Strategier til fastholdelse af talenter

Why organisations work with Mark Williams He brings the evidence base that most performance and leadership content lacks. His research on perceptual-cognitive skill, decision-making and expertise is among the most cited in the field worldwide. He has translated that science into practice at the highest level of sport, advising FIFA, UEFA, the IOC, The FA, and teams across the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. The lessons travel directly into how executives think about talent and pressure. His book with Tim Wigmore, “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made”, gives leaders a shared language for what separates the very best from the merely good, built on interviews with athletes like Steph Curry, Pete Sampras and Marcus Rashford. He is Editor-in-Chief of three of the discipline’s leading journals, including the Journal of Sports Sciences. When he tells a board what the research says, it is not a summary of someone else’s work. He is unusually direct for an academic of his standing. The science is rigorous, the delivery is plain. Biography highlights Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC); formerly Professor and Chair, Department of Health, Kinesiology and Recreation, University of Utah. Co-author of “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made” (2020), with Telegraph and New York Times sports writer Tim Wigmore. Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sports Sciences, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, and Human Movement Science. Distinguished Scholar Awards from the International Society of Sport Psychology and the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity. Consultant to FIFA, UEFA, the IOC, The FA, and professional teams in the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the National Academy of Kinesiology, and the European College of Sport Science. Biography The reason one team performs under pressure and another collapses is rarely the talent on the pitch. It is what was built into the players, the coaching staff and the decisions long before kick-off. Mark Williams has spent more than three decades studying that question, and turning the answers into something coaches, federations and executives can use. His research focuses on the neural and psychological mechanisms behind expertise: how perception, decision-making and motor skill develop, and what separates a world-class performer from a very good one. The work has shaped programmes at FIFA, UEFA, the IOC and The FA, and inside teams across the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sports Sciences, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, and Human Movement Science. His book with Tim Wigmore, “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made”, brought that body of research to a wider audience through interviews with figures including Steph Curry, Pete Sampras, Kurt Warner and Marcus Rashford. The argument is built on evidence rather than anecdote: the conditions that produce sustained excellence can be described, designed and reproduced. For senior leaders, the value is the translation. The science of how people learn complex skills, hold their nerve in unfamiliar conditions and make better decisions under time pressure does not stop at the touchline. It is the same problem a board faces when it asks why a strategy works for one team and not for the next. Key speaking topics The science of expertise and skill acquisition Talent identification and development Decision-making under pressure Building high-performing teams The psychology of excellence Coaching, learning environments and instructional design Ideal for Executive teams and CHROs designing leadership and talent pipelines Learning and development leaders rebuilding how the organisation teaches complex skills Board and senior conferences focused on performance, culture and decision-making Sports federations, performance directors and coaching staff Audience outcomes A clearer view of what the evidence actually says about how expertise is built, and where most talent programmes go wrong. Specific cues for spotting the perceptual and decision-making skills that distinguish top performers from the rest. Practical principles for designing learning environments that produce skill, not just activity. A shared vocabulary for talking about pressure, decision-making and team performance that holds up under scrutiny.

Why organisations work with Matt Havens He treats generational friction as a leadership design problem, not a personality clash, which gives HR and operations leaders something they can act on rather than another set of demographic slides. His Simplicity framework is built from inside a Fortune 50 operating environment, not from a consultancy deck, so the examples land with line managers who run contact centres, branches, and field teams. The “4 Human Truths” content reframes engagement around what employees of every age actually share, which is useful for organisations stuck rotating perks instead of fixing leadership behaviour. He carries a room. Comedy-club upbringing translates into a delivery style that holds attention through a full keynote, which matters for late-day conference slots and large internal kickoffs. Deployable across very different audience profiles, with named repeat clients including Cisco, State Farm, RE/MAX, Lockheed Martin, Allstate, Duke Energy, and Mondelez International. Biography highlights Fourteen years in Fortune 50 leadership across finance, sales, and customer service, with responsibility for contact centres in five US locations. Creator of the Simplicity framework for leading multigenerational teams and reducing organisational complexity. Author of the “Make Your Business Human: The 4 Human Truths” keynote on engagement and culture. Repeat keynote speaker for organisations including Cisco, State Farm, RE/MAX, Lockheed Martin, Allstate, Duke Energy, and Mondelez International. Grew up backstage in comedy clubs alongside a stand-up comedian father; uses that craft to deliver leadership content with sustained audience energy. Programmes are delivered in person and virtually, working across corporate, association, and franchise audiences. Biography Five generations now sit on the same org chart, and most leadership systems were not built for that reality. Engagement programmes default to perks. Generational training defaults to stereotypes. Leaders end up managing labels