Empreendedorismo speakers

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

Why organisations work with 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 Tye Caldwell He built a venture-backed marketplace inside an industry with almost no tech infrastructure, took it to more than 1,000 cities, and exited it. The arc is rare and instructive. He pairs 26 years as a working salon operator with the founder seat, giving him operator credibility that pure tech founders cannot replicate. He has been through the full investor cycle, accelerators including Google for Startups, the EY Entrepreneurs Access Network, accelerator wins, growth pressure, and an acquisition under strain. The lessons are first-hand. He addresses economic mobility and the practical mechanics of creating earning opportunities in underserved markets, drawn from a marketplace that did exactly that for independent stylists and barbers. He is comfortable in front of corporate audiences and small business audiences, having spoken at Google, on Rolling Stone Culture Council panels, and at continuing education events where his book is part of the curriculum. Biography highlights Cofounder and former Chief Strategy Officer, ShearShare, acquired November 2024 Winner, Judges’ Favorite, Google Demo Day 2018 (first Texas startup to win) 2024 EY Entrepreneurs Access Network cohort member Pitchbook Black Founder to Watch 2023; Power 100 Business Leaders of Color 2023 Author, “Mentored by Failure: A 5-Point Guide to Long-Term Success in the Beauty & Style Industry,” used in continuing education curricula 26 years as a master barber-stylist and former owner of an award-winning Dallas salon Biography ShearShare started not as an app but as a workaround. Caldwell, running an award-winning Dallas salon, noticed that stylists and barbers wanted day leases rather than long contracts. He spent three years manually matching cosmetologists to empty chairs before building the platform. By the time the company won Judges’ Favorite at Google Demo Day 2018, the operating model had already been pressure-tested by a working salon owner. The company went on to reach more than 1,000 cities, secured a corporate partnership with JC Penney’s salon network, and was selected for the 2024 EY Entrepreneurs Access Network cohort. In November 2024, ShearShare was acquired by a strategic buyer in the industry and the Caldwells exited. The full arc, identification of an underserved category, accelerator traction, growth capital, partnership wins, and an acquisition under financial strain, gives Caldwell unusual range as a commentator on what scale actually costs. He pairs that founder track with 26 years inside the industry he disrupted. He is a master barber-stylist, an educator, an advisory board member for beauty schools, and the author of “Mentored by Failure,” a #1 bestselling guide used in continuing education curricula. Operator credibility runs through the work, not as a marketing line but as the source of the thesis. His most cited talks address how to lead a startup when the seat is peerless, how to translate operator expertise into a tech founder’s commercial vocabulary, and how marketplaces can be designed to move earnings into underserved communities. He has been recognised as a Pitchbook Black Founder to Watch and a Power 100 Business Leader of Color, and his work has been profiled in Fast Company, the New York Times, Forbes and TechCrunch. Key speaking topics B2B marketplace founding and scaling Operator-to-tech-founder transition Economic mobility through platform design Startup CEO resilience and decision-making Co-founder partnerships and founder relationships Accelerator and venture capital experience Small business growth in the beauty and services industry Ideal for Founders, scale-up CEOs, and venture-backed leadership teams Corporate innovation, marketplace and platform business unit leads Diversity and supplier development teams sourcing operator-credible voices Industry associations and continuing education programmes in beauty, barbering and services Audience outcomes A founder account of building a marketplace inside a low-tech, fragmented industry The operational reality of moving from owner-operator to venture-backed CEO Specifics on how accelerators, corporate partnerships and capital cycles played out across one company’s arc A practitioner view of how marketplace design can create earnings access in underserved markets Direct lessons from an acquisition under financial pressure, not a polished exit narrative

Why organisations work with Elena Boheme She has run the full development lifecycle, from hotel operator design management and fit-out contracting through to property M&A and family office advisory. That breadth is rare; most advisors sit on one side of the design, build, or operate split. She co-founded Metrix Projects and Metrix Advisory in the Kingdom, and sits on the advisory board of RED Summit KSA and the Modern Building Summit KSA. That places her inside the rooms where Saudi development decisions are made, not adjacent to them. She works credibly across the capital stack, advising AETOS MFO on luxury asset and yacht financing and Triversa Holding at executive board level. International family offices use her to translate Gulf real estate exposure into something they can actually govern. She operates in English, French, and