Kreativitet speakers

Why organisations work with Dan Edwards He has actually led a large public-sector workforce through a sustained cultural rebuild, including pandemic-era disruption, rather than describing the work from a consultancy seat. His talks come with named, road-tested models, the 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts among them, that translate cleanly out of education into any large operational workforce. He is one of the few credible male voices speaking publicly about psychological safety and male mental health in front-line teams, through his MENtal Health talk. The delivery is performer-grade. He has a stand-up and stage background that keeps a senior audience with him through difficult material on wellbeing and morale. His creative business, the Fibre studio space, is built around working creative communities, which gives him direct operating experience of inclusion and creativity as workforce outcomes rather than values statements. Biography highlights Founder of Fibre, a warehouse studio in Leicester for film, photography, live events, and creative production. Former Principal of a large inner-city primary school in Leicester; prior Executive school leadership roles. Drama teacher background in inner-city secondary schools; entered teaching as a mature trainee via night school after leaving school with two GCSEs. Speaker at the SSAT Primary Conference 2021 on leading a school community through the coronavirus pandemic; international training work includes The Sultan’s School in Oman. Writes ‘Brief Reflections On…’, a newsletter of essays on leadership, culture, and community. Stage performer and writer; “The Sound of Muzak” was nominated for the Audience Choice Award at the 2024 Leicester Comedy Festival. Biography Large workforces have absorbed five years of change, and the cultural cost is now visible in engagement scores, sickness data, and middle-management churn. Edwards spent the worst of that period running a large inner-city primary school in Leicester, holding a staff body and parent community together when the national playbook for leadership had stopped working. That job, and the executive school leadership work that followed, is the substance behind his keynote material. The 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts are not theoretical frameworks; they are the models he built to keep a school improving while wellbeing was collapsing. The translation into corporate settings is direct, because the underlying tension, leading people through sustained pressure without burning them out, is the same. Edwards now runs Fibre, a warehouse studio in Leicester for film, photography, and live events, built around a working creative community. The work has also travelled, including school culture and leadership training at The Sultan’s School in Oman. Running a live creative space gives him a current operating vantage point on culture and creative discipline, which keeps the talks from drifting into nostalgia for the education world. The delivery is the differentiator at the senior end. A stand-up and theatre background, including a 2024 Leicester Comedy Festival nomination for “The Sound of Muzak”, means his keynotes on staff mental health and male psychological safety land in front of audiences that have heard the standard wellbeing pitch too many times. Key speaking topics Organisational culture and staff wellbeing Authentic and humane leadership Male mental health and psychological safety at work Creativity beyond the creative industries People development and change leadership Inclusion and belonging at work Belonging and engagement in large workforces Ideal for HR and people directors in large, change-fatigued workforces CEOs and executive leadership teams rebuilding culture after restructure or sustained disruption Leadership development programmes and middle-management conferences Public sector, education and healthcare leadership audiences Audience outcomes A working language for the difference between performative wellbeing and substantive cultural change. Two named models, the 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts, applied to their own organisational context. A more honest internal conversation about male mental health and psychological safety on the front line. Specific reference points for leading a workforce through prolonged pressure without losing it.

Why organisations work with Dave Noll He brings a working television creator’s instinct for what survives a pitch room, drawn from selling 60-plus series and more than 3,500 episodes to global networks. The Chopped origin story is a usable case study in persistence. The format was rejected by Food Network before becoming one of the longest-running cooking competitions on US television and earning a James Beard Award. His credentials sit outside the usual corporate speaker pool, which makes the message about creative risk land differently with sales and innovation audiences who have heard the standard versions. He frames innovation as a commercial discipline rather than an ideation exercise, focused on what gets bought, what gets renewed, and what scales internationally. Biography highlights Co-creator of Chopped (Food Network, 2009 to present); franchise inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame. Two-time Emmy Award winner and two-time Gracie Award winner. Chopped won the James Beard Award for Best Television Series in 2012. Co-founder of Keller Noll, a New York-based format development company with international productions across Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, South Africa, Turkey and the United States. Creator of America Says (Game Show Network), No Kitchen Required (BBC America), Rocco’s Dinner Party (Bravo), Beat the House (HGTV), Face The Truth (CBS) and Punchline (FOX). Signed a first-look deal with Boat Rocker in 2021, reported in Deadline. Biography Chopped was rejected by Food Network the first time it was pitched in 2007. The same concept, brought back months later, became one of the longest-running cooking competition formats on US television, has aired since 2009, was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame and won the 2012 James Beard Award for Best Television Series. The producer behind it is Dave Noll, co-founder of Keller Noll, a New York-based format development