Entrepreneurship speakers

Why organisations work with Adam Braun He is a working CEO, not a retired one. Clarasight’s carbon planning software is in active commercial deployment with clients representing over $1 trillion in market capitalisation, so his content reflects current operating reality. He has built three organisations across three categories: a nonprofit started with $25 that grew to hundreds of schools globally, a venture-backed education startup acquired by WeWork, and a B2B sustainability platform. The pattern recognition across founder modes is rare. His “Build For Where The World Is Headed” framework gives leaders a teachable structure for anticipating change and committing capital before consensus forms, rather than another model for reacting after the fact. His Pencils of Promise origin story translates cleanly into a corporate room. Audiences leave with a specific argument about how individual conviction scales into institutional outcomes, evidenced by a real organisation, not an analogy. He pairs commercial credibility with a published, bestselling book on purpose-driven leadership, which means leadership development and culture briefs can be served by the same speaker without a register switch. Biography highlights CEO and Co-Founder of Clarasight, carbon planning and intelligence software, formerly Climate Club Founder and Chairman of Pencils of Promise, a nonprofit started with $25 that has built schools across Ghana, Guatemala, Laos and Nicaragua Co-Founder and CEO of MissionU, acquired by WeWork in 2018; subsequently served as a senior executive in the WeGrow business New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Promise of a Pencil, Simon & Schuster Selected by the World Economic Forum as one of the original ten Global Shapers; named to Business Insider 40 Under 40 and Wired’s “50 People Who Are Changing the World” Brown University graduate; began his career at Bain & Company Biography The hard part of strategy is not seeing change. It is committing capital and people before the change is obvious to competitors. Most operating cultures are built to do the opposite. Adam Braun has spent his career sitting in that gap as a founder. Pencils of Promise began with $25 and grew into a nonprofit operating schools across Ghana, Guatemala, Laos and Nicaragua. MissionU, the income-share-agreement college alternative he co-founded, was acquired by WeWork in 2018, where he then served as a senior executive in the WeGrow business. Clarasight, his current company, sells carbon planning software into enterprise clients representing more than $1 trillion in market value. That arc gives him an unusual operating vocabulary. He has launched a category from zero capital, raised venture funding and exited through acquisition, and is now running a B2B SaaS business in a buyer-relevant category. The framework he teaches, “Build For Where The World Is Headed,” is the synthesis of those three founder modes into a structure leaders can use to evaluate where to deploy effort before the market rewards it. His book The Promise of a Pencil, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller published by Simon & Schuster, gives the same argument a leadership-development register. He was an original World Economic Forum Global Shaper, has been named to Business Insider 40 Under 40 and Wired’s “50 People Who Are Changing the World,” and built his early career at Bain & Company after graduating from Brown. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and founder leadership Building organisations for future operating conditions Innovation under uncertainty Corporate sustainability as commercial advantage Purpose-driven business strategy Social entrepreneurship and scaled impact Ideal for Founders, CEOs and executive committees setting growth or transformation agendas Heads of strategy, innovation and sustainability shaping medium-term capital decisions Leadership development programmes for high-potential operators and emerging executives Conferences focused on entrepreneurship, scale-up leadership, or corporate climate strategy Audience outcomes A working framework for committing to direction before market consensus forms A founder’s view of how scaled impact actually compounds, drawn from three different ventures A practical read on where corporate sustainability becomes commercial advantage rather than reporting overhead A renewed argument for individual agency inside large organisations, evidenced rather than asserted

Why organisations work with Adam Cheyer He built the original Siri – not from a single insight but through more than a decade of AI research at SRI International – and then rebuilt the paradigm at Samsung and Airbnb. That depth of iteration, across platforms and at scale, is not replicated elsewhere on the speaking circuit. Four of his five ventures were acquired specifically for their AI technology, by Apple, Samsung, Airbnb, and Cognizant. The acquisitions validate not just the product but the engineering and commercial judgements behind it. After each acquisition, he stayed and led AI integration inside the acquiring organisation. Most founders don’t stay for that part – which is where AI strategies most commonly fail. He was ranked #2 on Voicebot.ai‘s Top Visionaries in Voice 2019 – behind Jeff Bezos and ahead of Sundar Pichai – while actively deploying conversational AI inside Samsung’s global platform. His foundation at SRI International as Chief Architect of CALO/PAL – the US government’s largest AI project, funded by DARPA – means his commercial instincts are grounded in the actual science of how intelligent systems work. Biography highlights Co-founder of Siri, Inc.; Director of Engineering, iPhone/iOS group, Apple – led AI and server-side development for Siri across more than 500 million devices Co-founder and VP R&D, Viv Labs, acquired by Samsung in 2016; Viv became the technical foundation for Samsung’s Bixby Chief Architect, CALO/PAL project, SRI International – the US government’s largest-funded AI research programme, funded by DARPA Co-founder and CEO, GamePlanner.AI, acquired by Airbnb (late 2023, est. ~$200M); VP AI Experience, Airbnb Founding member, Change.org; co-founder, Sentient Technologies (acquired by Cognizant) 60+ peer-reviewed publications; 50+ patents across AI, machine learning, distributed computing, and conversational systems Ranked #2, Voicebot.ai Top Visionaries in Voice 2019; 2024 Brandeis Alumni Achievement Award; TechCrunch Crunchies Award for Best Technology Achievement Scientific Advisory Board member, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) Biography Building an AI product that works in a controlled environment and scaling it to hundreds of millions of users are different engineering problems. Most organisations now committing to AI strategies have very few people in the room who have done the second – and fewer still who have done it multiple times, across different platforms, inside multiple large organisations. Adam Cheyer spent more than a decade at SRI International as Chief Architect of CALO/PAL – the US government’s largest AI research programme, funded by DARPA – before co-founding Siri, Inc. in 2007 with Dag Kittlaus and Tom Gruber. When Apple acquired the company in 2010, he stayed as Director of Engineering in the iPhone/iOS group, leading the AI and server-side development that put Siri on more than 500 million devices. He has repeated this cycle three more times. Viv Labs, which he co-founded and led as VP R&D, was acquired by Samsung in 2016 and became the technical foundation for Bixby. Sentient Technologies – an early large-scale distributed machine learning platform – was acquired by Cognizant. GamePlanner.AI was acquired by Airbnb in late 2023, where Cheyer served as VP AI Experience, applying generative AI to transform how users engage with the platform. He holds more than 50 patents and has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications in AI, machine learning, and conversational systems. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and received the 2024 Brandeis Alumni Achievement Award for contributions to technology entrepreneurship. Key speaking topics Conversational AI and intelligent personal assistants Generative AI and enterprise application AI product development and commercial scaling Technology entrepreneurship and venture building Human-computer interaction and intelligent interfaces Large-scale and distributed machine learning AI integration in consumer and enterprise platforms Ideal for Chief Technology Officers and product leadership teams navigating AI product strategy Innovation and R&D functions evaluating AI investment decisions Executive and board audiences assessing AI-enabled product development or acquisition C-suite leaders who need a practitioner’s account of where AI integration succeeds and where it fails Audience outcomes A practitioner’s account of how conversational and generative AI systems are designed, built, and scaled – distinct from analyst or vendor perspectives Understanding of the architectural and organisational decisions that determine whether AI products deliver at scale Direct insight into how Apple, Samsung, and Airbnb have each integrated acquired AI technology into their core platforms Lessons from founding, scaling, and exiting AI ventures across four separate acquisition cycles A grounded, evidence-based framework for assessing which AI capabilities are commercially transformational and which remain overstated

Why organisations work with Adam Smith The Real Junk Food Project is not a case study from a consultancy report. Smith built it from a single Leeds cafe in 2013 to a network of 120+ projects across seven countries, which makes his argument about the scalability of surplus redistribution operationally evidenced, not theoretical. The Pay As You Feel model challenges the assumption that pricing must track cost-price. For organisations navigating social value procurement, circular economy strategy, or food retail margins, that challenge is commercially relevant. Smith has given parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste, which means his framing has direct policy credibility – useful for organisations managing regulatory and reputational exposure on ESG commitments. His current work at Surplus to Purpose, which diverted 506 tonnes of food in 2023, keeps his insight current. He is not drawing on a legacy project. The Telegraph named him one of the 50 most influential people in UK Food & Drink (Food & Drink Power List, 2017). His argument has been stress-tested in public, not just on stage. Biography highlights Founded The Real Junk Food Project in Leeds in December 2013; the network grew to 120+ projects across seven countries within four years TEDx speaker at TEDxWarwick (2015): “Let’s REALLY Feed the World” Named one of 50 most influential people in UK Food & Drink, The Telegraph Food & Drink Power List (2017) FRSA (Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts) Gave parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste Yorkshire Awards 2025 Community Hero Award; Canal & River Trust Unsung Hero of Leeds (2022) CEO of Surplus to Purpose since 2022; appeared on Channel 4’s Inside the Superbrands Observer Food Monthly Awards runner-up across TRJFP projects in Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds (2017, 2018) Biography The UK food industry wastes an estimated 9.5 million tonnes of food annually. Most of it is edible. In December 2013, Adam Smith opened a single cafe in Armley, Leeds, that served meals made entirely from intercepted surplus. He called the pricing model Pay As You Feel. Within four years, that cafe had become a network of 120+ projects operating across seven countries. The model did not succeed because it was charitable. It succeeded because it demonstrated a functional alternative to the assumption that surplus has no commercial value – and that communities, schools, and organisations could participate in redistribution at scale without requiring philanthropy as a precondition. Smith stepped back from The Real Junk Food Project in 2019 and, in 2022, took on the leadership of Surplus to Purpose – a social enterprise built on the same structural argument but with a more explicit focus on the environmental costs of food waste in the supply chain. Surplus to Purpose diverted 506 tonnes of food in 2023. He has given parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste, and The Telegraph placed him on its Food & Drink Power List in 2017 as one of the 50 most influential people in the sector. The TEDxWarwick talk from 2015 covers the core argument clearly. Food waste is a corporate supply chain decision, not a consumer behaviour problem. The organisations with the most leverage to change it are the ones that benefit most from not changing it. Key speaking topics Surplus food redistribution and supply chain waste Pay As You Feel and alternative pricing models Purpose-led business model design Social enterprise at scale ESG and food system accountability Corporate responsibility in the food supply chain Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads in food retail, hospitality, and manufacturing Procurement and supply chain leadership in organisations with food or FMCG exposure Strategy and transformation teams working on circular economy frameworks Social value and impact leads in public sector and corporate foundations Audience outcomes A working model for how surplus redistribution operates at scale – not a concept, but a documented case with known failure points and operational evidence A concrete example of how pricing can be decoupled from cost-price to deliver both social value and commercial viability Clarity on where corporate supply chains generate waste and why existing incentive structures keep that waste in place A framework for distinguishing between ESG commitments that reduce reputational risk and changes that alter the underlying supply chain economics

Why organisations work with Adam Thomas Two decades of broadcast presence on ITV and BBC primetime, including Emmerdale, Waterloo Road, I’m a Celebrity and Strictly Come Dancing, which translates directly into stage warmth in front of corporate audiences. A working founder’s perspective on consumer brand building, drawn from operating Oh My Glaze through retail at the Trafford Centre and surviving the public liquidation of a sister hospitality venture. Public, named experience of leading and performing while managing rheumatoid arthritis, a credible point of view for audiences interested in chronic illness and high-output careers. Comfort across awards hosting, panel moderation, fireside Q&A and after-dinner formats, with the broadcast pacing that those formats need. Biography highlights Played Adam Barton in ITV’s Emmerdale from 2009 to 2018, one of the longest single-character runs of his generation on the soap. Played Donte Charles in BBC’s Waterloo Road from 2006 to 2009, returning for the 2023 BBC reboot. Third-place finalist on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here in 2016, later co-host of the companion show I’m a Celebrity: Extra Camp. Strictly Come Dancing 2023 contestant, finishing in eighth place while publicly managing a recent rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. Co-host of ITV’s 99 To Beat in 2025 with his brother