Geschäftsstrategie & Wachstum speakers

Why organisations work with Gordon Hewitt Direct intellectual lineage from C.K. Prahalad at Michigan Ross, applied for two decades to live board agendas at Pfizer, IBM, AstraZeneca, HSBC, Sony, and Deutsche Post/DHL. A working method that treats strategy as a thinking system for senior teams, not a planning cycle, so boards leave with sharper questions about value creation, not a deck. Demonstrated range across pharma, financial services, consumer goods, telecoms, and logistics, which lets him connect cross-industry disruption patterns most sector specialists miss. CBE for services to management and international business, plus Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, signal a level of institutional credibility boards trust at chair and CEO level. A genuine practitioner-academic: still teaching at Michigan Ross and Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School while advising sitting CEOs. Biography highlights CBE for services to management and international business, 2007 New Year Honours. Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Visiting Distinguished Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. Professor of Strategy Practice, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow. Distinguished Professor of Corporate Strategy, Duke Corporate Education. Long collaboration with the late C.K. Prahalad on corporate value-creation, innovation, and strategic transformation. Advised CEOs and boards at Pfizer, IBM, AstraZeneca, Philips, Sony, Honeywell, PwC, Verizon, Ericsson, HSBC, Credit Suisse, Time Warner, PepsiCo, Syngenta, Biocon, and Deutsche Post/DHL. Biography Most strategy frameworks assume the rules of the industry hold still long enough for a plan to play out. They no longer do. The companies that struggle are often the ones that ran the previous playbook best. Gordon Hewitt has spent two decades helping senior leaders work in that more unstable terrain. At the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, he formed a long partnership with the late C.K. Prahalad, working at the front edge of thinking on corporate value-creation, innovation, and strategic transformation in what they described as a game-changing world. That body of work continues to anchor how he talks to boards. The list of organisations he has advised reads like a cross-industry map of where disruption hits hardest: Pfizer and AstraZeneca in pharma, IBM and Verizon in technology, HSBC and Credit Suisse in financial services, Sony, PepsiCo, and Time Warner in consumer-facing businesses, Deutsche Post/DHL in logistics. He chairs CEO and chairman peer groups in Europe and the United States on the future of corporate strategy and governance. He was awarded a CBE in 2007 for services to management and international business, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He continues to hold appointments at Michigan Ross, Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School, and Duke Corporate Education, which is unusual for a working board advisor and is one of the reasons CEOs treat him as a serious thinking partner rather than a speaker. Key speaking topics Strategy under industry disruption Corporate value creation in complex markets Innovation as a discipline Strategic transformation in incumbent businesses Strategic collaboration and ecosystem strategy Overcoming industry and organisational orthodoxies The CEO and board agenda in a game-changing world Ideal for CEOs, boards, and executive committees of incumbent businesses facing rule-changing competition. CSOs, heads of strategy, and transformation leads. Pharma, financial services, telecoms, consumer goods, and logistics leadership teams contending with cross-industry disruption. Senior leadership development programmes that want a serious strategy voice rather than a motivational one. Audience outcomes A sharper account of how value is created and lost when industry rules are being rewritten. A working language for separating planning from strategic thinking inside their own executive team. Cross-sector patterns of disruption they can test against their own market. A clearer view of where current orthodoxies inside their organisation are quietly working against them. Specific provocations for the next board strategy conversation, not generic frameworks.

Why organisations work with Goutam Challagalla His book “Clean Winners” (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2026) gives leadership teams a named framework – the Resonator model – for redesigning sustainability around customer value rather than compliance, using cases from Michelin, Schneider Electric, Nespresso, and John Deere. His HBR argument for “deep and narrow” AI adoption – published November-December 2025 and developed with the former global CMO of Reckitt – gives executive teams a direct counter to the scattered pilot approach that has produced cost without strategic return. He holds the dentsu Group Chair in Sustainable Strategy and Marketing at IMD – an endowed position created specifically to research the commercial impact of sustainability strategy. His case study on Nespresso’s strategic reset won the Overall Award at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2025, the most rigorous global recognition for real-world business teaching material, judged across the full range of business school cases worldwide. He directs IMD’s Advanced Management Program and the Strategy Governance for Boards programme, which means his frameworks are tested with C-suite executives and board directors, not MBA students. Biography highlights dentsu Group Professor of Strategy and Marketing and holder of the dentsu Group Chair in Sustainable Strategy and Marketing, IMD Business School, Lausanne Director, IMD Advanced Management Program and Strategy Governance for Boards programme; co-director, Integrating Sustainability into Strategy programme Author, “Clean Winners: Sustainability Strategy That Puts Customers First” (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2026, with Frederic Dalsace) HBR contributor: “Stop running so many AI pilots” (November-December 2025); “How to Market Sustainable Products” selected for HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2025 Maynard Award (2015), American Marketing Association; Overall Award, The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2025 Former Principal, The Monitor Group; former Associate Dean for Executive Education and marketing department head, Georgia Institute of Technology Biography Most organisations have committed to sustainability and launched AI experiments. Few have connected either to commercial growth. Goutam Challagalla, dentsu Group Professor of Strategy and Marketing at IMD Business School, has built his research programme around exactly that gap. His book “Clean Winners” (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2026), co-authored with IMD colleague Frederic Dalsace, makes a specific and counterintuitive argument. Companies that succeed with sustainability do not ask “how do we make our products greener?” They ask “how can sustainability make our products perform better or cost