe within Accenture’s Microsoft Business Group. She founded LotusAI Ltd to apply that operational depth where boards and investment teams need it most. Her advisory relationship with Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, as Advisor and Generative AI Council Member, puts her in direct conversation with over 300 portfolio companies on AI value creation, governance, and risk. LotusAI’s engagements have included guiding a generative AI opportunity scan across more than 200 senior leaders in a Fortune 500 company, delivering a three-year use-case roadmap tied to the organisation’s strategic plan and regulatory requirements. Her work sits at the intersection of commercial strategy and institutional accountability. As an accredited algorithm auditor and former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow, where she has co-chaired sessions on AI and sustainability at WEF summits, she connects the boardroom conversation to the multilateral frameworks shaping how responsible AI is defined and regulated globally. She also sits on the Hg Foundation Technology Advisory Board, alongside senior leaders from ING, Google, McKinsey, and Accenture. She holds a dual degree from the University of Pennsylvania, in Engineering from the Moore School and in Economics from the Wharton School, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Recent recognition includes the CEO of the Year Awards UK 2025 in the AI Advisory category, the Responsible AI Innovation & Growth in Business Award 2025, and the British Business Excellence Award 2025, alongside the earlier TechWomen100 Champion and Trailblazer 50 honours. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and governance Generative and agentic AI adoption at scale Responsible and sustainable AI AI for private equity, private credit, and financial services AI-driven workforce capability and talent transformation AI risk management and regulatory compliance Edge AI, physical AI, embedded AI, and tinyML AI leadership training and executive workshops Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams (CEO, CTO, CDO, CAIO) building or pressure-testing enterprise AI strategies Chief Data and AI Officers designing governance frameworks for generative AI adoption Private equity and investment leadership teams assessing AI value creation and risk across portfolios Transformation and innovation leaders in financial services, industrial, and consulting sectors navigating responsible AI operationalisation Audience outcomes Practical criteria for identifying, prioritising, and sequencing AI use cases, tools, platforms, and agents within a complex organisation A clearer model of where enterprise AI governance frameworks typically break down, and what structural conditions make them durable A sharper understanding of how responsible AI principles translate into investment-grade governance, not just compliance documentation A working language for talent transformation in the agentic AI era, including the workforce decisions board members need to be ready to make More confident language for board-level conversations on AI risk, sustainability, and value creation Awareness of inclusive AI design as both a reputational risk and a long-term commercial consideration

Why organisations work with Didier Cossin He is the named author of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness, a governance methodology in active use at IMD’s Global Board Center and applied to over 3,000 board members worldwide. His advisory client list, which spans the UN, ECB, World Bank, IOC, PIF, ADQ and Temasek, gives him a reference set that very few governance voices can match. He treats stewardship as an operating discipline for senior leaders, not a values statement, and has built a body of work, including the book with Stewardship Asia, that codifies what that looks like in practice. The second edition of High Performance Boards extends the framework into cyber, ESG metrics, geopolitical risk and board activism, the live agenda for chairs and lead independent directors in 2026. Biography highlights Founder and Director, IMD Global Board Center; holds the UBS Chair in Banking and Finance at IMD. PhD, Harvard University, under the Robert C. Merton Chair; two Derek Bok Awards for teaching excellence at Harvard. Originator of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness methodology. Author of High Performance Boards (Wiley, second edition 2024) and Inspiring Stewardship (Wiley, 2016). Senior Advisor in Governance to UNICEF and the International Organization for Standardization. Advisor to the UN, ECB, World Bank, IFC, IOC and sovereign wealth funds including PIF, ADQ and Temasek. Biography The hardest problems a board faces rarely arrive labelled as governance problems. They arrive as a cyber breach, a regulatory letter, an activist shareholder, a geopolitical exposure no one had modelled. The board’s job is to make a decision before the situation forces one. The capacity to do that is what Cossin has spent two decades studying, codifying and teaching. At IMD, he founded the Global Board Center and developed the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness, a methodology now used to evaluate and rebuild boards across corporates, sovereign wealth funds and supranational institutions. The framework treats board performance as a function of four interacting variables: the quality and diversity of the people in the room, the information they