Geschäftsstrategie & Wachstum speakers

Why organisations work with Arturo Bris He is the custodian of the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook – benchmarking 69 economies on 341 criteria annually – which means he brings a proprietary, data-based view of global competitive dynamics that no consultant or generalist economist can replicate. The Right Place (Routledge, 2021) makes a specific, evidence-based argument that national competitiveness explains more of corporate performance than internal strategy or leadership quality – a direct challenge to how most boards set their investment and expansion priorities. His research on 3,692 CEOs across 22 countries and three decades found that conventional analyses significantly overestimate the impact of individual leaders on firm performance – giving boards a more rigorous basis for leadership decisions and executive remuneration. His 2025 book SuperEurope provides a contrarian, data-backed case for Europe as a model of institutional resilience – directly actionable for multinationals reassessing their operating geography in light of US political fragmentation and US-China rivalry. As director of IMD’s Boards and Risks executive programme, he brings a structured, board-tested approach to systemic risk – spanning geopolitical exposure, social evolution, and technological disruption – rather than single-issue commentary. Biography highlights Douglas Geertz IMEDE 1988 Professor in Geopolitics and Business, and Professor of Finance, IMD Lausanne Director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center since 2014; annual rankings cover 69 economies on 341 criteria, including digital competitiveness, talent, and smart cities Former Robert B & Candice J. Haas Associate Professor of Corporate Finance, Yale School of Management Author of The Right Place (Routledge, 2021), SuperEurope (2025), Flex or Fail (2019), and Blockchange! (2018), among other books Academic research published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies; contributor to the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Handelsblatt Ranked in the top 100 most-read finance academics in the world TEDx speaker; featured at the World Government Summit and the World Knowledge Forum, Seoul PhD in Management, INSEAD; holds a named chair in Geopolitics and Business Biography Most companies explain their performance by pointing inward – to their strategy, their people, their execution. Arturo Bris, Douglas Geertz IMEDE 1988 Professor in Geopolitics and Business at IMD and Director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center, has spent two decades building the empirical case that this view is incomplete. The environment a company operates in – regulatory quality, institutional trust, infrastructure – shapes outcomes in ways that internal decisions cannot fully override. The IMD World Competitiveness Center, which he has led since 2014, is the research institution behind this argument. It produces the most authoritative annual benchmarking of national competitiveness in the world – covering 69 economies across 341 criteria – and under his direction has expanded to include rankings on digital readiness, talent, and smart cities. His book The Right Place (Routledge, 2021) draws on 30 years of country-level data to explain why similar firms succeed in one country and fail in another, irrespective of their strategic choices. His most recent book, SuperEurope (2025), extends this argument into live geopolitical territory – making a data-driven case that Europe’s institutional model is more resilient than its detractors claim, and more relevant to corporate location strategy than most boards currently recognise. His published research in the Journal of Finance and Journal of Financial Economics spans financial regulation, short-selling markets, corporate governance, and the macroeconomic effects of the Euro. Before joining IMD, he was Associate Professor at the Yale School of Management, where he received the Best Teacher Award twice. He holds a PhD from INSEAD and advises boards and governments across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America through the Center’s network and IMD’s Boards and Risks executive programme. Key speaking topics National competitiveness and its effects on corporate performance Geopolitics, economic fragmentation, and global trade Financial regulation and corporate governance The future of globalisation and protectionism Digital competitiveness and smart city development Scenario planning and strategic foresight for boards Labour markets, income inequality, and social mobility Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives making geographic expansion, market entry, or investment allocation decisions Government ministers, policy teams, and national development bodies managing economic competitiveness CFOs and strategy directors navigating geopolitical risk and regulatory change across multiple operating environments Investment committees and sovereign wealth funds benchmarking market and country conditions Audience outcomes A data-based framework for assessing how national competitiveness affects corporate strategy, location decisions, and investment risk A more calibrated view of how much macro-environment – versus internal leadership and strategy – drives firm performance, with implications for board priorities Practical insight into the current state of global economic fragmentation and how to model its effects on market access and supply chain resilience A structured approach to board-level systemic risk, integrating geopolitical, technological, and regulatory dimensions A clearer picture of where competitive advantage is shifting globally, grounded in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook data

Why organisations work with Ashley Dudarenok She runs the operating relationships most foreign executives only read about. Alarice and ChoZan, both founded and led by her from inside China, give clients direct access to working partnerships with Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo, ByteDance and Tencent. Thinkers50 placed her on its Radar list and labelled her a “Guru on digital marketing and fast-evolving trends in China,” a designation reserved for thinkers shaping the next wave of management ideas. She translates Chinese commerce into board-room decisions, not headlines. New retail formats, livestream commerce, KOL economics and platform mechanics are framed as actions a Western CMO or COO can take, not as cultural curiosities. A library of books and a working agency, not a single thesis. Eleven titles across consumer behaviour, KOL marketing, B2B and cross-border ecommerce mean the content is regularly refreshed against active client work, not frozen at publication. Western frame, Chinese context. She is a naturalised Chinese national with native-level Mandarin and Russian, English and German fluency, which means she can interrogate Chinese platforms in the language they operate in and explain them in the language Western boards make decisions in. Biography highlights Founder of Alarice (2011), a China digital marketing agency with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and ChoZan (2016), a China digital transformation consultancy. Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2021. Author of eleven books on digital China, including New Retail Born in China Going Global and Digital China: Working with Bloggers, Influencers and KOLs. Recognised among the World’s Top 100 Retail Influencers 2023 by RETHINK Retail and named a LinkedIn Top Voice in Marketing. Clients and audiences include Alibaba, LVMH, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, BMW, HSBC, Disney, Huawei and Adobe. Featured in Bloomberg, Forbes, CNBC, South China Morning Post, Business Insider and CGTN. Biography Most Western executives still understand China through a 2015 lens: factory floor, growth market, regulatory headache. The actual commercial picture has moved on. Livestream commerce is a meaningful share of retail, mini-programs have replaced apps, KOL economics drive product launches, and consumer expectations on speed, personalisation and service have re-set what “good” looks like. Ashley Dudarenok built a business interpreting that gap for global firms. She founded Alarice in Hong Kong in 2011 and ChoZan in 2016, running both as operating businesses with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen. That structure matters. Her commentary draws on live client work with the platforms she is describing, not on observation from outside the system. Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Tencent and ByteDance are working relationships, not case studies pulled from the FT. The intellectual contribution is recognised externally. Thinkers50 placed her on its 2021 Radar list, the cohort it tracks as the next wave of management thinkers, with the designation “Guru on digital marketing and fast-evolving trends in China.” She is a LinkedIn Top Voice in Marketing and was named to RETHINK Retail’s Top 100 Retail Influencers in 2023. Eleven books, including New Retail Born in China Going Global and the Digital China mini-book series, give her arguments a published spine that conference appearances alone do not. What she offers a board is the ability to treat China as a leading indicator. Boards walk away with a sharper read on how Chinese consumer behaviour is likely to surface in their own market, where their digital and customer-experience playbook is now structurally behind, and which platform mechanics, livestream, social commerce, AI-driven retail, are worth piloting before competitors close the gap. Key speaking topics China consumer trends and digital commerce New retail and social commerce KOL, livestream and influencer economics Customer centricity and the modern Chinese consumer Digital transformation lessons from China Innovation playbooks from Chinese tech and brand companies Future of marketing and retail Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders setting customer experience and digital strategy in consumer-facing industries Retail, luxury, FMCG and automotive boards with material China exposure or China ambitions Innovation and digital transformation leads benchmarking against Chinese platform standards Strategy and corporate development teams assessing how Chinese commercial models are likely to enter their home markets Audience outcomes A current, board-level read on the Chinese consumer and the platforms they live on Concrete examples of Chinese retail, marketing and product mechanics that Western firms can translate into pilots A clearer view of where their own digital and customer playbook is lagging the Chinese benchmark A working list of categories, BYD, Mixue, Labubu, DeepSeek, TikTok parent ByteDance, where China has set the new commercial standard Confidence to challenge internal assumptions that treat China as a sales market rather than a strategic teacher

Why organisations work with Ashwin Gulati A founder’s-eye view drawn from 100+ ventures in four countries, not a single startup story extrapolated into a thesis Hands-on experience as interim executive and Entrepreneur-in-Residence inside companies in crisis, not commentary from the sidelines Author of Soul Venture, a 16-year project that documents the human and psychological mechanics of startup failure that most business books edit out Comfortable in the room with boards, family offices and first-time founders, and switches register accordingly Bilingual operator across US and European venture cultures, useful when expansion crosses regulatory and capital-market boundaries Biography highlights 30+ years guiding founders, CEOs and boards across 100+ ventures in the US, UK, Spain and France Founder of Match Point Ventures, working with boards, family offices and executive teams as strategic advisor, interim executive and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Author of Soul Venture: A True Life and Death Journey Into the Startup Culture (Match Point Press) Featured at Claremont McKenna College’s Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum on the unspoken truths of entrepreneurship Quoted and published in Chief Executive, Authority Magazine, Grit Daily, StartupNation, CEO World and LeadershipNow BA in Economics and Mathematics from Claremont McKenna College, with study at King’s College London and the London School of Economics Biography Ninety-seven of every hundred startups fail. The interesting question is not why most fail, but what the survivors paid to get through, and why so little of that cost is ever named in public. Ashwin Gulati has spent three decades inside that question, working alongside founders, CEOs and boards through launches, pivots, expansions and exits in the US, UK, Spain and France. His work spans more than 100 ventures, from early-stage technology companies to family-office-backed operating businesses. Through Match Point Ventures he steps in as strategic advisor, interim executive or Entrepreneur-in-Residence, running diagnostic assessments on capital structure, business model, leadership alignment and market position. The role is not theoretical. It usually begins when something is breaking. Soul Venture, his debut book, took 16 years to write because it does what most entrepreneurship literature avoids. It traces the psychological and human costs that sit alongside the spreadsheet view of company building. The book is part memoir, part field guide, drawn from his own ventures and from the founders he has worked beside. It has been featured by Chief Executive, Grit Daily and Authority Magazine, and anchors his speaking on what he calls the X-factors that separate real builders from the rest. He addresses three moments in venture life with equal seriousness. The take-off, where most founders mistake hustle for traction. The flight, where scaling exposes who can actually lead. And the landing, where exits, succession and legacy decide what the work was for. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and the founder journey Scale-up leadership across stages Venture launch and operational sustainability Exit, succession and founder legacy Self-leadership and founder resilience Cross-border venture building Ideal for Founder communities, incubators and accelerators briefing first-time and serial entrepreneurs Boards, family offices and investor networks evaluating venture portfolios Executive teams inside scale-ups confronting transition or crisis Business schools and entrepreneurship programmes building founder development tracks Audience outcomes A clearer map of the launch, scale and exit decisions that decide a venture’s outcome Specific failure mechanics drawn from 100+ companies, not founder mythology Language for the human cost of building, useful in boardrooms that usually avoid it A working frame for legacy and succession that goes beyond the financial exit

