Trasformazione digitale

Why organisations work with Dietmar Dahmen Two decades inside the rooms where global brands are built, with senior creative leadership at DDB, Ogilvy and BBDO across Hamburg, New York, Los Angeles, Munich and Vienna. The reference points are operator reference points. A Chief Innovation Officer track record at ecx.io, the digital agency that scaled into an IBM acquisition, which gives him a working view of how creative ambition turns into delivered technology product. Author of “Transformation. BAMM!” with Marcus Bond, published by Murmann Verlag, with a specific thesis on the “volcano economy” and a working compass tool for leadership teams reshaping their business model. Recognised by the European Association of Communication Agencies as their expert on disruption and future marketing, which gives the perspective institutional weight beyond bureau marketing. A stage craft that lands the argument. The presentation is theatrical, with stage walls built and broken on cue, a flame thrower used to dramatise climate urgency, and custom animation cut for each event. Senior audiences who have seen too many slide decks remember the content because of how it is delivered. Biography highlights Senior creative leadership at DDB, Ogilvy and BBDO, including Chief Creative Officer and Managing Director roles. Chief Innovation Officer at ecx.io, the digital agency acquired by IBM. Founder and Managing Director of Brainkicks GmbH, his current consulting and keynote practice. Co-author of “Transformation. BAMM! Management in der Vulkanoekonomie” (Murmann Verlag, 2017) with Marcus Bond. Lecturer in disruptive advertising at Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg, with students collecting sixteen gold and silver awards at the Cannes Young Director Award during his tenure. Guest lecturer in marketing innovation at Boston University and LMU Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Honorary member of the Federal Association for AI Transformation in Germany (Bundesverband für KI-Transformation). Designated expert on disruption and future marketing for the European Association of Communication Agencies (EACA); member of Creative Club Austria and Art Directors Club Germany. Biography The category boundaries that organised global marketing for a generation are blurring. Customer journeys cross channels that did not exist five years ago, brand differentiation decays faster than media budgets can refresh it, and the parts of the business that used to be safe (distribution, pricing power, retail relationships) are the parts most exposed. Senior marketing and innovation teams know they are being asked to remake the commercial engine while it is still running. Dietmar Dahmen has worked that problem from inside the global creative system. He built his career as Creative Director at DDB, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy, and Chief Creative Officer and Managing Director at BBDO, across Hamburg, New York, Los Angeles, Munich and Vienna. The agency seat is what gave him repeated exposure to the moment when a brand has to choose between defending the position that made it and committing to the position that might. He then took the operator turn that gives the work its current shape. As Chief Innovation Officer at ecx.io, he helped scale the digital agency that IBM later acquired, which moved his thinking from creative campaign output toward technology-enabled customer experience and commercial model design. His book with Marcus Bond, “Transformation. BAMM!” published by Murmann Verlag in 2017, sets out the “volcano economy” thesis: markets where new positions emerge and disappear at unexpected points, and where conventional planning logic is precisely the constraint to challenge. The institutional credentials sit alongside the practitioner record. He is the European Association of Communication Agencies’ designated expert on disruption and future marketing, lectured disruptive advertising at Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg for close to a decade, and his students collected sixteen gold and silver awards at the Cannes Young Director Award during that period. Boards bring him in when the question is not “what is the trend” but “what are we willing to break, and what do we keep, when the category we built around no longer holds.” Key speaking topics Disruption and business model reinvention Future of marketing and brand Customer centricity and experience design Innovation strategy Digital transformation in marketing organisations Change leadership in creative and commercial functions Ideal for CMOs, brand presidents and heads of marketing transformation Chief Innovation Officers and digital strategy leads Boards and executive committees navigating category disruption Senior creative and agency leadership groups Audience outcomes A working language for diagnosing where their category is fracturing and where their current strategy is exposed. A sharper view of which assumptions in the existing business model are now constraints rather than advantages. Specific provocations on customer-centric reinvention drawn from inside global agency and digital transformation work. Renewed willingness in the room to commit to changes that the operating plan has been deferring.