rather than people, and the friction shows up in attrition data long before anyone names it. Matt Havens works that problem from inside the operating side of an organisation. Fourteen years of Fortune 50 leadership across finance, sales, and customer service, including responsibility for contact centres in five US locations, gave him a working view of where complexity actually accumulates: in handovers, in jargon, in well-meaning processes that no one will defend if pressed. His Simplicity framework is the response. It asks leaders to strip away the layers that make modern work harder than it needs to be, and to manage multigenerational teams through what people share rather than how they differ. The companion “4 Human Truths” content reframes engagement around the few fundamentals that hold across age, tenure, and function. The delivery is the second half of the proposition. Havens grew up in comedy-club green rooms with a stand-up comedian father, and he uses that craft to keep a room with him through serious leadership content. Cisco, State Farm, RE/MAX, Lockheed Martin, Allstate, Duke Energy, and Mondelez International have brought him back for that reason: the message lands, and the audience remembers it on Monday. Key speaking topics Multigenerational workplace leadership Employee engagement and culture Simplicity in leadership and operations Talent attraction and retention Workplace humour and human connection Customer-facing team leadership Ideal for CHROs and heads of culture working on cross-generational engagement Operations and customer service leaders running large frontline teams Conference programmers needing a humour-led, high-energy main-stage keynote on people and culture Sales and franchise leadership audiences at annual kickoffs Audience outcomes A working definition of generational friction as a leadership design issue, with practical levers managers can pull The Simplicity framework as a checklist for stripping unnecessary complexity out of team operations The 4 Human Truths as a shared engagement vocabulary across a multigenerational workforce Renewed energy and a memorable shared reference point for the rest of the offsite or conference

Why organisations work with Maya Townsend She brings organisation network analysis into the room as a working tool, not a slide. Leaders leave knowing which specific people inside their business carry influence that the org chart hides. She has co-edited the OD Network’s Handbook for Strategic HR (AMACOM, 2012), giving her work a peer-reviewed foundation that most change speakers cannot point to. She advises Gartner on change management and organisation network practice, which means her frameworks have been pressure-tested with the analyst body that many of her clients buy research from. She is one of three US-certified Lewis Method of Deep Democracy trainers, so when polarised teams are stuck on a decision she has a specific method for moving them, not a general facilitation style. She works the seam between strategy and adoption. Clients booking her are usually past the point of needing a diagnosis and want someone who can name the next intervention. Biography highlights Founder and lead consultant, Partnering Resources, an organisation development practice focused on networks, collaboration, and change. Co-editor, Handbook for Strategic HR: Best Practices in Organization Development from the OD Network (AMACOM, 2012). Chapter author, “Organization Network Dynamics and Analysis,” in the NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change. Adviser to Gartner on change management and organisation network practice. Contributor to strategy+business, People + Strategy, Nonprofit Quarterly, CIO, and Inc.com. MS in Organization Development (with distinction), American University / NTL Institute; certified Lewis Method of Deep Democracy trainer, one of three in the United States. Biography Every large organisation has two structures. There is the one on the chart, and there is the network of relationships that actually moves information, decisions, and trust. Townsend’s work starts from the second one. She runs Partnering Resources, the change and organisation development practice she founded, where she uses organisation network analysis to show leaders the brokers, connectors, and quiet experts their formal hierarchy hides. The diagnosis is concrete: specific names, specific gaps, specific places where a transformation is going to fail unless someone intervenes. The intellectual base behind this work is unusually deep for a speaker in her field. She co-edited the OD Network’s Handbook for Strategic HR with AMACOM, contributed the chapter on network dynamics to the NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change, and writes regularly for strategy+business, People + Strategy, and CIO. Gartner uses her as an adviser on change management and network practice. What that produces in a keynote setting is a practitioner who can move from the science of how organisations actually behave to the next concrete move a leadership team should make on Monday morning. She has presented at Gartner and Inc. 500 or 5000 events, taught networked leadership at Boston University and Northeastern, and is one of three Lewis Method of Deep Democracy trainers certified in the United States, which she draws on when teams are polarised and stuck. Key speaking topics Organisation network analysis Change leadership in complex systems Collaboration across silos and ecosystems Conflict and polarisation in leadership teams Talent and influence mapping Strategy adoption and organisational resilience Ideal for CEOs and transformation leads landing a strategy that depends on cross-functional adoption. Heads of strategy, OD, and change running enterprise change programmes that have stalled at the middle. Senior HR and talent leaders identifying who actually carries influence in a high-potential population. Leadership teams stuck on a polarised decision and looking for a method, not a facilitation pep talk. Audience outcomes A working picture of the informal networks inside their own organisation, and where those networks are blocking or accelerating strategy. Specific moves to identify the brokers and connectors who decide whether a change effort lands. A sharper read on why past change programmes stalled, anchored in network evidence rather than personality. A method for engaging conflict in leadership teams that turns disagreement into a decision rather than a stalemate.

