DI (Diversità, equità e inclusione) speakers

Why organisations work with Aaron Phipps A first-person account of high performance under genuinely extreme physical constraint, told by a Tokyo 2020 gold medallist on the first GB team to win a team-sport Paralympic gold. Specific stories built around named decisions: continuing the Kilimanjaro climb on hands and knees for four days when the chair failed, returning to elite sport at three Paralympic Games across twelve years. Material that travels into senior leadership conferences without sliding into generic motivation. The talks are structured around setbacks, recalibration, and execution, not slogans. Co-delivered Path to Gold session with performance coach Jon Cooper, which gives senior teams the athlete and coach view of the same elite partnership. Track record with FTSE 100 audiences including PwC, Google, HSBC, Deloitte, Allianz, Salesforce and Nestle. Biography highlights Three-time Paralympian for Great Britain in wheelchair rugby: London 2012, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024. Tokyo 2020 gold medallist as part of the first GB team to win a team-sport Paralympic gold. Appointed MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to wheelchair rugby. First disabled British person to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, completing the final four days on hands and knees in May 2016 after his adapted wheelchair failed. Lost both legs and most of his fingers at age 15 to meningococcal sepsis after contracting Meningitis C in January 1999. Keynote client list includes PwC, Google, HSBC, Bupa, Allianz, Deloitte, Salesforce, Nestle and O2. Biography A Meningitis C infection on 7 January 1999 put a fifteen year old Aaron Phipps into a two week induced coma. He came out of it without both legs and without most of his fingers, and spent the next year in hospital. The recovery story matters less than what he chose to do with it. He went back into competitive sport, completed two London Marathons by 2009, and was selected for the GB wheelchair rugby squad ahead of London 2012. The Kilimanjaro climb in May 2016 is the story most senior audiences remember. The adapted wheelchair built for the route gave way early. Rather than turn back, Phipps spent four days crawling on hands and knees to the summit, becoming the first disabled British person to reach it. The point that lands in a corporate room is not the heroism. It is the decision architecture: keep going under conditions you did not plan for, with equipment that no longer works, when nobody would blame you for stopping. Tokyo 2020 produced the result that defines his sporting career. Great Britain won the wheelchair rugby final, the first team-sport gold any GB Paralympic team has ever taken. Phipps was central to it, and was appointed MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours. He competed at a third Paralympic Games in Paris 2024, twelve years after his first. He is not a management theorist and does not present himself as one. He is booked because he tells specific stories about staying functional under genuinely extreme conditions, and because senior buyers at PwC, Google, HSBC, Deloitte and others find that those stories survive the translation into a leadership conference room better than most. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained adversity High performance and elite team partnership Mindset and recovery from setback Goal pursuit when the original plan fails Paralympic sport and disability inclusion Self-leadership through extreme constraint Ideal for Senior leadership conferences and executive offsites where the brief is composure under pressure Sales kickoffs, performance teams and high-stakes commercial groups closing demanding cycles Organisations going through restructure or sustained change where workforce fatigue is the named risk Inclusion and disability-focused programmes that want a substantive lived account rather than a panel Audience outcomes A specific, retold account of a senior person continuing to execute when conditions are worse than planned Sharper language for the difference between motivation and the practical mechanics of recovery A reference point teams use back at work when the discussion turns to whether to push on or stop Recalibration of what counts as a serious obstacle inside the audience’s own commercial context

Why organisations work with Adam Gemili A world title earned by a four-man relay quartet, not an individual final, gives him direct material on how teams hold technique together when one mistake ends the race. Fourteen years at the top of British sprinting, including European 200m gold and an Olympic 200m final, evidence a long performance arc rather than a single peak moment. His current role as sprint coach at Chelsea FC academy means his content on performance habits is being actively tested against developing professional athletes, not retold from memory. He is the first British man to run sub-10 in the 100m and sub-20 in the 200m, a credential that opens corporate audiences and supports the discipline-and-marginal-gains content many performance speakers claim without proof. Biography highlights World Champion, men’s 4x100m relay, IAAF World Championships London 2017 (37.47, national and European record). European Champion, 200m, 2014; three-time European Champion in the 4x100m relay. Olympic 200m finalist, Rio 2016, finishing fourth. First British male sprinter to run sub-10 seconds in the 100m and sub-20 seconds in the 200m. Sprint and speed coach, Chelsea FC academy, from 2026. Degree in Sports & Exercise Science with Human Biology. Biography The Great Britain men’s 4x100m team had spent years carrying the memory of a botched handover at London 2012. Five years later, in the same stadium, they ran 37.47 seconds and beat the United States to the world title. Gemili ran the second