less?” The book names companies that have figured this out – Michelin, Schneider Electric, Nespresso, John Deere – as Resonators. An earlier HBR article developing the same thesis was selected for HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2025. His HBR article “Stop running so many AI pilots” (November-December 2025) draws the same logic into AI strategy. Organisations that spread AI experiments across departments generate marginal efficiencies. Those that concentrate investment in a single strategic domain – going deep and narrow – generate competitive advantage. The piece was developed in part from direct work with Reckitt’s former global chief marketing officer. At IMD, Challagalla directs the Advanced Management Program and the Strategy Governance for Boards programme. His research appears in the Journal of Marketing, the Strategic Management Journal, and the Journal of Applied Psychology. His Nespresso case study won the Overall Award at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2025; the Journal of Marketing’s Maynard Award recognised his best paper in 2015. Before IMD, he spent twenty years at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he served as Associate Dean for Executive Education, and was a Principal at The Monitor Group. Key speaking topics AI implementation strategy for executives and boards Sustainability as commercial growth strategy Go-to-market design in digital environments Strategy governance for boards Pricing and commercial performance Business model adaptation under digital and sustainability pressure Customer value creation through technology and sustainability Ideal for Chief marketing officers and commercial leaders responsible for growth strategy and go-to-market performance Board directors and chairs governing AI investments and sustainability commitments Executive leadership teams navigating digital transformation alongside sustainability pressure Chief strategy officers and heads of corporate development evaluating competitive positioning Audience outcomes A reframing of sustainability strategy from compliance cost to customer value driver, with named company examples and a tested framework for redesigning product and market approach A specific, evidence-based framework for AI adoption that counters the scattered pilot approach and identifies where deep investment generates strategic return Structured criteria for evaluating whether a current strategy is genuinely defensible rather than merely coherent on paper Practical guidance on what boards should be asking about AI governance – including the accountability gaps and blind spots that conventional oversight structures miss A sharper language for connecting sustainability, marketing, and AI investments to commercial outcomes in board and executive team conversations

Why organisations work with Guenther Steiner He built a Formula One team from scratch – conceived at his kitchen table during the 2008 financial crisis, brought to the F1 grid seven years later as the first American constructor in thirty years. No other motorsport speaker can talk about team-building from that starting point. His account of accountability is grounded in an environment where failure is timed, televised, and scored. The feedback loop for culture and decision-making in F1 is compressed to minutes, not quarters, which makes his observations directly transferable to any organisation managing high-visibility performance. The Netflix series Drive to Survive documented his leadership style across multiple seasons before a global audience. Organisations booking Steiner get a speaker whose directness and authenticity are already known – the profile is established, not claimed. His perspective spans the full leadership lifecycle – from mechanic to technical manager to managing director (Jaguar Racing), to founding principal (Haas F1), to team owner (Tech3 MotoGP). That breadth is unusual among elite sport speakers who typically occupy a single role. Surviving to Drive, his account of a full F1 season from inside the principal’s office, reached No.1 on the Sunday Times bestseller list. The book provides a structured intellectual foundation for his speaking that event organisers can build audience preparation around. Biography highlights Team Principal, Haas F1 Team, 2014-2023 – led the organisation from formation through eight seasons, including a 5th-place Constructors’ Championship finish (2018) and the team’s first pole position (2022) Managing Director, Jaguar Racing (2001-2003), recruited by Niki Lauda; Technical Operations Director, Red Bull Racing (2004-2006) More than a decade in the World Rally Championship, working with multiple manufacturers including Mazda, Prodrive, and M-Sport Ford, alongside drivers Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz Sr Founder and President of Fibreworks Composites, a carbon composites engineering and manufacturing business Author of Surviving to Drive (2023, Sunday Times No.1 bestseller) and Unfiltered: My Incredible Decade in Formula 1 (2024) Led acquisition of Tech3 MotoGP team in September 2025; assumes CEO role from 2026 – his first major ownership position in motorsport Biography Guenther Steiner wrote his first Haas business plan at his kitchen table during the 2008 financial crisis. Seven years later, the team made its Formula One debut at the 2016 Australian Grand Prix, scoring points in its first race – the most successful debut by a new constructor in F1 this century. That founding story is the foundation of his organisational argument. Building a competitive F1 team with limited resources, in a field where performance is measured to thousandths of a second and broadcast to a global audience, produces a specific kind of leadership discipline. Accountability cannot be deferred. Culture either holds under pressure or it does not. Steiner ran that environment for a decade. His career before Haas is equally instructive. He came up through the World Rally Championship as a mechanic and technical manager – working with championship-winning teams at Mazda, Prodrive, and M-Sport Ford – before Niki Lauda recruited him as Managing Director of Jaguar Racing in F1 in 2001. The transition from engineering discipline to senior management, and eventually to team ownership, gives his perspective a structural credibility that purely managerial career paths rarely provide. In September 2025, Steiner led a consortium to acquire the Tech3 MotoGP team, taking on the CEO role from 2026. The move signals a deliberate expansion of his leadership platform from management to ownership – and adds a new chapter to a practitioner argument about building and scaling competitive motorsport organisations that is already two books and one Netflix series deep. Key speaking topics High-performance team leadership Founding and scaling organisations under resource constraints Accountability and decision-making under competitive pressure Performance culture in high-stakes environments Managing risk and failure Operational resilience in elite sport Leadership transition and team ownership Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite audiences navigating competitive or high-accountability environments CHROs and transformation leads working on performance culture and ownership Boards and executive teams in capital-intensive, operationally complex sectors (manufacturing, technology, professional services) Corporate audiences familiar with Drive to Survive seeking direct engagement with a practitioner whose leadership style is already known Audience outcomes A concrete framework for the relationship between culture, accountability, and performance – drawn from an environment where those variables are tested in real time Specific examples of leadership decisions made under resource constraints and public scrutiny, with the reasoning behind them A clearer understanding of what founding and scaling a high-performance operation actually requires, distinct from received management theory Practical perspective on managing failure productively – how teams that lose well build the foundation for winning Direct insight into what separates declared performance standards from lived performance culture

