Emprendimiento speakers

Why organisations work with Felipe Gomez A working framework, the Virtuoso Code, built on three pillars (Method, Attitude, Passion) that gives leaders a concrete vocabulary for what separates technical competence from sustained excellence. Operating credibility behind the metaphor: tripled revenue at Compass Group Colombia, built Farmacity Colombia from launch, and scaled an e-business consultancy across seven Latin American countries. A separate, codified entrepreneurial-mindset model (Attitude-E, six levers) published as a bestselling book in 2019, usable as a standalone keynote for growth and innovation audiences. A live grand piano performance integrated into the keynote, which makes the content memorable in a way a slide deck cannot replicate. Useful when the brief calls for emotional anchoring of a strategy message at a leadership conference or kick-off. Bilingual delivery in English and Spanish, with substantial reach across Latin American corporate audiences. Biography highlights MBA, IMD Lausanne; advanced training in Leading Digital Business Transformation. Author of Attitude-E (2019) and Bitácora De Una Pandemia En Quince Conversaciones (2020). Former Managing Director, Compass Group Colombia; founding president, Farmacity Colombia. Founder of Ink./Azurian, scaled to seven Latin American countries. Speaker at TED, Global Peter Drucker Forum, WOBI, World Business Forum, Oslo Business Forum. 1,000+ keynote engagements across 33 countries on five continents. Biography The habits that produce a virtuoso musician are remarkably specific. Hours of structured practice, an attitude toward error that treats mistakes as information, a relationship with a craft that survives long after the early thrill has gone. Felipe Gomez has spent the last decade arguing that the same habits produce sustained performance in business, and using a grand piano on stage to make the case. The argument has operating weight behind it. Before turning to speaking full time in 2014, Gomez ran Compass Group Colombia as Managing Director, tripling revenue and lifting operating profit 130%. He was founding president of Farmacity Colombia, opening twelve stores in twenty months. Earlier he had built Ink., later Azurian, into the first significant e-business consultancy in Latin America, with offices in seven countries. The Virtuoso Code, his current keynote framework, organises that experience into three pillars: Method, Attitude, Passion. Method is the discipline of consistent, rigorous practice. Attitude is the empathy and humility that make collaboration possible. Passion is the courage to keep going when the work stops being easy. Attitude-E, his 2019 book, applies the same lens to entrepreneurship through six levers: Envision, Energy, Endurance, Ensemble, Elasticity, Engagement. Gomez has presented at TED, the Global Peter Drucker Forum, WOBI, the World Business Forum, and the Oslo Business Forum, in 33 countries on five continents. He delivers in English and Spanish, and his Allegro non-profit brings live therapeutic music to hospital settings in Colombia. Key speaking topics Peak performance and sustained excellence Entrepreneurial mindset and operating discipline Leadership, empathy, and collaboration Innovation culture Active listening and communication Resilience under pressure Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership conferences anchoring a year-long performance or culture programme. Sales and commercial kick-off events where a leadership message needs emotional anchoring. Latin American and Hispanic corporate audiences requiring senior bilingual delivery. Entrepreneurship and scale-up forums where Attitude-E is the relevant frame. Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary, Method, Attitude, Passion, for what separates sustained performers from talented amateurs. The six Attitude-E levers as a working checklist for entrepreneurial behaviour inside a corporate setting. A specific, memorable anchor for a leadership or kick-off message, reinforced by live piano performance. Practical cues for active listening drawn from Gomez’s 5Ts approach.

Why organisations work with Fernando Trias de Bes He is the only Spanish author to have co-written books with Philip Kotler, and the frameworks in Lateral Marketing and Winning at Innovation give leadership teams a shared vocabulary for where their ideas actually come from. Winning at Innovation, with its A-to-F Model, won the CMI Innovation and Entrepreneurship category at the 2013 Management Book of the Year Awards, a credential that speaks directly to boards asking how innovation should be structured inside the firm. He runs Salvetti and Llombart, a Barcelona-based consumer research and innovation consultancy whose client list has included PepsiCo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Nestle and McKinsey, which means the classroom work is tested against paying clients. He bridges two registers most economists do not reach, serious academic marketing theory and popular business writing, and audiences that have read La buena suerte or El libro negro del emprendedor often arrive already familiar with his thinking. He presents in English and Spanish and has been delivering executive-level keynotes since 2003, with hundreds of international engagements behind him. Biography highlights Associate Professor of Marketing Management at ESADE Business School since 1994. Co-author with Philip Kotler of Lateral Marketing (Wiley, 2003) and Winning at Innovation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). CMI Management Book of the Year 2013, Innovation and Entrepreneurship category, for Winning at Innovation. Founder and President of Salvetti and Llombart, a consumer insight and innovation consultancy working with PepsiCo, Sony, HP, Nestle and McKinsey. Regular columnist for La Vanguardia, ARA and El Pais Semanal; author of more than twenty books of essay and fiction translated into more than thirty languages. Winner of the Premio Espasa de Ensayo (2015), Premio De Hoy de Ensayo (2009) and Shinpukai Prize (Japan, 2005). Biography Most innovation in large companies is lateral in name only. Teams segment further, tweak an existing product, and call it new. Fernando Trias de Bes