receive, the structures they operate within, and the dynamics that shape how they argue and decide. The advisory work tests the framework in unusual settings. He is Senior Advisor in Governance to UNICEF and to the International Organization for Standardization, and has worked with the UN, ECB, World Bank, IFC and IOC alongside sovereign investors including PIF, ADQ and Temasek. The same questions surface across these institutions: how to keep oversight credible as scale and complexity rise, how to protect long-term stewardship when short-term pressure intensifies. His two books, High Performance Boards (Wiley, second edition 2024) and Inspiring Stewardship (Wiley, 2016), turn that field experience into method. The newer edition adds cyber risk, ESG operating substance, board activism and geopolitical exposure to the original framework, which is now the live agenda for any chair preparing the board calendar for the year ahead. Key speaking topics Board effectiveness and governance Stewardship and long-term value creation Decision-making at the top of organisations Cyber and AI risk at board level ESG and sustainability governance Sovereign wealth and institutional investor governance Geopolitical risk and board oversight Ideal for Chairs, lead independent directors and non-executive directors CEOs and executive committees preparing for board scrutiny on cyber, AI, ESG or geopolitical exposure Sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and institutional investors Family-owned businesses and family offices building governance for succession Audience outcomes A working diagnostic for assessing their own board against the Four Pillars A view of how leading sovereign investors and supranational bodies structure governance under scrutiny A clearer separation between the board’s stewardship role and management’s operating role Specific reference points on cyber, ESG and geopolitical risk at board level, drawn from named institutions

Why organisations work with Dominic McVey He has operated, not observed: acquired and restructured Hela Clothing in Sri Lanka in 2013 and grew its workforce to over 17,000 across Sri Lanka, Kenya and Ethiopia, supplying M&S, Tesco, John Lewis and Asda. He converts a teenage-millionaire origin story into serious boardroom utility: the founder instinct for spotting asymmetric opportunity, applied to corporate growth, M&A, and emerging market entry. He brings a government-grade network on Africa: MBE for services to private sector development in Africa, Namibian Honorary Consul to Wales, Coalition for Global Prosperity advisory council, Co-Chair of Global Academy Africa. He speaks credibly on ethical supply chains from the operator seat, as founder of the Fair Fashion Pact and Chairman of Computer Aid International. Biography highlights Professor of Practice, University of Wales Trinity Saint David (appointed June 2022). MBE, 2022 Platinum Jubilee Honours, for services to private sector development in Africa. Chairman and trustee of Computer Aid International, which has reached over 14.5 million people with technology access since 1997. Founder, Fair Fashion Pact; former owner and chairman of Hela Clothing, Sri Lanka. Namibian Honorary Consul to Wales; Co-Chair, Global Academy Africa; advisory council, Coalition for Global Prosperity; ambassador, HALO Trust. Keynote speaker at Davos (2020, 2024), Bloomberg’s Modern Affluence Summit (2019) and the Conservative Party Conference main stage (2018). Biography Most expansion plans into frontier markets get built around cost arbitrage and break on everything else. The operators who actually scale in Sri Lanka, Kenya, Ethiopia or Mexico spend less time on the landed-cost model and more on recruitment, training, community standing, political relationships and supplier reliability. McVey has done the second version of that work. He bought Hela Clothing in Sri Lanka in 2013, when the business had around 3,000 staff supplying UK high street retailers. Under his ownership the group expanded into Kenya and Ethiopia, grew to more than 17,000 employees, and supplied Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, M&S, John Lewis and Tesco. That track record is the spine of his credibility when he speaks to boards about emerging market growth. The earlier chapter gives him the founder register. At 13 he began importing US-made micro-scooters into the UK. By 15 he was Britain’s youngest self-made millionaire. At 18 the Queen named him a “Pioneer for Britain in Entrepreneurism”. That arc is not a keynote hook; it is why buyers trust him to talk about spotting mispriced opportunity. The third layer is policy and philanthropy. He was awarded an MBE in the 2022 Platinum Jubilee Honours for services to private sector development in Africa, sits on the Coalition for Global Prosperity advisory council, serves as Namibian Honorary Consul to Wales, and chairs Computer Aid International. He founded the Fair Fashion Pact to raise standards in African apparel supply chains. The University of Wales Trinity Saint David appointed him Professor of Practice in 2022. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and founder thinking Emerging market growth and private sector development in Africa Ethical supply chains and responsible sourcing Scaling manufacturing across multiple geographies Business model innovation and portfolio diversification Philanthropy, trade and sustainable foreign direct investment Ideal for Boards and executive teams planning expansion into African, South Asian or Latin American markets. CEOs and commercial leaders wrestling with supply chain ethics, ESG credibility and supplier consolidation. Founder-led businesses and family offices looking for a peer voice on portfolio strategy and emerging opportunity. Conferences on trade, development finance, manufacturing and the UK-Africa commercial relationship. Audience outcomes A clearer read on what actually determines whether emerging market operations scale, beyond the cost model. A framework for evaluating supply chain partners that treats labour standards as commercial leverage, not compliance overhead. A sharper view of Africa as an investment destination from someone with working diplomatic and trade relationships there. A founder’s perspective on how to spot and act on asymmetric opportunity inside a corporate setting.

Why organisations work with Shameen Prashantham Owns a defined intellectual territory, corporate-and-startup partnering, that almost no other senior strategy academic has built a 15-year body of fieldwork around. Wrote the practitioner book on the subject. Gorillas Can Dance (Wiley, 2021) sets out a tested framework of synergy, interface and exemplar drawn from work with Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, Bosch, BMW, Cisco, Ford, IBM, Intel, Unilever, Walmart and others. Brings genuinely first-hand China and emerging-market perspective to Western boards. Based at CEIBS in Shanghai, with active fieldwork across Bangalore, Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley, he can discuss what Chinese firms actually do, not what Western analysts assume. Writes for the audience he speaks to. Recent contributions to Harvard Business Review, including a June 2024 piece on safe engagement with China, give a buyer confidence the keynote will land at board level rather than in academic register. As CEIBS Associate Dean (Africa) and former MBA Director, he is one of a small group of strategy academics with substantive operating insight into both China and Africa, the two markets large corporations most often handle badly. Biography highlights Professor of International Business and Strategy, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Shanghai. Associate Dean (Africa), CEIBS. Previously Associate Dean and MBA Director, 2020 to 2024. Author of Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and Other Corporations on Partnering with Startups (Wiley, 2021). Author of Born Globals, Networks, and the Large Multinational Enterprise (Routledge). Research published in Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Organization Studies. Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Financial Times and the Brightline-Thinkers50 volume Strategy@Work. Biography Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, BMW, Walmart and Unilever have all built programmes to partner with startups. Few of those programmes work as designed. The reason is rarely strategy. It is the operating asymmetry between a $200 billion balance sheet and a 30-person company, and almost no one has studied that asymmetry as carefully or for as long as the author of Gorillas Can Dance. Based at CEIBS in Shanghai, Shameen Prashantham has spent more than fifteen years inside this question. His fieldwork runs across Silicon Valley, Bangalore, Tel Aviv, Beijing, Berlin, Lagos, Nairobi and Accra. The book sets out three pillars, synergy, interface and exemplar, that distinguish corporate partnership programmes that produce real innovation from those that produce press releases. His academic credibility is straightforward. PhD from the University of Strathclyde. Research in the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Organization Studies. The work translates into Harvard Business Review, where his June 2024 piece on safe engagement with China ran in the print edition. What buyers tend to value most is the geography. He sits in Shanghai, runs CEIBS engagement in Africa, and has serious working knowledge of Indian and Israeli innovation ecosystems. For a Western board trying to decide whether and how to partner in or from emerging markets, that combination is rare and expensive to replicate. Key speaking topics Corporate-startup partnerships Innovation strategy in large corporations Doing business in and with China Emerging-market growth strategy Africa as a strategic market Corporate entrepreneurship Sustainable Development Goals partnerships Ideal for CEOs, chief strategy officers and chief innovation officers running corporate venturing or startup-engagement programmes. Boards reassessing China exposure or considering operating commitments in Africa or India. Heads of M&A, partnerships and corporate development designing the next phase of inorganic growth. Executive audiences inside multinationals where emerging-market strategy is on the agenda. Audience outcomes A clear test for whether an existing corporate-startup partnership programme is structurally set up to produce results. Three operating levers, synergy, interface and exemplar, to apply to live partnership decisions. A grounded read on what is actually happening inside Chinese firms and Chinese innovation, beyond Western commentary. A working frame for sequencing entry, partnership and growth decisions in emerging markets. Concrete examples drawn from named programmes at Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, Unilever, Walmart and others.