Why organisations work with Haiyan Wang A research-grounded view on the China and India axis from a co-founder of the China India Institute, built on three decades of work on global strategy with Anil K. Gupta. Authority drawn from a 200-corporation study underpinning The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition) and the Axiom Award-winning Getting China and India Right. A serious counter-position to the standard “deglobalisation” narrative: the argument that trade is shifting toward data, IP and services rather than retreating, sharpened in her 2024 Thinkers50 Hall of Fame work. Translates emerging-market signals into board-level capital, supply chain and market-entry choices, not country-trend commentary. Recognised by named bodies that buyers trust: Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee (2024), Thinkers50-ranked thinker, Axiom Book Awards Silver Prize. Biography highlights Managing Partner and co-founder, China India Institute, Washington DC Adjunct Professor of Strategy, INSEAD 2024 Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee (with Anil K. Gupta) Co-author of The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition), Getting China and India Right (Axiom Awards Silver Prize, 2009) and The Silk Road Rediscovered Regular columnist for Bloomberg Businessweek, blogger for Harvard Business Review, with bylined pieces in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Wired, China Daily, Times of India and South China Morning Post Holds graduate degrees from the University of International Business and Economics (China) and the University of Maryland at College Park Biography The cheap-globalisation era is over, but globalisation itself is not. That is the working thesis behind the China India Institute, the Washington DC research and advisory firm Haiyan Wang co-founded and runs as Managing Partner. Her argument, developed across three decades with Anil K. Gupta, is that the flow of physical goods is plateauing while the flow of data, intellectual property and services is accelerating. Boards that read the first signal without the second are making the wrong calls on capital allocation and footprint. The argument is anchored in a long-running research programme on global strategy, including a study of more than 200 corporations that underpins The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition), co-authored with Gupta and Vijay Govindarajan. Getting China and India Right took the Axiom Book Awards Silver Prize for globalisation and international business in 2009. The Silk Road Rediscovered, written with Gupta and Girija Pande, examines how Indian and Chinese companies are using each other’s markets, a question most Western firms still treat as separate problems. Wang’s standing is recognised by the bodies senior buyers actually weigh. She and Gupta were inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2024, after appearing in the Thinkers50 ranking (most recently cited at #25 in 2021) and being shortlisted for Thinkers50 awards. She has held an Adjunct Professor of Strategy role at INSEAD and writes regularly for Bloomberg Businessweek and Harvard Business Review, with bylined commentary in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Times of India and the South China Morning Post. For a senior team trying to set a five-year stance on China, India and the next layer of emerging markets, the value is concrete: a credible read on which parts of globalisation are stalling, which are intensifying, and where that leaves a specific company’s growth and risk decisions. Key speaking topics Globalisation in a phase change China and India as strategic markets Emerging-market diverging futures Multinational strategy and global presence Global mindset for senior leadership Geopolitics and the rules-based economy Long-range scenario thinking on global trade Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors setting multi-year China and India exposure Heads of strategy, corporate development and M&A in multinationals Risk committees and supply chain leaders reassessing globalisation assumptions Investor and asset-management forums on emerging markets and capital allocation Audience outcomes A clear read on which parts of globalisation are retreating and which are intensifying A defensible frame for board-level decisions on China, India and other emerging markets A working view of where data, IP and services flows are creating new commercial ground A sharper test for capital allocation and footprint choices under geopolitical pressure Reference points from the long China India Institute research programme that buyers can use in their own strategy reviews

Why organisations work with Hamish Taylor Operator authority across three unrelated industries at CEO level: aviation brand at British Airways, cross-border rail at Eurostar, and retail banking at Sainsbury’s Bank, all reached before he turned 40. A specific innovation method, not a generic call to think differently. The “Masterthief” approach pairs a defined business problem with an unrelated sector that has already solved a structurally similar problem, then translates the mechanism back. Concrete cross-sector transfers he can talk through end to end: yacht interior designers brought into British Airways cabin design, Disney queue management applied to airport experience, rugby refereeing brought into banking risk and compliance. Senior advisory standing that matches the room. Chairs the EMEA advisory board for Emory University, Non-Executive Director of Chartered Brands, Trustee of the Robert T Jones scholarship, and recipient of Emory’s Sheth Distinguished International Alumnus Award. Works the full audience range, from board and CEO level to frontline operating staff, with the same material translated for each layer rather than a single fixed deck. Biography highlights Former CEO of Eurostar Group, having joined as Managing Director of Eurostar (UK) Ltd in 1997 with a remit to reverse heavy losses. Former CEO of Sainsbury’s Bank, the joint venture between J Sainsbury plc and the Bank of Scotland. Former Head of Brand Management at British Airways, responsible for First, Club World, Club Europe, Concorde and Shuttle, including the introduction of flat beds. Rail Professional Business Manager of the Year, 1998, for results at Eurostar. Sheth Distinguished International Alumnus Award, Emory University; Chair of Emory’s EMEA advisory board. Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport. Biography Eurostar was three years old and losing money heavily when Hamish Taylor took over as Managing Director of the UK business in 1997. Within two years he was running the Eurostar Group across the UK, France and Belgium, and had been named Rail Professional Business Manager of the Year. At 36, he had already been Head of Brand Management at British Airways, where the relaunch of Club World, Club Europe and First Class included the introduction of flat beds. By the end of 1999 he had moved again, this time to run Sainsbury’s Bank as CEO, the joint venture between J Sainsbury and the Bank of Scotland. Three industries, three CEO-level remits, all before he turned 40. The pattern across them was the same: an organisation that had stopped looking outside its own sector for answers, and a customer proposition that had drifted from what the customer actually valued. That pattern is the basis of his current work. The Inspired Leaders Network titled him “Masterthief” for the way he runs innovation as a translation exercise. Yacht interior designers helped redesign aircraft cabins. Disney’s queue management informed airport experience. Rugby refereeing logic was applied to banking risk and compliance. Each transfer was a structural match between a problem and a sector that had already solved something equivalent. Today he advises corporations and governments on innovation, customer focus and people leadership, chairs the EMEA advisory board for Emory University, sits as a Non-Executive Director of Chartered Brands, and is a Trustee of the Robert T Jones memorial scholarship. Emory has recognised the work with its Sheth Distinguished International Alumnus Award. Key speaking topics Cross-sector innovation and idea transfer Customer-led business transformation Brand strategy and customer proposition design Leadership of organisational change Service innovation in regulated industries Growth strategy after a turnaround Ideal for CEOs and executive committees rebuilding a customer proposition after a structural shift in their market CMOs, brand and customer experience leaders translating strategy into operating reality Innovation, transformation and strategy leads who need a working method, not a culture talk Boards in regulated sectors looking for an external operator’s view on customer and growth Audience outcomes A specific technique for sourcing innovation from outside the sector, with worked examples from aviation, rail and banking. A clearer view of where their organisation’s customer proposition has drifted from the customer’s actual definition of value. Concrete language to describe the difference between sector benchmarking and structural problem matching. Reference cases from BA, Eurostar and Sainsbury’s Bank that translate into their own context rather than sit as anecdotes.

Why organisations work with Hans Diels Direct operator experience inside EU trade policy. He represented Belgium on the EU Council’s Trade Policy Committee on services and investment, which gives his read on sanctions, tariffs, and industrial policy a practitioner’s weight that pure commentators cannot match. A continental European lens on geopolitical risk, at a moment when Anglo-American analysis dominates the boardroom. For European leadership teams exposed to Russia, China, and US policy swings, his vantage point is scarcer and more relevant. Two published books that form a coherent argument: “Het onzekerheidsvoordeel” (LannooCampus, 2022) sets out the scenario-thinking method; “Markt onder vuur” (LannooCampus, 2024) applies it to the economic consequences of political conflict. He works in the register executives need: translating sanctions regimes, trade wars, and energy shocks into decisions about where to produce, whom to sell to, and which contracts to stress-test. Dutch and English delivery across keynotes and workshops, with a track record in boardrooms, strategy offsites, and risk committees across the Benelux and wider Europe. Biography highlights Futurist and geopolitical expert at ETION, the Belgian entrepreneurial network and think tank. Former Belgian representative on the EU Council’s Trade Policy Committee (services and investment). Former researcher at the University of Antwerp, Department of Political Science. Prior roles at the US Embassy in Belgium, the Belgian Parliament, and EU institutions. Author of “Het onzekerheidsvoordeel” (LannooCampus, 2022) and “Markt onder vuur” (LannooCampus, 2024). Master’s in Political Science (KU Leuven), International Relations postgraduate (UCLouvain), economics via LSE External Programme. Biography Sanctions, export controls, and industrial policy now set the boundary conditions for European business. Assumptions that underpinned strategy for two decades, open markets, cheap Russian gas, reliable Asian supply chains, a stable US security guarantee, are no longer reliable. That is the terrain Hans Diels works on. His perspective is built from inside the machinery. He represented Belgium on the EU Council’s Trade Policy Committee on services and investment, worked at the US Embassy in Belgium, served in the Belgian Parliament, and researched international governance at the University of Antwerp. He now sits at ETION, the Belgian entrepreneurial network, advising boards and executive teams on how political conflict translates into commercial exposure. Two books carry the argument. “Het onzekerheidsvoordeel” (LannooCampus, 2022) sets out a method for strategy under deep uncertainty, built on horizon scanning and scenario testing rather than forecast precision. “Markt onder vuur” (LannooCampus, 2024) turns the lens on geopolitical disruption itself: how sanctions, cyber operations, and economic warfare reshape markets, and what companies can practically do in response. Diels is Dutch-speaking, trained in international relations at KU Leuven and UCLouvain, and read economics through the LSE External Programme. He writes regularly on futures and political disruption on Substack and in Belgian media. What he offers a board is a specific thing: the discipline of keeping strategy open to multiple plausible futures, without paralysing the decision to act in the present. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and corporate strategy Economic warfare, sanctions and export controls Scenario thinking and strategic foresight Global megatrends and systemic disruption Europe’s position between the US, China and Russia Supply chain exposure and industrial policy Strategy under deep uncertainty Ideal for Boards and executive committees reassessing exposure to geopolitical shocks Strategy, risk and supply chain leaders at industrial and financial services firms European multinationals with significant US, China or Russia-linked revenue or sourcing Leadership offsites and strategy days where the macro picture needs to become a decision input Audience outcomes A sharper read on which geopolitical shifts genuinely move their P&L and which are noise A working vocabulary for scenario thinking that survives contact with the executive agenda Concrete pressure points to test in supply chains, contracts, and market strategies A realistic view of Europe’s structural position between the US, China and Russia, and what that means for their sector Confidence to make strategic commitments without waiting for the fog to clear

