Künstliche Intelligenz & Generative KI speakers

Why organisations work with Manuel Maqueda He teaches the working mechanics of circular and regenerative economics at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, and built the equivalent programmes at UC Berkeley Extension and UCLA Extension. The intellectual content has been tested on senior professional audiences for years. He co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition and runs SUPER, a certification programme that operationalises single-use plastics elimination inside real businesses. The advice is operator-grade, not lecture-grade. He bridges sustainability and AI through Viento.ai, applying machine learning to climate disaster response. Boards facing both decarbonisation and AI agendas get one voice across both. His client list includes Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell, Uber, Santander and the New Plastics Economy Conference. He is fluent across deep-tech, financial services and policy audiences. He delivers in English and Spanish, useful for Iberian, Latin American and Pan-American programmes where most sustainability authorities are anglophone only. Biography highlights Special Program Instructor, Applied Circular Economics and Regenerative Economics, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education. Architect of the Circular Economy Program at UCLA Extension and the Circular Economy online course at UC Berkeley Extension. Co-founder, Plastic Pollution Coalition; CEO and co-founder, SUPER (Single-Use Plastics Elimination or Reduction). Co-founder, Viento.ai, applying machine learning to climate disaster response. Adviser to the Long Now Foundation; producer associated with the award-winning documentary Albatross on plastic pollution. Author of the forthcoming book The Meaning Economy on regenerative economics; speaking clients include Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell, Uber and Santander. Biography Most sustainability programmes inside large companies are still organised around doing less harm. They count carbon, swap materials, and add disclosures, while the core business model continues to extract, consume and discard. The leaders running them know the gap, and they are looking for a credible account of what an actual circular or regenerative business looks like. That account is the working content of Manuel Maqueda’s teaching at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, where he is Special Program Instructor in Applied Circular Economics and Regenerative Economics. He built the equivalent programmes at UCLA Extension and UC Berkeley Extension. The frame he uses is practical: maintain the value of materials, components and products in use; eliminate waste and pollution by design; and where possible restore natural capital rather than only protecting it. His authority is not only academic. He co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance on plastics, and runs SUPER, a tiered certification programme for businesses eliminating single-use plastics from their operations. Through Viento.ai he co-founded a venture applying machine learning to climate disaster response, which gives him a working view of where AI helps and where it does not in the climate agenda. Maqueda has advised the Long Now Foundation, contributed to the documentary Albatross, and speaks for clients including Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell and the New Plastics Economy Conference. His forthcoming book The Meaning Economy sets out his case that only regenerative thinking provides a serious framework for the next phase of climate action and commercial reinvention. Key speaking topics Circular economy strategy and implementation Regenerative economics and business models Plastic pollution and materials innovation Sustainability failure modes inside large organisations Supply chain redesign for circularity AI for climate resilience and disaster response Ideal for Boards and executive committees of consumer goods, retail, materials and industrial companies revisiting their sustainability strategy. Chief Sustainability Officers, Chief Supply Chain Officers and Chief Strategy Officers preparing the next ESG operating cycle. Innovation, R&D and product leaders responsible for materials choices and packaging redesign. Policy, public sector and city government audiences working on plastics, circularity and climate adaptation. Audience outcomes A working distinction between eco-efficiency, circular and regenerative business models, and where each one actually applies. The specific failure patterns that make corporate sustainability programmes stall, and what to do instead. A view of where AI changes the climate and resilience agenda for executives, and where it does not. Language and examples senior leaders can use with their board when proposing a more ambitious sustainability operating model.

Why organisations work with Manuel Muñiz Government office at the level where geopolitical strategy is actually written. As Spain’s Secretary of State for Global Spain, he coordinated the country’s foreign action strategy and its first national strategy on technology and global order. A scholarly frame for the technology and geopolitics intersection. His Oxford doctoral work and Brookings fellowship give boards a structured way to think about the US-China technology competition, AI, and the political economy of disruption. Institutional vantage point. As Provost of IE University and former Dean of IE’s School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs, he sits at the centre of one of Europe’s most connected platforms on global affairs. A specific argument about the social contract. His writing on populism, inequality, and the consequences of technological change gives leaders language for the political risks now landing inside their markets and workforces. Biography highlights Provost of IE University and Dean of IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs (SPEGA) Former Secretary of State for Global Spain at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution President of APSIA, the global association of professional schools of international affairs, 2023 to 2025 DPhil, International Relations, University of Oxford; MPA, Harvard Kennedy School Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, Spain (2024); David Rockefeller and Eisenhower Fellow Biography Spain’s first National Strategy on Technology and Global Order was coordinated by a vice minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs whose doctoral work at Oxford had already mapped the same terrain. Manuel Muñiz held that office from 2020 to 2021, and the strategy reflected a view he had been developing for a decade: technological change, inequality, and geopolitical fragmentation are one connected problem, not three. He now leads IE University as Provost, having previously built its School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs from a small programme into one of Europe’s most international platforms for public policy and international relations, with around 1,900 students and a faculty connected to government, multilateral institutions, and global firms. His scholarship and writing sit where most board agendas now sit: the US-China technology competition, the regulation of AI, the fracturing of the rules-based order, and the political consequences of an economy in which growth no longer reliably produces shared prosperity. Essays appear in Project Syndicate, El Pais, The Washington Post, and Le Monde. