Transformación Digital speakers

Why organisations work with Mark Greeven He brings a working model of ecosystem competition built on close study of Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi and other Asian firms, not a Silicon Valley template. He has spent two decades inside Chinese innovation, which lets him translate what is happening in Asia into specific implications for European and North American boards. His “dual transformation” frame gives leadership teams a way to fund and govern the next growth engine without starving the current business. He has built what he advises others to build. He founded IMD China in Shenzhen, scaled it into a multi-million-dollar executive education business in three years, and co-directs IMD’s Future-Ready Enterprise programme with MIT Sloan. Thinkers50 has ranked him in 2023 and 2025 and described him as their “oracle for innovation in China,” and his recent HBR co-authored piece on Chinese AI was a finalist for the 2025 HBR Prize. Both give buyers a defensible third-party signal. Biography highlights Professor of Management Innovation at IMD; founder of the IMD China Initiative and of IMD China in Shenzhen. Co-director of three IMD programmes: Building Digital Ecosystems, Strategy for Future Readiness, and Future-Ready Enterprise (the last delivered jointly with MIT Sloan School of Management). Author of Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Changemakers, and Underdogs (MIT Press, 2019), The Future of Global Retail (Routledge, 2021), and Business Ecosystems in China (Routledge, 2018). Co-author of “How Savvy Companies Are Using Chinese AI” (HBR, 2025), named a finalist for the 2025 HBR Prize. An earlier HBR piece was selected for HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2023. Ranked on the Thinkers50 list in 2023 and 2025; Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2017. Founder of cross-border programmes earlier in his career, including the Chinese Economy and Business Programme at Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Global Entrepreneurship Programme at Zhejiang University. PhD in Innovation Management from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Biography Most established companies are organised to defend a position they already hold. The harder problem is running that business at full performance while building a different one beside it, in markets where competitors do not play by the same rules. Mark Greeven’s work sits squarely on that problem. He is Professor of Management Innovation at IMD and Director of the IMD China Initiative, with earlier faculty positions at Zhejiang University and Rotterdam School of Management, where he also took his PhD in Innovation Management. Two decades of fieldwork in China give his arguments an empirical base that most innovation speakers do not have. His three books, Business Ecosystems in China (Routledge, 2018), Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Changemakers, and Underdogs (MIT Press, 2019), and The Future of Global Retail (Routledge, 2021), trace how named Asian firms, including Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi, organise around platforms, partners, and continuous reinvention. He writes regularly for Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. One of his HBR pieces was selected for HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2023; a more recent HBR co-authored piece on how companies are using Chinese AI was named a finalist for the 2025 HBR Prize. His current ecosystem research at IMD is supported by a three-year corporate sponsorship from AVEVA, Schneider Electric’s industrial software business. He also publishes Red Thread, a bi-weekly LinkedIn newsletter on China and global strategy. Greeven has also built what he writes about. He founded the IMD China Initiative in 2019 and established IMD China in Shenzhen, growing it into a multi-million-dollar executive education business within three years. He has launched cross-border programmes at four institutions, from the Chinese Economy and Business Programme at Erasmus and the Global Entrepreneurship Programme at Zhejiang to IMD’s Future-Ready Enterprise Programme with MIT Sloan. In parallel, he has founded private companies in cross-border e-commerce, technology scouting, and management innovation advisory. Thinkers50 has ranked him in 2023 and 2025, calling him their “oracle for innovation in China.” That mix of research, programme-building, venture creation, and direct access to Chinese firms is what gives his counsel weight for boards trying to read what Asian competition means for their next five years, and for executives trying to build a credible second growth engine without breaking the first. Key speaking topics Business ecosystems and platform competition Innovation in China and Asia Dual transformation and second growth engines Future of retail and digital business models Strategy under sustained uncertainty Organising for innovation in large incumbents US-China commercial and technology dynamics Ideal for CEOs and strategy leaders setting a multi-year growth agenda in the face of Asian competition. Boards and executive committees deciding how to fund and govern a second growth engine alongside the core. CSOs, CIOs, and innovation leads designing partner ecosystems rather than standalone product roadmaps. Multinationals with material exposure to China who want a clear read on competitive moves and policy direction. Audience outcomes A clear read on how Chinese and Asian incumbents are competing, with named firms and specific moves. A working language for ecosystem strategy that boards can use without retreating to platform jargon. A practical view of how to run today’s business and build the next one in parallel, with the trade-offs named. Sharper questions for the next strategy cycle on innovation governance, partner choice, and capital allocation.

