Wachstumsstrategie

Why organisations work with Erika Lucas Her accelerator, run in partnership with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned startups since 2017. She draws on live operating experience, finding and scaling founders that most capital systems miss. Her venture fund, VEST Her Ventures, invests in women-led companies in the care economy and the future of work. She brings a current portfolio view of where workforce shifts and regulatory pressure are opening commercial opportunities, and the market is under-pricing. She speaks the language of the full capital stack. As a former private equity Partner and as Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, she is fluent in public incentives, PE, VC, and bank credit, which matters for boards making complex allocation decisions. Her TED talk, “America’s Trillion Dollar Blindspot,” makes a market-sizing case for capital flowing to overlooked founders. That is the register that senior leaders and investment committees respond to. She operates from Oklahoma City, away from the coastal hubs from which most speakers on this topic come. For companies building workforce, consumer, or policy strategies outside a handful of metros, her ground-level view is difficult to source elsewhere. Biography highlights Co-founder of StitchCrew, its accelerator with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned startups since 2017 Founder and General Partner of VEST Her Ventures, an early-stage venture fund investing in women-led companies in the care economy and future of work TED speaker: “America’s Trillion Dollar Blindspot” (TEDxOU) Host of the VEST Her Podcast, examining the structural barriers to women’s economic advancement Board of Directors at Arvest Bank; Fellow at the Just Economy Institute; Member of the Latino Corporate Directors Association Former Partner at a US and European private equity firm; former Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, where 38 international companies located or expanded during her tenure Biography Only a sliver of venture capital reaches women and founders of colour. The commercial cost of that pattern is usually understated. Whole categories of customers, markets, and operators are being systematically under-priced by capital that is trained to look in the same handful of places. StitchCrew was built on that reading of the market. Co-founded with her husband Chris in 2016, it runs an accelerator in partnership with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned founders. The positioning matters. It sits in the middle of the country, not on a coastal hub, and the deal flow reflects markets that most East Coast or Bay Area funds never see. The logic extended into investment. VEST Her Ventures, founded in 2022, backs early-stage women-led companies in the care economy and future of work, two sectors where demand is visibly running ahead of available capital. The fund came together in weeks. Two million dollars was raised in two months, entirely from women limited partners based in the middle of the country. The throughline runs back through her earlier career. She was a Partner at a private equity firm with investments in the United States and Europe, and Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, where 38 international companies located or expanded during her tenure. She sits on the board of Arvest Bank, is a Fellow at the Just Economy Institute, and hosts the VEST Her Podcast, where the repeated question is what it would take for American capital to stop leaving its most profitable markets untouched. Key speaking topics Access to capital and overlooked markets Entrepreneurship and the new majority economy The care economy and future of work Women in leadership and ownership Venture capital and economic inclusion Economic mobility and public-private strategy Ideal for Corporate boards and Chief Investment Officers are looking for the next source of portfolio growth Private equity and venture investment committees assessing deal flow and diversification CHROs and heads of talent building workforce and care infrastructure strategies Economic development agencies, chambers of commerce, and regional leadership forums are working on commercial inclusion Audience outcomes A sharper commercial argument for investing in overlooked founders and markets, drawn from a live accelerator and an active venture portfolio A clearer map of where venture and growth capital actually lands in the United States, and which geographies and founder profiles it consistently misses Named sectors where consumer and workforce change is already running ahead of investment capital, including the care economy and the infrastructure of work A vocabulary for discussing inclusion in commercial terms, usable with boards, investment committees, and senior executives who are sceptical of fairness-led framing

Why organisations work with Guillem Graell He ran brand, digital and direct-to-fan at FC Barcelona between 2017 and 2021, a period in which the club’s digital products generated over one billion euros. Few speakers have operated a P and L of that size in this category. He built Barça Studios and BarçaTV+ from scratch into a direct-to-consumer business valued at more than 250 million euros, giving him a working blueprint for content as a revenue line, not a marketing cost. He took the club’s social footprint past 400 million followers and made it the first football club with 10 million YouTube subscribers, with engagement that consistently led the global sports rankings. He is now building, not retired. As co-founder of D2F Partners he designs, operates and funds direct-to-fan brands, so the case material in any keynote is current rather than archival. He teaches brand strategy at UPF Barcelona School of Management and marketing management at ESADE, which forces him to translate operating experience into frameworks that other leaders can use. Biography highlights Chief Marketing Officer, FC Barcelona, 2017 to 2021. Co-founder and Managing Partner, D2F Partners, building direct-to-fan businesses in sport and entertainment. Founder of Barça Studios and BarçaTV+, a