Storytelling e Comunicazione Aziendale

Why organisations work with Anna Rosling Rönnlund Her Factfulness framework – co-developed with Hans and Ola Rosling and verified through Gapminder’s systematic global testing – gives leadership teams a named, testable inventory of the cognitive instincts that distort how they read global trends; knowing which instinct is operating is more actionable than being told to think more carefully about data. Dollar Street, the income-sorted photographic database she founded at Gapminder, organises 30,000+ images from 50+ countries by purchasing power rather than by geography – showing what global consumers actually look like at different spending levels in a way that statistical reports rarely achieve. She brings a combination almost nobody in this space can match: rigorous sociological training (Lund University), professional photography, senior UX design at Google, and twenty years building Gapminder’s data tools for mass, non-specialist audiences. Factfulness has sold over 2.5 million copies in 45+ languages; organisations engaging her work are connecting to a framework already embedded in business schools, executive education programmes, and corporate strategy teams internationally. She leads ESG and SDG literacy workshops using Gapminder’s verified, publicly available global datasets – giving organisations a grounded, non-ideological entry point to sustainability strategy built on measurable global reality rather than advocacy frameworks. Biography highlights Co-founder and VP, Head of Design and User Experience, Gapminder Foundation (est. 2005, Stockholm) Designed Trendalyzer – the animated bubble-chart visualisation tool – acquired by Google in 2007; Senior UX Designer, Google Mountain View (2007-2010) Co-author, Factfulness (Flatiron Books, 2018) – New York Times bestseller; 2.5 million+ copies sold; 45+ language editions Founder of Dollar Street (2016) – 30,000+ income-sorted photographs from 50+ countries, free under Creative Commons licence TED speaker (2017): “See how the rest of the world lives, organized by income” Honorary Doctorate in Informatics, University of Skövde (2018) Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award, Photography and Visualization category (2017) Biography Global strategy conversations are routinely shaped by assumptions that are decades out of date. Gapminder, the foundation Anna Rosling Rönnlund co-founded in 2005, was built to measure this problem precisely. It tests what people believe about the world, identifies where those beliefs are provably wrong, and develops tools to correct them. Her first major contribution was Trendalyzer, an animated visualisation tool she designed with Ola Rosling that made decades of development data readable in seconds. Google acquired it in 2007. When she and Ola returned to Gapminder in 2010, the mission shifted from visualisation to diagnosis: systematically testing what educated, experienced people get wrong about global development – and why. That diagnostic work produced Factfulness, co-authored with Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling and published in 2018. The book names ten cognitive instincts – including the gap instinct and the generalisation instinct – that cause leaders to systematically misread global trends. It became a New York Times bestseller, with over 2.5 million copies sold across 45 languages. Her parallel project, Dollar Street, sent photographers to 50+ countries to document everyday life at every income level – 30,000+ images, organised by purchasing power rather than geography. These images replace national stereotypes with income-level reality, giving organisations a concrete tool for understanding global consumers. Anna holds a Master’s in Sociology from Lund University and a Bachelor’s in Photography from Gothenburg University. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Informatics from the University of Skövde in 2018 and received the Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award in the Photography and Visualization category in 2017. Key speaking topics Fact-based decision-making and the Factfulness framework Global development trends and emerging market realities Data visualisation and communicating complexity to non-specialist audiences Consumer demographics and income-level market analysis Dollar Street and visual approaches to global data ESG and SDG literacy for business Strategic misconceptions and cognitive bias in leadership Ideal for Boards and senior leadership teams making strategic decisions about global markets, risk, or emerging economies Chief Strategy Officers and heads of corporate strategy evaluating long-term assumptions and scenario plans Sustainability and ESG leads working with SDG frameworks and global impact data Leadership development and executive education programmes building data literacy and fact-based reasoning habits Audience outcomes A working understanding of the ten Factfulness instincts and how they distort strategic decision-making Practical methods for identifying and correcting the shared assumptions driving organisational strategy A reframed view of global consumer markets using Dollar Street’s income-level visual data, reducing reliance on outdated country stereotypes Greater confidence in questioning shared assumptions during leadership team discussions and board conversations Awareness of which global trends are measurably improving versus declining, grounded in Gapminder’s verified datasets

Why organisations work with Annabel Croft A working broadcaster across BBC Wimbledon, Sky Sports, Eurosport, Amazon Prime and ITV, which means she runs an awards stage or a panel with the timing and composure of someone who does it on live television every season. Her resilience material is grounded in a specific event: walking away from professional tennis at 21 after burnout, then rebuilding a thirty-year media career. That gives the keynote a verifiable spine that few sports speakers can match. Senior buyers get an event host who is also a credible keynote option on peak performance and reinvention, which collapses two suppliers into one for sports nights, gala dinners and conference plenaries. Profile recognition with UK corporate audiences is high after BBC Strictly Come Dancing 2023, which lifts ticket pull for client-facing events without requiring a celebrity-only booking. Biography highlights Former British No. 1 women’s tennis player; youngest Briton to play at Wimbledon for nearly 100 years. Junior Wimbledon and Australian Open champion (1984); WTA Virginia Slims of San Diego title (1985). Represented Great Britain in the Fed Cup and Wightman Cup. Tennis presenter and pundit for BBC, Sky Sports, Eurosport, Amazon Prime and Discovery; on-court interviewer at the 2024 Wimbledon Finals. Presented Channel 4’s Treasure Hunt and ITV’s The Interceptor. Fourth-place finalist, BBC Strictly Come Dancing 2023. Biography A working life in elite sport often ends earlier than the athlete planned. Croft retired from the professional tour at 21, after a decade as one of Britain’s most-watched young players, including becoming the youngest Briton to play at Wimbledon for nearly a century. The interesting part of her biography starts after that. She built a broadcasting career that has now run for more than three decades. She has presented and commentated on tennis for the BBC at Wimbledon, Sky Sports, Eurosport, Amazon Prime and Discovery, and conducted on-court interviews at the 2024 Wimbledon Ladies’ and Men’s Finals. Her early television work spanned mainstream entertainment, including fourteen episodes of Channel 4’s Treasure Hunt and ITV’s action series The Interceptor. For corporate audiences her value is twofold. As a host and moderator, she carries the calibration of someone who chairs live broadcast moments under pressure every season. As a speaker, she draws on the specific content of leaving a defining career at 21 and constructing a second one in public: what reinvention costs, how peak performance habits transfer, and how to manage the end of a role you did not choose to leave. Her recent fourth-place finish on BBC Strictly Come Dancing in 2023 broadened her reach to general UK corporate audiences and added a current point of recognition for client-facing dinners and awards. Key speaking topics Resilience and reinvention after an early career end Peak performance habits transferred from elite sport to working life Career change and identity beyond a defining role Sports broadcasting and media Event hosting and awards moderation Panel chairing and on-stage interviewing Ideal for Corporate awards dinners, gala evenings and sports nights seeking a host with broadcast credibility Conference plenaries needing a panel chair or on-stage interviewer at executive level Sales kick-offs and partner events looking for a peak-performance and resilience keynote Client hospitality at major sporting fixtures, particularly tennis Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how an elite athlete rebuilds a working life after the defining role ends Practical points on the daily habits that translate from professional sport into commercial roles A clear view of how broadcasters prepare and recover under live pressure A polished, current host presence that sets the tone of the room from the opening minute

Why organisations work with Annemarie Steen A working method for adaptability rather than a talk about it. Her keynotes ask the room to practise the behaviours she names, so leadership teams leave with something they have already tried, not only heard Faculty credibility on two sides of the discipline: senior facilitator at THNK School of Creative Leadership in Amsterdam and award-winning MBA visiting lecturer at Estonian Business School on Creative and Playful Leadership A clear thesis on why composure and openness matter to commercial decisions, not as soft skills but as the conditions under which good judgement actually happens One of the few European speakers who can hold a serious leadership audience while running an interactive room, useful when a client wants a keynote that does not flatten into a lecture Biography highlights Owner of SteenTrain since 2009, a leadership development practice built around playful, applied-improvisation methods Founder of Play-Break, a concept for short recovery and creativity practices used inside teams and at events Senior facilitator at THNK School of Creative Leadership, Amsterdam Partner at The Core Story, a strategic narrative and storytelling consultancy Visiting lecturer in Creative and Playful Leadership at Estonian Business School for around nine years, awarded Best Visiting Lecturer for the MBA course TEDx speaker (Tallaght, Dublin, 2014, “What happens when you press PLAY”); client work has included the Netherlands Ministry of Defence, KPMG Estonia, the Estonian Employers Confederation, Vlerick Business School and Fontys Biography Most leadership teams know the language of agility and innovation. Far fewer have a working method for the behaviours those words refer to. Steen’s practice fills that gap. She treats playfulness as a discipline, not a mood, and trains senior groups in how to read a room, hold uncertainty without seizing up, and make a decision that is open to revision. The foundation is applied improvisation, taken seriously. At THNK School of Creative Leadership in Amsterdam, where she is a senior facilitator, the methods are used to develop founders and senior leaders running ventures in complex markets. At Estonian Business School, her course on Creative and Playful Leadership has run for around nine years on the MBA, and was awarded Best Visiting Lecturer. The work travels because it is built around behaviours that hold up under business pressure, not just classroom exercises. Her client list reflects that reach. The Netherlands Ministry of Defence, KPMG Estonia, the Estonian Employers Confederation, Vlerick Business School and Fontys have all used her with senior groups. A 2014 TEDx talk in Tallaght, “What happens when you press PLAY”, sets out the underlying argument: that organisations lose access to their own intelligence when they over-perform seriousness, and that recovering creative range is a leadership decision, not a perk. What clients tend to book her for is the combination of a keynote and a room that actually does something. Steen runs the talk as an interactive frame, so a leadership audience leaves having rehearsed presence, listening and response under mild pressure, rather than having taken notes about them. Key speaking topics Playful leadership and leading under uncertainty Applied improvisation for senior teams Creativity, innovation and design thinking in practice Storytelling for business and executive communication Presence, listening and connection at senior level Recovery, attention and team energy at work Ideal for Senior leadership offsites where the brief is to shift behaviour, not deliver information HR, learning and OD leads commissioning executive development on adaptability and creative range Conference organisers looking for an interactive keynote or moderator who can hold a serious leadership room Audience outcomes A direct experience of the behaviours that make a leadership team adaptable, not only a description of them Specific practices for presence, listening and response that can be used inside their own meetings A practical argument for why creative range is a commercial capability, not an HR theme Renewed attention to recovery and energy as inputs to senior decision-making