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. In 2023 he was elected President of APSIA, the international association of professional schools of international affairs, the first Spaniard to hold the role. In 2024 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, one of Spain’s senior civilian honours. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the new global order Technology, AI and great-power competition Strategic foresight for boards and governments The political economy of disruption and inequality Transatlantic relations and European security Economic diplomacy and the future of multilateralism Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to US-China competition, sanctions, or technology controls Government, foreign ministry, and multilateral audiences working on technology and global order Senior leaders in finance, energy, defence, and technology managing geopolitical risk Foundation, university, and policy convenings on democracy, populism, and the social contract Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where great-power competition is heading and what it means for capital allocation A framework for connecting technological change, inequality, and political instability inside one strategic picture A sharper sense of the policy and regulatory direction on AI, data, and critical technologies Vocabulary senior leaders can use with their own boards and governments on geopolitics and technology

Why organisations work with Marc Mekki He has built the kind of products he teaches about. Botsmith, his innovation lab, ships experimental tools using AI, AR/VR and cloud, so the method comes from practice, not theory. He teaches design thinking to consulting and corporate audiences at PwC Academy, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership and LEORON, where the bar for substance is set by professional services standards. He works fluently across China, Europe and the Middle East after twenty years of operating in those markets, which is rare for an innovation speaker. His MIT Sloan certified design thinking grounding gives senior teams confidence that the frameworks have an institutional pedigree, not a TED-talk one. He frames AI as a human-centred product problem rather than a model selection problem, which is the conversation most boards now need. Biography highlights Co-founder of Botsmith, an innovation lab building experimental software using AI, AR/VR and cloud. MIT Sloan Certified Design Thinking practitioner. Associate Faculty in Innovation, Design Thinking and Leadership Thinking at LEORON Institute. Speaker and trainer for PwC, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership, Adobe, Bombardier, Amadeus, NEOM, Procter & Gamble and Dubai Association Conference. Contributor to Boardroom Magazine, Arabian Business and Association Meetings International. Twenty years of entrepreneurial work across China, Europe and the Middle East, currently based in the UAE. Biography Most enterprises have stopped debating whether AI matters. The harder question is whether their organisation can actually turn it into a product, a service or a customer experience that works. That is the territory Marc Mekki has been operating in for two decades, first as an entrepreneur in Southern China, then as the co-founder of Botsmith, an innovation lab building experimental tools using AI, AR/VR and cloud. Botsmith is the practitioner half of his work. The teaching half runs through PwC Academy, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership and LEORON Institute, where he holds an Associate Faculty role in Innovation, Design Thinking and Leadership Thinking. He is MIT Sloan certified in design thinking, and he uses the same methods he ships products with when he runs sessions for senior teams. The reason this matters to a buyer is straightforward. Innovation speakers tend to come from one of two places: consultancy decks or academic research. Marc comes from a builder’s seat. He has shipped, failed, iterated and shipped again, and he has done it across China, Europe and the GCC, where he is now based. The work he writes about in Boardroom Magazine, Arabian Business and Association Meetings International is the work he does week to week. His keynotes, including The Art of a Thousand Mistakes and Something Out of Nothing, sit on the same operating thesis: iterative product practice, lean experimentation and design discipline are how organisations move emerging technology from pilot to production. Clients booking him include Adobe, Bombardier, Amadeus, NEOM, Procter & Gamble and Dubai Association Conference. Key speaking topics Applied artificial intelligence in the enterprise Design thinking and human-centred product practice Lean innovation and experimentation Digital transformation Emerging technology, including AR/VR and cloud Agile leadership Future of technology Ideal for CIOs, CTOs and Chief Digital Officers moving AI from pilot to operating use Heads of Innovation, transformation leads and product directors building portfolio discipline Customer experience and design leaders embedding human-centred methods at scale Senior teams in financial services, hospitality, energy and consulting operating in EMEA and the GCC Audience outcomes A working definition of what design thinking actually requires inside an enterprise A clearer view of why AI pilots stall and what an operating-model fix looks like Concrete patterns from Botsmith and other build environments for moving from concept to shipped product A sharper sense of how to evaluate emerging technology bets without falling for hype Practical lean experimentation language usable by non-technical executives