spent two decades arguing, in books co-written with Philip Kotler, that this is the core reason corporate pipelines stall, and building methods that address it directly. Lateral Marketing, published by Wiley in 2003, set out a structured way to generate product concepts that do not come from narrower segmentation but from a different logical operation on the category itself. Winning at Innovation, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011, took the argument further with the A-to-F Model, a step-by-step description of the roles and stages an organisation needs to convert ideas into launches. The Chartered Management Institute named it Innovation and Entrepreneurship Book of the Year at its 2013 awards. Trias de Bes has taught marketing and innovation at ESADE Business School since 1994 and runs Salvetti and Llombart, the Barcelona consumer research and innovation consultancy he co-founded in 1996. Clients have included PepsiCo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, McKinsey and Nestle, which gives the academic frameworks a field of consumer goods and services to answer to. Beyond the business books he writes columns for La Vanguardia, ARA and El Pais Semanal, and has published essays and novels translated into more than thirty languages, including La buena suerte, co-written with Alex Rovira, and El libro negro del emprendedor. The Premio Espasa de Ensayo in 2015 sits alongside earlier recognition in Japan and Spain. That range, economist, consultant, columnist, novelist, is the unusual shape of the author, and it is what audiences tend to remember from the keynote. Key speaking topics Business model innovation Lateral marketing and creativity in commercial strategy The A-to-F Model for organising innovation Entrepreneurship and the economics of new ventures Economic trends and consumer behaviour Corporate reinvention and disruptive thinking Ideal for CMOs, CSOs and heads of innovation confronting commoditised categories and stalled pipelines. Executive committees running corporate strategy offsites on growth and reinvention. Business schools and management development programmes covering innovation, marketing and entrepreneurship. Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for lateral versus vertical innovation that a leadership team can use the next day. The A-to-F structure for assigning innovation roles and stages inside an organisation. Concrete examples, drawn from consumer goods and services, of where breakthrough ideas actually come from. A sharper read on why most corporate innovation produces line extensions rather than category moves.

Why organisations work with Fleur East A working national breakfast presenter on Hits Radio since 2019, on air four hours a morning, five days a week. The reflexes for live radio carry directly into corporate stage moderation. Co-host of BBC Two’s Strictly: It Takes Two, where the format demands daily turnaround, guest interviewing, and managing emotional content on a tight clock. Reached the Strictly Come Dancing 2022 final with Vito Coppola and scored the series’ first perfect 40, a credibility line that lands instantly with mass-market UK audiences and partners. Co-founder with her sister of Kurl Kitchen, a textured-hair brand built on West African ingredients, launched in 2024. Useful when the brief includes founder stories, representation, or Black British entrepreneurship. Versatile in register, from awards night spectacle to panel moderation to after-dinner, without needing a different speaker for each format. Biography highlights Host of Hits Radio Breakfast (Bauer Media), nationally networked, since July 2019. Co-presenter of BBC Two’s Strictly: It Takes Two from the 2023 series. Strictly Come Dancing 2022 finalist with Vito Coppola; first perfect 40 of that series during Blackpool week. X Factor 2014 finalist; debut single “Sax” reached UK No. 3 and was certified Platinum by the BPI. Television credits including ITV’s Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, The Void, I’m A Celebrity finalist (2018), and Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. Co-founder with her sister Keshia East of Kurl Kitchen, a natural haircare brand launched in 2024. Biography Hits Radio Breakfast goes out from 6am every weekday to a national audience, and the host has to be functional from the first link. Fleur East has held that chair since 2019. Live radio at that hour, four hours at a stretch, is the closest training a presenter gets to running a corporate mainstage when the autocue fails. She came up through The X Factor in 2014, finishing as a finalist after her cover of “Uptown Funk” became the first contestant track to reach number one on the UK iTunes chart during a live series. Her debut single “Sax” hit number three on the Official Chart and went Platinum the following year. The music career gave her the stage instincts; the broadcasting career taught her the discipline. In 2022 she reached the final of Strictly Come Dancing with Vito Coppola, scoring the series’ first perfect 40 in the Blackpool week. The BBC brought her back as co-host of Strictly: It Takes Two from 2023, a daily live show that runs across the Strictly season and demands fast guest interviewing and tight format control. Other television credits include I’m A Celebrity, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, ITV’s The Void, and a guest role in Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. Beyond presenting, she co-founded Kurl Kitchen with her sister Keshia in 2024, a textured-hair care brand grounded in West African ingredients. That gives her something to draw on when a brief calls for a founder story, a perspective on Black British entrepreneurship, or a host who can credibly talk to a CPG or beauty audience without being briefed in. Key speaking topics Live event hosting and awards presenting Conference moderation and stage interviewing Founder story: Kurl Kitchen and Black British entrepreneurship Representation in UK broadcast media Resilience and reinvention in a public career Women in entertainment and media Ideal for Awards nights and gala dinners requiring a recognisable national broadcaster on stage Corporate conferences needing a confident moderator across keynote interviews and panels Brand activations in beauty, CPG, retail, or media targeting UK and Black British audiences Internal events for HR, DEI, or talent leaders looking for a credible voice on representation in media Audience outcomes A live event held together by a host who keeps energy and pace through running-order changes Guest interviews that go beyond the prepared questions and land specific quotes the team can use afterwards A founder narrative grounded in a real, trading consumer brand rather than a generic entrepreneurship story A representation conversation that stays useful for an internal audience rather than slipping into platitudes