Why organisations work with Dino Sofos He has built category-leading shows in two different genres, launching Dua Lipa’s At Your Service as Persephonica’s first title and co-creating The News Agents, which hit 24 million downloads in seven months. He ran BBC News Podcasts for long enough to learn what works at scale: 85 million downloads across Brexitcast, Americast and Newscast during his tenure as editor. He understands the commercial crossover between audio and broadcast, having been the first editor to transfer a current affairs podcast, Brexitcast, onto BBC One in 2019. He speaks from operator experience, not commentary, which makes him useful to executives weighing real decisions about content, talent and audience strategy. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Persephonica, an independent audio production company established in 2021. Former Editor of BBC News Podcasts, with 14 years at the BBC. Creator of Brexitcast, Americast and Newscast for the BBC. Brexitcast won the Listeners’ Choice award at the British Podcast Awards 2019. Co-creator of The News Agents with Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall, produced in partnership with Global. Producer of Dua Lipa: At Your Service, featuring guests including Elton John, Amal Clooney and Pedro Almodovar. Biography Brexitcast started inside the BBC as an experiment in how political reporters talked to each other when the cameras were off. Dino Sofos was the editor who turned that informal energy into a format, then into a habit, then onto BBC One in 2019, the first time a current affairs podcast had crossed over to television. That move, and the 85 million downloads accumulated by BBC News Podcasts during his editorship, gave him a specific kind of knowledge. He understands how audio formats work commercially, how much of audience loyalty is structural rather than topical, and why most attempts to manufacture habit fail in the first six weeks. He left the BBC in 2021 to found Persephonica. The company launched with Dua Lipa’s At Your Service, featuring guests from Elton John to Pedro Almodovar, and followed with The News Agents, co-created with Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall in partnership with Global. The News Agents became the UK’s most downloaded daily news podcast, reaching 24 million downloads in seven months. For organisations trying to build their own audience, his value is less about podcasting as a channel and more about the operating discipline behind it: choosing the right voices, designing formats that reward return listening, and running the commercial side of attention without losing the editorial instinct that attracted people in the first place. Key speaking topics Podcasting and digital audio strategy Building loyal audiences at scale Creative entrepreneurship and independent production Talent identification and format design Editorial innovation in news and current affairs Commercial models for original content Ideal for CMOs and communications directors weighing investment in owned audio and content formats Media, publishing and broadcasting leaders considering how to adapt for a podcast-first audience Founders and heads of content designing subscriber or listener strategies HR and internal comms leaders looking at audio for employee engagement and leadership storytelling Audience outcomes A clearer sense of what separates shows that build habit from content that merely accumulates views. Practical reference points from launching chart-topping podcasts in both celebrity and news formats. Specific lessons from editorial formats such as Brexitcast, Americast and The News Agents on pairing talent with structure. A working view of the commercial and talent economics of independent production.

Why organisations work with Dominik Boesl Operating credibility from two of the most consequential robotics manufacturers in Europe: KUKA, where he co-managed the market launch of the LBR iiwa, the first industrially certified collaborative robot, and Festo, where he ran a robotics division spanning five international R&D centres. A governance perspective rooted in formal institutional work, not commentary: VP roles in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, Global Chair of the IEEE TechEthics Initiative, and founder of the Robotics & AI Governance Foundation. A named intellectual contribution. The “4 Robotic Revolutions” model, co-developed with Bernd Liepert and presented at IEEE IROS, gives audiences a working frame for where robotics sits today and what comes next. Policy-level reach into the UN system through the UN DESA expert group on AI and robotics for the Sustainable Development Goals, useful for boards weighing the regulatory direction of travel. Research that informs strategy rather than describing it: he leads the Robotics 2050+ Global Delphi Study, a long-range scenario programme supported by IEEE. Biography highlights Professor of Digital Sciences, Automation & Leadership, HDBW Munich; Adjunct Professor, TUM Institute for LifeLong Learning Founder, Robotics & AI Governance Foundation; founder and CEO, Innomancer Thinktank Former VP and Head of Robotics, Festo AG; former Principal Corporate Innovation Manager and VP Consumer Driven Robotics, KUKA AG Past VP for Industrial Activities, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society; past Global Chair, IEEE TechEthics Initiative Member of the UN DESA expert group on AI and robotics for the Sustainable Development Goals Co-author of the “4 Robotic Revolutions” framework (IEEE IROS 2016) and lead of the Robotics 2050+ Delphi Study Biography The collaborative robotics market did not exist as a commercial category until a small group of teams, including the one Boesl worked in at KUKA, navigated the LBR iiwa through the safety standards that made human-machine co-working legally and operationally viable. That kind of work, sitting at the join between engineering, regulation, and commercial deployment, is what informs the way he now advises boards. After KUKA he ran the robotics division at Festo, overseeing five international R&D centres and the development of the Festo BionicCobot, the first pneumatic collaborative robot. The combination of two senior operating roles at two of the most credible robotics businesses in Europe is unusual on its own. It becomes