company he runs with Cleve Keller. Together, they have created and sold more than 60 television series and produced over 3,500 episodes, with productions filmed across eight countries and a 2021 first-look deal with Boat Rocker. His value to a commercial audience is the working knowledge of what it takes to get an idea past the people who say no for a living. That includes America Says on Game Show Network, No Kitchen Required on BBC America, Rocco’s Dinner Party on Bravo, Face The Truth on CBS, and the wider game-show and competition portfolio that the partnership has built since 2007. For sales, marketing and innovation teams, his contribution is closer to a master class in commercial creativity than a leadership talk. He works in an industry where every pitch is graded on what audiences will actually choose to watch, and brings that discipline into rooms where corporate innovation often loses contact with the customer. Key speaking topics Innovation as a commercial discipline Creative persistence and pitch resilience Turning rejected ideas into market-ready products Storytelling and format thinking for brand teams Sales performance and customer-centred creativity Team-level creative culture in deadline-driven environments Ideal for Sales and revenue leadership audiences working on creative differentiation Marketing, brand and innovation teams inside consumer-facing organisations Corporate offsites and annual kick-offs that want a non-corporate voice on creativity and commercial risk Higher education and association audiences focused on entrepreneurship and media Audience outcomes A concrete example of how a category-defining product survives repeated rejection before reaching the market A working producer’s perspective on what makes a creative idea commercially durable Practical reference points from inside one of television’s most successful format development partnerships Renewed conviction in pushing creative work through internal gatekeepers without diluting it

Why organisations work with Dave Stewart Stewart’s credibility is operational, not academic. He has built multiple businesses across music, media, film, and technology – from Weapons of Mass Entertainment to The Hospital Club to RARE Entity – and can demonstrate from firsthand experience what the structural conditions for creative output actually look like at scale. No case study is borrowed. His book, The Business Playground (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with branding expert Mark Simmons and published in eight languages, provides a replicable methodology for applied creative thinking in business contexts. It draws on scientific research, structured exercises, and interviews with figures including Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen – with a foreword by Richard Branson. He has worked inside major corporations as a practitioner, not an outside voice: serving as Nokia’s «change agent» and as US creative director at The Law Firm. Clients including Nokia, Visa International, and Credit Suisse have drawn a direct line between exposure to his thinking and changes in how they approached innovation. His current venture, RARE Entity (launched January 2026), is a venture builder that shifts IP ownership and commercial control back to the creators who generate it. He is speaking to one of the most urgent tensions in business today – who owns creative output and who benefits from it – from the position of someone actively building companies to solve it. The credential combination is genuinely unusual: a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Award winner who has also built media ventures, co-authored a business book for a major publisher, scored West End and Broadway musicals, and spent four decades proving that the artist’s approach to making things is also the most commercially effective approach. Biography highlights Co-founder of Eurythmics with Annie Lennox; over 100 million album sales across a four-decade career Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee (2022); Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee (2020); UK Music Hall of Fame inductee (2005) Grammy Award winner; Golden Globe Award winner; four Ivor Novello Awards (Best Songwriter); four BRIT Awards (Best Producer), including a Lifetime Achievement Award Author of The Business Playground: Where Creativity and Commerce Collide (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with Mark Simmons, foreword by Richard Branson, published in eight languages Founder and chairman, Weapons of Mass Entertainment; co-founder, The Hospital Club, London, with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen Served as Nokia’s «change agent» and US creative director at The Law Firm; executive producer, NBC series Songland (2019) Co-founder, RARE Entity (2026) – a venture builder dedicated to returning IP ownership and commercial control to creators Biography For most organisations, creativity is somewhere between a priority and a problem. It is cited in strategy documents and killed in planning meetings. The organisations that get it right tend to have someone who understands it not as a mindset but as a structural challenge. Dave Stewart has spent 40 years being that person. As co-founder of Eurythmics with Annie Lennox, Stewart helped build one of the most commercially successful creative partnerships in music history – over 100 million album sales, a Grammy Award, a Golden Globe, and induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. The creative process that produced those results was not accidental. It was the product of specific conditions, specific constraints, and a specific willingness to go into the unknown. Stewart has spent the decades since making that process legible for organisations that want to replicate it. His book, The Business Playground (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with branding expert Mark Simmons, is the clearest articulation of his argument. Organisations that treat creativity as a personality trait will always struggle; those that build the right environment will consistently outperform. Published in eight languages, with a foreword by Richard Branson and interviews featuring Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, it remains a practical reference as much as a business book. His corporate work has included