leg. That race is the strongest single anchor in his speaking material. It is also the most accurate frame for what he offers a corporate room: a story about four people executing a technical task in front of 60,000 spectators, where the result depends on the handover as much as the speed. His individual record runs in parallel. European 200m champion in 2014, Olympic finalist in Rio in 2016, fourth at the 2019 World Championships in Doha as the highest-placed European. He is the first British man to run sub-10 in the 100m and sub-20 in the 200m, a credential that signals range across both events rather than a single specialism. In March 2026 he retired from elite athletics and returned to Chelsea FC, where he had spent seven years as a youth player before switching codes, this time as a sprint and speed coach for the academy. The crossover gives his content on performance, recovery, and team behaviour a current operational anchor, not just a competitive past. Key speaking topics High-performance teams under pressure Composure and execution in high-stakes moments Resilience after setback and injury Goal-setting and the long performance arc Mental health in elite environments Diversity and representation in sport Coaching and developing young talent Ideal for Sales and commercial leadership conferences focused on performance behaviours Employee engagement, kick-off and town hall events where a corporate audience benefits from a non-corporate voice HR and people leaders programming content on resilience and mental health for high-pressure teams After-dinner and awards programmes wanting a credible British sporting figure rather than a generic motivational slot Audience outcomes A specific account of how a four-person team won a world title where any single error ends the race A working definition of composure under public scrutiny, drawn from someone who lived it across major championships Honest material on setback, injury, and competitive disappointment from a fourteen-year career, not a highlight reel A credible, recent perspective on coaching and developing young athletes inside a Premier League academy

Why organisations work with Ade Adepitan He has lived disability discrimination in three intersecting dimensions – Nigerian-born, Black, and physically disabled in working-class East London – giving organisations a perspective on inclusion that is personal, structural and political, not theoretical. His Paralympic bronze, World Championship gold and 20 years as one of the UK’s first visibly disabled television presenters mean he speaks from earned authority on both peak performance and public representation – not campaigning alone. His Channel 4 documentary on Nigeria’s polio eradication prompted Bill Gates to invite him to address the Global Vaccine Summit in 2020 – evidence that his work on disability and global health has real policy reach beyond the broadcasting world. The 2023 RTS Best Sports Presenter Award and BAFTA-winning Paralympic coverage give him peer recognition from the broadcast industry as a communicator of genuine authority, which directly validates his use as a platform for any inclusion message. As Chancellor of Birmingham City University since 2024, he brings current institutional standing – and a live stake – in questions of access, diversity and representation in education and public life. Biography highlights Bronze medallist, 2004 Athens Paralympic Games (wheelchair basketball, Great Britain); gold medallist, 2005 Paralympic World Cup, Manchester; silver medallist, European Championships MBE (2005) for services to disability sport; Honorary Doctorates from Loughborough University and the University of East London One of the first visibly disabled television presenters in the UK; over 20 years broadcasting for Channel 4 and the BBC Lead presenter, Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning coverage of the 2012 London Paralympic Games (alongside Clare Balding) RTS Award, Best Sports Presenter (2023), for Channel 4’s 2022 Winter Paralympics coverage Named in the Powerlist 2020 – 100 most influential Black British people Chancellor of Birmingham City University (from 2024), succeeding Sir Lenny Henry Speaker, Global Vaccine Summit: We Changed History (2020), at the invitation of Bill Gates, following Channel 4 documentary on Nigeria’s polio eradication Biography Disability rarely gets equal airtime in inclusion conversations – and when it does, it tends toward legal compliance rather than lived experience. Ade Adepitan MBE has spent over two decades making that distinction impossible to ignore: as a Paralympic medallist, a BAFTA-winning broadcaster, and now as Chancellor of Birmingham City University. His credentials begin with sport. Contracting polio in Lagos at 15 months and growing up in East London, he reached the highest level of wheelchair basketball – winning bronze at the 2004 Athens Paralympics and gold at the 2005 Paralympic World Cup in Manchester. The disciplines of elite competition – preparation, decision-making under pressure, and recovery from setback – form the foundation of everything he brings to organisations on resilience and performance. He became one of the first visibly disabled presenters on British television and has been a lead voice for Channel 4 and the BBC for over 20 years. That includes the BAFTA-winning 2012 London Paralympic Games coverage, the four-part BBC Two documentary Africa with Ade Adepitan, Climate Change: Ade on the Frontline, and extensive coverage of Paralympic Games from Athens to Paris. The 2023 Royal Television Society Award for Best Sports Presenter – for his 2022 Winter Paralympics work – came with judges describing him as a broadcaster of genuine insight and charisma, not a ceremonial accolade. His reach extends into policy. His Channel 4 documentary investigating Nigeria’s polio eradication prompted Bill Gates to invite him to address the Global Vaccine Summit in 2020. He appears on the Powerlist of the 100 most influential Black British people. And in 2024 he became Chancellor of Birmingham City University, where his stated mission is to be a torchbearer for disability rights in education and public life. Organisations working with Ade Adepitan are engaging someone whose work has moved from screens into summits – and whose authority on inclusion is earned from all three directions at once. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and workplace accessibility Resilience and elite performance mindset Diversity, equity and representation in organisations Storytelling and the role of media in shaping social perception Global health advocacy and public responsibility Climate change and environmental impact Inclusion in education and leadership pipelines Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads developing or stress-testing disability inclusion strategies Leadership conferences addressing the gap between ESG commitments and workforce experience Organisations with social impact and public accountability mandates Education sector and public institutions focused on access, representation and opportunity Audience outcomes A sharper understanding of how disability inclusion differs from – and connects to – broader DEI programmes, grounded in direct lived experience An honest account of how resilience and elite performance are built over time, drawn from competitive Paralympic sport and a 20-year public career Insight into the role organisations and media play in either sustaining or dismantling the invisibility of disability Awareness of the strategic cost of treating disability as a compliance exercise rather than a cultural and commercial priority A credible, evidence-based challenge to the assumption that DEI commitments translate automatically into inclusion

Why organisations work with Ade Oladipo He brings live broadcast craft to corporate events: DAZN Boxing, talkSPORT and Amazon Prime Premier League coverage are all built on holding a live audience under pressure, which is exactly what large internal conferences and award nights demand. His career is a documented case of breaking a colour barrier in UK sports media, becoming the first Black presenter of a live Premier League match in December 2023. That is concrete material, not abstract DEI commentary. His speaking themes (adversity, mental health, working in media) are grounded in his own route through fostering, East London, sports trials and a non-traditional path into journalism, which gives the content specificity rather than slogans. He is equally credible as keynote speaker, panel moderator and awards host, which makes him useful for clients who need one booking to cover the whole evening. Biography highlights Lead presenter for DAZN Boxing and host of “The DAZN Boxing Show”, covering Anthony Joshua, Canelo Alvarez, Gervonta Davis and KSI fights. First Black presenter of a live Premier League match in the UK, anchoring Amazon Prime’s coverage of Crystal Palace v Bournemouth in December 2023. Presenter across the talkSPORT network, including “The Social” on talkSPORT 2 and pundit work on “Kick Off Added Time”. Winner of the 2021 Audio Production Awards “Best New Voice”. Co-host of the 2023 ARIAS-nominated podcast “The Men’s Room”. Prior credits include Sky Sports News (Premier League and EFL transfer reporting), ESPN, Fox Sports and Arise News. Biography Live boxing on DAZN, Premier League football on Amazon Prime, weekly radio on talkSPORT. Three different audiences, three different production cultures, one presenter holding the room when the broadcast is live and the script has gone. That is the working life Ade Oladipo has built, and it is the material he brings into the corporate room. In December 2023 he became the first Black presenter of a live Premier League match in the UK, leading Amazon Prime’s coverage of Crystal Palace against Bournemouth. The story behind that night runs through Brighton foster care, East London, Essex football and athletics, a Tottenham Hotspur Academy trial, and an entry into sports journalism in 2015 at Arise News. None of it was the standard route. His speaking work draws on that route directly. The themes are adversity, mental health, and what it takes to keep doing the work when you are the only person in the room who looks like you. Awards include the 2021 Audio Production Awards “Best New Voice” and a 2023 ARIAS nomination as co-host of “The Men’s Room” podcast, evidence that the craft holds up alongside the story. For corporate clients his most direct value is hosting craft: keynote, Q&A, awards, panel moderation, all delivered with the calm of someone who presents live boxing for a living. The keynote on adversity and mental health is the additional offer when the brief calls for it. Key speaking topics Mental health and resilience in high-pressure work Adversity and non-linear career paths Race and representation in UK media Sports broadcasting and live presenting Event hosting and panel moderation Awards night MC Ideal for Corporate event organisers needing a host who can carry a full evening: keynote, panel, awards. Internal CHRO and DEI leads commissioning content on lived experience rather than policy. Sports, media and entertainment industry conferences. Employee Resource Group events, particularly those focused on Black professionals in white-majority industries. Audience outcomes A clear sense of what sustained mental health practice looks like for someone working under public scrutiny. A specific story of breaking into and breaking through a closed industry, used as material for their own career conversations. A sharper view of what genuine inclusion feels like from inside, beyond the slide deck. An event held together by a presenter trained on live broadcast, not a corporate stage.