Russian fluently, with working Arabic and Mandarin, and has executed projects in China, Macau, Korea, Monaco, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Cross-cultural deal structuring is a practised skill, not a claim. Biography highlights Co-founder and Development Director, Metrix Projects; co-founder, Metrix Advisory and AETOS MFO. Executive Board Member, Triversa Holding. Strategic Advisor on Project Management, Coldwell Banker Commercial Saudi Arabia. Advisory Board member, RED Summit KSA, and Advisory Board member plus moderator, Modern Building Summit KSA 2025. Speaker and moderator across AlMashtal Knowledge of Design 2024, Cityscape Saudi Arabia 2024, Hospitality Leadership and F&B Forum UAE 2025, Furtech Show Dubai 2025, and Women in Private Equity Forum London 2025. Host of LinkedIn Live series Development Dialogues and author of the LinkedIn newsletter Project Within. Biography Saudi Arabia’s development pipeline is the largest in the world and the least forgiving. International capital arrives expecting Dubai and discovers a market with its own regulatory architecture, its own localisation requirements, and its own definition of what delivered means. Elena Boheme’s work sits inside that translation problem. She co-founded Metrix Projects and Metrix Advisory in Riyadh to do one specific job: take hospitality and residential developments from concept through to operational handover without the gaps that quietly consume budget. Before that, she spent a decade on hotel operator design management, fit-out contracting, and property development across China, Macau, Korea, Monaco, and the UAE, including hospitality projects valued at over two billion US dollars in Korea and Macau. A second strand of her work runs through capital. She co-founded AETOS MFO, a multi-family office advising on luxury real estate and yacht financing, and sits as an executive board member at Triversa Holding and strategic advisor on project management to Coldwell Banker Commercial Saudi Arabia. The combination matters: developers usually understand bricks, family offices usually understand money, and Saudi-bound investors need someone who can hold both sides of the conversation at once. She moderates and chairs across the Kingdom’s main industry platforms, including the RED Summit KSA advisory board, the Modern Building Summit KSA, Cityscape Saudi Arabia, and AlMashtal Knowledge of Design, and hosts the LinkedIn Live series Development Dialogues. The track record is operational rather than academic. For a leadership team weighing a Vision 2030 entry, that is the more useful kind of credibility. Key speaking topics Project deliverability in Saudi Arabia Localisation and market entry strategy for the Kingdom Real estate development lifecycle, from design through operations Cross-cultural deal structuring in the Gulf Women in real estate development and leadership Family office exposure to Gulf real estate Ideal for International hospitality operators and developers planning entry into Saudi Arabia Family offices and private investors building Gulf real estate exposure Boards of project management, design, and construction firms expanding into the Kingdom C-suite teams at firms shifting from regional MENA presence to substantive KSA delivery Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of what separates a signed Saudi deal from a delivered asset The localisation choices that decide whether a foreign operator can actually execute in the Kingdom A working map of how design, build, operate, and capital decisions interact across a Gulf development Specific failure modes she has seen at the hand-off between international design teams and local execution A perspective on Saudi development from someone embedded in it, not commenting from outside

Why organisations work with Elena García Armada She has done what most deep-tech founders only describe: taken a robotics breakthrough from CSIC laboratory bench into certified clinical use, through a company she still runs. Her European Inventor Award Popular Prize from the European Patent Office gives her a credential most innovation speakers cannot match, anchored in a specific patented invention, not a body of opinion. She speaks fluently across two worlds that rarely meet on the same stage: tenured senior scientist at CSIC and CEO of a regulated medical device company, with operational responsibility for staff, capital, and clinical outcomes. Her work sits at the intersection of robotics, AI-driven control, and biomedical engineering, which makes her credible on the practical question of how emerging technologies translate into products under real regulatory and commercial constraints. Biography highlights CEO and co-founder of Marsi Bionics, the CSIC-UPM spin-off that brought paediatric exoskeletons to clinical use. Senior tenured scientist at the Centre for Automation and Robotics (CAR), CSIC-UPM, leading research on legged robots and exoskeletons. PhD in robotic engineering, Polytechnic University of Madrid; postdoctoral training at MIT’s Leg Laboratory. European Inventor Award Popular Prize 2022, European Patent Office; finalist EU Women Innovators Award 2021; Gold Medal of the Spanish Red Cross 2022. Author of “Los robots y sus capacidades” and “Robots” (Catarata / Editorial CSIC). Doctor honoris causa, Miguel de Cervantes European University, 