Historiefortælling og forretningskommunikation speakers

Why organisations work with Kate Garraway She brings the rare combination of a national household name and a serious, specific subject: the lived reality of being a working carer, drawn from her own years caring for her late husband Derek Draper. Her interviewing craft is honed on live national television. She handles unscripted rooms, sensitive subject matter and senior executives on stage with the same control she shows on Good Morning Britain. Three consecutive National Television Awards for her authored documentaries give her authority on duty-of-care and social-care themes that few corporate speakers can match. She moves credibly between hosting an awards night, anchoring a conference, conducting an on-stage CEO interview and delivering a personal keynote on resilience, without changing register awkwardly between formats. Her MBE for broadcasting, journalism and charity makes her a natural fit for client events that need a name guests recognise from their breakfast television. Biography highlights Main presenter on ITV’s Good Morning Britain since launch in 2014. Host of the weekday mid-morning show on Smooth Radio since 2014. Host of ITV’s Life Stories, succeeding Piers Morgan, from 2021. MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to broadcasting, journalism and charity. Author of two Sunday Times bestsellers, The Power of Hope (2021) and The Strength of Love (2023). Winner of three National Television Awards for her ITV documentaries Finding Derek, Caring for Derek and Derek’s Story, plus a TRIC Special Award for her broadcasting career. Biography The hardest conversations in modern workplaces are not about strategy. They are about the colleague managing a parent’s dementia, the senior leader whose partner has a long-term illness, the high performer whose home life has quietly become a second full-time role. Kate Garraway has spent the last five years living and reporting that reality in public. Most viewers know her from ITV’s Good Morning Britain, where she has been a main presenter since the programme launched in 2014, and from her weekday show on Smooth Radio. The wider broadcasting CV runs through GMTV, Daybreak and ITV’s Life Stories, the long-running interview series she took over from Piers Morgan in 2021. The TRIC Special Award and her 2022 MBE for services to broadcasting, journalism and charity sit alongside that work. The body of work that gives her something distinctive to say to corporate audiences is more recent. After her husband Derek Draper became one of the UK’s most seriously affected long Covid patients, she made three authored documentaries for ITV, Finding Derek, Caring for Derek and Kate Garraway: Derek’s Story, each of which won the National Television Award for Best Authored Documentary. Her two memoirs, The Power of Hope and The Strength of Love, were Sunday Times bestsellers and turned her into one of the country’s most quoted voices on caring, resilience and the social-care system. What she offers in a corporate room is a presenter who can hold a live audience for a full event and, when the brief calls for it, speak with first-hand authority on what it actually costs employees to look after someone they love while staying in their job. Key speaking topics Working carers and the hidden workforce Resilience and personal leadership through crisis Long-term illness and return-to-work Mental health and wellbeing at work Live event hosting and on-stage interviewing Awards hosting and conference moderation Broadcast journalism and media interviewing Ideal for Conferences and awards evenings looking for a household-name host with strong interview craft. HR, reward and benefits leaders building credible support for working carers and employees with long-term illness. Wellbeing, DEI and ERG events that need a public figure who can speak from experience rather than theory. Boards and leadership offsites running an on-stage CEO or guest interview where a trained journalist adds value. Audience outcomes A clearer view of what caring responsibilities look like inside their own workforce, and how often they go unspoken. Practical language for managers having difficult conversations with employees facing serious illness at home. A grounded perspective on resilience that does not flatten into motivational cliche. For hosted formats, a tightly run event with senior guests interviewed at the level they expect from national television.

Why organisations work with Kate Silverton A recognisable broadcaster who can hold a room of senior leaders and chair an executive panel or Q&A without losing the thread, which is why McLaren, KPMG, Transport for London, NatWest, Lloyds, and American Express have booked her for conferences and ceremonies. A qualified child therapist trained through Place2Be, with a BSc in Psychology from Durham and clinical practice, which makes her credible on emotional regulation and family wellbeing in a way few broadcasters are. Author of two Sunday Times bestsellers on child development, including an instant number one, which gives her a defined public thesis on how the developing brain shapes behaviour. Lived experience of recovery from complex childhood trauma, which she now speaks about openly, giving a whole-workforce audience a credible and human account of rebuilding resilience after adversity. A working relationship with the Princess of Wales’ Shaping Us campaign and ambassador roles with Place2Be, the Anna Freud Centre, and Trauma Informed Schools UK, which sit naturally alongside corporate wellbeing and ESG commitments. Biography highlights Former BBC News presenter, including BBC News at One and BBC Weekend News, and Panorama reporter from Iraq and Afghanistan. BSc in Psychology; qualified child therapist trained through the Place2Be charity. Author of two Sunday Times bestsellers, “There’s No Such Thing As ‘Naughty'”, an instant number one, and its follow-up “There’s Still No Such Thing As ‘Naughty'”. Conference and awards host for Transport for London, KPMG, NatWest, Lloyds, McLaren, the NHS, and American Express. Ambassador for Place2Be, the Anna Freud Centre, and Trauma Informed Schools UK, and a contributor to the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood supporting the Princess of Wales’ Shaping Us campaign. Contestant on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, Series 16, in 2018. Biography Most parenting advice is folklore. Silverton’s books are a deliberate counter to that, written by a journalist who went back to the science. “There’s No Such Thing As ‘Naughty'” reached number one on the Sunday Times bestseller list on release. The follow-up, “There’s Still No Such Thing As ‘Naughty'”, covered the primary years on the same evidence base and also became a Sunday Times bestseller. The route to that work is unusual. Two decades inside the BBC, presenting BBC News