Transformation der Belegschaft 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. Every keynote produces a customised Hard Trend Opportunity Report, built from what the audience itself identifies on the day and delivered within two weeks, so the session leaves behind a working list of organisation-specific opportunities and recommended next steps. 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 Work redesign and the division of labour between people and AI Disruptive innovation and exponential technology Digital transformation Strategic foresight and long-horizon planning Organisational alignment on a shared view of the future 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 Association and industry conference programme chairs briefing a whole sector at once, as with ACUTA, the National Grocers Association and the Million Dollar Round Table 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 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 Dave Coplin His central argument – that the «digital deluge» is not a productivity crisis to be managed but a strategic opportunity to be led – gives boards a reframe that most AI and digital transformation programmes never offer: the question is not adoption, but what kind of organisation you are willing to become. He built that argument from the inside: twelve years at Microsoft UK as the executive responsible for imagining the human future of technology, a vantage point that neither pure academics nor management consultants can replicate. His books Business Reimagined (2013) and The Rise of the Humans (2014, Harriman House) give organisations a specific, portable framework – the choice between efficiency and effectiveness – that leadership teams can apply directly to their own AI strategy decisions. NED board experience at Mitchells & Butlers plc, Vianet Group plc, and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association means his perspective on digital strategy carries weight at governance level, not just at conference level. His positioning at the intersection of generative AI adoption and organisational performance means he addresses the question executive teams are now actually asking: how do we become more effective through AI, rather than just faster at what we already do? Biography highlights Founder and CEO of The Envisioners, a digital strategy consultancy established in 2017 after a 12-year career at Microsoft UK Former Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft UK – a role he created, focused on the future of the human-technology relationship Author of Business Reimagined (2013) and The Rise of the Humans (2014, Harriman House) Independent Non-Executive Director at Mitchells & Butlers plc, Vianet Group plc, and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association Regular contributor to BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times, Channel 4, and CNN on AI, digital transformation, and the future of work Keynote speaker for clients including Microsoft, Barclays, HP, Vodafone, Ernst & Young, Facebook, and Google, as well as the UK and EU Parliaments Biography Technology investment reliably outpaces the organisational willingness to change. That gap – between what digital tools can do and what organisations are willing to become – is where Dave Coplin has built his career, first as Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft UK and now as founder of The Envisioners. His book The Rise of the Humans (Harriman House, 2014) sets out the core argument: the digital deluge of data, tools, and competing demands is not something to survive – it is something to harness. The organisations that succeed are those that stop asking how to automate what they already do and start asking how to reinvent what they do entirely. That argument was relevant when the book was written. With generative AI now reshaping every sector, it has become the defining strategic question for boards and leadership teams. Coplin spent twelve years at Microsoft UK before founding The Envisioners in 2017, advising organisations and governments on what technology-led change actually requires of the people leading it. His clients have included Barclays, Vodafone, Ernst & Young, and the UK and EU Parliaments. He serves as an independent non-executive director at Mitchells & Butlers plc and Vianet Group plc, and has held the same role at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association. He is a regular contributor to the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and CNN. His first book, Business Reimagined (2013), made the case for collaborative and flexible working as a technology-enabled opportunity rather than a cultural preference. Both books frame the same consistent argument: the human decision about how to relate to technology matters more than the technology itself. Key speaking topics Generative AI and organisational effectiveness Digital transformation strategy The future of work Human-technology relationship AI adoption and workforce change Reimagining how organisations create value Ideal for CIOs, CTOs, and senior technology leaders shaping AI and digital strategy CEOs and executive teams navigating generative AI adoption decisions CHROs and transformation leads managing the human impact of digital change Board members and non-executive directors overseeing digital governance and technology investment Audience outcomes A clear framework for distinguishing between technology-led efficiency and technology-led effectiveness, and why that distinction matters commercially A reframe of generative AI from operational risk to strategic lever – and the conditions under which that reframe becomes actionable Practical perspective on why human agency and organisational culture are the deciding factors in whether digital investment delivers A sharper view of where AI strategies are likely to stall, and what leadership teams can address before they do Confidence to engage with AI at a strategic rather than technical level – including in board and senior leadership conversations