Why organisations work with Marc Saltzman Three decades of daily working-journalist output across USA Today, AARP, Forbes Vetted, Reader’s Digest, Costco Connection and Yahoo, which means his read on what is real versus hype is grounded in actual product testing, not slide-deck futurism. Author of 17 books, including Wiley’s Siri, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro For Dummies titles, giving him a track record of translating frontier consumer tech into language a general audience can act on. Host of Tech It Out on 100+ U.S. radio stations via Radio America, plus Canada’s longest-running technology radio show, Tech Talk; broadcast craft that translates directly into keynote pacing for mixed audiences. Covers a working business stack in plain English: generative AI, cybersecurity, smart home and aging-in-place tech, retail and commerce, social media, automotive innovation, so a single booking can address multiple functions in the room. Regular on-camera commentator for CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX, CTV and Global, which means he is comfortable in front of a sceptical room and on stage with executives and media partners. Biography highlights Reporting on the technology sector since 1994 as journalist, author and broadcaster. Contributor to USA Today/Gannett (109 publications), AARP, Forbes Vetted, Reader’s Digest, Costco Connection, Yahoo, Toronto Star, Zoomer and Postmedia. Author of 17 books, including Siri For Dummies (Wiley, 2012), Apple Watch For Dummies (Wiley, 2015) and Apple Vision Pro For Dummies (Wiley, 2024). Host and producer of Tech It Out on 100+ U.S. stations via Radio America. Creator and host of Tech Talk, Canada’s longest-running technology radio show. On-air technology commentator for CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX, CTV, Global and CP24, with prior hosting credits on FOX Business and Bloomberg Television. Biography Most consumer technology coverage is written by people who do not actually use the products. Saltzman’s career is built on the opposite habit. Since 1994 he has reported on the technology sector as a working journalist, columnist and broadcaster, with a syndicated USA Today/Gannett column reaching 109 publications and regular bylines in AARP, Forbes Vetted, Reader’s Digest, Costco Connection, Yahoo and Postmedia titles. The output across formats is what makes the perspective useful to senior teams. He has written 17 books for general audiences, including Siri For Dummies, Apple Watch For Dummies and Apple Vision Pro For Dummies for Wiley, where the editorial constraint is to make a frontier consumer product usable by a non-technical reader on day one. That same constraint shapes his radio work: Tech It Out airs on 100+ U.S. stations through Radio America, and Tech Talk is Canada’s longest-running technology radio show. Television sharpens the discipline further. As a regular commentator on CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX, CTV, Global and CP24, with prior hosting credits on FOX Business and Bloomberg Television, he has spent years translating new categories, AI assistants, wearables, smart home, mixed reality, connected vehicles, into language a general audience can use within a four-minute segment. For organisations, the practical value is a single voice that can speak across consumer technology, generative AI, cybersecurity, retail and commerce, and the future of work, grounded in what products actually do today rather than what vendor decks claim they will do tomorrow. Key speaking topics Generative AI in everyday business and consumer life Cybersecurity and digital safety for organisations and customers The future of retail and commerce Smart home, wearables and connected devices Social media strategy for business Aging-in-place and consumer health technology Automotive and mobility innovation Emerging consumer technology trends Ideal for CMOs and customer experience leaders responding to AI, social and commerce shifts IT, security and risk leaders briefing non-technical executives and boards Retail, consumer goods and franchise leadership teams Conference programmers seeking a credible technology emcee, panel host or keynote across mixed audiences Audience outcomes A working filter for separating durable consumer technology shifts from short-lived hype A clearer view of how generative AI, cybersecurity threats and connected devices show up in customer behaviour Concrete examples of how retail, commerce and workplace tools are changing, drawn from current product testing Plain-English language that executives can repeat to staff, customers and boards without distortion Sharper questions to take back to vendors, agencies and internal technology teams

Why organisations work with Marcel Pesch He runs a structured AI executive education programme, MMAI, with practitioner faculty drawn from Deutsche Bahn, E.ON, Strategyzer, and academic and legal specialists. Few keynote speakers come with their own curriculum. His material covers the full operating stack: generative AI, data science, AI Act compliance, automation and agents, and leadership in the AI era. Audiences leave with a managerial map, not a tour of tools. He treats fairness, bias, and equality of opportunity as operating problems for organisations deploying AI, not as a separate ethics conversation. Fifteen years of coaching practice underpins the keynote register. Sessions translate into how managers behave on Monday, not just what they understood on Friday. Active member of the German AI Association (KI Bundesverband), with a stated engagement in AI standards and ethical guidelines. Biography highlights Founder of academy4.ai, an AI education and training organisation Designer of the MMAI (Master Management with AI) programme, a nine-module cohort-based course covering AI strategy, compliance, and deployment Faculty network on MMAI includes Prof. Dr. Johannes Stübinger (HS Coburg), Dr. Kristina Schreiber (LOSCHELDER), and practitioners from Deutsche Bahn, E.ON, and Strategyzer Member of the German AI Association (KI Bundesverband) Over 15 years of professional coaching experience with individuals and organisations Keynote topics include “AI on Steroids”, “AI & Diversity and Inclusion”, “AI & Inequality of Opportunity”, and “AI & the Workforce of Tomorrow” Biography Most companies have already bought into AI. The harder question is whether their managers can use it well: govern its decisions, interrogate its outputs, and redesign work around it. That is the gap Marcel Pesch built academy4.ai to close. Through the MMAI (Master Management with AI) programme, Pesch and his faculty take working professionals through nine modules covering generative AI, data science, AI Act compliance, marketing and sales applications, automation and agentic systems, sustainability, project management, and leadership in the AI era. Faculty draw on academic specialists, legal experts at LOSCHELDER, and practitioners from Deutsche Bahn, E.ON, and Strategyzer. Alongside the curriculum, Pesch speaks publicly on the harder political content of AI deployment: bias in algorithmic systems, equality of opportunity, and the way AI is reshaping who gets which jobs. He is a member of the German AI Association (KI Bundesverband), engaged in standards and ethical guidelines for the field. Fifteen years of coaching shape his keynote register. Sessions are designed to leave senior audiences with a managerial map of where AI changes their work, where it does not, and where the next governance and fairness decisions will sit. Key speaking topics AI literacy for managers and executives Operationalising AI beyond pilots AI Act and regulatory compliance for business leaders Bias and equality of opportunity in algorithmic systems Automation and agentic systems in the workplace The AI-era workforce and future skills Leading teams in AI-augmented organisations Ideal for C-suite teams and senior managers preparing to deploy AI across operations Heads of HR, transformation, and learning planning AI workforce upskilling Boards seeking a structured view of AI governance, compliance, and risk DEI and ethics leads working with technical teams on algorithmic fairness Audience outcomes A practical map of where AI changes managerial work and where it does not Sharper language for governing AI decisions, model outputs, and vendor claims A clearer view of bias and equality-of-opportunity questions in algorithmic systems A workable next step for AI literacy across leadership and team levels