Why organisations work with Freddy Wexler A working hit-maker, not a commentator. Ten Billboard number ones with Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Post Malone, BLACKPINK and others give him a verifiable claim on how popular taste actually moves. The Billy Joel case study. Coaxing a thirty-year creative silence into a Grammy-stage single, including the full marketing rollout and an AI-directed music video, is a rare example of cultural reactivation that buyers can study end to end. Talent identification with a track record. Wexler scouted and pitched Stefani Germanotta as a future Madonna while she was still unsigned, and signed Rachel Platten before “Fight Song”. Useful for audiences thinking about how to spot signal early. A view on AI and creative work shaped by shipping product. The “Turn the Lights Back On” video was a Webby-winning AI-led production, which gives him a practitioner’s read on where machine generation helps and where it does not. Commercial track record across formats. Founder of The Brain Music with joint ventures involving Disney, Scooter Braun Projects, Warner Chappell and Prescription Songs, plus a first-look television deal with Disney. Biography highlights Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer with ten Billboard number one contributions Co-writer and producer of Billy Joel’s “Turn the Lights Back On” (Columbia Records, 2024), the artist’s first new pop single in roughly thirty years Album of the Year Grammy nomination for Justin Bieber’s Justice (2022); credited contributor on Laufey’s Bewitched, a 2024 Grammy-winning album Co-wrote “Stuck with U” by Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, a Billboard Hot 100 number one that raised over five million dollars for first responders’ families Founder of The Brain Music, with joint ventures involving Disney, Scooter Braun Projects, Warner Chappell and Prescription Songs; first-look television deal with Disney Webby Award (2024) for direction of the AI-led “Turn the Lights Back On” music video; Golden Globe nomination for “Forbidden Road” from the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man Biography Billy Joel had not released a new pop single for thirty years when “Turn the Lights Back On” arrived in February 2024 on Columbia Records. The song was co-written and produced by Freddy Wexler, who spent more than a year developing the material with Joel from a CD of unfinished sketches. The track debuted at number one on classic hits and classic rock radio, picked up a Grammy-stage performance, and was packaged with an AI-directed music video that later won a Webby. As a worked example of how a dormant creative voice gets reactivated and brought back to market, it is unusually complete. That collaboration sits inside a longer hit-making record. Wexler has ten Billboard number one contributions and Grammy nominations across three consecutive years, including Album of the Year for Justin Bieber’s Justice and contributor credit on Laufey’s Bewitched. He co-wrote “Stuck with U” for Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, a Hot 100 number one that raised more than five million dollars for first responders’ families during the early pandemic. His writing and production credits span Post Malone, BLACKPINK, Selena Gomez, Halsey, Diana Ross and Celine Dion. He is also a builder of companies. The Brain Music, founded in 2012, runs joint ventures with Disney, Scooter Braun Projects, Warner Chappell and Prescription Songs. The Freddy Wexler Company holds a first-look television deal with Disney and a slate spanning Nickelodeon’s Kid Cowboy, a Broadway production of The Last Five Years, and a Hulu special with Sebastian Maniscalco. The Variety Family Entertainment Impact Report has recognised the operation. For organisations, the relevant point is access to a practitioner who can describe how a cultural moment actually gets made, including the writing room, the artist relationship, the rollout, and the use of AI in production. Few speakers on creativity can point to a specific commercial artefact and walk a senior audience through the craft behind it. Wexler can. Key speaking topics Creativity as a working practice Storytelling across music, film and brand AI in creative production and music video direction Talent identification and early-signal spotting Cultural moments and the commercial rollout behind them Resilience and creative reinvention Philanthropy embedded in creative product Ideal for Marketing, brand and CMO leadership teams thinking about cultural relevance Creative and content function heads inside media, entertainment and consumer companies Innovation and product groups exploring AI-assisted creative production Senior offsites and leadership conferences looking for a practitioner perspective on craft Audience outcomes A working framework for how cultural moments are constructed, drawn from a specific recent case A practitioner’s read on AI in creative production, anchored in a Webby-winning video A more concrete sense of what early signal looks like in talent and ideas, before they are obvious Reference points from a hit-making catalogue that audiences can apply to their own creative briefs

