DI (Diversità, equità e inclusione) speakers

Why organisations work with Divyanshu Ganatra He brings clinical psychology training together with a record of firsts in adventure sport, so the conversation about resilience is grounded in evidence rather than in motivational narrative alone. He runs Adventures Beyond Barriers Foundation, a working inclusion organisation, which means his content on inclusive leadership comes from operating practice with cross-disability teams, not from a deck. He is recognised by the Vice President of India through the National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, which gives senior buyers a defensible credential when positioning the session internally. He speaks credibly to CXO forums and Fortune 500 audiences on attitudinal barriers, the specific tension that stalls most inclusion programmes once policy and quotas have been set. His material translates between personal decision-making under pressure and organisational decision-making under restructure, which makes him a fit for leadership offsites that need both registers. Biography highlights Founder, Adventures Beyond Barriers Foundation (ABBF), 2014, an inclusive adventure-sports organisation working across cross-disabilities. India’s first blind solo paraglider pilot, 29 April 2014. First blind tandem cyclist to complete the Manali to Khardung La route, 2016, the world’s highest motorable road, now ABBF’s flagship M2K expedition. First blind Indian to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, 2018. Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pune, where he was the first blind student to graduate in the field; clinical psychologist by training. National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, presented by the Vice President of India; named among the Ten Outstanding Young Indians by the Junior Chamber International. Biography Most inclusion programmes inside large organisations stall at the same point. Policy is in place, quotas are tracked, and senior leaders still cannot describe what changed in how the organisation actually works. The blockage is rarely structural. It is attitudinal, and it sits with the leadership group itself. That is the tension Divyanshu Ganatra was trained to read. He lost his sight to glaucoma at nineteen and went on to become the first blind student to complete a Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pune. He works as a clinical psychologist, and the discipline shapes how he frames inclusion to senior audiences: as a behavioural and decision-making problem, not a values statement. In 2014 he founded Adventures Beyond Barriers Foundation, an inclusive adventure-sports organisation that puts people with and without disabilities into the same physical task. The same year, he became India’s first blind solo paraglider pilot. In 2016 he led the first blind tandem cycling crossing from Manali to Khardung La, the world’s highest motorable road, which now anchors ABBF’s annual M2K expedition. In 2018 he became the first blind Indian to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. The Vice President of India presented him with the National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, and the Junior Chamber International named him among the Ten Outstanding Young Indians. With CXO forums and Fortune 500 audiences he treats those firsts as case material, not biography, working back from each one to the decision sequence that made it possible for a leadership team to use. Key speaking topics Inclusion as a leadership capability Attitudinal barriers and behavioural change Decision-making after personal and organisational shock Resilience grounded in cognitive neuroscience Disability and workplace inclusion Innovation through cross-ability collaboration Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads designing inclusion strategy beyond compliance Executive committees and leadership offsites focused on resilience and composure under pressure CXO forums and Fortune 500 leadership audiences working on culture change Boards and senior teams setting the inclusion agenda for the next reporting cycle Audience outcomes A reframing of inclusion from policy mechanic to leadership behaviour, with named attitudinal barriers to look for in their own organisation. A working model for decision-making in the period that follows acute personal or organisational shock. A clearer view of what cross-ability collaboration produces operationally, drawn from ABBF’s M2K expedition and other inclusive programmes. A direct first-person account of building competence after sight loss, used as case material for senior leaders managing reinvention in their own teams.

Why organisations work with Dona Sarkar She runs the program that lets enterprise developers extend Microsoft Copilot onto their own data, so the practical content of her sessions is what she ships day-to-day at Microsoft, not commentary about it. She brings a track record of building global technical communities at scale, including the Windows Insider Program of around 20 million members, which informs how she advises leaders on adoption inside large workforces. Her work on accessibility and inclusive AI gives organisations a substantive position on responsible AI that goes beyond policy statements into product design and developer practice. She codifies her experience into named frameworks her audiences can use, including the SHENANIGANS approach to solving business problems and a structured method for tackling non-promotable work. She speaks credibly to the human side of AI transformation, from imposter syndrome in technical careers to mental health conversations at work, drawing on her own published books rather than borrowed material. Biography highlights Chief Troublemaker, Microsoft AI and Copilot Extensibility Program. Former Director of Technology for Microsoft Accessibility, leading inclusive design across the company. Led the Windows Insider Program from 2016 to 2019, a global community of around 20 million members. Author of The Imposter Syndrome Banishing Spell, Model 47: A Startup Storybook and You Had Me at Hello World, alongside three young-adult novels published by Harper Collins. Featured in Fast Company’s 100 Most Productive People; profiled in Fast Company and Microsoft’s own publications. Founder of Prima Dona, an ethical fashion line based in Seattle, alongside her engineering career. Biography Microsoft built Copilot, then had to answer the harder question: how do enterprises actually deploy generative AI on their own data, inside their own workflows, without losing the accessibility, governance and developer discipline that make software trustworthy. That is the program Dona Sarkar runs as Chief Troublemaker for Microsoft’s AI and Copilot Extensibility Program, working directly with the developers and IT leaders responsible for moving AI from pilot to production. Before this remit she