Why organisations work with Mel Abraham A practitioner’s view of personal finance, not a motivational one. Thirty years as a CPA advising founders and high earners sits behind every framework he teaches. Financial wellbeing translated into a workforce metric. His employee financial wellness sessions connect personal money stress directly to productivity, retention, and engagement numbers a CFO recognises. A published, repeatable system. Building Your Money Machine and its Wealth Priority Ladder give audiences a sequenced model they can act on the next morning, not a set of principles to remember. Credibility at the top of the speaker profession. The Certified Speaking Professional designation is held by fewer than one in ten working speakers, and Abraham earned it on top of the CPA qualification. A founder’s story buyers can verify. He built, sold, and reinvested through a cancer diagnosis and recovery, which is why the work avoids the abstract optimism that defines most personal-finance content. Biography highlights USA Today bestselling author of Building Your Money Machine (Hay House, 2024). International bestselling author of The Entrepreneur’s Solution. Certified Public Accountant with more than 30 years of advisory experience to founders and entrepreneurs. Certified Speaking Professional, National Speakers Association. Host of the Building Your Money Machine podcast and YouTube show, reaching around two million viewers. Has shared stages with Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Arianna Huffington, Ed Mylett, and Amy Porterfield. Biography The gap between earning a high income and being financially free is wider than most professionals expect. Lifestyle absorbs salary growth, savings sit idle, and the moment when work becomes a choice keeps moving further out. Mel Abraham has spent three decades inside that gap as a CPA advising founders and high earners, and his work begins with the mechanics of closing it. Building Your Money Machine, his 2024 USA Today bestseller, sets out the sequence: earn, grow, protect. The book introduces the Wealth Priority Ladder and the Five Incomes, frameworks he uses to move audiences from a single salary to a portfolio of cash-producing assets. It followed The Entrepreneur’s Solution, an earlier international bestseller written for owner-operators trying to scale without trading their lives for the business. Inside organisations, Abraham translates the same material into a workforce argument. Personal financial stress shows up as distraction, presenteeism, and turnover, and his Financial Wellness, The Missing Link to Employee Wellness programme reframes it as a measurable productivity issue rather than a soft benefit. Buyers tend to be CHROs, founders, and benefits leads who want financial literacy treated with the same seriousness as physical and mental health. The Certified Speaking Professional designation, held by under one in ten working speakers, sits alongside the CPA credential. The combination is unusual, and it is what allows Abraham to take a stage at a sales kickoff of 20,000 or a boardroom of 10 and treat both as exercises in numerical precision. Key speaking topics Personal financial freedom and wealth-building systems Employee financial wellness and productivity Entrepreneurship and founder economics Wealth priority sequencing for high earners Legacy planning and intergenerational wealth Money mindset and behavioural finance Ideal for Sales conferences, founder summits, and entrepreneur networks CHROs and benefits leads building financial wellbeing into the employee proposition Wealth management, banking, and financial services events for client audiences Professional services firms and partnerships addressing partner and associate financial literacy Audience outcomes A sequenced model for converting earned income into income-producing assets A clearer view of which financial moves come first, second, and third Language for treating financial wellbeing as a measurable workforce outcome, not a benefit line item A founder’s account of building wealth through health crisis and business reinvention Tools drawn from a CPA practice rather than a motivational frame

Why organisations work with Melissa Majors She gives managers a behavioural model, not a values statement. The seven habits in her book are written for the team-lead who has fifteen minutes between meetings, not for the chief diversity officer. She speaks from operator credibility, having rebuilt the education function at Ellucian for more than half a million clients and partners and run global education at Meeting Professionals International. She makes inclusion commercially legible. The argument she lands with senior buyers is innovation, retention and team output, which keeps the conversation alive when political appetite for DEI has cooled. She brings packaged IP, in’klooded for strategic planning and Community Keynotes for surfacing ideas, that clients can put to work after the keynote rather than translating principles into practice on their own. Biography highlights Author, The 7 Simple Habits of Inclusive Leaders; also author of Help Them Thrive: Leadership Coaching for Humans Leading Humans. Former Director, Global Education Services, Ellucian; former Director of Global Education, Meeting Professionals International. Career across Nationwide Insurance, Wells Fargo and HD Vest Financial Services before moving into education and consulting. Founder of Melissa Majors Consulting; creator of the in’klooded inclusive strategic planning methodology and Community Keynotes. Advanced study in strategy and innovation at Harvard University; guest lecturer in leadership and inclusion at San Diego State University. Featured contributor and subject in Forbes, Smart Meetings, PCMA Convene and The Meeting Professional. Biography Most inclusion programmes were built for a different political climate. They assumed senior sponsorship would hold, that the language would be uncontested, and that managers would translate principles into practice. None of that is reliable now. The work that survives is the work that turns inclusion into something a busy manager can do, repeatedly, without thinking of it as a programme at all. That is the territory Melissa Majors has spent more than two decades inside. She ran global education at Meeting Professionals International and rebuilt the education services function at Ellucian, where she was responsible for more than 500,000 clients and partners. Before that, her career sat inside Nationwide Insurance, Wells Fargo and HD Vest Financial Services. The pattern is consistent: large, regulated, performance-measured organisations where culture work has to justify itself in operating terms. Her book The 7 Simple Habits of Inclusive Leaders is the spine of her speaking work. It reframes inclusion as a set of repeatable behaviours, including how decisions get made, how empathy is applied tactically, and how dissent is invited rather than tolerated. The companion methodologies, in’klooded for strategic planning and Community Keynotes for idea generation, give clients something to use after the room clears. She has been featured in Forbes, Smart Meetings, PCMA Convene and The Meeting Professional, and lectures on leadership and inclusion at San Diego State University. The work she is booked for is straightforward: take inclusion off the values poster and put it back into the operating practice of managing a team. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership as everyday management practice Behavioural habits of high-performing inclusive teams Women’s leadership and progression Manager effectiveness and team performance Psychological safety and team trust Talent retention through inclusion Tactical empathy in leadership Ideal for CHROs, heads of DEI and heads of L&D rebuilding inclusion programmes for a more contested environment People-leader populations: front-line managers, mid-level leaders and newly promoted team leads Women’s leadership networks and ERGs inside large organisations Member associations and professional bodies addressing the meetings, events and education sectors Audience outcomes A behavioural model managers can apply in the next team meeting, not after the next training cycle Language for inclusion that holds up commercially when sponsorship has cooled A clearer read on where current inclusion efforts are stalling and which habits would shift them Practical mechanisms for surfacing dissent and quieter voices inside decision-making