Why organisations work with Anthony Hilton Five decades inside the City press, from trainee on The Guardian in 1968 to City Editor of The Times and the Evening Standard, give audiences a working memory of how UK financial crises, regulatory shifts and market cycles actually play out. A named position of record. As Senior Commentator for The Independent and The Standard his arguments on markets, pensions and the economy are already in public circulation, so organisations get a writer whose views are testable. Specific authority on pensions and long-term savings, an area he has covered as a weekly columnist for more than 30 years and on which he has been singled out by UK pensions industry awards. A track record of calling the 2008 crash, recognised by the University of Aberdeen with an honorary degree in 2010 for articles from 2005 to 2007 warning that the financial system was heading for trouble. Deep fluency in corporate and financial communication, drawn from his book How to Communicate Financial Information to Employees and a career running the editorial operation at the Evening Standard as Managing Director. Biography highlights Senior Commentator for The Independent and The London Standard, writing on markets, pensions, investor relations and the economy. Former City Editor of The Times (1981 to 1983) and City Editor of the Evening Standard (1984 to 1989), then Managing Director of the Evening Standard from 1989. Author of City Within a State: A Portrait of Britain’s Financial World, a study of how the City of London really works. Wincott Prize for Business Journalism; Business Journalist of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Financial Journalism at the 2014 ABI Financial Media Awards; Association of British Insurers Commentator of the Year (twice); Decade of Excellence Award, World Press Awards, 2007. Honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen, 2010, for services to journalism, including articles from 2005 to 2007 predicting the financial crash; MA in Economics, University of Aberdeen. Joint founder and past non-executive chairman of Newsdesk Media Group; Visiting Professor in Economics at London Metropolitan University, 2010 to 2012; former Editor of Accountancy Age. Biography The 1970s sterling story, the 1980s Big Bang, the dotcom crash, the 2008 banking collapse and the pensions and inflation shocks since: the same journalist has covered them in real time for a general reader, inside the British national press. That continuity is unusual, and it is the reason senior audiences listen when Anthony Hilton explains what is happening in the City. He joined Fleet Street in 1968 as a trainee on The Guardian, moved to New York in 1978 as Business Correspondent for the Sunday Times, and returned in 1981 to become City Editor of The Times. From 1984 he was City Editor of the Evening Standard, then its Managing Director from 1989, before returning to writing. He is now Senior Commentator for The Independent and The London Standard. The published argument is the other half of the case. City Within a State set out how the City of London actually works as a system of firms, regulators and capital flows. How to Communicate Financial Information to Employees codified what he has observed boards and finance chiefs get wrong when talking about money to their own people. His weekly columns on pensions, investor relations and the economic outlook have run for more than 30 years. The recognition is from bodies that matter in the field. The Wincott Prize for Business Journalism, Business Journalist of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Financial Journalism at the 2014 ABI Financial Media Awards, and Commentator of the Year from the Association of British Insurers, twice. The University of Aberdeen awarded him an honorary degree in 2010 in recognition of columns from 2005 to 2007 that warned the financial system was heading for serious trouble. Key speaking topics UK economic outlook and policy City of London, markets and investor relations Pensions, long-term savings and retirement policy Corporate governance and financial communication Financial journalism and the media view of business Economic history and lessons from past UK financial crises Ideal for Boards and CEOs in financial services, asset management, insurance and pensions needing an informed macro and markets read CFOs, heads of investor relations and corporate communications teams preparing for scrutiny from the City press Pensions trustees, scheme sponsors and providers running strategy or member communication programmes Conferences and industry dinners needing a senior City commentator as host, moderator or after-dinner speaker Audience outcomes A clearer read on how UK economic policy, Bank of England decisions and market conditions intersect with their own sector A working columnist’s view on how the City press is interpreting their industry and their company Named historical reference points for making sense of current market and pensions stress A sharper frame on pensions and long-term savings policy for employers and trustees An argument on where the UK economy is heading and what that implies for strategy and communication