direct-to-consumer venture valued at over 250 million euros. Earlier brand and marketing roles at Procter and Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, Chupa Chups, Codorniu Group and Accenture. Faculty at UPF Barcelona School of Management (Master in Brand Strategy, since 2014) and ESADE Business School (Master in Marketing Management). Industrial Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, and General Management Programme (PDG), IESE Business School. Biography Sports clubs were among the first consumer brands to discover that their audience was bigger than their stadium and worth more than their broadcast deal. Between 2017 and 2021, FC Barcelona had to act on that fact, and the person running brand, digital and direct-to-fan inside the club was Guillem Graell. As Chief Marketing Officer, he rebuilt the club’s commercial relationship with its supporters around a direct-to-consumer model. He founded Barça Studios and launched BarçaTV+, a venture later valued at more than 250 million euros, alongside subscription, content and product lines that pushed digital revenue past one billion euros. The social audience grew past 400 million followers, and the club became the first in football to cross 10 million YouTube subscribers. His route into that role was unusual for sport. Industrial engineering at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, the General Management Programme at IESE, and brand and commercial roles at Procter and Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, Chupa Chups, Codorniu and Accenture. The FMCG discipline of building emotional brands at scale travelled with him into one of the most-watched sporting institutions in the world. He now co-runs D2F Partners with Enric Llopart, the club’s former digital director, designing and funding direct-to-fan businesses for other sports and entertainment brands. He teaches brand strategy at UPF Barcelona School of Management and ESADE, which is where the operating playbook from Barça gets pressure-tested against other categories trying to own their audience. Key speaking topics Direct-to-consumer strategy in sport and entertainment Building and monetising LoveBrands Digital business models and content as revenue Brand transformation in legacy organisations Audience, community and fan engagement at scale Innovation in marketing and commercial models Ideal for CMOs, Chief Brand Officers and Chief Digital Officers in consumer-facing categories CEOs and boards of sports, entertainment, media and lifestyle businesses Heads of direct-to-consumer, content and digital product Marketing and growth leadership teams reframing how they own customer relationships Audience outcomes A working view of how a billion-euro digital and direct-to-fan business actually gets built and run Practical reference points for moving from audience metrics to commercial outcomes A clearer line between brand strategy, content investment and direct revenue Useful comparisons between sport, entertainment and other consumer categories trying to own the customer A confident perspective on where digital products, subscriptions and community fit inside a brand P and L

Why organisations work with Henry Coutinho-Mason He brings a working method for trend-driven innovation, set out in Trend-Driven Innovation and refined across a decade as Managing Director of TrendWatching, rather than a curated list of things happening now. His second book, The Future Normal, co-written with WSJ bestseller Rohit Bhargava, gives executive audiences a structured view of the thirty shifts most likely to reshape the next decade, tailored by sector. He has delivered more than 100 keynotes and workshops across 30+ countries for Mastercard, Johnson & Johnson, Calvin Klein, Tata, Siemens, Google, HP and Marriott, so the material is already pressure-tested on senior corporate audiences. His AI sessions are built around a people-first innovation strategy, not a tools tour, which lands with leaders who need to commit capital and organisational focus rather than pilot for the sake of it. The 3Space track record, recognised by the FT/Citi Urban Ingenuity Awards and NESTA New Radicals, gives him operator credibility beyond the commentary layer. Biography highlights Co-author, The Future Normal: How We Will Live, Work and Thrive in the Next Decade, with Rohit Bhargava (Ideapress). Co-author, Trend-Driven Innovation: Beat Accelerating Customer Expectations. Former Managing Director, TrendWatching. Guest lecturer, HEC Paris. Co-founder, 3Space; European winner of the FT/Citi Urban Ingenuity Awards, commended by Fast Company World Changing Ideas, selected by NESTA New Radicals. Keynote and workshop engagements with Mastercard, Johnson & Johnson, Calvin Klein, Tata, Siemens, Telefonica, HP, Google, GE, Accenture, and Marriott. Biography Most large organisations know their customer expectations are moving. What they struggle with is turning that awareness into a pipeline of decisions a board will back. That gap, between trend awareness and commercial commitment, is where Coutinho-Mason does his work. He spent roughly a decade at TrendWatching, ending as Managing Director of what became one of the most widely referenced consumer trend intelligence firms in the world. That run produced a method, published as Trend-Driven Innovation, for converting shifting customer expectations into concrete innovation bets rather than observations. His second book, The Future Normal, written with Wall Street Journal bestselling author Rohit Bhargava, maps thirty ideas and instigators shaping the next decade, from generative AI to biophilic design. Leadership teams at Mastercard, Johnson & Johnson, Calvin Klein, Tata, Siemens and others have booked versions of the material tailored to their sector, often as the opening frame for a strategy offsite. Alongside the speaking and advisory work, he co-founded 3Space, a social enterprise that turns empty commercial property into space for charities and community groups. It won the European section of the FT/Citi Urban Ingenuity Awards and was commended by Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, a proof