Why organisations work with Fredrik Eklund He has built and scaled one of the highest-grossing residential real estate teams in the United States, with $4.6B in sales in 2022 and $3.77B in 2023, so his advice on client acquisition and closing is grounded in operator-scale results rather than theory. The Sell, his New York Times bestselling book with Penguin’s Avery imprint, gives audiences a named, testable ten-step framework for personal selling and pitching, which turns the keynote into a tool the team can use on Monday. A decade on Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York gave him unusual fluency in performing under pressure and building a personal brand in public, a capability most commercial leaders are now being asked to develop themselves. He speaks from a dual-market perspective, having built businesses in both Stockholm and Manhattan and having worked previously at SEB across London, Singapore, and Tokyo, which plays well with global sales audiences who want more than a US-only view. His core argument, that everyone in a client-facing organisation is already in sales whether they realise it or not, lands with audiences beyond the sales team itself, including founders, partners, and professional-services leaders. Biography highlights Co-founder, with John Gomes, of the Eklund Gomes Team at Douglas Elliman, reported as the top-producing residential real estate team in the US in recent years. Author of The Sell: The Secrets of Selling Anything to Anyone (Avery, 2015), a New York Times bestseller also released in Sweden and the UK. Original cast member of Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York from its 2012 launch through 2022, across nine seasons of MDLNY and two seasons of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles. Co-star of Bravo’s Bethenny and Fredrik spin-off with Bethenny Frankel in 2018. Recipient, with John Gomes, of Douglas Elliman’s 2021 ICON Award for cumulative career sales of over $15B. Background in finance at SEB in Stockholm, London, Singapore, and Tokyo, and studies at the Stockholm School of Economics, before relocating to New York to build his real estate career from scratch. Biography The Eklund Gomes Team at Douglas Elliman closed $4.6B in residential real estate in 2022 and $3.77B in 2023, figures that place it near the top of any serious ranking of US real estate teams. Fredrik Eklund co-founded that business with John Gomes. The scale matters because it is the evidence base for everything he says on stage about sales, client trust, and building a personal brand in a market where every competitor looks equally credible on paper. Eklund arrived in Manhattan in his mid-twenties with a finance CV from SEB in Stockholm, London, Singapore, and Tokyo, and no real estate contacts. Within a year he was nominated for Rookie of the Year by the Real Estate Board of New York. The through line from that start to today’s team is a clear operating idea: in commoditised markets, the product is the seller. The Sell, published by Penguin’s Avery imprint in 2015 and a New York Times bestseller, sets out that idea as a ten-step framework covering authenticity, pitch construction, negotiation, and closing. A decade on Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York, from its 2012 premiere through his departure in 2022, turned Eklund into one of the most recognisable sales figures in American business media. It also taught him something less obvious that keynote audiences value. Senior people in client-facing roles, founders, partners, and relationship leaders, are now expected to carry a visible public profile. Eklund has been practising that craft, on camera and at scale, longer than most. For corporate audiences, the argument lands most sharply on two questions leaders are already asking. How do we train our best people to behave like owners of the client relationship rather than executors of a process, and how do we build the kind of personal credibility that moves a deal before the pitch starts. Eklund answers both from inside a live commercial operation, not from a classroom. Key speaking topics Personal selling and the close Personal brand for commercial leaders Client acquisition in commoditised markets Sales culture and high-performance teams Entrepreneurship and business building Negotiation and pitch craft Real estate and luxury markets Ideal for Sales kick-offs and revenue leadership offsites, particularly in financial services, real estate, professional services, and luxury sectors Partner, MD, and client-facing leader events where personal brand and relationship ownership are on the agenda Founder, entrepreneur, and growth-stage audiences building a commercial operation from scratch After-dinner and awards-night formats where a high-recognition keynote with commercial substance is wanted Audience outcomes A named ten-step framework from The Sell that teams can map directly onto their own pitch, pipeline, and closing process A sharper sense of what “personal brand” means in practical, revenue-linked terms, rather than as a social media activity Specific tactics for opening, holding, and closing a high-stakes client conversation in a commoditised market A harder view of what separates a top-tier sales operation from an average one, drawn from inside a team that has closed billions in annual volume Energy and confidence that translates into action the following week, not a feel-good moment that fades

Why organisations work with Gabriela Hersham Ten years of operating data on what actually draws people back into shared space, drawn from running Huckletree hubs across London, Manchester and Dublin rather than theory. A working view on curating communities by sector, including Web3, fintech, AI and govtech, tested inside the UK’s first Web3-themed co-working hub at Oxford Street. A concrete record of inclusive entrepreneurship practice through Fairer Funding Now and the Huckletree Alpha accelerator, running pro-bono for under-represented founders since 2017. A founder’s view on scaling a physical network to roughly 300,000 sq ft while holding cultural standards, useful for any leader reconciling real-estate spend with employee experience. Speaking experience that spans TEDx stages, industry podcasts and corporate conferences, with a style that senior audiences read as operator rather than consultant. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Huckletree, launched in 2014 and grown to eight hubs across London, Manchester and Dublin. Operates roughly 300,000 sq ft of curated workspace serving around 4,000 members across Web3, fintech, AI, govtech and sustainable innovation. Launched Huckletree Oxford Street, positioned as the UK’s first Web3 and metaverse-themed co-working hub. Founded Fairer Funding Now, a campaign for greater inclusivity in startup investment, and runs Huckletree Alpha, a pro-bono accelerator for under-represented founders since 2017. TEDx speaker on the Future of Work; named one of Tide Bank’s Top 20 female entrepreneurs to watch in 2020. Contributor bylines at The Next Web and Creative Review; interviewed by HuffPost Trailblazing Women, Culture Trip and the Propertyshe podcast. Biography Huckletree opened its first space in Clerkenwell in 2014 after Gabriela Hersham returned to London convinced the city was missing the community model she had seen take hold in New York. Ten years on, the business runs eight hubs across London, Manchester and Dublin, about 300,000 sq ft of space, and a membership base of roughly 4,000 founders and operators. What distinguishes the company from a generic flexible-office provider is the curation. Each hub is built around a sector thesis: Web3 and the metaverse at Oxford Street, fintech and AI elsewhere in the portfolio, with members recruited against that thesis rather than sold desks on a first-come basis. That choice turns the workspace into a distribution channel for deals, hires and partnerships, which is why corporate partners buy into specific hubs rather than generic square footage. Inclusive entrepreneurship sits alongside the commercial model rather than running as a side project. Fairer Funding Now campaigns for change in how capital reaches under-represented founders. Huckletree Alpha, the pro-bono accelerator running since 2017, is the practical counterpart, giving cohort members space, mentoring and access without taking equity. For corporate audiences the value is the operating detail behind those choices. A TEDx talk on the future of work, repeat podcast appearances on property and founder platforms, and contributor bylines at The Next Web and Creative Review have made Hersham a recognisable voice on what brings people back into shared space. The argument she makes to boards and HR leaders is concrete: offices only earn their cost when they are designed as communities with a specific purpose, and diversity in hiring and funding is part of how that purpose holds together. Key speaking topics Future of work and the hybrid workplace Workplace design and community curation Women in entrepreneurship Inclusive funding and diverse founder pipelines Scaling a founder-led business Web3, fintech and emerging-sector ecosystems Ideal for CHROs and people leaders rebuilding office strategy and employee experience Real-estate and workplace directors balancing cost with culture Corporate innovation and venture teams engaging with early-stage ecosystems Networks and events on women in business and diverse entrepreneurship Audience outcomes A sharper read on why employees return to some offices and avoid others, grounded in operating data from a curated network. Concrete examples of how sector-themed workplace communities produce commercial value rather than just reduce cost. A practical view on embedding inclusive funding and hiring practices into the way a company runs, not as a separate programme. An operator’s perspective on scaling a physical and cultural network without losing what made it work in the first place.

Why organisations work with Gerald Ratner His name is embedded in the business lexicon. “Doing a Ratner” is not a metaphor; it is a documented event with a verified cost of £500m, which organisations reference every time a leader’s words threaten to become the story. He provides the only first-person account of what happens inside a catastrophic, self-inflicted reputational collapse; not from a crisis consultancy, but from the person who caused it, survived it, and rebuilt from it. His growth story stands independently of the fall. Taking Ratners Group from 130 stores and £13m in sales to 2,500 stores and over £1.2bn in turnover is a concrete case study in scaling a mass-market brand in a staid, elitist industry. He demonstrates that commercial credibility can be rebuilt without institutional support. The health club sold for £3.9m and GeraldOnline’s subsequent emergence as the UK’s largest online jewellery business were both built after banks had refused to back him. His 2007 autobiography “The Rise and Fall…and Rise Again,” reviewed in the Financial Times and serialised in the Sunday Times, gives audiences a structured, honest account rather than the selective narrative most comeback stories rely on. Biography highlights CEO and Chairman of Ratners Group, built into the world’s largest jewellery retailer, with 2,500 stores and annual sales exceeding £1.2bn by 1990 April 1991 speech at the Institute of Directors conference, Royal Albert Hall: a single remark wiped approximately £500m from the company’s market value The phrase “doing a Ratner” entered the English business vocabulary as a term for self-inflicted reputational damage; referenced in media, business schools, and boardroom conversations worldwide Author of “The Rise and Fall…and Rise Again” (Capstone/Wiley, 2007), serialised in the Sunday Times and reviewed in the Financial Times and Management Today Founded GeraldOnline in 2003, which became the UK’s largest online jewellery business Ranked first in The Sun’s published list of the 50 biggest business mistakes of all time Biography Most leaders know that reputation is fragile. Few have experienced, in precisely documented financial terms, exactly how fast it can go. In April 1991, a single off-the-cuff remark at the Institute of Directors annual conference at the Royal Albert Hall wiped £500m from Ratners Group within days. Gerald Ratner had built that company. He joined the family jewellery business in 1966 and, within two decades, grew it to 2,500 stores and over £1.2bn in annual sales, including H. Samuel, Ernest Jones, Watches of Switzerland, and more than a thousand stores in the United States. It was the world’s largest jewellery retailer. He was dismissed as CEO in November 1992. The company renamed itself Signet Group and expunged his name. What followed is the more instructive half of the account. After bankruptcy and a period of professional isolation, Ratner