Why organisations work with Arnt Eriksen PayPal, American Express, Visa, Domino’s, and Salesforce all sit on his client list. His point of contact is usually the senior marketing leader carrying the number. His forthcoming book Marketing at Velocity (Kogan Page, April 2027) sets out a thesis on B2B brand compounding, with proprietary frameworks (Velocity Loops, the TRUTH Framework, the Velocity Brand Scorecard) that audiences can apply once they leave the room. Thirty years agency-side at Grey, DDB, Ogilvy, and Isobar means his frameworks come out of work that shipped and clients who renewed. He is a practitioner with a published thesis, which is rarer in this category than buyers expect. Senior marketing audiences have heard the AI-and-content pitch from a dozen other speakers. He gives them a diagnosis of why brand activity is not converting into category position, and a working set of tools for fixing it. Biography highlights Forthcoming book: Marketing at Velocity: B2B Brand Building, Momentum and Category Leadership (Kogan Page, April 2027) Author of Brand You Economics (2021) Thirty years of senior brand experience across more than 75 global brands, including PayPal, American Express, Visa, Domino’s, Salesforce, Meta, and doTERRA Senior agency career at Grey, DDB, Ogilvy, and Isobar; co-founded his first agency at twenty-five Host of the Marketing at Heart podcast Keynotes delivered across the Nordics, Europe, North America, and Australia, including for Salesforce stages Biography Most B2B brands run their marketing as a continuous feed of campaigns and content. Activity rises, dashboards look healthy, and category position barely moves. Arnt Eriksen’s argument is that this is a compounding problem, not an effort problem. For thirty years he has worked inside the marketing functions of global brands including PayPal, American Express, Visa, Domino’s, Salesforce, and doTERRA. His agency career covered Grey, DDB, Ogilvy, and Isobar; he co-founded his first agency at twenty-five. The pattern in his work is consistent. The brands that pulled away from their categories were the ones whose positioning held long enough to compound. That argument runs book-length in his forthcoming Marketing at Velocity, published by Kogan Page in April 2027. The premise is that speed wins moments and velocity wins markets. Around it sits a working set of frameworks. The One Rule (1rE²Zag), Velocity Loops, the TRUTH Framework, and the Velocity Brand Scorecard are tools senior marketers can take back into a planning cycle, not concepts that live only on a stage. Beyond the book, he hosts the Marketing at Heart podcast and runs Conquer OS, his London-based consultancy. His client work has produced concrete commercial outcomes, including a Domino’s Internet-of-Things pizza-ordering button that the company’s Digital Director, Nick Dutch, publicly credited with what he called “mind-blowing” return on investment across PR coverage and sales. Key speaking topics B2B brand building Brand velocity and category leadership Marketing strategy for senior leaders Customer relationship economics AI and the modern marketing function B2B narrative and positioning Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leaders accountable for brand position and revenue contribution B2B leadership teams in crowded categories where differentiation is starting to blur Founders and CEOs of growth-stage businesses where marketing is being asked to translate spend into category position Audience outcomes A working diagnosis of why their B2B brand activity is not converting into category position A set of named frameworks, including Velocity Loops, the TRUTH Framework, and the Velocity Brand Scorecard, that translate directly into next-quarter marketing planning A clear read on whether their current marketing is producing speed or velocity, and what to change if the answer is speed A reframe of trust, story, and consistency as commercial assets that compound, with implications for budget allocation and channel mix

Why organisations work with Ashley Armstrong She interviews FTSE 100 chief executives as her day job. The people on the platform are the people she covers in the Financial Times, which means questions land with weight and follow-ups are not generic. Her interview record on the record includes Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, M&S’s Stuart Machin, Sainsbury’s Simon Roberts, Primark’s Paul Marchant, ITV’s Dame Carolyn McCall, and Sage’s Steve Hare. Senior leaders engage with her because they know she has read the half-year results. She has broken stories that moved the dial on UK corporate life: the implosion of Peter Mandelson’s Global Counsel, the JD Sports chair’s exit after a failed move on the CEO, and Sir Philip Green’s break-up of Arcadia. That level of access translates directly into how she runs a stage. She is the rare British business journalist with credibility across mass-market and Pink-Press readerships, having held senior roles at The Telegraph, The Times, The Sun, and now the FT. She can pitch a conversation to a board, a sales conference, or a public-facing audience with the same confidence. PRCA City Journalist of the Year 2022, recognising the kind of original reporting that distinguishes a chair who knows the territory from one who has been briefed on it. Biography highlights Chief UK Business Correspondent, Financial Times (since June 2025) Former Business Editor, The Sun, where she relaunched the daily business section and ran the cost-of-living desk Former Retail and M&A Editor, The Times; former Retail Editor and M&A Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph PRCA City Journalist of the Year, February 2022 Began career at City AM in 2008, two weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers BA, University of Exeter; MA, City, University of London Biography When Peter Mandelson’s lobby business Global Counsel collapsed in 2025, the Financial Times reporter interrogating the ties between the firm and Westminster was Ashley Armstrong, three months into her job as the paper’s Chief UK Business Correspondent. The story was characteristic. So was the byline. Armstrong has held senior business positions at The Telegraph, The Times, The Sun, and now the FT. That range is unusual in British financial journalism. It means she has covered the same companies for FTSE board readers, City professionals, mass-market subscribers, and now the most senior commercial newsroom in Europe, and she has held her own in each. She won PRCA City Journalist of the Year in 2022 for the kind of original reporting that earns sustained access. Her record at The Sun matters for what it reveals about her interviewing range. She invited the chief executives of Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Primark, ITV, and Sage to guest-edit her daily business page, and grilled Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on the record. At the FT she has continued breaking corporate news that moves share prices, including JD Sports chair Andy Higginson’s exit after a failed attempt to oust chief executive Régis Schultz. This is what gives her work as a host and moderator its weight. She does not arrive at the stage carrying a briefing pack written by someone else. She arrives carrying notes from the morning’s reporting, on companies and leaders she covers professionally, and she runs the room accordingly. Key speaking topics UK economy