point that the innovation method travels beyond the corporate setting into organisations that have to ship results with little margin for error. Key speaking topics Trend-driven innovation Consumer and customer expectations Strategic foresight People-first AI strategy Future of retail, work and cities Business model innovation Growth strategy Ideal for CSOs and heads of strategy commissioning a multi-year innovation agenda CMOs and customer experience leaders recalibrating propositions against shifting expectations Chief innovation officers and transformation leads looking for a repeatable method, not a trend deck Executive offsites and board sessions opening a decade-horizon strategy conversation Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for distinguishing durable consumer shifts from short-cycle noise A working framework for translating trend signals into specific innovation bets A sharper view of where generative AI changes the economics of their category, and where it does not Concrete examples of how peer-scale organisations have already moved, drawn from cross-sector research A clear set of questions to take back to strategy, product and marketing teams

Why organisations work with Jacco van der Kooij He built the operating language that serious SaaS revenue teams already use. Bowtie, SPICED and Revenue Architecture are not proprietary curiosities; they are the common vocabulary at companies like DocuSign, Uber Eats, Adobe and MURAL. His work treats go-to-market as a designed system, not a set of sales tactics. Leadership teams leave with a structural view of acquisition, retention and expansion as one connected revenue engine. He has operating credibility from inside enterprise technology. Senior roles at Kontiki, Qumu and Technicolor sit underneath the frameworks, so the advice is grounded in execution, not theory. He is published where serious readers look. Harvard Business Review (with Frank V. Cespedes of Harvard Business School) and a shelf of best-selling books including Revenue Architecture and Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization. He advises the capital side, not just the operating side. Growth advisory to Notion Capital, Reach Capital, Astella and Storm Ventures gives him a cross-portfolio view of what compounds and what breaks. Biography highlights Founder of Winning by Design, a go-to-market consulting and training firm working with hundreds of recurring-revenue companies worldwide. Creator of the Bowtie customer-journey model, the SPICED qualification framework and the Revenue Architecture operating model. Author of Revenue Architecture (2023) and co-author of Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization and The SaaS Sales Method series. Co-author with Frank V. Cespedes of the Harvard Business Review article “Hiring Star Salespeople Isn’t the Best Way to Grow” (February 2016). Clients and training partners include Uber Eats, DocuSign, Adobe, MURAL, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and OwnBackup. Growth advisor to Notion Capital, Reach Capital, Astella and Storm Ventures. Keynote speaker at Dreamforce, SaaStock Dublin, SaaS Growth London, MarketingProfs and RD Summit Brazil. Biography Recurring revenue rewrote the economics of B2B software, but most companies still run sales, customer success and marketing as separate departments with separate targets. Winning by Design, the firm Jacco van der Kooij founded in 2012, exists to correct that. The core of his work is a set of frameworks that have become standard vocabulary inside serious SaaS revenue teams. The Bowtie extends the funnel into onboarding, adoption and expansion, so leadership can see acquisition and retention as one connected system. SPICED gives every customer-facing function a shared qualification model. Revenue Architecture, the 2023 textbook of over 250 diagrams and blueprints, ties the two into an operating design for recurring-revenue growth. His authority is grounded in operating history before it is grounded in publishing. Senior sales and strategy roles at Kontiki, Qumu and Technicolor sit underneath the frameworks. Harvard Business Review published his co-authored work with Frank V. Cespedes of Harvard Business School on why hiring star salespeople is a weaker growth lever than organisational design, a piece that now reads as the seed of the larger thesis. Today his focus is how compounding growth systems behave under AI. He advises executive teams and venture capital firms, including Notion Capital, Reach Capital, Astella and Storm Ventures, on redesigning go-to-market operating models where probabilistic modelling and AI-enabled workflows replace linear funnel thinking. The training side of the business has equipped revenue teams at Uber Eats, DocuSign, Adobe, MURAL and Hewlett Packard Enterprise with the same operating language. Key speaking topics Revenue Architecture for recurring-revenue businesses The Bowtie customer-journey model SPICED qualification and customer conversations Go-to-market operating design for B2B SaaS AI-enabled go-to-market and probabilistic growth modelling Sales organisation design and scaling Executive growth governance Ideal for CROs, CCOs, VPs of Sales and VPs of Customer Success rebuilding the revenue engine around recurring revenue B2B SaaS founders and executive teams moving from founder-led selling into scaled, systematised go-to-market Venture capital firms and boards overseeing growth-stage portfolio companies Corporate transformation leaders inside enterprise technology businesses shifting to subscription or consumption models Audience outcomes A shared operating language across sales, marketing and customer success that replaces siloed vocabulary. A structural view of the full customer journey through the Bowtie, from acquisition into retention and expansion. A working grasp of SPICED as a qualification and conversation model any customer-facing team can deploy. A clearer read on where AI meaningfully changes go-to-market design and where it is overclaimed. Specific diagnostic questions leadership teams can use to locate the actual bottleneck in their growth system.