2023; Premio Nacional Reina Letizia for Research and Innovation, 2023. Biography Most exoskeletons in research labs do not fit children. The mechanics, the weight, the control systems, and the regulatory pathway for a paediatric medical device are harder than the adult equivalents, and the commercial incentives to solve them are weaker. ATLAS 2030, the world’s first adaptable paediatric exoskeleton, exists because Elena García Armada chose to work on the harder version of the problem. The technical work began at the Centre for Automation and Robotics, the joint CSIC and Polytechnic University of Madrid centre where she is a senior tenured scientist. The commercial work began in 2013, when she co-founded Marsi Bionics as a CSIC spin-off to take the technology out of the lab and into rehabilitation centres and hospitals. Her credentials sit on both sides of that journey. Postdoctoral training at MIT’s Leg Laboratory on the research side; CEO of a regulated medical device company on the commercial side. The European Patent Office awarded her the Popular Prize of the 2022 European Inventor Award for the underlying invention, and the Spanish state has recognised the social impact with the Premio Nacional Reina Letizia and the Red Cross Gold Medal. What is unusual is not the recognition. It is that the same person holds the patent, runs the company, and answers for the clinical outcomes. That combination is rare in deep-tech innovation, and it is what makes her useful to boards thinking about how science-led ventures actually become businesses. Key speaking topics Deep-tech commercialisation Robotics and exoskeleton technology Biomedical engineering and assistive devices Innovation in regulated industries Science-led entrepreneurship AI-driven control systems in robotics Women in STEM and inclusive innovation Ideal for Boards and executive teams investing in or running deep-tech and medtech ventures Innovation, R&D and CTO functions seeking credible perspective on lab-to-market translation Healthcare and life-sciences leaders working on assistive and rehabilitation technology Audiences focused on STEM talent strategy and women in engineering Audience outcomes A concrete view of what it takes to move a robotics breakthrough from research into a regulated, commercial product A sharper sense of how academic science, patents, and venture-building reinforce one another when handled by the same hand Direct exposure to a working case of paediatric exoskeleton design, with the engineering, clinical, and commercial choices made visible A grounded perspective on the role of women in technical leadership of European deep-tech

Why organisations work with Dr Elsa Sotiriadis She speaks about digital biology from inside the field, with a working PhD in synthetic biology from Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong, not as a commentator translating other people’s research. Her early-stage VC years at SOSV, where she helped build 25 deep tech and biotech start-ups, give her a founder-level view of which frontier-science claims hold up when money and product cycles are attached. She frames biotech alongside AI, computation and materials, which matches how corporate strategy teams actually have to evaluate these shifts rather than through isolated technology silos. Her science-fiction work, including the Writers of the Future honourable-mention novella Replicon, gives her a distinct capability for painting concrete, specific future scenarios rather than generic trend talks. She is comfortable with board-level audiences and Fortune 500 innovation teams, and has advised on innovation strategy across sustainability, energy and digital biology. Biography highlights International PhD in synthetic biology, Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong. Master of Research in Synthetic and Systems Biology, Imperial College London. Former early-stage venture capitalist at SOSV, where she helped build 25 deep tech start-ups. PhD research on programmable DNA aptamers as anti-cancer agents, recognised with awards including from MIT and the Swiss Academy of Sciences. Contributor to Singularity Hub; featured by Silicon Republic among 15 women to follow in biotech. Science-fiction author (pen name Elsa Solaris / EA Solaris); debut novella Replicon received an honourable mention at the Writers of the Future competition. TEDx speaker on digital biology at TEDx University of Nicosia. Biography Digital biology is quietly turning life itself into a design space. DNA can now be read, written and programmed; cells can be engineered to produce materials, medicines and food; and computation is folding biology into a development stack that looks increasingly like software. For most boards, this is still an unfamiliar language. Dr Elsa Sotiriadis works at the centre of that language. Her international PhD in synthetic biology, taken jointly at Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong, focused on programmable DNA aptamers as anti-cancer agents, a line of research recognised by MIT and the Swiss Academy of Sciences. She then moved from the lab into venture capital at SOSV, one of the most active early-stage deep tech investors, where she helped build 25 start-ups across biotech and frontier science. That combination shapes how she speaks. She is not a generalist trend-spotter. She can read a scientific