at One and BBC Weekend News, and reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan for Panorama, gave her the public profile. A BSc in Psychology and a clinical retraining through the Place2Be charity gave her the substance. She qualified as a child therapist in 2023 and now combines clinical practice with writing and corporate work. For organisations the value sits in two places. The first is hosting craft. Conferences and award ceremonies for McLaren, KPMG, Transport for London, NatWest, Lloyds, and American Express have trusted her to chair senior conversations and run executive Q&As with rigour. The second is content, where she speaks on wellbeing, working parents, and the emotional regulation that underpins leadership composure, grounded in clinical practice and published research. Her ambassador work with Place2Be, the Anna Freud Centre, and Trauma Informed Schools UK, along with the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood and the Princess of Wales’ Shaping Us campaign, keeps that content connected to current UK practice. There is a personal thread to the work as well. Silverton has spoken publicly since 2024 about recovering from complex childhood trauma, and she draws on that recovery when she speaks to a whole workforce about resilience. The science that explains a child’s behaviour also explains how adults carry and release early adversity, which is what makes her relevant beyond a parenting audience. Key speaking topics Children’s mental health and emotional development The science of parenting and behaviour Working parents and family-friendly workplaces Employee wellbeing and emotional regulation Conference hosting and panel moderation After-dinner speaking Ideal for Heads of HR, reward, and benefits leaders shaping parental and family wellbeing programmes Conference and event organisers needing a senior, calm, journalistically credible host Internal communications and leadership-development teams running wellbeing or working-parent strands Award ceremony and industry-event organisers seeking a trusted on-stage presenter Audience outcomes A clearer model of how brain development shapes the behaviour of children, and what that implies for parents inside the workforce Practical language for managers and HR leaders speaking to working parents on stress, regulation, and family pressure A grounded view of what employer-sponsored mental health and family support actually has to do to make a difference For hosted events, sharper executive Q&As, tighter panel discussions, and a credible on-stage thread between sessions

Why organisations work with Katie Derham Fifteen years anchoring national news at the BBC and ITV News, where she covered general elections, royal weddings and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That live-broadcast discipline is what shows up on stage when a panel goes off script. A working economics background. She read Economics at Cambridge and started at BBC Radio 4’s Money Box, which is why finance and business clients book her over generalist presenters. A serious arts and culture credential. Face of the BBC Proms on television since 2010 and presenter of Radio 3’s In Tune, with the cultural literacy that comes with both. Author of The Classical Music Book for DK’s Big Ideas Simply Explained series, and a 2017 judge on the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The reading and editorial work behind those credits informs the way she prepares and questions. A name that travels. Strictly Come Dancing finalist, Classical Brit Awards host, household-recognisable, which matters when the brief is a high-profile awards ceremony or televised gala. Biography highlights Presenter, BBC Proms television coverage on BBC One and BBC Two since 2010. Presenter, In Tune on BBC Radio 3. Former Media and Arts Editor and lead newscaster, ITV News (1998 onwards), the youngest ITN newsreader since the broadcaster’s launch in 1955. Host of the Classical Brit Awards at the Royal Albert Hall. Author, The Classical Music Book, DK Big Ideas Simply Explained series (2018). 2017 judge, Women’s Prize for Fiction. Strictly Come Dancing 2015 finalist (fourth place, partnered with Anton Du Beke). Patron of Eastside Educational Trust and ambassador of the Ashdown Forest Foundation. Biography The hardest part of any conference is not the keynote. It is the connective tissue: the on-stage interview that has to draw something new out of a CEO, the panel that has to land in 40 minutes, the awards ceremony that has to keep a room of 800 people on side from cocktails to the final trophy. That work belongs to the host. Katie Derham came to that work through 15 years of national news. She joined ITN in 1998 as Media and Arts Editor for ITV News and, at 27, became the youngest national newscaster the broadcaster had appointed since its founding in 1955. The roster from those years includes general elections, royal weddings, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is the schooling that produces a host who can hold a stage when the autocue fails. Her second act has been arts broadcasting at scale. She has presented BBC Proms television coverage from the Royal Albert Hall every season since 2010, fronts In Tune on BBC Radio 3, and authored The Classical Music Book in DK’s Big Ideas Simply Explained series. She has hosted the Classical Brit Awards and judged the 2017 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The economics is what differentiates her commercially. She read Economics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and started her career as a BBC Radio 4 Money Box researcher, which is why finance, business and brand clients book her over presenters who have only ever covered culture. That dual fluency, business credibility and arts authority, is the reason serious organisations put her in front of their leadership team. Key speaking topics Conference and event hosting On-stage CEO and leadership interviews Awards ceremony presenting Panel moderation Classical music and the arts Broadcast journalism and live media Women in broadcasting and media careers Ideal for CEOs and chairs who want their on-stage interviewer to do the briefing properly and ask the next question. Comms and brand teams running flagship customer events, awards ceremonies, or televised galas. Investor days, AGMs and finance sector conferences that need an economically literate host, not a generalist presenter. Cultural institutions, philanthropic galas and arts boards programming high-profile public events. Audience outcomes A room that stays with the agenda from the opening session through the closing remarks. Sharper, more candid contributions from senior interviewees, because the questions land. Smooth transitions across a complex run-of-show, with live recovery when timings slip. A stage presence the audience remembers and associates with the brand hosting the event.