was Director of Technology for Microsoft Accessibility, a role that shaped her view that inclusive design is engineering, not policy. She led the Windows Insider Program from 2016 to 2019, growing it into a global community of around 20 million members who tested early Windows builds, and she has run developer advocacy across HoloLens and Power Platform. Each of those roles required her to translate engineering decisions for non-technical leaders and to turn vague ambitions into concrete adoption. Outside Microsoft she has published books on imposter syndrome, startup methodology and mentorship, alongside three young-adult novels with Harper Collins. She founded Prima Dona, an ethical fashion line in Seattle, and has coached founders in emerging markets in East and West Africa. Fast Company has named her one of its 100 Most Productive People and profiled her approach to managing complex parallel careers. For senior buyers, her value is operational credibility on the enterprise AI question boards keep asking. She is not describing a market she observes. She runs the platform inside it. Key speaking topics Enterprise generative AI and Copilot deployment Inclusive AI and accessibility in product design Developer community and adoption at scale The future of work alongside AI agents Innovation frameworks for large organisations Career advancement and non-promotable work Mental health and imposter syndrome in technical careers Ideal for CIOs, CTOs and chief data officers planning enterprise AI deployment CHROs and heads of talent designing workforces around AI capability Heads of accessibility, DEI and responsible AI Engineering and developer relations leaders building internal AI fluency Audience outcomes A clearer view of where Copilot and generative AI add operating value on proprietary data, and where they do not A working vocabulary for inclusive AI that connects accessibility decisions to product and engineering practice Named frameworks for innovation and career progression that audiences can apply inside their teams A more honest conversation about imposter syndrome, mental health and burnout in technical organisations A read on Microsoft’s direction of travel on Copilot extensibility from someone responsible for delivering it

Why organisations work with Bella Smith Clinical authority that holds up in the room. Twenty years as an NHS GP partner means the advice survives challenge from medical, HR and legal stakeholders alike. Operator credentials, not only commentary. Through The Well HQ she has built women’s health frameworks for clients including the FA and corporate employers, translating physiology into policy. A Sunday Times bestselling co-author of The Female Body Bible, the most cited recent reference book on female-specific health and performance in the UK market. Ambassador status with The Eve Appeal gives her standing on gynaecological health that goes beyond menopause, the topic most women’s health speakers default to. Direct, plain-language register. Audiences leave with vocabulary they can use the next day, in policy drafting, line-management conversations and personal decisions. Biography highlights NHS GP partner with over 20 years of clinical experience, specialising in women’s health Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of The Well HQ, a women’s health consultancy Co-author of The Female Body Bible (Penguin, 2023), a Sunday Times bestseller Ambassador for The Eve Appeal, the UK gynaecological cancer charity Media spokesperson as The Digital GP, with appearances on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio Suffolk and Sky News Co-led the design of an integrated female health framework across the Women’s Super League, the National Leagues and grassroots football Biography Women’s health has spent a decade being talked about and rarely being built into how organisations actually operate. Policies on menopause sit in handbooks no manager reads. Wellness budgets fund webinars that leave behavioural change untouched. The work of moving from sentiment to system is technical, and it is what Bella Smith does. She has been an NHS GP partner in Suffolk for over twenty years, with a clinical specialism in women’s health. That practice is the source of the directness audiences notice first. The advice is what she would give in a consultation, stripped of corporate hedging. In 2021 she co-founded The Well HQ with sports scientist Dr Emma Ross and coach Baz Moffat. The consultancy works with employers and sports bodies to translate female physiology into policy, manager training and culture. Their work with the FA produced an integrated female health framework spanning the Women’s Super League, National Leagues and grassroots football, the first of its kind. The Female Body Bible, co-authored with Ross and Moffat and published by Penguin in 2023, became a Sunday Times bestseller. It is now the reference text many HR teams use when they begin to take this seriously. As an ambassador for The Eve Appeal and a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour and Sky News, she has spent years closing the gap between clinical knowledge and public conversation. Inside organisations, that gap is where most policy fails. Key speaking topics Women’s health in the workplace Menopause policy and management Reproductive and gynaecological health Female physiology and performance Stress and lifestyle medicine Health communication and taboo Ideal for CHROs, heads of D&I and reward leads building or auditing women’s health policy Line manager and leadership audiences who need clinical fluency, not slogans Sports, performance and athlete-welfare organisations Employee resource groups and women’s networks running serious internal programming Audience outcomes A clinical baseline on menopause, reproductive health and female physiology that survives scrutiny Vocabulary and questions managers can use in their next one-to-one A clear view of where current workplace policy falls short, and what good looks like Practical reference points for HR teams designing or revising women’s health provision