Why organisations work with Adele Bates Her classroom experience covers every major UK school setting: mainstream primary and secondary, pupil referral units, alternative provision, and special schools. School leaders can bring her to a mixed-audience CPD day knowing the examples hold up across every context in the room. Her approach is informed by funded comparative international research. In 2019, she received a full grant to research Finland’s inclusive education system. Research in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica followed. What she recommends draws on documented practice from functioning systems across three countries. Her book, published by Corwin/SAGE, has been used by headteachers to rewrite whole-school behaviour policies from scratch. It provides a structured, chapter-by-chapter framework that school leaders can put to immediate institutional use. She writes for TES, SecEd, and Headteacher Update, reaching school leaders at scale. Audiences in her sessions often arrive knowing her work, which changes the quality of the conversation. Her TEDx 2020 talk and BBC Radio 4 appearances as the network’s expert on teenagers and behaviour give her name recognition well beyond the education conference circuit. Biography highlights Author, “Miss, I Don’t Give A Sh*t”: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools (Corwin/SAGE) TEDx 2020 speaker BBC Radio 4 expert on teenagers and behaviour Trainer for the National Education Union and Amnesty International Education WeAreTheCity Rising Star Award, Education category Funded international researcher in behaviour and inclusion: Finland (2019), Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica Biography Behaviour policies give teachers a sequence of steps. They rarely explain what to do when those steps stop working. For more than 20 years, Adele Bates taught in the settings where that gap matters most: mainstream primary and secondary schools, pupil referral units, alternative provision, and special schools. Her book, “Miss, I Don’t Give A Sh*t”: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools, is published by Corwin/SAGE. It gives school leaders a structured framework for rebuilding behaviour culture from the ground up. Headteachers have used it to rewrite their school’s behaviour policy from scratch. In 2019, she received a full grant to research Finland’s inclusive education system, observing classes and interviewing teachers across several schools. She has since carried out school-based research in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. Those visits inform how she frames what is achievable, with reference to systems that have solved problems UK schools are still working through. She is BBC Radio 4’s expert on teenagers and behaviour and gave a TEDx talk in 2020. She writes regularly for TES, SecEd, and Headteacher Update. She trains for the National Education Union and Amnesty International Education. School leaders who book her often know her work before she arrives. Key speaking topics Inclusive behaviour in schools Social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) in education Trauma-informed practice Whole-school behaviour culture and consistency Pupil engagement and relationship-led teaching Equality, bias, and inclusion in education Staff confidence and wellbeing in schools Ideal for Headteachers and senior leadership teams in mainstream and specialist schools Classroom teachers and subject leaders seeking practical behaviour frameworks Multi-academy trust (MAT) CPD and professional development leads National education organisations and education conference organisers Audience outcomes A clearer account of why SEMH-driven behaviour does not respond to sanctions, and what the evidence suggests actually works Practical strategies for rebuilding positive relationships with disengaged pupils, applicable from the next lesson A framework for evaluating whether a school’s behaviour policy is built to support or to separate A sharper understanding of how equality, bias, and inclusion connect to behaviour patterns across a whole school Tools for strengthening staff confidence and consistency in challenging classroom situations

Why organisations work with Adrian Joseph He has run an AI and data function of roughly 1,600 people inside a FTSE 100 company, so his advice to boards reflects what it takes to deliver at that scale, not what a strategy deck suggests. He sits on the boards of Direct Line, Allwyn and Great Ormond Street Hospital, giving him a current view of how AI lands in insurance, gaming and healthcare rather than a single-sector perspective. As an Expert Member of the UK AI Council he contributed to the National AI Strategy, so he reads regulation and policy as someone who has been inside the room, not as an outside observer. He holds an OBE for services to equality and diversity in business and was named the UK’s most influential minority ethnic technology leader by the Financial Times and Inclusive Boards, which sharpens his credibility on the workforce side of AI transformation. His career path through Google, EY and BT gives audiences a rare triangulation: the hyperscaler view of what the technology can do, the consulting view of how to sell change internally, and the operator view of what actually breaks. Biography highlights Former Chief Data and AI Officer, BT Group, leading approximately 1,600 data and AI professionals. Former Senior Partner and Head of UK Data and Analytics for Financial Services at EY. Over ten years in senior leadership roles at Google across cloud, digital and data science. Non-Executive Director at Direct Line Insurance Group, Allwyn UK and Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Expert Member of the UK Government’s AI Council and former Non-Executive Director at the Home Office. OBE for services to equality and diversity in business; named the UK’s most influential BAME technology leader by the Financial Times and Inclusive Boards. Biography Running an AI and data function of 1,600 people inside BT Group taught Adrian Joseph OBE what most board conversations about AI miss. The commercial case is not won in the model. It is won in the operating model, the talent pipeline and the patience of the leadership team to let value compound. That operator’s view is what he brings into the room. Before BT, he spent over a decade at Google in senior cloud, digital and data science roles, then led the UK Data and Analytics practice for Financial Services at EY as a Senior Partner. The path gives him three lenses on the same problem. Hyperscalers built the infrastructure. Consultancies sold the transformation story. Incumbents have to actually run the thing in production under regulatory scrutiny. He currently holds non-executive director roles at Direct Line Insurance Group, Allwyn UK, the National Lottery operator, and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, and sits on the Technology Advisory Board at NatWest Group. As an Expert Member of the UK Government’s AI Council he contributed to the National AI Strategy, and served as a Non-Executive Director at the Home Office from 2015 to 2020. He was awarded an OBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours for services to equality and diversity in business, and the Financial Times and Inclusive Boards named him the UK’s most influential Black, Asian and ethnic minority technology leader. That recognition is not decoration on the CV. It sharpens his argument that the AI advantage large organisations seek is inseparable from who they let build and govern the systems. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and commercial return Responsible AI and governance Data and AI operating models at scale Digital and cloud transformation in regulated industries AI policy and the National AI Strategy Diversity and inclusion in technology leadership Board-level oversight of AI risk Ideal for CEOs, CFOs and boards under pressure to show commercial return from AI and data spend Chief Data Officers, CIOs and CTOs building or restructuring AI and data functions Financial services, insurance, healthcare and public sector leaders navigating AI in regulated environments CHROs and transformation leads addressing the talent and inclusion dimension of AI adoption Audience outcomes A sharper line between AI activity that produces commercial return and AI activity that produces slides A realistic view of what an AI and data operating model looks like at enterprise scale, from someone who ran one Current reading of UK AI policy and regulation from inside the AI Council and National AI Strategy work Practical signals for boards on where to probe AI risk, governance and delivery maturity Language for connecting AI capability to workforce, talent and inclusion strategy

Why organisations work with Alex Beresford A live broadcaster used to high-stakes interviews and unscripted moments, including the March 2021 Good Morning Britain exchange with Piers Morgan that drew over 41,000 Ofcom complaints and ended in Morgan’s resignation. Direct lived experience of race in British media, used to open inclusion conversations that internal facilitators cannot host with the same credibility. A working journalist’s grasp of climate, extreme weather and current affairs, having reported in the field for ITV and produced Channel 4 documentaries on tornadoes and British weather extremes. Substantive ties to youth and social mobility through his role as ambassador for Empire Fighting Chance and his long-running schools and prisons tour on knife crime and media careers. A trusted morning television face who can chair a panel, moderate a town hall or anchor a conference day with the rhythm and composure of live broadcast. Biography highlights Lead weather presenter, ITV Evening News, and regular presenter on Good Morning Britain. Host of Channel 4’s The World’s Weirdest Weather and Britain’s Most Extreme Weather. Ambassador, Empire Fighting Chance, Bristol-based youth violence prevention charity. Selected for the UK government’s Reach Role Model Programme, 2008. Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy, University of Gloucestershire. Debut book Things We Should Talk About acquired by Sphere, Little, Brown. Biography The 9 March 2021 episode of Good Morning Britain ended with Piers Morgan walking off set. The presenter who pushed the conversation about Meghan Markle, race and what counts as fair comment was Alex Beresford, then ITV’s lead weatherman. Morgan resigned the same day. Ofcom logged over 41,000 complaints. The clip is still cited as a turning point in how British morning television talks about race. Beresford has been on ITV since 2004, first as a teleprompter operator at ITV West in Bristol, then as a regional weather presenter, then on the national network. He has fronted Channel 4 documentary series on extreme weather, flown into Oklahoma after the 2013 EF5 tornado for the film Super Tornado, and in March 2022 became the live weather presenter on the extended ITV Evening News. The work outside the studio is what carries weight with corporate audiences. He is an ambassador for Empire Fighting Chance, the Bristol charity that uses non-contact boxing to keep young people away from violence, and he has spent years touring schools, colleges and prisons talking about media careers and knife crime. The UK government named him a National Black Role Model in 2008. He holds an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Gloucestershire. His debut book, Things We Should Talk About, has been acquired by Sphere. For a corporate audience that wants an inclusion conversation hosted with broadcast composure rather than activist register, the offer is unusually concrete: a working journalist with lived experience, a track record of holding difficult ground on live television, and credibility with the youth communities the conversation usually leaves out. Key speaking topics Race and representation in British media Inclusion and difficult conversations at work Mental health and personal resilience Youth violence, knife crime and social mobility Climate, extreme weather and broadcasting Conference hosting and panel moderation Ideal for CHROs and inclusion leads commissioning sessions on race that need credibility outside the HR voice Conference organisers booking a host or moderator for a multi-stage event day ESG, sustainability and corporate affairs teams running internal events on climate and extreme weather Foundations, social mobility programmes and youth-facing organisations engaging schools and community partners Audience outcomes A franker conversation about race and representation than internal facilitators usually produce A working broadcaster’s view of how climate stories land with mainstream audiences A clearer picture of the real lives behind inner-city youth violence statistics A panel or town hall held together with the pacing and composure of live television

Why organisations work with Alex Depledge She has built, scaled and exited a venture-backed UK consumer marketplace, and is currently advising the Chancellor of the Exchequer on entrepreneurship policy. Few speakers can hold both a founder’s lens and a policy lens at once. She speaks to boards from inside the boardroom. Her FTSE-100 seat at Persimmon and NED role at Goodlord mean her advice on innovation, governance and growth is grounded in current PLC reality, not consultancy abstraction. She frames the gender funding gap and the women-in-tech question with hard numbers and self-implicating honesty rather than the standard talk-track, which is why programme committees book her for conversations they want to feel more honest than usual. She has a working view, formed through Hassle.com and Resi, on why corporates struggle to copy start-up behaviour, and what they can realistically take from it. She talks about regulation, sharing economy policy and UK scale-up barriers as a current operator and current government advisor, which gives those sessions weight that retrospective speakers rarely match. Biography highlights First ever Entrepreneurship Advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed by Rachel Reeves in June 2025. Independent Non-Executive Director, Persimmon PLC (FTSE 100), since May 2023; sits on remuneration and nomination committees. Founder of Resi.co.uk, the UK’s largest residential architectural practice, with over 10,000 home projects delivered. Stepped down as CEO in December 2025 and moved to the board. Co-founder and former CEO of Hassle.com, sold to Helpling in 2015 after Accel Partners-led funding. MBE for services to the Sharing Economy, 2016. Named in Computer Weekly’s 50 Most Influential Women in UK Tech and Debrett’s 500 Most Influential People; FT 30 Female Founders to Watch. Biography Most established companies want to behave more like start-ups and very few succeed. The reason is rarely