Why organisations work with Dave Ulrich The four-domain architecture of human capability, talent, leadership, organisation, and the HR function, is Ulrich’s own framework. It gives business and HR leaders a single integrated taxonomy for what is otherwise a sprawl of disconnected people and organisation initiatives, and a structured way to decide which investments will actually move stakeholder outcomes. The Human Resource Competency Study, now in its eighth round across 35 years, has cumulatively drawn on more than 100,000 respondents. Round 7 produced the headline finding that organisational capability has four times the business impact of individual talent. Round 8 sharpens the picture: HR department capability and the organisational capabilities HR helps build have six to eight times the business impact of individual HR competencies. Ulrich brings these findings into the room directly, not via a citation. Ulrich is the originator of the HR Business Partner model that most large organisations still operate today. Engaging him is not external validation of the existing model. It is access to the next-generation architecture, including the Organization Guidance System diagnostic that has now been run inside more than 500 organisations. The Leadership Capital Index reframes leadership quality as a measurable asset that investors and boards can rate the way Moody’s rates credit. For boards under increasing pressure to disclose human capital substance, not narrative, this is one of the few frameworks built explicitly for that conversation. Induction into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, alongside HR Magazine’s «father of modern HR» designation and recognition as the most influential HR thinker of the decade, places him among the small group of figures who have demonstrably shaped a field rather than contributed to one. Biography highlights Rensis Likert Professor Emeritus, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Co-founder and partner, The RBL Group Author of more than 30 books including Human Resource Champions (Harvard Business School Press, 1997), The Leadership Capital Index (Berrett-Koehler, 2015), Victory Through Organization (McGraw-Hill, 2017), and Reinventing the Organization (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019) Editor, Human Resource Management journal, 1990 to 1999; Distinguished Fellow, National Academy of Human Resources Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, 2017; HR Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award, 2012, source of the «father of modern HR» designation; named most influential HR thinker of the decade by HR Magazine Lead architect of the Human Resource Competency Study (eight rounds, 35-plus years, more than 100,000 cumulative respondents) and the Organization Guidance System diagnostic (more than 500 organisations) Active global platform: more than 400,000 LinkedIn followers and a weekly newsletter with more than 230,000 subscribers, with weekly posts routinely reaching 50,000 to 70,000 views Biography HR is not about HR. The phrase is Ulrich’s own. It captures the through-line of three decades of work: that the HR function exists to deliver value to every stakeholder the organisation touches, not to perfect its own processes. Employees and executives inside. Customers, investors, and communities outside. The discipline he calls human capability is the architecture that connects them. That architecture has four domains, each backed by its own research base. Talent covers how organisations acquire, develop, and retain full contributors, now framed by Ulrich as Talent Advantage = AI × HI, artificial intelligence multiplied by human ingenuity. Organisation treats the company as a set of capabilities: agility, culture, innovation, strategic clarity, collaboration, and customer connection. These can be prioritised through the Organization Guidance System, now deployed in more than 500 companies. Leadership draws on the Leadership Code research with more than 30,000 respondents, and on the Leadership Capital Index, which gives boards and investors a measurable framework for leadership quality. The HR function rests on the 35-year Human Resource Competency Study, with more than 100,000 cumulative respondents, and shapes the operating models, practices, and competencies HR uses today. The practical consequences of this work have shaped how HR is organised. Human Resource Champions (1997) introduced the four-role model, strategic partner, change agent, administrative expert, and employee champion, that became the template for HR business partnering inside Fortune 500 organisations. The Leadership Capital Index (2015) made the case that leadership quality can be rated the way credit is rated. Victory Through Organization (2017) was the empirical headline: organisational capability has roughly four times the business impact of individual talent. Round 8 of the HRCS sharpens that further: the HR department and the organisational capabilities it helps build have six to eight times the business impact of individual HR competencies. Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor Emeritus at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and a partner at The RBL Group. He has worked with more than half of the Fortune 200 across more than 80 countries. He was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2017, and was named «father of modern HR» by HR Magazine in its 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award. His weekly LinkedIn posts reach more than 400,000 followers and 230,000 newsletter subscribers. That audience is how much of the global HR and business community engages with his current work in real time. Key speaking topics Stakeholder value through human capability The four domains of HR: talent, leadership, organisation, and the HR function HR transformation and the next-generation HR Business Partner model Organisational capability as competitive advantage Leadership Capital Index and leadership as a board-level asset The HR inflection point: AI, analytics, and the future of the HR function Culture transformation and organisational design Ideal for CEOs and executive teams looking for a single integrated language across talent, leadership, organisational capability, and the HR function CHROs and senior HR teams whose remit now spans stakeholder outcomes across employees, customers, investors, and communities Boards and investors who need a measurable framework for the human capability behind market value Transformation leads redesigning the HR operating model and the cross-functional accountabilities that sit alongside it across business leaders, HR, and employees Audience outcomes The four-domain human capability framework as a single integrated language for talent, leadership, organisation, and HR investment, replacing the disconnected list of HR programmes most teams are working from The empirical case for why organisational and capability investments outperform individual talent investments, drawn directly from HRCS and OGS findings A diagnostic logic for deciding which human capability investments will move customer share, investor confidence, and community standing, not just employee engagement scores A practical model for measuring leadership quality that can be defended in an investor or board conversation A clear position from which CHROs and CEOs can present HR as a leading indicator of business performance rather than a lagging cost