Why organisations work with Mark Schaefer A connected, multi-book argument about where marketing economics are actually going, from Marketing Rebellion to Belonging to the Brand to Audacious, rather than a single talk track repackaged. A working position at the front of the AI-and-marketing conversation, anchored in his Rutgers “Mini-MBA: Digital Marketing in the Age of AI” and his book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. A serious thesis on community as a marketing asset, with case work on brands like Sephora, that gives CMOs a defensible alternative to paid-media-only growth plans. Direct consulting and keynote experience with global enterprises including Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Air Force, which means examples land for both regulated and consumer-facing audiences. A teaching habit, three years studying under Peter Drucker and an active Rutgers executive education role, that shows up in how he structures sessions: argument, evidence, frameworks leaders can take into a Monday meeting. Biography highlights Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, with consulting work for Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Dell, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. Air Force, and the UK Government. RBS Executive Education Lecturer at Rutgers Business School; teaches the Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing in the Age of AI and graduate marketing classes. Author of twelve best-selling marketing books, including Marketing Rebellion, Belonging to the Brand, KNOWN, The Content Code, Cumulative Advantage, Return on Influence, How AI is Changing Your Customers, and Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. Audacious launched with the first AI-driven Augmented Reality book cover and reached #1 in Amazon’s marketing category. Founder and co-host of The Marketing Companion podcast and publisher of the {grow} marketing blog. Featured commentator and contributor across The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, CBS News, BBC, NPR, Wired, and Harvard Business Review. Keynote speaker at South by Southwest, the Institute for International and European Affairs, Marketing Summit Tokyo, and Social Media Week London; has lectured at Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton. Named the third-most influential digital marketing authority by Brand24 in 2025. Biography The cost of reaching a customer keeps rising while the trust those impressions buy keeps falling. Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins set out the argument that built much of Mark Schaefer’s reputation, that businesses are no longer built on advertising impressions but on human impressions that help customers believe, belong, and find meaning. It is used as assigned reading at more than 70 universities and has been translated into 20 languages. That argument has continued through Belonging to the Brand, which makes the case for community as the next durable marketing strategy, and Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, which examines brands like e.l.f. Beauty, HBO, and Giant Spoon to show how creative nerve, not algorithmic optimisation, captures attention in saturated markets. Audacious reached number one in Amazon’s marketing category and launched with what the publisher described as the first AI-driven Augmented Reality book cover. His authority is grounded in operating credentials, not commentary alone. Schaefer runs Schaefer Marketing Solutions and has consulted for Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Air Force. At Rutgers Business School, he is the Executive Education lecturer behind the Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing in the Age of AI, and he has lectured at Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton. He studied under Peter Drucker for three years, and the structural rigour of that lineage is visible in the way his frameworks are built. He also runs the infrastructure most marketing thinkers only write about. The Marketing Companion is one of the longer-running marketing podcasts in the field, and the {grow} blog has been a fixture in the discipline for over a decade. The result, for senior commercial audiences, is a speaker who treats marketing as a system and tests his arguments in public, every week, against an audience that includes practitioners and competitors. Key speaking topics Human-centred marketing strategy Brand community as a growth strategy AI in marketing and creative work Personal branding for executives and professionals Customer trust, loyalty, and the post-advertising buyer Content strategy and influence Cumulative advantage and competitive momentum Ideal for CMOs, brand directors, and heads of marketing rebuilding strategy around community and human connection. CEOs and commercial leaders questioning the ROI of paid-media-led growth plans. Heads of customer experience and digital who need to integrate AI without losing brand distinctiveness. Communications, PR, and corporate marketing leaders in regulated industries facing trust and credibility challenges. Audience outcomes A reframed view of where marketing value now sits: human impressions, community, and creative nerve over paid reach. Concrete case examples, including Sephora, e.l.f. Beauty, HBO, and Giant Spoon, that audiences can map against their own categories. A working position on how to use AI in marketing without becoming indistinguishable from competitors using the same tools. A clearer set of questions to bring back to brand, content, and customer experience teams about what they should stop funding. A vocabulary for talking to boards about brand and community as commercial assets, not soft costs.

Why organisations work with Mark van Rijmenam He gives boards a named decision framework, WAVE (Watch, Adapt, Verify, Empower), drawn from his book Now What?, now built into an operating diagnostic that scores a leadership team’s AI readiness against its own industry and regulatory context. The framework translates futurist material into something a planning cycle can actually use. His research base spans AI, blockchain and the metaverse across six books, so the technology view is not a single-trend pitch but a structured map of how these layers interact for an operating business. Salesforce named him one of 16 human voices shaping the future of AI, which gives buyers an external credibility marker beyond bureau ranking. He has built and run technology platforms himself, Datafloq and Futurwise, and has turned the WAVE framework into the Intelligence Age Scorecard, so the perspective is informed by building the tools, not only commenting on them. Format range is unusually wide for a futurist: he delivered the first TEDx talk in virtual reality and a TEDx in Athens via digital twin, and runs sessions in person, virtually and as holographic delivery when the brief calls for it. Biography highlights PhD in Management, University of Technology Sydney Author of six books, including Step into the Metaverse (Wiley) and Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change Founder of Datafloq and of Futurwise, an AI-powered insights platform Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) and Global Speaking Fellow Recognised by Salesforce as one of 16 human voices shaping