financed a health club in Henley-on-Thames against his home, sold it for £3.9m, and used the proceeds to launch GeraldOnline, a name forced on him because his former company blocked him from trading under his own. It became the UK’s largest online jewellery business. His 2007 autobiography, “The Rise and Fall…and Rise Again,” published by Capstone/Wiley and serialised in the Sunday Times, set out the full arc without omission. The phrase “doing a Ratner” now circulates in business schools and boardrooms internationally. It captures what happens when a leader’s offhand candour meets public trust at scale. Ratner is the only person who can speak to it from inside all three moments: the building, the collapse, and the recovery. Key speaking topics Reputational risk and crisis leadership Resilience and recovery after catastrophic failure Brand trust and the consequences of leadership communication Retail growth and mass-market brand building Entrepreneurship after failure Organisational crisis and business survival Ideal for Executive and senior leadership conferences where reputational risk, crisis management, or communication under pressure are on the agenda CHRO and L&D audiences focused on building genuine resilience culture, rather than frameworks without lived experience behind them Business award dinners, gala events, and after-dinner occasions where a high-recognition, self-deprecating narrative sets the tone Entrepreneurship and business growth forums where the full cycle of building, losing, and rebuilding a commercial enterprise is directly relevant Audience outcomes A concrete, real-world illustration of how quickly a leader’s words can overtake the reputation of an organisation they have spent years building An honest account of what recovery from professional catastrophe looks like in practice – including the financial, psychological, and strategic dimensions A sharper instinct for the gap between what leaders say internally and how public statements land with customers and markets Practical perspective on rebuilding commercial credibility without institutional backing, drawn from two separate comebacks in the same industry A reference story they will use – the “Ratner effect” framework is already in common use; hearing it directly sharpens how teams apply it

Why organisations work with Griselda Togobo She brings an engineer’s and chartered accountant’s bias for measurement to inclusion work, which is unusually rare in the field and lands credibly with operational and finance audiences. She has run a 20,000-member women’s professional network (Forward Ladies, now Novi) for over a decade, so her view of where female and minority talent gets stuck is grounded in pipeline data, not anecdote. Her client list, Boeing, Shell, HSBC, NatWest, Sage, Cambridge University, Oxford University, indicates senior buyers in technically demanding, male-dominated environments hire her back. Her style is direct and based in psychology rather than moral pressure, which is the only register that survives in rooms where DEI is now politically contested. Biography highlights MPhil, Industrial Systems, Manufacture and Management, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. Chartered Accountant (ACA); former management consultant at Deloitte LLP. CEO of Forward Ladies (now Novi), a 20,000-member women’s professional network since 2014. Author, Unstoppable Women: Female Entrepreneurs’ Stories to Inspire and Motivate. Founder of Advancing Futures, a non-profit on education and economic empowerment in Ghana. Board member, Northern School of Contemporary Dance; Fellow of the Girls’ Schools Association. Biography The hard part of inclusion inside large organisations is not policy. It is what senior leaders do in the small moments: who they sponsor, who they interrupt, whose ideas they credit, and how they decide who is “ready” for the next role. Togobo’s work sits exactly there. She came to that work through an unusual route. She trained as an electrical and electronic engineer in Ghana, took an MPhil at Cambridge in Industrial Systems, Manufacture and Management, then qualified as a chartered accountant at Deloitte LLP. That technical and financial grounding shapes how she briefs executives. She uses data and behavioural psychology rather than moral argument, which travels better in operations, finance and engineering audiences than the standard DEI register does. Since 2014 she has led Forward Ladies, now relaunched as Novi, growing it into a 20,000-member professional development network for women across the UK. That platform gives her a continuous read on where mid-career women actually stall, which feeds the diagnostic work she does inside client organisations including Boeing, Shell, HSBC, NatWest, Sage, ASDA and Yorkshire Water. Her own writing extends the same theme. Unstoppable Women, published in 2022, profiles female entrepreneurs as case studies in commercial decision-making rather than personal struggle. Outside her commercial practice she founded Advancing Futures to support girls’ education in Ghana and sits on the board of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership inside FTSE-100 organisations Women in STEM and the senior pipeline Behavioural psychology of bias in promotion and sponsorship Building and sustaining women’s professional networks Female entrepreneurship and scale-up leadership Cross-cultural leadership and the global workforce Ideal for CEOs and executive committees who have run DEI programmes and are not seeing pipeline movement. CHROs and heads of talent designing succession and sponsorship into senior leadership. Engineering, energy, financial services and industrial businesses with gender-imbalanced senior cohorts. Boards reviewing inclusion strategy in markets where DEI language is now politically contested. Audience outcomes A clearer view of which leadership behaviours actually move representation, and which are theatre. A working diagnostic for where female and minority talent stalls inside their own organisation. Language for inclusion that holds up in finance, engineering and commercial audiences. A more honest read on the gap between stated DEI commitments and how senior leaders behave in week-to-week decisions.