Why organisations work with David Patton His research with Professor David Best, published in the Journal of Drug Issues, makes a clean argument that pull factors and turning points, not pain or crisis, drive sustained behavioural change. That reframes how leaders think about wellbeing, resilience and post-crisis recovery. He runs New Central Media, the platform behind Recovery Capital: Pathways Through Prison, a book with a foreword by Dame Carol Black that was accepted as national evidence for a Parliamentary review. That is a working track record of turning research into policy traction. His material is built with people who have rebuilt their lives after addiction and incarceration, which gives audiences a level of human authenticity that conventional behaviour-change keynotes cannot match. He has presented at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs and works internationally with the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities, so he speaks with the authority of someone whose research is taken seriously by policymakers, not only by academics. His framework on connection, collaboration, community and creativity as antidotes to isolation and burnout is directly transferable to corporate culture, employee wellbeing and engagement work. Biography highlights Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Derby, Centre for Applied Social Sciences, Policy, Practice and Research PhD, University of Sheffield; Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy Founder and Director of New Central Media; lead of Recovery Atlas, a global participatory photovoice archive Co-author with Professor David Best of peer-reviewed work on pull factors and turning points in addiction recovery, published in the Journal of Drug Issues Editor and contributor to Recovery Capital: Pathways Through Prison, Women’s Recovery Capital Pathways and Lived Experience Recovery Organisations Has presented at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, including a 2023 manifesto on stigma in addiction recovery Former Senior Researcher at the University of Cambridge; principal investigator on Home Office, ESRC, NIHR and Big Lottery Fund projects Biography The dominant assumption in behaviour-change psychology is that people change when the pain gets bad enough. Research published in the Journal of Drug Issues by David Patton and David Best argues the opposite. Across the life narratives of people in long-term addiction recovery, the consistent driver is not crisis but a pull toward something better: meaning, hope, community, a turning point. That finding moves the conversation about recovery, resilience and wellbeing onto a different footing. Patton is Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Derby, based in the Centre for Applied Social Sciences, Policy, Practice and Research. His work is built directly with people who have rebuilt their lives after addiction and incarceration, using participatory methods including photovoice and digital storytelling. The international expression of that approach is Recovery Atlas, a global archive linked to recovery communities worldwide. He also runs New Central Media, the publishing platform behind Recovery Capital: Pathways Through Prison, Women’s Recovery Capital Pathways and Lived Experience Recovery Organisations. The prison volume, with a foreword by Dame Carol Black, was accepted as national evidence for a Parliamentary review of prison-based recovery. He has presented at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs and works with the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities on projects across Latin America and Africa. For organisations rethinking employee wellbeing, post-crisis resilience or behavioural change at scale, Patton brings something specific: an evidence base on what actually sustains change in the hardest cases, drawn from people whose lives depended on getting it right. The transfer into corporate culture, talent and engagement strategy is direct. Key speaking topics Pull factors and turning points in behavioural change Addiction recovery and the science of human flourishing Connection, community and creativity as antidotes to isolation Lived experience and participatory research Stigma, marginalisation and inclusion Drug policy reform and the role of recovery communities Wellbeing and resilience after crisis Ideal for CHROs and wellbeing leads designing mental health, recovery and resilience strategy Leadership teams in healthcare, criminal justice, social care and the third sector Conferences on the future of work, wellbeing, inclusion and human flourishing Policy and public sector audiences working on drug policy, prisons and rehabilitation Audience outcomes A research-grounded reframing of what sustains behavioural change, drawn from peer-reviewed work Specific language for talking about pull factors, turning points and recovery capital inside an organisation Direct insight into how lived experience can be built into research, policy and programme design A clearer view of how connection, community and meaning operate as antidotes to burnout and disengagement Reference material from Recovery Capital: Pathways Through Prison and related publications for follow-up

Why organisations work with Grace Lordan She runs the only research centre of its kind inside a top-tier university focused on bringing behavioural science to inclusion at firm level, The Inclusion Initiative at LSE, which gives her findings weight that internal DEI teams cannot generate alone. Her work tells senior leaders which interventions actually shift hiring, promotion, and retention data, and which ones look good in a values statement but fail under measurement. She speaks the language of CFOs and boards, linking inclusion to productivity and performance, which is what gets budget approved and kept. She brings a practical behavioural toolkit, nudges, structured decision design, debiased processes, that leaders can install rather than aspire to. Her Penguin book Think Big has built a wide reader base among professionals, so audiences often arrive already familiar with her frame for individual career design, which makes the organisational material land faster. Biography highlights Associate Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics and Political Science. Founding Director of The Inclusion Initiative at LSE, the research centre she established in 2020. Director of the MSc in Behavioural Science at LSE. Author of Think Big: Take Small Steps and Build the Future You Want (Penguin Life, 2021). Served on the UK government’s Skills and Productivity Board and the BEIS social mobility taskforce; advisory board member of the Women in Finance Charter. Contributor to Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fortune, Fast Company, and Reuters; host of the Work FORCE podcast. Biography Inclusion work inside firms has a credibility problem. Budgets have grown for a decade, yet most leadership teams struggle to show a clean line between their interventions and real movement in who gets hired, promoted, and retained. That is the gap Grace Lordan has built a career around closing. She is an Associate Professor in Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and the founding director of The Inclusion Initiative, the LSE research centre she established in 2020 to bring behavioural science into how firms actually design talent decisions. Her research tests which interventions move the numbers and which do not, across hiring screens, promotion processes, and team composition. The work is published in peer-reviewed journals and picked up by Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. She also directs the LSE MSc in Behavioural Science, teaches