and markets Corporate governance and FTSE leadership Retail and consumer business Cost of living and household finance Business and politics in the UK Mergers and acquisitions Ideal for Sector conferences in retail, consumer goods, and financial services that need a chair credible with FTSE 100 leadership on stage In-house leadership events where senior teams want a journalist’s view on how the company looks from outside Investor days, AGM-adjacent events, and capital-markets days requiring a chair who reads the numbers Business-and-politics events that bring corporate leaders into conversation with policymakers Audience outcomes A clearer read on what is actually happening across the UK corporate landscape, drawn from current reporting rather than secondary sources Sharp on-the-record exchanges with senior executives, the kind that delegates remember and quote Editorial pacing and questioning that keeps high-stakes panels on the substance and off the platitudes A journalist’s framing of how the company in the room is being read by markets, government, and competitors

Why organisations work with Barbara Serra She holds the room when senior figures are practiced at controlling the conversation. Two decades anchoring live news at Al Jazeera English and Sky News mean she does not defer when a CEO or sitting minister tries to bridge back to talking points. She is credible on the European populism story in a way most broadcast hosts are not. The 2020 documentary “Fascism in the Family” and the 2025 book of the same name are her own work on her own family’s history, which means a panel on the populist current in Europe gets a chair who knows the material from the inside. She works comfortably across Italian, English, Danish and French audiences. For organisations whose flagship events are cross-border or whose European operation matters, this removes the awkward Anglo-defaulting that limits a lot of corporate event hosts. She owns a specific content lane on second-language English in international business. The argument is that what most companies call “global communication” is really English-language communication, with all the cultural narrowing that implies. For multilingual leadership teams operating in an English company language, this lands as a real internal issue with bite. Biography highlights Sky News presenter since 2023, anchoring News at 10 and the Press Preview Anchored Al Jazeera English’s flagship NewsHour from London 2006 to 2022; founding launch-team member First non-native English speaker to anchor a primetime news programme on British terrestrial television (Channel 5 News, 2005) Awarded the Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy) by the Italian President in 2019 for international journalism “Fascism in the Family” (Al Jazeera, 2020) won gold in both the Current Affairs and History categories at the New York Festivals TV & Film Awards; companion book “Fascismo in Famiglia” published in Italy in 2025 Hosting and moderation client roster includes KPMG, Baker Hughes, Technogym, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Poste Italiane and ENEL; presented the Royal Television Society’s TV Journalism Awards in 2017 Biography Al Jazeera English launched in 2006 with a London evening news strand built to challenge the Anglo-American framing of international stories. The anchor it picked for primetime was Italian-born and working in her second language. Barbara Serra held the seat for sixteen years. That tenure followed an earlier first. In 2005 at Channel 5 News, she became the first non-native English speaker to anchor a primetime news bulletin on British terrestrial television. She has since moved to Sky News, anchoring News at 10 and the Press Preview. Outside the studio, the most distinctive piece of work is the 2020 documentary “Fascism in the Family”, which she co-produced, wrote and presented. The film traces the role of her own grandfather, the regime-appointed mayor of Carbonia, against the rise of the contemporary far right in Italy. It won gold in both the Current Affairs and History categories at the New York Festivals TV & Film Awards. A companion book, “Fascismo in Famiglia”, was published in Italy in 2025. The corporate hosting work is the other half of her commercial profile. She has chaired and moderated for KPMG, Baker Hughes, Technogym, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Poste Italiane and ENEL, alongside presenting the Royal Television Society’s TV Journalism Awards. The discipline transfers directly from live news: holding senior figures on the question, and reading the room fast enough to fix it when something is going wrong on stage. Key speaking topics Conference hosting and live moderation Industry awards ceremonies and set-piece corporate events European political affairs and contemporary populism The legacy of fascism in modern Italian politics Second-language English in international business Cross-cultural communication in multilingual leadership International current affairs and live news analysis Ideal for Heads of corporate affairs and investor relations planning flagship convenings where the chair carries the event Multinational corporates with Italian or wider European leadership, where senior conversations move regularly between English and Italian Industry awards and high-stakes set-piece events where the host needs to handle live ad-libbing and recover quickly when something goes wrong on stage Boards and leadership teams hosting external speakers on European political risk and contemporary populism Audience outcomes A sharper read of contemporary European political affairs, particularly the populist current, from a serving prime-time news anchor A specific account of how Italy’s fascist past keeps shaping its present politics, drawn from her documentary and book An honest analysis of how the dominance of English in international business narrows whose perspectives get heard, and what that means for multilingual leadership teams