Why organisations work with Jack Stratten Pattern recognition grounded in fieldwork. Insider Trends runs retail safaris in London, New York, Tokyo and Seoul, which means his examples come from stores he has physically been inside, not slide decks recycled from conference circuits. A named RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer in both 2023 and 2024, giving buyers a third-party signal of standing in the retail community. Direct experience advising Nike, LVMH, Ikea, Marks and Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover and Microsoft on retail formats and customer experience, so the frame of reference fits enterprise decision-makers. Works across the full retail stack, from store roles and staff models to omnichannel, supply chain and sustainability, which lets a single session connect teams that usually plan in silos. Format flexibility. Keynote, boardroom session, trend workshop or guided retail safari, all drawn from the same underlying research base. Biography highlights Head of Trends, Insider Trends, a London-based retail futures agency advising C-suite clients globally. Selected for RETHINK Retail’s Top Retail Influencers list in 2023 and 2024. Clients include Nike, Johnson and Johnson, Converse, Ikea, Shell, Marks and Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover, Costa Coffee, Diageo, Microsoft, LVMH, Nespresso, Twilio, The National Trust and Galeries Lafayette. Has run trend seminars for senior business audiences in partnership with the British Library. Media commentator on retail change, including appearances on Channel 4 and BBC Radio 5. Published author on Insider Trends and contributor to industry outlets including Retail Technology Innovation Hub. Biography Physical stores, e-commerce, app, social commerce, marketplace listings, supply chain footprint. For most retailers these are still governed as separate projects with separate owners, even though a single customer now moves across all of them inside one buying decision. That gap between how customers shop and how retailers are organised is the core tension Jack Stratten’s work addresses. As Head of Trends at Insider Trends, a London-based retail futures agency, he sits on top of a continuous research engine that tracks new store formats, brand experiences and commercial models in the cities where retail is evolving fastest. The agency’s client list spans Nike, LVMH, Ikea, Marks and Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover, Microsoft and Galeries Lafayette, and the work typically lands as a keynote, a boardroom session, a workshop, or a guided retail safari through live stores. The value to a leadership team is diagnostic as much as inspirational. Stratten is good at naming which shifts are real signals versus which are noise, which store formats actually drive commercial outcomes, and where omnichannel investment translates into loyalty rather than cost. RETHINK Retail named him one of its Top Retail Influencers in both 2023 and 2024, a practitioner-voted signal that buyers in the sector recognise his read on the category. What separates his sessions from a standard retail trends talk is the grounding. The examples are stores he has walked, brands his team has studied in depth, and commercial decisions he has watched play out, which makes the content usable inside a planning cycle rather than a year-end inspiration slot. Key speaking topics Retail trends and customer behaviour Omnichannel strategy Store of the future and new retail formats Customer experience in consumer brands Retail innovation and business model change Sustainability in retail and supply chain Direct to consumer and brand experience Ideal for Retail and consumer goods executive teams setting store, channel and format strategy. Heads of customer experience, digital and e-commerce aligning on a single commercial plan. Property, leasing and shopping centre leadership rethinking the role of physical space. Senior marketing and brand leaders in consumer categories adjacent to retail. Audience outcomes A clearer view of which retail shifts are material signals and which are surface noise. Concrete examples of store formats, brand experiences and omnichannel models that are working in 2025, with the commercial logic behind them. A shared vocabulary across store, digital, marketing and supply chain teams for the next planning cycle. Specific prompts for where to test, invest or pull back in the next 12 to 24 months. A sharper sense of how consumer brands and retailers are redefining the role of the store.

Why organisations work with Jaideep Prabhu He wrote the books that put frugal innovation on the boardroom agenda. “Jugaad Innovation” and “Frugal Innovation” are the reference texts, and the latter won the Chartered Management Institute’s Management Book of the Year in 2016. He connects innovation theory to what is actually happening in India, China, Brazil and Africa, not as case studies but as strategic signal for Western firms facing the same constraints a decade later. His work travels into public policy. “How Should a Government Be?” takes the same logic on digital, lean operations and citizen value, and applies it to how state power is now exercised. He holds two chairs at Cambridge Judge Business School and is a Fellow of the British Academy, which means the frameworks have been pressure-tested by academic peers, not only by consultants. Biography highlights Professor of Marketing and Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise, Cambridge Judge Business School Director of the Centre for India and Global Business at Cambridge Judge Business School Fellow of the British Academy; Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge Co-author of “Jugaad Innovation” (Jossey-Bass, 2012) and “Frugal Innovation” (Economist Books / Profile Books, 2015), winner of the CMI Management Book of the Year 2016 Author of “How Should a Government Be? The New Levers of State Power” (Profile Books, 2021) Commentary and profiles in The Economist, Financial Times, The New York Times, The Times, Le Monde, BBC News, BBC Radio 4 and Bloomberg BusinessWeek Biography “Jugaad” is the Hindi word for an ingenious, improvised fix. In 2012, Jaideep Prabhu and his co-authors