Ryan Thomas. Founder of consumer hot sauce brand Oh My Glaze, with a flagship retail unit at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. Won Best Soap Newcomer at the 2010 TV Choice Awards. Biography Most consumer founders pitch their story after the win. Oh My Glaze sits in a less tidy place. The hot sauce brand is trading through a Trafford Centre flagship and grocery channels, while a sister hospitality business, the Manchester restaurant The Spinn, ended in voluntary liquidation. Running both at once, in public, is the substance of what Adam Thomas brings to a corporate stage on entrepreneurship. The platform underneath that is two decades of British primetime. Emmerdale carried him through almost a decade as Adam Barton from 2009. Waterloo Road framed his early career as Donte Charles and brought him back for the BBC reboot in 2023. I’m a Celebrity put him in front of a peak ITV audience and earned him a third-place finish in 2016, followed by co-hosting on Extra Camp. Strictly Come Dancing in 2023 added a live-broadcast performance credit while he was managing a recent diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, a condition he now discusses publicly on Good Morning Britain and This Morning. For corporate buyers, that record translates into a specific kind of stage product. He hosts awards, opens conferences, runs fireside panels and closes evenings. The broadcast training shows. Where the brief calls for it, he can speak to the founder track and to the experience of leading visible work through chronic illness. Key speaking topics Consumer brand building and founder operations Retail and hospitality entrepreneurship Television and broadcast careers Resilience while managing chronic illness Reality television and live performance Awards and event hosting Ideal for Corporate awards nights, gala dinners and team celebrations seeking a recognisable broadcast host Founder communities and SME audiences interested in consumer brand operations Retail, hospitality and FMCG events looking for a working-founder voice Workplace wellbeing audiences exploring chronic illness and high-output careers Audience outcomes A grounded view of what running a consumer hot sauce brand actually involves through retail and grocery stores An honest reading of what happened around the closure of The Spinn and what a founder takes from a public liquidation A first-person account of competing on Strictly Come Dancing with a recent rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis A warmer, looser room than a standard keynote slot, with broadcast-paced Q&A

Why organisations work with Aimee Connolly She has grown a cosmetics brand from one product to more than 100, and from a founder-led startup to around EUR 32.6 million in revenue in 2024 without external investment, giving her a concrete view on capital discipline most consumer founders do not have. She has worked every stage of modern beauty distribution in person: independent pharmacies, Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores, Selfridges, airport retail, direct-to-consumer and standalone stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London. Her team has scaled from her alone to more than 100 staff across Ireland and the UK, which makes her credible on the operational and cultural shifts a founder has to make to stop being the bottleneck. She is preparing a US launch for Q4 2026 and speaks openly about how AI is being used inside the business to lift productivity and support that expansion, which is unusually specific for a consumer-brand founder. Her awards are from credible named bodies (EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland 2021 in the Emerging category, IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025, UCD Alumni Award in Business 2025), so her authority does not rest on a single category or year. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Sculpted by Aimee; founded the business at age 23 while finishing her degree. Scaled the brand to EUR 32.6 million in 2024 revenue, 47% year-on-year growth, with more than 100 staff and over 500 stockists across Ireland, the UK and the Middle East. Retail footprint includes Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores and Selfridges, plus own-brand stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London. EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland 2021, Emerging category. IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025; Young Businesswoman of the Year 2022; Business and Finance Elevation Award 2024. University College Dublin Alumni Award in Business 2025; BComm International (first-class honours), UCD. Founder of Sculpted: The Academy, a professional training business for makeup artists. Biography Sculpted by Aimee did not exist in 2016. By 2024 it was turning over EUR 32.6 million, growing 47% year on year, and sitting on shelves in Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores and Selfridges. It got there without outside investors. That single fact changes the conversation about what a bootstrapped consumer brand can realistically do inside a category dominated by multinationals. Aimee Connolly built the business at 23, while finishing a first-class BComm International at University College Dublin. The first product was a three-pan sculpting palette, which is where the name came from. The range is now past 100 SKUs, the team past 100 people, and the retail footprint covers Ireland, the UK and the Middle East, with own-brand stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London and a US launch planned for the fourth quarter of 2026. Her credibility on growth is not theoretical. She has lived each transition that breaks most consumer founders: from practitioner to operator, from single-market to multi-market, from independent stockists to listings with Boots and Selfridges, from founder-led decisions to a structured team. She has been named EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland in the Emerging category, IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025, and received the University College Dublin Alumni Award in Business 2025. What she brings into a room is unusually specific for a consumer founder: the mechanics of self-funded scaling, retail buyer relationships, product discipline under rapid range expansion, and, more recently, how AI is being embedded inside the business to support the US move. She is the operator buyers want when the brief is how to grow without losing the brand, and without giving it away. Key speaking topics Scaling a self-funded consumer brand Founder to CEO transition Retail and omnichannel strategy in beauty Direct-to-consumer and e-commerce growth International market entry AI in operations and brand building Building and retaining a high-growth team Ideal for Founders and CEOs of consumer and beauty brands preparing for a step-change in scale. Retail, buying and category leadership teams looking at how challenger brands are winning shelf space. Women’s leadership and entrepreneurship programmes in large corporates. Marketing and e-commerce leadership teams in founder-led or founder-adjacent businesses. Audience outcomes A concrete sense of what self-funded scaling actually demands, from working capital to retail terms. A clearer view of the decisions that break founders at the EUR 10 million to EUR 50 million transition. Practical perspective on how a challenger brand gets and keeps listings at Boots, Brown Thomas and Selfridges. A grounded read on where AI is genuinely moving the needle in a consumer business today. Renewed confidence in the case for patient, brand-led growth over capital-heavy expansion.

