Geschäftsstrategie & Wachstum speakers

Why organisations work with Daniel Burrus He offers a named, tested method for distinguishing Hard Trends (future certainties) from Soft Trends (future possibilities), giving executive teams a shared vocabulary for strategic bets. The Anticipatory Organization model has been implemented inside the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider, Deloitte, Lockheed Martin and IBM, so the framework has been stress-tested inside institutions where the cost of being wrong is high. He has tracked exponential technology shifts since the early 1980s, which means his AI commentary is grounded in four decades of pattern recognition rather than recent opinion. He sits inside the NSA CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, a credential held by fewer than 300 speakers worldwide, which is a meaningful signal of platform craft alongside the intellectual content. Seven books with two New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers give buyers a body of work to pre-read and align their teams around before the engagement. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Burrus Research Associates, operating since 1983. Author of seven books including Flash Foresight (New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller) and The Anticipatory Organization. Inductee, National Speakers Association CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame. Founding member of the Department of Defense Joint Services Futures Group. Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Wired and Huffington Post; LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 1.2 million followers. Creator of the Hard Trend Methodology, adopted inside Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, IBM and the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider. Biography Strategy teams spend most of their planning time on things that might happen. The harder question is which parts of the future are already fixed. The Hard Trend Methodology, developed by Daniel Burrus over more than thirty years of research at Burrus Research Associates, is built to answer that question in a way executive teams can actually use. The method separates Hard Trends, which are projections grounded in measurable demographic, technological and regulatory change, from Soft Trends, which are projections that look solid but can be influenced. Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, IBM and the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider have applied the framework to reshape how they forecast and plan. The Anticipatory Organization, his 2017 book, is the public statement of that model and was an Amazon number one new business release. Burrus started tracking exponential technology shifts in the early 1980s, long before AI became a boardroom topic. That long arc gives his current work on artificial intelligence, automation and digital transformation a pattern-recognition quality that newer commentators cannot match. Flash Foresight, his 2011 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, set out the underlying cognitive approach for senior leaders working without a futures team. His platform credentials match the intellectual ones. He is a CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame inductee, a LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 1.2 million followers, and a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Wired and Huffington Post. He is a founding member of the Department of Defense Joint Services Futures Group, which is how a serious foresight practitioner signals that the work has been tested in environments where the cost of strategic surprise is highest. Key speaking topics Hard Trend Methodology and Anticipatory Organization Artificial intelligence strategy for senior leaders Disruptive innovation and exponential technology Digital transformation Strategic foresight and long-horizon planning Future of business and technology-driven growth Competitive advantage through anticipation Ideal for CEOs, COOs and strategy leaders running multi-year planning cycles under accelerating technology change Board directors and executive committees assessing AI and technology bets Transformation and innovation leads inside regulated or capital-intensive industries Government and defence leadership teams building foresight capability Audience outcomes A working distinction between Hard Trends and Soft Trends they can apply to their own strategic bets A shared vocabulary for anticipating disruption before it lands, rather than reacting after it does A concrete read on the exponential technologies most likely to reshape their industry in the next planning cycle A clearer view of where AI investment produces durable competitive advantage and where it produces noise Practical moves for shifting an organisation from reactive to anticipatory posture

Why organisations work with Daniel Chappell A first-hand account of raising significant early-stage capital with no trading history, which is the situation most internal innovation teams quietly find themselves in when pitching new ventures to their own boards. A working operator’s view of UNTIL, a business that pairs physical premises in Soho, Liverpool Street and Marylebone with a digital membership model. Useful for any leadership team thinking about hybrid product-and-place propositions. An unusually honest voice on neurodiversity from a founder who runs a company while managing dyslexia and dyspraxia, rather than a clinical or HR-led perspective. A high-performance sports background that translates the language of marginal gains, recovery, and team standards into the running of a commercial business, without leaning on tired sporting metaphor. Biography highlights Co-founder of UNTIL, a members business for freelance health, wellness and medical practitioners operating from three central London sites. UNTIL counts Steven Bartlett among its investors and co-founders, following a high-profile early funding round. MSc in Strength and Conditioning, Cardiff Metropolitan University. BSc in Sports and Exercise Science, St Mary’s University, Twickenham. Over a decade working inside high-performance sporting environments before launching his own ventures. Speaks publicly about dyslexia and dyspraxia, and treats neurodiversity as part of his founder identity, not a sidebar. Biography Service industries built on individual practitioners tend to share the same problem. The talent is excellent and the business model is fragile. UNTIL, the London business Daniel Chappell co-founded, was built around that gap: a members club and workspace that lets freelance health, wellness and medical professionals operate from premium premises in Soho, Liverpool Street and Marylebone without carrying the cost of their own. The route in matters. More than a decade inside high-performance sport gave Daniel an instinct for how elite practitioners work, what they need around them, and where their time is wasted. An MSc in Strength and Conditioning from Cardiff Metropolitan University and a BSc in Sports and Exercise Science from St Mary’s University, Twickenham sit behind that view. The transition from working with athletes to building a company for the people who work with athletes is the spine of the story. UNTIL has since attracted Steven Bartlett as an investor and co-founder, and has built a community of more than 300 practitioners across more than 40 disciplines. For a buyer, the value of the talk is not the milestone list. It is what the talk reveals about persuading investors with no trading history, building a founding team that can scale, and running a young company in public. Daniel is also open about managing dyslexia and dyspraxia as a founder, and speaks to neurodiversity from the inside of a working business. That perspective is useful in any leadership conversation about how organisations actually get the best out of people whose minds are wired differently from the average hire. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and founding-team dynamics Early-stage fundraising and investor relationships Building a business in the health and wellness sector High performance applied to commercial environments Neurodiversity in leadership and at work Team culture in young companies Resilience and personal performance for founders Ideal for Leadership offsites for scale-ups and founder-led businesses Corporate innovation, ventures and intrapreneurship teams HR and people leaders building practical neurodiversity programmes Wellbeing, benefits and employee-experience conferences Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what early-stage investors actually respond to when there is no trading history to point at. A practical framing of how a young founding team divides work, makes decisions, and survives the first eighteen months. A working model for treating neurodiversity as a commercial asset inside a team, with examples from a live business. Language for translating high-performance habits into a corporate or scale-up context without resorting to sports cliché.