claim, weigh it against a business model, and tell a corporate audience what is worth taking seriously in the next five to ten years. She has advised governments and Fortune 500 companies on innovation strategy across sustainability, energy and digital biology, and reaches wider audiences through Singularity Hub, TEDx and her science fiction, written under the pen name Elsa Solaris. Her debut novella Replicon received an honourable mention at the Writers of the Future competition. Senior teams bring her in when the questions get specific. Where is synthetic biology likely to hit our supply chain. What does it mean for our R and D portfolio when biology starts to behave like software. Which parts of the convergence story between AI, biotech and materials should our strategy actually plan for. Key speaking topics Digital biology and synthetic biology Frontier and deep technology convergence Biotech and healthcare innovation Climate, materials and industrial biotech Strategic foresight and long-range scenario thinking Deep tech venture building and start-up ecosystems Ideal for Board and executive strategy sessions evaluating exposure to biotech and frontier-science shifts. R and D, innovation and venture leaders in pharma, materials, food, chemicals and energy. Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Scientific Officers shaping long-range technology bets. Corporate foresight and futures teams working on scenarios beyond the next planning cycle. Audience outcomes A working mental model of what “digital biology” actually means and where it is already commercial. A clearer view of which biotech, AI and deep tech claims are credible versus speculative on current evidence. Specific examples of deep tech start-ups reshaping health, materials, food and energy. Concrete scenarios of how biology-as-technology could reshape their own sector in the next decade. A sharper question set to take back into their own strategy and R and D conversations.

Why organisations work with Emilie Bellet She has built one of the UK’s largest women-focused financial education communities from scratch, which gives her a live read on what employees actually ask, avoid and misunderstand about money. She pairs a Lehman Brothers and Trilantic private equity background with a mass-market book and weekly podcast, so she can move between a CFO audience and a shop-floor audience without shifting register. Her work gives employers a concrete way to connect financial wellbeing, pay equity and retention of senior women, three agendas that are usually owned by different teams and rarely joined up. She is a named voice in the UK financial media (Financial Times, The i Paper, Vogue, BBC), which makes her credible to finance services clients where brand risk around money content is high. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Vestpod, a financial education platform and community for women. Author of “You’re Not Broke, You’re Pre-Rich” (Octopus / Little, Brown) and contributor to “The WealthTech Book” (Wiley). Host of “The Wallet”, a weekly personal finance podcast. Columnist for the Financial Times and The i Paper; featured in Vogue, Forbes, BBC, The Guardian, Stylist and Courier. Former private equity professional at Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking and Trilantic Capital Partners, London. Named in the Women in FinTech Powerlist (Rising Stars) and shortlisted for Disruptor of the Year at the Women in Finance Awards. Biography Most financial education inside large employers stops at pensions and payroll. It rarely answers the questions people actually carry into Monday morning: how to invest a first bonus, whether to buy, how to talk about money with a partner, what to do with a redundancy package. Vestpod was built to close that gap, and it has become one of the UK’s most engaged communities on women and money. The founder’s route in is unusual. Emilie spent seven years in private equity at Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking and Trilantic Capital Partners in London before leaving the buy-side to build a platform she felt the market was not serving. That background matters for corporate audiences because she is not a lifestyle commentator, she is a former investor who now translates institutional finance into language a general workforce can use. The work has two sides that employers buy together. “You’re Not Broke, You’re Pre-Rich”, published by Octopus, codified the personal finance curriculum; the weekly newsletter, The Wallet podcast and Money Matters festival keep it current. Inside companies, that content becomes workshops on investing basics, the gender wealth gap and financial confidence, delivered for names including Amazon, BCG, Coutts, NatWest and Palo Alto Networks. Her media footprint is the credibility backstop. Regular columns in the Financial Times and The i Paper, plus coverage in Vogue, Forbes, BBC and The Guardian, put her in front of the audience senior HR and DEI teams are trying to reach, and give risk-sensitive financial services clients a known name they can put on a programme. Key speaking topics Women and wealth Financial wellbeing in the workplace The gender wealth and investment gap Personal finance and investing fundamentals Financial confidence and money mindset WealthTech and financial inclusion Entrepreneurship and building a