Why organisations work with Ayesha Khanna Her named “pilot purgatory” diagnostic (the finding that over 88% of AI pilots never scale) gives leadership teams a precise frame for why their programmes stall, and a structured path to production. This is a field-tested argument with a clear strategic implication. She brings board-level fiduciary exposure most AI advisors do not hold: Johnson Controls (smart buildings), NEOM Tonomus (national smart city infrastructure in Saudi Arabia), Mercy Healthcare (US), and L’Oréal’s Scientific Advisory Board. She has governed AI strategy, not only advised on it. Her advisory work spans both national AI strategy: she helped shape Singapore’s SkillsFuture programme and served on the IMDA board. Organisations get a strategist who has worked both sides. Her previous board position on AVEVA and her current role at Johnson Controls give her direct insight into how AI and digital transformation are reshaping critical infrastructure, highly relevant to sectors where technology adoption has long tail consequences. As the author of the forthcoming Gamechanger, a practical business strategy guide to generative AI, she is building the intellectual framework for the current adoption challenge while it is happening, not retrospectively. Biography highlights Co-Founder and CEO, Addo AI; a global AI solutions firm whose clients have included Singtel, SMRT, Pfizer, Sompo Holdings, Habib Bank, and Smart Dubai Board director: Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI); NEOM Tonomus, Saudi Arabia; previously AVEVA (FTSE100, prior to Schneider Electric acquisition) Scientific Advisory Board, L’Oréal; Consumer Committee, Mercy Healthcare; Singapore HTX (homeland security technology) Member, World Economic Forum Global Future Councils; formerly on Singapore IMDA board and Ministry of Education SkillsFuture steering committee Named one of Southeast Asia’s groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes; Edelman Top 50 AI Creators (2025); Salesforce 16 AI Influencers to Know (2024) Author of Straight Through Processing (2008) and co-author of Hybrid Reality (TED Books, 2012); forthcoming Gamechanger on generative AI business strategy Published and quoted in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, TIME, Foreign Policy, and Strategy+Business PhD, Information Systems (digital innovation in smart cities), London School of Economics; MS, Columbia University; BA (Honours), Harvard University Biography Ayesha Khanna has spent two decades at the point where AI strategy meets the decisions boards have to make. Her argument is specific: most organisations do not fail at AI because they lack ambition or budget. They fail because they build pilots without the business-outcome architecture to scale them, what she calls “pilot purgatory,” a state that traps over 88% of enterprise AI programmes. Ayesha works with large corporations and governments on the full adoption journey, from strategy through deployment, with clients that have included Singtel, SMRT, Pfizer, Sompo Holdings, Habib Bank, and Smart Dubai. Khanna has spent more than a decade on Wall Street developing large-scale trading, risk management, and data analytics systems. Her PhD from the London School of Economics focused on digital innovation in smart cities, grounding her practical work in a rigorous analytical framework. What sets Khanna apart from most AI strategists is the nature of her board exposure. She currently holds directorships at Johnson Controls (smart building technology, NYSE: JCI), NEOM Tonomus (the technology infrastructure body for Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion NEOM smart city project), and Mercy Healthcare, and sits on L’Oréal’s Scientific Advisory Board. She previously sat on the board of AVEVA when it was an FTSE100 company. These are not advisory relationships, they are governance roles in which she has been responsible for technology strategy at fiduciary level, across healthcare, infrastructure, and consumer science simultaneously. Her forthcoming book, Gamechanger, extends this practitioner perspective into a structured business playbook for generative AI. Her two earlier books, Straight Through Processing (2008) and the TED book Hybrid Reality (2012), co-authored with Parag Khanna, established her early argument that the human-technology relationship was shifting from coexistence to co-evolution. That argument has aged well. Khanna has been recognised by Forbes as one of Southeast Asia’s groundbreaking female entrepreneurs, named to Edelman’s Top 50 AI Creators in 2025, and quoted across The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Policy. Key speaking topics Generative AI strategy and enterprise adoption AI governance and risk frameworks Smart cities and urban technology infrastructure AI in financial services and healthcare Future of work in an AI-driven economy National AI strategy and public-private collaboration The Hybrid Age: human-technology co-evolution Ideal for CEOs and C-suite leadership teams building or scaling enterprise AI programmes Board directors and non-executive directors responsible for technology governance and digital risk oversight Government and public sector leaders developing national AI strategies or smart city initiatives Financial services, healthcare, and infrastructure sector organisations at advanced stages of AI deployment Audience outcomes A named diagnostic for why AI pilots stall before scaling, and a framework for building the business-outcome architecture needed to move from experimentation to production Practical understanding of what AI governance looks like at board level: what boards need to own, what they need to delegate, and what risks require a formal framework Sector-specific examples of organisations generating measurable revenue and operational impact through AI, drawn from a client base across telecoms, finance, healthcare, and infrastructure A structured perspective on the “Hybrid Age” – the shift in how humans and AI systems operate together – and what it means for workforce strategy and organisational design Criteria for prioritising AI investment by business outcome rather than technology capability, applicable across industries at different stages of digital maturity

Why organisations work with Ben Edmonds Patent record. He is named inventor on commercial patents inside Dyson’s New Product Innovation team and earlier at Xyratex, including the global stowage system on the Dyson DC49 vacuum cleaner. He speaks about innovation from the perspective of an engineer who has shipped commercial products. Inside view of an engineering-first culture. More than a decade at Dyson taught him what structural conditions allow teams to produce original products consistently. He can name the specific choices that distinguish companies that innovate from companies that talk about it. Tactile method, not slideware. His sessions involve teams building real prototypes from cardboard. Senior leaders walk out having designed something with their own hands. Translates equally to executives and children. Edmonds runs an international Inventor Club for young people alongside corporate work. The discipline of teaching twelve-year-olds removes abstraction from how he explains innovation to senior leaders. Biography highlights Twelve years at Dyson, leaving as Principal Designer in the New Product Innovation department. Named inventor on multiple patents assigned to Dyson Technology Limited and earlier to Xyratex (since acquired by Seagate), including the global stowage system on the Dyson DC49. Bachelor’s degree in Computer Aided Product Design from the University of Portsmouth. Founder of InnovationBen and the international Inventor Club, an innovation programme running with young people across multiple countries. Speaking clients include Airbus, the UK Ministry of Defence, Dyson, and the UK Sheet Plant Association. Founder of CRINNAC, a prototyping and product development workshop for hardware founders. Biography At Dyson, engineering ran the show and marketing followed. Engineers solved the problem first, then marketing built the story to sell it. That ordering is the structural difference between companies that ship original products and companies that talk about wanting to. Edmonds spent more than a decade inside that culture, working in Dyson’s New Product