Why organisations work with Daniel Ek Ek’s solution to the music industry’s piracy crisis was structural, not technical: he gave the major labels equity in Spotify, turning potential vetoes into aligned interests. That approach to neutralising incumbent opposition through deal design is directly applicable to any organisation entering a two-sided or multi-sided market. Spotify’s 2018 NYSE listing was conducted as a Direct Public Offering rather than a traditional IPO – a deliberate challenge to standard investment banking practice that gave existing shareholders more direct liquidity and attracted sustained attention from boards and capital markets executives examining alternatives to conventional listing structures. His perspective on scaling is grounded in nearly two decades of building a single global platform from startup to €1.4 billion operating profit – not advisory work, not a theoretical framework, but a continuous operational record in one of the most contested commercial markets of the past twenty years. Via Prima Materia, Neko Health, and Helsing, Ek is an active participant in how AI is being deployed in sectors – preventative health and defense – where error tolerance is low and the design and governance challenges are substantially different from consumer technology. That gives him a perspective on high-stakes AI implementation that most platform founders do not have. He built Spotify from Stockholm into a company that outcompeted Apple, Amazon, and Google in its core market – making him a directly relevant voice for European and non-US organisations arguing that global technology leadership does not require a Silicon Valley address. Biography highlights Co-founded Spotify with Martin Lorentzon in Stockholm in 2006; platform launched October 2008 across eight European markets including the UK, Germany, and France Served as Spotify CEO for nearly two decades; transitioned to Executive Chairman in January 2026 with co-CEOs reporting to him on long-term strategy and capital allocation Oversaw Spotify’s growth to over 600 million monthly active users and its first full year of operating profit (€1.4 billion) in 2024 Led Spotify’s unconventional NYSE listing via Direct Public Offering in April 2018, bypassing traditional IPO underwriting Named most powerful person in the music industry by Billboard in 2017 Co-founded Neko Health (2018), an AI-driven preventative health scanning company with clinics in Stockholm and London; raised $260 million Series B Founder of Prima Materia (2021), pledging €1 billion in European technology; Chairman of Helsing, a defense AI company valued at €12 billion after Prima Materia led a €600 million funding round in 2025 Early career included CTO at Stardoll, senior technology leadership at Tradera (acquired by eBay), and founding of Advertigo (acquired by TradeDoubler); briefly served as CEO of µTorrent Biography The music industry spent the early 2000s in litigation – chasing peer-to-peer platforms through courts as recorded revenues fell. Daniel Ek’s diagnosis was different: piracy persisted because no legal alternative was good enough to justify paying for it. His answer was Spotify, co-founded with Martin Lorentzon in Stockholm in 2006 and launched across European markets in 2008. Building the platform required resolving a structural problem that most technology founders prefer to avoid: persuading the rights-holders whose content made the platform valuable to participate in their own disruption. Ek structured licensing deals that gave the major labels equity in Spotify, turning potential opponents into financially aligned stakeholders. That decision – contested at the time by both sides of the music industry – was central to Spotify’s ability to secure the agreements it needed to grow. By 2024, the platform had reached 600 million monthly active users and recorded its first full year of operating profit at €1.4 billion. Ek’s approach to public markets was equally unconventional. Rather than a traditional IPO, Spotify listed on the NYSE in April 2018 via a Direct Public Offering, giving existing shareholders more direct access to liquidity and bypassing standard underwriting practice. The move drew sustained attention from boards and capital markets practitioners examining what governance and ownership alternatives actually look like in practice. Since transitioning to Executive Chairman of Spotify in January 2026, Ek has directed his investment vehicle Prima Materia toward a €1 billion commitment to European technology companies. His portfolio includes Neko Health, an AI-powered preventative health company operating clinics in Stockholm and London, and Helsing, a defense AI firm valued at €12 billion after Prima Materia led a €600 million funding round in 2025. Across these ventures, his perspective spans platform economics, AI deployment in high-stakes sectors, and the structural argument that building globally competitive technology companies outside Silicon Valley is achievable – and worth investing in deliberately. Key speaking topics Platform business model design and subscription economics Scaling consumer technology companies at global scale Digital disruption and incumbent stakeholder management AI applications in audio, health, and defense technology Unconventional paths to public markets and capital structure European technology ecosystems and tech sovereignty Leadership transitions in founder-led organisations Ideal for CEOs and founders navigating platform entry or subscription model transformation Boards and executive teams examining capital markets strategy and unconventional listing structures Technology and media executives managing rights, licensing, and platform dependency relationships Chief Strategy Officers and investment leads exploring European deep tech and AI deployment in high-stakes sectors Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how to convert incumbent opposition into platform participation through deal structure – applicable to any organisation entering a two-sided market Practical understanding of what subscription model scaling actually requires: licensing logic, pricing architecture, and the sequencing of market entry across international territories Direct insight into Spotify’s Direct Public Offering – what it was designed to achieve, what it required from the board, and what it means for organisations rethinking conventional listing assumptions A cross-sector perspective on AI deployment in sectors where the consequences of failure are material – health diagnostics, defense technology, and audio personalisation at scale Grounded perspective on building technology businesses in Europe: the structural conditions, the competitive realities, and the case for investing in European tech sovereignty as a deliberate strategy rather than a default