Why organisations work with Katie Linendoll She turns a roomful of non-specialists into an engaged audience for technology content. Two decades on national television, including The TODAY Show, The Rachael Ray Show and CNN, have given her a delivery style built for general audiences, not engineers. She has reported on the field at the level executives actually consume it, from CES and E3 to NASA’s undersea labs, which gives her keynotes the specificity of a journalist rather than the generality of a futurist. She is one of the most experienced corporate tech emcees working today. IBM, Dell, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, Deloitte, GE and Lenovo have used her to host their internal and customer events. Her technical foundation is real, not borrowed. She earned networking certifications before finishing high school and holds a degree in IT New Media from Rochester Institute of Technology, which is what makes her tech segments credible to a technical audience as well as a lay one. Biography highlights Emmy Award winner as associate producer for ESPN’s SportsCenter. Emmy-nominated co-host of A&E’s We Mean Business. Regular technology contributor on The TODAY Show, The Rachael Ray Show, CNN, CBS Early Show, The Weather Channel and CBS Sports Radio. BS in Information Technology, New Media, Rochester Institute of Technology, Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. Silicon Valley Visionary Award recipient. Has hosted and keynoted for IBM, Dell, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, Deloitte, QuickBooks, GE, Lenovo and SAS. Biography Emerging technology rarely arrives in a form that a general business audience can absorb. The vocabulary is technical, the demos are made for engineers, and the implications for the rest of the organisation get lost between the press release and the boardroom. The work of translating that material into something a non-specialist leadership team can act on is its own discipline. Katie Linendoll has spent over two decades doing exactly that on national television. She is a regular technology contributor on The TODAY Show and The Rachael Ray Show, and has appeared on CNN, CBS Early Show, The Weather Channel and CBS Sports Radio, where she covers AI, mixed reality, consumer devices and the science behind them. She has reported from NASA’s undersea labs and from post-typhoon recovery zones in the Philippines, and is a fixture at CES, E3, Comic-Con and Maker Faire. The technical grounding is real. She earned networking certifications before finishing high school, holds a degree in IT New Media from the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, and started her career as a producer at ESPN, where she won an Emmy for her work on SportsCenter. A&E’s We Mean Business, which she co-hosted, earned her a second Emmy nomination. That combination of broadcaster craft and technical fluency is why companies including IBM, Dell, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, Deloitte, GE and Lenovo book her to host and keynote their events. She is the speaker organisations choose when they want the technology story told sharply to an audience that does not read the trade press. Key speaking topics Emerging consumer and enterprise technology Artificial intelligence and mixed reality for general audiences Innovation and reinvention in established companies Women in technology Technology for social and humanitarian impact Event hosting and emceeing for tech-led conferences Ideal for Corporate conferences and customer summits in technology, financial services and consumer brands looking for a credible host who can carry technical content Internal kick-offs and town halls where leadership wants to set a tone on innovation without resorting to a futurist abstraction Sales and partner events that need an Emmy-level presenter to anchor the programme Diversity, women-in-tech and STEM-focused programmes Audience outcomes A clearer working picture of where AI, mixed reality and adjacent technologies actually stand right now Specific examples of how established companies and public-sector organisations are using emerging tech, with the detail intact A sense of which tech stories matter for their business and which are noise For women-in-tech briefs, a candid account of building a technology career through media, told from inside the industry

Why organisations work with Katie Pilbeam She has anchored live financial television, including a weekly business programme she produced herself, which means she can carry a market-facing conversation without an earpiece feeding her the next question. She has interviewed Christine Lagarde, Steve Wozniak, Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan on camera. The standard for senior-stage moderation is set by that calibre of guest. Twelve editions of the Geneva Forex Events and recurring London Stock Exchange conferences mean buyers are hiring a known quantity in the trading and capital-markets circuit, not a generalist host. NCTJ-trained, with rolling news experience on the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Ukraine-Russia war and the 2023 NATO summit, so a geopolitical brief does not need to be simplified to fit her. Biography highlights Main news anchor in Moscow for four years, producing and presenting her own weekly business programme, Venture Capital. News and business presenter credits at Reuters TV, TRT World, TalkTV, IG Markets, London Live News and Proactive Investors. Earlier business-presenting roles at Dukascopy TV in Geneva and IG Trading Group in London. Feature reporting from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the St Petersburg Economic Forum, the Shanghai Financial Forum and the Sochi Winter Olympics. Anchored rolling coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Ukraine-Russia war, the Wagner rebellion and the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius. NCTJ-qualified journalist, English Literature graduate of the University of Southampton. Biography A finance summit at the London Stock Exchange or a forex conference in Geneva does not need a celebrity host. It needs someone who can read a Bloomberg ticker on camera, follow a central banker into the detail, and run a panel of traders without losing the audience in the back row. That has been Katie Pilbeam’s working brief for more than a decade. She trained as an NCTJ-qualified print journalist before moving into financial television, first at Dukascopy TV in Geneva and IG Trading Group in London. Four years as a main anchor in Moscow followed, where she produced and presented her own weekly business programme, Venture Capital, alongside long shifts on rolling news. The on-air catalogue since has been heavily geopolitical and market-facing: Reuters TV, TRT World, TalkTV, IG Markets, Proactive Investors, and feature shows from Davos, the St Petersburg Economic Forum and the Shanghai Financial Forum. She has anchored rolling coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Ukraine-Russia war, the Wagner group rebellion and the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius. The interview list is the cleanest proof point: Christine Lagarde, Steve Wozniak, Boris Johnson, Sadiq Khan, Donald Trump. Conference buyers are hiring the same instinct that produces those exchanges live, applied to their CEO, their regulator, or their keynote guest. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and panel hosting Financial markets and trading Global business news Geopolitics and international affairs Awards and gala hosting Live event anchoring Ideal for Banks, asset managers and exchanges running flagship client conferences Financial services firms hosting trading, forex or capital-markets events Corporate communications teams running CEO interviews, AGMs or investor days Conference organisers in geopolitics, foreign policy and international business Audience outcomes A senior panel that stays on its strongest material instead of drifting into platitudes Live interviews with principals that produce usable broadcast and social clips A host who can absorb a last-minute change of running order, guest or news event without breaking the room A market-fluent moderator who can press a CFO or central banker on substance, not just on tone

Why organisations work with Katie Prescott She covers the AI infrastructure, capital and policy story as her day job for The Times, which means clients get a current read rather than a recycled keynote deck. Her book on Mike Lynch and the Autonomy sale to Hewlett-Packard is a working case study in how technology valuations, governance and cross-border legal exposure actually collide; few speakers can talk through that material with original reporting behind it. A decade at the BBC, including business news on Radio 4’s Today programme, gives her a rare ability to host and interview senior executives on stage without scripted stiffness. Tech Commentator of the Year at the 2024 UK Tech Awards confirms what bookers already use her for: trusted, named commentary at the level a board will quote back internally. She co-hosts The Times Tech Podcast with Danny Fortson, which keeps her sourced inside both London and Silicon Valley rather than reliant on second-hand briefings. Biography highlights Technology Business Editor, The Times, and weekly business columnist. Co-host, The Times Tech Podcast, with Danny Fortson, Sunday Times West Coast Correspondent. Author, The Curious Case of Mike Lynch (Macmillan Business, 2025); named a Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2025. Tech Commentator of the Year, UK Tech Awards, 2024. Approximately a decade at the BBC, including presenting business news on Radio 4’s Today programme and reporting from the BBC New York Bureau. Degree in Modern Languages, University of Oxford. Biography The 2011 sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for more than 11 billion pounds turned into a thirteen-year legal fight, two transatlantic trials and, in August 2024, the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off Sicily. The Curious Case of Mike Lynch, published by Macmillan Business in 2025, is the most detailed account of that story to date, and Katie Prescott reported and wrote it while running The Times’ technology business desk. That dual role is the point. Prescott covers AI capital flows, hyperscaler infrastructure, government and Big Tech relations, and UK technology policy as her standing brief, with a weekly column and The Times Tech Podcast co-hosted with the paper’s West Coast correspondent Danny Fortson. The reporting is current. It is also sourced; she is on the phone to founders, investors and regulators in the week she walks on stage. Before The Times, she spent roughly a decade at the BBC, presenting business on Radio 4’s Today programme and reporting from the corporation’s New York Bureau. That background shows on stage. She moderates senior panels, interviews chief executives in front of their own customers, and chairs board-level discussions with the timing of a working broadcaster rather than a guest speaker. The 2024 UK Tech Awards named her Tech Commentator of the Year, and her Mike Lynch book was selected as a Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2025. The combined record is what serious organisations are buying: a working journalist with the access to call the technology story accurately, and the platform to be quoted doing it. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence, capital and infrastructure The technology business in 2026 Founders, fraud and governance lessons from the Autonomy case Government, regulators and Big Tech The UK and European technology sector Hosting, moderation and on-stage interviews Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI investment and vendor strategy CTOs, CIOs and chief digital officers needing an outside read on the sector Investor days, partner summits and customer conferences requiring a credible interviewer Communications and policy leadership preparing for greater regulatory and media scrutiny Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI capital is actually flowing and which infrastructure dependencies matter A working sense of how technology valuations, governance and litigation interact, drawn from the Autonomy and Hewlett-Packard case Named, current examples from The Times’ technology coverage rather than recycled trend material For hosted formats, executive interviews that get past prepared answers without becoming hostile

Why organisations work with Kelly Somers A live host who has worked the biggest moments in English football, including becoming the sixth woman to present Match of the Day, and brings that calibre of broadcast craft to a corporate stage. A trusted facilitator for the sport ecosystem itself. The Premier League, The FA, EFL, LMA and Barclays use her on their own conferences, awards and leadership events, which is the strongest possible reference for any sponsor or partner of those bodies. A practitioner voice on gender inclusion in industries coded male for generations, drawn from her own working life across football broadcasting, not from secondary research. Interview range across elite athletes, managers and executives, with the discipline of live broadcast applied to panels, fireside chats and on-stage Q and A. Biography highlights Sports presenter and reporter across BBC Sport, including Final Score, Football Focus, The Women’s Football Show and BBC 5Live. Sixth woman to present Match of the Day, covering the 2020 FA Community Shield. Match reporter and presenter at UEFA Euro 2020, the 2022 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 and UEFA Euro 2024. Presenter for Amazon Prime’s Premier League coverage and Channel 4’s UEFA Nations League output. Corporate event host for the Premier League, Barclays, The FA, EFL and LMA. Postgraduate in broadcast journalism, Nottingham Trent University, following undergraduate studies at Loughborough University. Biography Live football broadcasting is a discipline most corporate stages underestimate. The presenter has to absorb a fast-moving situation, keep multiple guests coherent, manage time to the second, and make the whole thing feel calm. Kelly Somers has done that across the BBC, Amazon Prime and Channel 