Why organisations work with Tim Gregory He works inside the industry he speaks about. Day to day, he measures the chemistry and radioactivity of nuclear materials at Sellafield, which gives his policy arguments a footing most energy commentators do not have. His book Going Nuclear, published by Bodley Head and Pegasus in 2025, is a structured commercial case for atomic energy in the transition, not a general science book. Audiences leave with the argument, not impressions of it. He translates technical content for non-technical rooms. A decade of BBC science broadcasting, including The Sky at Night and BBC Breakfast, has trained him to take a board-level audience through reactor design, waste, and medical isotopes without losing them. He covers the adjacent commercial opportunities, not only generation: nuclear medicine, isotope supply chains, and nuclear power for space missions. This matters to boards in pharma, advanced manufacturing and aerospace, not just utilities. He is one of the few public-facing voices on nuclear who is a working scientist rather than a former regulator or executive, which gives him independence on contested questions about waste, safety and cost. Biography highlights Senior nuclear chemist at the UK National Nuclear Laboratory, Sellafield. Author of Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World (Bodley Head/Pegasus, 2025). Author of Meteorite: How Stones from Outer Space Made Our World (John Murray, 2020). PhD in cosmochemistry, University of Bristol; MEarthSci First Class, University of Manchester. BBC science presenter and contributor: The Sky at Night, BBC Bitesize, BBC Breakfast, Channel 4 News, Sky News Australia. Final three on BBC2’s Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes?, the astronaut selection series with Chris Hadfield. NASA Johnson Space Center intern, working on water-rich asteroids. Biography The UK plans to meet net zero with a grid that does not yet exist. Wind and solar capacity is rising, but firm low-carbon power is not. Gregory works at Sellafield, where the operational reality of nuclear, its fuel cycle, its waste, its economics, is closer than it is for most commentators on energy policy. Going Nuclear, published in 2025 by Bodley Head in the UK and Pegasus in the US, sets out his argument in detail. It is not a defence of the existing nuclear estate. It is a case that atomic energy is the most environmentally responsible way to generate firm power, and that the wider applications of the atom, in medicine, forensics, agriculture and space, are systematically underweighted in public debate. His credibility on the subject is anchored in primary research. He holds a PhD in cosmochemistry from the University of Bristol, completed a NASA internship at Johnson Space Center on water-rich asteroids, and wrote Meteorite (John Murray, 2020) about how the chemistry of meteorites maps the formation of the Solar System. That training in isotope chemistry is the same toolkit he applies at Sellafield. He is also a working broadcaster. BBC Sky at Night, BBC Breakfast, BBC Bitesize and Channel 4 News have used him as a science contributor, and he reached the final three on BBC2’s Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? under Chris Hadfield. For boards working through the gap between net zero policy and capital allocation, he is rare in being both a practitioner and a public communicator on the same subject. Key speaking topics Nuclear power and net zero Energy transition and capital allocation Nuclear waste, recycling and advanced reactors Nuclear medicine and isotope-based cancer treatment Nuclear power for space exploration Cosmochemistry and the formation of the Solar System Curiosity-driven research and commercial innovation Ideal for Boards and executive teams in energy, utilities and infrastructure setting decarbonisation strategy. Investor and capital allocation audiences weighing nuclear exposure against renewables and gas. Pharmaceutical, advanced manufacturing and aerospace leadership teams interested in isotopes, nuclear medicine and space-grade power. Policy, regulatory and public-affairs audiences working on the UK and EU energy transition. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where nuclear fits in a credible net zero pathway, and where the renewables-only argument runs out of road. Working knowledge of the economics and physics of waste, including why “waste” is increasingly a misnomer for current fuel cycles. A grounded read on nuclear medicine and isotope supply, and what it implies for pharma and healthcare strategy. A frame for thinking about nuclear-powered space missions and lunar or Martian infrastructure. The ability to push back, with data, on the most common public objections to nuclear power.