Why organisations work with Daniel Gros Direct lineage to the euro’s creation. As Economic Adviser to the Delors Committee, he worked on the blueprint that became Europe’s monetary union, and still publishes on its unfinished architecture. Two decades steering CEPS, Europe’s leading independent economic policy think tank, give him a working map of Brussels, Frankfurt, and national capitals that few outside economists can match. Current director of the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, with live research output on EU competitiveness, defense financing, and the middle-technology trap. Adviser to the European Parliament and former member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board, with standing counsel histories to governments in Greece, the UK, and the US. A syndicated Project Syndicate columnist whose positions often move ahead of consensus, useful for boards trying to separate durable shifts from noise. Biography highlights Director, Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University. Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), 2000 to 2020. Economic Adviser to the Delors Committee, European Commission, on the design of the euro. Former economist at the International Monetary Fund. Adviser to the European Parliament; former member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board. Co-author of European Monetary Integration (with Niels Thygesen) and Open Issues in European Central Banking (with Lorenzo Bini Smaghi); syndicated columnist for Project Syndicate. Biography The euro was designed in the late 1980s inside a committee chaired by Jacques Delors. Daniel Gros was the economic adviser on that committee, one of the technical authors of a currency now used by more than 340 million people. That origin shapes how he reads every European crisis since. For twenty years he ran the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, the think tank most closely wired into EU institutions. Under his direction CEPS became a first reference for finance ministries, central banks, and the European Parliament on questions of monetary union, enlargement, and financial stability. He now directs the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, where his research agenda has moved to EU competitiveness, defense financing, Chinese industrial policy, and what he calls the middle-technology trap. His authority rests on two things working together. The first is technical depth: a University of Chicago PhD, a career inside the IMF and European Commission, co-authorship of the standard textbook on European monetary integration. The second is access. He advises the European Parliament, has counselled governments in Greece, the UK, and the US, and sat on the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board. What he gives a senior audience is the ability to distinguish structural change from cyclical noise in the European economy. His Project Syndicate columns often take positions ahead of the Brussels consensus, which is the useful test of whether a commentator is describing reality or repeating it. Key speaking topics Eurozone economic policy and monetary union EU competitiveness and industrial strategy European defense financing and fiscal capacity Geopolitical economic risk and EU-China relations The international role of the euro European banking, financial stability, and capital markets EU enlargement and the political economy of integration Ideal for Boards and executive committees of European financial institutions, asset managers, and insurers pricing eurozone and sovereign risk. CEOs, CFOs, and strategy leads at multinationals reassessing European market exposure against US and Chinese policy shifts. Government relations, policy, and public affairs leaders tracking Brussels and Frankfurt decisions that affect capital allocation. Investor conferences and economic outlook events briefing senior audiences on EU macro conditions. Audience outcomes A sharper read on where the eurozone’s architecture is still fragile and where it is more resilient than headlines suggest. A working view of the EU competitiveness agenda, including industrial policy, defense spending, and the middle-technology trap. Clarity on how European responses to Chinese industrial policy and US tariff shifts will reshape capital flows and trade. A named set of indicators and policy triggers to watch over the next 12 to 24 months. Answers calibrated to senior decision-makers, drawing on direct experience advising parliaments, central banks, and governments.

Why organisations work with Daniel Thorniley He has spent more than three decades inside the operational reality of CEEMEA business, first as Senior Vice President at The Economist Group in Vienna for 23 years, now as President of DT-Global Business Consulting. The intelligence is primary, not secondary. Through DT-Global and the CEEMEA Business Group, he convenes a standing network of country managers and regional executives from multinationals across the region, which means briefings are grounded in what operators are actually seeing. He translates political and macroeconomic shifts into commercial decisions: pricing, distribution, partnerships, headcount, capex. Regional MDs can use the output the week they hear it. Oxford-trained in Soviet political economy with a doctorate, and co-author of “Emerging Markets: Lessons for Business Success” (Profile Books, The Economist series), so the regional judgement is backed by published work and academic credentials, not just consultancy experience. Non-executive member of the Global Advisory Board of AECOM, with long-standing advisory relationships across major European and US corporations. He is used to speaking in the idiom of the board. Biography highlights Oxford University: BA, diploma and doctorate in Soviet political economy. Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant, The Economist Group, Vienna office, for 23 years. Founder and President, DT-Global Business Consulting GmbH, Vienna. Co-founder, CEEMEA Business Group, an advisory network for regional executives operating across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Co-author, “Emerging Markets: Lessons for Business Success and the Outlook for Different Markets” (Profile Books / The Economist, 2004) with Nenad Pacek; author of a Palgrave Macmillan study on Soviet rural political economy. Member, Global Advisory Board, AECOM. Has briefed audiences including NATO, the United Nations, and corporate clients such as Coca-Cola, Procter and Gamble, Ernst and Young, Robert Bosch and Raiffeisen. Biography CEEMEA markets do not reward general-purpose economic commentary. A multinational running operations across Poland, Turkey, the Gulf, South Africa and, until recently, Russia needs someone who can say what the next two quarters look like in each of those environments and what to do about it. That is the gap Thorniley has built his career around. For 23 years he was Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant at The Economist Group in Vienna, covering global corporate trends and emerging markets. When the Vienna office closed in 2008, he founded DT-Global Business Consulting and co-founded the CEEMEA Business Group. Both serve the same buyer: a regional executive or board member who needs primary-source intelligence on CEE, CIS and MEA, not a repackaged macro report. The distinctive asset is the network. DT-Global and CEEMEA Business Group convene country managers and senior executives from multinationals with a regional presence, which means the analysis he delivers is built on what operators are seeing in their own P&Ls. That shows up in how the briefings are pitched, with specific guidance on pricing, distribution, staffing and capital allocation rather than high-altitude commentary. The academic foundation matters because the region rewards it. His Oxford doctorate in Soviet political economy and his Palgrave Macmillan monograph sit behind three decades of reading Russia and its neighbours; his co-authored Profile Books volume on emerging markets, written with Nenad Pacek under The Economist imprint, distilled the operational playbook for multinationals entering frontier economies. Sir John Major has publicly called him the world’s leading business expert on emerging markets. Key speaking topics CEEMEA economic and political outlook Russia, CIS and Central Asia business environment Central and Eastern Europe corporate strategy Middle East and Africa market entry and growth Global emerging markets risk and opportunity Multinational operating models in frontier economies Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material CEEMEA exposure Regional presidents, country managers and EMEA leadership teams Corporate strategy, risk intelligence and government affairs functions Annual leadership offsites and investor or partner conferences focused on emerging markets Audience outcomes A clear read on where CEE, CIS and MEA economies are heading in the next two to four quarters A practical view on how political risk is translating into pricing, distribution and hiring decisions on the ground Specific guidance on which markets in the region to lean into, which to hold, and which to reassess A framework for stress-testing corporate assumptions about Russia, Turkey, the Gulf and Sub-Saharan Africa Candid answers on how peer multinationals are adjusting their regional operating models

Why organisations work with Danilo McGarry He has run AI inside two of the largest regulated enterprises on the planet. Buyers get an operator who has defended budgets, cleared risk committees and shipped at scale, not a consultant describing other people’s work. His track record is tied to outcomes in the numbers. His work at Alter Domus is associated with a period of significant valuation growth, and his engagements are framed around measurable cost, revenue and risk impact rather than adoption metrics. He sits at the board-level interface of AI. He teaches on the Financial Times Board Directors Programme and advises the CIPD on AI, which means the language he uses lands with directors, not just technologists. He explains complex AI choices in terms non-technical leaders can act on. That is what earns him repeat invitations from banks, insurers, health systems and consultancies where the decision rests with a chief executive or a chair. Biography highlights Former Head of AI at Citigroup, leading enterprise AI and automation inside one of the world’s largest banks. Former Head of AI at UnitedHealth Group, operator of one of the largest software-robot estates in any healthcare business. Former Global Head of AI and Automation at Alter Domus, the fund services group, from December 2019. Strategic adviser on artificial intelligence to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Faculty contributor to the Financial Times Board Directors Programme. Host of the “It’s All About AI” podcast; TEDx speaker; ranked on Thinkers360 and Onalytica lists of leading AI voices. Biography The hard part of enterprise AI is not the model. It is the decision to commit, the governance to contain the risk, and the operational grip to turn a working pilot into a line on the P&L. Danilo McGarry has spent his career on the inside of that problem. At Citigroup he led artificial intelligence and machine learning, launching automation and AI initiatives across capital markets operations. He then became a senior AI leader at UnitedHealth Group, where his remit included a programme of roughly 3,500 software “digital workers” embedded in one of the largest healthcare businesses in the United States. As Global Head of AI and Automation at Alter Domus from 2019, he built an AI and automation function inside a fund services firm through a period of significant growth. Earlier roles at JPMorgan and Royal Bank of Canada gave him the grounding in regulated operations that now sits under everything he says on stage. That operator track record is why boards listen. He is a faculty contributor to the Financial Times Board Directors Programme and strategic adviser on AI to the CIPD, which puts him in front of chairs, chief executives and people leaders making the governance calls. He is cited and quoted in outlets including the Financial Times, The Times, Bloomberg, Forbes and WIRED, and ranks on Thinkers360 and Onalytica lists of leading voices in AI and intelligent automation. His argument on stage is practical. Treat AI as an operating-model question, not a tooling question. Pick the handful of processes where the economics are real, industrialise them, and build the governance that lets the next wave scale without fresh permission every time. It is a message that lands with leadership teams who are tired of pilot decks and want to know what to do on Monday. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy AI operating models and governance Intelligent automation at scale AI in financial services and healthcare Board-level AI literacy Digital workers and the future of operations Responsible AI adoption Ideal for Boards and chief executives setting enterprise AI policy and investment envelopes. CIOs, CDOs and heads of transformation running AI and automation portfolios. CHROs and people leaders rethinking workforce design around AI and digital workers. Regulated-sector leadership teams in banking, insurance, asset servicing and healthcare. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI actually moves the numbers inside their own operating model. A working vocabulary for the governance, risk and workforce questions AI creates at board level. Concrete reference points from AI deployments inside Citigroup, UnitedHealth Group and Alter Domus. A sharper read on which AI investments industrialise and which stay trapped as pilots. Confidence to set the next twelve months of AI priorities with fewer, better bets.