Why organisations work with Diana Verde Nieto She has built the operating substance behind two commitments most companies treat as comms exercises. Positive Luxury and the Butterfly Mark turned sustainability claims into an audited certification with periodic re-earn cycles. Edify is now doing the same work for AI-driven capability, turning brand standards and SOPs into something frontline teams actually use. “Reimagining Luxury” (Kogan Page, 2024) is built on direct contributions from chief sustainability officers at LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal, alongside Harvard’s John P. Kotter and Paul Polman. The frameworks it sets out are drawn from how the major houses actually run sustainability, not how they describe it externally. Shortlisted, Business Book Awards 2025, Change and Sustainability category. Two founded-and-exited businesses (Clownfish, sold to Aegis-Dentsu in 2008; Positive Luxury) mean her thinking on commercial strategy has been tested by real investors and real markets, not consulting decks. Through Edify Collective, she is applying the same thesis to workforce capability, embedding policies and standards into the daily flow of work rather than relying on training events that fade within weeks. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Harvard Kennedy School graduate. Non-Executive Director at the British Beauty Council and Watts 1874. Former adviser to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Biography highlights Co-Founder and CEO of Edify Collective, an AI-native frontline performance support platform that embeds policies, SOPs, and brand standards into the daily flow of work, bridging board-level strategy and frontline execution. Co-founder of Positive Luxury (2011), creator of the Butterfly Mark, the luxury sector’s best-known independent ESG certification. Founder of Clownfish (2002), one of the world’s first dedicated sustainability communications consultancies; built to a presence in five markets and sold to Aegis-Dentsu Group in 2008. Author of Reimagining Luxury: Building a Sustainable Future for Your Brand (Kogan Page, 2024); shortlisted, Business Book Awards 2025, Change and Sustainability category. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; degree in Global Leadership and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School. Non-Executive Director, British Beauty Council and Watts 1874; former adviser to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Biography Most organisations are excellent at deciding what needs to change. They write the policy, sign off on the strategy, brief the leadership team. The work that follows, embedding that decision into how thousands of people actually behave at the frontline, is where most of the value is either captured or lost. Diana Verde Nieto has spent two decades building businesses around this problem. In 2002 she founded Clownfish, one of the first dedicated sustainability communications consultancies, scaled it to five markets, and sold it to Aegis-Dentsu in 2008. In 2011 she co-founded Positive Luxury with Karen Hanton MBE and built the Butterfly Mark, an independent ESG certification now sought by over 100 brands across fashion, beauty, jewellery, and travel, awarded on demonstrated performance across nine criteria and re-earned every two years. Reimagining Luxury (Kogan Page, 2024), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2025, draws directly on contributions from the chief sustainability officers of LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal, alongside Harvard’s John P. Kotter and Paul Polman. As Co-Founder and CEO of Edify Collective, she is now applying the same thesis to workforce capability. Edify is an AI-native platform that embeds policies, SOPs, and brand standards directly into the flow of frontline work, replacing fragmented training tools with a single performance support layer. The argument is the same one she has been making for 25 years, but the domain has shifted: the strategy-execution gap is now also the gap between AI ambition and AI deployment, and the same operating disciplines apply. A World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Harvard Kennedy School graduate, she serves as a Non-Executive Director at the British Beauty Council and Watts 1874. Her previous advisory work includes the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Key speaking topics Closing the Strategy-Action Gap: From Boardroom to Frontline The AI-Native Workforce: Augmentation, Not Replacement Operationalising Purpose: Building Standards That Survive Daily Operations Lessons from Luxury: How LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal Run Sustainability as Commercial Strategy Trust as a Brand Asset: Why Operational Reality Determines Reputational Value The Entrepreneurial Journey: Building, Scaling, and Exiting Purpose-Driven Businesses Seeing Markets Before They Arrive: Strategic Foresight in Volatile Industries Ideal for CEOs and brand leaders responsible for bridging strategic intent and daily operational reality Chief Operating Officers and Chief Transformation Officers redesigning legacy systems and workflows for an AI-native workforce Boards and Non-Executive Directors whose governance responsibilities turn on whether operational substance backs board-level commitments Founders, investors, and venture partners examining purpose-driven businesses, scale-up discipline, and exit strategy Industry associations, regulators, and policy bodies operating at the intersection of corporate strategy and standards-based oversight Audience outcomes Diana’s focus is the final mile of leadership: the work between strategy being agreed and strategy being delivered through the daily behaviour of frontline teams. Her sessions are built for senior audiences who have already named the strategic problem and need to understand how to operationalise the answer. A working definition of The Action Gap, the space between board-level commitments and frontline reality, and the operating disciplines that close it. A direct view of how LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal turn sustainability commitments into auditable commercial strategy, drawn from her book’s primary research with their CSOs. A reframing of AI in the workforce from substitution to augmentation: what it means to put expert-level judgement into the hands of frontline workers in real time, and what that requires of the operating model. A founder’s view of scale, exit, and the discipline of building purpose-driven businesses that hold their commercial integrity through investor scrutiny and global expansion. A practical map of where brilliant strategies fail at the point of work, and what board-level leaders can do about it before the failure becomes a reputational event.