consumer brand Ideal for CHROs and heads of reward designing financial wellbeing into benefits strategy DEI and women’s network leads who need content beyond mentoring and panels Financial services and WealthTech firms running client-facing events for women investors Internal International Women’s Day, Financial Wellness Month and employee festival programmes Audience outcomes A clear picture of where the gender wealth gap comes from and which levers an employer can actually pull Specific language and frameworks employees can use to take the next step on saving, investing or debt Renewed confidence to engage with pension, share scheme and investment decisions that many defer by default A sharper internal case for treating financial wellbeing as part of retention and inclusion strategy, not a standalone perk

Why organisations work with Eric Ries He authored the operating method most used by modern product teams. When a CFO asks how an innovation portfolio should be measured and governed, the answer most large companies reach for is his. He has tested the method inside GE, IBM, Intuit, and the US federal government, not just early-stage startups, so the case studies he draws on are at enterprise scale. He founded the Long-Term Stock Exchange, a SEC-approved national securities exchange. That gives him a working perspective on how ownership structure and reporting cadence shape executive behaviour, well beyond a consultant’s view. His new book Incorruptible reframes corporate governance as a strategic act, addressing why successful companies drift from the principles that built them. Useful for boards under pressure on mission, accountability, and long-term value. Biography highlights Author of The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, and Incorruptible (Authors Equity, distributed by Simon & Schuster, 2026). Founder and Executive Chairman of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, approved by the SEC in 2019. Architect of GE’s FastWorks program under CEO Jeff Immelt, applied across thousands of GE executives. Former Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School and IDEO Fellow; advisor to Pivotal. Ranked #12 on the Thinkers50 list (2019); The Lean Startup on the Thinkers50 Management Classics Booklist (2023). Biography Most large companies are excellent at running the business they already have and unreliable at building the next one. The systems that govern the core business, budgets, milestones, quarterly review, were not designed for ventures whose value is mostly unknown at the point of funding. Eric Ries spent two decades turning that mismatch into a working method. The Lean Startup, published in 2011, codified validated learning, the minimum viable product, and innovation accounting as a portable management discipline. The book has been translated into more than thirty languages and now sits on the Thinkers50 Management Classics Booklist. Its follow-up, The Startup Way, captured what happens when those ideas are pushed into established companies. The case studies are drawn from inside GE, where Ries worked with CEO Jeff Immelt on the FastWorks program, alongside engagements with IBM, Intuit, and the US federal government. The governance question runs through all of his work. In 2015 he proposed the Long-Term Stock Exchange in The Lean Startup; the SEC approved LTSE as a national securities exchange in 2019, and Ries serves as Executive Chairman. His 2026 book Incorruptible, published by Authors Equity and distributed by Simon & Schuster, argues that good companies fail predictably because ownership, incentives, and accountability quietly reshape behaviour as they scale. The book was selected for the Thinkers50 Best New Management Booklist. What separates Ries from other innovation speakers is range. He has authored the methodology, run the corporate transformations that test it, and built a regulated capital-markets venue to address the structural problem his books diagnose. For senior teams that want innovation handled as a portfolio discipline, not a culture programme, he is the source. Key speaking topics Lean Startup methodology Innovation accounting and the management of internal ventures Entrepreneurial management inside established companies Corporate governance and long-term value AI applied to product validation and customer acquisition The Long-Term Stock Exchange and capital-markets reform Ideal for CEOs and boards of public companies wrestling with quarterly pressure versus long-horizon investment. Chief innovation, strategy, and transformation officers responsible for portfolios of new ventures inside large organisations. Founders and senior leaders of scale-up companies preparing for institutional ownership. Corporate development and venture teams looking to apply validated-learning discipline to internal investment decisions. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for measuring new ventures separately from the core business, drawn directly from innovation accounting. A clear diagnosis of why most corporate innovation programmes fail at the governance layer rather than the creativity layer. A view of how ownership structure, board cadence, and reporting rules quietly shape executive behaviour over time. Specific case material from GE, IBM, Intuit, and US federal agencies that audiences can map onto their own structures.