turned it into a serious argument about how Western firms should learn to innovate when money, time and certainty are all in shorter supply. That book, and its successor “Frugal Innovation”, reframed a generation of conversations about growth under constraint. Prabhu holds two chairs at Cambridge Judge Business School: Professor of Marketing and the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise. He directs the Centre for India and Global Business, and sits as a Fellow of the British Academy and of Clare College, Cambridge. The research sits where marketing, innovation, strategy and international business meet, with a steady focus on what firms in emerging economies are teaching firms everywhere else. “Frugal Innovation”, co-written with Navi Radjou and published with The Economist, won the Chartered Management Institute’s Management Book of the Year in 2016. His 2021 book “How Should a Government Be? The New Levers of State Power” extended the same question beyond companies, arguing that digital infrastructure, lean operations and new organisational forms are reshaping what governments can credibly deliver. The through-line is practical. Leaders who work with him come away with a clearer view of how to compete on creativity and economics at the same time, and a sharper sense of which constraints to design around and which to design with. Key speaking topics Frugal and jugaad innovation Business model innovation in emerging markets Growth strategy under constraint India and the global innovation economy Digital transformation in the public sector The future of government and state capacity Global marketing and competitive advantage Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting innovation and growth strategy for cost-sensitive or emerging markets CSOs, CMOs and heads of innovation looking to pressure-test portfolios against leaner competitors Public sector leaders, policy teams and ministers redesigning delivery around digital and citizen value Corporate India programmes, global leadership forums and any organisation with a serious India or emerging markets thesis Audience outcomes A working definition of frugal innovation that distinguishes it from cost-cutting and makes it usable at board level Named examples from India, China, Brazil and Africa of firms that built scale under constraint, and what they reveal about Western incumbents A framework for spotting which parts of the business model are most exposed to leaner competition and which offer the fastest route to reinvention For public sector audiences, a clearer view of the levers that modern states are using to deliver more with less Specific, citable references from the three books that senior teams can build internal conversations around

James Averdieck’s Background He built the brand with passion and sold it for £32 million. James is compelling and unique as a keynote speaker, as he delivers the message that at the heart of entrepreneurialism lies the idea, the journey, not the exit strategy, and not the final sale price. The entrepreneur, conveys a strong message about the value of loving your business. Speaking from experience, he shares his innovative ideas about entrepreneurship; simplifying business and using creative agility to make your dreams achievable. He shares the ups and downs of running a business with a raw candour, offering a true insight into the rocky road to success. The combination of James’ credibility and transparency, mean important and real lessons can be learned from his keynote speeches. Charismatic, intelligent and thoughtful, James is an ideal speaker for the business circuit. Born in Yorkshire in 1965, James was educated at Uppingham School before studying Economics at Durham University. Following University, James joined the graduate programme at strategy consultants Arthur D. Little, where he learnt about the key drivers to a successful business, this sparked a fire within him to learn more. James spent 9 years in the Food industry working for Safeway and St Ivel and learnt about Sales and Marketing and running businesses. With St Ivel he moved to Belgium and became a convert to Belgian gastronomy and, as he says, ‘went native on the chocolate front’. It was in Brussels that the seed was sown for his UK chocolate venture. James saw the opportunity of marrying high-quality chocolate patisserie with efficient UK supermarket distribution. Spotting a gap in the market, James saw that consumers wanted artisanal products and there was a backlash forming against mass produced big brands. He wanted to deliver high-quality products using the best raw materials. Gü, the brand, is about chocolate extremism – evoking nostalgic memories and magical smells of baking with chocolate. The brand was embraced with love by the supermarkets, launching first in Sainsburys and Waitrose with the others following apace. James has turned his attentions now to a healthier brand, The Coconut Collective, a non-dairy based brand. As a speaker, James’ knowledge combined with natural story-telling makes him an ideal choice for any audience looking to be inspired. James Averdieck is the man who built and sold Gü! A master entrepreneur who realised his dream, harnessed his strengths and pioneered a leading brand, his bumpy journey means he has invaluable lessons to impart.