4 for more than a decade. Her CV inside the BBC includes Final Score, Football Focus, The Women’s Football Show and BBC 5Live, and reporting from England’s campaigns at UEFA Euro 2020, the 2022 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 and UEFA Euro 2024. In August 2020 she became the sixth woman in the programme’s history to present Match of the Day, covering the FA Community Shield. That broadcast track record is what brings her into corporate work. The Premier League, Barclays, The FA, EFL and the League Managers Association use her to host their own conferences, awards and leadership events, which is the highest reference any sport-adjacent client could ask for. The same discipline travels to keynote stages outside sport, where boards and leadership teams need a host who can keep a complex programme moving without losing the audience. When Somers speaks from the stage rather than hosting it, her subject is the one she has lived: how women earn credibility, hold a room, and change the everyday texture of a male-coded industry. She trained in broadcast journalism at Nottingham Trent University after Loughborough, started in the media department at AFC Bournemouth as the club rose into the Premier League, and built the broadcast career from there. The story is specific, not theoretical, and that is what makes it useful inside organisations trying to do the same work. Key speaking topics Football broadcasting and live event hosting Gender inclusion in male-dominated industries Building a career in sports media Interviewing elite performers under pressure Communicating with multi-generational audiences in digital media Sport, sponsorship and brand storytelling Ideal for Sponsors and partners of the Premier League, EFL, FA and LMA convening their own conferences, awards or hospitality programmes. Leadership teams in male-coded industries (financial services, engineering, construction, energy) running inclusion or women-in-leadership programming. Corporate awards, fireside chats and panels that need a broadcast-trained host rather than a celebrity name. Sport, media and broadcast businesses programming internal leadership and culture events. Audience outcomes A live event that runs to broadcast standard, with a host who keeps the room with her and the programme to time. A first-person account of building credibility as a woman inside elite football broadcasting, with the practical detail intact. Useable language for talking about gender inclusion that does not collapse into policy or slogan. Interview craft transferred to internal stages: how to prepare a guest, structure a conversation, and read a room in real time.

Why organisations work with Ken Schmidt He sat inside the room when Harley-Davidson went from near-collapse to one of the most emotionally bonded brands in American business, and he can describe what changed in the company’s positioning rather than what got written about it afterwards. He frames customer loyalty as an operating decision, not a marketing output. His Noise Cubed Trilogy gives leadership teams a structured way to interrogate how they are heard, remembered and chosen. Make Some Noise: The Unconventional Road to Dominance (Simon and Schuster, 2018) gives leaders a written, reusable method for moving a company from product-first to people-first positioning. He works in the language operators use. Sales teams, dealer networks, franchisees and frontline staff respond to him because he treats reputation as something the whole organisation builds, not a head-office function. He is consistently booked for annual sales kickoffs, dealer conferences and leadership offsites where the brief is to change how a workforce thinks about its own market position, not to deliver a generic motivational talk. Biography highlights Director of Corporate and Financial Communications at Harley-Davidson Motor Company, 1990 to 1997; joined the company in 1985. Primary spokesperson to media and financial communities during Harley-Davidson’s turnaround years. Author of Make Some Noise: The Unconventional Road to Dominance, Simon and Schuster, November 2018. Co-creator of 100 Years of Harley-Davidson, an official centenary motorsports title. Founder of Ken Schmidt Company (1999); co-founder of Torque Sessions Leadership Training. Host of the Tailgating with Geniuses business podcast; previously held an ownership stake in Chicago marketing firm VSA Partners. Biography Harley-Davidson was effectively a dying American manufacturer in the mid-1980s. The bikes had reputation problems, the financials were thin, and the brand was the punchline of its own segment. The work that pulled the company out was not a product fix. It was a deliberate reconstruction of how customers, dealers and the financial community thought and talked about the company, and Ken Schmidt was inside that work from 1985. By 1990 he was Director of Corporate and Financial Communications, working directly with the CEO and CFO and serving as the primary voice to the media and investment community during the years sales and brand equity recovered. That seat gave him a particular vantage on how reputation actually gets engineered inside a company under pressure, and on how leadership decisions about positioning translate into customer behaviour on the ground. After leaving Harley in 1997 he took an ownership position at Chicago marketing firm VSA Partners, then founded Ken Schmidt Company in 1999. Make Some Noise: The Unconventional Road to Dominance (Simon and Schuster, 2018) sets out his method for moving a company from product-first to people-first positioning; his Torque Sessions training format and Tailgating with Geniuses podcast extend the same operating logic. The argument he brings to a leadership room is that competitive advantage built on product specifications is now mostly perishable, and the durable form of advantage is being chosen on purpose by customers who feel something specific about the company. That is a hard claim to make credibly. It is harder to make from the inside of a brand that did it. Key speaking topics Customer loyalty and advocacy Brand positioning and reputation Competitive differentiation People-first organisational culture Storytelling and corporate voice Sales force and dealer-network alignment Ideal for Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Brand Officers and customer-experience leadership teams. Sales leadership at companies running annual kickoffs, dealer conferences or franchise summits. CEO and executive teams in mature categories where product parity is eroding margins. Membership organisations, associations and trade bodies needing to reset how they are perceived. Audience outcomes A sharper internal language for what their company is actually known for, versus what it claims to be known for. Schmidt’s three-question Noise Cubed framework, useable as a working tool on positioning decisions. A concrete view of how the Harley-Davidson turnaround changed customer behaviour, with the operator-side mechanics named. A reframing of customer loyalty as something every part of the business builds, not a marketing or CX function output.