a shortage of ambition. It is that the operating habits, the speed of decision and the comfort with risk that actually produce scale-up growth get filtered out by the systems large organisations use to govern themselves. Alex Depledge has lived on both sides of that gap and now advises across it. She co-founded Hassle.com in 2012 with Jules Coleman, took Accel Partners funding, expanded across Europe and exited to Helpling in 2015. The next year the same partnership launched Resi.co.uk, now the UK’s largest residential architectural practice with more than ten thousand projects delivered. She led Resi as CEO for nearly a decade before stepping back to the board in late 2025. Her current portfolio is what makes her unusual on a stage. She is the first Entrepreneurship Advisor to HM Treasury, appointed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in June 2025 to work directly on the barriers UK companies hit when they try to scale. At the same time she sits as an independent non-executive director of Persimmon PLC, the FTSE-100 housebuilder, and joined Goodlord’s board in December 2025. That mix gives her audiences a rare combination of inputs: a founder who has banked an exit, a board member inside a UK plc, and a named voice in active conversation with the Treasury about why British scale-ups stall. She was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to the sharing economy and writes and broadcasts regularly on entrepreneurship, technology policy and the gender funding gap. Key speaking topics Scale-up leadership and the founder operating mindset What large organisations can and cannot learn from start-ups UK entrepreneurship policy and barriers to scale Women, funding and structural bias in venture capital Innovation inside regulated and traditional sectors The future of work and platform-economy business models Proptech and the digitisation of legacy industries Ideal for CEOs, COOs and strategy leaders in incumbent businesses trying to behave more entrepreneurially Boards and Chairs commissioning sessions on innovation governance and growth CHROs and inclusion leads addressing gender, funding and pipeline questions in tech Industry conferences in property, financial services, professional services and government Audience outcomes A clearer read on which start-up behaviours scale into a corporate environment and which do not A current operator’s view of UK entrepreneurship policy and the live Treasury debate on scale-up barriers An honest framing of the gender funding gap that names structural causes rather than rehearsing the symptoms A board-level perspective on innovation as a governance discipline, drawn from FTSE-100 practice A real example of building, scaling and exiting a venture-backed UK consumer marketplace

Why organisations work with Alexandra Shulman She ran British Vogue for a quarter of a century across three recessions and the collapse of the print advertising model, and can speak with evidence about what protects a consumer brand’s authority through structural change. She has first-hand judgement on the fashion and luxury economy that organisations rarely access at this level, including on body image, diversity on the cover, and the commercial consequences of editorial choices. Her work on the Vogue centenary issue with the Duchess of Cambridge, documented by BBC Two, is a case study in how a legacy title uses a single moment to reset its cultural position. As a monthly Business of Fashion columnist and Mail on Sunday writer, she has a continuing, named public record on industry shifts, so audiences get a point of view grounded in current analysis, not reminiscence. Her three books, including the Sunday Times bestseller Clothes and Other Things That Matter, give her a body of published work on women, consumer culture, and the business of appearance that goes beyond the editor role. Biography highlights Editor-in-Chief, British Vogue, 1992 to 2017, the longest-serving editor in the title’s history. Editor of British GQ, 1990 to 1992, before moving to Vogue. CBE (2018) for services to fashion journalism; OBE (2005) for services to the magazine industry. Author of Inside Vogue: A Diary of My 100th Year (2016) and the Sunday Times bestseller Clothes and Other Things That Matter (Cassell, 2020), alongside two novels. Monthly columnist, The Business of Fashion, from 2017; regular columnist, The Mail on Sunday. Subject of the BBC Two documentary Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue (2016). Strategic advisor to the online fashion marketplace Atterley. Biography British Vogue was a profitable but narrow title when Alexandra Shulman took it over in 1992. Over the next 25 years, she grew monthly circulation to around 200,000, ran the magazine through three recessions, and held its cultural authority as the advertising base of print magazines collapsed around it. When she left in 2017, she had edited more issues of British Vogue than anyone in its history. The commercial case for her voice starts there. The work was not only editorial. It was running a consumer brand at the top of a crowded category, deciding every month which photographers, writers, models and stories earned the cover, and taking the commercial consequences. Her 2009 open letter to fashion houses, pushing back on sample-size-only clothes and the implications for body image on the page, is one example of an editorial call with direct business and cultural weight. Since leaving Vogue, she has kept a continuing public record on the industry as a monthly columnist for The Business of Fashion and as a Mail on Sunday writer. Her books include the diary-memoir Inside Vogue: A Diary of My 100th Year, written around the magazine’s centenary, and Clothes and Other Things That Matter, a Sunday Times bestseller that reads the wardrobe as a way into questions about work, ambition, ageing, and the female consumer. She was appointed OBE in 2005 and CBE in 2018. She advises the online fashion marketplace Atterley. The BBC Two documentary Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue filmed her in 2016 assembling the centenary issue with the Duchess of Cambridge on the cover, a piece of work now used as a reference point for how legacy titles use a single edition to reset their place in the culture. Key speaking topics Brand authority in consumer media and luxury Creative leadership and long-tenure editorial judgement The business of fashion and the luxury economy Women, work, and the culture of appearance Body image, diversity, and the responsibility of the page Reinvention after a long institutional career Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders in luxury, beauty, retail, and consumer media Boards and executive teams of cultural or heritage brands working through audience and format change CHROs and leadership development programmes focused on long-tenure creative leadership and succession Conferences on women in business, consumer culture, and the creative industries Audience outcomes A named insider’s read on how fashion and luxury actually make commercial decisions. A working definition of brand authority that holds up across a generational shift in media. A clearer view of the trade-offs between editorial point of view and commercial reach. A usable perspective on long-tenure creative leadership: how to stay current, when to change, when to hold. A frank account of reinvention after a defining role, drawn from her own post-Vogue work.