Innovation department and rising to Principal Designer. He is the named inventor on commercial patents covering parts of the Dyson product range, including the stowage system for the DC49 vacuum cleaner. Before Dyson he led design at Xyratex, where his team built the storage hardware that held data for IBM, Dell and NetApp. His teaching draws a direct line between two settings most innovation speakers keep separate: the corporate boardroom and the school workshop. He runs an international Inventor Club for children alongside corporate engagements with Airbus, the Ministry of Defence and the Dyson alumni network. The same five-step discipline applies in both: observe a problem, generate options, build a prototype, test it, communicate what you found. The work he does with senior teams uses cardboard prototyping. It looks playful, and audiences laugh through it. The point is serious. Within an hour, a finance team or head office leadership group has designed and built something that did not exist when they walked in. Key speaking topics Innovation culture and structural design Practical creativity in the workplace Product design and rapid prototyping Building inventive teams Engineering thinking applied to commercial problems Creative confidence and problem-solving The structural conditions for sustained innovation Ideal for Heads of R&D, innovation directors, and chief product officers responsible for new product pipelines Executive teams in engineering-led businesses asking how to scale creative output without losing rigour Heads of culture and people functions tasked with building innovation capability across non-technical teams Off-sites and leadership retreats where the goal is for teams to leave having built something together Audience outcomes A working prototype their own team built during the session A diagnosis of which structural conditions in their business help or hinder new ideas Tools they can apply the next day to spot problems worth solving Methods for treating creative problem-solving as a learnable team discipline

Why organisations work with Bernard Marr His frameworks for data strategy and AI adoption are grounded in peer-reviewed academic research from Cambridge and Cranfield – which means they hold up to internal scrutiny in ways that practitioner opinion rarely does. Business Trends in Practice, winner of the 2022 Business Book of the Year Award, gives executive audiences a shared, structured vocabulary for decisions that are otherwise made in fragmented, jargon-heavy conversations. His Forbes column reaches approximately one million readers a month – meaning his conceptual framing is often already in the room before he arrives, which accelerates rather than starts the conversation. He advises organisations across the full spectrum of sectors – from Google and Microsoft to the Bank of England, NATO and the NHS – which gives him a pattern-recognition advantage that single-sector specialists cannot replicate. Where most AI speakers address technology adoption as an IT problem, Marr consistently frames it as a governance and leadership problem – which is what boards and C-suites are actually wrestling with. Biography highlights Research Fellow, Cambridge Judge Business School; subsequently at Cranfield School of Management – before founding Bernard Marr & Co in 2006 Author of more than 20 books on AI, data strategy and digital transformation, published in over 20 languages Business Trends in Practice named Business Book of the Year 2022; additional awards include the CMI Management Book of the Year, Axiom Book Award and WHSmith Best Business Book Award Ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world Regular contributor to Forbes and the World Economic Forum; media presence includes BBC News, Sky News, the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and HBR Advisory clients include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, the Bank of England, NATO, the NHS, Shell and the United Nations Biography Bernard Marr spent his early career as a research fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School and then at Cranfield School of Management, where his published work – cited more than 5,400 times – focused on business performance, intellectual capital and strategic measurement. In 2006 he left academia to found Bernard Marr & Co, taking that analytical infrastructure into advisory work with some of the world’s most complex organisations. His books – more than twenty of them, translated into over twenty languages – are not airport business books. Data Strategy, AI Strategy, Generative AI in Practice and Future Skills each address a specific executive decision: how to treat data as a governed asset, how to build an AI adoption roadmap, how to prepare a workforce for automation. Business Trends in Practice won the 2022 Business Book of the Year Award. His writing for Forbes, published at a rate of around three articles per week, gives those frameworks sustained reach into executive audiences between engagements. What makes Marr useful to a board is not that he explains technology well – many speakers do that. It is that he consistently reframes technology questions as governance questions: who owns the data strategy, how do we assess AI risk, what does leadership fluency in this area actually require? These are the questions that stall transformation programmes, and they sit above the pay grade of a CTO. His advisory work spans Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the Bank of England, NATO, the NHS, Shell and the United Nations – a range that gives him cross-sector pattern recognition that sector-specific specialists cannot replicate. The organisations that benefit most from his work are those where the executive team is technically literate enough to know they don’t know enough, and needs a structured way to close that gap. Key speaking topics AI strategy and adoption for executive leadership Data strategy and data governance Generative AI and its organisational implications Digital transformation and business performance Future of work and future skills Emerging technology trends and business impact Strategic performance management Ideal for C-suite and board-level audiences navigating AI and data investment decisions Chief Digital Officers, Chief Data Officers and technology transformation leads Senior leadership teams ahead of major digital transformation programmes Corporate and enterprise conference audiences requiring clarity on technology without technical fluency as a prerequisite Audience outcomes A working framework for evaluating AI and data investments – not just a description of what they are Clearer language for discussing technology strategy at board level, with less dependence on specialist intermediaries Understanding of which emerging technology trends carry genuine near-term organisational implications versus which are still speculative A more structured approach to data governance and the conditions under which data generates strategic advantage Insight into the skills and capabilities organisations will need to build – and which to acquire versus develop internally