Why organisations work with Kerry Washington A globally recognised cultural voice on representation, civic participation and women’s rights, with a platform built over a decade of headline activism rather than borrowed celebrity Founder and principal of Simpson Street, a production company whose work, Confirmation, American Son, Little Fires Everywhere, treats race, justice and family as serious subjects for mainstream audiences Two-time Tony-nominated Broadway producer and a working creative executive, which means she speaks about storytelling, audience and influence from inside the industry, not as a commentator Author of Thicker than Water, a New York Times bestselling memoir, which gives her a personal narrative on identity and disclosure that lands with audiences far beyond fan culture Co-chair of Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote and a long-standing partner to grassroots civic organisations, which gives her a credible point of view on how institutions engage with democratic participation Biography highlights Star of ABC’s Scandal (2013-2020), the first Black woman to lead a network drama since 1974, with two Primetime Emmy nominations, a Golden Globe nomination, a SAG nomination and two NAACP Image Awards for the role Founder of Simpson Street (2016), the production company behind Confirmation (HBO), American Son (Broadway and Netflix), Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu) and the Gypsy Broadway revival Author of Thicker than Water: A Memoir (Little, Brown, 2023), a New York Times bestseller Co-chair of When We All Vote; former member of President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities Recipient of the NAACP President’s Award (2013), the GLAAD Vanguard Award (2015) and the ACLU Bill of Rights Award (2016); named to the Time 100 in 2014 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of George Washington University Biography The role of Olivia Pope on Scandal was the first time in nearly forty years that an American network drama had been led by a Black woman. Kerry Washington carried that show for seven seasons, while building a parallel career as a producer, author and civic organiser. The combination is what makes her interesting as a public voice, the platform is large, but the work behind it is specific. Simpson Street, the production company she founded in 2016, sits at the centre of that work. Its projects, Confirmation on HBO, American Son on Broadway and Netflix, Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu, are commercial properties that take seriously the politics of race, family and justice. As a producer, she is now a two-time Tony nominee, with credits including the recent Broadway revival of Gypsy. The company also runs a venture arm and an impact arm that funds grassroots civic organisations through the Movement Voter Project’s Vision Into Power Cohort. Her activism is similarly substantive. She co-chairs Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote, served on President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and has campaigned on voter access in Georgia, women’s health and violence against women. Her memoir, Thicker than Water, a New York Times bestseller, added a personal layer to that public profile, telling the story of learning in adulthood that the man who raised her was not her biological father. For a corporate audience, what she offers is a credible voice on representation, civic participation and the conditions under which institutions are expected to speak. She is most powerful in conversation formats and keynotes that address voice, values and storytelling, where her experience as a producer and activist gives her something specific to say, rather than as a content expert on a defined management discipline. Key speaking topics Activism, civic voice and public participation Representation in media and storytelling Women’s health and women’s rights Identity, family and personal disclosure Building purpose-driven creative businesses Voting access and democratic engagement Ideal for CEO and board events where the brief is values, voice and the conditions for taking a public position DEI, ERG and women’s leadership programmes seeking a recognised cultural figure with substantive activist credentials Investor, philanthropic or impact-led convenings on civic participation and democracy Fireside conversations or in-conversation formats with senior moderators, the format where her authority is strongest Audience outcomes A clearer view of how representation in media and culture shapes the expectations placed on institutions A grounded reading of what credible civic engagement looks like for a public figure or organisation, drawn from over a decade of activist practice A personal account of identity and disclosure that gives audiences a vocabulary for difficult conversations An inside view of how purpose and commercial production can sit inside the same business