corporate decision-making to executive students, and has advised the UK government on skills, productivity, and social mobility. Her Penguin book Think Big: Take Small Steps and Build the Future You Want applies the same evidence base to individual career design, which is why professional audiences often encounter her ideas before they meet her in the room. What senior buyers get is someone who can talk to a CHRO about process design, to a CFO about productivity, and to a board about where their inclusion spend is working. The argument is built on evidence from an LSE research centre, not consultancy generalities. Key speaking topics Inclusion as a measurable driver of firm productivity Behavioural science applied to hiring and promotion decisions Designing teams for performance and progression The future of work and skills in a changing labour market Women’s progression and the economics of the gender gap Evidence-based leadership and debiased decision-making Ideal for CHROs and heads of talent responsible for moving measurable inclusion outcomes CEOs and boards allocating budget to DEI and wanting to know what actually works Financial services and professional services leadership teams working under the Women in Finance Charter or equivalent progression commitments Executive audiences across government, policy, and regulated sectors addressing skills and social mobility Audience outcomes A sharper read on which inclusion interventions have evidence behind them and which do not Specific behavioural design moves leaders can apply to hiring, promotion, and team decisions Language that connects inclusion to productivity and performance for CFO and board conversations A clearer view of where the future of work is moving for skills, talent pipelines, and progression Confidence to retire activities that signal good intent but fail on measurement

Why organisations work with Jaz Ampaw-Farr She gives leadership teams a vocabulary for wellbeing and inclusion that lands with sceptical senior audiences, because the argument is framed through performance and culture rather than through HR policy. Her toolkit is specific and teachable. The Failure CV, Jazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the 10% Braver model are named devices line managers can pick up the next day. The credibility sits in two places that rarely combine: a trained teacher with thirty years of front-line education work, and two 2025 honorary doctorates from the University of Hull and Bishop Grosseteste University for contribution to leadership, resilience, wellbeing and diversity. She is a working broadcaster and writer, not a consultant performing. Co-presenter on CBBC’s Hard Spell Abbey, TEDx speaker with a talk above 140,000 views, author of “Because of You, This Is Me” with Ian Gilbert, and 2025 Diversity in Cannes Programmer’s Choice winner for the short film Re-Story Your Life. Buyers book her for rooms that have heard the standard resilience keynote before and did not change anything afterwards. The measurable difference is that leaders leave with a small number of named practices they are willing to try in public. Biography highlights Co-writer and co-presenter, CBBC spelling series Hard Spell Abbey. TEDx speaker, “The Power of Everyday Heroes” (TEDxNorwichED), 140,000+ views. Author, “Because of You, This Is Me: The stories we tell, the stories we change and the power of everyday heroes” (Crown House Publishing, with Ian Gilbert). Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Hull, 2025. Honorary Doctor of the University, Bishop Grosseteste University, 2025. Programmer’s Choice Award, 2025 Diversity in Cannes Film Festival, for the short film Re-Story Your Life. Speaker of the Year and Best Live Gig, The Speaker Awards UK, 2022. Contestant, BBC The Apprentice Series 9. Biography Five teachers changed the trajectory of a homeless teenager raised in foster care. Decades later, she trained as a teacher herself, and the question of what those five adults actually did, practically, at work, on ordinary days, became the spine of her professional work. That question is the reason organisations book her. It has a usable answer, and it applies inside businesses as much as inside schools. The public platform built up from there. A TEDx talk, “The Power of Everyday Heroes”, now carries more than 140,000 views. “Because of You, This Is Me”, written with Ian Gilbert for Crown House Publishing, turned the argument into a book for educators and leaders. A stretch on BBC’s The Apprentice and co-presenting credits on CBBC’s Hard Spell Abbey gave her the broadcast fluency that makes the live keynote work in front of an impatient senior room. The body of work is named, not generic. 10% Braver treats courage as a daily operational habit rather than a mindset. The Failure CV reframes psychological safety as something a leader practises in public. Jazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs repositions wellbeing as infrastructure for performance. In 2025, the University of Hull and Bishop Grosseteste University both conferred honorary doctorates for her contribution to leadership, resilience, wellbeing and diversity, and her short film Re-Story Your Life won the Programmer’s Choice Award at the Diversity in Cannes Film Festival. What a senior HR or culture buyer is actually getting is a speaker who can hold a room that has already heard the standard resilience keynote, and leave it with a small number of specific things the organisation’s line managers are willing to try on Monday. Key speaking topics Workplace wellbeing and psychological safety Inclusive leadership and belonging Resilience as an operational practice Storytelling for leaders and culture builders Employee engagement and human connection at work Personal courage and the 10% Braver model Culture and performance in high-pressure teams Ideal for CHROs and heads of people building a culture and wellbeing agenda that has to land with a sceptical executive audience Leadership teams running an inclusion, belonging or psychological safety programme that has stalled at policy and needs to move into daily practice Education, health and public sector leadership audiences working through sustained workforce pressure Internal conferences where the brief is to reset the tone before a demanding year, not to deliver a technical update Audience outcomes A named set of practices (Failure CV, 10% Braver, Jazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs) that line managers can use in conversations the next week. A sharper internal language for wellbeing and inclusion that links directly to performance and retention. Permission for senior leaders to be visible about uncertainty and failure in front of their teams. A reframing of resilience as an organisational responsibility, not a personal character test. A live example of storytelling used to shift a room, which leaders can study and borrow from.