Why organisations work with Albert Bosch INVERGROUP, his clean-energy investment platform, has been operational since 2004. That gives him something most adventure speakers lack: an ongoing operator’s view on the energy transition he describes on stage. In 2015, he co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered in the Dakar Rally, the first fully electric vehicle ever to enter the event. A specific, verifiable motorsport-sustainability milestone anchoring his work in real engineering and real risk. The record underwrites the argument. An unassisted 1,152 km crossing from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole, the Seven Summits were completed on first attempts, and over 100 extreme-sports events. When he talks about preparation and setbacks, senior audiences hear a practitioner. He walked away from fossil-fuel motorsport in 2011 because the values stopped aligning. Since then, he has engaged with the sector only through electric-vehicle projects. For audiences weighing sustainability as a strategic commitment, that kind of operating consistency matters. Biography highlights Completed an unassisted coast-to-South Pole Antarctic expedition covering 1,152 km, 98% of it solo Summited Mount Everest in 2010, finishing the Seven Summits challenge with every peak completed on the first attempt Competed in nine Dakar Rallies, two by motorbike and seven by car Co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered in the 2015 Dakar Rally, the first fully electric car ever to enter the event Founder of INVERGROUP (2004), a clean-energy and environmental investment platform Author of six books including “Spirit of Adventure,” “The Future Explorer,” and “Living to Feel Alive.” MBA from ESADE, Barcelona Biography Leadership in extreme environments is different from leadership in difficulty. In difficulty, the variables are still countable. In an extreme environment, the variables keep moving and the team keeps paying a cost for every error. That is the territory Albert Bosch has spent three decades studying from the inside. The record is specific. Bosch crossed from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole unassisted, covering 1,152 km with 98% of the journey solo. He reached the summit of Everest in 2010, closing out a Seven Summits campaign in which every peak went on the first attempt. He has nine Dakar Rallies to his name. In 2015, he co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered, the first fully electric car to enter that event. A working business sits behind the adventure CV. Bosch founded INVERGROUP in 2004, a platform for clean-energy and environmental projects, and has run it since. That gives his keynotes a grain of commercial reality, because he is still managing a live portfolio on the questions he speaks about. He has written six books in the same territory. “Spirit of Adventure” examines the seven factors that separate ambitious projects from failed ones. “The Future Explorer” addresses the leadership attitudes required in unsettled conditions. “Living to Feel Alive” retells the Antarctic crossing as a study in sustained commitment. The work he does on stage carries into material that audiences can keep. Key speaking topics Leadership under extreme pressure and uncertainty Decision-making in complex environments Resilience and recovery from setback Sustainable leadership and the energy transition Team performance in high-stakes conditions Entrepreneurship and long-horizon risk Leading change when plans break Ideal for CEOs, COOs and transformation leads driving high-stakes strategic shifts Senior teams going through restructuring, integration, or major operational change CSOs and energy-transition teams setting a sustainability position they will have to operate, not just announce Leadership groups whose strategy requires sustained commitment against market or macro pressure Audience outcomes Specific reference points for decision-making when information is incomplete and stakes are real A sharper internal language for preparation, setback and recovery A more honest read on when sustainability claims support strategy and when they collapse under operating pressure A clearer sense of which behaviours separate teams that complete ambitious projects from teams that stall

Why organisations work with Albert Riba A five-book catalogue spanning twelve years, from Mamut o Sapiens (2013) to Mamut o Humanoide (2025), gives clients a sustained body of writing to reference rather than a one-off keynote thesis. The Expansión column, monthly since September 2012, anchors his material inside the conversation Spanish-speaking executives are already reading. The combination of InPreneur (entrepreneurial culture inside corporations) and Sapiens Mindset (founded March 2019) gives him two distinct delivery vehicles for different client problems. Twenty-plus years of technology-sector operating experience, including a decade leading Kinetical Business and a partnership at Innova B2B, gives the mindset material commercial grounding rather than purely motivational framing. Bilingual English and Spanish delivery makes him particularly useful for Spanish, Latin American and pan-European leadership events where a regional voice is required alongside Anglo-American content. Biography highlights Founder of InPreneur and Sapiens Mindset (established March 2019) Author of five books including Mamut o Sapiens (2013) and Mamut o Humanoide (2025) Monthly opinion columnist in Expansión since September 2012 Twenty-plus years in the technology sector; former leader of Kinetical Business; partner at Innova B2B Regular radio contributor on Rac1, RNE R4, Catalunya Ràdio and Cadena Ser Catalunya Three master’s degrees in technology-related fields Biography The book Albert Riba is most associated with, Mamut o Sapiens, carries his argument in the title: organisations either adapt or they extinct themselves. Over the past twelve years he has extended that thesis across a