Why organisations work with Didem Ün Ateş She ran responsible AI inside Microsoft, Accenture and Schneider Electric as the executive accountable for it, which gives her a precise view of where enterprise AI governance breaks down in practice. As Senior Operating Advisor and AI/Generative AI Council member at the Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, she works across more than 300 portfolio companies, which gives boards an investor’s read on where AI strategy creates value and where it creates exposure. Her LotusAI engagements come with a tested method. One generative AI opportunity scan covered 15 functions of a Fortune 500 company through 60 co-creation workshops in six weeks, producing 200 prioritised use cases and a sized three-year investment case. As a certified algorithm auditor and a World Economic Forum AI Governance Alliance Fellow, she connects a board’s AI decisions to the governance standards being set at regulatory and multilateral level. She trained as an engineer at the University of Pennsylvania and took an MBA at Columbia Business School, so she can hold a technical architecture argument and an investment case in the same conversation. Biography highlights Founder and Chief Executive of LotusAI Ltd, and Senior Operating Advisor and AI/Generative AI Council member at the Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, working with the firm and over 300 portfolio companies Former Vice President, AI Strategy & Innovation at Schneider Electric, responsible for the company’s AI and generative AI strategy, innovation roadmap, ecosystem partnerships and responsible AI programme Former Head of Applied Strategy, Data & AI in Microsoft’s Customer and Partner Solutions CDO office, and former Managing Director of Data & AI, Europe at Accenture; earlier roles at Capgemini, EY and Motorola Board member of the Edge AI Foundation, the Wharton AI Studio, the Columbia Business School Women’s Circle and the Hg Foundation Tech Advisory Board, which also includes technology leaders from ING, Google, McKinsey and Accenture Certified algorithm auditor and executive coach, World Economic Forum AI Governance Alliance Fellow, Forbes Technology Council member, University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Business School alumna CEO of the Year Awards UK 2025 in AI Advisory, Responsible AI Innovation & Growth in Business Award 2025, New Technology Consultancy of the Year 2025, TechWomen100 Champion and Trailblazer 50 honouree Biography Most enterprise AI strategies stall at the same point, somewhere between an approved roadmap and accountable delivery. Didem Ün Ateş has worked both sides of that line inside companies where failure is expensive. At Schneider Electric, as VP of AI Strategy & Innovation, she owned the generative AI strategy, the innovation roadmap, the ecosystem partnerships and the responsible AI programme. Before that she led Applied Strategy for Data & AI in Microsoft’s Customer and Partner Solutions CDO office. She helped take the company’s Data and AI business from incubation to multibillion-dollar scale between 2016 and 2021, then moved to Accenture as Managing Director of Data & AI for Europe. LotusAI applies that operational depth to investors and the companies they own. As Senior Operating Advisor and AI/Generative AI Council member at the Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, she works across more than 300 portfolio companies on AI value creation and governance. One LotusAI engagement scanned 15 functions of a Fortune 500 company through 60 co-creation workshops in six weeks. It produced 200 prioritised generative AI use cases and a sized three-year investment case. She is a certified algorithm auditor and a World Economic Forum AI Governance Alliance Fellow, and has co-chaired WEF sessions on AI and sustainability. She sits on the Hg Foundation Tech Advisory Board alongside technology leaders from ING, Google, McKinsey and Accenture, and on the boards of the Edge AI Foundation and the Wharton AI Studio. She holds an engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Recent recognition includes CEO of the Year Awards UK 2025 in AI Advisory and the Responsible AI Innovation & Growth in Business Award 2025. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and sustainable AI transformation Responsible AI and AI governance Generative and agentic AI adoption at scale AI for private equity, private credit and financial services Talent transformation for an AI-driven workforce Edge AI AI risk and regulatory readiness Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams (CEO, CTO, CDO, CAIO) setting or pressure-testing an enterprise AI strategy Chief Data and AI Officers building governance for generative and agentic AI Private equity and investment teams assessing AI value creation and risk across a portfolio CHROs and talent leaders planning workforce capability for AI-driven roles Audience outcomes Criteria for deciding which AI use cases to fund first, and which to stop The specific points where enterprise AI governance usually fails, drawn from Microsoft, Accenture and Schneider Electric What investors now expect an AI business case to prove before they back it Vocabulary for board-level discussion of AI risk and value creation A view of which roles and skills change first as agentic AI reaches the workforce

Why organisations work with Hollie Castro Operating record across the moments that test a people function: IPO transition at YETI, take-private of BMC Software under Bain Capital and Insight Partners, and VC-backed scale-up at Miro under Accel and ICONIQ. Sits credibly in the boardroom on AI and the workforce, co-chairing the NACD Austin chapter and leading director-level sessions on GenAI governance and the multigenerational workforce. Has actually run HR at global scale: workforces of 1,500 to 50,000, 90 countries, budgets to USD 200 million, 25-plus acquisitions integrated. Bridges Fortune 500 and late-stage start-up worlds, including current advisory work with HR-focused AI founders at Series A through her firm HC Advice. Recognised externally where it counts: Financial Times Group Top 100 Board Candidates and the HR Transformation award at Silicon Valley’s High Tech Symposium. Biography highlights Five-time CHRO and Chief Administration Officer: YETI, BMC Software, Talisman Energy, Miro, Kony. Co-Chair, Austin Advisory Board, National Association of Corporate Directors. Advisory Board Member, Texas A&M Mays School of Business Center for Human Resources. Stanford University and NACD certified Corporate Director; MBA, Thunderbird School of Global Management. Financial Times Group Top 100 Board Candidates; HR Transformation award, Silicon Valley High Tech Symposium. Published in Fast Company, Forbes, The Corporate Board, and