Why organisations work with Marco Tempest He works inside the technology he talks about. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, MIT Media Lab and ETH Zurich Space are his day-to-day environments, not credentials borrowed for the stage. He treats perception as the strategic variable. Audiences leave with a sharper sense of how attention, framing and trust are engineered, which is the part of technology adoption most leadership conversations skip. His material is built with the tools clients want to understand: drones, robots, augmented reality, generative systems. The demonstration is the explanation. Seven TED talks and keynotes at SIGGRAPH, Davos, Cannes Lions and IBC give him a tested vocabulary for translating complex systems into language a board can act on. He has the rare standing to brief a NASA mission team in the morning and headline a Fortune 100 leadership offsite in the evening, and to make the same argument in both rooms. Biography highlights Director’s Fellow, MIT Media Lab. Creative Technologist and Consultant, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; NASA Honor Award recipient. Director, Pi Innovation Hub, ETH Zurich Space. Founder and Director, MagicLab, New York. Seven-time TED speaker; SIGGRAPH 2020 keynote. Merlin Award for Best Contemporary Magician (2010); World Magic Award for Best Contemporary Magic (2009); Mandrakes d’Or (1994); Special Fellowship, Academy of Magical Arts. Biography A drone swarm performing in formation looks like a technology demo until you watch how an audience reacts to it. The reaction is the product. That is the lens Tempest brings to every emerging technology conversation: not what the system can do, but what it does to the person watching. He holds the working credentials to make that argument seriously. He is a Director’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, a Creative Technologist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory with a NASA Honor Award for his contribution to COVID-19 ventilator work, and director of the Pi Innovation Hub at ETH Zurich’s Space division. He also runs MagicLab, a New York consortium that prototypes illusion and digital technology together. The performance work is the testing ground for the ideas. Seven TED talks and keynotes at SIGGRAPH, Davos, Cannes Lions and IBC have used robots, AR, drones and generative systems as live material, not slideware. The Merlin Award, World Magic Award and Mandrakes d’Or sit alongside the academic and engineering affiliations because the discipline is the same one: engineering perception with precision. For executive audiences, the value is specific. Tempest gives leadership teams a working model of how attention, trust and belief actually behave around new technology, drawn from the labs where that technology is being built. A board that has heard him is better equipped to ask the second-order questions about adoption, narrative and human response that strategy decks routinely miss. Key speaking topics Emerging technology and human perception Robotics, drones and autonomous systems Augmented and mixed reality Generative AI and creativity Innovation storytelling Space technology and exploration The psychology of attention and trust Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI, robotics or XR strategy CTO, CIO and chief innovation leaders shaping emerging-technology roadmaps Marketing and brand leadership rethinking customer attention in saturated channels Leadership offsites and innovation summits where the technology argument needs to land with non-technical executives Audience outcomes A working mental model for how attention and trust shift when new technology enters a customer relationship Specific examples, drawn from NASA JPL, MIT Media Lab and live performance, of how robots, drones, AR and generative systems behave in front of real audiences Sharper questions to put to internal technology and innovation teams about adoption and human response A reframing of innovation storytelling as a discipline with rules, not a soft skill

Why organisations work with Maria Santacaterina A published Wiley thesis (Adaptive Resilience) that gives boards a structured way to integrate AI and frontier technology without dismantling the human capability the enterprise still runs on. A formal AI ethics and risk role at ForHumanity, which means her view on governance is grounded in audit standards, not opinion. A humanities-and-international-relations frame that translates directly into how regulators, customers, and employees actually experience AI decisions, useful in rooms where the technology team cannot read the political weather. Recognised in Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in UK Tech longlist, with a profile across HBR-adjacent and AI research podcasts (MLST, Love & Philosophy) that signals credibility to technical audiences as well as commercial ones. Working language fluency in English, French, Italian, and Spanish, which matters for European boards running AI programmes across jurisdictions with diverging regulatory regimes. Biography highlights Author of Adaptive Resilience: How to Thrive in a Digital Era, Wiley, 2023. ForHumanity Fellow, Ethics and Risk, contributing to AI audit and governance standards. Founder and CEO of Santacaterina, a UK board advisory firm focused on strategic leadership and digital transformation. Named in Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in UK Tech longlist. Featured on Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) and Love & Philosophy on the human-AI relationship. M.A. in International Relations, with prior study in modern languages, philosophy, and political sociology. Biography AI deployment has run ahead of AI governance. Boards have signed off on programmes whose failure modes, regulatory exposure, and human consequences they would struggle to articulate under questioning. Santacaterina’s argument starts there: technology is a means, the operating model is the constraint, and human judgement is the asset most easily eroded in the rush to automate. Her book Adaptive Resilience: How to Thrive in a Digital Era (Wiley, 2023) sets out how to integrate frontier technology into the enterprise without hollowing out the people, ethics, and oversight that make it defensible. The argument draws on her humanities training, an M.A. in International Relations, and twenty-five years advising