more so when paired with chair-level institutional work: VP for Industrial Activities at the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and Global Chair of the IEEE TechEthics Initiative for five years. His academic and policy work extends the same agenda. As Professor of Digital Sciences at HDBW Munich and an adjunct at the TUM Institute for LifeLong Learning, he leads the Robotics 2050+ Global Delphi Study, a long-range scenario programme on the future of robotics and AI. Through the Robotics & AI Governance Foundation and a seat on the UN DESA expert group, he contributes to how governments and standards bodies think about autonomous systems and the Sustainable Development Goals. What this means for buyers is straightforward. When a board asks where the line should sit between human and machine decision-making, or how to make AI deployment defensible to a regulator, Boesl is one of the few voices in Europe who can answer from the engineering side, the standards side, and the policy side at once. Key speaking topics Robotics and human-machine collaboration AI governance and technology ethics Industry 4.0 and operational deployment of automation Strategic foresight and long-range scenario planning Responsible innovation in regulated industries The future of work in robotic and AI-enabled organisations Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI and automation strategy in industrial, manufacturing, and engineering-led organisations Chief technology, chief digital, and chief AI officers responsible for moving from pilots to deployment Heads of innovation, R&D leadership, and corporate strategy teams in industrial groups and Mittelstand manufacturers Policy, public affairs, and ESG leaders tracking the regulatory direction of AI and robotics Audience outcomes A clearer map of where robotics and AI sit today against the “4 Robotic Revolutions” frame, and what the next phase actually demands of an operating business A working vocabulary for AI governance that a board can use with regulators, auditors, and internal risk functions Specific reference points from KUKA and Festo on what it takes to deploy collaborative robotics inside an industrial operation A perspective on long-range scenarios drawn from the Robotics 2050+ Delphi research, rather than commentary A sharper sense of where the human-machine boundary should sit for the organisation’s own workforce design

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 Dorothée Töreki She has run digital transformation from the inside. Eleven years at IBM Germany and a Director of Digitalisation role at the Boysen Group give her a working understanding of how AI and digital tools actually land in industrial and corporate environments. She teaches the same material she presents on stage. Her part-time lectureship at Duale Hochschule Heidenheim covers blockchain and generative AI, which keeps the content close to the underlying mechanics rather than the marketing layer. She is one of the few German-language voices who can move an audience from technology scepticism to active engagement, in both English and German, without simplifying the substance. Her work spans the connected stack: generative AI, blockchain, Web 3.0, the Internet of Things and human-machine collaboration. That breadth lets her show executives where today’s pilots are pointing. Biography highlights Eleven years at IBM Germany in roles spanning Digital Advisor, Competitive Leader and Digital Workplace Consultant. Former Director of Digitalisation at the Boysen Group, leading cultural transformation. Founder of Denkräume im Digitalen, established 2019. Part-time lecturer in blockchain and generative AI at Duale Hochschule Heidenheim. LinkedIn Top Voice DACH 2018 and Best of IBM 2016. Co-author for Springer Gabler on generative AI and digitalisation themes. Biography Most German industrial firms can describe what generative AI is. Far fewer can describe what it changes inside their operating model. That gap, between technical literacy and operating capability, is the territory Dorothée Töreki has worked in for two decades. Her route into the subject is unusual. She trained as a civil engineer and worked on infrastructure projects including the ICE rail link between Frankfurt and Cologne, before moving into information technology. Eleven years at IBM Germany followed, in roles that ran from digital workplace consulting to competitive analysis on cloud and AI. As Director of Digitalisation at the Boysen Group, she carried that perspective into an industrial automotive supplier, designing the cultural side of digital change. In 2019 she founded Denkräume im Digitalen to focus on executive education and keynotes. The body of work spans generative AI, blockchain, Web 3.0 and human-machine collaboration. She teaches the same material at Duale Hochschule Heidenheim, which gives the content a level of technical detail most keynote speakers cannot match. Springer Gabler publishes her as a contributing author on generative AI and digital business. She is recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice DACH and was named Best of IBM in 2016. Her delivery, in German or English, is built on turning abstract technology into specific operational consequence: what changes for marketing, for service operations, for the workplace, for the way decisions get made. Key speaking topics Generative AI in business Digital transformation in industrial organisations Blockchain and Web 3.0 Human-machine collaboration Future of work and digital workplace Internet of Things and Economy of Things Cultural change in technology adoption Ideal for CIOs, CDOs and heads of digital transformation in industrial and B2B firms. Executive committees and boards setting AI strategy. Marketing, sales and customer experience leadership teams. German-speaking corporate audiences seeking technical depth without losing accessibility. Audience outcomes A working picture of where generative AI changes specific business functions, not a generic technology overview. Clear language for the cultural and organisational shifts that decide whether digital pilots scale. A more precise read on adjacent technologies such as blockchain, Web 3.0 and IoT, and how they connect to AI strategy. The confidence to engage rather than retreat from the next wave of technology decisions.