five-book catalogue, from the 2013 original to Mamut o Humanoide: De la extinción a la IA in 2025. The books are in Spanish and circulate mostly through Spanish-language corporate audiences, but the underlying frame, entrepreneurial mindset applied to incumbent organisations, translates cleanly into English delivery. He runs two linked vehicles. InPreneur is his intrapreneurship advisory, focused on building entrepreneurial behaviour inside corporations, and Sapiens Mindset, founded in March 2019, delivers his keynote and coaching work on mindset and adaptation. Earlier in his career he led Kinetical Business for a decade and continues as a partner in the Innova B2B technology company, which gives the material its operating base. His public presence in Spain is longer-standing than his international bureau listing suggests. He has written a monthly opinion column in Expansión, Spain’s leading business daily, since September 2012, and contributes regularly to Rac1, RNE R4, Catalunya Ràdio and Cadena Ser Catalunya. His personal story of late academic start, three subsequent master’s degrees and a twenty-plus year technology career often shows up in his speaking work as a live illustration of the adaptation thesis. For Spanish, Latin American and European leadership audiences looking for a mindset and intrapreneurship voice with a published track record, a working corporate practice and a current column in Expansión, Riba sits inside a small group of regional thinkers who operate fluently in both English and Spanish. Key speaking topics Mindset and adaptation in the age of AI Intrapreneurship and entrepreneurial culture in established companies Change management and organisational transformation Digitalisation and corporate culture Resilience and burnout prevention Ancient and monastic practices applied to modern organisations Ideal for Spanish and Latin American corporate leadership audiences Pan-European events where a senior Catalan voice complements an English-language programme Technology firms and incumbents working on entrepreneurial culture and AI-driven change Leadership offsites and change programmes requiring a mindset-focused keynote Audience outcomes A working frame for adaptation and mindset change drawn from the Mamut o Sapiens and Mamut o Humanoide thesis Practical techniques for building entrepreneurial behaviour inside established organisations A Spanish-market view of digital and AI transformation A set of reference books and Expansión columns for internal follow-up

Why organisations work with Alberto Levy Operator credibility on emerging tech: he is the co-founder and CEO of Poly Crypto Rewards and innovation advisor to the Royal Commission for AlUla, so the perspective comes from current decisions, not commentary. Teaches innovation and entrepreneurship inside the IE University International MBA, which gives executives the frameworks his book Start Here codifies for first-time founders and intrapreneurs. Track record across roughly 1,500 projects with 300+ clients in more than 15 countries, including Fortune 500 work spanning automotive, FMCG, media and technology. Recognised on the platforms senior buyers track: World Economic Forum, Harvard Business Review Summit, MIT EmTech, Singularity University, TEDx. A distinctive human-centred voice in a category dominated by hype: his keynotes connect AI, Web3 and design to leadership behaviour and culture, not just technology roadmaps. Biography highlights Adjunct Professor on the International MBA at IE University, Madrid, since 2018, and faculty member on innovation, design thinking and digital leadership programmes at Porto Business School, EGADE / Tec de Monterrey, IPADE, and Financial Times Headspring. Co-founder and CEO of Poly Crypto Rewards, a crypto rewards platform. Innovation and Technology Advisor to the Royal Commission for AlUla, Saudi Arabia, and board advisor at the Founder Institute. Author of Start Here: A Practical Guide to Entrepreneurship for First-Time Founders. Featured speaker at the World Economic Forum, MIT EmTech, Harvard Business Review Summit, TEDx, Singularity University, and Oracle Leaders Circle. Master’s in Interactive Telecommunications, New York University; Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro; Aspen Institute alumnus and Forbes Business Council member. Biography The technology cycle has compressed. AI, Web3 and design tools that organisations were piloting two years ago are now embedded in their products, their go-to-market, and the daily work of their teams. Most leadership teams are still trying to convert that into durable operating advantage rather than another wave of pilots. Alberto Levy works in that gap. He has spent more than two decades inside roughly 1,500 projects across 15+ countries, advising Fortune 500 organisations in automotive, media, FMCG and technology, and has carried that experience into the classroom as an Adjunct Professor on the IE University International MBA, where he teaches innovation, design thinking and digital leadership. His operating profile gives the work weight. He is co-founder and CEO of Poly Crypto Rewards, an Innovation and Technology Advisor to the Royal Commission for AlUla in Saudi Arabia, and a board advisor at the Founder Institute. His book, Start Here: A Practical Guide to Entrepreneurship for First-Time Founders, distils the same playbook he uses with executive teams: spotting real problems, building businesses around them, and stress-testing them against modern tools, AI and digital business models included. Levy is described as an Innovation Evangelist by the Harvard Business Review Summit and the World Economic Forum, and has spoken at MIT EmTech, TEDx, Singularity University and Oracle Leaders Circle. The thread through all of it is a refusal to treat technology as the answer on its own. His argument to senior leaders is that AI, Web3 and design only become advantage when matched to a clear human problem the organisation has