Directors & Boards; featured at HR Retail and on the Revenue Builders podcast. Biography Few HR leaders have sat in the seat across as many high-pressure transitions. As CHRO, Castro took YETI through its IPO from private equity ownership at Cortec, led BMC Software through its take-private under Bain Capital and Insight Partners, and ran people strategy at Miro and Kony alongside Accel and ICONIQ Capital. The thread across those mandates is the same: HR as an operating discipline tied to capital events, not a support function. Her scope has been unusually broad. Workforces of 1,500 to 50,000, operations in 90 countries, budgets to USD 200 million, and more than 25 acquisitions integrated. That range includes the cultural architecture work that ESG and compensation committees now ask for, as well as the harder M&A integration calls that decide whether a deal earns its thesis. The board work has become a second discipline. Castro co-chairs the Austin advisory board of the National Association of Corporate Directors and led the 2024 NACD Director Summit conversation on how boards govern GenAI alongside a five-generation workforce. She is a Stanford and NACD certified Corporate Director, a Thunderbird MBA, and was named to the Financial Times Group’s Top 100 Board Candidates. Today she advises HR-focused AI founders at Series A through HC Advice and writes for Fast Company, Forbes, The Corporate Board, and Directors & Boards on the governance questions that follow when HR is asked to deploy AI at scale. Key speaking topics The CHRO as a strategic business partner Generative AI in HR and talent acquisition Global HR strategy and M&A integration Board governance of AI and the workforce Scaling people functions through IPO and take-private events ESG, compensation, and human capital in the boardroom The multigenerational workforce Agile HR and design thinking Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers, and CPO-track HR leaders preparing for board-facing roles. Boards, compensation committees, and audit committees engaging with AI, human capital, and ESG oversight. CEOs and executive teams in private equity portfolio companies or scale-ups preparing for IPO, M&A, or take-private events. Leadership programmes for senior women in operating and director roles. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what boards now expect from HR on AI, talent risk, and human capital reporting. Specific reference points on integrating HR through IPO, take-private, and cross-border M&A. A working view of how generative AI is changing talent acquisition and the CHRO operating model. Director-level language for governing AI ethics, workforce design, and compensation in tandem.

Why organisations work with Jacob Morgan His “Vulnerable Leader Equation” offers a specific, research-backed counter-argument to the dominant leadership vulnerability narrative – making the case that vulnerability without competence actively undermines trust, not builds it. Boards and CHROs get a framework they can act on, not a platitude. The research underpinning The Future Leader (140 CEO interviews, 14,000-person LinkedIn survey) gives senior audiences data that reflects their own peer group back at them – a rare source of authority in a crowded leadership development market. His founder role at Future of Work Leaders – a by-invitation CHRO community including members from Johnson & Johnson, Dow, and Lego – means his frameworks are stress-tested against the most senior people leaders in the world, not just conference rooms. The Future Leader won the CMI Management Book of the Year 2021, providing external, peer-validated credibility beyond self-reported authority. Organisations navigating the tension between AI adoption and human leadership capability get a framework that treats the two as interdependent – not competing priorities – grounded in his three-environment model of employee experience (culture, technology, physical workspace). Biography highlights Bestselling author of six books published by Wiley and McGraw-Hill, covering collaboration, the future of work, employee experience, leadership, and vulnerability The Future Leader (Wiley, 2020) – winner of the CMI Management Book of the Year 2021 Research base includes 140+ CEO interviews and a LinkedIn-partnered survey of nearly 14,000 employees for The Future Leader; 100+ CEO interviews and a DDI-partnered survey of 14,000 employees for Leading With Vulnerability Founder of Future of Work Leaders, a by-invitation global CHRO community with members from Johnson & Johnson, Dow, Lego, Northrop Grumman, and Neiman Marcus Contributed to and cited in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, NPR, and CNN Host of Great Leadership With Jacob Morgan; featured guest on the Harvard Business School Managing the Future of Work podcast Biography Jacob Morgan has spent more than a decade asking a question most organisations avoid: why do capable leaders so consistently fail to produce the organisations they intend? His answer, built across six books and primary research involving hundreds of CEOs and tens of thousands of employees, is both precise and uncomfortable – the model of leadership most executives were trained in was designed for a world that no longer exists. His most cited framework, the Vulnerable Leader Equation, makes a specific argument: vulnerability in isolation is not a leadership quality, it is a liability. The research underpinning Leading With Vulnerability (Wiley, 2024) – drawn from over 100 CEO interviews and a DDI-partnered survey of 14,000 employees – shows that leaders who combine openness about their gaps with clear, competence-driven responses to those gaps outperform peers on trust, engagement, and team performance. It is a direct challenge to the feel-good vulnerability conversation, and it is grounded in data. The Future Leader (Wiley, 2020), winner of the CMI Management Book of the Year 2021, applied the same research discipline to the broader question of what leading through disruption actually requires. Based on interviews with over 140 CEOs at organisations including Unilever, Mastercard, and KPMG – paired with a LinkedIn-partnered survey of nearly 14,000 employees – it identified four specific mindsets and five specific skills that define readiness for leadership in uncertain conditions. Morgan is also the founder of Future of Work Leaders, a by-invitation CHRO community whose members include Johnson & Johnson, Dow, and Lego. His work has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He hosts the Great Leadership With Jacob Morgan podcast and has been a featured guest on the Harvard Business School Managing the Future of Work series. Key speaking topics Future-ready leadership Vulnerability and trust in organisations Employee experience strategy