Why organisations work with Kevin Ahmaad Jenkins He grounds inclusion work in peer-reviewed research on bias and clinical outcomes, not in opinion or training-industry frameworks, which gives senior teams a defensible footing when DEI is contested. The RETINA Framework, his own intervention model, gives healthcare and high-regulation organisations a structured way to address how bias affects decisions, processes and outcomes. His Penn lectureship in Medical Ethics and Health Policy means he can hold a room of clinicians, executives and policy leaders with equal credibility. He has worked across more than 35 hospital associations and health systems, so the material is tested against operational reality, not just conference audiences. His delivery is calibrated for high-stakes rooms where the topic is uncomfortable, which is where most inclusion conversations now sit. Biography highlights Lecturer, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Developed the Racism-Focused Trauma Informed Care (RETINA) Framework, used in patient-provider settings. Fellow, Veterans Health Administration Office of Minority Health. Member, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Roundtable on Health Equity. National Minority Quality Forum 40 Under 40 Leader in Health, 2017. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections Award recipient. Biography Most inclusion content in circulation is built on values and training language, not on evidence about how bias actually shapes outcomes. That is the gap Jenkins’s work occupies. As a lecturer in Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, he studies how racism functions inside clinical processes, from algorithmic decisions to the quality of patient-provider interactions, and translates the findings into something organisations can act on. The RETINA Framework, which he developed, is a patient-provider intervention that treats racism as a measurable variable in care delivery rather than a cultural sentiment. It has informed equity work across more than 35 hospital associations and health systems. His standing as a Fellow within the Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Minority Health and as a member of the National Academies’ Roundtable on Health Equity puts him inside the institutions that set the national agenda on this question. For non-healthcare audiences, the value is the operating model. Jenkins treats inclusion the way a clinician treats a diagnostic problem: define the mechanism, measure the effect, intervene with something specific. That posture is recognisable to executives in banking, insurance and consumer-facing organisations that need an inclusion conversation grounded in evidence rather than in slogans. The National Minority Quality Forum named him a 40 Under 40 Leader in Health in 2017; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation backed his early research through its New Connections Award. What organisations get when they put him in front of a senior audience is a researcher who can hold the room on a topic most speakers reduce to platitudes. He is fluent in the politics of the current moment, but his authority is not political. It is built on what the data actually shows about how organisations include or exclude their people and customers. Key speaking topics Inclusion as an operating discipline Bias in decision-making and clinical processes Health equity and the business of healthcare Inclusive management practice Culture change in high-regulation organisations Difficult conversations in the workplace Algorithmic bias and equity in service design Ideal for CHROs and Chief Diversity Officers rebuilding inclusion strategy after political backlash. Healthcare boards, hospital association leadership, and clinical executives addressing equity in care delivery. Banking, insurance and consumer-services leadership teams needing an evidence-based inclusion conversation. Senior-team offsites and leadership development programmes where the brief is to raise the standard of internal dialogue on race and bias. Audience outcomes A working definition of inclusion that can be operationalised inside an existing management system. A view of where bias sits inside specific organisational processes, not as an abstract cultural risk. Language and structure for conducting hard conversations on race without producing defensive responses. A clearer line between equity work that is defensible to a board and work that is performative. For healthcare audiences, exposure to the RETINA Framework and its application to patient-provider interactions.

Why organisations work with Makaziwe Mandela She holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst alongside two decades of South African corporate experience, which lets her speak to inclusion as an organisational practice, not a slogan. As co-founder and Chairperson of House of Mandela, she has run a company through the actual mechanics of building a brand, hiring, partnership disputes and international expansion, so the leadership content is grounded in operating reality. She offers boards a defensible language for values-led decisions at a moment when DEI commitments are being challenged in public, drawing on a family history that gives her standing to say things others cannot. She has held senior roles at Spoornet, the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Nestle South Africa, which means she can address inclusion from inside the constraints of a real P&L rather than from a consultancy frame. Her 2023 Rizzoli book Mandela: In Honor of an Extraordinary Life gives her a current platform that pulls executive audiences into a conversation about leadership character, not just legacy. Biography highlights PhD in Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1993, with prior degrees from the University of Fort Hare and the University of Natal. Chairperson and co-founder of House of Mandela, launched in 2010 with her daughter Tukwini Mandela. Author of Mandela: In Honor of an Extraordinary Life, Rizzoli, 2023, with a foreword by Reverend Al Sharpton. Former Executive Manager of Corporate Services at the Development Bank of Southern Africa and former General Manager of Human Resources at Spoornet. Board service has included Nestle South Africa, Rand Water Services and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Director of the House of Mandela Family Foundation, established 2017. Recipient of the La Moda Veste la Pace Award, presented in Rome in 2022 for sustained public commitment to her father’s principles of liberty, respect and the fight against discrimination. Biography Inclusion programmes are being cut, defended, rebranded and quietly abandoned across global businesses. The leaders making those calls need someone who can talk about service and inclusion without flinching from the commercial reality, and without flattening the argument into either compliance language or family memoir. Makaziwe Mandela trained as an anthropologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she completed her doctorate