Why organisations work with Jenk Oz A live daily feed of Gen Z behaviour. Thred.com publishes in 17 languages across 220+ countries and territories, feeding his brand advice with first-party data instead of commissioned surveys. Consulting credibility built on named client work. Thred Media has advised Coca-Cola, Google, Ford, Dunkin’, Microsoft, Snapchat, and Ogilvy on Gen Z strategy, so executive audiences engage with a working commercial operator. Primary-source Gen Z insight. Thred’s editorial team is almost entirely Gen Z, which grounds brand strategy work in lived cohort behaviour. A structural edge in data. The combination of publishing arm, Change Maker Discord community, and consulting practice generates zero- and first-party signals on emerging youth culture that traditional agencies do not hold. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Thred Media, the Gen Z publishing and consulting business headquartered in London. Thred.com publishes in 17 languages, reaches audiences in 220+ countries and territories, and generates approximately 350,000 monthly article reads alongside 200,000+ social followers. Consulting clients include Coca-Cola, Google, Ford, Dunkin’, Microsoft, Snapchat, Ogilvy, Hilton, Meta, Universal Music Group, and Epic Games. Named on Forbes 30 Under 30 (Europe), winner of Digiday’s Future Leader Award and Greater Good Award, and recipient of a Webby/Anthem Young Leader Award in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Member of the Google Z-Council, Oracle for Startups, and the Microsoft Surface young entrepreneur programme. Delivered three TEDx talks and has spoken at 90+ international conferences, including Amazon AWS Summit London (where he interviewed Amazon CTO Werner Vogels), Forbes Summit Cincinnati, Vox YMS New York, Oxford University Model UN, and Brand Week Istanbul. Biography Most brand advice about Gen Z is produced from outside the generation it describes. Survey data and panel research reach brand teams after the fact, often long after the behaviour they track has moved on. Thred Media was built on the opposite principle. What became Thred Media began with a school show-and-tell by an eight-year-old Jenk Oz about the activities he was doing outside class. That project grew into iCoolKid, which was rebranded and repositioned as Thred Media in 2019. Today, Thred.com publishes in 17 languages and reaches audiences in 220+ countries, giving the business a live first-party read on what young consumers are actually doing and buying. The consulting arm applies that feed to commercial questions. Coca-Cola, Google, Ford, Dunkin’, Microsoft, Snapchat, Ogilvy, and Hilton have used Thred Media for Gen Z strategy work that draws on live behaviour from the Change Maker Discord community and the editorial desk. Recognition has followed: Forbes 30 Under 30 (Europe), the Digiday Future Leader Award, a Webby/Anthem Award in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts. The commercial distinction is straightforward. He runs a functioning Gen Z business that advises major consumer brands, and he belongs to the generation he is paid to interpret. He has delivered three TEDx talks, interviewed Amazon CTO Werner Vogels at AWS Summit London, and been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Fortune, and the Evening Standard. Key speaking topics Gen Z consumer behaviour Brand relevance and the Gen Z market Gen Z marketing strategy Youth culture and social change Digital activism and clicktivism Youth entrepreneurship The future of work through a Gen Z lens Ideal for Chief marketing officers, brand directors, and consumer strategy teams are trying to close the relevance gap with Gen Z consumers. Agencies and consultancies whose clients are asking sharper questions about youth audiences than internal research can answer. Corporate innovation and growth teams are building commercial plans that depend on reaching emerging consumer cohorts. Board and executive audiences wanting a primary source on Gen Z behaviour, not secondhand interpretation. Audience outcomes A live view of how Gen Z is actually behaving across purchase and media decisions, drawn from Thred.com’s daily publishing feed and Change Maker community. Recalibrated assumptions about the signals brands use to judge youth relevance, with examples from named client work. Specific examples of where established brands are winning and losing Gen Z attention, drawn from Thred Media’s advisory engagements. A direct read on how social change and purpose shape purchase decisions in the generation that now accounts for the largest share of emerging consumer spend.

Why organisations work with JJ Delgado He runs a corporate venturing unit inside a century-old beverages group, so his AI and digital arguments are backed by current P&L responsibility, not consulting distance. His Amazon background gives him a working view of how the world’s most operationally disciplined digital company actually builds growth, which he translates for non-digital natives. He works across both EMEA and LATAM markets, useful for groups whose digital strategy has to land in mature and emerging consumer markets at once. He brings a named portfolio of work across Burger King, Pepsi, Ford, Bosch, Siemens, Vodafone, and Telefonica, which means his case material is recognisable to senior commercial audiences. Biography highlights General Manager, MOVE Estrella Galicia Digital, the open innovation and digital ventures unit of Hijos de Rivera. Former Head of Marketing, Southern Europe, at Amazon, where he led the company’s largest international sales day at the time. PhD Cum Laude in Digital Economy; MBA from London School of Business and Finance. Guest teaching at the London School of Economics and IE Business School on digital economy and consumer behaviour. Author of three books published on Amazon, including Smash It, an Amazon international bestseller in 2021. Named #1 Amazon LinkedIn profile in the UK across 2016 and early 2017 (self-reported ranking). Biography Amazon’s largest international sales day at the time was run out of Southern Europe by a marketing team led by JJ Delgado. That experience, three years inside the operational engine of the world’s most disciplined digital retailer, is the spine of his work today. He moved from running Amazon’s marketing in the region to running a digital ventures unit inside a legacy corporate, which is a more useful vantage point for the audiences he now speaks to. He is General Manager of MOVE Estrella Galicia Digital, the corporate venturing and open innovation arm of Hijos de Rivera, the Spanish beverages group behind Estrella Galicia. The remit is to build and scale new digital businesses for a company whose core is 100 years old, and to invest in startups that can accelerate that shift. The role gives him live operating responsibility for the questions he speaks on: AI deployment, Web3 commerce, and how a non-digital-native organisation actually generates new revenue from new technology. His commercial track record spans 15 years across EMEA and LATAM, with named work for Burger King, Pepsi, Hertz, Ford, Bosch, Siemens, Vodafone, Telefonica, and