Why organisations work with Edie Lush She has conducted thousands of interviews at Davos, the UN General Assembly and COP summits, so she can run a senior panel at the level buyers actually book her for. Her coaching is built from journalistic craft: structuring a story for a listener, handling a difficult question, holding a point under pressure. Leaders leave with technique, not affirmation. She co-wrote How To Speak With Confidence in Public with Charlotte McDougall, published by Pan Macmillan’s Bluebird imprint in 2016, giving clients a named body of work to draw on. Her Global GoalsCast work, recognised with the 2018 Media for Social Impact Leadership Council Award at the UN, gives her credibility to moderate sustainability, climate and SDG conversations without needing a briefing to sound informed. She reads a room and a panel in real time, keeping senior speakers on the agenda rather than letting a programme drift into set pieces. Biography highlights Executive Editor, Hub Culture, covering Davos, the UN General Assembly and COP climate summits. Co-host and co-creator of Global GoalsCast, distributed by CBS News Digital. 2018 Media for Social Impact Leadership Council Award, presented at the United Nations. Co-author, How To Speak With Confidence in Public, Pan Macmillan (Bluebird), 2016. Former Economics and Political Correspondent, Bloomberg Television; columnist, The Week; Associate Editor, Spectator Business. Chair, British American Project; board member, Ellen Meloy Fund for Desert Writers. BA Political Science, UCLA; MA International Relations, Yale University. Has interviewed and moderated senior figures including George Osborne, Christiana Figueres and Muhammad Yunus, at platforms from Davos to the Future Investment Initiative and India Global Forum. Biography Most senior leaders can brief a board, but freeze when the format changes. Put the same person on a live panel, a podcast, a camera at Davos or a climate summit platform, and the craft that got them into the room stops helping them. Journalists notice this quickly, because they sit on the other side of it all day. Edie Lush has sat on that side for a long time. At Bloomberg Television she covered economics and politics. She went on to write a column at The Week and serve as Associate Editor of Spectator Business. She is now Executive Editor of Hub Culture, where she produces interview content from Davos, the UN General Assembly and the COP climate summits. The common thread is interviewing serious people under time pressure and making the result land for a general audience. That interviewer’s discipline is what clients hire her coaching practice to transfer. How To Speak With Confidence in Public, co-written with Charlotte McDougall and published by Pan Macmillan’s Bluebird imprint in 2016, sets out the method: structure a story for a listener, manage the energy in a room, hold a point under challenge. She applies the same toolkit on stage, most recently chairing sessions at Davos 2026 with figures including George Osborne and Professor Douglas McCauley, and as co-host of Global GoalsCast, the CBS News Digital podcast that earned her the 2018 Media for Social Impact Leadership Council Award at the UN. The work now reaches two audiences. One is organisers of serious events who need a chair who can keep a sustainability, policy or tech conversation on the agenda rather than letting it wander. The other is executives and founders who have to carry their company’s voice in public and know they are a draft short of doing it well. Key speaking topics Executive communication and public speaking Moderation and panel craft for senior audiences Sustainable Development Goals and climate communication Storytelling for leaders and founders On-camera and podcast presence for executives Women in leadership and public platforms Ideal for CEOs, founders and C-suite leaders preparing for investor days, town halls, earnings calls and keynote moments. Heads of Communications and Corporate Affairs briefing spokespeople for stage, camera and podcast. Organisers of senior conferences, summits and board offsites who need a chair who can hold a room of principals. Sustainability, health and policy leads running SDG, climate, global-health or development events in front of mixed government and corporate audiences. Audience outcomes A clearer method for structuring a talk or panel answer so the point lands on first hearing. Practical techniques for managing nerves, energy and presence on stage and on camera. A sharper read on how journalists and moderators hear executive messaging, and how to adjust. For events she chairs: a programme that stays on agenda, with senior speakers pushed past their prepared lines.