in 1993, after earlier degrees from the University of Fort Hare and the University of Natal. That training shapes how she works with executive audiences. She treats organisations as cultures with their own incentives, hierarchies and stories, and she pushes leaders to ask what their decisions actually signal to the people inside them. The corporate record sits behind the academic one. She has held senior posts at Spoornet, the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Nestle South Africa, and has served on boards including Rand Water Services and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. In 2010 she co-founded House of Mandela with her daughter Tukwini, building a wine label and broader heritage business that now operates internationally. The 2017 House of Mandela Family Foundation extends that work into education and economic empowerment. Her 2023 Rizzoli book, Mandela: In Honor of an Extraordinary Life, places her current platform on her own terms. The book draws on family letters, photographs and her father’s later artwork, and it forms the backdrop for the leadership conversation she now takes into boardrooms: what humility looks like as an operating habit, why service is a strategic question, and how senior leaders defend inclusive choices when the political weather turns against them. Key speaking topics Servant and values-based leadership Inclusion as an organisational discipline Female economic empowerment in emerging markets Building a family business with a public legacy Social justice and reconciliation in business Africa’s role in the global economy Allyship and difference at work Ideal for Boards and executive committees reframing DEI commitments under public and investor pressure CHROs and culture leads designing inclusion work that has to survive a budget cycle Leadership development programmes for senior cohorts in multinational organisations Conferences and offsites focused on values-led leadership, purpose and reconciliation Audience outcomes A clearer language for defending inclusive decisions to investors, employees and external critics. A working definition of servant leadership that ties to specific operating choices, not abstract values. A grounded view of how African businesses build durable brands across generations. Concrete reflections on humility, character and consistency as senior leadership habits. A renewed appetite for the human side of strategy, anchored in named examples from her own corporate and entrepreneurial career.

Why organisations work with Maria Luisa Mariscal de Körner She addresses migrant and diaspora communities as both a workforce question and a consumer market, the two halves most diversity speakers and most marketing speakers each cover only one of. In her work the talent function and the brand function share a single conversation, which is rare. As a German immigration lawyer (Dr. iur.), she advises employers on what changed under the 2026 update to the Skilled Immigration Act: higher EU Blue Card salary thresholds and tighter compliance duties, translated into hiring decisions rather than general legal commentary. Operating experience in market entry, not analysis from outside the process. Her consultancy has advised foreign companies establishing operations in Germany, and German employers recruiting internationally, since 2014. A legally grounded case that cultural difference creates value twice over: in the workforce a company builds and in the market it sells to. Biography highlights Doctorate in law (Dr. iur.) with a focus on economics, diversity, and law, from the University of Würzburg; LL.M. in German and international law (magna cum laude); study in Bolivia and Germany. Teaches ethno-marketing and intercultural management at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (Kleve), and has lectured since 2008 across nine institutions on three continents. Founder since 2014 of Malu Mariscal, Innovation und Vielfalt, advising on market entry into Germany, international recruiting, and diversity and intercultural management. Author of four specialist and academic books and the bilingual children’s book “Der Herrscher der Berge: Eine unglaubliche Reise”, which addresses prejudice and difference. Co-founder of a migrant women’s network and initiator of free legal-advice services at universities; recognised with the first Bavarian Integration Award (2012) as part of the Würzburg theatre group Tschungulung. Winner of the first Bavarian Integration Award (Bayerischer Integrationspreis, 2012), as part of the Würzburg theatre group Tschungulung, recognised by the Bavarian Landtag and Integration Council. Works with a network of more than 200 advisors and freelancers across three continents; presents in German, English, and Spanish. Biography Most organisations treat migration as one problem: a recruiting and integration task solved once, at the point of hire. But the same communities a company recruits from are also markets it sells to, and the two functions almost never share data or a strategy. Maria Luisa Mariscal de Körner works on that gap. She is a German immigration lawyer and a Dr. iur. from the University of Würzburg, with an LL.M. in German and international law. Her doctorate focused on economics, diversity, and law. She has lectured since 2008 at nine institutions on three continents, and now teaches ethno-marketing and intercultural management at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences in Kleve. That grounding carries into current practice. The 2026 update to the Skilled Immigration Act raised EU Blue Card salary thresholds and tightened employer compliance, and her consultancy, Malu Mariscal, Innovation und Vielfalt, advises foreign companies entering Germany and German employers recruiting internationally on what those rules mean operationally. She works with a network of more than 200 advisors and freelancers across three continents. Her argument to leaders is concrete: cultural difference creates value in two directions at once, in the workforce a company builds and in the market it sells to. It does so only when the organisation removes the legal and cultural friction that keeps both at the edges. Key speaking topics The diaspora dividend: migration as workforce and as market Skilled-worker immigration law and employer compliance under the 2026 Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz Market entry into Germany: where international companies actually fail Diversity as an innovation lever, not a compliance line Leading multicultural, multigenerational teams in the AI era Ideal for CHROs and heads of talent acquisition internationalising the workforce Marketing and brand leaders weighing diaspora and migrant communities as consumer markets Boards and executive teams in German-speaking markets reviewing international hiring strategy DEI leads who need a partner grounded in legal and economic detail, not awareness training Audience outcomes A single operating view of diaspora communities across talent and marketing, instead of two separate HR and brand problems A read on what the 2026 Skilled Immigration Act changes mean for their own hiring decisions, not just their legal team’s The specific points where international companies fail entering the German market, and the legal and cultural reasons why A legal and economic case for cultural difference as an innovation driver, distinct from a compliance argument