Why organisations work with Andrew Ng His AI Transformation Playbook – a named, five-step framework derived directly from building AI teams at Google and Baidu – gives organisations a structured implementation path, not principles. It is the difference between a direction and a plan. He has operated on both sides of the AI adoption challenge: as the person responsible for making two of the world’s largest technology companies into AI-first organisations, and as the founder of platforms that have trained more than 8 million people in AI skills. The failure modes at both ends are not theoretical to him. His “AI is the new electricity” thesis reframes AI as general-purpose infrastructure rather than a feature or a product – a distinction that changes how boards allocate capital and how leadership teams structure accountability. Named to Time’s inaugural Time100 AI list (2023) – recognising active, current influence in the field – and to Amazon’s board of directors. The former signals peer standing; the latter signals boardroom credibility. Through AI Aspire, developed in partnership with Bain & Company, he advises enterprises moving from AI experimentation to scalable transformation – giving organisations access to a perspective tested across venture building, hyperscale operations, and mass education. Biography highlights Co-founded Google Brain – the research team credited with reshaping Google’s approach to artificial intelligence VP and Chief Scientist at Baidu, leading a 1,300-person AI team responsible for the company’s global AI strategy Co-founder and Chairman of Coursera (NYSE: COUR), now serving 150 million+ registered learners globally Founder of DeepLearning.AI – over 8 million people have completed AI courses through his programmes Named to Time100 Most Influential People (2012), Fast Company’s Most Creative People (2014), and Time100 AI (2023) Member of Amazon’s board of directors (appointed April 2024) Author of the AI Transformation Playbook and Machine Learning Yearning, both in wide circulation Holds a BSc from Carnegie Mellon, MSc from MIT, and PhD from UC Berkeley; co-authored over 200 research papers Biography Most AI pilot projects never become AI companies. Andrew Ng has spent years examining why – first as the founding lead of Google Brain and then as VP and Chief Scientist at Baidu, where he built a 1,300-person AI team. The gap between isolated AI experimentation and enterprise-wide capability is the problem he has studied from the inside. His AI Transformation Playbook – drawn directly from that experience – sets out a five-step framework for taking AI adoption from initial momentum to company-wide infrastructure. It circulates widely because it treats AI transformation as an operational challenge, not a technology question. His thesis that AI is infrastructure the way electricity was infrastructure gives boards a strategic frame that holds across industries and business models. Ng co-founded Coursera, which now serves over 150 million registered learners, and founded DeepLearning.AI, through which more than 8 million people have trained in AI skills. Building AI literacy at that scale – and measuring what works – gives him a concrete, tested perspective on what workforce transformation in practice actually requires. Few speakers can point to comparable operational evidence. He holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and UC Berkeley, has co-authored over 200 research papers, and sits on Amazon’s board of directors. Named to Time’s inaugural Time100 AI list in 2023 – recognising current influence rather than historical contribution – he continues to co-found AI companies through AI Fund and advise enterprises on AI strategy through AI Aspire, a firm he built in partnership with Bain & Company. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI adoption and transformation AI strategy for boards and C-suite leaders Agentic AI and the next phase of AI systems AI workforce development and capability building Responsible AI development and regulation Machine learning fundamentals and applied AI The economics of AI as general-purpose infrastructure Ideal for C-suite executives and boards setting AI strategy and capital allocation Chief Technology Officers and Chief Digital Officers leading enterprise AI programmes CHROs and people leaders responsible for AI upskilling and workforce transformation Transformation leads and innovation teams moving from AI pilots to scaled deployment Audience outcomes A structured framework for diagnosing where enterprise AI adoption is stalling and what to do next Clarity on how to build internal AI capability – teams, workflows, and governance – rather than relying on isolated project-by-project approaches A board-level frame for AI as infrastructure, with implications for investment, talent, and competitive positioning Practical understanding of what large-scale AI workforce development requires, drawn from programmes that have trained millions A more grounded view of responsible AI development – distinguishing credible risk from speculative concern – from a practitioner who has argued these positions in public and in policy

Why organisations work with Christina Yan Zhang She co-writes the UN ITU standards her clients will eventually be measured against. Her CitiVerse evaluation framework spans 130 indicators across 14 domains, with input from more than 30 global authorities. She has converted that standards work into operational strategy for cities, including Tampere’s Metaverse Vision 2040, the first people-centred metaverse strategy adopted as a UN resource for governments. Her China innovation insight is grounded in direct operating experience, not commentary. As QS China Director from 2013 to 2020, she sat across hundreds of Chinese universities, national labs and science parks during the 13th Five-Year Plan. She holds advisory positions across the International Science Council’s Centre for Science Futures, The Economist Impact’s AI economy board, and TechUK’s Digital Twins Board, giving her unusually direct line of sight into where AI policy