the future of AI Delivered the first TEDx Talk in virtual reality (2020) and a TEDx talk in Athens via digital twin (2023) Biography The hardest question for a board right now is not whether AI matters. It is what to commit to, when most of the technology in front of them will be obsolete in eighteen months. Van Rijmenam works on that question. His latest book, Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change, sets out the WAVE framework: Watch, Adapt, Verify, Empower. The framework is built to be used by an executive team in a planning cycle, not admired from a stage. The credibility behind that work is structural. A PhD in management from the University of Technology Sydney sits alongside six published books that span big data, blockchain, the metaverse and now generative AI. Step into the Metaverse was published by Wiley in 2022. Future Visions, written in five days as an experiment in human-AI co-authorship with ChatGPT, came the following year. The body of work treats each technology layer as part of a connected operating reality, not as standalone trends. He builds the tools he talks about. Datafloq curates emerging-technology intelligence for executives. Futurwise is an AI-powered learning environment he founded to give organisations a structured way to track signal across technology, regulation and culture. He has since turned WAVE into the Intelligence Age Scorecard, a diagnostic that scores a leadership team’s AI readiness, surfaces the gap between what the C-suite believes and what management experiences, and returns a 90-day action plan. Salesforce named him one of 16 human voices shaping the future of AI, and the Global Speakers Federation has admitted him as a Global Speaking Fellow, a designation held by fewer than fifty people worldwide. The format choices reinforce the argument. He delivered the first TEDx Talk in virtual reality in 2020, and a TEDx in Athens in 2023 through a digital twin. For a buyer, the relevant signal is not the novelty. It is that the speaker is using the technologies he is asking leadership teams to make decisions about. Key speaking topics Generative AI and enterprise deployment Strategic foresight and scenario planning Decision architecture under exponential change The metaverse and immersive business models Blockchain and distributed-ledger applications AI ethics and governance Future of work and human-machine collaboration Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI and emerging-technology strategy Strategy, innovation and transformation leaders moving from pilots to operational deployment CTO, CIO and Chief Digital Officer audiences Leadership offsites and planning cycles where a structured foresight method is needed Audience outcomes A working decision architecture (WAVE) that an executive team can apply to its own AI and technology bets, with the option of a structured readiness diagnostic that benchmarks the team against its industry A structured map of how AI, blockchain and immersive technologies interact across the operating model A clearer view of where to commit capital now and where to keep optionality A read on where leadership perception and operational reality diverge on AI, including early preparedness for AGI-level systems Specific examples of organisations that have moved from technology pilots into operational advantage

Why organisations work with Markus Bernhardt He runs a continuous research programme, The Endeavor Report, built on client-led case studies of what is actually working in enterprise AI adoption, so the analysis a board hears is grounded in field evidence rather than vendor positioning. He translates AI capability into operating model decisions: where to redesign workflows, how to govern adoption, which workforce shifts to plan for. The conversation moves from technology curiosity to structural choice. He carries credibility on both sides of the table, having advised technology vendors on go-to-market and Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 leaders on transformation, which lets him read where vendor claims meet enterprise reality. His pragmatic stance is explicit: no silver bullet, no hype framing. Senior buyers get an honest read on adoption maturity, polarisation across the workforce, and the specific points where AI actually changes the cost or quality of work. Forbes Technology Council member and recurring contributor to Training Magazine, the Learning Guild and ATD, with two TD Magazine cover stories, giving the body of published thinking a paper trail leaders can verify. Biography highlights Founder of Endeavor Intelligence, an independent AI strategy research and advisory firm Author of The Endeavor Report, a research programme on applied workforce solutions and enterprise AI adoption Co-creator of the TTE AI Strategy Framework with The Thinking Effect Former Chief Evangelist at Obrizum, a deep-tech adaptive learning company Forbes Technology Council member; contributor to Training Magazine, the Learning Guild, ATD and Coaching Magazine Doctorate in physics; two decades of work with Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 organisations Biography Enterprise AI adoption rarely fails on the technology. It fails on the operating model around it: who owns the workflow change, which capabilities the workforce needs next, what governance has to sit underneath. Markus Bernhardt’s work at Endeavor Intelligence is built around that gap. The Endeavor Report, his flagship research programme, sits on real client case studies rather than vendor surveys. It plots organisations across efficiency accelerators, strategic enablers, capability creators and core process innovators, giving leaders a vocabulary for the adoption choice in front of them. The argument is field-tested, and it lands where boards actually decide. His earlier role as Chief Evangelist at Obrizum, a deep-tech adaptive learning company, gave him an operator’s read on how AI changes capability development inside organisations. That experience now feeds the workforce side of his research, alongside published work in Training Magazine, the Learning Guild and ATD, and a seat on the Forbes Technology Council. A physics doctorate sets the underlying disposition. Bernhardt is sceptical of pattern claims that do not survive the data, blunt about where AI actually shifts cost or quality, and explicit that there is no silver bullet for adoption at scale. For senior leaders weighing capital, structure and workforce moves at the same time, that posture is the point. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and adoption Applied workforce solutions AI governance and operating model design Workforce transformation and capability development Evidence-based decision support for senior leaders AI in learning and performance Future of work in AI-augmented organisations Ideal for C-suite leaders weighing AI investment, governance and operating model decisions CHROs and chief learning officers planning workforce capability shifts Strategy, transformation and innovation leads designing enterprise AI roadmaps Boards seeking an independent, research-backed read on AI adoption maturity Audience outcomes A clearer map of where their organisation sits across the four adoption archetypes Bernhardt’s research identifies A sharper read on which AI claims to discount and which to act on Specific governance and operating model questions to put to internal teams and vendors A framework for talking about workforce polarisation as adoption deepens Language a senior team can carry into the next board conversation on AI