Leadership in the age of AI Future of work Organisational culture and performance Executive development and people strategy Ideal for CHROs and CPOs navigating the gap between leadership investment and employee outcomes Senior leadership teams preparing for AI-driven workforce transformation Boards and executive committees reviewing leadership capability and succession HR and people functions building future-ready culture frameworks Audience outcomes A named framework – the Vulnerable Leader Equation – for understanding when and how vulnerability strengthens rather than undermines leadership authority The four mindsets and five skills that Morgan’s CEO research identified as defining future-ready leaders, with practical application at individual and team level A clearer model for diagnosing where employee experience is breaking down across culture, technology, and physical environment Research-grounded perspective on how AI is reshaping the leadership role – and what human capability this places at a premium Practical tools for assessing the gap between how leaders perceive their impact and how their people experience it

Why organisations work with Jennifer Vessels The P.E.A.C.E. Framework gives transformation a structured language and methodology: not abstract change theory, but a tested roadmap built from live engagements inside organisations including Adobe, Cisco, and Novartis She brings Silicon Valley operational experience applied globally. Having led transformation programmes across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, she translates insider knowledge of how the world’s most innovation-intensive organisations actually work into practical approaches for complex, multinational businesses She is an active CEO running transformation programmes concurrently with her speaking engagements, meaning her insights reflect current deployments, not retrospective case studies Her work on generational integration, aligning Gen Z talent, AI capability, and experienced human capital, addresses a workforce tension that most change and transformation speakers do not tackle with equivalent specificity Through the Executive Growth Alliance (EGA), she connects audiences to a live community of F100 leaders navigating the same challenges, giving organisations access to a peer learning network beyond the event itself Biography highlights CEO of Next Step, Silicon Valley consulting firm leading business transformation for global enterprises since 2006 Founder, Executive Growth Alliance: a global peer community of Fortune 100 leaders focused on future-of-work and AI adoption Creator of the P.E.A.C.E. Framework (Purpose, Exploration, Action, Collaboration, Empowerment), deployed across organisations including Adobe, Cisco, Google, IKEA, Microsoft, Novartis, and Schneider Electric Awarded “Best Technology Speaker ’24” (IOFM, Diversified Communications) Author of No Clue, No Fear: Navigating Storms of Change; new book Emergence: How Leaders Break Free from Outdated Thinking (Wiley, October 2026) Featured by EFMD, the World Economic Forum, the Institute of Directors, the San Jose Mercury News, and The New York Times MBA, San Jose State University; MS Occupational Psychology, University of London; INSEAD board governance certification Early career: international business development at Tandberg (acquired by Cisco); Director of Global Sales Operations at Tandem Computers Biography Leadership thinking built for the Industrial Age is not built for what organisations are experiencing now. Most change programmes assume that if the strategy is sound and the technology is right, transformation will follow. It does not. The missing variable is almost always how leaders are thinking, and what they are willing to let go of. Jennifer Vessels has spent two decades inside that gap, working as CEO of Next Step across Silicon Valley, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Her client list includes Adobe, Cisco, Google, IKEA, Microsoft, Novartis, and Schneider Electric: organisations navigating business model change, AI adoption, and leadership redesign at scale. From that operational experience, she developed the P.E.A.C.E. Framework: a structured methodology giving leaders a repeatable roadmap through disruptive change rather than a case for why change is necessary. What distinguishes her position is its currency. She is not drawing on past engagements. As an active CEO running transformation programmes alongside her speaking work, the examples she brings to audiences reflect live challenges rather than archived successes. She also founded the Executive Growth Alliance, a community of F100 leaders using collaborative challenge-resolution as a vehicle for building future-readiness collectively. Her book Emergence: How Leaders Break Free from Outdated Thinking (Wiley, October 2026), endorsed by Thinkers50 co-founder Stuart Crainer, extends the framework into a broader argument about the leadership models that are no longer fit for purpose, and what replaces them. Key speaking topics AI Adoption and Human-Centred Integration Change Leadership and Organisational Transformation Future of Work and Generational Integration The P.E.A.C.E. Framework for Leading Through Change Silicon Valley Innovation Applied to Global Business Business Model Redesign in an AI Era Ideal for CEOs and senior leadership teams navigating business model transformation or AI adoption programmes Boards and executive committees seeking a working practitioner’s perspective on AI-era leadership CHROs and people leaders managing generational integration, workforce redesign, and future-of-work strategy Transformation leads and change management functions inside large multinational organisations Audience outcomes A structured, repeatable framework (P.E.A.C.E.) that gives teams shared language for leading through uncertainty, usable Monday morning A clear diagnosis of why AI adoption and transformation programmes stall at the leadership level, with specific approaches to address it Practical tools for integrating generational diversity, particularly Gen Z talent alongside experienced human capital and AI capability A first-hand view of how organisations including Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia are integrating people with advanced technology, applied to the audience’s own market A mindset shift from defending what is crumbling to building what is emerging, positioning disruption as a source of competitive advantage