Why organisations work with Meridith Elliott Powell A researched 9-Step Formula for Thriving in Uncertainty, drawn from a study of nine companies that have survived since the late 1700s through wars, depressions, and pandemics. The framework gives sales and leadership teams a repeatable playbook rather than a motivational prompt. Twenty-five years of operating experience across banking, healthcare, and finance, including C-suite roles. The advice lands with sales leaders because it was built inside the function, not observed from outside it. Inducted into the National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE) in 2022, an award restricted to a small number of speakers globally. A credential that buyers recognise as a quality bar. A body of work that connects three commercial problems most organisations treat separately: sales performance, leadership development, and succession planning. Useful when a sponsor wants a single voice across a sales kickoff, a leadership offsite, and a board session. Biography highlights Inducted into the National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE Council of Peers Award for Excellence), 2022 Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), held by fewer than twelve percent of professional speakers globally Author of Thrive: Strategies to Turn Uncertainty to Competitive Advantage, Gold Award winner, Nonfiction Authors Association Author of Who Comes Next? Leadership Succession Planning Made Easy and co-author of The Best Sales Book Ever with Connie Podesta Member of the Forbes Coaching Council LinkedIn Learning instructor, including “Personalizing Your Customer’s Buying Experience” Biography Most sales playbooks assume the operating environment is broadly stable. Powell’s research started from the opposite premise. She studied nine companies founded in the late 1700s and early 1800s that have survived wars, depressions, financial crises, and pandemics, and reverse-engineered what those companies did consistently that newer competitors did not. The output is her 9-Step Formula for Thriving in Uncertainty, set out in Thrive: Strategies to Turn Uncertainty to Competitive Advantage, which won a Gold Award from the Nonfiction Authors Association. That research sits on top of twenty-five years of operating experience in banking, healthcare, and finance, including C-suite roles. The framework was built for sales leaders and general managers who own a number, not for a leadership-development audience. The practical claim is straightforward. Uncertainty is not a phase to wait out; it is the structural condition under which growth has to happen, and organisations that accept that can take share from competitors who are still waiting. Powell’s wider body of work extends the thesis into adjacent commercial problems. Who Comes Next? Leadership Succession Planning Made Easy addresses the pipeline problem most sales and leadership teams under-invest in until it becomes urgent. The Best Sales Book Ever, co-authored with Connie Podesta, sets out the seller behaviours that survive volatile markets. Her LinkedIn Learning courses, including “Personalizing Your Customer’s Buying Experience”, carry the same operational register into shorter-format material. The recognition is consistent with the work. Powell holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation, sits on the Forbes Coaching Council, and was inducted into the National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame in 2022, a credential held by a small number of speakers globally and one buyers use as a quality filter when commissioning sales and leadership keynotes. Key speaking topics Sales strategy in uncertain markets Business growth and competitive advantage Leadership succession and pipeline development Sales team performance and culture Resilience and mental toughness in commercial roles Customer experience and buyer behaviour Ideal for Chief revenue officers, sales directors, and commercial leadership teams running national or global sales kickoffs CEOs and executive teams setting growth strategy under volatile demand conditions HR and talent leaders responsible for leadership succession in commercial functions Industry associations in banking, financial services, healthcare, and distribution sectors Audience outcomes A named nine-step framework for turning uncertainty into a source of competitive advantage, tied to real company evidence Specific commercial behaviours sales teams can adopt when the macro environment is working against them A succession-planning lens leaders can apply to the next eighteen months, not the next five years Sharper language for talking to customers when buying decisions are slower and more conservative

Why organisations work with Michael Grade He has run three of the most scrutinised cultural institutions in Britain and turned each one around under public, political, and shareholder pressure. Few business leaders have a comparable record of operating in the spotlight. He brings the rare combination of operator and regulator. Having sat on both sides of the table at the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, and Ofcom, he can talk credibly to a board about how regulators actually think. He is a working authority on talent-led businesses. Grade built his career around commissioning, retaining, and managing creative talent at LWT, Channel 4, and ITV, and that perspective transfers directly to professional services and knowledge-economy firms. He sits in the House of Lords as Baron Grade of Yarmouth and chairs Ofcom, giving him a current view of the regulatory pressures shaping media, technology, and competition policy in the UK. He is a recognised figure of the Royal Television Society, a Fellow since 1991, and one of the most quoted commentators on the British broadcasting industry across four decades. Biography highlights Chairman of Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, since May 2022. Executive Chairman of ITV plc, 2007 to 2009, brought in to restructure the company through the financial crisis. Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, 2004 to 2006, appointed in the aftermath of the Hutton Report. Chief Executive of Channel 4, 1988 to 1997, where he commissioned and acquired hits including Friends, Frasier, and ER. Controller of BBC One, 1984 to 1986, and Director of Programmes at London Weekend Television before that. Non-executive Chairman of Pinewood Shepperton Film Studios from 2000 to 2016, and Chairman of Camelot Group from 2002 to 2004. Created Baron Grade of Yarmouth in 2011, appointed CBE in 1998, and Fellow of the Royal Television Society since 1991. Author of the 1999 autobiography “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” (Macmillan). Biography The BBC was bruised, ITV was losing money in a recession, and Channel 4 was a young challenger looking for a commercial identity. At different points across forty years, Michael Grade was asked to fix each one. He is the only person to have run all three of Britain’s major public-service broadcasters and then ended up chairing their regulator, Ofcom. His operating record is specific. As Chief Executive of Channel 4 from 1988 to 1997, he gave the channel a commercial spine while protecting its public-service brief, acquiring Friends, Frasier, and ER and building the schedule that defined its 1990s identity. As Chairman of the BBC from 2004, he steadied an organisation under political fire after the Hutton Report. As Executive Chairman of ITV from 2007, he restructured the company through the financial crisis. The thread is the same: large, scrutinised, talent-driven organisations under pressure to perform commercially without losing legitimacy. That tension, between brand, regulator, shareholder, and creative workforce, is now the standard operating environment for many sectors beyond media. Grade has lived inside it for four decades. He sits in the House of Lords as Baron Grade of Yarmouth, was appointed CBE in 1998, became a Fellow of the Royal Television Society in 1991, and chairs Ofcom on a four-year term running to April 2026. His autobiography, “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time,” was published by Macmillan in 1999. Key speaking topics Leadership of large institutions under public scrutiny Managing talent-driven businesses Media, broadcasting, and the regulatory landscape Crisis leadership and corporate restructuring The future of British public-service broadcasting Boardroom strategy in regulated industries Ideal for Chairs and CEOs of regulated, brand-sensitive businesses (financial services, media, telecoms, utilities) Boards facing reputational, political, or regulatory pressure Leadership audiences in talent-led professional services firms Audience outcomes A working frame for leading organisations whose performance is judged in public, not only on the P&L. A practitioner’s view of how regulators read a company, from someone who now sits in that chair. Concrete lessons from three of the most-watched corporate turnarounds in British media. A clear-eyed account of how to manage talent-driven cultures without losing commercial discipline.

Why organisations work with Michael Watkins He owns the global category of leadership transitions. The First 90 Days is the methodology Fortune 500 HR functions, executive coaches, and onboarding programs build around, with over a million copies in print across more than twenty languages. His 2024 book, The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, gives senior teams a named, teachable framework for the cognitive work executives are expected to do but rarely trained in: pattern recognition, systems perspective, mental agility, structured problem-solving, visioning, and political savvy. The Thinkers50 Hall of Fame induction in 2023 places him alongside the small group of management thinkers whose work has shaped how large organisations actually develop leaders, not just how they talk about leadership. He has run the playbook inside companies as well as written it. Through Genesis Advisers, the consultancy he co-founded, his frameworks are embedded in transition coaching programs at major multinationals. Buyers get a speaker who has taught the same audience inside IMD, Harvard Business School, and the Kennedy School. The content is built for senior leaders, not adapted down to them. Biography highlights Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at IMD Business School since 2007. Author of The First 90 Days, named by The Economist as “the onboarding bible” and selected by Amazon editors as one of 100 leadership books to read in a lifetime. Author of The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking (Harper Business, 2024) and Master Your Next Move, the structured companion to The First 90 Days covering eight common executive transition types. Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2023; previously ranked on the Thinkers50 list in 2019 and 2021. Co-founder and chairman of Genesis Advisers, a leadership-transition consultancy. Former associate professor at Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School; PhD in Decision Sciences from Harvard University. Biography The First 90 Days began as a study of why senior hires fail and grew into the operating manual that most large organisations now use to onboard executives. The Economist called it the onboarding bible. More than a million copies are in print across more than twenty languages, and the framework is embedded in transition coaching at multinationals worldwide. Michael Watkins built the methodology while teaching at Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School, refined it at INSEAD, and has anchored it at IMD since 2007 as Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change. He directs IMD’s First 90 Days open program and co-directs the Transition to Business Leadership executive program. The same body of work runs through Genesis Advisers, the consultancy he co-founded, where the playbook is delivered inside companies rather than written about from outside. In 2024, he extended the work upward with The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, which names the cognitive disciplines executives are expected to demonstrate at the top of an organisation: pattern recognition, systems perspective, mental agility, structured problem-solving, visioning, and political savvy. The argument is that strategic thinking is not a personality trait but a teachable craft, and most senior teams have never been taught it. The Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inducted him in November 2023, recognising two decades of work that has demonstrably shaped how large organisations develop their leaders rather than how they describe doing so. Key speaking topics Leadership transitions and executive onboarding Strategic thinking for senior leaders Team leadership and top-team effectiveness Organisational change and culture Negotiation and decision-making Career strategy for senior executives Ideal for CHROs, heads of leadership development, and chief learning officers designing transition and onboarding programs. CEOs and executive committees who want their top team trained in strategic thinking as a discipline. Boards and nomination committees preparing successors for enterprise-leadership roles. High-potential leadership cohorts moving into first general-management or P&L roles. Audience outcomes A named methodology, The First 90 Days, that senior leaders can apply to their next transition rather than a set of principles to remember. Six concrete strategic-thinking disciplines that a top team can use as a shared language inside the business. A clearer view of why most senior-hire failures are predictable, and which interventions in the first ninety days actually change the outcome. Direct access to the thinking of a Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee whose work is taught inside HBS, INSEAD, and IMD curricula.