Why organisations work with Danny Rensch Inside view of a bootstrapped consumer platform that reached a billion-dollar valuation with no venture capital, told by the operator who built its content, events and media strategy from the inside. Direct authorship of Chess.com’s signature commercial properties, including the Speed Chess Championship, the PRO Chess League, Titled Tuesday, and the PogChamps streamer events that opened chess to a non-chess audience. A working framework for using a 1,500-year-old game as a commercial asset: turning a niche pastime into a streaming category, an esports format, and a content engine for 40 million monthly users. Memoir-grade material on resilience and self-leadership grounded in a specific, publicly documented personal history, published by Hachette in 2025 and endorsed by Jeannette Walls and Ben Mezrich. Biography highlights Co-founder and Chief Chess Officer, Chess.com, the platform with over 225 million registered members and roughly 40 million monthly active users. International Master (FIDE) and former Arizona youngest National Master (1999); 1998 Elementary National Champion, 2000 Junior High National Champion, 2004 National High School Co-Champion. Author of Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life (Hachette Book Group, 2025), reviewed by Kirkus as “A winning memoir” with endorsements from Jeannette Walls and Ben Mezrich. Created and hosted the 2016 $40,000 GM Blitz Battle Championship featuring Magnus Carlsen, the format that became the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship. Hosted PogChamps, the streamer chess tournament credited with bringing chess to mainstream Twitch and YouTube audiences during 2020. Speaker at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference; profiled by Fortune in 2025 on the Chess.com growth story. Biography Chess.com is one of the few consumer platforms of its scale that never took venture capital. Over fifteen years, the company grew from a small bootstrapped operation into a service with more than 225 million registered members, around 40 million monthly active users, and a valuation above one billion dollars by 2023. Danny Rensch co-founded the company in 2009 and built its content, events and media operations. The competitive layer of the business is his work. He created and hosted the 2016 $40,000 GM Blitz Battle Championship featuring Magnus Carlsen, the format that grew into the Speed Chess Championship. He hosted the first PogChamps in 2020, the streamer tournament that pulled a non-chess audience onto the platform and re-cast a 1,500-year-old game as a streaming category. The PRO Chess League and Titled Tuesday sit in the same portfolio. Before the company, there was a player. Rensch is a FIDE International Master and a former scholastic champion: Elementary National Champion in 1998, Arizona’s youngest National Master in 1999, Junior High National Champion in 2000, and National High School Co-Champion in 2004, the year he earned his first IM norm. His memoir, Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life, was published by Hachette in 2025 and describes a childhood inside the Church of Immortal Consciousness, an Arizona cult, and chess as the route out. Kirkus called it “A winning memoir.” The commercial argument and the personal argument reinforce each other. A board considering how a niche product becomes a global consumer category, or a leadership team studying the discipline required to operate without external capital for fifteen years, will find specific operating material in the Chess.com story. A management audience working on resilience and decision-making under pressure has, in the same speaker, a primary source. Key speaking topics Bootstrapped consumer platform growth Building category-defining digital products Content, community and commercial events strategy Lessons from chess for business strategy and decision-making Resilience and self-leadership through adversity Streaming, esports and the modernisation of legacy categories Ideal for CEOs and founders of consumer platforms, marketplaces and subscription businesses CMOs, CCOs and heads of content building community-led growth Boards and leadership teams of bootstrapped or founder-led companies Conferences on entrepreneurship, scale-up leadership, sports business and digital media Audience outcomes A concrete view of how a bootstrapped consumer platform compounds product, content and events decisions over fifteen years. Operating examples of turning a legacy category into a streaming-first business, drawn from the Speed Chess Championship and PogChamps. A working language for applying chess concepts (anticipation, calculated risk, pattern recognition) to commercial strategy without metaphor inflation. A grounded perspective on resilience, decision-making and personal recovery, sourced from a published memoir rather than generic motivational material.

Why organisations work with Dave Stewart Stewart’s credibility is operational, not academic. He has built multiple businesses across music, media, film, and technology – from Weapons of Mass Entertainment to The Hospital Club to RARE Entity – and can demonstrate from firsthand experience what the structural conditions for creative output actually look like at scale. No case study is borrowed. His book, The Business Playground (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with branding expert Mark Simmons and published in eight languages, provides a replicable methodology for applied creative thinking in business contexts. It draws on scientific research, structured exercises, and interviews with figures including Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen – with a foreword by Richard Branson. He has worked inside major corporations as a practitioner, not an outside voice: serving as Nokia’s «change agent» and as US creative director at The Law Firm. Clients including Nokia, Visa International, and Credit Suisse have drawn a direct line between exposure to his thinking and changes in how they approached innovation. His current venture, RARE Entity (launched January 2026), is a venture builder that shifts IP ownership and commercial control back to the creators who generate it. He is speaking to one of the most urgent tensions in business today – who owns creative output and who benefits from it – from the position of someone actively building companies to solve it. The credential combination is genuinely unusual: a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Award winner who has also built media ventures, co-authored a business book for a major publisher, scored West End and Broadway musicals, and spent four decades proving that the artist’s approach to making things is also the most commercially effective approach. Biography highlights Co-founder of Eurythmics with Annie Lennox; over 100 million album sales across a four-decade career Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee (2022); Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee (2020); UK Music Hall of Fame inductee (2005) Grammy Award winner; Golden Globe Award winner; four Ivor Novello Awards (Best Songwriter); four BRIT Awards (Best Producer), including a Lifetime Achievement Award Author of The Business Playground: Where Creativity and Commerce Collide (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with Mark Simmons, foreword by Richard Branson, published in eight languages Founder and chairman, Weapons of Mass Entertainment; co-founder, The Hospital Club, London, with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen Served as Nokia’s «change agent» and US creative director at The Law Firm; executive producer, NBC series Songland (2019) Co-founder, RARE Entity (2026) – a venture builder dedicated to returning IP ownership and commercial control to creators Biography For most organisations, creativity is somewhere between a priority and a problem. It is cited in strategy documents and killed in planning meetings. The organisations that get it right tend to have someone who understands it not as a mindset but as a structural challenge. Dave Stewart has spent 40 years being that person. As co-founder of Eurythmics with Annie Lennox, Stewart helped build one of the most commercially successful creative partnerships in music history – over 100 million album sales, a Grammy Award, a Golden Globe, and induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. The creative process that produced those results was not accidental. It was the product of specific conditions, specific constraints, and a specific willingness to go into the unknown. Stewart has spent the decades since making that process legible for organisations that want to replicate it. His book, The Business Playground (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with branding expert Mark Simmons, is the clearest articulation of his argument. Organisations that treat creativity as a personality trait will always struggle; those that build the right environment will consistently outperform. Published in eight languages, with a foreword by Richard Branson and interviews featuring Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, it remains a practical reference as much as a business book. His corporate work has included serving as Nokia’s «change agent» and as US creative director at The Law Firm. His most recent venture, RARE Entity (launched January 2026), is a venture builder that shifts IP ownership and commercial control back to the creators who generate it – the same argument he has been making for 40 years, now applied to one of the most contested challenges in the modern creator economy. Key speaking topics Creativity as a commercial capability Applied creative thinking in business Innovation culture and organisational conditions Entrepreneurship and venture building The creator economy and IP ownership Branding and cultural influence Technology, media disruption, and the future of creative industries Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and innovation leadership teams seeking to move beyond idea generation into repeatable creative output CMOs and marketing leadership working on brand distinctiveness, creative culture, and commercial differentiation Leadership teams at media, entertainment, and technology organisations navigating disruption to existing business models Entrepreneurship and growth strategy conferences; founder, scale-up, and creative industries audiences Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of why creativity fails as a corporate programme – and what structural conditions actually produce it Practical frameworks and exercises drawn from The Business Playground for running better creative processes, from problem framing to idea development A model for thinking about the relationship between creative ambition and commercial discipline – from someone who has built businesses where that relationship was the point A sharper view of the creator economy: who controls IP, what AI and platform concentration are doing to that landscape, and what organisations need to do now The ability to distinguish between organisations that talk about innovation and those that have built the conditions for it

Why organisations work with David Avrin He names, in operational detail, the specific behaviours and processes that cause customers to leave. His 24-reason framework in Why Customers Leave gives commercial and operations teams a working diagnostic, not a slogan. He separates customer service from customer experience and makes the distinction commercially useful. Service is what staff do; experience is what customers feel about the entire buying journey, including everything that happens before a human is involved. His content is built for revenue-facing teams: sales, marketing, customer success, frontline operations. It translates directly into process changes, not cultural aspirations. He has delivered keynotes for the commercial leadership of organisations including Toyota, Johnson & Johnson, and Fidelity Investments, and frames customer experience in the terms those rooms respond to: margin and retention. Forbes named Why Customers Leave one of its Top 10 Books of 2019. The book is published in six languages and is used as a reference text by CX teams internationally. Biography highlights Author of seven books, including Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With, The Morning Huddle, and Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back) Why Customers Leave named one of Forbes’ Top 10 Books of 2019, published in six languages Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) and Global Speaking Fellow, the two highest professional designations in the global speaking industry Recent keynote clients include Toyota, Johnson & Johnson, Hilton, Fidelity Investments, and RE/MAX, with two main-stage appearances at the Million Dollar Round Table Has delivered keynotes in 28 countries, including Singapore, Dubai, London, Mumbai, Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Melbourne, and Barcelona A 25-year body of work on customer experience and commercial differentiation in saturated markets Biography Most customer-facing organisations now compete in markets where the buyer has effectively unlimited substitutes a click away. The cost of being slightly harder to deal with than a competitor has changed. It used to be measured in complaints. Now it is measured in defection. David Avrin has spent twenty-five years working on the operational side of that problem. His seven books, including Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back), named one of Forbes’ Top 10 Books of 2019, and Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With, are practitioner texts. They name the specific points in a buying journey where customers disengage, and what commercial teams can do about each one. That commercial register comes from the rooms he works in. Avrin’s recent keynote clients include Toyota, Johnson & Johnson, Hilton, Fidelity Investments, and RE/MAX, and he has twice taken the main stage at the Million Dollar Round Table. He makes the case for customer experience in the language of margin and retention. He holds CSP and Global Speaking Fellow designations, the two senior credentials in the international speaking industry, and has delivered keynotes in 28 countries. The argument running through Avrin’s work is that service quality is now table stakes. The remaining differentiator is friction, every avoidable obstacle between a prospect’s intent and their purchase, and between a customer’s need and its resolution. Removing it is harder, slower, and more commercially valuable than most organisations recognise until they lose share. Key speaking topics Customer experience strategy Friction reduction in buying journeys Customer retention and defection Sales and revenue growth Customer service versus customer experience Ease and convenience as competitive advantage Ideal for Chief customer officers, CX directors, and customer success leaders rebuilding the post-sale experience CMOs and commercial directors under pressure to defend margin in saturated categories Sales, service, and frontline operations teams responsible for the moments where customers decide to stay or leave Franchise networks, retail organisations, and multi-site businesses needing consistency in customer experience across locations Audience outcomes A working diagnostic of where customers are silently leaving and why A clear separation between customer service and customer experience, and the commercial implications of each Specific friction points to remove in their own buying and service journeys A reframing of customer experience as a revenue and retention lever rather than a service-quality metric