Why organisations work with Martin Newman He has run multichannel and digital operations inside Burberry, Harrods, Ted Baker, Pentland Brands and Intersport, so the customer-centricity argument lands as operating advice, not consultancy theory. He built and sold a 100-person global e-commerce consultancy, Practicology, acquired by Pattern in 2018, which gives him a P&L view of what customer experience is actually worth. His framework of new ROIs, set out in “ROI Reimagined”, gives leadership teams a concrete way to measure inspiration, integrity, inclusion, innovation and intervention alongside conventional financials. “100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience”, co-authored with Malcolm McDonald, was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019 and is used inside organisations as an operating reference, not a one-off read. He designed and teaches the Mini-MBA in Customer Centricity with Oxford College of Marketing, so the same content can be extended from a keynote into a structured learning programme for a leadership cohort. Biography highlights Founder of The Customer First Group and Customer Service Action, an independent platform for consumers to escalate service issues directly to CEOs. Founder of Practicology, scaled to around 100 staff across the UK, EU, Middle East and Asia, sold to US-based Pattern in 2018. Author of “100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience” (Kogan Page, with Malcolm McDonald), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019. Author of “The Power of Customer Experience” (Kogan Page) and “ROI Reimagined: 11 Bold New Ways to Measure What Really Matters”. Course director of the Mini-MBA in Customer Centricity, delivered with Oxford College of Marketing. Senior multichannel, digital and e-commerce roles at Burberry, Harrods, Ted Baker, Pentland Brands and Intersport. Biography Burberry, Harrods, Ted Baker, Pentland Brands and Intersport all sat inside the same generation of UK retailers that had to rebuild their business around digital while keeping the store estate honest. Newman ran multichannel and e-commerce operations inside several of them, which is where his customer-centricity argument actually comes from. He then founded Practicology, an e-commerce consultancy he scaled to around 100 people across the UK, EU, Middle East and Asia before selling it to Pattern in 2018. That experience gives him a commercial view of customer experience that most CX speakers do not have, namely what it is worth to a board, and where investment in it gets blocked. Two books with Kogan Page set out the framework. “100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience”, co-authored with Malcolm McDonald, was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019. “The Power of Customer Experience” makes the commercial case for customer-centricity as a growth strategy. His most recent book, “ROI Reimagined”, proposes eleven new measures of return, including return on integrity, inclusion, innovation and intervention, intended to sit alongside the financial metrics that already run the business. Alongside the books and keynote work, Newman runs Customer Service Action, a platform that escalates unresolved consumer issues to CEOs, and teaches the Mini-MBA in Customer Centricity with Oxford College of Marketing. Both extend the same argument: that when service operating choices are visible at the top of the organisation, behaviour changes. Key speaking topics Customer centricity as commercial strategy Customer experience and brand loyalty The new ROIs of customer-led business Multichannel and digital retail operations Organisational culture and the customer Voice of the customer and service recovery Customer-led growth in consumer-facing sectors Ideal for Boards and executive teams in retail, consumer goods, hospitality, financial services and telecoms reviewing their customer strategy CMOs, Chief Customer Officers, CX directors and digital leaders Transformation leads working on culture, service and operating model alongside digital change Leadership development cohorts running CX or growth-focused programmes Audience outcomes A clearer commercial argument for treating customer experience as a board-level strategic lever, not an operational function A working vocabulary for the new ROIs that customer-centric organisations are measuring alongside financials Specific operating examples from inside Burberry, Harrods and other named retailers that translate to other consumer-facing sectors A sharper view of where the gap typically sits between stated customer strategy and the experience the organisation actually delivers Practical reference points from “100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience” that leadership teams can apply after the session

Why organisations work with Matteo Renzi His grasp of European political risk comes from having run a G7 government, chaired the EU Council Presidency, and participated in three G7 and three G20 summits – not from studying these institutions but from operating inside them at the highest level. His current role as Strategic Counsellor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change connects his analysis to live government reform agendas across more than 40 countries, making his perspective current rather than retrospective. The Renzi government’s Jobs Act labour market overhaul, Madia Reform of public administration, and gender-equal cabinet were each delivered against significant institutional resistance – giving him specific, hard-won insight into what it actually takes to move reform through complex political systems. His co-authorship of the 2025 Tony Blair Institute paper “Europe in the Age of AI” – alongside Tony Blair and former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin – positions him as a substantive current voice on technology governance and European competitiveness, not only on political history. For boards assessing exposure in Italy or the broader Southern European bloc, he provides a counterweight to the Germany-and-France framing that tends to dominate European political risk analysis in international advisory markets. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Italy, 2014 to 2016 – youngest ever Italian PM and youngest G7 leader at appointment Mayor of Florence 2009-2014; President of the Province of Florence 2004-2009; Senator for Florence since 2018 Founder and leader of Italia Viva (since 2019); previously Secretary of the Democratic Party, 2013-2018 Ranked #3 on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 (2014); included in Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers Strategic Counsellor, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (since 2024); co-author of “Europe in the Age of AI” (2025) with Tony Blair and Sanna Marin Author of 15+ published books on Italian politics and governance; teaches “The Challenges of Europe” at Stanford University’s Florence programme Biography EU Council negotiations, coalition formation, and regulatory direction are shaped by decisions made under intense political pressure by a small number of insiders. Matteo Renzi was one of them. He served as Prime Minister of Italy from 2014 to 2016, becoming at 39 the youngest person ever to hold that office and the youngest leader in the G7. His government moved fast. The Jobs Act overhauled Italy’s labour market. The Madia Reform digitised public administration and introduced digital ID as a central pillar of state infrastructure. His cabinet became the first in Italian history to achieve gender equality between women and men. He chaired the EU Council Presidency in the second half of 2014 and represented Italy at three G20 and three G7 summits. Italy’s signature on the Paris Agreement on climate change was made under his government. Since leaving government, Renzi has stayed operationally active. He serves in the Italian Senate and leads the centrist party Italia Viva. Since 2024, he has been a Strategic Counsellor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, advising political leaders on reform strategy across more than 40 countries. His course “The Challenges of Europe” at Stanford University’s Florence programme brings that accumulated experience directly into academic debate. For organisations that need to understand how European coalitions form, how reform agendas succeed or fail under institutional pressure, and where geopolitical risk translates into policy, Renzi provides the granular, first-hand intelligence that covers the full range – from city government to the G7 table. Key speaking topics European political risk and governance EU institutional mechanics and reform Coalition politics and government formation Italian and Southern European political economy G7 and multilateral decision-making Digital transformation in government and public administration Political leadership under institutional pressure Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives with significant EU or Italian market exposure Government affairs and public policy functions within multinational organisations International business forums focused on European geopolitical and regulatory risk Senior leadership programmes and policy institutes requiring first-hand governmental perspective Audience outcomes A clearer working model of how EU institutions make decisions and where the real pressure points are – moving beyond election-watching to structural analysis Specific insight into how reform agendas succeed or collapse inside complex political systems, drawn from the Renzi government’s own record A realistic account of what political risk in Italy and the Southern European bloc means for organisations with exposure in those markets Context on how European governments are approaching digital transformation, labour market flexibility, and AI governance A framework for separating structural political change from short-term electoral noise in European markets

Why organisations work with Max Lenderman He wrote the founding text of experiential marketing. Experience the Message (2005) put the category on the map. Twenty years on, his thinking is the underlying logic most brand-experience practice still draws from. He has run the experiential function at the agencies that shape global brand work: founder of the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, former CEO of School, current Chief Experience Officer at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing. He moves brands from broadcasting purpose to operating on it. His “invertising” approach starts inside the organisation, with employees, and makes brand purpose a commercial driver rather than a campaign line. He has been working on web3, NFTs, and the digital-physical convergence since 2021, before most CMOs had a position on any of it. His Adweek “Into the Metaverse” column is one of the longer-running serious treatments of the territory. He has built campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Absolut, and DaimlerChrysler. The case material in the room is from inside the work, not observed from outside it. Biography highlights Author of Experience the Message: How Experiential Marketing Is Changing the Brand World and Brand New World: How to Reach Billions, Not Millions Chief Experience Officer at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing, the world’s largest experiential marketing agency Founder of the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky; former CEO of School (Project Worldwide) Founding member of the International Experiential Marketing Association (IXMA) Columnist for Adweek and Campaign magazines, including the “Into the Metaverse” column Speaker at SXSW, Consensus, Forbes CMO Summit, Advertising Week, and X-Prize Biography Experience the Message was published in 2005. It is the book that put the phrase “experiential marketing” into the advertising vocabulary, and the thesis behind it, that the brand is what the customer experiences, not what the brand says about itself, is now treated as common sense by most serious CMOs. The author wrote it from inside the work, not as a theorist looking on. Max Lenderman has spent the last two decades building the function he named. He launched the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, served as CEO of School, the purpose-led consultancy inside Project Worldwide, and now holds the first Chief Experience Officer post at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing. The client list, Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Absolut, DaimlerChrysler, NASCAR Canada, gives him operating ground in categories where brand experience moves revenue. Two ideas anchor his current work with senior marketers. The first is “invertising,” the argument that brand purpose has to be operationalised through employees before it can be sold to customers, and that the financial return on purpose is measurable when treated this way. The second is the “phygital” frontier, where digital and physical experiences are designed as a single product rather than as a campaign with a digital extension. His Adweek column “Into the Metaverse” has tracked this territory since 2021. What he gives a senior marketing audience is the founding logic of the category and twenty years of inside work applying it. He cites a PwC finding that 86% of US buyers will pay more for a better brand experience, then shows what that figure actually requires of a brand operating model. Key speaking topics Customer experience and brand operating reality Experiential and “phygital” marketing Brand purpose as commercial driver Web3, NFTs, and the metaverse for marketers AI as creative amplifier in marketing Sports marketing and live brand experience Marketing innovation and emerging consumer behaviour Ideal for CMOs, CBOs, and brand directors rethinking the role of marketing in commercial strategy Customer experience and brand experience leads inside large consumer businesses Agency leaders and creative directors briefing on web3, AI, and digital-physical integration Sports, entertainment, and live-event sponsors building brand experience programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of brand experience that separates it from communications and advertising A view of brand purpose as an internal operating commitment, not a campaign theme A sharper read on where web3, NFTs, and the metaverse have commercial traction for marketers, and where they do not A direct argument for treating AI as a creative amplifier inside marketing teams Case material from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, School, and GMR Marketing applied to the audience’s own brand questions