Why organisations work with Mike Forde His vantage point is inside the building. As Director of Football Operations at Chelsea FC, he ran recruitment, contracts, sport science and team operations across the club’s most successful era: the Champions League, the Europa League, the Premier League and three FA Cups inside six years. Few advisors work credibly across the EPL and the major US leagues. Sportsology, the firm he founded in 2014, has long-running client relationships with the Philadelphia Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Brooklyn Nets and San Antonio Spurs alongside European football clubs. He has been the architect of senior appointments that have shaped franchises. The Brooklyn Nets hired him in 2016 to lead their general manager search and he placed Sean Marks, who rebuilt the roster around Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. The Sacramento Kings retained him for the same purpose in 2020. His co-authored book Quiet Leadership (Portfolio Penguin, 2016), written with Carlo Ancelotti and Chris Brady, gives him a developed framework on leading talented egos. It has sold over 100,000 copies and is read well outside professional sport. Biography highlights Founder and Executive Chairman of Sportsology Group, an advisory firm based in New York and London with clients across European football, the NFL, NBA and MLB Director of Football Operations and Executive Club Director at Chelsea FC, 2007 to 2013, the most successful era in the club’s history Performance Director at Bolton Wanderers FC, 1999 to 2007 Co-author of Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches with Carlo Ancelotti and Chris Brady (Portfolio Penguin, 2016) Led the general manager searches for the Brooklyn Nets (placing Sean Marks in 2016) and the Sacramento Kings (2020) BSc Sport Science, Liverpool John Moores University; MSc Psychology and Sport, San Diego State University Biography Chelsea FC won everything in sight between 2007 and 2013: the Champions League, the Europa League, the Premier League and three FA Cups. Mike Forde sat inside the building for that entire run as Director of Football Operations and Executive Club Director. He had spent the previous seven years at Bolton Wanderers FC as Performance Director. The Chelsea role professionalised that work at scale: recruitment, contracts, sport science, performance analysis and team operations under public pressure. He founded Sportsology Group in 2014 to do similar work outside one club. The firm now operates from New York and London, advising franchise owners, leagues and institutional capital across European football, the NFL, NBA and MLB. Sportsology has worked with the Philadelphia Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Brooklyn Nets, San Antonio Spurs and LA Rams. The firm also runs senior leadership searches: Forde placed Sean Marks at the Brooklyn Nets in 2016 and was retained by the Sacramento Kings in 2020. His co-authored book Quiet Leadership (Portfolio Penguin, 2016) sets out the methods Carlo Ancelotti used to lead talented egos at AC Milan, Chelsea, PSG and Real Madrid. It has sold over 100,000 copies and is cited regularly by senior managers far outside professional sport. The Ringer profiled Forde in 2021 as the consultant NBA owners call when a general manager search begins. Key speaking topics High performance team culture Talent identification and development Leadership of high ego performers Operating systems behind sustained winning Lessons from elite sport for corporate leaders Senior executive search and assessment Multi cultural team management Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and heads of talent rebuilding the systems behind spotting and keeping high performers CEOs and senior leadership teams setting cultural standards that outlast personnel change Senior partner and managing director audiences in professional and financial services firms Sales leadership and customer facing kickoff events focused on team performance Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what separates winning teams from the rest, drawn from clubs that win under public scrutiny Direct examples of how Carlo Ancelotti, Sir Dave Brailsford and other elite sport leaders manage difficult egos and protect culture through change A sharper diagnosis of where their own talent and culture systems are weakest, with reference points from the NFL, NBA and European football Tools they can apply directly to hiring decisions and talent reviews

Why organisations work with Mohsin Zaidi He speaks about inclusion from inside the institutions that struggle most with it: the English Bar, the UK Supreme Court, magic-circle law, and a global strategic advisory firm. The argument carries because the credentials are the audience’s own. A Dutiful Boy is the only memoir to win both the Lambda Literary Award and the Polari First Book Prize while also being named Book of the Year by The Guardian, GQ and New Statesman. That literary standing changes how a corporate audience receives a personal story. His subject is the specific friction between social mobility, faith, race and sexuality, not a single identity strand. Useful for organisations whose inclusion conversations have plateaued on single-axis framing. He has done the unglamorous work alongside the writing: trustee of Stonewall, former board member of London Pride, named on The Lawyer Hot 100 and the FT future LGBT leaders list. The advocacy is institutional, not performative. He translates lived experience into questions a leadership team can act on, particularly on mental health stigma in ethnic minority communities, where most corporate wellbeing programmes are weakest. Biography highlights Author of A Dutiful Boy (Penguin, 2020), winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the Polari First Book Prize. Book of the Year selections from The Guardian, GQ, New Statesman and Attitude. BA Law with European Legal Studies, Keble