Why organisations work with Harold Hughes He has built a venture-backed company on blockchain infrastructure, raised more than four million dollars, and survived past the cohort year that kills most peers. The lessons are operating lessons, not theory. His Catalyst Labs curriculum has been adopted by Benedict College, the University of Texas, and Furman University, which means his programme has been pressure-tested by institutions that do not run on hype. He has a published book, A Kids Book About Blockchain, that translates Web3 into language a non-technical audience can act on. Few speakers in this space can do that without losing the substance. He is one of the few operators who has both written about social capital and used it to raise capital from inside underrepresented networks. Senior buyers get an inclusion conversation grounded in revenue, not rhetoric. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Bandwagon, a venture-backed live-experience identity and analytics company applying blockchain to ticketing and fan data Founder of NFNTE Capital and co-founder of Catalyst Labs, a 12-week accelerator for emerging founders Author, A Kids Book About Blockchain, published by A Kids Co. and distributed by Penguin Random House Inaugural cohort, IBM Blockchain Accelerator; finalist in the Smart Dubai Office Global Blockchain Challenge BA in Economics and Political Science and MBA, Clemson University; named to Clemson’s «Roaring 10» young alumni list Angel investor with a portfolio that includes Partake Foods, Liquid Death, Athletic Greens, and Broadway productions including Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen Biography Bandwagon began with a simple operating problem in live entertainment. Teams and venues knew almost nothing about the people sitting in their seats, and ticket fraud was eating into the relationship. Harold Hughes built a venture-backed company that uses blockchain infrastructure to give organisers verifiable identity and analytics. Bandwagon has raised more than four million dollars from investors including Backstage Capital and the State of South Carolina, was part of the inaugural IBM Blockchain Accelerator, and acquired Seattle-based IdealSeat in 2020. The work outside Bandwagon is what gives Hughes range. As founder of NFNTE Capital and co-founder of Catalyst Labs, he runs a twelve-week accelerator for emerging entrepreneurs whose curriculum has been adopted by Benedict College, the University of Texas, and Furman University. He wrote A Kids Book About Blockchain, published by A Kids Co. and distributed by Penguin Random House, because he saw that most explanation of Web3 had been written for people who already understood it. Hughes is a serious angel investor as well as an operator. His portfolio includes Partake Foods, Liquid Death, Athletic Greens, and Broadway productions such as Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen. The thesis behind that activity, and behind his programmes, is that social capital is a measurable input into commercial outcomes, and that founders from under-represented backgrounds have been systematically priced out of it. That is the point he made before the diversity conversation hardened, and it is the point he can still make commercially. He holds a bachelor’s in Economics and Political Science and an MBA from Clemson University, where he was named to the «Roaring 10» young alumni list in 2019. The credentials are useful context. The argument he brings to a senior audience is that early-stage discipline, operating clarity about new technology, and access to networks are the same problem, and the people who solve all three are the ones who scale. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and scale-up discipline Blockchain and Web3 in the enterprise Social capital as a commercial asset Diversity in venture and founder access to capital Customer identity and data in live experience Future of technology in consumer industries Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and leadership teams of growth-stage companies looking to build durable advantage from technology and network strategy Corporate innovation, brand, and partnership leaders working with sport, music, and live-experience platforms Diversity, talent, and people leaders who want a substantive operator voice on under-represented founder economics Universities, accelerators, and entrepreneurship programmes designing curricula for first-generation and emerging founders Audience outcomes A working understanding of how blockchain creates verifiable identity and ownership in consumer settings, beyond cryptocurrency A specific method for mapping personal and organisational networks as commercial inputs, taken from the Catalyst Labs and NFNTE programmes A frank account of what it took to raise capital and survive as a Black founder in venture markets, with implications for corporate inclusion strategy A scale-up operator’s view of the decisions that separate companies that get funded from those that get acquired or close

Why organisations work with Harry Broadman He has negotiated services trade for the United States inside NAFTA and the WTO, then operated those same markets from inside the World Bank and the private sector. Few speakers can carry one argument across all three vantage points. He served on CFIUS inside the White House and now advises companies on foreign investment review as a principal at WestExec Advisors, the geopolitical advisory firm. Leaders get a working read on how Washington actually screens cross-border deals. His emerging markets work spans more than 80 countries and includes book-length research on China and India in Africa, on Russia and the former Soviet Union, and on Chinese state ownership. The frameworks he uses on stage are his own. He writes a monthly business leadership column for Forbes and the national security column for the International Financial Law Review, so audiences meet a voice they may already read in named outlets. He chairs corporate boards and audit committees as an SEC-qualified financial expert and is a Board Leadership Fellow at the National Association of Corporate Directors, so he addresses directors as a peer who carries the same fiduciary exposure. Biography highlights Principal at WestExec Advisors and Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation Former U.S. Assistant Trade Representative; led services negotiations for NAFTA and the WTO Former Chief of Staff, President’s Council of Economic Advisers; CFIUS member; OPIC board member Senior World Bank roles covering China, Russia, the Balkans, and Africa Author of Africa’s Silk Road, From