Why organisations work with Beatrice Kabutakapua A journalist’s discipline applied to leadership voice. A decade as a London-based foreign correspondent gives her a working method for turning messy human material into a clear, defensible narrative that holds up in a boardroom. A published methodology, not a workshop format. Lead With Your Story sets out a usable framework for converting lived experience into leadership content, which DEI and L&D teams can build a programme around rather than a single session. Harvard’s “Public Narrative” training behind the work. The frame she uses sits inside an established discipline of civic and organisational storytelling, not a personal brand exercise. A specific answer to the diversity-at-the-top problem. She works with the leaders companies have invested in for years and still struggle to promote, and gives them language for authority on their own terms. A multilingual operator. Sessions delivered in English, French and Italian, with experience across European, North American and Middle Eastern audiences (Los Angeles to Istanbul). Biography highlights Founder and CEO of The Business Storytelling Centre. Author of Lead With Your Story: How to Turn Your Lived Experience Into Your Leadership Superpower (Amazon bestseller, 2025). Harvard University certificate in Public Narrative: Leadership, Storytelling and Action. MA in international journalism, Cardiff University; MSc in social research methods, University of Sussex. Former foreign correspondent covering human rights, international development and African affairs. Client roster includes WPP Media, Aviva, Save the Children, Booking.com, Holland & Barrett, the Lankelly Chase Foundation and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Biography Most diversity strategies stop working at the threshold of the senior team. The pipeline is full, the sponsorship budget is spent, and yet the same kind of leader keeps getting promoted. The block is rarely capability. It is that the people coming through have spent their careers translating themselves into a voice the organisation already trusts, and that translation runs out at the point where authority needs to feel personal. Beatrice Kabutakapua works on that exact gap. Trained as a journalist at Cardiff, with a Harvard certificate in public narrative and a decade as a London-based foreign correspondent behind her, she founded The Business Storytelling Centre to give senior and emerging leaders a method for leading from their own material rather than someone else’s template. Her 2025 book Lead With Your Story, an Amazon bestseller, sets out the system she uses with clients. Her client roster is built around the buyers who feel this problem most directly. WPP Media, Aviva, Save the Children, Booking.com, Holland & Barrett, the Lankelly Chase Foundation, the European Journalism Centre and the Pacific Council on International Policy all sit inside her recent work, typically commissioned through DEI, People and Culture, or L&D leads. Sessions run in English, French and Italian. The editorial background matters. She does not treat storytelling as motivation. She treats it as a discipline for extracting the specific, defensible argument inside a leader’s experience and giving it commercial form, which is why her sessions tend to land with senior audiences who are sceptical of softer leadership content. Key speaking topics Business storytelling for leaders Authentic leadership and lived experience Visibility and voice for under-represented leaders Inclusive leadership pipelines Internal communication and culture Coaching for newly promoted leaders Cross-cultural leadership communication Ideal for CHROs and Chief People Officers redesigning the senior leadership pipeline Heads of DEI and inclusion leads commissioning substantive, capability-led inclusion work L&D directors building authentic leadership and executive presence programmes Internal communication leads working on leader visibility and culture narrative Audience outcomes A working method for turning their own lived experience into a leadership argument that holds up with a senior audience Specific language for the moments where existing executive communication training falls short A clearer view of why their current diversity-at-the-top interventions are not converting, and what to change Practical structures for coaching newly promoted leaders through the visibility threshold A vocabulary for inclusion work that senior leaders can use without political signalling

Why organisations work with Ben Garrod Two decades of frontline conservation work across Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean and the Arctic, including several years running a chimpanzee field site for the Jane Goodall Institute, give him direct evidence of ecosystem collapse that most ESG briefings lack. A tenured Chair at a Russell-adjacent research university (Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Science Engagement at UEA) places him inside the scientific community rather than adjacent to it, which matters for boards scrutinising sustainability claims. A long BBC broadcast record alongside David Attenborough, plus his own series Secrets of Bones and Secrets of Skin, means he can carry a main-stage room without the usual trade-off between scientific credibility and audience access. Trustee of the Jane Goodall Institute UK and Vice President of Norfolk Wildlife Trust, so the conservation positions in his talks are backed by governance roles in the organisations doing the work. Can also chair and moderate science, sustainability and innovation programmes where the host needs genuine subject fluency rather than generic presenter polish. Biography highlights Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Science Engagement, University of East Anglia PhD from UCL and the Zoological Society of London on island-primate evolution in the Lesser Antilles Presenter of BBC documentaries including Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur, Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard, Secrets of Bones and Secrets of Skin Trustee of the Jane Goodall Institute UK; Vice President of Norfolk Wildlife Trust; Fellow of the Linnean Society Author of the Extinct series and the Ultimate Dinosaurs series for Head of Zeus; author of The Chimpanzee and Me Regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage and Inside Science; columnist for The Guardian and The Conversation Biography The chimpanzee population in the forest where Ben Garrod once ran a Jane Goodall Institute field site has fallen within a single professional lifetime. That kind of data point, drawn from direct fieldwork rather than a secondary report, is what a conversation with him tends to start from. It is also why leadership teams working through ESG and climate exposure increasingly want him in the room. His academic base is the University of East Anglia, where he holds the Chair of Evolutionary Biology and Science Engagement. The PhD, completed at UCL and the Zoological Society of London, looked at how primate species diverge on Caribbean islands, a