is heading. She was named in the 100 Global Women in AI 2025 list at Davos and chaired the jury of the 2024 Metaverse Entertainment World Awards under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco. Biography highlights CEO, The Metaverse Institute Vice Chair, UN ITU Metaverse Working Group on Sustainability, Accessibility and Inclusion Co-Chair, UN ITU Task Group on Pre-standardisation for the CitiVerse Author of the UN’s first approved technical report on People-Centred CitiVerse China Director, QS World University Rankings, 2013 to 2020 100 Global Women in AI 2025 (announced at Davos) Biography The rules for AI in cities, public services and immersive environments are being written right now, mostly inside the UN ITU. Christina Yan Zhang is one of the people writing them. As Co-Chair of the UN ITU Task Group on Pre-standardisation for the CitiVerse, she leads the evaluation framework that 30 plus global authorities have shaped and that hundreds of cities are expected to align to before 2030. That standards work feeds directly into operational strategy. Her team at The Metaverse Institute produced Tampere Metaverse Vision 2040, the first people-centred metaverse strategy commissioned by a city government and subsequently published by the UN as a resource for other administrations. She is also the author of the UN’s first approved technical report on People-Centred CitiVerse, which set out an 8-level entry framework for governments and operators moving into virtual environments. She arrived at this work through an unusual route. Her PhD in 2012 was on digital twin applications for the construction industry, well before the term entered mainstream board conversations. Between 2013 and 2020 she was China Director for QS World University Rankings, building the firm’s China operation from scratch and sitting close to the universities, science parks and national labs that drove the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan in research and innovation. She now advises across the International Science Council’s Centre for Science Futures, The Economist Impact’s AI economy board, and TechUK’s Digital Twins Board. The throughline is consistent: where AI, digital twins and virtual environments meet public infrastructure, she has been writing the standards before most boards have read them. Key speaking topics AI governance and the UN CitiVerse standards Digital twins for cities and critical infrastructure Responsible deployment of virtual environments People-centred AI strategy for governments and operators China’s innovation system and research capacity Future of work in AI-enabled cities Ideal for Boards and C-suites setting AI, digital and immersive technology strategy Government and city leadership teams designing smart city or CitiVerse roadmaps Heads of innovation, digital and infrastructure inside regulated industries Investors and operators positioning capital around AI-powered urban and built-environment plays Audience outcomes A working map of where UN ITU standards on AI and the CitiVerse are heading, and what that means for their own roadmap A clearer view of how digital twins move from technical pilot to citywide operating system Direct insight into China’s innovation engine from someone who operated inside it for seven years A framework for testing whether their current AI and virtual-environment plans will hold up against emerging international standards

Why organisations work with Hubertus Porschen He speaks to mid-market boards from inside the same world. As the elected federal chairman of Die Jungen Unternehmer from 2015 to 2018, he represented Germany’s young Mittelstand owners directly to policymakers and to ASU/Die Familienunternehmer. He has built and run digital businesses, not just advised on them. App-Arena and iConsultants give him a working vocabulary for what actually breaks when a traditional company tries to digitise a business model. His book Digitaler Suizid frames digital inertia as an existential risk to German firms, an argument that lands with audiences who have heard the optimistic version too often. He works in German and English with equal credibility, which matters for groups whose senior leadership sits across DACH and the wider European market. Biography highlights Federal Chairman, Die Jungen Unternehmer (BJU), 2015 to 2018, the young-entrepreneurs body within the ASU/Die Familienunternehmer association. Doctorate in economics, University of Marburg, with a dissertation on the academic entrepreneur. Author of Digitaler Suizid, on the digitalisation gap in the German economy. Founder and operator of multiple digital ventures including App-Arena GmbH; partner at iConsultants GmbH. Lecturer at Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and the University of Cologne. Listed in Top 100 Speakers Excellence 2026 by Speakers Excellence. Biography The German Mittelstand is one of the most successful industrial structures in Europe. It is also one of the slowest to absorb new technology. That tension defines the working subject matter of Hubertus Porschen. He spent three years, from 2015 to 2018, as federal chairman of Die Jungen Unternehmer, the young-entrepreneurs wing of the ASU/Die Familienunternehmer association. The role put him in regular contact with policymakers in Berlin and with several thousand owner-managers running mid-sized German firms. The work that followed, as a speaker and as a founder, builds directly on that constituency. His operating experience is the second pillar. App-Arena, an online marketplace for social media applications, and iConsultants, a digital advisory practice, gave him direct exposure to the gap between digital strategy decks and the messy reality of changing how a 150-person company actually works. His book Digitaler Suizid develops the argument: German firms that treat digitisation as a marketing project rather than an operating one are quietly removing themselves from their own future. Today his keynote work concentrates on artificial intelligence: specifically the question of how a board moves from “AI-interested” to “AI-ready” without paralysing the operating business in the process. He lectures at Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and the University of Cologne, holds a doctorate from the University of Marburg, and is listed in Speakers Excellence’s Top 100 for 2026. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence in mid-market operations Digital transformation in family-owned and Mittelstand businesses Entrepreneurship and founder leadership Innovation and disruption in traditional industries Change management across generational workforces Digital business model design Ideal for Boards and executive teams of family-owned and Mittelstand firms in DACH CEOs, COOs and digital leaders confronting an AI adoption gap Industry associations and chambers of commerce convening member firms Founder networks and entrepreneurship programmes in German-speaking markets Audience outcomes A clearer sense of where their organisation sits on the line between AI-interested and AI-ready A working argument for why digital inertia is a strategic, not operational, risk Specific examples of how German mid-market companies have moved digital initiatives out of pilot Vocabulary to talk to a sceptical board about AI without leaning on vendor language

Why organisations work with Robert Smith He is a working AI researcher with more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, not a consultant translating other people’s science. When a board asks how a model actually behaves, he can answer at the level of the maths. His book Rage Inside the Machine sets out a specific thesis on why algorithmic bias is structural rather than incidental. It gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for the risk before they have to defend a hiring, credit, or pricing decision. He has built and deployed AI inside organisations where failure is expensive: NASA, Boeing, Airbus, the Bank of England, the UK Competition and Markets Authority. The reference points are operational, not theoretical. He led AI and data science at Digital Catapult, the UK government’s deep tech innovation centre. He has seen what separates the firms that move beyond pilots from the ones that stall. As a Founding Trustee of We and AI and a Senior Fellow at UCL, his independence on responsible AI is institutional, not positional. That matters when the audience needs a voice that does not sell the technology. Biography highlights Author, Rage Inside the Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All (Bloomsbury Business). Shortlisted, UK Business Book Awards, Specialist category. Former Director of AI and Data Science, Digital Catapult. Senior Honorary Fellow, Computer Science Faculty, University College London. Co-founder, UCL Centre for Decision-Making Uncertainty. Founding Trustee, We and AI. Author of over 100 peer-reviewed papers in artificial intelligence, with a focus on evolutionary computation, knowledge representation, and machine learning. Applied AI work for NASA, Boeing, Airbus, BT, the European Union, the Bank of England, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, and US national laboratories. Biography The history of artificial intelligence is older than most boardrooms assume, and so are the design choices that made today’s models prone to bias. That is the argument running through Robert Smith’s work as a complexity scientist, and it is the reason serious organisations book him when they need an AI conversation that holds up under scrutiny. Smith spent more than three decades inside applied AI before the current wave of public attention. He built systems for NASA, Boeing, Airbus, BT, the Bank of England, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, the European Union, and US national laboratories at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. He went on to lead AI and data science at Digital Catapult, the UK’s deep tech innovation centre, where the question shifted from research to deployment at scale. His book Rage Inside the Machine, published by Bloomsbury Business and shortlisted for the UK Business Book Awards, traces algorithmic bias back through the intellectual history of computing. The case is technical, not rhetorical: apparently neutral data and models can encode prior injustice across hiring, credit, insurance, policing, and content moderation. He gives leadership audiences a way to interrogate their own systems without needing to read the code. Smith holds a PhD, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Senior Honorary Fellow at UCL Computer Science where he co-founded the Centre for Decision-Making Uncertainty, and a Founding Trustee of We and AI. He has more than 100 peer-reviewed papers to his name and has presented at Google, the UK Financial Conduct Authority, and corporate, academic, and policy venues internationally. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and generative AI AI ethics and responsible technology Algorithmic bias and governance Digital transformation Data analytics Future of technology Risk management Ideal for Boards and executive committees signing off on enterprise AI strategy CTOs, CIOs, Chief Data Officers, and heads of AI looking for a credible external voice on governance and bias Risk, compliance, and regulatory leaders in financial services, insurance, healthcare, and public sector Senior HR and people leaders deploying AI in hiring, performance, or workforce decisions Audience outcomes A clearer view of where bias actually originates inside their AI systems, with examples drawn from peer-reviewed research and operational deployments. A working language for board-level conversations about AI risk, beyond the vendor pitch and the headline. Specific questions executives can put to their data science teams and external suppliers to test whether claims about model behaviour are defensible. A grounded sense of where AI is genuinely creating value in regulated environments, and where it is creating exposure. A perspective on responsible AI that comes from a working scientist and trustee of an independent charity, not from a platform vendor.