Why organisations work with Erika Lucas Her accelerator, run in partnership with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned startups since 2017. She draws on live operating experience, finding and scaling founders that most capital systems miss. Her venture fund, VEST Her Ventures, invests in women-led companies in the care economy and the future of work. She brings a current portfolio view of where workforce shifts and regulatory pressure are opening commercial opportunities, and the market is under-pricing. She speaks the language of the full capital stack. As a former private equity Partner and as Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, she is fluent in public incentives, PE, VC, and bank credit, which matters for boards making complex allocation decisions. Her TED talk, “America’s Trillion Dollar Blindspot,” makes a market-sizing case for capital flowing to overlooked founders. That is the register that senior leaders and investment committees respond to. She operates from Oklahoma City, away from the coastal hubs from which most speakers on this topic come. For companies building workforce, consumer, or policy strategies outside a handful of metros, her ground-level view is difficult to source elsewhere. Biography highlights Co-founder of StitchCrew, its accelerator with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned startups since 2017 Founder and General Partner of VEST Her Ventures, an early-stage venture fund investing in women-led companies in the care economy and future of work TED speaker: “America’s Trillion Dollar Blindspot” (TEDxOU) Host of the VEST Her Podcast, examining the structural barriers to women’s economic advancement Board of Directors at Arvest Bank; Fellow at the Just Economy Institute; Member of the Latino Corporate Directors Association Former Partner at a US and European private equity firm; former Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, where 38 international companies located or expanded during her tenure Biography Only a sliver of venture capital reaches women and founders of colour. The commercial cost of that pattern is usually understated. Whole categories of customers, markets, and operators are being systematically under-priced by capital that is trained to look in the same handful of places. StitchCrew was built on that reading of the market. Co-founded with her husband Chris in 2016, it runs an accelerator in partnership with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned founders. The positioning matters. It sits in the middle of the country, not on a coastal hub, and the deal flow reflects markets that most East Coast or Bay Area funds never see. The logic extended into investment. VEST Her Ventures, founded in 2022, backs early-stage women-led companies in the care economy and future of work, two sectors where demand is visibly running ahead of available capital. The fund came together in weeks. Two million dollars was raised in two months, entirely from women limited partners based in the middle of the country. The throughline runs back through her earlier career. She was a Partner at a private equity firm with investments in the United States and Europe, and Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, where 38 international companies located or expanded during her tenure. She sits on the board of Arvest Bank, is a Fellow at the Just Economy Institute, and hosts the VEST Her Podcast, where the repeated question is what it would take for American capital to stop leaving its most profitable markets untouched. Key speaking topics Access to capital and overlooked markets Entrepreneurship and the new majority economy The care economy and future of work Women in leadership and ownership Venture capital and economic inclusion Economic mobility and public-private strategy Ideal for Corporate boards and Chief Investment Officers are looking for the next source of portfolio growth Private equity and venture investment committees assessing deal flow and diversification CHROs and heads of talent building workforce and care infrastructure strategies Economic development agencies, chambers of commerce, and regional leadership forums are working on commercial inclusion Audience outcomes A sharper commercial argument for investing in overlooked founders and markets, drawn from a live accelerator and an active venture portfolio A clearer map of where venture and growth capital actually lands in the United States, and which geographies and founder profiles it consistently misses Named sectors where consumer and workforce change is already running ahead of investment capital, including the care economy and the infrastructure of work A vocabulary for discussing inclusion in commercial terms, usable with boards, investment committees, and senior executives who are sceptical of fairness-led framing