serving as Nokia’s «change agent» and as US creative director at The Law Firm. His most recent venture, RARE Entity (launched January 2026), is a venture builder that shifts IP ownership and commercial control back to the creators who generate it – the same argument he has been making for 40 years, now applied to one of the most contested challenges in the modern creator economy. Key speaking topics Creativity as a commercial capability Applied creative thinking in business Innovation culture and organisational conditions Entrepreneurship and venture building The creator economy and IP ownership Branding and cultural influence Technology, media disruption, and the future of creative industries Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and innovation leadership teams seeking to move beyond idea generation into repeatable creative output CMOs and marketing leadership working on brand distinctiveness, creative culture, and commercial differentiation Leadership teams at media, entertainment, and technology organisations navigating disruption to existing business models Entrepreneurship and growth strategy conferences; founder, scale-up, and creative industries audiences Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of why creativity fails as a corporate programme – and what structural conditions actually produce it Practical frameworks and exercises drawn from The Business Playground for running better creative processes, from problem framing to idea development A model for thinking about the relationship between creative ambition and commercial discipline – from someone who has built businesses where that relationship was the point A sharper view of the creator economy: who controls IP, what AI and platform concentration are doing to that landscape, and what organisations need to do now The ability to distinguish between organisations that talk about innovation and those that have built the conditions for it

Why organisations work with David Aguilar He holds a Guinness World Record for the first functional LEGO prosthetic arm and has built five iterations, MK-I through MK-V, giving any conversation on inclusion a concrete engineering artefact rather than a general narrative. He translates a congenital condition, Poland syndrome, into a design problem and a product line under the Hand Solo brand, which reframes accessibility as a market and a capability question for R&D, HR, and product teams. He is a UIC Barcelona bioengineering graduate and recipient of the university’s Bioengineering Innovation Prize, so the engineering credibility is not improvised around the story. He carries unusual cultural reach for an inventor: winner of LEGO Masters France, subject of the Filmax documentary Mr. Hand Solo (Boston Sci-Fi Festival, Best Documentary Feature), and a face of LEGO’s #RebuildTheWorld global campaign. He speaks in English and Spanish and pairs well with technology, healthcare, and culture audiences who want an innovation voice that is not another Silicon Valley founder. Biography highlights Guinness World Records title holder, first functional LEGO prosthetic arm (MK-I); Guinness Hall of Fame inductee. Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering from Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona); recipient of the UIC Bioengineering Innovation Prize, 2018. Author of Piece by Piece: How I Built My Life (No Instructions Required), with Ferran Aguilar; Amazon Crossing (English), Penguin Random House (Spanish). Subject of Mr. Hand Solo (Filmax, 2021), Best Documentary Feature, Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. Winner, LEGO Masters France. Featured by Great Big Story (CNN Worldwide), WIPO Magazine, and in LEGO’s #RebuildTheWorld global campaign. Biography Poland syndrome is a rare congenital condition that prevents the full development of muscles on one side of the body. David Aguilar was born with it, and built his first LEGO prosthesis at nine. By eighteen, working from a LEGO Technic Rescue Helicopter set, he had built MK-I, the first functional LEGO prosthetic arm that Guinness has recognised. The work has continued in versions, not anecdotes. MK-I to MK-V move from mechanical grabber to motorised five-finger hand controlled by residual-arm movement. He has since built an arm for an eight-year-old and launched Hand Solo as a brand aimed at accessible, affordable prosthetics. UIC Barcelona awarded him its Bioengineering Innovation Prize and a place to complete the degree. The story travels because it behaves like both engineering and culture. The documentary Mr. Hand Solo won Best Documentary Feature at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. His memoir Piece by Piece, co-written with his father Ferran, sits on both trade and children’s lists. LEGO cast him in the global #RebuildTheWorld campaign, and he won LEGO Masters France on primetime television. For serious organisations, the relevance is practical. He gives inclusion teams a product, gives R&D teams a user who is also a builder, and gives leadership audiences a single question to take back to their own operating model: who inside this company is quietly solving a problem we never designed around, and what would it take to give them the bricks? Key speaking topics Inclusive innovation and design Accessibility and assistive technology Bioengineering and prosthetics STEAM education and youth invention Resilience through engineering Purpose-driven entrepreneurship Ideal for CHROs and heads of DEI building an inclusion agenda that produces outputs, not statements. R&D, product, and healthcare leaders working on accessibility as a market rather than a compliance question. STEAM education programmes, universities, and youth-focused foundations. Corporate culture and internal-innovation audiences where the brief calls for a builder rather than a consultant. Audience outcomes A working example of how a constraint becomes a product, not a motivational metaphor. A sharper brief for what accessible design looks like when the user is the engineer. A named set of artefacts (MK-I to MK-V, Hand Solo) that teams can reference back in their own work. A reset on what inclusion programmes should produce, measured in things built rather than campaigns run. A concrete answer to what young engineers inside the organisation might do with permission and materials.