Why organisations work with Alison Levine A leadership curriculum tested in two unforgiving classrooms: the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Leadership at West Point, and the death zone above 8,000 metres on Everest. A bestseller, On the Edge, with a substantive thesis on decision-making under uncertainty, endorsed by Mike Krzyzewski and named 800-CEO-READ Best Business Book in the leadership category. A board seat at the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke, which gives her direct line of sight into how the most-studied executive teams in sport and business actually behave under stress. A track record across the Seven Summits, both Poles, and a 600-mile West Antarctic traverse, which lets her speak about cohesion and risk from inside the conditions, not as commentary on them. Biography highlights Team captain, first American Women’s Everest Expedition. Completed the Adventure Grand Slam: Seven Summits plus skiing to both Poles. Fewer than forty people have done it. Adjunct professor for four years at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Leadership. Board member and former Senior Fellow, Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, Duke University. MBA, Duke. New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme Environments, foreword by Mike Krzyzewski. Executive producer of Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest (2022), which screened at 45 festivals and won 20 awards. Biography The orthodox leadership playbook still assumes a degree of environmental stability that most senior leaders no longer recognise from their own week. Conditions change before plans land. Information is partial, teams are tired, and the cost of a wrong call rises while the time to make it shrinks. This is the territory Levine has spent twenty years in, first on expedition and later in a West Point classroom. She served as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, has summited the highest peak on each continent, skied to both Poles, and in 2008 completed a 600-mile traverse across West Antarctica hauling a 150-pound sled. She did all of this while managing Raynaud’s disease and the aftermath of three heart surgeries. The expeditions are not the message. They are the laboratory. For four years she taught leadership at the United States Military Academy at West Point, in the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Leadership, before transitioning to the Thayer Leader Development Group. She sits on the board of the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke, where she earned her MBA, and was a Senior Fellow there. On the Edge, her bestseller, distils what holds and what fails when teams operate at the edge of capacity, and was named Best Business Book of the Year by 800-CEO-READ in the leadership category. What buyers get is a serious operator with a serious classroom record, who can describe the precise mechanics of decision-making, team cohesion, and the strategic use of fear in conditions where being wrong is final. Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest, the documentary she executive-produced about Nepal’s first female Everest summiter, sits alongside the rest of the work as evidence that her interest in leadership extends beyond her own expeditions. Key speaking topics Leadership under uncertainty Decision-making in extreme environments Team cohesion under pressure Risk, fear, and ego in senior leadership Resilience and recovery from setback Inclusive and values-based leadership Personal performance under physiological constraint Ideal for Boards and executive committees navigating sustained volatility Senior leadership offsites for operating teams in regulated, safety-critical, or capital-intensive sectors Military, law enforcement, emergency services and first-responder leadership programmes CHROs and learning leaders building leadership development curricula Audience outcomes A working model for making sound decisions when information is incomplete and conditions are deteriorating. A clearer view of how high-performing teams hold cohesion under fatigue, fear and disagreement. Specific tools for separating useful fear from career-limiting risk aversion. A reframe of setbacks and physical limitations as data, not as identity. Confidence that leadership lessons from the death zone translate into board-level decision practice, not metaphor.

Why organisations work with Alvin Law A resilience keynote built on six decades of lived practice, not a framework borrowed from research. Born without arms, he has worked, broadcast, performed music, and raised a family by inventing methods most people assume cannot exist. Hall of Fame platform craft. Inducted into the Canadian Speakers Hall of Fame (CAPS) in 2009 and one of the under-ten-percent of professional speakers globally to hold the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation. A trained broadcaster’s command of room, pacing, and message. The keynote is built for large internal audiences, sales kick-offs, and association main stages where a speaker has to reset attention, not just hold it. Subject of three internationally distributed documentaries by John Zaritsky and an Emmy-winning ABC FrontRunners segment, which gives the booking a level of cultural recognition that travels beyond the room. Inducted into the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame in 2018 and recipient of the Peter Legge Philanthropic Award in 2022, signalling a track record of substantive contribution rather than platform alone. Biography highlights Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) and inductee, Canadian Speakers Hall of Fame (CAPS), 2009. Inductee, Canadian Disability Hall of Fame, 2018. Author, Alvin’s Laws of Life: 5 Steps To Successfully Overcome Anything. Subject of three John Zaritsky documentaries: Broken Promises (1989), Extraordinary People (1993), and No Limits: The Thalidomide Saga (2016). Vanier Award for Outstanding Young Canadians (1982); Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal (2002); Peter Legge Philanthropic Award (2022). Trained broadcaster, Mount Royal College (graduated with honours, 1980), with a professional radio career at CFMQ FM Regina before founding AJL Communications Ltd. in 1988. Biography Resilience is the variable that quietly decides how organisations come through repeated change. When it thins, every other leadership tool gets harder to use. The keynote that restores it cannot be theoretical; it has to be earned in front of the audience. That is the room Alvin Law has been built