Why organisations work with Elin Hauge She translates AI from a vendor pitch into a leadership decision, naming the mathematics, the data risks and the regulatory exposure in language a board can act on. Her “artificial intelligence and natural stupidity” argument shifts accountability where it belongs, onto the humans designing, training and deploying the systems, which is exactly the framing regulators and litigators are moving to. A working combination of engineering, operational research and ongoing law studies lets her speak credibly across the EU AI Act, model risk and commercial strategy in a single conversation. She sits on non-executive boards, mostly as chair, so she speaks to other board members from inside the same governance problem rather than from a stage. She is rigorous about the limits of AI, including its environmental and human costs, which gives risk and sustainability committees a voice they trust rather than another adoption pitch. Biography highlights MEng in Biophysics and Medical Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. MSc in Management Science and Operational Research, Warwick Business School. Non-executive board director, chair on the majority of her current board positions. Currently in law studies focused on responsible business practice and AI regulation. Featured by Elle Canada on responsible AI development; interviewed by London Speaker Bureau as a futurist and AI strategist. Keynote speaker at international summits including LIMITL3SS 2024 in Romania and PostNord Strålfors Smarter Communication Summit 2024. Biography Boards now sign off on AI commitments without a clear view of where the technology actually adds value, where it introduces risk, and which decisions the EU AI Act will hold them to. Elin Hauge works inside that gap. Her contribution is to convert AI from a procurement conversation into a governance and strategy decision that senior leaders can defend. Her background is unusually wide for the field. An engineering degree in biophysics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, an operational research masters from Warwick Business School, more than two decades connecting data-driven technology to commercial value, and current law studies aimed at the regulatory layer. That span lets her move between model behaviour, business case and legal accountability without losing precision in any of them. The argument she returns to is that the dangerous variable in AI is not the algorithm. It is the human assumptions baked into the data and into the decision to deploy. Her framing of “natural stupidity” puts the accountability question back where regulators are putting it, on the people designing and approving the systems. For leadership teams trying to write defensible AI policy, that reframe is the work. She speaks from inside the governance problem, not from outside it. She sits on several non-executive boards, chair on most of them, and has been featured by Elle Canada and the London Speaker Bureau as a voice against irresponsible AI development. Clients including Embriq, HPE Ireland and The Future Work Forum point to the same quality: she cuts through vendor noise and tells executives what is actually decision-relevant. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and business strategy AI governance and the EU AI Act Responsible and accountable AI adoption Algorithmic bias and human accountability Digital transformation and leadership decisions Environmental cost of AI and digital infrastructure Data strategy for boards and executive teams Ideal for Boards and CEOs setting AI policy and accountability lines Chief Risk, Compliance and Legal Officers preparing for AI Act enforcement CIO, CDO and CTO leadership teams moving AI from pilots to operating decisions Sustainability and ESG committees assessing the digital footprint of AI deployment Audience outcomes A working mental model of what AI can and cannot do, stripped of vendor language. A clearer view of where accountability sits when an AI system causes harm, and what that means for governance design. Specific reference points for aligning AI deployment with the EU AI Act and adjacent regulation. A sharper read on the trade-offs between digital expansion and environmental and social cost. Confidence to challenge AI proposals at board level using the right questions, not the loudest ones.