senior leaders through digital transformation programmes. That position is reinforced institutionally. As a ForHumanity Fellow in Ethics and Risk, she works on the audit standards that AI systems are now being assessed against. As founder and CEO of Santacaterina, she advises boards on strategy, transformation, and the governance posture that follows. Computer Weekly has named her among the most influential women in UK tech. What she brings into a room is the connection most AI conversations miss: between the technical decision, the governance frame, and the human cost of getting either wrong. She has been a featured voice on Machine Learning Street Talk, where the audience is technical, and on board-facing platforms, where it is not. The same argument holds in both rooms. Key speaking topics AI strategy, ethics, and board oversight Adaptive resilience in the digital enterprise Human-AI complementarity and the future of work Responsible innovation and AI governance frameworks Digital transformation and operating-model redesign Sustainable value creation in a frontier-technology era Ideal for Boards and audit committees commissioning AI governance and assurance CEOs and CTOs moving AI from pilot to operational deployment CHROs and transformation leads redesigning the workforce around AI capability Risk, ethics, and compliance leaders building defensible AI policy Audience outcomes A board-level vocabulary for governing AI decisions that stand up to regulatory and stakeholder scrutiny A clearer view of where human judgement remains the binding constraint on AI deployment, and where it does not Specific reference points from Adaptive Resilience for stress-testing the organisation’s digital strategy A grounded sense of how European AI regulation and ethics standards translate into operating choices

Why organisations work with Mariano Sigman A 2018 Nature Human Behaviour study he co-authored, run with 5,180 live participants, showed that aggregating small structured debates produces sharper answers than the wisdom of thousands; that finding rewrites how senior groups should be designed to decide. He directs the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project, Europe’s flagship neuroscience consortium, and is the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship in that initiative. His training in physics in Buenos Aires, neuroscience at Rockefeller, and postdoctoral work with Stanislas Dehaene at the College de France gives his claims a methodological grounding that separates them from motivational uses of the same science. “The Secret Life of the Mind”, published by HarperCollins, has been translated into more than a dozen languages and reviewed by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Science Magazine; his ideas hold up outside the speaker circuit. His 2023 book “Artificial”, co-authored with Santiago Bilinkis, gives leadership audiences a calm, scientifically grounded read on what AI changes and does not change in human cognition. Biography highlights PhD in neuroscience from Rockefeller University; postdoctoral research with Stanislas Dehaene at the College de France. Director of the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project; the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship in that initiative. Associate Professor at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; founder of the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires; Principal Researcher at CONICET. Pius XI Medal from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (2016); James S. McDonnell Scholar Award; Human Frontier Science Program Career Development Award. Author of “The Secret Life of the Mind” (HarperCollins, 2017) and “El poder de las palabras” (2022); co-author of “Artificial” with Santiago Bilinkis (2023). TED main-stage speaker on collective intelligence with Dan Ariely. Biography Smart people in a room together do not reliably make smart decisions. Mariano Sigman has spent two decades building the experimental science that explains why, and what to change about it. His laboratory at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella draws on physics, neuroscience, linguistics, and cognitive science to study how individuals and groups actually form judgments under uncertainty. The clearest example is a 2018 paper in Nature Human Behaviour with Joaquin Navajas and colleagues. Working with 5,180 live participants, the team showed that aggregating the consensus of small structured debate groups was substantially more accurate than averaging the opinions of thousands of independent individuals. The architecture of a conversation, in other words, matters more than the number of voices inside it. Sigman trained as a physicist at the University of Buenos Aires, took a PhD in neuroscience at Rockefeller, and did postdoctoral research at the College de France with Stanislas Dehaene, one of the leading figures in cognitive science. He directs the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project, the European flagship initiative, and is the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship there. “The Secret Life of the Mind”, published by HarperCollins, became an international bestseller and brought his work on judgment, learning, and consciousness to readers in more than a dozen languages. His 2023 book “Artificial”, co-authored with Santiago Bilinkis, applies the same lens to the relationship between human cognition and AI. For boards and executive teams, that body of work answers a specific question. Senior decisions live or die on how a small group aggregates uncertain information. Sigman gives leaders a working account of where that process breaks, why it breaks, and which structural moves close the gap. Key speaking topics Collective intelligence and group decision-making Cognitive bias and judgment under uncertainty The neuroscience of learning and adult neuroplasticity Conversation, language, and belief formation Artificial intelligence and human cognition Consciousness and the science of the mind Creativity and the cognitive roots of innovation Ideal for Boards and executive committees rethinking how high-stakes decisions are deliberated and made CHROs and learning leaders designing capability and judgment programmes for senior talent Strategy, innovation, and transformation leaders working under deep uncertainty Technology and AI leadership teams reasoning about human-machine collaboration Audience outcomes A working account of why structured small-group debate outperforms both lone experts and large consensus meetings. A specific vocabulary for the cognitive distortions that quietly shape leadership judgment, including confidence bias and equality bias. A clearer read on how the adult brain learns and changes, and where common assumptions about learning capacity are wrong. A practical sense of how language and conversation shape belief, memory, and choice inside teams. A grounded view of what AI changes, and does not change, in the cognitive demands placed on senior leaders.