for. Born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan in 1960 without arms, the result of his birth mother’s exposure to thalidomide, Law was placed for adoption at five days old and raised by Hilda and Jack Law. He learned to use his feet for tasks most people associate with hands, including playing trombone and drumming, and trained as a broadcaster at Mount Royal College, graduating with honours in 1980. A radio career at CFMQ FM in Regina followed, then full-time speaking from 1988 through AJL Communications Ltd. The credentials are unusually concrete for the resilience category. Law holds the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, sits in the Canadian Speakers Hall of Fame (CAPS, 2009) and the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame (2018), and was named a Vanier Outstanding Young Canadian in 1982. He is the author of Alvin’s Laws of Life: 5 Steps To Successfully Overcome Anything and the subject of three John Zaritsky documentaries, including the Emmy-recognised FrontRunners segment on ABC. What buyers actually book is platform craft applied to a workforce problem. Law uses broadcasting discipline, drumming, and direct storytelling to move a room from spectator to participant inside an hour, which is why association main stages, sales kick-offs, and large internal town halls return to him. Key speaking topics Resilience and adversity Mindset and personal agency Motivation and inspiration Storytelling and stagecraft Workforce engagement after change Mental health and wellbeing in the workplace Disability advocacy and inclusion Ideal for Sales kick-offs, association annual conferences, and large internal town halls reopening after restructuring or repeated change. CHROs and culture leads commissioning a credible, non-clinical voice on resilience for a whole-workforce moment. Healthcare, education, and not-for-profit audiences where lived experience carries more weight than corporate framing. Internal communications and event leads briefing a main-stage opener or closer that needs to reset attention across a wide demographic. Audience outcomes A reset on what the room treats as a real obstacle versus a story about one. Specific, repeatable mental habits for keeping composure when conditions stay difficult. A renewed sense of personal agency, including in roles where people feel acted upon by change. A shared experience that managers can refer back to in team conversations months later.

Why organisations work with Amar Latif He has spent twenty years running an inclusion business that makes commercial sense. Traveleyes pairs blind and sighted travellers worldwide and has twice been voted Best Accessible Holiday Company at the British Travel Awards, in 2019 and 2020. His corporate CV gives him credibility with a board. Before founding Traveleyes he was Head of Commercial Finance at BT, and he makes the commercial case for inclusion in the language a board expects to hear it in. The lived experience is specific and substantial. Amar has retinitis pigmentosa and lost 95% of his sight by 18, and has spent his career building and running an organisation inside that constraint. Mainstream media recognition earns audience attention before he speaks. Regular BBC presenter, first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK, and appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship. Biography highlights Founder and Chief Executive of Traveleyes, the world’s first commercial tour operator pairing blind and sighted travellers on group holidays worldwide; established 2004. Appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship. President of The Ramblers, Britain’s largest walking charity, since April 2023; patron of SeeAbility and of the Rafiki Thabo Foundation. Inaugural recipient of the Stelios Disabled Entrepreneur Award (2007), presented by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in partnership with Leonard Cheshire Disability. Presenter across BBC and Channel 4, including Beyond Boundaries, River Walks (Royal Television Society Yorkshire Best Single Documentary, 2019), Travelling Blind, Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul, How to Get Fit Fast; first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK (2020). BSc (Hons) Mathematics, Statistics and Finance, University of Strathclyde; former Head of Commercial Finance at BT. Biography Traveleyes was founded in 2004 on a single commercial insight: that blind and sighted travellers could be paired on the same group holiday, with sighted guests receiving discounted travel in exchange for describing what they see. Twenty years later, the company has twice been voted Best Accessible Holiday Company at the British Travel Awards, and the insight has held up. Amar Latif built the business after leaving a role as Head of Commercial Finance at BT. The route from commercial finance into inclusive travel is unusual, and it gives him the language to make the commercial case for inclusion to a board. The authority on resilience comes from a specific set of circumstances. Amar has retinitis pigmentosa and had lost 95% of his sight by 18. After a BSc in Mathematics, Statistics and Finance at the University of Strathclyde, he trained as an accountant and worked his way up to Head of Commercial Finance at BT before founding Traveleyes. A parallel broadcasting career runs across BBC One, BBC Two and Channel 4, including Beyond Boundaries, Travelling Blind, Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul, How to Get Fit Fast, and his appearance as the first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK. He was appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship, and serves as President of The Ramblers, Britain’s largest walking charity. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership Disability inclusion as commercial strategy Entrepreneurial resilience Risk and decision-making under constraint Customer experience in underserved markets Purpose-driven organisations Ideal for Chief People Officers, CHROs and heads of diversity, equity and inclusion Boards and executive teams building the commercial case for inclusion Entrepreneurship and innovation forums Customer experience and service design leaders Audience outcomes A commercial case for inclusion built to hold up in a board or CFO conversation Specific examples of how inclusion shapes service design and customer experience in underserved markets A reset on how to think about risk when there is no stable precedent A narrative that changes how senior audiences talk about inclusion back in the business