Why organisations work with Bertrand Piccard The Solar Impulse Foundation’s portfolio of more than 1,000 independently certified, profitable environmental solutions gives organisations a verified, searchable evidence base – not an aspiration but a commercially assessed library of technologies available today, spanning energy, construction, mobility, agriculture, and industry. His “qualitative growth” framework – articulated in his book RÉALISTE – gives leaders a specific language for presenting sustainability to boards, investors, and governments as a source of economic development rather than a compliance cost. Few speakers can point to a named framework, a published thesis, and twenty years of testing it with heads of state and global executives. As a trained psychiatrist, Piccard applies behavioural insight to the structural reason sustainability arguments fail at decision-making level: not a lack of belief, but the absence of a financial narrative that aligns with existing incentive structures. His diagnosis is precise – and so is the alternative he offers. His advisory roles – Special Advisor to the European Commission and member of the European Investment Bank’s Climate and Environment Advisory Council – provide direct intelligence on the regulatory and financial frameworks that will shape corporate energy transition decisions this decade. The Solar Impulse round-the-world flight covered 43,000 km on commercially available solar technology alone. Organisations working through assumptions about what clean energy can realistically deliver hear this not as a metaphor but as an audit: the gap between what these technologies can do and what most boards believe they can do is not a future problem. Biography highlights Completed the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, Breitling Orbiter 3, with Brian Jones (1999) – the longest flight in aviation history by both distance and duration at that time Co-initiated and piloted Solar Impulse: the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the globe (2016, 43,000 km, zero fuel), with André Borschberg Founder and Chairman, Solar Impulse Foundation – has certified more than 1,000 clean and profitable environmental solutions via the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label UN Champions of the Earth Award (2012, UNEP); UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment; Special Advisor to the European Commission; member, European Investment Bank Climate and Environment Advisory Council Mungo Park Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2018); Harmon Trophy; FAI Gold Air Medal; holds 22 FAI world records in solar and electric aviation categories Author of RÉALISTE, The Greatest Adventure, and Changer d’Altitude; keynote speaker at the United Nations, World Economic Forum, TED, and major UN Climate Change Conferences Biography The argument Bertrand Piccard has advanced for two decades is specific: ecology and economy are not opposites. Clean technology is where the next generation of industrial value is being created. His Solar Impulse Foundation has certified more than 1,000 profitable environmental solutions – available today – to demonstrate that the energy transition is already a market, not a future aspiration. The Solar Impulse round-the-world flight – 43,000 km with zero fuel, completed with André Borschberg in 2016 – was designed to carry a message as much as a pilot. When Piccard landed in Abu Dhabi, the point was not the distance but the technology: every solar system and electric motor that had just circled the planet was commercially available. Most organisations had simply not been shown a coherent financial case for using it. That case is the work of the Solar Impulse Foundation, which Piccard founded and chairs. The Foundation’s Efficient Solution Label certifies technologies, products, and processes across energy, construction, mobility, agriculture, and industry – providing governments, corporations, and investors with a vetted evidence base for capital and policy decisions. His advisory roles extend this work directly into policy: he is Special Advisor to the European Commission and a member of the European Investment Bank’s Climate and Environment Advisory Council, positions that give him current intelligence on the regulatory environment shaping energy transition this decade. Trained as a psychiatrist, Piccard applies behavioural insight to the precise reason sustainability strategies fail at board level: the financial argument is missing. His book RÉALISTE sets out the case for his named framework – “qualitative growth” – as a practical alternative to both degrowth and unlimited consumption. The Climate Impulse project, a hydrogen-powered aircraft designed for a non-stop round-the-world flight, is his current proof-of-concept: another first, built to demonstrate what the next generation of clean technology can already do. Key speaking topics Clean technology and the commercial case for energy transition Qualitative growth: sustainability as an economic strategy The Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label and cleantech certification Climate policy, regulation, and the role of business Mission-driven leadership and the explorer’s mindset The psychology of organisational change and resistance to transition Hydrogen and the future of sustainable aviation Ideal for Boards and C-suites working through the commercial and investment case for energy transition Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads under pressure to translate environmental commitments into language investors and boards will act on Government and policy audiences involved in clean energy planning, regulatory design, or climate target-setting Global executive leadership summits where the intersection of sustainability, growth strategy, and industrial policy is on the agenda Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of the sustainability-profitability relationship – with a specific named framework, “qualitative growth,” that can be used internally to move the conversation forward Awareness of a verified portfolio of more than 1,000 commercially available clean technologies, and how the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label works as a practical decision-making tool A clear diagnosis of why sustainability arguments typically fail at board and investment level – and what to substitute for the standard cost-and-compliance framing Insight into the European and global regulatory and financial architecture that will shape energy transition investment decisions over the next decade A more precise distinction between sustainability as an organisational cost and sustainability as a source of new industrial markets – presented with the proof points to make that argument to investors, regulators, and governments

Why organisations work with Bill Emmott His 13 years editing The Economist – during which global circulation roughly doubled – produced a practitioner’s discipline in making geopolitical complexity legible to business audiences without simplifying it away. His 2024 IISS Adelphi book on Taiwan develops a specific deterrence framework for US-China conflict risk, giving boards a tested analytical vocabulary for the most consequential near-term geopolitical scenario they face. His argument in The Fate of the West (2017) – that the democratic world’s greatest threat is institutional self-erosion, not external aggression – anticipated a political dynamic that organisations are now managing in real time. Three decades of specialist focus on Japan, Asia, Italy, and European political economy means he does not speak generically about geopolitics; he speaks about specific countries, specific pressures, and specific trajectories. As Senior Adviser, Geopolitics at Montrose Associates, he works at the intersection of intelligence and executive decision-making – his analysis is applied, not academic. Biography highlights Editor-in-Chief, The Economist, 1993–2006; under his editorship global circulation approximately doubled to over one million Chairman of the Trustees, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), 2010–2025 Author of 15 books on Japan, Asia, Italy, and the 20th century; latest published by IISS/Routledge (2024) Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in business journalism, 2009 (UCLA Anderson School) Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, awarded by the Japanese government, 2016 Regular columnist: La Stampa, Nikkei Business, Mainichi Shimbun, Project Syndicate; contributor to the Financial Times First-class honours, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Magdalen College, Oxford; Honorary Fellow, Magdalen College Ushioda Fellow, Tokyo College, University of Tokyo; visiting fellow at All Souls College and Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford Biography Geopolitics became a boardroom word long before most boards knew how to use it. Bill Emmott spent 13 years at the helm of The Economist – the period in which it doubled its global circulation – developing the discipline of making the world’s structural shifts legible to decision-makers under deadline. That combination of editorial rigour and strategic directness is what he now brings to executive and board audiences. His most recent book, Deterrence, Diplomacy and the Risk of Conflict over Taiwan (IISS/Routledge, 2024), builds a specific analytical framework for the US-China scenario that organisations cite most often as an unquantified risk. His earlier work, The Fate of the West (2017), argued that liberal democracies are more threatened by institutional decay from within than by external pressure – a thesis that has moved from provocative to plainly descriptive in the years since. Emmott’s specialist geography sets him apart from generalist geopolitics commentators. Three decades of work on Japan, Asia, and European political economy – including a Japanese government honour for contributions to UK-Japan relations – gives him granular fluency in precisely the regions where organisations most need specific, rather than broad-brush, risk analysis. Outside writing and speaking, he served as Chairman of IISS Trustees for 15 years, advised Swiss Re’s senior panel for 13 years, and currently acts as Senior Adviser, Geopolitics at Montrose Associates. The accumulated perspective is that of someone who has analysed geopolitical risk not only for public audiences, but for the institutions charged with managing it. Key speaking topics Great-power competition and the US-China relationship Indo-Pacific security and the Taiwan risk scenario The fragility of the liberal international order Geopolitical risk and corporate strategy Japan, Asia, and the shifting balance of economic power European political economy and the future of the EU Business decision-making under geopolitical uncertainty Ideal for Boards and C-suites assessing geopolitical exposure in investment, supply chain, or market strategy decisions Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers navigating great-power competition Financial services and insurance sector leadership (experience advising Swiss Re; expertise in macro and political risk) Government affairs, policy, and public affairs leadership teams requiring analysis of Western institutional trends Audience outcomes A clearer analytical framework for distinguishing genuine geopolitical risk from background noise, applicable to specific business decisions A grounded understanding of the US-China-Taiwan scenario and the deterrence logic that shapes it – beyond media headlines A historically informed perspective on why Western institutional resilience matters to business, and where it is most under pressure Specific insight into Japan and Asia’s economic and political trajectories, relevant to market-entry, partnership, and investment decisions The vocabulary to communicate geopolitical risk credibly inside an organisation – to boards, investors, and regulators

Why organisations work with Bill Fischer Primary-source access to Haier’s rendanheyi model, one of the most studied organisational experiments of the last two decades, with direct consulting engagement rather than secondary commentary. A working framework for turning a commodity business into a platform of autonomous micro-enterprises, grounded in Reinventing Giants and a decade of fieldwork inside Chinese and Western incumbents. Co-direction of IMD’s Driving Strategic Innovation programme with MIT Sloan gives him a live executive audience and a tested pedagogy, not only a book. A Thinkers50 Hall of Fame induction and a former CEIBS presidency signal range: he reads Chinese industrial strategy and Western corporate transformation from the inside of both. Two decades of work on creative teams, from Virtuoso Teams to The Idea Hunter, give him a practitioner language for how ideas actually get found and executed inside organisations. Biography highlights Professor Emeritus of Innovation Management at IMD, Lausanne. Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, 2019. Former President of China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Shanghai, 1997-1999; recipient of Shanghai’s Silver Magnolia award. Co-founder and co-director of IMD’s Driving Strategic Innovation programme with MIT Sloan. Author of Reinventing Giants (Wiley, 2013), The Idea Hunter (Wiley, 2011), and Virtuoso Teams (FT/Prentice Hall, 2005). Forbes columnist, “The Ideas Business”; management innovation consultant to Haier Group. Biography Haier was a near-bankrupt Qingdao refrigerator maker when Fischer first studied it. Three decades later it is the world’s largest home appliance group and the most watched organisational experiment in global management, run as a platform of thousands of autonomous micro-enterprises. Fischer’s book Reinventing Giants documented how that happened, and he has advised the company on its rendanheyi model since. That work sits inside a longer argument. Fischer’s research treats innovation as a social problem, not a creativity problem. Virtuoso Teams looked at how small groups of strong talents produce original work under pressure. The Idea Hunter showed that good ideas are mostly found, not invented, and that the hunt is a disciplined practice. Reinventing Giants pushed the question up one level, to the architecture of the firm itself. His institutional track record reinforces the range. He held an endowed chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for more than two decades, led CEIBS in Shanghai at the point when it became China’s first serious global business school, and has been on the IMD faculty in Lausanne since 1990. With MIT Sloan he co-directs Driving Strategic Innovation, one of the longer-running senior executive programmes on the subject. For buyers, that means a speaker who can move from the CEO question, how do we stop strangling new businesses inside the old one, to the concrete organisational moves that Haier and a small number of other firms have actually made. Key speaking topics Business model innovation in mature incumbents Haier and the rendanheyi platform model Organisational design for innovation Creative teams and talent Corporate transformation in China Leadership of innovation programmes Ecosystems and micro-enterprise structures Ideal for CEOs and boards of large incumbents under pressure to generate new businesses from the core. Chief Strategy, Chief Innovation and Chief Transformation officers redesigning operating models. Senior leadership teams at industrial and consumer-goods firms competing against Chinese platform companies. Executive development audiences on innovation, strategy, and organisational design. Audience outcomes A clear read of what Haier actually did, beyond the slogans, and what parts travel to other firms. Sharper vocabulary for diagnosing why new ideas die inside the existing structure. A working model of the firm as a platform of micro-enterprises, with the trade-offs named. A practitioner frame for finding, developing and scaling ideas through small strong teams. Perspective on Chinese management practice from someone who has taught and led inside it.