Why organisations work with Marina Díaz Ibarra She has run a regional consumer technology business at scale, leading Mercado Libre’s Argentina, Chile and Peru operation as General Manager, so her view of digital growth is built from operating P&L, not consultancy. She built and exited a digital transformation company, Wolox, which Accenture acquired in 2021, giving her a working view of how incumbents actually buy and absorb innovation. She sits on the boards of Nasdaq-listed AgileThought, Rotoplas, Gentera and IFC (World Bank) portfolio companies, so she can speak to how boards across Latin America are framing AI, fintech and risk decisions. Her advisory work with Bitso, the largest crypto exchange in Latin America, and Jumex gives her live exposure to fintech, blockchain and consumer brand strategy in volatile markets. She wrote “Un mundo sin jefes” (Conecta, 2021), a candid book on executive life and self-leadership, which makes her credible on the human side of transformation as well as the technology side. Biography highlights General Manager for Argentina, Chile and Peru at Mercado Libre, 2015 to 2017. Managing Director of Wolox, the digital product and transformation firm acquired by Accenture in 2021. Earlier global roles at Nike (Emerging Markets Apparel), Under Armour (Global Senior Product Manager), Unilever (Dove, Latin America) and Puratos. Board director of Rotoplas, Gentera (Banco Compartamos), AgileThought (Nasdaq) and IFC (World Bank) portfolio companies. Advisor to Bitso and Jumex. MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Economics degree from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Master’s in Project Valuation from ITBA. Author of “Un mundo sin jefes” (Conecta, Penguin Random House, 2021). Biography Mercado Libre is the company that beat Amazon in Latin America. Marina Díaz Ibarra was the General Manager who ran its Argentina, Chile and Peru business between 2015 and 2017, at the point where mobile commerce, payments and logistics were converging into a single operating problem. That seat shapes how she thinks about digital growth: as a question of unit economics, talent and execution, not as a slide on disruption. After Mercado Libre, she moved to the other side of the table. As Managing Director of Wolox, she built a digital product company that helped incumbents in financial services, retail and consumer goods translate ambition into working software. Accenture acquired the business in 2021. The experience left her with a precise view of where corporate transformation programmes break down, and what makes the small number that work different. Her earlier career was inside the brand machinery of Unilever, Nike, Under Armour and Puratos, with regional and global roles spanning Latin America and the United States. That background, combined with an MBA from Wharton and an economics training from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, gives her an unusual range: she can read a brand P&L, a venture cap table and a board pack with equal fluency. She now sits on the boards of Rotoplas, Gentera, Nasdaq-listed AgileThought and several IFC (World Bank) portfolio companies, and advises Bitso, the largest crypto exchange in Latin America. Her book “Un mundo sin jefes” (Conecta, 2021) put on record the human cost of running at executive speed and the discipline required to keep going. It is the part of the story that boards rarely talk about and that her audiences consistently respond to. Key speaking topics Digital transformation in incumbent businesses Exponential technologies and operating advantage E-commerce, omnichannel and mobile in emerging markets Fintech, blockchain and crypto in Latin America Board-level technology and innovation governance Customer experience and brand in a digital economy Self-leadership and executive resilience Ideal for Boards and executive committees framing AI, fintech and digital transformation decisions CEOs and CDOs of incumbents who have stalled between pilot and scaled deployment CMOs and customer experience leaders rebuilding around digital and mobile commerce Senior leadership audiences in Latin America, the United States and EMEA looking for an operator view from the region Audience outcomes A clear-eyed account of what separates digital transformation programmes that scale from those that stall A working view of how Latin American operators have built consumer technology businesses against larger global incumbents Specific cases from Mercado Libre, Wolox and live board work in fintech, water, microfinance and technology services A frank perspective on the human and leadership cost of running at the pace transformation now demands

Why organisations work with Mark Adams He has run the operating side of digital change at scale, leading innovation inside VICE Media as it grew from print magazine into a multi-billion-dollar global youth media group. That is a sharply different vantage point from consultants who advise on transformation without running it. His earliest clients were Hollywood A-listers and global public figures, then global consumer brands. The result is a working understanding of how audiences, talent, and brand authority interact in algorithmic markets, which most digital strategists do not have. As Chairman of the AI Leadership Council, he spends his time fielding live questions from the public and senior leaders on how to use AI responsibly and commercially. The result is content built around the questions executives are actually asking, not the ones a slide deck assumes. He converts AI hype into specific operating choices: which capabilities to build internally, which to buy, which to ignore, and how to set the cultural conditions for adoption. Useful for boards and executive teams that feel busy on AI but not yet decisive. Biography highlights Senior Vice President and Head of Innovation, VICE Media, following the 2015 acquisition of his consumer-brand digital transformation business. Founder of the first digital transformation consultancy for celebrities and public figures, acquired by William Morris Endeavor. First Chief Digital Officer in the entertainment industry, appointed at WME. Chairman of the AI Leadership Council, convening senior AI practitioners to answer public and executive questions on AI. Named to the Sunday Times Top People in Britain, The Drum Digerati List, Debrett’s Top 10 Digital List, and the Silicon 60 Global Tech Entrepreneurs list. Profiled by The Guardian as a “Star of Tech City”. TEDx speaker with a TED talk reaching millions of views; forthcoming book Enter the Cult of Extreme Innovation, Penguin, 2026. Biography The first wave of AI in the enterprise was about pilots. The second is about whether large organisations can absorb the technology into the way they actually work. That