decided to solve. Key speaking topics Innovation as an operating discipline AI and human intelligence in the enterprise Web3, blockchain and the future of digital business Digital transformation with a human-centred lens Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship at scale Creative leadership and culture Customer experience and experiential storytelling Ideal for Board and executive teams setting an AI, Web3 or digital strategy that has to outlast the current technology cycle Chief Innovation Officers, CTOs and transformation leads moving from pilots to operating model Corporate venture, intrapreneurship and founder-track programmes inside large organisations CMOs and customer experience leaders rebuilding around emerging technology Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI and Web3 produce real operating advantage and where they do not A working model for translating innovation strategy into product, team and culture decisions Practical entrepreneurship tools drawn from Start Here, applicable to both founders and intrapreneurs A sharper sense of how to keep customers and employees at the centre of a technology agenda Confidence to make decisions on emerging technology without waiting for the next hype cycle

Why organisations work with Alessandra Dabul A board chair and M&A lawyer who has spent three decades inside cross-border deals, so her ESG perspective lands as governance and diligence content, not as advocacy. President of the Board at Gavea Angels and board member at AmCham Brasil, giving her a working line of sight into how investors and corporates in Latin America are actually pricing ESG into capital decisions. Brings the rare combination of IBGC corporate governance certification with executive education in Sustainable Capitalism at UC Berkeley Law and Sustainable Business Strategy at Harvard Business School, applied to live private and public company boards. Speaks fluently in English and French to international audiences, with deep specificity on the Brazil and broader Latin American context that most global ESG speakers cover only thinly. Founding partner of two Brazilian firms focused on M&A and family business governance, which gives her credibility on succession, owner transitions, and the ESG questions that surface during ownership change. Biography highlights Founding partner of Pereira, Dabul Advogados and of RCA Governanca e Sucessoes, both Brazil-based firms. President of the Board at Gavea Angels, one of Brazil’s longest-standing angel investor networks. Board member at AmCham Brasil and member of Women Corporate Directors Brazil Chapter. Former director at Deloitte and senior manager at KPMG, with prior leadership at EY in southern Brazil. Masters and PhD in Economic Law and Social and Environmental Law; IBGC corporate governance certification. Executive education in Sustainable Capitalism and ESG at UC Berkeley Law, and in Sustainable Business Strategy at Harvard Business School. Biography Most boards in emerging markets are still treating ESG as a reporting exercise. The directors who have lived through cross-border M&A know the cost of that posture. Diligence opens up environmental liabilities, governance gaps, and labour exposures that were invisible in the management deck, and the deal repricing happens in the room. Alessandra Dabul has spent close to thirty years inside that room. She built her career advising European, North American, and Canadian corporates entering Brazil through acquisition, first as a director at Deloitte and senior manager at KPMG, with earlier leadership at EY, and now as founding partner of Pereira, Dabul Advogados and of RCA Governanca e Sucessoes. The second firm reflects the part of her practice focused on family business succession, where ownership transitions surface governance and ESG questions that cannot be deferred. Her board work runs in parallel. She is President of the Board at Gavea Angels, one of Brazil’s longest-standing angel investor networks, and a board member at AmCham Brasil. She holds IBGC corporate governance certification and has completed executive education in Sustainable Capitalism at UC Berkeley Law and Sustainable Business Strategy at Harvard Business School. The combination matters because the substance of ESG governance, as she frames it, is whether the board can defend a capital allocation, a deal, or a succession decision when it is questioned by an acquirer, a regulator, or a limited partner. That is the conversation she brings into the room: ESG as a discipline of decision, tested against the realities of M&A, board accountability, and investor capital in a Latin American market that does not yet have the regulatory scaffolding of Europe, but increasingly has the scrutiny. Key speaking topics ESG governance for boards and investment committees Sustainable business strategy in emerging markets Corporate governance and board effectiveness Cross-border M&A and post-acquisition integration in Latin America Family business succession and ownership transitions Angel investment and early-stage capital in Brazil Ideal for Boards and audit committees of multinationals with Brazilian or Latin American operations Chief sustainability officers and general counsel managing ESG diligence and reporting Private equity, venture capital, and angel investor networks pricing ESG into deal flow Family business owners and family office leadership facing succession or governance reform Audience outcomes A clearer view of the specific ESG questions that surface in cross-border M&A diligence, and how to answer them at board level. A working framework for distinguishing ESG narrative from ESG governance, with examples from Brazilian and Latin American board practice. Practical reference points on how angel investor networks and corporate boards are integrating ESG into capital decisions today. A grounded perspective on family business succession, including where ownership transitions create governance risk.