Why organisations work with David McCandless He built the language of modern editorial data visualisation through Information is Beautiful, the blog and three books that defined the form for a generation of journalists and designers. He co-founded the Information is Beautiful Awards in 2012 with Kantar’s Aziz Cami, the global benchmark prize for data visualisation, giving him a panoramic view of what works across thousands of submissions. His work has been published by The Guardian, Wired, and Die Zeit and exhibited at MoMA, Tate Britain, and the Wellcome Trust gallery, evidence that the craft holds up to both editorial and curatorial scrutiny. His TEDGlobal 2010 talk, “The beauty of data visualization”, remains one of the most-watched introductions to the field and shapes how senior audiences think about visual storytelling. Biography highlights Author of Information is Beautiful (2009), Knowledge is Beautiful (2014), and Beautiful News (2023), published by HarperCollins. Founder of the Information is Beautiful blog and co-founder of the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards (2012). TEDGlobal 2010 speaker: “The beauty of data visualization”. Information design featured in The Guardian, Wired, and Die Zeit. Work exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Britain, and the Wellcome Trust gallery (London). Began his career as a journalist writing for The Guardian and Wired before building Information is Beautiful into a publishing platform. Biography The hardest problem in modern communication is not gathering data. It is making the data mean something to a reader who has eight seconds and a phone. That is the territory David McCandless has worked for nearly two decades, first as a journalist at The Guardian and Wired, then as the founder of Information is Beautiful. The blog became a publishing programme. Information is Beautiful (2009), Knowledge is Beautiful (2014), and Beautiful News (2023) collect more than 1,500 graphics that take subjects ranging from drug deaths to global wealth and turn them into images a non-specialist can read. The craft sits in the choices: what to compare, what to leave out, what visual metaphor lets a number argue with itself. In 2012 he co-founded what became the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards with Aziz Cami, then Creative Director at Kantar. Through that platform McCandless has spent more than a decade looking at the best data visualisation work in the world, which gives him an unusually wide reference set when advising teams on what separates a chart that lands from one that does not. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Britain, and the Wellcome Trust gallery, and his TEDGlobal 2010 talk on the beauty of data visualisation introduced the field to a mainstream audience. For organisations sitting on data they cannot translate into action, he offers the rarer skill: editorial judgement on what is worth showing, and how. Key speaking topics Data visualisation Information design Data storytelling Data journalism Visual communication Creativity and pattern recognition Infographics in business communication Ideal for CMOs, brand and marketing leaders rethinking how data shapes customer narratives Communications, internal comms, and corporate affairs leads briefing senior audiences Heads of data, analytics, and insight whose dashboards are not changing decisions Innovation and design leaders building visual literacy across the organisation Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what makes a data visualisation land with a non-specialist audience Sharper editorial judgement on which numbers in a dataset are worth showing and which are noise Concrete examples from across journalism, design, and the IIB Awards archive of what good looks like A clearer view of how to brief designers, agencies, and internal teams on data-led communication

Why organisations work with Dee Snider He has a verifiable, on-the-record case study of standing alone in front of a hostile Senate committee and winning the argument, used as a live example of composure under public pressure. His material is built on four decades of reinvention across music, film, voice acting and production, giving audiences a concrete arc rather than a generic resilience pitch. He delivers a celebrity main-stage presence that conference organisers can use to lift the energy of a sales kick-off, anniversary dinner or awards night without losing substance. His free-speech story sits inside a serious cultural moment, the PMRC hearings, and lands with senior audiences who lived through it. Biography highlights Lead singer of Twisted Sister, writer of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock”, both certified rock anthems of the 1980s. Testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee in September 1985 against the Parents Music Resource Center, alongside Frank Zappa and John Denver. Author of the autobiography “Shut Up and Give Me the Mic”, published by Gallery Books. Screenwriter of the cult horror feature “Strangeland” and President of production company Defiant Artists. Keynote speaker at “The World’s Most Dangerous Meeting” in Gothenburg, drawing on career lessons for a corporate audience. Voice actor and on-camera presence across film, television and video games, with collaborators including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gordon Ramsay. Biography In September 1985 a U.S. Senate committee called three musicians to testify on the moral content of rock lyrics. Frank Zappa, John Denver and the leather-clad lead singer of Twisted Sister sat in front of the cameras and refused to apologise. The hearing became the founding moment of the modern free-speech argument over music. That afternoon is the spine of Snider’s speaking career. He was 30 years old, painted, and treated by the room as a public enemy. He stayed calm, dismantled the accusations against “We’re Not Gonna Take It” line by line, and walked out with the cultural argument largely intact. Forty years later the moment is still used in journalism and law classes as a case study in composure under public attack. The career around it gives the story weight. Twisted Sister sold millions of records. Snider went on to write the horror film “Strangeland”, run a production company in Defiant Artists, voice video game and animated characters, and publish “Shut Up and Give Me the Mic” with Gallery Books. The through-line is