Estrella Galicia. He holds a PhD Cum Laude in Digital Economy and teaches as a guest at the London School of Economics and IE Business School. He has written three books on Amazon, the most recent being Smash It, an international bestseller on the platform in 2021, and runs an AI-focused newsletter with a large subscriber base. What makes him useful to boards is the angle of attack. He is not an academic on AI, nor a consultant pitching frameworks. He is an operator who has run digital growth inside Amazon and now runs new business creation inside a traditional corporate, and he speaks from that seat. Key speaking topics AI and ChatGPT in commercial operations Digital transformation in legacy corporates Web3 and new digital business models Consumer behaviour and the emotion behind the click Corporate venturing and open innovation Voice and conversational interfaces (Alexa as customer channel) Ideal for CMOs and chief digital officers in non-digital-native organisations Corporate venturing, innovation, and new business leads Senior commercial and growth leadership teams across EMEA and LATAM Boards weighing AI and Web3 investment decisions Audience outcomes A working view of how Amazon actually built growth from inside one of its regional marketing teams A concrete picture of what AI deployment looks like inside an operating business unit, not a pilot Recognisable case material from named global brands across consumer, automotive, and telecoms A clearer sense of where Web3 has commercial traction and where it does not

Why organisations work with Joerg Niessing He teaches inside the C-suite of the brands most boards benchmark against, Google, L’Oréal, Roche, Walmart, Marriott, Diageo and Samsung among them, and brings that pattern recognition into the room. Before INSEAD he was a Partner at Prophet, the brand and customer experience consultancy, after more than a decade in strategy consulting. That operating background plus a senior faculty role is a combination very few digital strategy speakers credibly hold. His book The Definitive Guide to B2B Digital Transformation is built around a specific argument that customer centricity, not technology stack, is the variable that separates growth from stalled programmes. The Case Centre’s 2025 Outstanding Case Teacher award recognises a rare ability to make complex transformation cases land with senior executives, which translates directly into keynote and workshop work. Most AI and digital advice fixates on the technology. Niessing co-directs INSEAD’s Leading AI and Digital Marketing Strategy programme and leads instead with the question executive teams actually own: how do we turn AI and data investment into profitable growth? Biography highlights Senior Affiliate Professor of Marketing, INSEAD. Former Partner, Prophet. Co-author of The Definitive Guide to B2B Digital Transformation (2020) with Fred Geyer. Winner, Outstanding Case Teacher Competition 2025 (The Case Centre); previous Best Marketing Case award winner. Co-director, INSEAD executive programmes including Leading Digital Marketing Strategy and Leading AI and Digital Marketing Strategy. Has authored 30+ executive cases on companies including Google, Jaguar Land Rover, AccorHotels, BMW Startup Garage and Majid Al Futtaim. Has delivered executive education and keynotes in more than 40 countries for over 200 global organisations. Biography Digital transformation programmes do not usually fail on technology. They fail because the strategy, the culture and the data operating model are not aligned, and the customer experience that results is incoherent. That gap between investment and commercial outcome is the territory Joerg Niessing has spent his career on. At INSEAD, he is a Senior Affiliate Professor of Marketing and co-directs flagship executive programmes including Leading Digital Marketing Strategy, Leading AI and Digital Marketing Strategy and B2B Marketing Strategies. His research and teaching focus on digital customer experience, marketing analytics, brand management and the strategic implications of AI for commercial leaders. Before moving to full-time faculty work he was a Partner at Prophet, the brand and customer experience consultancy, where he led client engagements with global businesses across consumer goods, automotive, healthcare and B2B technology. That operating background sits underneath his 2020 book with Fred Geyer, The Definitive Guide to B2B Digital Transformation, which argues that growth comes from prioritising customers over technology, an argument that has aged well as more transformation budgets are scrutinised. The Case Centre named him Outstanding Case Teacher in 2025, recognition of a 30-strong case portfolio on companies including Google, Jaguar Land Rover, AccorHotels, BMW Startup Garage and Majid Al Futtaim. For a senior buyer, that body of work is the substance behind the keynote: he is testing these arguments on executives from the world’s largest brands every week. Key speaking topics Customer-centric digital transformation B2B digital transformation and growth AI strategy and transformation AI and data in marketing, brand and customer experience Brand building in a digital and AI-driven world Data and analytics as a commercial capability Business model innovation from product to solution Culture and leadership of transformation programmes Ideal for CMOs, Chief Customer Officers and Chief Digital Officers running enterprise transformation programmes. CEOs and boards reviewing the commercial return on multi-year digital and AI investment. B2B leadership teams shifting from product-led to customer-led and solution-led growth. Senior marketing, brand and customer experience teams inside large consumer and B2B businesses. Audience outcomes A sharper view of where customer centricity, not technology, is the binding constraint on growth. A working framework for connecting strategy, culture and data inside a transformation programme. Practical reference points from named global brands, not generic case study language. A clearer commercial agenda for AI in marketing, customer experience and brand. Confidence to challenge the technology-first defaults in their own transformation plans.