Disintegration to Reintegration, and The State as Shareholder SEC-qualified financial expert who chairs corporate boards and audit committees; NACD Board Leadership Fellow; monthly Forbes columnist Biography Few people have negotiated U.S. trade policy, run capital and reform programmes inside the World Bank, and then advised boards on what those same rules mean for live investment decisions. That is the career Harry Broadman has built. As U.S. Assistant Trade Representative, he led the American negotiating position on services in both NAFTA and the WTO, the framework most multinationals still operate under. He served as Chief of Staff to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the first Gulf War and the Savings and Loan crisis, sat on CFIUS, and was a board member at OPIC. From there, he moved into senior operational roles at the World Bank, working on the ground in China, Russia, the Balkans, and Africa. The research he produced in that period, including Africa’s Silk Road and The State as Shareholder, is still cited by people trying to understand how Chinese capital and state-owned firms behave abroad. Today he is a principal at WestExec Advisors, the geopolitical advisory firm, and a senior economist at the RAND Corporation. He chairs corporate boards and audit committees as an SEC-qualified financial expert, writes a monthly Forbes column, and serves as national security columnist for the International Financial Law Review. His work concentrates on the boardroom problem behind every geopolitical headline: where to commit capital, how to read foreign investment review, and how to restructure supply chains when cheap globalisation is no longer the operating assumption. For a leadership team trying to make a defensible call on China exposure, on a supply chain shift, or on a CFIUS-sensitive deal, his value is the rare combination of having negotiated the rules, supervised reform programmes that operationalised them, and now advising the corporate directors who live with the consequences. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the rules-based trading order Foreign investment review and CFIUS Emerging markets investment strategy China and India in the global economy Supply chain reconfiguration and trade policy Corporate governance under geopolitical pressure Sanctions, antitrust, and FCPA compliance for global firms Ideal for Boards and investment committees facing China, Russia, or sanctions exposure Chief Strategy Officers and Heads of Corporate Development weighing cross-border deals General Counsel and Compliance leaders working through CFIUS, antitrust, or FCPA matters Institutional investors and private equity partners deploying into emerging markets Audience outcomes A working view of how foreign investment review actually operates inside Washington A clearer read on where China and India are reshaping commercial geography, beyond headline narratives A practical lens for sequencing supply chain shifts under tariff and sanctions risk Direct exposure to a voice that has sat inside trade negotiation, multilateral finance, and corporate boards

Why organisations work with Harvey Goldsmith He has produced two of the largest broadcast events in history, Live Aid in 1985 and Live 8 in 2005, and can speak first-hand to how they were assembled, funded and delivered. He built the UK’s leading concert promotion business from a student club in Brighton to a company working with most of the major global artists of the past five decades. He continues to start and chair new ventures, including the British Music Experience museum, the OnBlackheath Festival and Hans Zimmer’s first live concert tour, so the material is current rather than retrospective. His CBE, Music Industry Trust Award and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres are recognition from named bodies that he treats live performance as a serious commercial and cultural discipline. Biography highlights CBE for services to the entertainment industry, 1996 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Co-organiser of Live Aid (1985) with Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, raising approximately £140 million. Worldwide producer of Live 8 (2005), with 225 artists across multiple international locations. Producer of the Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2 Arena (2007) in tribute to Ahmet Ertegun. Chairman of the British Music Experience, the UK’s museum of popular music. Music Industry Trust Award (2006); Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2006); Freedom of the City of London (2011). Biography Live Aid was assembled in roughly ten weeks. Two stadiums, a global satellite broadcast and an artist roster that had never been gathered before, with no precedent for the funding model, the rights model or the production model. The producer who solved those problems alongside Bob Geldof was Harvey Goldsmith. That work is the most visible expression of a longer story. Goldsmith began promoting concerts as a pharmacy student in Brighton in the 1960s, founded Artiste Management Productions in 1973 and Harvey Goldsmith Entertainments in 1976, and built the leading UK concert promotion business of the era. Across that period he worked with the artists who defined modern live music, including Bruce Springsteen, Queen, The Who, Paul McCartney and Luciano Pavarotti. The pattern of the work is entrepreneurial rather than custodial. Live 8 in 2005 used the Live Aid model and rebuilt it for a different media environment. The Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2 in 2007 was a single-night production at the scale of a tour. He produced Hans Zimmer’s first live concerts in 2014 and turned them into a European touring property, and he founded the OnBlackheath Festival the same year. He continues to chair the British Music Experience and to invest in and advise newer ventures across experiential marketing and immersive entertainment. The CBE, the Music Industry Trust Award and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres are the formal markers. The substantive credential is a sixty-year track record of starting things, financing them, and getting them on stage on the date promised. Key speaking topics Live event production at global scale Entrepreneurship across long careers Building creative businesses The economics of live music and broadcast Leadership under hard deadlines Charitable and philanthropic event delivery Ideal for CEOs and founders responsible for ventures with fixed launch dates Marketing and brand leaders building experiential platforms Boards and investors evaluating creative and entertainment businesses Audiences in the events, media, music and live entertainment industries Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how Live Aid and Live 8 were actually built, financed and delivered. A working view of how an entrepreneur sustains a creative business across five decades and multiple media cycles. Specific lessons in negotiating with talent, broadcasters and sponsors when the date will not move. A grounded perspective on what philanthropy looks like when it has to clear its costs and reach an audience.