question about the mechanics of evolution that connects directly to how ecosystems respond under pressure today. The published work, including the Extinct series and the Ultimate Dinosaurs series for Head of Zeus, extends that lens across deep time. The broadcast profile matters for the room he can command. He has presented alongside David Attenborough on Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur and Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard, and carried his own BBC Four series Secrets of Bones and Secrets of Skin. On radio he is a familiar voice on The Infinite Monkey Cage and Inside Science, and he writes regularly for The Guardian and The Conversation. The governance roles are worth reading closely. He is a Trustee of the Jane Goodall Institute UK, Vice President of Norfolk Wildlife Trust, a Fellow of the Linnean Society and a Patron of the Natural Sciences Collections Association. For buyers assessing the difference between a broadcaster with an environmental hobby and a scientist with genuine standing in the field, those are the signals that settle the question. Key speaking topics Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse Climate risk through an evolutionary lens Extinction science and what deep time tells us about current pressures Great ape conservation and the economics of protecting megafauna Sustainability and ESG reporting grounded in field evidence Science communication for non-specialist audiences Ideal for Sustainability, ESG and CSR leads briefing boards on biodiversity and nature-related risk Corporate offsites and industry conferences where the climate session needs to land with scientific weight Financial services, insurance and asset management teams assessing nature and biodiversity exposure Science, innovation and R&D events needing a chair or keynote with genuine subject fluency Audience outcomes A clearer line between biodiversity loss in the field and the risk categories that now appear in ESG and TNFD reporting Specific evidence from African, Asian and Caribbean fieldwork rather than the familiar stock of climate statistics A sharper sense of how extinction and ecosystem science inform current corporate sustainability decisions For mixed audiences, a scientific voice that holds the room without retreating into jargon or headline generalities

Why organisations work with Ben Hanlin He has spent twenty years professionally holding the attention of audiences who did not ask to be entertained, a craft most keynote speakers approximate and never master. His engagement and rapport techniques are not theoretical. They are the working methods of a magician adapted for sales teams, client conversations and conference stages, and they were sharp enough to win Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards 2024. He is one of the few speakers who can credibly anchor a full conference day, opening with a keynote, hosting the agenda, and closing with the awards, without changing register. Major brand audiences including Google, PwC, Coca-Cola and Amplifi book him for the same reason: he reliably resets the energy of a room and gives an audience something to remember about it the next morning. The Speaker Awards 2024 triple, Speaker of the Year, Best Newcomer and Best TEDx Speaker, was judged by industry bookers on content, delivery and bookability. That combination of recognitions in a single year is rare. Biography highlights Creator, writer and star of ITV2’s hidden-camera magic series Tricked, three series broadcast 2013 to 2016. Presenter of Breaking Magic on the Discovery Channel. Series 12 finalist on ITV’s Dancing on Ice (2020), finishing fourth. Speaker of the Year, Best Newcomer and Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards 2024. TEDx London speaker, “How to Create INSTANT Engagement and Connection” (2024). Combined online following of two million plus across YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Biography Most keynote speakers learn to hold a room by stepping onto a corporate stage. Ben Hanlin learned it on the street, in pubs and on prime-time television, where the audience has not agreed in advance to pay attention and the speaker has roughly four seconds to earn it. Twenty years of working as a professional magician is, among other things, twenty years of solving that problem. That craft moved onto television with Tricked, the ITV2 hidden-camera magic series he created, wrote and presented across three series between 2013 and 2016, followed by Breaking Magic on the Discovery Channel and a fourth-place finish on series 12 of Dancing on Ice. The work travels: his combined audience across YouTube, Instagram and Facebook now sits above two million. The keynote work is a translation of the same discipline. Hanlin teaches the working methods a magician uses to create rapport, hold attention and make a message stick, applied to sales conversations, client meetings, leadership presence and the inside of a conference room. In 2024 his TEDx London talk “How to Create INSTANT Engagement and Connection” was named Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards. At the same ceremony he was also named Speaker of the Year and Best Newcomer, judged by industry bookers on content, delivery and bookability. Organisations including Google, PwC, Coca-Cola and Amplifi book him in three modes: keynote on engagement and human connection, full-day conference facilitation, and high-energy awards hosting. The common thread is the same craft applied at different scales, the ability to walk into a room of distracted people and leave it as a connected audience. Key speaking topics Engagement and human connection Instant rapport and audience attention Communication under pressure Innovation and creative confidence Resilience and dealing with failure Conference hosting and awards facilitation Ideal for Sales conferences, kick-offs and national sales meetings Awards nights and gala dinners requiring a host who can also deliver content Leadership and client-facing teams working on rapport, presence and communication Full-day conferences needing a single anchor across keynote, facilitation and after-dinner roles Audience outcomes A working set of rapport and attention techniques drawn from twenty years of professional magic, usable the next morning in client meetings. Sharper instincts for reading a room and recovering it when energy drops. A clearer sense of how to make a message land and be remembered. A shared, high-energy moment that resets the tone of the conference or sales event.