Why organisations work with Bill Taylor His central argument – that the most dangerous thing in a successful organisation is its own track record – gives leadership teams a precise, uncomfortable diagnosis, not a generic call to “innovate more.” Simply Brilliant provides a detailed, case-study-backed framework for achieving breakthrough performance in traditional and unglamorous fields, making it directly applicable to organisations outside tech and consumer markets. His research spans companies most strategy consultants never study – regional banks, industrial manufacturers, office cleaning businesses – which means his examples land with audiences tired of hearing about Apple and Amazon. His Mavericks at Work thesis – that the most successful competitors don’t try to out-execute rivals but redefine the terms of competition altogether – gives strategy teams a concrete alternative to benchmarking their way to mediocrity. As a former HBR editor and founding editor of a magazine that sold for $340 million, he brings practitioner credibility to arguments about how organisations actually change, not just how they should. Biography highlights Co-founder and founding editor, Fast Company, with Alan Webber; magazine sold for $340 million within six years of founding Former editor, Harvard Business Review Author of three books published by Portfolio/Penguin: Simply Brilliant (2016), Practically Radical, and Mavericks at Work Mavericks at Work: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller; named “Business Book of the Year” by both The Economist and the Financial Times Simply Brilliant named “Best Strategy and Leadership Book of 2016” by 800CEORead Regular contributor to Harvard Business Review; former “Under New Management” columnist, New York Times Sunday Business; former columnist, The Guardian Graduate of Princeton University (BA) and MIT Sloan School of Management (MBA) Named “Champion of Workplace Learning and Performance” by the American Society for Training and Development, alongside past recipients Jack Welch and Fred Smith Biography Fast Company was built on a single provocation: that the rules of business competition were being rewritten, and most organisations were too comfortable to notice. Bill Taylor co-founded the magazine from borrowed office space in Harvard Square, and within six years it had sold for $340 million – at the time, the second-highest price ever paid for a single magazine in the United States. The argument that drove it has shaped his work ever since. Taylor’s three books – Mavericks at Work, Practically Radical, and Simply Brilliant – are each structured around the same core tension: why do organisations with genuine competitive advantages so often fail to sustain them? His answer, developed most fully in Simply Brilliant, is that expertise becomes a trap. The knowledge that produced past performance quietly closes off the thinking that would produce future performance. It is not disruption from outside that limits most organisations – it is the weight of their own accumulated success. What makes this argument useful in practice is where Taylor looks for evidence. His case studies are not drawn from Silicon Valley or the usual gallery of tech unicorns. They come from regional banks, industrial suppliers, auto dealerships, and office cleaning companies – settings where leaders have no option to blame their industry for mediocrity. Simply Brilliant was named the best strategy and leadership book of 2016 by 800CEORead. Mavericks at Work was named “Business Book of the Year” by both The Economist and the Financial Times. Taylor writes regularly for Harvard Business Review and held an editorial role there before Fast Company. His work is consistently focused on a single, testable question: what does it actually take for leaders to let go of what made them successful, and build something better? Key speaking topics Organisational innovation beyond technology Breaking the experience trap in established industries Competitive strategy and differentiation Culture as competitive advantage Leadership imagination and renewal Change management in traditional organisations Talent, engagement, and high-performance culture Ideal for CEOs and senior leadership teams in established, non-tech industries facing competitive reinvention Strategy and transformation leads planning large-scale organisational change programmes Executive conferences where the audience has heard the Silicon Valley playbook and needs a different frame CHROs and culture leads connecting people strategy to competitive performance Audience outcomes A named framework for diagnosing why expertise becomes an obstacle to growth – and what to do about it Case studies from non-tech, traditional industries that reframe what competitive reinvention looks like in their own sector Practical questions for testing whether their organisation’s current strategy is genuinely distinctive or competitively invisible A clearer sense of where leadership imagination, rather than market conditions, is the binding constraint on performance Language for talking to boards and leadership teams about transformation that doesn’t rely on disruption clichés

Why organisations work with Brent Adamson He co-authored the two books that redefined how serious B2B organisations think about commercial effectiveness; the Challenger thesis is now the reference point most large sales transformations are measured against. His research at CEB and Gartner, conducted over nearly two decades with thousands of B2B sales organisations, gives him a dataset on buyer behaviour that almost no individual practitioner can match. He gives commercial leaders a specific diagnosis of why win rates fall in complex deals, decision complexity, information overload, implementation uncertainty and value opacity, and a vocabulary their teams can act on. He works at the boundary between sales and marketing, which is where most B2B revenue problems actually live, and addresses both functions as one commercial system. His sensemaking and buyer-confidence work has moved the conversation past closing technique into the harder question of how customers come to a decision they will defend internally. Biography highlights Co-author, The Challenger Sale (Portfolio, 2011) and The Challenger Customer (Portfolio, 2015), with Matthew Dixon, Pat Spenner and Nick Toman. Chief storyteller for CEB, now Gartner’s, sales, marketing and customer service practices, 2003 to 2022; Distinguished Vice President at Gartner. Current Global Head of Research, Advisory and Communities at Ecosystems, a SaaS platform for collaborative customer value management. Harvard Business Review contributor, including “Sensemaking for Sales” (January to February 2022) and “Traditional B2B Sales and Marketing Are Becoming