Why organisations work with Ernesto Zedillo He has run a major economy through a currency crisis and a peaceful democratic transition, and can speak to macroeconomic decision-making with first-hand authority rather than commentary. He directs Yale’s globalization programme, which gives his reading of trade policy, capital markets and multilateral institutions an analytical base that short-horizon geopolitical speakers cannot match. His service on The Elders, the Group of Thirty and the Global Commission on Drug Policy puts him inside the rooms where international policy is actually debated, not outside them. Twenty years of independent directorships at Citigroup, Alcoa and Procter and Gamble mean he understands how boards translate geopolitical risk into capital allocation, and speaks to corporate audiences in their terms. He is the architect of Progresa, the conditional cash-transfer model later adopted from Brazil to New York City, which gives him a credible track record on social policy design as well as macro policy. Biography highlights President of Mexico, 1994 to 2000, following senior roles as Secretary of Education, Secretary of Economic Programming and the Budget, and Deputy Director of the Central Bank of Mexico. Frederick Iseman ’74 Director of the Program for the Study of Globalization at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, with professorships in International Economics and Politics and at the Yale School of the Environment. Member of The Elders, the Group of Thirty, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. Independent Director of Citigroup (since 2010), Alcoa (2002 to present in current form) and Procter and Gamble (2001 to 2019); international advisory board member at BP. Editor of influential volumes including Trade in the 21st Century (2021), The Future of Globalization (Routledge, 2008), Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto (Brookings, 2008) and Reforming the United Nations for Peace and Security (2005); Forbes columnist, 2001 to 2007. Recipient of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom from Fear Award, the Berkeley Medal, Yale’s Wilbur Cross Medal, and honorary degrees from Yale, Harvard and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, among others. Biography Mexico entered 1995 with a collapsing peso, dollar-denominated short-term debt the government could not roll over, and an incoming president six weeks into office. The policy response shaped how emerging-market crises have been handled since. Ernesto Zedillo led that government, and six years later handed power to an opposition candidate in the country’s first democratic transition of the modern era. That experience sits behind the work he has done at Yale since 2002, where he directs the Program for the Study of Globalization at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. The programme has produced a stream of edited volumes on the live questions in trade, climate policy, UN reform and drug policy, with Zedillo as editor and author. His Forbes column ran for six years. His reading of globalization is not theoretical; it is built on governing through one of the defining episodes of the era and staying close to the policy conversation ever since. What makes him useful to corporate audiences is the combination of that academic base with two decades of independent directorships at Citigroup, Alcoa and Procter and Gamble. He has sat on the audit and risk side of multinational boards through the 2008 crisis, the rise of trade friction with China, and the reorganisation of supply chains. He knows how geopolitical analysis translates, or fails to translate, into capital decisions. He continues to serve on The Elders, the Group of Thirty, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s work on planetary health. He was the architect of Progresa, the Mexican conditional cash-transfer programme that Brazil, Colombia and dozens of other governments later adapted. The range matters because the argument he brings to a board or executive audience is not a topic briefing. It is a view of where the international system is heading from someone who has governed inside it, taught it, and helped steer large companies through it. Key speaking topics Globalization and the future of the international trading system Macroeconomic policy and emerging-market risk Geopolitical shifts and multilateral institutions US-Mexico relations and North American economic integration Climate policy and international cooperation Social policy design and conditional cash-transfer programmes Global governance reform Ideal for Board and C-suite audiences weighing country risk, trade exposure and cross-border capital allocation Financial services, industrial and consumer-goods companies with significant emerging-market or Latin American footprints CEO forums, investor conferences and policy gatherings that need a credible read on globalization and geopolitical risk Public sector and multilateral audiences working on trade policy, development finance or social policy design Audience outcomes A sharper read on what the unwinding of the post-1990 trade order means for corporate strategy A direct account of how a government actually makes decisions during a currency and debt crisis, and what that implies for today’s sovereign risk A realistic view of where multilateral institutions still function and where they do not An informed perspective on US-Mexico economic relations and North American supply chain strategy A grounded framework for thinking about social policy design, drawn from the Progresa experience

