Marc Mekki
Most enterprises now have AI on the agenda but no method for getting it into the operating model. Pilots stall, design teams default to features instead of customer problems, and the organisation cannot tell the difference between a real innovation portfolio and a list of experiments. The gap is not ambition. It is discipline.
Marc Mekki helps enterprises convert emerging technology, particularly AI, into working products and customer experiences using design thinking and lean innovation methods.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Marc Mekki
- He has built the kind of products he teaches about. Botsmith, his innovation lab, ships experimental tools using AI, AR/VR and cloud, so the method comes from practice, not theory.
- He teaches design thinking to consulting and corporate audiences at PwC Academy, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership and LEORON, where the bar for substance is set by professional services standards.
- He works fluently across China, Europe and the Middle East after twenty years of operating in those markets, which is rare for an innovation speaker.
- His MIT Sloan certified design thinking grounding gives senior teams confidence that the frameworks have an institutional pedigree, not a TED-talk one.
- He frames AI as a human-centred product problem rather than a model selection problem, which is the conversation most boards now need.
Biography highlights
- Co-founder of Botsmith, an innovation lab building experimental software using AI, AR/VR and cloud.
- MIT Sloan Certified Design Thinking practitioner.
- Associate Faculty in Innovation, Design Thinking and Leadership Thinking at LEORON Institute.
- Speaker and trainer for PwC, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership, Adobe, Bombardier, Amadeus, NEOM, Procter & Gamble and Dubai Association Conference.
- Contributor to Boardroom Magazine, Arabian Business and Association Meetings International.
- Twenty years of entrepreneurial work across China, Europe and the Middle East, currently based in the UAE.
Biography
Most enterprises have stopped debating whether AI matters. The harder question is whether their organisation can actually turn it into a product, a service or a customer experience that works. That is the territory Marc Mekki has been operating in for two decades, first as an entrepreneur in Southern China, then as the co-founder of Botsmith, an innovation lab building experimental tools using AI, AR/VR and cloud.
Botsmith is the practitioner half of his work. The teaching half runs through PwC Academy, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership and LEORON Institute, where he holds an Associate Faculty role in Innovation, Design Thinking and Leadership Thinking. He is MIT Sloan certified in design thinking, and he uses the same methods he ships products with when he runs sessions for senior teams.
The reason this matters to a buyer is straightforward. Innovation speakers tend to come from one of two places: consultancy decks or academic research. Marc comes from a builder’s seat. He has shipped, failed, iterated and shipped again, and he has done it across China, Europe and the GCC, where he is now based. The work he writes about in Boardroom Magazine, Arabian Business and Association Meetings International is the work he does week to week.
His keynotes, including The Art of a Thousand Mistakes and Something Out of Nothing, sit on the same operating thesis: iterative product practice, lean experimentation and design discipline are how organisations move emerging technology from pilot to production. Clients booking him include Adobe, Bombardier, Amadeus, NEOM, Procter & Gamble and Dubai Association Conference.
Key speaking topics
- Applied artificial intelligence in the enterprise
- Design thinking and human-centred product practice
- Lean innovation and experimentation
- Digital transformation
- Emerging technology, including AR/VR and cloud
- Agile leadership
- Future of technology
Ideal for
- CIOs, CTOs and Chief Digital Officers moving AI from pilot to operating use
- Heads of Innovation, transformation leads and product directors building portfolio discipline
- Customer experience and design leaders embedding human-centred methods at scale
- Senior teams in financial services, hospitality, energy and consulting operating in EMEA and the GCC
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of what design thinking actually requires inside an enterprise
- A clearer view of why AI pilots stall and what an operating-model fix looks like
- Concrete patterns from Botsmith and other build environments for moving from concept to shipped product
- A sharper sense of how to evaluate emerging technology bets without falling for hype
- Practical lean experimentation language usable by non-technical executives
Talks
A keynote on iterative innovation practice and why repeated, structured failure is the operating cost of building anything new.
Key takeaways:
- Why iteration is a discipline, not a mindset
- How to design experiments that produce decision-useful data
- What it takes for a leadership team to absorb failure without absorbing chaos
A keynote on lean innovation and rapid value creation in digital-first organisations.
Key takeaways:
- The difference between feature work and innovation work
- How small teams build with constrained resources
- What an operating cadence for early-stage product looks like inside a large enterprise
A storytelling keynote on risk-takers and historical innovators, used to reframe how senior teams think about strategic bets.
Key takeaways:
- Pattern recognition across historical innovation cases
- How risk language shifts perception of strategic decisions
- Why innovators tolerate ambiguity that organisations typically eliminate