Obsolete” (2022). Originator, with colleagues, of the Mobilizer profile, Buyer Enablement and Customer Decision Confidence as working concepts in B2B sales. MBA, University of Michigan Ross School of Business; PhD in Applied Linguistics, University of Texas; former faculty member at Michigan State University. Biography The Challenger Sale argued, on the basis of CEB research across thousands of B2B reps, that the best performers do not build relationships and then sell. They teach, tailor and take control of the conversation. Published in 2011, it became the reference text for a generation of sales transformation programmes. That book was the first chapter of a longer argument. With The Challenger Customer in 2015, Adamson and his co-authors turned their attention from the seller to the buyer, showing that the average B2B purchase now involves more than five stakeholders and that consensus, not persuasion, is the binding constraint. The Mobilizer, the stakeholder willing to drive change inside their own organisation, became the figure most B2B commercial teams now train to find. From 2003 to 2022, Adamson served as chief storyteller for CEB, later Gartner, where he held the role of Distinguished Vice President. His “Sensemaking for Sales” article in the Harvard Business Review set out the next step in the work: in markets saturated with information, the seller’s job is to help the buyer make sense of what they already know, not to add to the pile. He now leads research, advisory and communities at Ecosystems, a SaaS platform for collaborative customer value management. The throughline across two decades is the same question. What does an effective commercial organisation look like when the buyer has more information than they can use and less confidence than they need to act on it? Key speaking topics B2B sales effectiveness and the Challenger model Buyer enablement and customer decision confidence Sensemaking as a commercial discipline Mobilizers and consensus selling in complex B2B deals The sales and marketing operating system Commercial leadership for digital-first buyers Ideal for Chief revenue officers, chief sales officers and chief commercial officers leading B2B sales transformation Chief marketing officers in B2B environments aligning demand and revenue functions Sales enablement and sales operations leaders rebuilding methodology and training Boards and executive teams reviewing the commercial model in complex, multi-stakeholder markets Audience outcomes A clear diagnosis of why complex B2B deals stall, framed around decision complexity, information overload, implementation uncertainty and value opacity A working vocabulary for buyer enablement, sensemaking and customer decision confidence that sales and marketing teams can apply together A concrete picture of the Mobilizer profile and what it changes about how teams qualify and pursue accounts A sharper view of where the commercial organisation needs to invest next, beyond seller skills, into how customers actually buy

Why organisations work with Brian McBride He has actually done the job a board is usually asking about: scaled Amazon UK as CEO, then chaired ASOS and Trainline through listed-company growth. His view on digital disruption is operator-grade, not commentator-grade, grounded in P&L decisions inside a pure-play digital business. He has governed at national scale as President of the CBI and as Lead Non-Executive on the UK Ministry of Defence Board, which gives him a rare read on the business-state interface. He speaks the language of chairs, non-executives, and regulators fluently, because those are the roles he still holds. He is credible with both traditional boards and digital-native leadership teams, and comfortable translating between them. Biography highlights CEO of Amazon.co.uk, 2006-2011 Chairman of ASOS plc, 2012-2018 Current Chair of Trainline plc President of the Confederation of British Industry, 2022-2024 Lead Non-Executive Director, UK Ministry of Defence Board, 2020-2025 Independent non-Executive, KPMG UK Public Interest Committee Honorary Doctorate, University of Glasgow; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Biography Amazon UK was still a challenger in the British market when Brian McBride took over as CEO in 2006. By the time he left in 2011, it had become the default reference point for what digital retail looked like in the UK, and the benchmark every high-street incumbent was measured against. That experience sits underneath almost everything he has done since. After Amazon he moved into chairing listed digital businesses. He chaired ASOS plc from 2012 to 2018 through its expansion as a global online fashion retailer, and he currently chairs Trainline plc, the UK-listed online rail and coach platform. Chairing digital-first companies at public-market scale is a narrow skill, and his track record in it is unusually deep. His governance reach runs well beyond any single company. He served as President of the CBI from 2022 to 2024, a period that included the most serious institutional crisis in the organisation’s recent history, and as Lead Non-Executive Director on the UK Ministry of Defence Board from 2020 to 2025. He is now an Independent non-Executive on KPMG UK’s Public Interest Committee and a senior adviser at Scottish Equity Partners. Earlier in his career he ran Dell’s UK and Northern Europe business and was Managing Director of T-Mobile UK, where he led the UK launch of 3G. Glasgow University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2024 for services to business and philanthropy, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh elected him a Fellow in 2025. Key speaking topics Digital business leadership at scale E-commerce strategy and platform competition Board governance in listed digital companies Transformation inside traditional businesses Public and private sector leadership The UK business and policy environment Ideal for Chairs, CEOs and board directors of listed companies facing digital-era competition Executive teams inside traditional businesses running a transformation programme Senior leaders in public sector and government-adjacent institutions working with private sector partners CBI-level industry bodies, banks, professional services firms and large retailers Audience outcomes A working view of how a pure-play digital business actually makes decisions, from someone who ran one A sharper sense of what effective board governance looks like when the business model is still changing A clearer read on where leadership styles break down in the shift from traditional to digital-native operating models A grounded perspective on the UK business environment from a former CBI President Practical reference points from Amazon, ASOS and Trainline rather than abstract case studies