reinvention without softening the original position. For corporate audiences he uses that material to talk about holding a line under public pressure, surviving repeated career reinvention, and the practical content of not backing down when the room wants you to. The delivery is funny, profane and self-deprecating. The argument underneath is serious. Key speaking topics Free speech and standing by a position under public attack Self-leadership and composure under pressure Career reinvention across four decades Creative resilience Storytelling for senior audiences The 1985 PMRC hearings as a leadership case study Ideal for Sales kick-offs, anniversary dinners and awards nights looking for a celebrity main-stage presence with a serious underlying argument Leadership offsites using personal-resilience case studies to anchor a session on composure Communications, brand and public affairs teams studying how to defend a position in hostile public settings Audience outcomes A first-hand account of the 1985 PMRC Senate hearings from one of the three musicians who testified A concrete personal example of holding a position under sustained public attack A four-decade case study of career reinvention without abandoning the original work An entertaining, profane and self-deprecating main-stage set that lifts the energy of a corporate room

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

Why organisations work with DJ Target He was inside grime before it was a marketing category. As a founding member of Roll Deep with Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, Skepta and Flowdan, his account of how the genre formed is first-hand, not retrofitted. His book Grime Kids became the definitive insider history of the scene and the source text for a BBC Three drama adaptation written by Theresa Ikoko. Few cultural movements are documented this directly by a participant. The Rap Game UK, which he co-hosts with Krept and Konan, earned a BAFTA nomination for Entertainment Programme, giving him broadcast craft alongside scene credibility. Eden’s Bloom, the freeze-dried baby food brand he co-founded with his wife Eva, gives him a working perspective on building a consumer brand from scratch outside the music industry. He brings the hosting craft of a daily 1Xtra slot to corporate panels, awards and culture-led conversations, where the bar is keeping a senior audience interested without scripting every line. Biography highlights Founding member of Roll Deep alongside Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, Skepta and Flowdan; co-producer of the UK Top 20 single “Champagne Dance”. BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter since 2007, former co-music lead of the station. Co-host of BBC Three’s BAFTA-nominated The Rap Game UK with Krept and Konan. Author of Grime Kids: The Inside Story of the Global Grime Takeover (Trapeze, 2018). Executive producer on the BBC Three drama adaptation of Grime Kids, written by Theresa Ikoko and produced by Mammoth Screen. Co-founder of Eden’s Bloom, a freeze-dried baby food brand built with his wife Eva Joseph. Biography Grime did not arrive fully formed. It was built on pirate radio in East London by teenagers who had no expectation that anyone outside their estates would listen. Roll Deep was one of the collectives at the centre of that, and DJ Target was one of its founding members alongside Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, Skepta and Flowdan. Their 2002 single “Champagne Dance” reached number 13 on the UK Singles Chart and signalled that the scene could cross over without losing what made it. That experience gave him the source material for Grime Kids: The Inside Story of the Global Grime Takeover, published by Trapeze in 2018. The book became the canonical insider account of the genre, later adapted into a BBC Three drama series written by Theresa Ikoko and produced by Mammoth Screen, with DJ Target as executive producer. He is one of the few participants in a cultural movement who has gone on to write its history and shape its dramatisation. His broadcasting career sits alongside this. He has presented on BBC Radio 1Xtra since 2007, served as the station’s co-music lead, and co-hosts BBC Three’s The Rap Game UK with Krept and Konan, a series that earned a BAFTA nomination for Entertainment Programme. The hosting craft is the part senior audiences feel directly: keeping a room engaged, threading a conversation, working without a script. Outside music he co-founded Eden’s Bloom with his wife Eva Joseph, a freeze-dried baby food brand named after their daughter. The venture gives him a working view of consumer brand-building from product to shelf, and a second story to draw on when the brief is entrepreneurship rather than culture. Key speaking topics UK grime, garage and the rise of British Black music Cultural authenticity in brand and youth marketing Building a creative scene from the ground up Broadcasting and panel hosting Founder experience in consumer goods Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders working on youth, music or culture-led campaigns Internal culture and DEI programmes that want substance rather than slogans Awards hosting, panel moderation and after-dinner sets where craft and cultural authority both matter Founder communities and accelerator audiences interested in consumer brand-building Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how grime moved from pirate radio to global recognition, told by someone who was there A clearer read on what makes brand engagement with youth culture credible and what makes it fall flat A working founder’s view of building a consumer product brand alongside a creative career A hosted conversation that lands with audiences who can spot a scripted moderator from the back of the room