Why organisations work with Kevin Kelly His Xceptional Execution methodology is not motivational scaffolding – it is a documented framework built from original case study research with high-growth entrepreneurs across the globe, making the argument that execution, not vision, is the real driver of commercial success. Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution was endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence, as the book Peters himself had always wanted to write – a specific, named validation from one of the most cited figures in management literature. The Triple A (Attention, Awareness, Authentic Action) and Storytelling frameworks give teams named, repeatable tools for immediately improving how they earn attention, structure conversations, and close in markets where buyers are already sceptical before a call begins. His cross-industry track record is verifiable: rated the highest-performing speaker at Microsoft’s World Partner Conference (92.5% satisfaction score, ahead of five other speakers on the programme) and a repeat keynote speaker at the Million Dollar Round Table – two of the most commercially exacting professional audiences in technology and financial services. His starting point is always the specific failure mode that sales leaders recognise – the knowing-doing gap – rather than generic motivation; audiences leave with a named diagnosis and specific tools, not energy that fades by the following Monday. Biography highlights Founder of Advanced Marketing, established in Ireland in 1990 following a career breaking sales records across construction and manufacturing sectors in Ireland and internationally Author of five business books, including Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution, endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence How? When You Don’t Know How sold 15,000 copies in Ireland – a bestseller for an independent Irish author on a first title Developed the Xceptional Execution Video Series for Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Community; rated top speaker at the 2015 Microsoft World Partner Conference with a 92.5% audience satisfaction score Repeat keynote speaker at the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), one of the most selective annual platforms for financial services professionals globally Has addressed audiences across more than 35 countries, with named corporate clients including GE Healthcare, KPMG, Hologic, Hang Seng Bank, Lane Crawford, and ICON Clinical Research Biography The central problem in most commercial teams is not a shortage of knowledge. It is a shortage of consistent execution. Kevin Kelly, founder of Advanced Marketing, has built a 30-year methodology on that distinction: the argument that competitive advantage in sales and leadership is won not by the team with the most insight, but by the team that acts on ordinary ideas with extraordinary discipline. His framework, Xceptional Execution, emerged from structured research with entrepreneurs and executives across the globe: people who achieved outsized commercial results not through original thinking, but through repeatable, disciplined action. Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution captured this research and was endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence, as the book Peters himself had always wanted to write. The frameworks Kelly uses in his sessions: Triple A (Attention, Awareness, Authentic Action) and Storytelling, are designed to be immediately applicable by sales and leadership teams returning to their desks the next morning. At Microsoft’s World Partner Conference he was rated the highest-performing speaker on a six-speaker programme, with a 92.5% audience satisfaction score. He has since delivered keynotes for the Million Dollar Round Table and for commercial audiences across more than 35 countries spanning financial services, healthcare, technology, and professional services. Based in the west of Ireland, Kelly holds a marketing degree and began his career breaking sales records in construction and manufacturing before founding Advanced Marketing in 1990. His first book, How? When You Don’t Know How, sold 15,000 copies in Ireland. His subsequent body of work (five books in total) returns repeatedly to the same conviction: that performance, at the individual and organisational level, is almost always a question of execution rather than ambition. Key speaking topics Sales performance and commercial execution Attention and persuasion in distracted markets Xceptional Execution methodology and frameworks Storytelling and business communication Leadership, engagement, and team performance Entrepreneurship and growth through disciplined action Communication and influence in multicultural environments Ideal for Sales directors and commercial leaders seeking to close the gap between sales training and sustained field performance CEOs and senior executives accountable for execution culture across distributed or international teams Partner and channel organisations – particularly in technology and financial services – where performance depends on enabling third-party sales behaviours Associations and conference organisers serving entrepreneurial, financial services, or sales professional audiences (including MDRT-type communities) Audience outcomes A named framework (Triple A and Storytelling) for structuring sales conversations and earning attention from overloaded, sceptical buyers A shift in perspective from sales as persuasion to sales as disciplined execution – with specific practices that distinguish knowing from consistently doing Practical storytelling tools for making commercial messages stick in distracted, multicultural, and low-trust environments Clarity on the specific behaviours and mindsets that separate average teams from those that execute consistently under pressure Approaches to converting disengaged employees and resistant prospects into active advocates – grounded in the Xceptionalists research from Do!