Why organisations work with Eunice Olumide A first-hand authority on what fast fashion looks like inside the industry, with parliamentary testimony that fed into the UK’s first inquiry on its environmental impact. A published voice on exploitation and sustainability in fashion through How To Get Into Fashion (Luath Press, 2018), drawn from a career walking for Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Mulberry and Christopher Kane. An MBE-recognised broadcaster across BBC, ITV and Sky, comfortable holding a room of senior leaders without losing the substance of the argument. A curator and gallery founder whose programme links contemporary art with social and environmental causes, useful for organisations whose brand strategy intersects with culture. A V&A Design Champion with credibility in design, production and sustainability conversations that most fashion-adjacent speakers cannot match. Biography highlights MBE, 2017 Birthday Honours, for services to broadcasting, the arts and charity. Honorary Doctor of the University, The Open University, 2024. V&A Design Champion, 2018; permanent display at the National Museum of Scotland. Author, How To Get Into Fashion (Luath Press, 2018); contributor, Loud Black Girls (2020), edited by Bernardine Evaristo. Founder, Olumide Gallery, representing artists including Sokari Douglas Camp CBE, Richard Wilson, The Connor Brothers and Bradley Theodore. Acting credits include BAFTA-winning Trouble Sleeping, BAFTA-nominated Middleman, Star Wars: Rogue One, The Last Jedi and Noughts and Crosses. Biography Fashion is one of the largest polluters on the planet, and the people best placed to say so are the ones who have worked inside it. Eunice Olumide MBE walked for Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Mulberry and Christopher Kane before turning her attention to the industry’s harder questions. Her testimony at the Houses of Parliament fed into the UK’s first inquiry on the environmental impact of fast fashion. Her 2018 book How To Get Into Fashion, published by Luath Press, is the long form of that argument. It treats exploitation, sustainability and diversity not as separate brand campaigns but as connected supply chain problems. The book sits alongside her V&A Design Champion role and her work with the Centre for Social Justice as evidence that her sustainability work is operational, not aesthetic. Olumide is also a broadcaster across BBC, ITV and Sky, an MBE recipient for services to broadcasting, the arts and charity, and an honorary Doctor of the University from The Open University. She founded Olumide Gallery in 2016 and represents contemporary artists including Sokari Douglas Camp CBE, Richard Wilson and The Connor Brothers, with a curatorial line that returns regularly to inclusion and environmental responsibility. For organisations, the value is the combination of access and argument. She has lived inside the commercial machinery she critiques, and she has put that critique on record in Parliament, in a published book, and through institutions including the V&A and the National Museum of Scotland. Key speaking topics Sustainability and ethics in fashion Fast fashion and supply chain accountability Diversity and inclusion in creative industries Art, culture and social impact Climate action and the consumer economy Women of colour in media and fashion Brand purpose and authentic advocacy Ideal for Boards and CSOs in fashion, retail and consumer brands working through ESG substance versus narrative. CMOs and brand leaders building sustainability and inclusion into commercial strategy, not communications. Cultural institutions, arts funders and philanthropic boards engaging with diversity in the creative sector. Conferences and leadership events seeking a credible voice on fashion, climate and social justice in one speaker. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how fast fashion actually operates, including the labour and environmental trade-offs that rarely surface in public discourse. A sharper sense of where corporate sustainability narrative diverges from supply chain reality. Practical reference points for inclusion in creative industries from someone who has worked at the top of one. Renewed confidence that ethics and commercial strategy can be argued together rather than traded off.