Why organisations work with Dominic Alldis His sessions place executives inside a live orchestra or jazz band, making the dynamics of leadership – alignment, trust, listening under pressure – physically felt rather than conceptually described. No other leadership format uses professional live performance as the working medium in this way. The classical-vs-jazz framework gives organisations a precise vocabulary for a problem most struggle to name: when to follow the score and when to improvise – the alignment-versus-autonomy tension that runs through every complex team. The Orchestra Experience has been part of Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008, with endorsement from the programme’s Kravis Professor of Business – giving his approach academic standing alongside conference-format delivery. As an active professional musician and faculty member at the Royal Academy of Music since 1991, he brings current, first-person experience of high-performance ensembles – not a career retrospective applied to business. His client base runs from Microsoft, Google and Deutsche Bank to the United Nations, with executive education work at INSEAD, IMD Lausanne, London Business School and Columbia – evidence of trust from serious institutions across sectors and formats. Biography highlights Jazz pianist, orchestral conductor, arranger and singer; professional career began in Paris in 1982 and spans jazz clubs, concert halls and festival stages internationally Founder and Director of Music & Management, delivering music-based leadership development programmes for corporations and business schools worldwide Faculty member at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 1991, teaching jazz improvisation to classical pianists and opera singers; Honorary Associate since 2000; Steinway Artist since 2010 Music & Management has delivered the Orchestra Experience to Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008; executive education work also includes INSEAD/CEDEP, IMD Lausanne and London Business School Corporate clients include senior teams at Microsoft, WPP, Google, eBay, Deutsche Bank, LVMH, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, BCG, PwC, Mandarin Oriental and the United Nations Author of two books published by Hal Leonard Corporation: «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Harmony» and «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Improvisation» Founder of the Canzona Chamber Orchestra (2010), performing classical repertoire and jazz crossover projects Biography The tension between structure and spontaneity runs through every high-performing team. An orchestra delivers the score with precision; a jazz band improvises around shared norms. Dominic Alldis is a jazz pianist, conductor, and founder of Music & Management and has spent more than two decades translating this contrast into a direct learning experience for executives. The question he brings to business audiences is concrete: when should a team follow the score, and when should it improvise? His framework draws from a professional career that spans both traditions. Alldis studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, played jazz residencies in Paris and London, conducted orchestras across four continents, and has taught improvisation to classical pianists and opera singers at the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he holds the title of Honorary Associate) since 1991. That dual expertise is the engine of his practice: not music as illustration, but musical performance as a live laboratory for the dynamics organisations actually need to develop. Music & Management has embedded the Orchestra Experience in Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008 – endorsed by Paul Ingram, Kravis Professor of Business. Corporate clients include senior teams at Microsoft, WPP, Google, Deutsche Bank, LVMH and the United Nations. His executive education work spans INSEAD, IMD Lausanne and London Business School. Testimonials from CHROs, managing partners and CEOs consistently name the sessions as the most memorable leadership experience their organisations have produced. His books – «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Harmony» and «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Improvisation», both published by Hal Leonard Corporation – reflect the same bridging instinct: rigorous musical thinking made accessible to practitioners who come from a different tradition. Key speaking topics Leadership through musical performance Classical and jazz models of organisational alignment Collaboration and collective decision-making Listening as a leadership competency Creativity and improvisation in organisations Change and adaptability in complex environments Team dynamics and organisational trust Ideal for Senior executive teams at strategic off-sites, leadership summits, and cultural transformation programmes CHROs and L&D Directors designing experiential leadership development at executive level Business schools and executive education programmes seeking immersive, non-traditional learning formats CEOs and boards seeking a high-impact, memorable format that connects music, leadership, and organisational performance Audience outcomes A direct, experiential encounter with how alignment, trust, and collective decision-making operate in real time – not as concepts, but as felt dynamics A working vocabulary for the tension between structured coordination and creative autonomy in teams Greater awareness of listening as an operational leadership practice, not only a communication skill New perspective on how change and improvisation can be navigated without losing coherent direction Personal observations about their own leadership behaviour, prompted by the musical experience rather than delivered through instruction

Why organisations work with Duncan Wardle His Theory of Creativity™ is a named, commercially tested framework – not a philosophy but a practical toolkit developed and stress-tested across Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks before being applied with post-Disney clients including Apple, the NBA, Coca-Cola, and NBCUniversal. He treats creativity as a repeatable operational habit rather than a talent or a culture programme – giving leadership teams a concrete, tool-based answer to the question of how to make innovation everyone’s job, not a department’s. Specific tools within the framework – the “What If” method and the “Rivers of Thinking” model – address the cognitive and structural barriers that prevent established organisations from generating genuinely new ideas. These are actionable instruments audiences can use immediately, not post-event reading lists. He is one of the few speakers in this space who built an innovation function from the inside of a major global brand, rather than studying one from outside – a distinction that matters to senior audiences who have heard the Disney case study told at second hand. Author of The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation (2024), a practitioner resource designed to be used