Why organisations work with Michael G Jacobides He is the academic most directly associated with ecosystem strategy as a formal discipline. His Strategic Management Journal paper “Towards a Theory of Ecosystems” is one of the most-read articles the journal has published, and is the reference point others build on. He gives leadership teams a working language for a question they keep asking badly. Are we an orchestrator, a complementor, or a component, and what does each role earn under AI. His policy work gives the room a regulatory lens most strategy speakers cannot offer. He served as Chief Expert Advisor on the Digital Economy to the Hellenic Competition Commission and contributes to the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance. He has been ranked on the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top 50 management thinkers in four consecutive cycles since 2019, which is the credential boards recognise without needing to be briefed. His advisory base, BCG Henderson Institute and Evolution Ltd, keeps the content tested against live corporate decisions rather than against the conference circuit. Biography highlights Sir Donald Gordon Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Professor of Strategy, London Business School. Thinkers50 ranked management thinker in 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2025; Strategy Award shortlist, 2019. Co-Editor, Industrial and Corporate Change. Author of “Towards a Theory of Ecosystems” (Strategic Management Journal) and “How to Compete When Industries Digitize and Collide” (California Management Review, article-of-the-year). Academic Advisor to the BCG Henderson Institute; Lead Advisor of Evolution Ltd; contributor to the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance. Former Chief Expert Advisor on the Digital Economy, Hellenic Competition Commission. Visiting Scholar, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Financial Times and Forbes; commentator for BBC and CNN. Biography The boundary between industries is no longer the boundary between competitors. A bank now competes with a phone, a car company with a software platform, a retailer with an ad network. Jacobides has spent two decades building the academic framework that explains this, and turning it into language strategy teams can use. His paper “Towards a Theory of Ecosystems” in the Strategic Management Journal is the reference point most other ecosystem writing now builds on. The follow-up in California Management Review, on competing as industries digitise and collide, won the journal’s article-of-the-year and is widely used inside corporate strategy functions. The work is academic in origin and operational in use. That dual register is the reason boards book him. He holds the Sir Donald Gordon Chair at London Business School, co-edits Industrial and Corporate Change, and has been ranked on the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top management thinkers across four cycles. He also advises the BCG Henderson Institute, leads the advisory boutique Evolution Ltd, and contributes to the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance. His former role as Chief Expert Advisor on the Digital Economy to the Hellenic Competition Commission means he reads platform and AI regulation as a participant, not a spectator. What a senior buyer gets in the room is a strategist who can take an executive team from “AI is reshaping our industry” to a specific decision about where in the new value architecture the firm should sit, what it should orchestrate, what it should cede, and what regulators will let it own. Key speaking topics Ecosystem strategy and value migration Generative AI and competitive advantage Digital platforms and industry convergence Orchestrator, complementor and component positioning AI governance and competition policy Business model reinvention under digital disruption Boardroom strategy in technology-driven industries Ideal for Boards and group executive committees redrawing strategy as AI and platforms reshape their industry Chief Strategy Officers, Chief Digital Officers and Heads of Corporate Development assessing ecosystem positioning Banking, telecommunications, FMCG, healthcare and industrial leadership teams facing convergence pressure Private equity and investor audiences pricing platform exposure and ecosystem risk Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for ecosystem roles: orchestrator, complementor, component, and what each earns A clearer view of where AI shifts value inside the audience’s specific industry, not in general A framework for testing current strategy against the way industry boundaries are actually moving Sharper questions for the next board strategy session on platform exposure and regulatory risk A read on how competition policy and AI governance will constrain the playing field

Why organisations work with Michael Wade He runs IMD’s AI Maturity Index, which evaluates the 300 largest companies in the Forbes Global 2000 on how they have actually embedded AI across executive support, infrastructure, operations, workforce and ethics. The data behind it gives him a view of corporate AI adoption that is not available to the wider speaker market. The Digital Vortex framework, introduced in his 2017 Axiom Business Book Award winner and updated through IMD’s ongoing research, gives strategy teams a way to map how fast each industry is being pulled toward digital disruption. His books work as operating manuals. Hacking Digital and Orchestrating Transformation give boards and Chief Digital Officers structured playbooks for sequencing change, drawn from custom programmes with Vodafone, AXA, Credit Suisse, Nestle and Cartier. He founded and directs Leading Digital and AI Transformation at IMD, Europe’s first and largest executive programme on digital and AI. Many of the leaders setting the agenda inside their own boards have already been through his classroom. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Digital at IMD Business School in Lausanne and holder of the TONOMUS Professorship in Digital and AI Transformation Director of IMD’s TONOMUS Global Center for Digital and AI Transformation, which publishes the annual AI Maturity Index of the largest companies in the Forbes Global 2000 Co-author of Digital Vortex (winner of the 2017 Axiom Business Book Award), Orchestrating Transformation, Hacking Digital, ALIEN Thinking, Twin Transformation and GAIN: Demystifying GenAI Published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, MIS Quarterly and Strategic Management Journal; regular contributor to Fortune and Forbes Inducted into the Swiss Digital Shapers Hall of Fame in 2021 by Bilanz, Handelszeitung, Le Temps and Digitalswitzerland; named one of Switzerland’s top 10 digital thought leaders in 2016, 2017 and 2020 Hosts the IMD podcasts Management Under the Microscope and Mike & Amit Talk Tech; has designed custom executive programmes for Vodafone, AXA, Credit Suisse, Nestle, Cartier and others Biography Most digital and AI transformations do not fail at the technology layer. Research at IMD puts the failure rate around 87%, and the bottleneck almost always sits elsewhere. It is in the gap between the system that has been bought and the operating model that has to absorb it. Wade has spent two decades inside that gap. He is Professor of Strategy and Digital at IMD Business School in Lausanne, where he holds the TONOMUS Professorship and directs the school’s Global Center for Digital and AI Transformation. The Center’s AI Maturity Index ranks the 300 largest companies in the Forbes Global 2000 on how they have embedded AI in production. It is one of the few public benchmarks that separates companies running AI at scale from those still in pilot. Digital Vortex, the 2017 Axiom Business Book Award winner, gave executives a way to measure how fast their industry was being pulled toward digital disruption. Orchestrating Transformation and Hacking Digital followed with playbooks for what to do once that velocity is clear. Twin Transformation and GAIN, both published in 2025, extend the same discipline into AI and sustainability. The pattern is consistent: books written for the executive who has to deliver the change. In 2021, the Swiss media consortium Bilanz, Handelszeitung, Le Temps and Digitalswitzerland inducted him into its Digital Shapers Hall of Fame. He had been named one of Switzerland’s top 10 digital thought leaders three times before that. Boards still book him because he has taught their peers and run custom programmes for companies they benchmark against, including Vodafone, AXA, Credit Suisse and Nestle. Key speaking topics Digital and AI transformation Enterprise AI adoption at scale Industry disruption and competitive strategy The AI-augmented executive Innovation and breakthrough thinking Organisational agility and resilience Ideal for Boards and executive committees overseeing digital and AI strategy Chief Digital Officers and Chief AI Officers responsible for end-to-end transformation CEOs and senior leadership teams making capital allocation decisions on AI and technology Strategy and innovation leaders inside companies that are mid-transformation and need to course-correct Audience outcomes A specific read on where their organisation sits on the AI maturity dimensions, and what separates companies running AI in production from those still in pilot A working language for the gap between digital ambition and execution that boards and senior leaders can use in their own conversations A revised view of which industries are most exposed to digital disruption, and where defensive strategy and offensive moves should sit in the response A way to frame AI investment as an organisational change problem, with the operating model and leadership decisions as the binding constraint

Why organisations work with Michelle K. Lee A rare three-sided view of AI: senior executive inside Google, Vice President of Amazon Web Services’ Machine Learning Solutions Lab, and a presidentially appointed agency head responsible for national IP and technology policy. Board-room credibility built on board service. Current director at MassMutual, Unity Technologies and The MIT Corporation, so audiences hear a peer, not a presenter. AI governance grounded in the law and the operating reality. Founder and CEO of Obsidian Strategies, advising on AI opportunity selection and the governance that goes with it. A track record of running AI at scale. Led a global AWS team that built machine learning into operations, customer experience and new revenue lines for clients across industries. Federal-scale execution. Ran the 10,000-person USPTO as the first woman to direct the agency, including its own AI strategy and digital modernisation. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Obsidian Strategies, advising Fortune-class companies and boards on AI opportunities and AI governance. Former Vice President, Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision, Amazon Web Services. Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the first woman in the role. Former Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy at Google. Board director: The MIT Corporation, MassMutual, Unity Technologies. Co-founder of ChIPs. MIT-trained computer scientist (B.S., M.S., EECS) and Stanford Law graduate (J.D.). Featured by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, NPR, MIT Sloan Management Review, CES, SXSW, the World Knowledge Forum and the National Association of Corporate Directors. Biography Most boards have moved past the question of whether AI matters. The harder problem is which AI decisions belong with the board, which belong with the operators, and how to govern a technology whose capabilities and regulatory picture keep moving. Michelle K. Lee has worked that problem from every side of the table. At Google she spent eight years inside one of the most consequential technology companies of the era, ending as Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy. At Amazon Web Services she ran the Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision businesses as a Vice President, leading a global team that helped clients across industries build machine learning into operations, customer experience and new revenue lines. Few AI advisors have actually shipped AI at that scale. Between those roles she was appointed by the President to serve as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the first woman to hold the position. She ran a 10,000-person agency, set its own AI strategy, and was the principal advisor to the President on intellectual property policy. That public-sector vantage point is what makes her boardroom counsel on AI regulation and governance unusually grounded. Today she runs Obsidian Strategies, advising Fortune-class companies and their boards on where to deploy AI for material return and how to govern it credibly. She sits on the boards of MassMutual, Unity Technologies and The MIT Corporation, so the people she advises know she is making the same decisions in her day job. Key speaking topics AI strategy for the board and the executive team AI governance, ethics and regulation Generative AI: opportunities and operational risks Machine learning in customer experience and operations Digital transformation and innovation Intellectual property in the age of AI Director-level technology oversight Ideal for Boards and audit, risk or technology committees framing AI oversight and governance. CEO, CIO, CTO, Chief AI Officer and General Counsel audiences moving AI from pilot to production. Senior leadership offsites on AI strategy, regulation and competitive positioning. Industry events convening regulated sectors (financial services, insurance, healthcare, public sector) navigating AI policy. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI investment produces measurable return and where it does not. A practical board-level framework for AI governance, risk and accountability. A read on where AI regulation is heading and what it means for current strategy. A more honest conversation about generative AI: what to deploy, what to defer, and what to refuse. Confidence that the speaker has personally built, operated and regulated the technology under discussion.