Why organisations work with Onyeka Nubia Brings primary-source historical research to a conversation that has become dominated by opinion and ideology, giving inclusion content intellectual credibility rather than activist framing. Has spent a decade rewriting how British history teaches diversity, with seminars in roughly half of UK universities that teach history, so the methodology travels into corporate contexts with academic weight. Author of Blackamoores and England’s Other Countrymen, the two reference works most cited in debates on Black presence in pre-modern Britain. Reframes a contested topic on factual ground. Equally comfortable at the Houses of Parliament, the National Portrait Gallery and on BBC and Channel 4 history programming, which means the register adjusts to the room without losing substance. Useful precisely because he does not sound like a DEI consultant. The frame is historical, cultural and intellectual, which is the register many boards now prefer. Biography highlights Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Nottingham Fellow of the Royal Historical Society Advance HE National Teaching Fellow, recognised for embedding diversity in university history curricula Author of Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England (2013) and England’s Other Countrymen: Black Tudor Society (2019) PhD by publication, University of East Anglia Keynote presenter at the Houses of Parliament, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland Television contributor for BBC’s Digging for Britain and History Cold Case, Channel 5’s Walking Victorian Britain, and Channel 4’s London’s Lost Graveyard and The Queens Who Changed the World Over fifty articles in History Today, BBC History Magazine, European History Quarterly and the Times Literary Supplement Biography For most of the last decade, the inclusion conversation inside large organisations has been carried by HR language and political framing. That register is now strained. Boards want substance, not slogans, and the people leading inclusion work need a deeper well to draw from. Onyeka Nubia offers that well. As Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nottingham and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, his research has rewritten what is known about Black presence in pre-modern Britain. Blackamoores and England’s Other Countrymen are now standard references on Tudor diversity, drawn from parish registers, court records and primary archives rather than secondary commentary. The Advance HE National Teaching Fellowship recognises a parallel achievement: a body of curriculum work, delivered in roughly half of the UK universities that teach history, that has changed how the subject is taught. The methodology, evidence first, identity later, is exactly what corporate audiences are reaching for as the DEI conversation moves out of advocacy and into substance. His broadcasting work, from Digging for Britain to The Queens Who Changed the World, sharpens the public-facing register. The audience he is most useful to is a senior leadership team that wants to keep talking about inclusion seriously, without the language that has stopped working. Key speaking topics Black British history and the Tudor period Cultural intelligence and national identity Diversity, equity and inclusion grounded in historical evidence Decolonising knowledge and curriculum Race, otherness and the British imagination Renaissance and pre-modern multiculturalism Storytelling and historical method Ideal for CHROs and heads of inclusion looking to reset the intellectual frame for their DEI work Boards and executive teams under pressure on the politics of inclusion who want substance over signalling Cultural and educational institutions reviewing how they curate history, identity and audience Leadership development programmes that want a serious treatment of cultural intelligence Audience outcomes A historically grounded language for diversity and identity that holds up to scrutiny A clearer view of how British national identity has been constructed, and what that means for inclusion now Confidence to lead inclusion conversations on evidence rather than ideology Exposure to the primary sources that reshape commonly held assumptions about race in British history A sharper sense of how curriculum and culture change actually happens inside institutions

Why organisations work with Peter Rios He brings a published research base on Latinx leadership in higher education that few DEI advisers can match. Untold Stories (Wipf & Stock, with Juan F. Martinez) is one of the first academic studies of Latinx administrators in Christian higher education and gives his diagnosis weight no consultant deck can. He works in two doctoral disciplines, intercultural studies (Fuller) and strategic leadership (Regent), so his prescriptions sit inside organisational structure and incentives, not alongside them. He delivers in English and Spanish, useful for organisations with bilingual workforces or Latin American operations where translated DEI content typically loses its edge. His operator credibility is genuine. He held vice presidential roles at two universities and ran teams as a pastor for a decade before moving into consulting, so his sessions speak to leaders carrying P&L and people responsibility, not just HR. Biography highlights Author of Untold Stories: The Latinx Leadership Experience in Higher Education (Wipf & Stock, 2022), co-written with Juan F. Martinez. Author of Maximize!: 12 Keys to Unlocking Your Greatest Potential. Lecturer in leadership at Penn State University; former adjunct at Colorado State University-Global Campus and Indiana Wesleyan University. PhD in Intercultural Studies, Fuller Graduate Schools; Doctorate in Strategic Leadership, Regent University School of Business and Leadership; doctoral coursework at USC Rossier School of Education; MA, Northeastern Seminary. Founder of Peter Rios Consulting, advising clients across business, government, higher education and faith-based institutions on leadership and inclusion. US Marine Corps veteran; bilingual in English and Spanish. Biography Most organisations describe inclusion as a value and treat it as a programme. The leaders who carry it inside the building, particularly Latinx leaders in white-dominated institutions, often experience something else: invisibility, code-switching, and a slow drain on the energy needed to do the job. Untold Stories: The Latinx Leadership Experience in Higher Education, written by Peter Rios with Juan F. Martinez and published by Wipf & Stock, was one of the first academic studies to document that gap inside Christian higher education. Rios writes