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 Gunter Pauli He has run the experiment himself. As CEO of Ecover he built the first fully ecological factory in Malle, Belgium in 1992, and grew the business into a category-defining consumer brand before turning to systems work. The Blue Economy is a named, published framework, not a talk. The 2010 report to the Club of Rome catalogues 100 nature-inspired innovations with business cases attached, and has been translated into more than 30 languages. He sits inside the conversation that shapes long-range policy. Elected member of the Club of Rome and former executive committee member, with advisory roles for governments in Spain, Argentina, Italy and Bhutan. He converts sustainability from a cost line into a portfolio of revenue opportunities. The argument boards respond to: waste streams and local resources are unbooked revenue if you redesign around them. He founded and still leads ZERI, a working network of scientists and entrepreneurs testing zero-emissions business models in the field, which keeps the content grounded in what has actually been built. Biography highlights Founder of ZERI (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives), established in 1994 at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Former Chairman and CEO of Ecover, Belgium; led the design and launch of the Malle ecological factory in 1992. Author of The Blue Economy: 10 Years, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs, commissioned as a report to the Club of Rome. Elected member of the Club of Rome; served on its executive committee. Recipient of the 2022 Goi Peace Award; honorary doctorate from the University of Pecs, Hungary. MBA, INSEAD Fontainebleau; economics, University of Antwerp. Biography Ecover was a detergent company when Gunter Pauli took it over in 1991. Four years later it was a global reference point for sustainable manufacturing, operating out of a wooden factory with a planted roof in Malle, Belgium, the first of its kind. The experience also taught him that a clean product built on palm oil was still destroying rainforest, and that the green movement of the early 1990s had not yet confronted the problem. That recognition is what produced the Blue Economy. Working from the United Nations University in Tokyo, Pauli founded ZERI in 1994 to test a different premise: that natural systems already solve most of the problems industry struggles with, and that redesigning around local resources and cascading waste streams produces better economics, not worse. The 2010 report to the Club of Rome set out 100 worked examples, from coffee-to-mushroom cultivation to stone paper, each with a business case. The framework has travelled. The Blue Economy has been translated into more than 30 languages, taught on MBA and policy programmes, and picked up by governments in Europe, Latin America and Asia as a basis for regional development strategy. Pauli was elected to the Club of Rome and served on its executive committee from 2017, and received the Goi Peace Award in 2022. What he brings to a senior audience is a practitioner’s account of how environmental and financial returns can be made to move together, with a portfolio of cases that have been built, sold and scaled. The argument is not that sustainability is a duty. It is that most industrial processes are inefficient on their own terms, and the companies that notice first will take the margin. Key speaking topics The Blue Economy Nature-inspired business model design Zero emissions manufacturing and circular supply chains Sustainable entrepreneurship Regional development and resource strategy ESG strategy and corporate sustainability Systems thinking for leaders Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors setting sustainability and capital allocation strategy Heads of innovation, R&D and operations rethinking product and factory design Government and public-sector leaders shaping regional development and industrial policy Investor audiences evaluating circular and regenerative business models Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Blue Economy framework and how it differs from recycling, offsetting and conventional CSR Named examples of companies and regions that have used nature-inspired design to cut cost and emissions at the same time A sharper lens for spotting waste streams and local resources that can be turned into revenue Language to use with boards and investors when sustainability investments have to compete for capital A reading of where sustainability policy and markets are heading over the next decade, drawn from Club of Rome and government advisory work

Why organisations work with Harold Hughes He has built a venture-backed company on blockchain infrastructure, raised more than four million dollars, and survived past the cohort year that kills most peers. The lessons are operating lessons, not theory. His Catalyst Labs curriculum has been adopted by Benedict College, the University of Texas, and Furman University, which means his programme has been pressure-tested by institutions that do not run on hype. He has a published book, A Kids Book About Blockchain, that translates Web3 into language a non-technical audience can act on. Few speakers in this space can do that without losing the substance. He is one of the few operators who has both written about social capital and used it to raise capital from inside underrepresented networks. Senior buyers get an inclusion conversation grounded in revenue, not rhetoric. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Bandwagon, a venture-backed live-experience identity and analytics company applying blockchain to ticketing and fan data Founder of NFNTE Capital and co-founder of Catalyst Labs, a 12-week accelerator for emerging founders Author, A Kids Book About Blockchain, published by A Kids Co. and distributed by Penguin Random House Inaugural cohort, IBM Blockchain Accelerator; finalist in the Smart Dubai Office Global Blockchain Challenge BA in Economics and Political Science and MBA, Clemson University; named to Clemson’s «Roaring 10» young alumni list Angel investor with a portfolio that includes Partake Foods, Liquid Death, Athletic Greens, and Broadway productions including Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen Biography Bandwagon began with a simple operating problem in live entertainment. Teams and venues knew almost nothing about the people sitting in their seats, and ticket fraud was eating into the relationship. Harold Hughes built a venture-backed company that uses blockchain infrastructure to give organisers verifiable identity and analytics. Bandwagon has raised more than four million dollars from investors including Backstage Capital and the State of South Carolina, was part of the inaugural IBM Blockchain Accelerator, and acquired Seattle-based IdealSeat in 