Why organisations work with Jeremy Blain He has published the operating detail behind distributed leadership, including a five-point organisational blueprint and a 90-day implementation roadmap, so the conversation moves past intent into execution. His OpenHR framework, co-authored with Dr. Rochelle Haynes, gives HR and people leaders a working model for designing a workforce that blends employees, contractors, and open talent without losing coherence. Twenty-five years operating as a CEO and board officer across the UK and Asia, including seven years running an international consultancy from Singapore, mean the boardroom register is native, not learned. Recognition from credible third parties, Gold at the 2024 Global Book Awards for Unleash the Inner CEO and ACQ5 International Gamechanger of the Year 2023, confirms the work has been independently judged on substance. He brings frameworks that travel beyond the keynote, with diagnostic tools and culture-building activities organisations can take into their own leadership development programmes. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Performance Works International, advising boards and executive teams on leadership and digital transformation. Author of The Inner CEO and the second edition Unleash the Inner CEO, both award-winning titles on distributed leadership. Co-author with Dr. Rochelle Haynes of OpenHR: The Human Capital Framework for the Blended Workforce. Fellow of the Institute of Directors, London since 2003; senior board advisor to WDHB and co-founder of the Transformational Leadership Acceleration Institute. Named International Gamechanger of the Year by ACQ5 in 2023. Featured in Forbes, The Times of London, CEO Today, Dialogue by Duke CE, and Business Matters; host of the Rethink Leadership podcast. Biography Distributed leadership has been talked about for two decades. What has been missing is a working model that boards and operating committees can actually run. Jeremy Blain has spent his career building that model, first as a CEO and board officer in the UK and Asia, and now as the founder of Performance Works International. The argument is set out in The Inner CEO and its updated second edition, Unleash the Inner CEO, which won Gold in the Business Leadership category at the 2024 Global Book Awards. The book offers a five-point blueprint for the conditions, structures, and processes that make distributed leadership operational, plus a 90-day roadmap for managers and individual contributors. It is closer to an implementation manual than a thesis. A second strand of the work, OpenHR, co-authored with Dr. Rochelle Haynes, addresses what happens when the workforce itself is no longer a single category. As organisations blend employees, contractors, freelancers, and open talent, traditional human capital systems strain. OpenHR offers a framework, glossary, and templates for designing people strategy across that mix. The credibility behind the frameworks is operational. Seven years running an international consultancy from Singapore. Twenty-five years in corporate learning and human capital. Senior board roles at WDHB and the Intercontinental School of Economics and Applied Sciences. ACQ5 named him International Gamechanger of the Year in 2023, and his commentary appears in Forbes, The Times of London, and Dialogue by Duke CE. Boards work with him because the prescriptions come with the receipts. Key speaking topics Distributed leadership as an operating model Digital and AI transformation for boards and executive teams Human capital strategy for the blended workforce Empowerment and accountability at scale Leadership development across multinational and multi-generational teams Culture and capability for hybrid, AI-enabled organisations Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and executive committees rewiring decision rights and accountability across the organisation CHROs and chief people officers designing for a workforce that combines full-time, contract, and open talent Boards reviewing the leadership and culture preconditions for digital and AI transformation Transformation, change, and leadership development leads building scalable programmes across regions Audience outcomes A clearer view of where authority and accountability are misaligned in their own organisation A practical reference model for distributing leadership without losing strategic coherence A framework for designing human capital strategy across employees, contractors, and open talent Specific diagnostic questions to take into the next executive committee or board agenda Language for confronting the gap between stated leadership values and observed leadership behaviour

Why organisations work with Jim Carroll He builds each keynote around the client’s own industry data, not a generic deck. NASA, Pfizer, the World Bank, and the PGA of America have brought him in to map their specific sector horizon, from space to pharma acceleration to manufacturing in emerging economies. BusinessWeek named him one of four leading sources of insight on innovation and creativity, a credential that travels well in C-suite rooms where buyers want an outside voice with editorial standing. He pairs futurist work with a CPA background and a decade inside large advisory firms. That combination tends to land with CFOs and operating leaders who push back on speakers without commercial grounding. Two million-plus attendees across thirty years of corporate, institutional, and conference platforms, including the World Government Summit and the Swiss Innovation Forum, give him a pattern library few peers can match. His column work for the Globe and Mail and trade titles such as Profit and Marketing established an independent public record of trend calls, useful when boards want a speaker whose views predate the engagement. Biography highlights Named by BusinessWeek as one of four leading sources of insight on innovation and creativity. Lifetime Achievement Award, Canadian New Media Awards (2002), for pioneering work in the digital industry. Named “One of 50 International Names to Know” by the Online Journalism Review. Keynote engagements for NASA, The Walt Disney Company, Pfizer, the World Bank, the PGA of America, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, BlackRock, the Swiss Innovation Forum, and the World Government Summit. Author of titles including “The Future Belongs To Those Who Are Fast”, “Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast”, and “Dancing in the Rain: How Bold Leaders Grow Stronger in Stormy Times”. Former national columnist for the Globe and Mail; columns in Profit, Marketing, and hiTech Careers; CPA with prior advisory, tax, and audit experience at predecessor firms of KPMG and EY. Biography The hardest call in any boardroom is timing. Most leadership teams can describe the trend lines reshaping their industry. Far fewer can say, with conviction, which curve bends in the next eighteen months and which is still a decade out. That gap is where Carroll’s work lives. He has spent more than thirty years building a library of industry-specific futurist research, then