gap, between AI capability and AI as operating reality, is the territory Mark Adams now spends most of his time inside. His route to that work is unusual. In 2003 he built the first digital transformation consultancy aimed at celebrities and public figures, advising A-list talent on how to operate in an internet-shaped media economy. The business was acquired by William Morris Endeavor, where he was installed as the entertainment industry’s first Chief Digital Officer. He then built a second business focused on consumer brand digital transformation, which VICE Media acquired in 2015. As Senior Vice President and Head of Innovation, he helped run the company through its expansion from a print title into a global youth media group. Today he chairs the AI Leadership Council, a panel of senior digital and AI practitioners who field questions from the public and from executives trying to make sense of the technology. The model is deliberate. Most AI commentary is one-directional. The Council works the other way, starting with the question the leader is asking and building the answer from operating practice. His forthcoming book with Penguin, Enter the Cult of Extreme Innovation, sits in the same territory: AI treated as a creative and commercial discipline rather than a topic. He has been named to the Sunday Times Top People in Britain, the Silicon 60 Global Tech Entrepreneurs list, The Drum Digerati and Debrett’s Top 10 Digital lists, and profiled by The Guardian as a “Star of Tech City”. The recognition matters less than the through-line: he has spent his career inside the institutions that have had to absorb digital change first, from celebrity talent to youth media, and is now working the same problem in AI. Key speaking topics AI adoption inside large organisations Digital transformation as operating change Brand building in algorithmic and AI-shaped markets Innovation as a managed practice Engaging younger audiences and youth-culture brands The cultural conditions for digital and AI change Ideal for Boards and executive committees moving from AI pilots to operating deployment Chief Marketing Officers and brand leaders rethinking brand in an AI and algorithm-led environment Chief Innovation, Digital and Transformation Officers responsible for execution, not just strategy Consumer-facing businesses trying to reach and retain younger audiences Audience outcomes A sharper read on which AI capabilities to build internally and which to buy or ignore Working language for translating AI between technical teams and senior decision-makers A practical sense of the cultural and operating conditions that determine whether AI investment pays back Specific reference points from inside VICE Media and from advising A-list talent on digital and AI shifts A frame for thinking about brand and audience in an algorithmically mediated market

Why organisations work with Mark Esposito He brings a named foresight framework, DRIVE, that gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for the five megatrends shaping their markets, rather than a generic “future of” briefing. His positions sit on both sides of the AI conversation. He advises the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Alliance on policy while working as Chief Economist at micro1, a Silicon Valley AI lab, so the board hears how regulation and deployment actually meet. He has built the institutional access most academic speakers cannot. Harvard Kennedy School, Northeastern, Cambridge Judge, Georgetown, and government advisory roles across the GCC and Eurasia. The work is current and published. Fourteen books, two Amazon bestsellers, The Great Remobilization with MIT Press, and forthcoming titles with Routledge and Penguin Random House give a senior buyer a reading list to brief their team from. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Technology Policy at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business, with Harvard affiliations at the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development, the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society Chief Economist at micro1, a Silicon Valley AI lab, and co-founder of Nexus FrontierTech, the AI Native Foundation, the Circular Economy Alliance, and The Chart ThinkTank Co-developer of the DRIVE megatrends framework with Terence Tse Author or co-author of 14 books and over 150 publications, including two Amazon bestsellers, plus The Great Remobilization (MIT Press, 2023) and Digitizing the Emerging Economies (Cambridge University Press, 2024) Named to the Thinkers50 Radar of 30 thinkers most likely to shape the future; recognised by MIT Technology Review and Thinkers360 for AI influence Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Alliance and policy advisor to governments across the GCC and Eurasia Biography The hard part of governing AI is not writing the principles. It is keeping a strategy coherent while the technology, the regulation, and the workforce implications all change inside the same planning cycle. That is the gap Mark Esposito’s work has occupied for the past decade, first through strategic foresight, now through applied AI policy and deployment. The intellectual anchor is DRIVE, the megatrends framework he developed with Terence Tse and laid out in Understanding How the Future Unfolds. DRIVE gives leadership teams five named forces, from demographic change through enterprising dynamics, that organise the noise of long-range planning into something a board can actually use. The framework underpins his teaching as Professor of Strategy and Technology Policy at Northeastern University, and his research affiliations at Harvard Kennedy School, the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and the Berkman Klein Center. He pairs that academic base with an operator’s vantage point. As Chief Economist at micro1, a Silicon Valley AI lab, he works inside the commercial reality of building and deploying AI at scale. The AI Native Foundation, which he co-founded, extends that into capability building for institutions trying to become genuinely AI-native rather than AI-curious. His seat on the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Alliance connects both sides to the policy conversation. The body of work is now substantial. Fourteen books and over 150 publications, two Amazon bestsellers, The Great Remobilization with MIT Press, and forthcoming titles with Routledge and Penguin Random House. Thinkers50 named him to its Radar of thinkers most likely to shape the future; MIT Technology Review and Thinkers360 have recognised his AI influence. For boards trying to make defensible decisions on AI while the ground moves under them, that combination of foresight discipline, policy access, and a frontier-AI operating role is rare in a single voice. Key speaking topics AI strategy and AI-native organisations Strategic foresight and megatrends The DRIVE framework AI policy and governance Fourth Industrial Revolution and emerging economies Circular economy and resource strategy Geopolitics of technology Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI strategy and governance posture CSOs, transformation leads, and chief strategy officers running long-range planning under technological uncertainty Government and public sector leaders shaping AI policy and industrial strategy Senior leadership teams in emerging markets navigating the Fourth Industrial Revolution Audience outcomes A shared, named vocabulary (DRIVE) for the five megatrends reshaping their sector A clearer view of where their AI agenda is running ahead of, or behind, their operating model Specific examples of how governments and large enterprises are translating AI policy into deployment A reading map across his published work for follow-up briefing inside the organisation