2020. The work outside Bandwagon is what gives Hughes range. As founder of NFNTE Capital and co-founder of Catalyst Labs, he runs a twelve-week accelerator for emerging entrepreneurs whose curriculum has been adopted by Benedict College, the University of Texas, and Furman University. He wrote A Kids Book About Blockchain, published by A Kids Co. and distributed by Penguin Random House, because he saw that most explanation of Web3 had been written for people who already understood it. Hughes is a serious angel investor as well as an operator. His portfolio includes Partake Foods, Liquid Death, Athletic Greens, and Broadway productions such as Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen. The thesis behind that activity, and behind his programmes, is that social capital is a measurable input into commercial outcomes, and that founders from under-represented backgrounds have been systematically priced out of it. That is the point he made before the diversity conversation hardened, and it is the point he can still make commercially. He holds a bachelor’s in Economics and Political Science and an MBA from Clemson University, where he was named to the «Roaring 10» young alumni list in 2019. The credentials are useful context. The argument he brings to a senior audience is that early-stage discipline, operating clarity about new technology, and access to networks are the same problem, and the people who solve all three are the ones who scale. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and scale-up discipline Blockchain and Web3 in the enterprise Social capital as a commercial asset Diversity in venture and founder access to capital Customer identity and data in live experience Future of technology in consumer industries Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and leadership teams of growth-stage companies looking to build durable advantage from technology and network strategy Corporate innovation, brand, and partnership leaders working with sport, music, and live-experience platforms Diversity, talent, and people leaders who want a substantive operator voice on under-represented founder economics Universities, accelerators, and entrepreneurship programmes designing curricula for first-generation and emerging founders Audience outcomes A working understanding of how blockchain creates verifiable identity and ownership in consumer settings, beyond cryptocurrency A specific method for mapping personal and organisational networks as commercial inputs, taken from the Catalyst Labs and NFNTE programmes A frank account of what it took to raise capital and survive as a Black founder in venture markets, with implications for corporate inclusion strategy A scale-up operator’s view of the decisions that separate companies that get funded from those that get acquired or close

Why organisations work with Harvey Goldsmith He has produced two of the largest broadcast events in history, Live Aid in 1985 and Live 8 in 2005, and can speak first-hand to how they were assembled, funded and delivered. He built the UK’s leading concert promotion business from a student club in Brighton to a company working with most of the major global artists of the past five decades. He continues to start and chair new ventures, including the British Music Experience museum, the OnBlackheath Festival and Hans Zimmer’s first live concert tour, so the material is current rather than retrospective. His CBE, Music Industry Trust Award and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres are recognition from named bodies that he treats live performance as a serious commercial and cultural discipline. Biography highlights CBE for services to the entertainment industry, 1996 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Co-organiser of Live Aid (1985) with Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, raising approximately £140 million. Worldwide producer of Live 8 (2005), with 225 artists across multiple international locations. Producer of the Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2 Arena (2007) in tribute to Ahmet Ertegun. Chairman of the British Music Experience, the UK’s museum of popular music. Music Industry Trust Award (2006); Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2006); Freedom of the City of London (2011). Biography Live Aid was assembled in roughly ten weeks. Two stadiums, a global satellite broadcast and an artist roster that had never been gathered before, with no precedent for the funding model, the rights model or the production model. The producer who solved those problems alongside Bob Geldof was Harvey Goldsmith. That work is the most visible expression of a longer story. Goldsmith began promoting concerts as a pharmacy student in Brighton in the 1960s, founded Artiste Management Productions in 1973 and Harvey Goldsmith Entertainments in 1976, and built the leading UK concert promotion business of the era. Across that period he worked with the artists who defined modern live music, including Bruce Springsteen, Queen, The Who, Paul McCartney and Luciano Pavarotti. The pattern of the work is entrepreneurial rather than custodial. Live 8 in 2005 used the Live Aid model and rebuilt it for a different media environment. The Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2 in 2007 was a single-night production at the scale of a tour. He produced Hans Zimmer’s first live concerts in 2014 and turned them into a European touring property, and he founded the OnBlackheath Festival the same year. He continues to chair the British Music Experience and to invest in and advise newer ventures across experiential marketing and immersive entertainment. The CBE, the Music Industry Trust Award and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres are the formal markers. The substantive credential is a sixty-year track record of starting things, financing them, and getting them on stage on the date promised. Key speaking topics Live event production at global scale Entrepreneurship across long careers Building creative businesses The economics of live music and broadcast Leadership under hard deadlines Charitable and philanthropic event delivery Ideal for CEOs and founders responsible for ventures with fixed launch dates Marketing and brand leaders building experiential platforms Boards and investors evaluating creative and entertainment businesses Audiences in the events, media, music and live entertainment industries Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how Live Aid and Live 8 were actually built, financed and delivered. A working view of how an entrepreneur sustains a creative business across five decades and multiple media cycles. Specific lessons in negotiating with talent, broadcasters and sponsors when the date will not move. A grounded perspective on what philanthropy looks like when it has to clear its costs and reach an audience.