College, Oxford; qualified as a solicitor at Linklaters and a New York attorney. Judicial Assistant to Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson at the UK Supreme Court; criminal barrister at 6 King’s Bench Walk. Management consultant at Hakluyt & Company since 2021. Trustee of Stonewall; Financial Times top future LGBT leader; The Lawyer Hot 100. Biography Walthamstow to Keble College, Oxford was the first improbable journey. Linklaters, then the UK Supreme Court as Judicial Assistant to Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, then the criminal Bar at 6 King’s Bench Walk, were the next. The institutions Mohsin Zaidi passed through are the same institutions that most struggle to retain people who look and sound like him. A Dutiful Boy, published by Penguin in 2020, is the memoir of how those journeys actually felt from the inside. It won the Lambda Literary Award and the Polari First Book Prize, and was named Book of the Year by The Guardian, GQ, New Statesman and Attitude. The literary reception matters because it sets the register: this is not a corporate diversity talk dressed up as a story. The argument Zaidi makes to organisations is narrow and useful. Single-axis inclusion frameworks (race, or class, or sexuality, or faith) miss what most people from minority backgrounds actually carry into work, which is the interaction effect. He is direct on mental health stigma inside ethnic minority communities, an area corporate wellbeing programmes routinely under-serve. He is a trustee of Stonewall and a former board member of London Pride, so the institutional knowledge sits alongside the personal one. Since 2021 he has been a management consultant at Hakluyt & Company, alongside his writing and advocacy. The combination is what makes the work travel into senior commercial rooms: he is asking the same questions the partners and executives in front of him are asking, from a position that takes their context seriously. Key speaking topics Intersectionality at work Social mobility in professional services Mental health stigma in ethnic minority communities LGBTQ+ inclusion in conservative cultures Race, faith and workplace identity Belonging and authenticity in elite institutions Ideal for CHROs, heads of D&I and culture leads at professional services firms Law firm and financial services leadership audiences working on retention of minority talent ERGs, Pride networks and multicultural networks at large corporates Executive committees reviewing the substance, rather than the optics, of their inclusion programmes Audience outcomes A clearer view of how race, faith, class and sexuality interact in the daily experience of minority staff. Specific language for talking about mental health in communities where the topic is stigmatised. A sharper sense of why retention of senior minority talent stalls in firms that recruit well. Permission for senior leaders to engage personal identity as a leadership question, not a compliance one.

Why organisations work with Monica McCoy She built her practice from inside a Fortune 100 procurement and strategy function, not from advocacy. Her recommendations work because they account for how large companies actually source. Her trademarked Pitch University and Global Supplier Diversity Conference are operating programmes with named corporate partners, including Microsoft, Porsche, and Santander, not concepts. She works upstream of typical DEI conversations, on the pipeline of founders that procurement teams can credibly contract with, which is where most inclusion strategies break down. Her non-profit Pivot Purposefully extends the same discipline to formerly incarcerated women founders, giving her a defensible position on inclusion that goes beyond corporate audiences. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Monica Motivates, LLC (2017 to present); supports 38 Fortune 500 clients on supplier diversity and inclusion delivery Fifteen years at The Coca-Cola Company, most recently Acting Global Director of Strategy and Innovation, McDonald’s Division Creator of Pitch University, the Annual Global Supplier Diversity Conference, and a Microsoft-backed accelerator for commercial real estate founders Founder, Pivot Purposefully, non-profit supporting formerly incarcerated women entrepreneurs Recognitions include American Express Founder of Change (2020), Porsche Driven Women (2021), Iconic Women Creating a Better World for All (Women’s Economic Forum), YWCA Corporate Woman of Achievement (2015) BA Psychology, Emory University; Oxford College Alumni Board Biography Most corporate inclusion programmes fail at the seam between policy and procurement. The policy gets signed. The procurement function keeps sourcing from the same qualified vendor pool. The pipeline of underrepresented founders never reaches contract size. This is the gap Monica McCoy spent fifteen years observing from inside The Coca-Cola Company, and the one her firm now exists to close. Monica Motivates, founded in 2017, works with 38 Fortune 500 clients, including Microsoft, Porsche, and Santander, on the practical mechanics of bringing underrepresented founders into corporate supply chains. The firm’s programmes are operating, not conceptual. Pitch University trains founders for the specific pitch standards large companies use. The Annual Global Supplier Diversity Conference puts buyers and suppliers in the same room at scale. A Microsoft-backed accelerator focuses on commercial real estate, where founder access has historically been narrowest. The corporate credentials sit underneath this work. McCoy was Acting Global Director of Strategy and Innovation for the McDonald’s Division at Coca-Cola, a role that gave her direct exposure to how a Fortune 100 firm sources, qualifies, and contracts at scale. That experience is what makes her programmes legible to procurement leaders, not just to inclusion officers. Her non-profit, Pivot Purposefully, applies the