Why organisations work with Hatem Salem Operating perspective from running an integrated communication group across Cairo and Paris since 1991, including Media Hatem Salem, Brands & Branding, Act CSR, and Global Arabian Network. Few speakers on AI in marketing have built and led the full agency stack themselves. Practical fluency in MENA consumer markets that most Western marketing speakers do not have, useful for organisations looking at brand entry, expansion, or partner work across the Arab world. Track record of building owned platforms, including Cairo Fashion Week, Cairo Mobile Film Festival, Egypt CSR Day, the International Branding Conference, and the Blue Star Award. Useful for clients thinking about brand events as a channel, not a line item. Multiple Agency of the Year awards from the International Advertising Association Egypt Chapter, including for the Smart Village and Sharm El Sheikh public service campaigns. Concrete agency credibility, not a personal-brand claim. Current focus on neuromarketing and AI in advertising creativity gives buyers a speaker who can connect behavioural science, generative tools and brand strategy in the same talk, rather than picking one lens. Biography highlights Chairman and CEO, Hatem Salem Communication Group; founder of Media Hatem Salem (1991), Brands & Branding (2000), Act CSR (2010), and Global Arabian Network (2014). Founder and President of Cairo Fashion Week, Cairo Mobile Film Festival, Egypt CSR Day, the International Branding Conference, and the Blue Star Award. Multiple Agency of the Year awards from the International Advertising Association Egypt Chapter and from the American University in Cairo. BA in Mass Communication, Cairo University; MA in Mass Communication, Press, Publicity, New Media and Cinema Science, Stendhal Grenoble 3. Former journalist and press correspondent in Paris covering European and Middle Eastern media for over five years. Has taught media, marketing, branding and advertising at Cairo University, the French University in Egypt, the British University in Egypt and the University of Grenoble. Biography The marketing function is being rebuilt twice over. AI is reshaping how creative, media and customer experience are produced, and the audience side has changed too, with attention more fragmented and brand loyalty thinner than at any point in the past two decades. Most organisations are still reasoning about this as a set of tool choices, when the real question is which parts of the marketing operation hold their shape and which get redesigned. Salem has been running marketing and communication businesses through every prior wave of this shift. He founded Media Hatem Salem in Cairo in 1991, then built out an integrated group with Brands & Branding, Act CSR, and the Global Arabian Network, working across above the line, below the line and through the line channels for clients across Egypt and the wider Arab market. The group has earned multiple Agency of the Year honours from the International Advertising Association Egypt Chapter, including for the Smart Village and Sharm El Sheikh campaigns. Alongside the agency work, he has built owned brand platforms that operate as commercial assets in their own right. Cairo Fashion Week, Cairo Mobile Film Festival, Egypt CSR Day, the International Branding Conference and the Blue Star Award all sit inside the group, giving him a working view of brand events as a channel rather than a marketing line item. Earlier in his career he worked as a Paris-based press correspondent covering European and Middle Eastern media, and held research and teaching posts at Stendhal Grenoble 3, Cairo University, the French University in Egypt, and the British University in Egypt. His current work focuses on neuromarketing, AI in advertising creativity, AI in event management, and the future of media, cinema and social platforms. The connecting thread is operational: how generative tools, behavioural science and experience design change what marketing teams actually produce, and what stays human. Key speaking topics Neuromarketing and consumer behaviour AI in advertising and creative production AI in marketing and customer experience Brand strategy in MENA and emerging markets Event platforms as brand assets The future of media, cinema and social platforms Corporate social responsibility and brand reputation Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams rebuilding the marketing operating model around AI. Boards and executive teams of consumer brands entering or scaling in MENA and the Arab market. Heads of communications, customer experience and creative agencies working through generative AI integration. Event, sponsorship and brand partnership leads rethinking the role of owned platforms. Audience outcomes A clearer view of which parts of the marketing operation are most exposed to AI redesign, and which parts hold. Working examples of neuromarketing and behavioural science applied to brand, advertising and event work. A practitioner read on the MENA market that most Western marketing voices cannot provide. A more concrete sense of how owned brand platforms function as a commercial channel. Sharper questions for CMOs and agency partners on AI in creative production, personalisation and customer experience.