Why organisations work with Estefania Cervantes She speaks from a documented turnaround, not a tagline. She lost her leg at 18 mid-degree, completed her studies at Universidad Iberoamericana, and built a registered Mexican civil association that delivers prosthetics and rehabilitation. Ampuvalia gives her a working operator’s vocabulary. Audiences hear from someone who has had to fund, govern, and scale a small organisation, which translates resilience into language a senior team recognises. Her book “Actitud Que Trasciende” gives Spanish-speaking audiences a structured account of recovery and reinvention they can hand to teams afterward, rather than a one-off keynote moment. She holds the 2015 Premio Ibero-Bremond-FICSAC Compromiso Social, an institutional recognition from a serious Mexican university, not a self-issued award. She has lived the inclusion conversation from the disability side without making it a compliance lecture, which is what most internal DEI programmes are quietly looking for. Biography highlights Founder of Ampuvalia, a Mexican civil association providing physical therapy, prosthetics, and peer support to the limb-loss community since 2015. Author of “Actitud Que Trasciende”, a Spanish-language book on rebuilding life and identity after limb loss. Recipient of the Premio Ibero-Bremond-FICSAC Compromiso Social, awarded by Universidad Iberoamericana. Featured climber on the 2019 ROMP Cotopaxi expedition, documented in the Merrell-produced short film “In Her Shoes”. Graduate in International Business Administration, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. Bilingual speaker in Spanish and English, with a Latin American operating base that is uncommon on bureau rosters at this level. Biography A car accident in Mexico City interrupted a second-semester business student’s degree and removed her right leg. The student returned to Universidad Iberoamericana, finished her programme, and four years later registered Ampuvalia as a civil association to fund prosthetics and rehabilitation for other amputees in Mexico. That sequence of facts is the spine of her credibility. The work since has been operational rather than purely autobiographical. Ampuvalia coordinates physical therapy, prosthesis fitting, and peer-support sessions, the unglamorous middle of disability recovery that public storytelling usually skips. Her Spanish-language book “Actitud Que Trasciende” treats limb loss as a problem of identity and decision-making, not a story of triumph, which is what makes it usable inside coaching engagements. Universidad Iberoamericana awarded her the Premio Ibero-Bremond-FICSAC Compromiso Social in 2015 for that work, and the 2019 ROMP ascent of Cotopaxi placed her in the Merrell-produced documentary “In Her Shoes” alongside other amputee climbers. These are the named credentials. The reason to put her in front of a senior team is that she can describe, in operating terms, what it took to keep functioning when the original plan was no longer available, and translate that into something a leadership audience can use the next morning. Key speaking topics Resilience after acute personal setback Reinvention of identity and purpose Disability inclusion in Latin American workplaces Founding and running a mission-led nonprofit Executive coaching grounded in lived recovery Bilingual leadership for Spanish and English audiences Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads commissioning substantive disability inclusion content for Latin American or bilingual workforces Latin American leadership conferences and Spanish-language internal events Sales kick-offs and annual conferences seeking a credible resilience anchor speaker Executive coaching programmes in Mexico and the wider Spanish-speaking region Audience outcomes A working definition of resilience that survives contact with a real organisational setback A first-hand account of disability inclusion told without compliance language A model for how a small, mission-led organisation gets built and funded in Mexico A bilingual perspective that lands with Spanish-first audiences without translation flattening

Why organisations work with Farah Nanji A working framework for high-pressure performance built from a decade inside Formula 1 culture and a decade as the touring artist NINJA, two domains where small lapses are publicly visible. A founder’s view of building a private leadership community, Regents Racing, that uses motorsport psychology as a development tool for executives and members. A rare first-person account of rewiring cognitive function around dyspraxia, delivered as a TEDx keynote at the Luxembourg Philharmonie and translated into practical lessons on neurodivergence at work. A reference network drawn from Mission Makers, the podcast she founded at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which has hosted leaders across music, motorsport and business. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Regents Racing, a private leadership community using motorsport psychology, with roots at Regent’s University London. CEO of The Formula Mind, Regents Racing’s executive-facing subsidiary exploring Formula 1 as a lens for leadership and peak performance. TEDx speaker at TEDxLuxembourgCity, 2019, delivered at the Luxembourg Philharmonie. Producer and host of Mission Makers, a podcast launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Lecturer at Regent’s University London and Point Blank Music School. Performing artist as NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, Goodwood Festival of Speed, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Biography Formula 1 teams treat composure as an engineered system. Sleep, nutrition, debrief routines and pre-race protocols are sequenced so that the driver can make sound decisions when the cost of a wrong one is highest. Regents Racing was built to translate that discipline into a leadership setting, taking senior executives and members through experiences that pressure-test how they prepare, recover and decide. The organisation began in 2011 at Regent’s University London as a community of competitive drivers and has grown into a private network with programming around Formula 1 weekends in Monaco, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the