Why organisations work with Alessandro Lanteri The CLEVER Framework and the Innovation Pyramid are named, peer-reviewed tools – not proprietary consulting models – giving leadership teams a shared analytical language for strategy in technology-disrupted markets that can be used well beyond the event itself. His PhD in Philosophy and Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam brings disciplinary rigour to AI ethics and strategic decision-making that management-trained advisors rarely provide; his arguments sit at the intersection of decision theory, ethics, and competitive strategy – a combination that is demonstrably scarce in this speaker category. Two commercially published books – CLEVER (Amazon #1 bestseller in Italy and the UK) and Innovating with Impact (The Economist Books, 2023) – confirm that his frameworks have been validated by mainstream leadership audiences, not just academic peer reviewers. Teaching engagements at Saïd Business School (Oxford), London Business School, and ESCP mean his content has been stress-tested against senior executive cohorts in multiple institutional contexts before it reaches the conference stage. His TEDx talk “Why Driverless Cars Need Philosophers” – over 200,000 views – demonstrates an ability to make the ethics and competitive logic of emerging technology land with audiences who are not technical specialists, which is precisely the audience most organisations need to bring along. Biography highlights Full Professor of Strategy and Innovation, ESCP Business School (Turin campus) Author of the CLEVER Framework (CLEVER: The Six Strategic Drivers for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Amazon #1 bestseller in Italy and the UK) and the Innovation Pyramid (Innovating with Impact, The Economist Books, 2023, with Ted Ladd) Contributing writer to Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review, World Economic Forum Agenda, and Forbes TEDx speaker – “Why Driverless Cars Need Philosophers” (TEDxHultAshridge), over 200,000 views Executive education faculty, Saïd Business School (University of Oxford) and London Business School PhD in Philosophy and Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam; MSc in Economics, Bocconi University Biography The gap between technology adoption and competitive strategy is one of the most consistent failure points in corporate innovation – organisations make significant investments in AI, digital platforms, and emerging technologies without the strategic architecture to turn those investments into competitive position. Alessandro Lanteri’s body of work is a direct response to that problem. Lanteri is Full Professor of Strategy and Innovation at ESCP Business School, where his research and teaching focus on how organisations compete in environments shaped by technological disruption. He also contributes to executive education at Saïd Business School (University of Oxford) and London Business School. His PhD in Philosophy and Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam gives his strategic frameworks an analytical foundation that is uncommon in management education – his thinking on AI ethics, decision-making under uncertainty, and competitive logic draws on disciplines that sit well outside the standard strategy canon. His two books give organisations structured tools for navigating this terrain. CLEVER: The Six Strategic Drivers for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an Amazon #1 bestseller in Italy and the UK, identifies the deep forces reshaping competitive advantage in technology-driven markets and provides a diagnostic framework for leadership response. Innovating with Impact – co-authored with Ted Ladd and published in the Economist Edge series – introduces the Innovation Pyramid, a model that sequences the cultural foundations, methods, and strategic themes organisations need to move from isolated innovation experiments to systematic, measurable impact. His practitioner writing appears in Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review, the World Economic Forum Agenda, and Forbes. A TEDx talk on the ethics and strategic implications of autonomous AI decision-making has been viewed over 200,000 times – evidence of an unusual capacity to make complex arguments about technology and strategy accessible to the leadership audiences that most need to hear them. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and competitive advantage The CLEVER Framework and the Fourth Industrial Revolution Artificial intelligence and business strategy The Innovation Pyramid: from innovation experiments to strategic impact Digital transformation and emerging technologies AI ethics and responsible technology adoption in organisations Strategic foresight and scenario planning in uncertain markets Ideal for Strategy directors and C-suite leaders defining competitive positioning in technology-disrupted markets Corporate innovation and digital transformation leads Executive education cohorts at business schools and senior leadership development programmes Boards reviewing innovation governance and technology investment strategy Audience outcomes A named, structured framework (CLEVER) for diagnosing how AI, digital platforms, and emerging technologies affect their specific competitive environment A step-by-step model (the Innovation Pyramid) for building the organisational cultures, processes, and strategic themes needed for consistent, high-impact innovation Clarity on which technology investments are likely to yield strategic advantage – and the diagnostic tools to distinguish those from investments that produce activity without impact A framework for approaching AI and digital transformation through a competitive strategy lens, rather than a purely technical one Practical methods for aligning innovation activity with long-term strategic positioning

Why organisations work with Alex Depledge She has built, scaled and exited a venture-backed UK consumer marketplace, and is currently advising the Chancellor of the Exchequer on entrepreneurship policy. Few speakers can hold both a founder’s lens and a policy lens at once. She speaks to boards from inside the boardroom. Her FTSE-100 seat at Persimmon and NED role at Goodlord mean her advice on innovation, governance and growth is grounded in current PLC reality, not consultancy abstraction. She frames the gender funding gap and the women-in-tech question with hard numbers and self-implicating honesty rather than the standard talk-track, which is why programme committees book her for conversations they want to feel more honest than usual. She has a working view, formed through Hassle.com and Resi, on why corporates struggle to copy start-up behaviour, and what they can realistically take from it. She talks about regulation, sharing economy policy and UK scale-up barriers as a current operator and current government advisor, which gives those sessions weight that retrospective speakers rarely match. Biography highlights First ever Entrepreneurship Advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed by Rachel Reeves in June 2025. Independent Non-Executive Director, Persimmon PLC (FTSE 100), since May 2023; sits on remuneration and nomination committees. Founder of Resi.co.uk, the UK’s largest residential architectural practice, with over 10,000 home projects delivered. Stepped down as CEO in December 2025 and moved to the board. Co-founder and former CEO of Hassle.com, sold to Helpling in 2015 after Accel Partners-led funding. MBE for services to the Sharing Economy, 2016. Named in Computer Weekly’s 50 Most Influential Women in UK Tech and Debrett’s 500 Most Influential People; FT 30 Female Founders to Watch. Biography Most established companies want to behave more like start-ups and very few succeed. The reason is rarely a shortage of ambition. It is that the operating habits, the speed of decision and the comfort with risk that actually produce