from inside the systems he studies. He served as vice president at two universities, taught at Penn State, Colorado State University-Global Campus and Indiana Wesleyan University, and built Peter Rios Consulting to advise organisations on leadership development, organisational change and DEI integration. Clients sit across business, government, higher education, non-profits and faith-based institutions. His credentials sit in two disciplines on purpose. The PhD in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Graduate Schools gives him the language of identity, power and belonging. The Doctorate in Strategic Leadership from Regent University gives him the language of structure, decision-making and organisational design. That dual lens is what allows him to translate inclusion from values statement into management practice. His second book, Maximize!: 12 Keys to Unlocking Your Greatest Potential, sits alongside the consulting work as a leadership development resource. He delivers in English and Spanish, draws on his US Marine Corps service and a decade in pastoral ministry, and is a frequent podcast guest on shows including Les Brown and Cafe con Pam. Key speaking topics Inclusive and values-based leadership Latinx leadership and representation Leadership development and executive coaching Organisational change and culture Identity, power dynamics and belonging at work Generational diversity in the workplace Personal leadership and peak performance Ideal for Heads of HR, CHROs and DEI leads in organisations where inclusion programmes are stalling at the leadership pipeline University presidents, provosts and trustees navigating Latinx student growth and faculty representation Bilingual or pan-American organisations seeking leadership development that works in English and Spanish Faith-based institutions and non-profits revisiting how leadership is identified and developed across cultural lines Audience outcomes A clearer view of where inclusion language and leadership practice diverge inside their own organisation Specific moves leaders can make to retain and promote underrepresented talent rather than just hire it A framework drawn from Rios’s research and consulting for surfacing the lived experience of Latinx and other underrepresented leaders Personal leadership reflection grounded in the twelve principles of Maximize!

Why organisations work with Dr Tess Morris-Paterson She has carried the same performance methodology through three of the most demanding operating environments in the world: Premier League football, NASA-aligned spaceflight research, and a Royal Engineers command. Few practitioners have a comparable triangulation. She designs the actual selection criteria for human spaceflight, so her view on how to assess composure, judgement and team fit is grounded in systems that are used to decide who flies. Her research on microgravity physiology and astronaut training has been recognised by the International Astronautical Federation, the Aerospace Medical Association and NASA’s Human Research Program. She talks to executives the way she talks to operators, with no astronaut mythology and no sports-cliche residue. The transfer to commercial settings is direct. She is credible on inclusion in male-dominated environments without leaving the performance frame: five years as one of three women in the Premier League, and an officer corps that is roughly five percent female. Biography highlights Chartered Scientist; PhD, King’s College London, Centre of Human and Aerospace Physiological Sciences. Visiting scientist, NASA Ames Research Center; alumna of the International Space University. Founder of a consultancy supporting international space agencies on astronaut selection and training. Award recipient of the International Astronautical Federation, the Aerospace Medical Association and NASA’s Human Research Program; named a 2019 Emerging Space Leader. Former Head of Performance across Premier League football, the Football Association, Women’s Super League, McLaren Formula One, and Olympic and Paralympic programmes. British Army Reserve Officer, Royal Engineers, with command of a unit of up to 100 personnel. Biography Astronaut crews are not the most talented people in the room. They are the people most likely to make the right call on the worst day of the mission, and the selection process is built to find that. Morris-Paterson designs that kind of process for international space agencies, and the same logic now informs how she advises commercial leadership teams. She came to spaceflight through elite sport. For five years she was one of three women operating at Head of Performance level in the Premier League, with later work spanning the Football Association, the Women’s Super League, McLaren Formula One, and Olympic and Paralympic programmes. The shared question across those settings was always the same: what conditions reliably produce a good decision when there is no margin for a bad one. That question carried into her research. As a chartered scientist trained at NASA Ames Research Center and the International Space University, her work on microgravity physiology and astronaut training has been recognised by the International Astronautical Federation, the Aerospace Medical Association and NASA’s Human Research Program, and she was named a 2019 Emerging Space Leader. She now runs a consultancy that supports astronaut selection and training for international space agencies. A third operating environment sharpens the picture. As a British Army Reserve Officer in the Royal Engineers, she has held command of a unit of up to 100 personnel. The combination matters because her arguments about leadership under pressure are not assembled from secondary sources. They come from environments where the cost of getting it wrong is direct, measurable, and sometimes irreversible. Key speaking topics Performance under extreme conditions Astronaut selection, training and human spaceflight Team design and decision-making in elite sport Leadership in male-dominated operating environments Resilience and recovery in high-stakes work Translating elite-performance methodology into commercial settings Ideal for Executive teams and boards facing decisions where error cost is high and recovery time is short CHROs and chief talent officers redesigning selection, assessment and leadership-development pipelines Leadership audiences in defence, aerospace, energy, financial services and elite sport Programmes focused on women progressing in male-dominated technical or operational fields Audience outcomes A working model for how high-stakes operators are selected, not just trained Specific selection signals that predict composure and judgement under load A clearer view of how elite teams in sport and spaceflight handle feedback, recovery and the cost of error Evidence-based language for talking about inclusion in technical environments without losing the performance frame Transferable practices from astronaut, Premier League and military preparation that hold up in commercial settings