Why organisations work with Khadra Sufi Fifteen-plus years of live television means she handles unscripted moments, technical hiccups, and difficult guests the way a working broadcaster does, not the way an event host learns to. Bilingual moderation in German and English at a professional broadcast standard, useful for DAX-listed companies and international brands running mixed-language audiences from a single stage. A QVC track record selling on live retail television, which translates directly to product launches, brand reveals, and live commerce formats where pacing and credibility matter more than polish. A Spiegel bestselling memoir and a UN Refugee Aid ambassadorship give her a separate, bookable keynote on resilience and reinvention when the brief calls for personal-story content alongside hosting. Biography highlights Author of “Das Madchen, das nicht weinen durfte” (Sudwest Verlag, 2010), a Spiegel bestseller about her family’s flight from Somalia and asylum in Germany. UN Refugee Aid (UNO-Fluchtlingshilfe) ambassador since 2012. Reporter for Bild in Cologne (2008-2010) and live reporter and author for WDR Lokalzeit Ruhr (2009-2012). Brand ambassador and presenter at QVC Dusseldorf, including her own clothing line. Guest on national German television including Markus Lanz (ZDF), Hartaberfair (ARD), Menschen bei Maischberger (ARD), Plasberg in Person (WDR), and ZDF Mittagsmagazin. Biography A corporate gala, a press conference, and a livestreamed product launch all need the same thing on stage: a host who can read a room, talk to a stranger on camera, and not flinch when the autocue fails. That is broadcast craft, and it is what Khadra Sufi has done professionally for more than fifteen years. Her route in is unusual. The daughter of a Somali diplomat, she grew up between Yemen, Zambia, Saudi Arabia, and East Berlin before her family fled the Somali civil war in 1990 and arrived in Germany as asylum seekers. She trained as a medical assistant, completed her secondary education in Germany, and moved into journalism via Bild in Cologne and WDR Lokalzeit Ruhr, working as a live reporter and author from 2009 to 2012. The on-camera work expanded into national appearances on Markus Lanz, Hartaberfair, Menschen bei Maischberger, and Plasberg in Person, and into commercial broadcasting through QVC Dusseldorf, where she is a long-running brand ambassador and runs her own clothing line. She moderates corporate events, panels, and product launches in German and English, and is based in Hamburg. Her 2010 memoir “Das Madchen, das nicht weinen durfte” became a Spiegel bestseller and reissued through Penguin Random House. Since 2012 she has been an ambassador for UN Refugee Aid (UNO-Fluchtlingshilfe), which is also the foundation for her keynote work on displacement, resilience, and reinvention when an organiser wants more than a host on the bill. Key speaking topics Event hosting and moderation Panel facilitation Live product launches and brand reveals After-dinner and awards hosting Resilience and personal reinvention Refugee experience and integration Ideal for Corporate communications and brand teams running bilingual German-English galas, conferences, or product launches Marketing and retail leaders booking live commerce, brand reveals, or QVC-style on-camera formats DEI, CSR, and employee engagement leads commissioning a personal-story keynote on displacement, resilience, and reinvention Audience outcomes An event that holds together across a long-format agenda, with a host who keeps senior guests sharp and the audience present A bilingual stage that does not lose energy when switching between German and English speakers For keynote bookings: a first-person account of statelessness, asylum, and rebuilding a working life in a new country, told without sentimentality A practical reference point for what employee-facing communication on refugee and integration topics can sound like when it is delivered by someone who has lived it

Why organisations work with Kim Davis Live broadcast experience that translates directly into stage presence: she presents The Travel Show on BBC News and writes regularly for CNN Travel, CNN Underscored and The Telegraph, so a panel or conference plenary in her hands feels editorially produced rather than improvised. A working marketer’s view of communication, not a theorist’s. Sarsaparilla, the consultancy she founded after moving from New York to London in 2004, operates inside campaigns, brand work and go-to-market decisions for commercial clients. Range across the unlovable formats. After-dinner, awards-night emcee, panel moderation, fireside interview and keynote, performed without the tonal mismatch that normally appears when speakers cross between them. A keynote thesis on arts-led achievement, given on the TEDxLukelyBrook stage in 2022, that gives leadership and culture audiences a route into creativity without the usual self-help register. Biography highlights Presenter, The Travel Show on BBC News. Contributing writer, CNN Travel, CNN Underscored and The Telegraph. Founder and CEO, Sarsaparilla Marketing, London. TEDxLukelyBrook speaker, “How The Arts Can Help You Achieve Anything”, 2022. New York native, London-based for over two decades; works across UK, US and EU markets. Stage and broadcast credits include Carnegie Hall, the O2 Arena and the TED platform (per speaker representation). Biography A live audience makes decisions about a speaker inside the first sentence. Davis was trained for that. Her day job is presenting The Travel Show on BBC News and writing for CNN Travel, CNN Underscored and The Telegraph, work that depends on getting a viewer or reader to lean in before a single fact has been delivered. That broadcast craft is what organisations are buying when they put her on stage. As a host and moderator she structures conversations the way an editor structures a segment: a clear thread, time discipline, and the ability to draw a usable answer out of an executive who would otherwise read from notes. The substantive content sits behind that. In 2004 she moved from New York to London and founded Sarsaparilla, a marketing and communications consultancy that runs campaign, brand and go-to-market work for commercial clients. Her keynote material draws from this practice and from her own performing background, including the TEDxLukelyBrook talk on arts and achievement she delivered in 2022. The combination is unusual. Most marketing speakers cannot present. Most broadcasters cannot speak credibly about commercial growth. Davis is booked when an event needs both in the same person. Key speaking topics Hosting, moderation and emcee craft Media and broadcast communication for executives Marketing and brand building Customer and audience engagement Arts-led approaches to creativity and achievement Female leadership in media, business and culture After-dinner speaking and awards-night presenting Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams looking for a working practitioner rather than a marketing academic Conference organisers and internal event leads who need a host or moderator with broadcast credibility Awards nights, gala dinners and customer events that need a confident emcee with editorial range Leadership and culture programmes wanting a session on creativity, communication and presence Audience outcomes A clearer view of how a journalist structures a story, and how to apply that discipline to a board narrative or all-hands talk Specific techniques drawn from broadcast and stage performance for holding attention in high-stakes settings A working framework for using arts and creative practice as a tool for executive communication For events: a tightly run room, a coherent through-line across sessions, and interviews that produce usable quotes rather than safe ones