translating it into keynotes for the executive teams making capital and portfolio decisions. NASA brought him in twice for sessions on the future of the space industry. Pfizer engaged him on the acceleration of medical science. The PGA of America used him to rethink innovation in golf. The World Bank asked him to look at manufacturing in emerging economies. Each engagement is built from the client’s own sector data rather than a generic trends deck. The credentials behind that work matter. BusinessWeek named him one of four leading sources of insight on innovation and creativity. The Canadian New Media Awards gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002. The Online Journalism Review listed him among “50 International Names to Know”. A CPA designation and roughly a decade in advisory, tax, and audit roles at predecessor firms of KPMG and EY underwrite the commercial register he speaks in. His books, from “The Future Belongs To Those Who Are Fast” through to “Dancing in the Rain: How Bold Leaders Grow Stronger in Stormy Times”, argue a consistent line: the organisations that win in volatile decades are the ones that compress decision cycles, treat optimism as a strategy, and refuse to let the planning calendar set the pace of change. Key speaking topics Industry-specific trend forecasting Innovation and disruption Strategic foresight and scenario planning Acceleration and decision velocity Future of healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services Leadership in volatile markets Workforce and skills transformation Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting three-to-five-year strategy in industries facing structural disruption CEOs, CSOs, and innovation leads commissioning offsites that need an outside trend voice anchored in their sector Conference programmes for healthcare, manufacturing, energy, financial services, and technology that need a headline futurist with sector range Audience outcomes A clearer view of which trends in the audience’s specific industry are accelerating, which are overhyped, and which are mispriced by current strategy. A sharper internal language for talking about decision speed, with examples drawn from sectors as varied as space, pharma, and manufacturing. Confidence to challenge planning cycles and capital allocation assumptions that quietly assume a slower world. Concrete reference points from named organisations (NASA, Pfizer, the PGA of America, the World Bank) that have used the same lens.

Why organisations work with Julie Holmes She gives leaders a way past the trap most AI programmes fall into. Second Story Strategy™, her framework, treats AI as a starting line for distinct new value, not a finish line for cost savings. She has built and sold technology, not just studied it. Two innovation companies and products in over 60 countries give her keynotes the texture of an operator, and she still builds AI applications for herself and clients today. Her material works at two stages: helping teams who are still becoming AI-capable, and pushing teams who have already proven AI makes them faster toward the harder question of what they will do with it that no one else can. PSA-UKI Hall of Fame status puts her among 33 speakers recognised for sustained craft on stage, which matters when the brief is a high-stakes leadership audience with mixed AI fluency in the room. She lectures on innovation and AI at Yale, Birkbeck, and the American University of Beirut, keeping the material tested against faculty and students as well as paying clients. Biography highlights Hall of Fame Speaker, PSA-UKI, one of 33 to hold the honour Originator of Second Story Strategy™ and the Second Story Blueprint for building competitive advantage on top of AI Author of Little Big Bangs for Leaders and of the 101+ AI Tips, Tools and Prompts series for leaders and sales professionals Founder of two innovation companies with products distributed in over 60 countries Clients include Oracle, Expedia, American Express, JetBlue, Nestle, EY, VMware, US Bank, and LinkedIn Guest lecturer at Yale, Birkbeck (University of London), and the American University of Beirut Biography AI is raising the floor for everyone. The same models, agents, and automation reach every competitor in a category at roughly the same time. That makes it easy to be good, and good is no longer a position. It is the new baseline. Julie Holmes works on the question that follows: once everyone is faster, what will your organisation be that no one else can be? Her answer is Second Story Strategy™, a framework drawn from studying which companies actually pull ahead with AI and which simply run harder in place. The pattern she found was not about budget or engineering depth. The standouts treated AI as a foundation and built something distinct on top of it, working through four levels she maps as Build, Reimagine, Extend, and Lead, with the organisation’s own distinctiveness as the load-bearing element running through all of them. Her credibility comes from building, not commenting. Holmes founded two innovation companies and shipped products into more than 60 countries, and she still builds AI applications for herself and clients. That operator history shapes how she talks to senior audiences. The diagnosis is practical, the language is plain, and her work extends into resources leaders can use directly, including the regularly updated 101+ AI Tips, Tools and Prompts series. Holmes is a Hall of Fame Speaker with PSA-UKI, one of 33 to hold the honour, and a guest lecturer at Yale, Birkbeck, and the American University of Beirut. Brands including Oracle, Expedia, JetBlue, Nestle, EY, and LinkedIn have brought her in for the same reason: to move AI from a tool that makes them cheaper to a foundation that makes them distinct. Key speaking topics Second Story Strategy™ and competitive advantage through AI AI strategy and enterprise adoption AI-empowered teams and workflows Innovation as a leadership discipline Sales and customer experience under AI Future of work and AI capability building Ideal for C-suite leaders setting enterprise AI direction Heads of department helping their teams level up with AI Sales and customer-experience leaders integrating AI into commercial workflows Company-wide events where AI fluency varies widely across the room Audience outcomes The five behaviours that set AI-savvy teams apart, framed as a Second Story Strategy™ they can act on A clear way to decide where to build genuine distinction and where keeping pace is enough Concrete examples of how AI is reshaping leadership, sales, and customer experience, with specific tools named Language for leading non-technical teams into AI with confidence rather than anxiety A sharper sense of which AI use cases build advantage and which only add speed