Why organisations work with Ben Hines A signature programme, Know the Score, delivered with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and other professional ensembles, that puts senior leaders in the room with a world-class team operating in real time. Faculty appointments at Henley Business School and Korn Ferry International, anchoring the experiential work in a credible leadership development frame. Eighteen years in financial and legal services, including strategic marketing leadership at Barclays PLC, which keeps the corporate translation grounded rather than theatrical. A coaching credential (ACC, International Coach Federation) and a music degree from the University of York, sitting behind a method that other speakers cannot replicate. Biography highlights Founder of Moving Performance (2009), a leadership development firm using music and live musicians as the medium for senior team work. Creator of Know the Score, the first leadership programme to be developed in partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Senior Associate faculty at Henley Business School, Korn Ferry International, and Altitude Leadership Partners. Associate Certified Coach, International Coach Federation. BA (Hons) Music, University of York. Earlier career as a strategic marketer at Barclays PLC and advisor to CPA Global. Biography A high-performing orchestra and a high-performing executive team face the same problem. Many specialists, one shared outcome, no rehearsal time. Most leadership development programmes describe that problem in abstract terms. Ben Hines puts it on a stage and lets leaders watch it solved in front of them. Moving Performance, the firm he founded in 2009, places professional musicians inside leadership sessions for serious organisations. The signature programme, Know the Score, runs in partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and was the first leadership format developed with that orchestra. Senior teams observe how a group of experts coordinates without verbal instruction, then translate what they have seen into their own decision rhythms, listening habits, and roles under pressure. The credibility of the work rests on the corporate spine behind it. Eighteen years inside financial and legal services, including strategic marketing leadership at Barclays PLC across multiple international markets and an advisory role at CPA Global, sit underneath the musical method. Senior Associate faculty appointments at Henley Business School and Korn Ferry International, and an ACC coaching credential from the International Coach Federation, place the practice inside recognised leadership development infrastructure. Clients to date include Accenture, BP, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Borse, Jaguar Land Rover, PwC, Telekom Austria, Thames Water, and Wise. Key speaking topics High-performing teams Leadership and team development Change leadership Emotional intelligence in senior teams Communication and listening Executive presence Ideal for Chief Executives and executive committees running team off-sites and leadership conferences Heads of Leadership Development and CHROs commissioning senior team programmes Transformation leads using a leadership intervention to reset team behaviour during change Conference organisers needing a substantive keynote that doubles as a shared experience for the room Audience outcomes A common reference point for how an expert team coordinates without hierarchy interrupting the work Specific behavioural cues from professional musicians that translate into meeting and decision rhythms Sharper attention to listening, non-verbal signals, and timing in senior team interaction A shared experience the group keeps referring back to long after the session

Why organisations work with Ben Keene Twenty years of founding and running purpose-led ventures, from a crowdfunded Fijian island community to a climate startup platform, gives him a practitioner’s view of what actually holds communities together under pressure. A repeatable community-building method, the “5 R’s”, field-tested inside Rebel Book Club across 10 cities and 5,000 members, and translated for corporate audiences. Author of “Tribe Wanted” (Ebury Press, 2008), the book behind the BBC2 series, which gives his community thesis a public, documented origin story that most speakers in this space do not have. Equally comfortable hosting, facilitating, and running workshops, which means the same brief can be delivered as a keynote, a leadership offsite session, or a multi-day internal accelerator. Active founder work in climate and AI through Raaise and Good with AI, so his material on sustainability communication and responsible AI comes from current operating experience, not commentary. Biography highlights Founder, Tribewanted (2006-2016); built a crowdfunded sustainable-tourism community on Vorovoro, Fiji, later extended to Sierra Leone and Umbria. Author, “Tribe Wanted: My Adventure on Paradise or Bust”, Ebury Press, 2008. Subject of a five-part BBC2 series on the Fiji project, broadcast winter 2008. Co-founder, Rebel Book Club, a paid non-fiction reading community operating across 10 cities. Former lead of The Escape School at Escape the City; business advisor and mentor at Virgin StartUp. Founder of Raaise (climate startup fundraising platform) and Good with AI (AI education cohorts). Biography Building a physical community on a remote Fijian island with strangers recruited online is not a business-school case study. It is what Ben Keene did in 2006 when he co-founded Tribewanted, and the project ran for a decade across Fiji, Sierra Leone, and Umbria. It produced a BBC2 series, a book with Ebury Press, and several million dollars of investment into the regions it touched. The interesting part, for organisations, is what he took from it. Communities with paying members do not behave like audiences or customers. They need rhythm, roles, and a reason to return. Keene has spent the years since codifying how that works, most visibly in Rebel Book Club, the non-fiction reading community he co-founded in 2015 and grew to around 5,000 members in 10 cities. He applies the same lens to the commercial problems leaders actually bring him: why sustainability messaging lands with colleagues but not customers, why purpose programmes fade after the launch moment, why AI adoption stalls when it is framed as a tool rather than a practice. His current work through Raaise and Good with AI keeps him inside those problems as a founder, not a commentator. The through-line is specific. He is a founder who has repeatedly built communities that people pay to belong to, and he has turned the method into something organisations can use. Key speaking topics Community building inside organisations Purpose-driven business and impact entrepreneurship Sustainability communication and consumer behaviour Responsible AI and practical adoption Employee engagement through shared rituals and rhythm Founder lessons from climate and impact ventures Ideal for CHROs and internal communications leads designing engagement, belonging, or community programmes. Sustainability and ESG leads who need to translate strategy into language that customers and employees act on. Founders, innovation teams, and corporate venture units looking for a practitioner view of how purpose-led businesses scale. Learning and development leads building cohort-based programmes on AI, climate, or entrepreneurial mindset. Audience outcomes A clear method for building an internal or customer community, drawn from the “5 R’s” framework he has tested at scale. Honest distinctions between communities, audiences, and networks, and what each actually requires from the organisation. Concrete examples of where sustainability messaging fails with consumers and what reframing it around customer value looks like. A founder’s view of responsible AI adoption inside teams, grounded in his current cohort work rather than abstract policy. Renewed conviction that purpose and commercial outcomes reinforce each other when the community layer is built deliberately.