Why organisations work with Juan Verde Holds first-hand US trade policy experience across three administrations (Clinton, Obama, Biden), including as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia with commercial responsibility for 52 countries. Operates fluently on both sides of the Atlantic, giving executives a practical read on how US and European policy environments shape the same investment decision differently. Frames sustainability as a commercial question, showing boards how climate strategy connects to capital access, pricing power, regulatory positioning, and export competitiveness. Brings live board-level context from HISPASAT and the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors, alongside advisory work with Google, Cisco, Banco Santander, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Currently serves on the President’s Export Council under President Biden, the White House advisory body whose members include the chief executives of Ford, Disney, Citibank, and Starbucks. Biography highlights Member of the President’s Export Council, the White House’s principal advisory committee on international trade and US competitiveness. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia at the US Department of Commerce, with commercial policy responsibility across 52 countries. Earlier international trade roles at the US Department of Commerce during the Clinton Administration. Founder and President of the Advanced Leadership Foundation, which has trained over 10,000 emerging green leaders across more than 10 countries. Board of Directors at HISPASAT, the satellite communications operator for Spain, Portugal, and Latin America; member of the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors. Master’s in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; BA in Political Science and International Relations, Boston University. Biography Trade policy used to move slowly enough that executives could treat it as weather. That no longer holds. Tariff regimes, export controls, and climate-linked regulation now reshape commercial plans in quarters, not decades, and the decisions are made in rooms Juan Verde has spent three decades working in. Appointed by President Obama in 2009, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia at the US Department of Commerce, with commercial policy responsibility across 52 countries. Under the Clinton Administration he held earlier international trade roles at Commerce. In 2023 President Biden appointed him to the President’s Export Council, the White House’s principal advisory committee on trade competitiveness, alongside the chief executives of companies including Ford, Disney, Citibank, and Starbucks. The through-line in his commercial work is a specific argument about sustainability. He treats climate action as a commercial question, which is the organising idea of his Profit Meets Planet keynote series on corporate climate, geopolitical arbitrage, and leading through disruption. That thesis draws on co-founding Climate Reality Project chapters with Al Gore in Spain and Argentina, and on advisory engagements through Alamo Solutions with Google, Cisco, Banco Santander, and the Inter-American Development Bank. His doctoral research at Universidad Camilo José Cela, on green economy strategies for small island nations, gives the argument academic grounding. For senior leaders, this translates into a speaker who can move between a boardroom question about European market entry and a policy question about US trade posture without losing commercial specificity. He sits on the Board of Directors of HISPASAT, the satellite communications operator for Spain, Portugal and Latin America, and on the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors. His keynote platforms include the World Economic Forum, Harvard Kennedy School, the World Bank, and successive UN Climate Conferences, most recently COP25 and COP26. Key speaking topics International trade policy and market access Transatlantic economic relations Sustainability as commercial advantage Foreign direct investment and green export strategy Geopolitical risk for global businesses Public-private collaboration in international markets Ideal for Boards and CEOs planning international expansion or transatlantic market entry Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads connecting climate commitments to growth strategy Investment attraction agencies, trade bodies, and government ministers Corporate delegations at policy summits, sustainability events, and international conferences Audience outcomes How Washington and Brussels are reshaping what corporate sustainability commitments actually cost in commercial terms Why climate strategy should be treated as an export competitiveness question, with examples drawn from specific national markets Where the next flows of green foreign direct investment are likely to move, and what that means for growth planning Language that links trade policy shifts to board-level decisions on capital allocation and market entry

Why organisations work with Katherine Melchior Ray She has made the standardise-versus-adapt decision from inside five global brands, so she can tell a leadership team which elements of a brand must stay fixed worldwide and which should flex by market. Her cultural intelligence framework, set out in Brand Global, Adapt Local (Kogan Page, 2025), gives teams a repeatable method for entering new markets instead of one-off market research that ages quickly. She has led marketing in Japan, France, Germany, and the US in three languages, so her read on a market comes from having sold to those consumers herself. She teaches this material to MBAs at UC Berkeley Haas, which means her frameworks are built to be taught and applied by a team, not performed once from a stage. Biography highlights Lecturer in international marketing and leadership at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Co-author of Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Build Brand Value Across Cultures (Kogan Page, 2025), endorsed by David Aaker, Greg Hoffman, and Jonah Berger. Former CMO of Shiseido’s luxury portfolio in Tokyo and former CMO of Babbel in Berlin. Senior roles at Nike (GM, US Women’s Footwear), Louis Vuitton (VP Marketing, Japan), Gucci (Executive Director, Japan), and Hyatt (VP, Luxury Brands). Featured on CBS 60 Minutes and CNN, and profiled in The Wall Street Journal. Keynote speaker at Cannes Lions and DMEXCO; fluent in English, French, and Japanese. Biography Louis Vuitton broke sales records in Japan with the Neverfull launch in a market where most Western brands struggle to read the customer. Katherine Melchior Ray ran that marketing. The difference was cultural intelligence: knowing which parts of a global brand to hold firm, and which to adapt for a specific market. That judgement came from an unusually broad operating career. She led Nike’s US women’s footwear business, ran global marketing for Nordstrom’s Façonnable from France, and directed Gucci in Japan before taking on Hyatt’s Park Hyatt and Grand Hyatt luxury brands. She later became CMO of Shiseido’s luxury portfolio in Tokyo, then CMO of Babbel in Berlin, growing both through rapid market change. In Brand Global, Adapt Local, written with Nataly Kelly and published by Kogan Page in 2025, she turned that experience into a method. The book argues that cultural intelligence, the ability to flex across markets, now matters more than ever, because AI scales reach cheaply but cannot read culture. David Aaker, Greg Hoffman, and Jonah Berger endorsed it. She teaches the same material to MBAs at UC Berkeley Haas. Her career spans four countries and three languages, and every framework she offers has already been tested against a real market and a real profit-and-loss statement. Key speaking topics Cultural intelligence as competitive advantage Global brand building across cultures Brand localisation and market entry Marketing leadership in luxury and consumer goods High-performing global teams Culture as a source of innovation Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders scaling a brand into new international markets Global marketing and international expansion teams balancing brand consistency with local relevance Executive teams and boards at consumer-facing businesses in retail, luxury, beauty, hospitality, and tech Leaders of multicultural or multinational teams Audience outcomes A clear test for which brand elements to keep consistent worldwide and which to adapt locally Named examples of how brands such as Apple, Louis Vuitton, and Kit Kat handled the same tension A working definition of cultural intelligence and how it differs from general and emotional intelligence A view on where AI helps global marketing and where human cultural judgement still decides the outcome