Why organisations work with Henrik von Scheel He is one of the named architects of Industry 4.0 as it was formalised in Germany’s high-tech strategy, so his frame of reference is the policy and standards layer most strategists only read about. His advisory seat on the EU AI Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM) lets him brief boards on regulation that is still being written, not regulation that has already shipped. He sits inside the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, whose trend material feeds the World Economic Forum, so the inputs he uses with clients are the same inputs shaping global agenda papers. His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption” gives clients a documented method for sequencing disruption response rather than a slide deck of trends. Co-authorship of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model, means he moves from boardroom narrative to operational specification inside the same engagement. Biography highlights Originated the term “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in 2011 as a member of the Advisory Group to the German Federal Ministry of Education & Research, with Prof August Wilhelm Scheer and Prof Henning Kagermann. Co-author of Germany’s Digital Agenda (2009 to 2010), later adopted as the European Commission’s Europe Digital Agenda 2020. Managing Director of the Institute of Strategic Intelligence and Professor of Economics and Strategy Management. Author of “Strategy in the Age of Disruption: A Handbook to Anticipate Change and Make Smart Decisions” (Wiley, 2024). Advisory Council Member on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM Scope 1 to 3); co-author of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. Recipient of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award (2019), the prize popularly described as the Nobel of knowledge sharing; named a leading authority on strategy by the Financial Times and a most influential futurist of the century by CNBC. Biography The phrase “Industry 4.0” was first written into a German federal policy paper in 2011, and the working group behind it had three names on it. One of them was Henrik von Scheel, then advising the Federal Ministry of Education & Research alongside August Wilhelm Scheer and Henning Kagermann. Two years later the concept was published as Germany’s high-tech strategy and became the dominant frame for industrial digitalisation across most advanced economies. That origin story matters because most strategists discuss digital transformation from outside the room. Von Scheel works from inside it. He co-authored Germany’s Digital Agenda with Scheer in 2009 to 2010, which the European Commission adopted as the Europe Digital Agenda 2020. He sits on the advisory council for the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board, where he is contributing to the Green Deal, FIT for 55 and CBAM. He is briefing boards on rules he is helping draft. The operational layer is just as concrete. Through the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, where he is Managing Director, he supplies trend research used by the World Economic Forum. He has co-authored 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. This is what lets him move a conversation from megatrend to operational specification without losing the room. His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption”, co-written with Ciprian Popa and Joshua von Scheel, sets out a method for anticipating change and sequencing decisions rather than reacting to disruption after the fact. Current demand reflects that range: law firms working through the future of legal practice, defence, banking, automotive and manufacturing leaders working through the move from automation to intelligence. Key speaking topics Industry 4.0 and industrial digitalisation Artificial intelligence strategy and the EU AI Act From automation to intelligence in industrial operations Strategic foresight and megatrend analysis Future of legal practice in the age of AI Digital transformation execution Supply chain and operations reinvention Sustainability, ESG and energy transition Ideal for Boards and CEOs in manufacturing, automotive, defence and banking setting AI, digital and Industry 4.0 strategy at group level Managing Partners and innovation leads in law firms working through how AI restructures legal practice and client work Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads sequencing capital and operating bets under disruption COOs and operations leaders reinventing factories, supply chains and service operations Government and policy audiences shaping national digital, AI or industrial agendas Audience outcomes A clear read on which megatrends are commercially actionable in the next planning cycle and which are still ten years out A defensible logic for sequencing AI, automation and digital investments against P&L impact An insider view of where EU AI and climate regulation is going before it lands A working method, drawn from his Wiley handbook, for making strategic decisions when the operating environment keeps shifting Confidence that the digital and Industry 4.0 narrative inside the organisation matches what is happening at policy and standards level

Why organisations work with Henry Chesbrough He is the named author of the framework that most corporate innovation functions claim to use. When a board wants the original argument rather than a consultant’s summary, they bring him in. Two decades of field research inside Procter & Gamble, Intel, IBM, GE, Bayer, and Huawei give him specific evidence on where open innovation pays off and where it quietly fails. His work extends beyond R&D into business models and services, which is where most open innovation programmes stall once the easy wins run out. He sits at the centre of the academic and practitioner networks that define the field, including the Garwood Center at Berkeley Haas and the Open Innovation Community he founded. Recognition from Thinkers50 (ranked four times), the Industrial Research Institute’s Medal of Achievement, and the Academy of Management’s Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award establishes standing with both academic and corporate audiences. Biography highlights Faculty Director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Maire Tecnimont Professor of Open Innovation at Luiss University, Rome. Author of “Open Innovation” (HBS Press, 2003), “Open Business Models” (2006), “Open Services Innovation” (2011), and “Open Innovation Results” (Oxford University Press, 2020). Named to the Thinkers50 ranking four times and shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award in 2011. Recipient of the Industrial Research Institute’s Medal of Achievement (2017), the Herbert Simon Award (2020), and the Academy of Management Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award (2022). Honorary doctorates from Hasselt University, the University of Vic, and Eindhoven University of Technology. Biography “Open innovation” is the most widely adopted idea in corporate R&D of the last twenty years, and Henry Chesbrough is the person who named it. His 2003 book set out a simple claim that changed how firms think about invention: no organisation, however well resourced, can rely only on its own labs. The better question is how to combine internal and external ideas, and how to build a business model that captures value from both. That argument has held up through two decades of field research. Chesbrough’s work inside Procter & Gamble, Intel, IBM, GE, Bayer, and Huawei is the evidence base behind “Open Innovation Results” (Oxford University Press, 2020), which examines why many open innovation programmes stall and what separates the firms that generate measurable returns from the ones that merely adopt the vocabulary. His institutional base is the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he is Faculty Director. He is also Maire Tecnimont Professor of Open Innovation at Luiss University in Rome, and previously held a chair at ESADE in Barcelona. Before academia he spent over a decade in Silicon Valley’s disk drive industry, finishing as Vice President of Marketing at Quantum’s Plus Development subsidiary. Recognition has followed the field’s maturity. Thinkers50 has named him to its ranking four times, the Industrial Research Institute awarded him its Medal of Achievement in 2017, and the Academy of Management gave him its Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award in 2022. For senior leaders rebuilding an innovation function, Chesbrough brings both the original thesis and the accumulated evidence of what happens when it meets a real P&L. Key speaking topics Open innovation Business model innovation Corporate R&D strategy Ecosystems and external partnerships for innovation Services innovation Technology commercialisation Intellectual property strategy Ideal for CEOs and CTOs responsible for corporate R&D and innovation portfolios Chief Strategy Officers rebuilding the firm’s approach to external partnerships and ecosystems Heads of corporate venturing, open innovation, and new business building Boards and executive teams reviewing the economics of internal versus external innovation sourcing Audience outcomes A clear grasp of what open innovation actually requires beyond the label, from the person who defined it. Named examples of where the model has produced measurable results and where large firms have wasted effort. A sharper view of how business models, not just technology pipelines, determine returns on innovation spend. Language and frameworks that help executive teams align on what “open” means for their specific sector.