same discipline to a harder constituency, formerly incarcerated women founding businesses. Recognition from the Women’s Economic Forum, American Express, Porsche, and the YWCA tracks the same throughline: inclusion treated as a delivery problem. Key speaking topics Supplier diversity programme design Founder pipeline and access for underrepresented entrepreneurs Inclusion as procurement capability Entrepreneurial pitch and storytelling discipline Corporate strategy and innovation at Fortune 100 scale Personal brand and executive presence for senior women Ideal for CHROs, chief diversity officers, and heads of supplier diversity at large corporates Procurement and category leaders responsible for diverse sourcing targets Founder networks and accelerator audiences focused on underrepresented entrepreneurs Senior women’s leadership programmes inside Fortune 500 organisations Audience outcomes A clearer view of where inclusion policy stalls inside procurement and category management Specific programme structures that have moved underrepresented founders into Fortune 500 supply chains A defensible position on inclusion grounded in operating mechanics, not advocacy framing Practical pitch and access standards founders need to clear to win corporate contracts

Why organisations work with Nicklas Pyrdol He brings a working sport psychology background, including consulting to Olympians and world champions, into the language of corporate hiring and team performance, which most HR-stage speakers cannot. His operator track record is unusual for a speaker in this space: Executive HR Manager inside a tech company and partner in a tech startup, so the recommendations land for line leaders, not just HR. The client list is a credibility anchor on its own. LEGO Group, Maersk, Novo Nordisk, Orsted, Lundbeck, HubSpot, Dynatrace, SimCorp and Vivino have used him for the same recurring problem: serious hiring that holds up under scale. Through Beyond Talents and “The Recruitment Equation” podcast with Pil Byriel, he is in continuous dialogue with senior talent acquisition leaders, including Lundbeck’s Head of Global Talent Acquisition, which keeps the material current rather than recycled. He treats inclusion as a hiring quality issue, not a politics issue, which is the framing senior buyers want when DEI has become contested ground inside their own organisations. Biography highlights Founder of Beyond Talents, a Copenhagen-based talent acquisition advisory and speaking practice. Former sport psychology consultant to Olympians and world champions before moving into corporate HR leadership. Co-host of “The Recruitment Equation” podcast with Pil Byriel, featuring senior talent acquisition leaders from companies including Lundbeck. Co-author of a Danish book on motivation, “Motivation. Naa i maal med din traening”. Published academic work on talent development environments, including the Ajax Amsterdam academy, using the holistic ecological approach. Engaged as a keynote speaker by HubSpot, Dynatrace, SimCorp, Vivino, Maersk, LEGO Group, Lundbeck, Novo Nordisk and Orsted across Europe, Asia and the United States. Biography Hiring is where most organisations leak their strategy. Pipelines are narrow, interview panels reward familiarity, and the people who arrive cannot deliver what the plan assumed. Pyrdol’s career has been a long argument that this is fixable, and that the fix is mostly process and psychology rather than budget. His starting point was elite sport. Before moving into business, he worked as a sport psychology consultant with Olympians and world champions, and published research on talent development environments using the holistic ecological approach, including work on the Ajax Amsterdam academy. The premise from that period stayed with him: talent is a function of environment, not a fixed property of the individual. He then moved inside companies, first as an Executive HR Manager in a tech firm and then as a partner in a tech startup, before founding Beyond Talents in Copenhagen. From that base, he advises senior leaders at HubSpot, Dynatrace, SimCorp, Vivino, Maersk, LEGO Group, Lundbeck, Novo Nordisk and Orsted on recruitment, retention, inclusion and the everyday psychological safety that lets teams actually use the talent they hire. The current output runs across formats. He co-hosts “The Recruitment Equation” with Pil Byriel, where guests include Lundbeck’s Head of Global Talent Acquisition, Cassie Wu and Fairec’s Morten Gerner on AI and bias; he co-authored a Danish book on motivation; he writes regularly for HR audiences. The through-line is consistent. Recruitment, inclusion and engagement are operational disciplines, and senior leaders should hold them to operational standards. Key speaking topics Talent acquisition and inclusive recruitment Employee engagement and retention Psychological safety in teams Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging Performance psychology in business Mindset during organisational transformation HR leadership capability Ideal for CHROs, talent acquisition leaders and heads of people are rebuilding hiring under pressure. Executive teams whose strategy depends on attracting and keeping scarce specialist talent. HR and recruitment functions reworking inclusion programmes for substance over signalling. Leadership audiences in scale-up tech and large enterprises managing distributed, multigenerational teams. Audience outcomes A sharper diagnosis of where their current hiring process is filtering out the talent they say they want. Concrete moves to widen the funnel and reduce bias without weakening the hiring bar. A working definition of psychological safety that distinguishes it from comfort, agreement or low standards. A view of engagement and retention as a continuous design problem owned by leaders, not a survey owned by HR. Language for talking to executives about inclusion in commercial terms when the political conversation has stalled.