Why organisations work with Shameen Prashantham Owns a defined intellectual territory, corporate-and-startup partnering, that almost no other senior strategy academic has built a 15-year body of fieldwork around. Wrote the practitioner book on the subject. Gorillas Can Dance (Wiley, 2021) sets out a tested framework of synergy, interface and exemplar drawn from work with Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, Bosch, BMW, Cisco, Ford, IBM, Intel, Unilever, Walmart and others. Brings genuinely first-hand China and emerging-market perspective to Western boards. Based at CEIBS in Shanghai, with active fieldwork across Bangalore, Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley, he can discuss what Chinese firms actually do, not what Western analysts assume. Writes for the audience he speaks to. Recent contributions to Harvard Business Review, including a June 2024 piece on safe engagement with China, give a buyer confidence the keynote will land at board level rather than in academic register. As CEIBS Associate Dean (Africa) and former MBA Director, he is one of a small group of strategy academics with substantive operating insight into both China and Africa, the two markets large corporations most often handle badly. Biography highlights Professor of International Business and Strategy, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Shanghai. Associate Dean (Africa), CEIBS. Previously Associate Dean and MBA Director, 2020 to 2024. Author of Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and Other Corporations on Partnering with Startups (Wiley, 2021). Author of Born Globals, Networks, and the Large Multinational Enterprise (Routledge). Research published in Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Organization Studies. Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Financial Times and the Brightline-Thinkers50 volume Strategy@Work. Biography Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, BMW, Walmart and Unilever have all built programmes to partner with startups. Few of those programmes work as designed. The reason is rarely strategy. It is the operating asymmetry between a $200 billion balance sheet and a 30-person company, and almost no one has studied that asymmetry as carefully or for as long as the author of Gorillas Can Dance. Based at CEIBS in Shanghai, Shameen Prashantham has spent more than fifteen years inside this question. His fieldwork runs across Silicon Valley, Bangalore, Tel Aviv, Beijing, Berlin, Lagos, Nairobi and Accra. The book sets out three pillars, synergy, interface and exemplar, that distinguish corporate partnership programmes that produce real innovation from those that produce press releases. His academic credibility is straightforward. PhD from the University of Strathclyde. Research in the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Organization Studies. The work translates into Harvard Business Review, where his June 2024 piece on safe engagement with China ran in the print edition. What buyers tend to value most is the geography. He sits in Shanghai, runs CEIBS engagement in Africa, and has serious working knowledge of Indian and Israeli innovation ecosystems. For a Western board trying to decide whether and how to partner in or from emerging markets, that combination is rare and expensive to replicate. Key speaking topics Corporate-startup partnerships Innovation strategy in large corporations Doing business in and with China Emerging-market growth strategy Africa as a strategic market Corporate entrepreneurship Sustainable Development Goals partnerships Ideal for CEOs, chief strategy officers and chief innovation officers running corporate venturing or startup-engagement programmes. Boards reassessing China exposure or considering operating commitments in Africa or India. Heads of M&A, partnerships and corporate development designing the next phase of inorganic growth. Executive audiences inside multinationals where emerging-market strategy is on the agenda. Audience outcomes A clear test for whether an existing corporate-startup partnership programme is structurally set up to produce results. Three operating levers, synergy, interface and exemplar, to apply to live partnership decisions. A grounded read on what is actually happening inside Chinese firms and Chinese innovation, beyond Western commentary. A working frame for sequencing entry, partnership and growth decisions in emerging markets. Concrete examples drawn from named programmes at Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, Unilever, Walmart and others.

Why organisations work with Sidney Shapiro Argues openly against AI hype. His featured keynote “Stop Believing the AI Hype” treats vendor claims as a leadership evaluation problem, which is the conversation regulated buyers and procurement teams actually need to have. Has published governance work in peer-reviewed venues. A Routledge book chapter on AI governance for higher education institutions, and a forthcoming IGI Global chapter on the governance of generative AI, give him a documented position on what responsible deployment looks like in practice. Brings a decade of operational data science alongside the academic work. A former Data Science Manager at Sofvie building occupational health and safety software, he speaks to the integration and accountability problems that follow a proof of concept. Active in the working practitioner conversation. Hosts the AI in Action podcast and organises the Southern Alberta AI Conference, which together keep his perspective grounded in what organisations across healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and public administration are actually trying to ship. Biography highlights Assistant Professor of Business Analytics, Dhillon School of Business, University of Lethbridge Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Lethbridge Book chapter on AI governance frameworks for higher education published by Routledge (2025); forthcoming chapter on the governance of generative AI with IGI Global Host of the AI in Action podcast and organiser of the Southern Alberta AI Conference Former Data Science Manager at Sofvie Inc., building data systems for occupational health and safety in the mining sector Featured or quoted in The Globe and Mail, CBC News, Lethbridge Herald, and Canadian Family Offices Magazine Biography Most organisations have already run AI pilots. The harder question is what happens after the proof of concept ends. Procurement standards stay unclear, and the governance frameworks people quote in slides do not survive contact with real workflows. This is the gap Sidney Shapiro works in. He is Assistant Professor of Business Analytics at the Dhillon School of Business at the University of Lethbridge, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer Science. Published work includes a Routledge book chapter on AI governance frameworks for higher education and a forthcoming IGI Global chapter on the governance of generative AI. Both set out what responsible deployment actually requires from organisations. His authority on the operational side comes from a decade in data-centric roles before academia. He worked as a Data Science Manager at Sofvie, an occupational health and safety software company in the mining sector, and previously