Goodwood Festival of Speed and factory tours. Its executive-facing subsidiary, The Formula Mind, sits closer to senior leadership development. A second strand of the work comes from a personal record. Diagnosed with dyspraxia at 15, Nanji built a parallel career as the touring artist NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Her TEDx talk at the Luxembourg Philharmonie in 2019 set out how she rewired cognitive function around the condition, and that account is now a core part of her keynote work on neurodivergence and resilience. The third strand is Mission Makers, the podcast she launched during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020. The show has interviewed leaders across music, motorsport and business, and it doubles as her research engine: the conversations feed the frameworks she brings into the room when she speaks. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under pressure Formula 1 psychology and peak performance Resilience and self-leadership Neurodivergence and dyspraxia at work High-performance teams Entrepreneurship and founding a community-based business Music, creativity and performance discipline Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes focused on composure and decision-making under pressure Boards and ExCo audiences exploring high-performance culture DEI, talent and HR audiences working on neurodivergence and inclusive performance Conferences seeking a hybrid keynote and live performance from a single artist Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what high-performance preparation, recovery and debrief actually look like in Formula 1, and where the parallels to executive work hold A first-person account of building cognitive routines around dyspraxia, with direct application for neurodivergent talent in the workforce A clearer sense of how leaders sustain composure when the margin for error is thin A founder’s perspective on building a private community business that crosses motorsport, music and leadership

Why organisations work with Faye Dicker A professional broadcaster trained at BBC Radio Bristol who hosts awards, conferences, and panels with the production discipline of live radio rather than the improvised feel of a guest MC. Built Freelance Mum from a Bristol meet-up in 2014 into a national network with hubs across the UK, giving her a working understanding of how self-employed parents actually engage with business communities. Recognised on the Top 100 Most Influential Women in the West list in 2018 and 2019, named Freelance Ambassador of the Year, and listed in the f:Entrepreneur #iAlso100 in 2025. Voiceover and presentation craft built across Channel 4, BBC Radio 4’s Education Matters, and BBC Radio Bristol, which makes her credible on the practical realities of freelance media careers. Biography highlights BBC-trained broadcaster; presented the early breakfast show on BBC Radio Bristol. Equity Card holder from a speaking role on BBC’s Casualty at 16. Theatre graduate of Dartington College of Arts. Television production credits on Channel 4’s Collectors’ Lot and The Chelsea Flower Show. Founder of Freelance Mum (2013), described as the UK’s child-friendly business network for self-employed parents. Top 100 Most Influential Women in the West (2018, 2019); f:Entrepreneur #iAlso100 (2025). Biography The shape of work for self-employed parents has changed faster than the institutions around them. Freelance careers, school-run logistics, and business-building rarely fit the format of a standard networking room. Faye Dicker built Freelance Mum in 2013 to address that gap, starting with a facilitated walk around Bristol’s Harbourside with fifteen women and their children, and growing it into a UK-wide network of hubs run by local organisers. Her broadcasting work runs in parallel. Trained at BBC Radio Bristol, where she presented the early breakfast show, she has carried the discipline of live radio into corporate hosting, conference chairing, and awards MC work. Her television production background includes Channel 4’s Collectors’ Lot and The Chelsea Flower Show, and her early reporting work was on BBC Radio 4’s Education Matters. That dual track, professional broadcaster and community-builder, is what organisations engage her for. She brings the timing and warmth of a trained presenter to the room, and a working understanding of self-employed life to the content. Recognition on the Top 100 Most Influential Women in the West list, the Freelance Ambassador of the Year award, and the f:Entrepreneur #iAlso100 reflects both halves of the work. Key speaking topics Freelance careers and self-employment Community-building and networking Working parenthood and entrepreneurship Event hosting and live broadcasting craft Voiceover and broadcast media careers Personal brand for freelancers Ideal for Conference and awards organisers seeking a professional broadcaster as host or MC Networks and communities serving self-employed and parent workers Internal events on flexible working, freelance talent, and returner programmes Marketing and communications teams hiring a presenter for branded content or live activation Audience outcomes A clearer view of how self-employed parents actually engage with work and community Practical reference points from the growth of Freelance Mum from local meet-up to national network Insight into the craft of professional hosting and live broadcast as a business skill A sharper sense of how to build participation in events designed for non-traditional workers