independently by organisations after an engagement, extending the shelf life of the session beyond the room. Biography highlights VP of Innovation and Creativity at The Walt Disney Company; previous VP roles include VP Global Public Relations and VP International Marketing and Sales, with postings across London, Paris, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Shanghai Founded Disney’s Creative Catalyst Team, responsible for embedding innovation across Imagineering, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks Founder and CEO of iD8 & innov8, a design thinking consultancy; clients include Apple, Coca-Cola, NBA, PepsiCo, IBM, NBCUniversal, and Spotify Author of The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation (Benbella Books, 2024) Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company; member of the Fast Company Executive Board Multiple TEDx speaker, including “The Theory of Creativity” (TEDxAUK) and “Creating Relationship Magic” (TEDxBocaRaton) Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration, Edinburgh Napier University (2014); White House American Citizen Award (2008); Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award; 2022 Nordic Business Forum Speaker Contest Winner Teaches Innovation Masterclasses at Yale and Harvard Biography Duncan Wardle joined The Walt Disney Company as an intern in the London office in 1987. Over the following 30 years he progressed through VP roles in global public relations, international marketing and sales, and ultimately VP of Innovation and Creativity – the function he built from scratch, founding Disney’s Creative Catalyst Team and deploying it across Imagineering, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks. His central argument is that creativity is not a talent distributed unevenly across the workforce. It is a capability that corporate structures systematically suppress – and one that can be restored with the right tools. The framework he developed inside Disney, the Theory of Creativity™, includes specific instruments: the “What If” method, used by Walt Disney himself to pivot the company from an animation studio to an entertainment and theme park pioneer, and the “Rivers of Thinking” model, which identifies the expertise-driven habits that stop large organisations from generating genuinely new ideas. Since founding iD8 & innov8, Wardle has applied these methods with clients including Apple, Coca-Cola, the NBA, PepsiCo, and NBCUniversal – demonstrating that a toolkit built for an entertainment brand translates across sectors where creative problem-solving is structurally harder. His 2024 book, The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation, packages the methodology as a practical resource organisations can use independently. He also contributes to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company, and teaches Innovation Masterclasses at Yale and Harvard. His formal recognition includes a White House American Citizen Award (2008), an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Edinburgh Napier University (2014), a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award, and the 2022 Nordic Business Forum Speaker Contest. He is a multiple TEDx speaker, with talks including “The Theory of Creativity” and “Creating Relationship Magic.” Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and the Theory of Creativity™ Design thinking and creative problem-solving Organisational barriers to creative thinking Customer experience innovation Human creativity and competitive advantage in the age of AI Building innovation culture at scale Creative leadership and entrepreneurial thinking Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams responsible for growth and competitive strategy Chief Innovation Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, and transformation leads Large organisations seeking to embed innovation beyond a dedicated function Conference audiences in technology, consumer, media, and professional services sectors Audience outcomes A named set of practical innovation tools – including the “What If” method and the “Rivers of Thinking” model – that teams can apply immediately A framework for identifying and removing the cognitive and structural barriers that block creative thinking in established organisations Clarity on how to separate the creative process from the operational process, and why the two must be managed differently An understanding of why human creativity is not threatened by AI – and how to build it as a source of commercial competitive advantage Concrete methods for making innovation a daily habit rather than a quarterly initiative

Why organisations work with Erik Wahl A live speed-painting keynote that converts creativity from an abstract value into a visible act on stage, giving leaders a shared reference point they can take back into the business. A thesis grounded in two trade-published books, Unthink (Crown, 2013) and The Spark and the Grind (TarcherPerigee, 2017), that argues creativity is a discipline, not a personality trait. A client list that reads as validation for risk-averse buyers: Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, London Business School. TED2012 selection and a keynote slot at Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year, signalling that the content stands up in front of rigorous business audiences. A philanthropic record of over USD 1.5 million raised through art auctions, which gives the performance a credible backbone beyond corporate entertainment. Biography highlights Author of Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius, Crown Business / Random House, 2013. Named CEO Reads Book of the Year. Author of The Spark and the Grind: Ignite the Power of Disciplined Creativity, TarcherPerigee, 2017. Selected speaker for TED2012: Full Spectrum. Keynote speaker at Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year and Entrepreneur Magazine’s Growth Conference. Clients include Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, London Business School. Raised over USD 1.5 million for charitable causes through art auctions including One Fund Boston, Linda’s Voice, and Miracle-Ear Foundation. Biography Creativity is the one capability most organisations claim to prize and systematically suppress. Erik Wahl spent eight years inside a corporate firm, rising to partner, before the dot-com collapse made that point unavoidable. He rebuilt his working life around the question: why is the thing everyone says they want the hardest thing for companies to actually do? The answer became a two-book argument. Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius, published by Crown in 2013, took the position that creativity is a recoverable discipline, not a fixed trait, and was named CEO Reads Book of the Year. The Spark and the Grind, published by TarcherPerigee in 2017, extended the thesis into the operational layer: how leaders pair inspiration with the unglamorous work of sustained execution. The keynote is where the argument becomes legible. Wahl paints live on stage, usually a recognisable face such as Steve Jobs or Michael Jordan, while making the case that organisations need to rebuild the muscle their systems quietly erode. The format has carried him to TED2012 and to client rooms at Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, and London Business School. It is also how he has raised over USD 1.5 million for charity through auctioned work, including One Fund Boston and Linda’s Voice. What he gives a leadership audience is not motivation. It is a disciplined case for why the innovation strategy on the wall keeps failing, and a visible demonstration of the capacity the room has forgotten it has. Key speaking topics Disciplined creativity in large organisations Innovation capacity and execution Creative leadership Change and reinvention Peak performance and creative discipline Storytelling and business communication Ideal for CEO, COO, and strategy leaders running innovation or transformation mandates Sales and commercial leadership conferences opening a new growth cycle Talent and learning leaders building creative capability at scale Annual kick-off audiences where the brief calls for a sharp creative reset rather than a process lecture Audience outcomes A concrete argument for why creativity is a business discipline, not a personality asset Language and imagery leaders can reuse back in the business to frame innovation conversations A direct experience of what creative risk looks like when it is executed, not described A set of practical habits drawn from The Spark and the Grind for pairing ideas with sustained execution

Why organisations work with Fabian Hemmert He brings a working academic’s depth to a question most strategy teams treat too lightly: what does good human-computer interaction actually look like when AI is in the loop. His “Research Through Design” approach produces tested prototypes, not slideware. The “Data Touch” project, a finger ring that advances presentations by recognising objects, is the kind of artefact that shifts how a leadership team thinks about interface design. He speaks fluently across audiences. A PhD from Berlin University of the Arts, prior commercial work at Nintendo and Marvel, and stage time at SXSW, Lift and the Chaos Communication Congress give him range from board to design floor. He reframes AI as a design problem rather than a deployment problem. For organisations wrestling with adoption, that reframing tends to unlock conversations the technical roadmap cannot. Biography highlights Professor of Interface and User Experience Design, University of Wuppertal, heading the department since 2016. Dr.-Ing. from Berlin University of the Arts, with doctoral research at the Design Research Lab in collaboration with Telekom Innovation Labs. TEDxBerlin speaker; talk “The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone” hosted on TED.com. Conference platforms include SXSW, Lift, Chaos Communication Congress, EuroVision TV Summit, CeBIT, TEDxSalzburg and TEDxInnsbruck. Earlier industry experience at Nintendo of Europe and Marvel Comics during interface design studies. Published academic work on tangible interfaces and design research methodology, including a PhD thesis and book chapter on the Repertory Grid Technique. Biography Most digital products are built for the system, not the human using it. That mismatch is becoming harder to hide as AI moves from the back office into daily work. Fabian Hemmert’s research at the University of Wuppertal is a sustained attempt to close that gap through design rather than user training. He runs the Interface and User Experience Design department at Wuppertal’s industrial design school and earned his Dr.-Ing. at Berlin University of the Arts, working alongside Telekom Innovation Labs. The methodology is “Research Through Design”: build a prototype, put it in front of people, learn what changes. Projects such as “Data Touch”, a finger ring that controls a presentation by recognising the objects in a speaker’s hand, are how the research becomes argument. Earlier in his career he worked for Nintendo of Europe and Marvel Comics, which gives the academic frame a commercial spine. His public platform includes TEDxBerlin, SXSW, Lift, the Chaos Communication Congress, the EuroVision TV Summit and CeBIT. The through-line is consistent across all of them: intuitive technology is a design outcome, not an accident. For senior leaders, the value is a corrective. Strategy decks treat AI and digital tools as capability questions. Hemmert’s work makes the case that adoption, engagement and trust are decided much earlier, at the interface, and that organisations underestimate how much of their digital strategy is being shaped by design defaults they never examined. Key speaking topics Human-computer interaction Designing for AI in everyday use Tangible and embodied interfaces The future of mobile and personal devices Research Through Design methodology Design education and creative capability Play as a method for innovation Ideal for Chief design officers, heads of product and CX leaders rethinking digital interfaces in light of AI. Innovation and R&D teams looking for an academic perspective grounded in built prototypes. Leadership audiences at technology, telecoms, consumer electronics and media organisations. Universities, design schools and conferences focused on the future of human-machine interaction. Audience outcomes A sharper sense of why interface design, not model capability, often decides whether an AI deployment lands. Exposure to working prototypes that reframe assumptions about how digital systems should feel to use. A vocabulary for discussing tangibility, embodiment and intuition as commercial design variables. Confidence to challenge default assumptions about screens, devices and digital workflows in their own organisation.