Why organisations work with David Daokui Li His 2023 research found China’s local government debt to be 50% higher than IMF and World Bank estimates – using a new measurement methodology – making him one of the few analysts whose China numbers organisations have reason to trust over consensus figures He has attended high-level meetings with figures including Xi Jinping, giving him direct, first-person insight into how China’s senior leadership frames decisions – not inference from official statements His book «China’s World View» (W. W. Norton, 2024) frames Western misunderstanding of China as a systemic risk in itself – shifting the question from «what will China do?» to «why do we keep misreading it?» As a Harvard-trained economist who returned to lead China’s most prominent economic research centre, he can translate between two fundamentally different frameworks for economic reasoning – not just describe one to an audience fluent in the other His co-presidency of the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics alongside Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin signals that his analytical framework for understanding state-driven economies is taken seriously at the highest level of the discipline Biography highlights Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor of Economics and Director of ACCEPT, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management PhD in Economics, Harvard University; BS from Tsinghua University, 1985, as a member of the first graduating cohort of the School of Economics and Management Member, Monetary Policy Committee, People’s Bank of China (2016-2018); former external adviser to the International Monetary Fund; member, CPPCC (2008-2023) Founding Dean, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University Co-President, Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics (SAGE), alongside Eric Maskin, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics Author, «China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict» (W. W. Norton, 2024), endorsed by Lawrence Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Niall Ferguson, and Mark Leonard Regular contributor to Project Syndicate; cited in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, and New York Times; appears on CNBC and Bloomberg TV Named one of China’s 10 most influential economists by Wall Street Wire (2006) Biography China’s economy confounds Western observers not because it is opaque, but because it operates on a different logic – one shaped by two thousand years of Confucian governance philosophy, decades of directed industrial policy, and a political system with incentives that bear little resemblance to liberal democratic models. David Daokui Li is the Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor of Economics at Tsinghua University and Director of the Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking (ACCEPT). He holds a PhD from Harvard and was a member of the first graduating cohort from Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management in 1985. Li’s career has been built at the intersection of academic economics and active policy. He served on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China from 2016 to 2018, was a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference for fifteen years, and was an external adviser to the IMF. He has attended high-level government meetings with figures including Xi Jinping. The founding dean of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua, he also co-presides over the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics alongside Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin – a pairing that reflects where his intellectual ambition sits: building a rigorous framework for understanding economies in which the state is a primary actor. His 2023 research, conducted at ACCEPT with co-author Zhang He, concluded that China’s local government debt stood 50% higher than IMF and World Bank estimates – a finding that challenged the methodologies on which most international assessments of China’s fiscal position rely. His 2024 book, «China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict,» published by W. W. Norton, makes the case that Western strategic miscalculation on China stems not from a lack of information but from a failure to understand how China’s leadership thinks. The book was endorsed by Lawrence Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Niall Ferguson, and Mark Leonard. For organisations navigating decisions about China – whether on investment exposure, supply chain design, or geopolitical positioning – Li offers something genuinely rare: the analytical rigour of a Harvard-trained economist, direct access to China’s senior policy deliberations, and the ability to articulate what China’s government actually believes about its own economic model and its place in the world. Key speaking topics China’s economic strategy and the logic of state-directed capitalism US-China economic competition and the risks of strategic misreading China’s local government debt and systemic financial risk The internationalisation of the RMB and China’s role in global finance Geopolitical risk and its economic consequences for multinationals China’s governance model – history, incentives, and decision-making Global economic rebalancing and the future of multilateral institutions Ideal for Boards and C-suites of multinationals with significant China exposure or supply chain dependencies Chief Risk Officers and Chief Strategy Officers navigating US-China decoupling scenarios Investment committees and asset managers with emerging market or Asia-Pacific mandates Senior government and policy audiences working on trade, geopolitical risk, or international economic governance Audience outcomes A clearer model for how China’s senior leadership actually frames economic decisions – not derived from official statements alone A more accurate picture of China’s structural fiscal risks, including the scale and composition of local government debt A framework for distinguishing between China’s stated policy positions and the underlying strategic logic that drives them A calibrated view of where US-China economic tension is most likely to produce disruption, and where convergence remains possible Practical reference points for pressure-testing internal assumptions about China in investment, supply chain, and strategic planning contexts

Why organisations work with David Hughes Hughes reads the whole value chain – from farm inputs and life science companies through manufacturers, retailers and food service – and identifies the commercial implications of change at each stage, giving organisations a perspective they cannot assemble internally. His 1994 book «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» established the intellectual case for vertical supply chain collaboration – a thesis that remains central to competitive advantage in the sector today. He does not only analyse food businesses; he built one. As co-founder of a branded fresh produce company that he grew and sold into US supermarkets, and as a 20-year Non-Executive Director of Berry Gardens Ltd – the UK’s largest farmer-owned berry business – his commercial judgement is grounded in direct business experience. Organisations working in any geography get genuine cross-continental intelligence. Hughes works across Africa, Asia, Australasia, North and South America and Europe, making his read on consumer trends and retail dynamics global in scope rather than extrapolated from one market. As Honorary Nuffield Scholar and the inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at what is now Imperial College London, his academic standing gives food and agribusiness organisations a credible, research-grounded voice for external-facing events, policy engagements and board-level discussions. Biography highlights Emeritus Professor of Food Marketing, Imperial College London; inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at Wye College (now Imperial College London) from 1991 Visiting Professor, Royal Agricultural University, UK Ph.D. Food Marketing, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; M.Sc. Agricultural Marketing; B.Sc. (Hons.) Agricultural Economics Non-Executive Director, Berry Gardens Ltd – UK’s largest farmer-owned berry business – for 20 years; co-founder of a branded fresh produce business sold into US supermarket chains Author/editor: «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» (Wye College Press, 1994); published in British Food Journal, Supply Chain Management, and Business Ethics: A European Review Honorary Nuffield Scholar; keynote speaker at major food industry conferences across Africa, Asia, Australasia, the Americas and Europe, with named clients including Nestlé HQ (Switzerland) and William Reed Ltd (The Grocer) Biography Consumer preferences for health, sustainability and convenience are not moving in straight lines – and the food businesses that are best placed to respond are those that see how each shift propagates across the whole value chain, from the genetics company at one end to the food service operator at the other. David Hughes has spent more than fifty years building exactly that whole-chain, whole-world view, working with senior management in food and agribusiness on every continent. Hughes became the inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at Wye College in 1991, later Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London, where he established and directed the Food Industry Management Group. His 1994 edited volume «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» set out the commercial logic of vertical supply chain collaboration – an argument that has only become more relevant as retail power has concentrated and sustainability scrutiny has intensified. He is also Visiting Professor at the Royal Agricultural University and an Honorary Nuffield Scholar. What distinguishes Hughes from the academic analyst category is that he has operated commercially inside the industries he studies. He co-founded and sold a branded fresh produce business serving US supermarkets, and served as Non-Executive Director of Berry Gardens Ltd – Britain’s largest farmer-owned berry business – for two decades. That combination of institutional credibility and business experience is what makes his reads on market shifts actionable rather than observational. Known internationally as «Dr. Food,» Hughes speaks to boards, trade associations, producer groups and government bodies across Africa, Asia, Australasia, North and South America and Europe. His work is sector-wide – meat, dairy, fresh produce, packaged foods, food service and the input industries that serve them – and consistently oriented toward the commercial question: given what is shifting, what should an organisation do on Monday morning? Key speaking topics Global consumer food trends and retail dynamics Food and agribusiness commercial strategy Supply chain partnerships and vertical alliance models Sustainability, environment and the food industry Health, nutrition and food market development Fresh produce and grocery retail innovation Food entrepreneurship and business model change Ideal for C-suite and board-level audiences in food manufacturing, grocery retail, food service and agribusiness Trade associations and producer organisations seeking to brief members on market direction Government and policy bodies working on food security, trade and sustainability Financial services and investor audiences with food sector exposure Audience outcomes A clearer distinction between structural shifts in food consumer behaviour and short-term trends – and the commercial implications of each Understanding of how change in one part of the food value chain creates threats and opportunities in adjacent segments A cross-continental frame of reference for food market developments that is difficult to assemble from within a single geography or sector Practical direction on how food businesses can build the supply chain partnerships and consumer connections that underpin competitive advantage Greater confidence in communicating strategic rationale to boards, investors or government stakeholders on food industry direction

Why organisations work with David Mattin Trend-Driven Innovation (Wiley) gives the organisations Mattin works with a named, repeatable method for identifying which emerging trends will reshape customer expectations – built on the counter-intuitive argument that the best signal is not in what customers say they want but in what leading businesses are already doing. His central argument – that human needs are fundamentally stable across decades even as technology accelerates – transforms trend analysis from a speculative exercise into a discipline with clear criteria, and gives leaders a reliable filter for deciding which AI-driven changes will actually matter. As Technology Lead at Global Macro Investor, his analysis of emerging technology is read and acted on by institutional investors including hedge funds, pension funds, and family offices – which subjects his commercial judgements about which technology shifts matter to a level of scrutiny that most trend and foresight work never encounters. The 30,000-subscriber New World Same Humans community – spanning business leaders, academics, and policymakers – means his frameworks are continuously tested against the exact professionals organisations are trying to anticipate and influence. Biography highlights Co-author, Trend-Driven Innovation: Beat Accelerating Customer Expectations (Wiley) – a structured framework for turning emerging trends into innovation strategy Former Global Head of Trends and Insights, TrendWatching Member, World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Consumption Technology Lead, Global Macro Investor; co-founder of The Exponentialist research service with macro investor Raoul Pal Founder, New World Same Humans – weekly newsletter on trends and technology with 30,000+ subscribers across business, academia, and policy Opening keynote at the NEXT Conference (Accenture Song) on multiple occasions; over 150 keynotes across five continents and 40+ countries Writing published in The Times, Quartz, Wired, Fast Company, the Guardian, and Google Think Quarterly; documentary work for BBC Radio 4 Graduate, University of Cambridge; began career at the features desk of The Times Biography Most organisations study their own customers closely. David Mattin’s core argument, developed during a decade leading trends intelligence at TrendWatching, is that the more useful signal lies elsewhere – in the moves leading businesses and disruptive startups are making to redefine what those customers consider normal. That argument found its fullest expression in Trend-Driven Innovation (Wiley), which made a counter-intuitive case: to anticipate what customers will want next, stop looking at customers and start tracking the businesses already reshaping their expectations. The underlying framework rests on a philosophical claim that runs through all of his work: human needs are fundamentally stable across decades, even as technology accelerates. New trends emerge when a technology or business innovation unlocks a new way to serve a need that was always there. Track those needs, observe which innovations are serving them, and the expectation gaps that matter become visible before competitors act. His current work extends that discipline into the era of AI. At Global Macro Investor, one of the world’s leading independent research services for institutional allocators, he serves as Technology Lead; he co-founded The Exponentialist alongside macro investor Raoul Pal. That institutional context means his analysis of emerging technology is regularly tested against the demands of hedge funds, pension funds, and family offices – not just conference audiences. The NEXT Conference (Accenture Song) has invited him to open the event on multiple occasions; he has delivered over 150 keynotes across five continents for clients including Meta, McKinsey, Google, Mastercard, Unilever, and Audi. His writing has appeared in The Times, Quartz, Wired, and Google Think Quarterly, and he has produced documentary work for BBC Radio 4. He read at Cambridge and began his career at the features desk of The Times. Key speaking topics AI and emerging technology strategy Consumer trends and expectation gap analysis Innovation strategy in a technology-driven market Scenario planning and strategic foresight Brand strategy and organisational culture in a transparent world The future of business and society in an era of exponential technology change Ideal for Strategy and innovation leadership teams evaluating medium-to-long-term technology bets CMOs and heads of customer experience navigating AI-driven shifts in consumer behaviour Boards and senior executive teams requiring a disciplined framework for separating technology signal from noise Investment professionals and corporate allocators seeking technology intelligence with commercial rigour Audience outcomes A named, replicable framework for identifying which emerging trends are likely to reshape customer expectations before competitors recognise them Clearer criteria for distinguishing technology-driven shifts that will prove durable from those that will not Industry-specific examples of how leading businesses have used expectation gap analysis to create competitive advantage A working understanding of how AI is changing the landscape of customer expectations – and which human needs remain stable enough to anchor innovation decisions A conceptual map of the technology convergences most likely to generate new commercial opportunities over the next five to ten years