coordinated the Business Analytics graduate program at Cambrian College. That background shapes how he addresses the procurement and integration problems that follow proof of concept, which is where most AI initiatives slow or stall. Public engagement keeps the work current. Shapiro hosts the AI in Action podcast, interviewing practitioners and researchers across healthcare, education, finance, and software development on what AI deployment actually looks like in their organisations. He also organises the Southern Alberta AI Conference. Recent audiences include Indigenous Services Canada, McCain Foods, EY Calgary, CMC Alberta, and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. These are buyers with low tolerance for vendor language and high tolerance for hard questions. Key speaking topics AI governance and responsible deployment Generative AI in business and society Data privacy and trust in AI systems AI literacy for non-technical leaders Analytics leadership and digital transformation AI in higher education policy Ideal for C-suite leadership teams and boards facing AI governance and accountability decisions CIOs, CTOs, and Chief Data Officers moving AI from pilot to operational deployment Public sector leaders, including municipal and federal government, working under privacy and equity constraints on AI adoption Higher education executives shaping institutional policy on generative AI in teaching and research Audience outcomes A working framework for evaluating vendor AI claims against operational reality, in time to shape procurement decisions Sharper questions to ask of any AI initiative on data governance and where accountability sits when AI is wrong A grounded view of what generative AI does well today and where it still fails, with the implications for organisational adoption Reference points for designing operational AI governance: procurement standards, acceptable-use policies, and accountability mechanisms

Why organisations work with Dr Ted James His concurrent roles – co-directing a Harvard Medical School executive programme and leading enterprise transformation across an 8-hospital health system – mean the frameworks he delivers are being tested in live operational conditions, not drawn from retrospective case studies. He holds a Master of Science in Healthcare Management from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health alongside a surgical oncology career, which means he translates between clinical and executive registers without simplifying either. His advisory work with biotech and medical device companies, including a fractional CMO role at Perimeter Medical Imaging AI guiding FDA strategy for AI-enabled surgical technology, gives him a vendor-facing perspective that most health system speakers cannot offer. He built an NIH-funded research portfolio while simultaneously holding senior clinical governance roles at a Harvard-affiliated academic medical centre. His Harvard Global Health Care Leaders Program draws participants from more than 200 countries, which means his analysis of healthcare leadership is genuinely comparative rather than US-centric. Biography highlights System Physician Executive, Endeavor Health Cancer Institute, leading clinical strategy and care transformation across an 8-hospital integrated health system Co-Director, Global Health Care Leaders Program, Harvard Medical School Executive Education which draws participants from more than 200 countries Faculty, Harvard Medical School; former Associate Professor of Surgery Former Chief of Breast Surgical Oncology, Vice Chair of Academic Affairs in Surgery, and Medical Director of the Breast Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Fractional Chief Medical Officer, Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, guiding medical and regulatory strategy for AI-enabled breast cancer surgery technology Master of Science in Healthcare Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Co-author, The OAS CAHPS Compendium: A Guidebook for Improving Patient Experience and Outcomes Across the Ambulatory Surgery Continuum Biography Ted James spent the first part of his executive career doing something most physician leaders are never asked to do at the same time: running a nationally accredited multidisciplinary breast programme, leading academic affairs for a surgery department, and building an NIH-funded research portfolio – all within a Harvard-affiliated academic health system. That compression of roles at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is the biographical fact most relevant to why health organisations bring him in. He has worked the intersection of clinical governance, academic leadership, and service-line management from the inside. He is now System Physician Executive for the Endeavor Health Cancer Institute, responsible for clinical strategy and enterprise-wide care transformation across eight hospitals. Alongside that operational role, he co-directs the Global Health Care Leaders Program at Harvard Medical School: a flagship executive education programme with a global participant base spanning more than 200 countries. His Harvard-based work focuses on the mechanics of how healthcare leaders design care models, adopt digital health technology, and lead transformation in systems that resist it. His commercial advisory work adds a third register. As fractional Chief Medical Officer at Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, he is helping advance AI-enabled surgical imaging technology toward FDA approval; work that gives him first-hand knowledge of how healthcare technology moves from clinical concept to operational deployment. It is a vantage point most hospital executives simply do not have. His co-authored book, The OAS CAHPS Compendium, anchors the academic dimension of his work in something measurable: patient experience and outcomes in ambulatory surgery. The through-line across all three roles is the same question: how do you build organisations in which clinical excellence and operational performance reinforce each other rather than compete? Key speaking topics Healthcare transformation and system leadership Physician and clinical leadership development Organisational culture in complex health systems Digital health strategy and technology adoption Cancer care innovation and oncology strategy Patient experience and quality improvement Clinician resilience and workforce performance Ideal for Hospital and health system CEOs, CMOs, and boards navigating transformation programmes Physician and clinical leaders developing executive capability Biotech, medical device, and digital health organisations seeking clinical strategic credibility Academic medical centre leadership teams managing the tension between research, education, and care delivery Audience outcomes A diagnostic framework for identifying where clinical culture is enabling or blocking organisational change Practical tools for developing physician leaders within complex, resource-constrained systems Clarity on evaluating and deploying digital health and AI-enabled technology against real clinical workflows An understanding of how academic, operational, and innovation goals can be aligned within a single leadership approach Approaches for addressing clinician burnout while maintaining performance standards