Why organisations work with Mark Schaefer A connected, multi-book argument about where marketing economics are actually going, from Marketing Rebellion to Belonging to the Brand to Audacious, rather than a single talk track repackaged. A working position at the front of the AI-and-marketing conversation, built on original research gathered from 300 global futurists for How AI Changes Your Customers and taught through his Rutgers “Mini-MBA: Digital Marketing in the Age of AI”. A serious thesis on community as a marketing asset, with case work on brands like Sephora, that gives CMOs a defensible alternative to paid-media-only growth plans. Keynote and consulting experience with global enterprises including Pfizer, Cisco, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, P&G, McKinsey, and the U.S. Air Force, which means examples land for both regulated and consumer-facing audiences. A teaching habit, three years studying under Peter Drucker and an active Rutgers executive education role, that shows up in how he structures sessions: argument, evidence, frameworks leaders can take into a Monday meeting. Biography highlights Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, with consulting and keynote work for Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, McKinsey, Dell, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. Air Force, and the UK Government. RBS Executive Education Lecturer at Rutgers Business School; teaches the Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing in the Age of AI and graduate marketing classes. Author of twelve books, including Marketing Rebellion, Belonging to the Brand, KNOWN, The Content Code, Cumulative Advantage, Return on Influence, Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, and How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity’s Next Chapter, built on original research gathered from 300 global futurists. Audacious launched with the first AI-driven Augmented Reality book cover and reached #1 in Amazon’s marketing category. Founder and co-host of The Marketing Companion podcast and publisher of the {grow} marketing blog; featured commentator across The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, CBS News, BBC, NPR, Wired, and Harvard Business Review. Keynote speaker at South by Southwest, the Institute for International and European Affairs, Marketing Summit Tokyo, and Social Media Week London; delivered “How to be Relentlessly Relevant” at TEDxPlano; has lectured at Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton. Biography The cost of reaching a customer keeps rising while the trust those impressions buy keeps falling. Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins set out the argument that built much of Mark Schaefer’s reputation, that businesses are no longer built on advertising impressions but on human impressions that help customers believe, belong, and find meaning. It is used as assigned reading at more than 70 universities and has been translated into 20 languages. That argument continued through Belonging to the Brand, which makes the case for community as the next durable marketing strategy, and Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, which examines e.l.f. Beauty, HBO, and Giant Spoon to show how creative nerve captures attention in saturated markets. Audacious reached number one in Amazon’s marketing category. His authority is grounded in operating credentials. Schaefer runs Schaefer Marketing Solutions and has consulted for Pfizer, Cisco, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Air Force. At Rutgers Business School he is the Executive Education lecturer behind the Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing in the Age of AI, and he has lectured at Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton. He studied under Peter Drucker for three years, and he has tested his thinking weekly in public for over a decade through The Marketing Companion podcast and the {grow} blog. His twelfth book moves the question from how marketing reaches people to what is happening to the people themselves. How AI Changes Your Customers draws on research gathered from 300 global futurists and describes a customer who is less patient, more trusting of machines, less attached to brands, and looking for meaning in unfamiliar places. Schaefer has taken that argument to P&G’s global brand innovation summit, a Johnson & Johnson marketing summit, and McKinsey’s marketing leadership in New York. Key speaking topics Human-centred marketing strategy Brand community as a growth strategy AI and the psychology of the customer Personal branding for executives and professionals Customer trust, loyalty, and the post-advertising buyer Content strategy and influence Cumulative advantage and competitive momentum Ideal for CMOs, brand directors, and heads of marketing rebuilding strategy around community and human connection. CEOs and commercial leaders questioning the ROI of paid-media-led growth plans. Heads of customer experience and digital who need to integrate AI without losing brand distinctiveness. Communications, PR, and corporate marketing leaders in regulated industries facing trust and credibility challenges. Audience outcomes A reframed view of where marketing value now sits: human impressions, community, and creative nerve over paid reach. Concrete case examples, including Sephora, e.l.f. Beauty, HBO, and Giant Spoon, that audiences can map against their own categories. A working position on how to use AI in marketing without becoming indistinguishable from competitors using the same tools. A clearer set of questions to bring back to brand, content, and customer experience teams about what they should stop funding. A vocabulary for talking to boards about brand and community as commercial assets, not soft costs.