Why organisations work with Miguel Luengo-Oroz He held the inaugural Chief Data Scientist role at the United Nations for six years, applying AI to conflict prevention, refugee response, epidemics and human rights. That is a vantage point no consultant or academic alone can replicate. He runs Spotlab, an operating AI company in clinical diagnostics. His commentary on AI risk is grounded in shipping production systems, not theoretical governance. He has published more than 100 articles in venues including Nature and MIT Technology Review, and has briefed governments in Europe and the United States, including the Global Partnership on AI. He invented MalariaSpot, a crowdsourced game that turned thousands of citizens into diagnostic contributors. He is fluent in both AI ethics doctrine and what it looks like when humans and AI actually share work. Biography highlights First Chief Data Scientist of the United Nations, UN Global Pulse, Executive Office of the Secretary-General, 2016 to 2022. Founder and CEO of Spotlab, an AI platform for clinical research and universal diagnosis. Professor at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; PhD (special prize) from the same institution; additional MSc from EHESS and École Normale Supérieure, Paris. Obama Foundation Leader (Europe 2023), Ashoka Fellow, MIT Technology Review TR35, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, EU Responsible Research and Innovation Award. More than 100 scientific articles, policy briefs and op-eds; featured in Nature, MIT Technology Review, The Guardian and The New York Times. Inventor of MalariaSpot.org, a crowdsourcing video game for malaria diagnosis. Biography The United Nations created its first Chief Data Scientist post in 2016, and Miguel Luengo-Oroz held it for six years. The brief was to put AI and data science to work on problems that do not forgive errors: epidemic response, refugee movements, hate speech detection, conflict prevention, climate. That experience shaped a working philosophy that responsible AI is not a values statement, it is an operating discipline. Today he runs Spotlab, an AI platform for clinical research and diagnostics, built around smartphones, AI models and 3D printing to bring quality diagnostics to diseases largely absent from the digital health economy. He is also a professor at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, where his research spans generative AI, collective intelligence and systems biology. His commentary draws on more than 100 publications across Nature, MIT Technology Review, The Guardian and The New York Times, and on advisory work with governments in Europe and the United States and the Global Partnership on AI. Recognitions include the Obama Foundation Leaders programme, an Ashoka fellowship, MIT TR35, the EU Responsible Research and Innovation Award, and a fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts. For senior leaders, the value is the combination: someone who has set AI policy inside the most scrutinised public institution in the world, and who currently ships AI products into regulated medical environments. He speaks about AI risk and opportunity with the specifics of someone doing the work. Key speaking topics Responsible and ethical AI AI governance and public-interest technology AI in healthcare and diagnostics AI for sustainable development and humanitarian response Generative AI: applications, risks and limits The future of AI policy and regulation Data science inside multilateral institutions Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI governance and risk posture CTOs, Chief Data Officers and Chief AI Officers operationalising responsible AI Healthcare, life sciences and pharma leaders deploying clinical AI Public sector, multilateral and NGO leadership teams using AI in policy and operations Audience outcomes A clear view of where AI risk actually sits in deployment, beyond policy statements Specific examples of AI applied to high-stakes problems inside the UN and in clinical settings A working framework for distinguishing responsible AI as discipline from responsible AI as branding Sharper questions to put to internal AI programmes, vendors and regulators Realistic perspective on what generative AI changes for organisations over the next two to three years

Why organisations work with Mike Saunders His HumanCentric framework forces transformation teams to test technology decisions against the people who will or will not adopt them, which changes how budgets get allocated. He runs the agency he speaks from. Digitlab has delivered digital work for Vodafone, IBM, Toyota, KPMG and Bidvest, so the room hears practice from a live operator. He brings an emerging-market lens that most digital strategy speakers do not carry, drawn from running an agency in South Africa with delivery into the UK, Europe, US, Australia and Dubai. His Gear Analogy, developed for his TEDx Durban talk, gives leadership teams a working method for picking which ideas deserve real investment and which to drop. He pairs published frameworks with original sector research, including Digitlab’s annual Insight: State of Digital report on where customer behaviour, AI and martech are moving. Biography highlights CEO and Founder of Digitlab, a digital strategy agency with clients spanning South Africa, the UK, Europe, the US, Australia and Dubai. Author of HumanCentric: Technology Fails Unless It Means Something to Someone, which sets out a four-part model (explore, ideate, intersect, create) for human-centred digital transformation. TEDx Durban speaker on Gearing for Greatness: Your Ideas, Your Impact, introducing the Gear Analogy for idea evaluation and execution. Opening chapter author in Doers & Dreamers, a global business compendium also featuring Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss and Brian Chesky. Founder of the Digitlab Academy in partnership with Vega School of Branding, training over 1,000 marketers a year. Awarded Special Honours at the New Generation Awards for contribution to the digital industry; named among “Top Global Digital Marketing Experts & Influencers” (2019). Biography Most digital transformation programmes still get sold to boards as technology projects. The investment lands and the adoption that was supposed to follow does not. The gap is where commercial returns disappear. This is the gap that Saunders has spent more than fifteen years working in. As CEO of Digitlab, the South African agency he founded, he has run digital programmes for Vodafone, IBM, Toyota, KPMG and Bidvest. He argues that technology fails unless it means something to someone, and that digital is a people conversation that happens to run on technology. His book HumanCentric: Technology Fails Unless It Means Something to Someone sets out the four-part model he uses with clients: explore, ideate, intersect, create. Each phase forces a transformation team to test technology decisions against the human stakeholders who will or will not adopt them. It functions as a working framework, and it shows up in his keynote work as practical structure for leadership audiences. His TEDx Durban talk Gearing for Greatness introduced the Gear Analogy, a tool for evaluating which ideas to back and which to drop. He contributed the opening chapter of Doers & Dreamers, the global business book that also features Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss and Brian Chesky. Each year, Digitlab publishes its Insight: State of Digital report mapping where customer behaviour, AI, search and martech are actually moving. Key speaking topics Human-centred digital transformation Customer experience and digital strategy AI and data-driven marketing Marketing technology and innovation Digital consumer behaviour The Fourth Industrial Revolution in business Ideal for CMOs and digital marketing leaders running transformation or martech programmes CEOs and CDOs are accountable for digital strategy and adoption outcomes Boards and executive teams setting commercial AI and data direction Marketing, sales and IT leadership teams are trying to align around shared revenue outcomes Audience outcomes A working framework for testing digital decisions against the real people who will or will not adopt them A method for separating ideas worth backing from ideas worth abandoning, drawn from the Gear Analogy Specific signals on what is shifting in customer behaviour, AI, search and martech, drawn from Digitlab’s annual State of Digital research A view of how marketing, sales and IT teams should align around a single revenue model