scale-up growth get filtered out by the systems large organisations use to govern themselves. Alex Depledge has lived on both sides of that gap and now advises across it. She co-founded Hassle.com in 2012 with Jules Coleman, took Accel Partners funding, expanded across Europe and exited to Helpling in 2015. The next year the same partnership launched Resi.co.uk, now the UK’s largest residential architectural practice with more than ten thousand projects delivered. She led Resi as CEO for nearly a decade before stepping back to the board in late 2025. Her current portfolio is what makes her unusual on a stage. She is the first Entrepreneurship Advisor to HM Treasury, appointed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in June 2025 to work directly on the barriers UK companies hit when they try to scale. At the same time she sits as an independent non-executive director of Persimmon PLC, the FTSE-100 housebuilder, and joined Goodlord’s board in December 2025. That mix gives her audiences a rare combination of inputs: a founder who has banked an exit, a board member inside a UK plc, and a named voice in active conversation with the Treasury about why British scale-ups stall. She was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to the sharing economy and writes and broadcasts regularly on entrepreneurship, technology policy and the gender funding gap. Key speaking topics Scale-up leadership and the founder operating mindset What large organisations can and cannot learn from start-ups UK entrepreneurship policy and barriers to scale Women, funding and structural bias in venture capital Innovation inside regulated and traditional sectors The future of work and platform-economy business models Proptech and the digitisation of legacy industries Ideal for CEOs, COOs and strategy leaders in incumbent businesses trying to behave more entrepreneurially Boards and Chairs commissioning sessions on innovation governance and growth CHROs and inclusion leads addressing gender, funding and pipeline questions in tech Industry conferences in property, financial services, professional services and government Audience outcomes A clearer read on which start-up behaviours scale into a corporate environment and which do not A current operator’s view of UK entrepreneurship policy and the live Treasury debate on scale-up barriers An honest framing of the gender funding gap that names structural causes rather than rehearsing the symptoms A board-level perspective on innovation as a governance discipline, drawn from FTSE-100 practice A real example of building, scaling and exiting a venture-backed UK consumer marketplace

Why organisations work with Alex Osterwalder The Business Model Canvas is used by millions of practitioners across industries. When Osterwalder presents it, he brings the doctoral research that produced it – giving leadership teams not just a tool but the underlying architecture for why it works and how to apply it to their specific strategic situation. The Value Proposition Canvas addresses a precise and expensive commercial failure: the gap between what organisations build and what customers actually need. For B2B marketing and product teams, this is the difference between offerings that generate revenue and those that absorb it. Strategyzer’s live programmes span three distinct commercial challenges – business model strategy, value proposition design, and innovation governance – through a single interconnected system. Leadership, marketing, strategy, and product functions can work with the same shared language rather than operating on separate frameworks. The Invincible Company framework gives executive teams a structural answer to the portfolio question: how to manage existing revenue-generating business models while simultaneously building new growth engines, with separate governance and metrics for each. Consistent top-10 placement across five consecutive Thinkers50 global rankings (2015-2025), with two Thinkers50 Strategy Awards, provides independent verification of Osterwalder’s standing – outside bureau self-attribution. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Strategyzer; co-founded 2010 following the publication of Business Model Generation Co-creator, with Yves Pigneur and Alan Smith, of the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Business Portfolio Map Business Model Generation (2010): international bestseller, more than 5 million copies sold, translated into nearly 40 languages Consistently ranked in the Thinkers50 global top 10 across five biennial rankings (2015-2025); two-time Thinkers50 Strategy Award recipient Visiting Professor, IMD; co-directs the Driving Strategic Innovation programme with MIT Sloan Contributor to Harvard Business Review; PhD, HEC Lausanne – doctoral thesis on business model ontology; recipient of the EU’s inaugural Innovation Luminary Award (2013) Biography Alex Osterwalder’s doctoral thesis at HEC Lausanne, completed in 2004, proposed a formal architecture for how value is created, delivered, and captured in any business. That thesis became the Business Model Canvas. Co-developed with Yves Pigneur, it is now in use across millions of teams at organisations including Microsoft, Nestlé, Mastercard, and Merck. The Value Proposition Canvas extended that system into one of the most consistently expensive failures in commercial strategy: building products and propositions without a clear picture of what customers actually need. For B2B marketing and product leaders, this is an operational problem. Strategyzer’s programmes on value proposition design, sales and marketing alignment, and customer understanding apply the same structured, testable approach to go-to-market challenges that the Canvas brought to strategy. The Invincible Company, co-authored with Pigneur, Smith, and Frederic Etiemble, addressed the portfolio dimension. Large organisations fail not from lack of innovation intent but from having no structural mechanism to run exploration and exploitation in parallel. The book provides that mechanism: separate governance, separate metrics, and a distinct decision logic for the existing business and the growth bets being built alongside it. Osterwalder is founder and CEO of Strategyzer, a Visiting Professor at IMD, and a Thinkers50 top-10 thinker across five consecutive rankings from 2015 to 2025. Whether the challenge is growth strategy, value proposition design, or innovation governance, a leadership team, a marketing function, and an innovation unit in the same organisation can each engage with the same interconnected system. Key speaking topics Business model design and competitive strategy Value proposition design and customer fit Go-to-market strategy and offering management Sales, marketing, and product alignment Innovation portfolio management Customer discovery and assumption testing Competing on business model advantage Ideal for CEOs and executive leadership teams working on growth strategy and business model resilience Chief Marketing Officers and commercial leaders in B2B organisations designing and testing value propositions Chief Strategy Officers and heads of corporate development managing business model portfolios Innovation leaders and transformation directors responsible for testing and scaling new growth engines Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Portfolio Map, and how to apply each to live strategic and commercial challenges A shared language across leadership, marketing, strategy, and product functions for discussing business model design and value proposition fit Practical methods for testing assumptions about customer needs and market demand before committing significant resource A structural framework for running exploration and exploitation in parallel, with the governance logic each requires Clearer diagnostic tools for identifying where value propositions are failing to match real customer needs, and what to do about it