Ledarskapsutveckling speakers

Why organisations work with Mariano Sigman A 2018 Nature Human Behaviour study he co-authored, run with 5,180 live participants, showed that aggregating small structured debates produces sharper answers than the wisdom of thousands; that finding rewrites how senior groups should be designed to decide. He directs the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project, Europe’s flagship neuroscience consortium, and is the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship in that initiative. His training in physics in Buenos Aires, neuroscience at Rockefeller, and postdoctoral work with Stanislas Dehaene at the College de France gives his claims a methodological grounding that separates them from motivational uses of the same science. “The Secret Life of the Mind”, published by HarperCollins, has been translated into more than a dozen languages and reviewed by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Science Magazine; his ideas hold up outside the speaker circuit. His 2023 book “Artificial”, co-authored with Santiago Bilinkis, gives leadership audiences a calm, scientifically grounded read on what AI changes and does not change in human cognition. Biography highlights PhD in neuroscience from Rockefeller University; postdoctoral research with Stanislas Dehaene at the College de France. Director of the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project; the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship in that initiative. Associate Professor at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; founder of the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires; Principal Researcher at CONICET. Pius XI Medal from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (2016); James S. McDonnell Scholar Award; Human Frontier Science Program Career Development Award. Author of “The Secret Life of the Mind” (HarperCollins, 2017) and “El poder de las palabras” (2022); co-author of “Artificial” with Santiago Bilinkis (2023). TED main-stage speaker on collective intelligence with Dan Ariely. Biography Smart people in a room together do not reliably make smart decisions. Mariano Sigman has spent two decades building the experimental science that explains why, and what to change about it. His laboratory at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella draws on physics, neuroscience, linguistics, and cognitive science to study how individuals and groups actually form judgments under uncertainty. The clearest example is a 2018 paper in Nature Human Behaviour with Joaquin Navajas and colleagues. Working with 5,180 live participants, the team showed that aggregating the consensus of small structured debate groups was substantially more accurate than averaging the opinions of thousands of independent individuals. The architecture of a conversation, in other words, matters more than the number of voices inside it. Sigman trained as a physicist at the University of Buenos Aires, took a PhD in neuroscience at Rockefeller, and did postdoctoral research at the College de France with Stanislas Dehaene, one of the leading figures in cognitive science. He directs the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project, the European flagship initiative, and is the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship there. “The Secret Life of the Mind”, published by HarperCollins, became an international bestseller and brought his work on judgment, learning, and consciousness to readers in more than a dozen languages. His 2023 book “Artificial”, co-authored with Santiago Bilinkis, applies the same lens to the relationship between human cognition and AI. For boards and executive teams, that body of work answers a specific question. Senior decisions live or die on how a small group aggregates uncertain information. Sigman gives leaders a working account of where that process breaks, why it breaks, and which structural moves close the gap. Key speaking topics Collective intelligence and group decision-making Cognitive bias and judgment under uncertainty The neuroscience of learning and adult neuroplasticity Conversation, language, and belief formation Artificial intelligence and human cognition Consciousness and the science of the mind Creativity and the cognitive roots of innovation Ideal for Boards and executive committees rethinking how high-stakes decisions are deliberated and made CHROs and learning leaders designing capability and judgment programmes for senior talent Strategy, innovation, and transformation leaders working under deep uncertainty Technology and AI leadership teams reasoning about human-machine collaboration Audience outcomes A working account of why structured small-group debate outperforms both lone experts and large consensus meetings. A specific vocabulary for the cognitive distortions that quietly shape leadership judgment, including confidence bias and equality bias. A clearer read on how the adult brain learns and changes, and where common assumptions about learning capacity are wrong. A practical sense of how language and conversation shape belief, memory, and choice inside teams. A grounded view of what AI changes, and does not change, in the cognitive demands placed on senior leaders.

Why organisations work with Marina Ibrahim She has run cross-cultural integration work inside named multinationals including BMW Group, Bentley, Nike, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo, BP, UBS and Deutsche Telekom, across automotive, FMCG, financial services and life sciences. Her own biography (British-German, born to a German mother and Egyptian father, bilingual in English and German) is the lived case study behind the work, which lands with international audiences in a way a single-culture expert cannot match. She brings instrument-led rigour, not opinion. GLOBE+, her signature framework, integrates Country Navigator, Wiley Everything DiSC Certified Partner, Wiley Five Behaviours Certified Partner (Lencioni’s Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team), GlobalDISC and ICQ Growth 2.0 into diagnostic data on team performance. She has worked the British-German interface specifically, including post-merger cultural integration, where most cross-cultural speakers stay at a generic level. Externally judged: FSB West Midlands Diversity and Inclusion Award 2024 for the consultancy she founded, and Professional Speaker of the Year Staffordshire 2025. Biography highlights Founder of Globility Insights, the West Midlands-based cultural agility and inclusive leadership consultancy she established in 2011. Creator of GLOBE+, her signature cultural agility framework, used with multinational clients across automotive, FMCG, financial services and life sciences. Senior Culture Coach at Country Navigator, the cultural intelligence training platform. Finalist at The Speaker Awards 2026, the UK awards for the professional speaking industry, shortlisted for Best Thought Leadership Speaker and Best Storyteller. Federation of Small Businesses West Midlands Diversity and Inclusion Award 2024; Professional Speaker of the Year, Staffordshire 2025; Cartus Service Excellence Award 2020. Client organisations include BMW Group, Bentley, Nike, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo, EMI, Commerzbank, BP, UBS, Deutsche Telekom and Wood PLC. Wiley Everything DiSC Certified Partner; Wiley Five Behaviours Certified Partner (Lencioni’s Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team); Country Navigator, GlobalDISC and ICQ Growth 2.0 Coach; MirrorMIRROR Certified Team Coach; NLP Practitioner; MCIM Chartered Marketer. British and German national with Egyptian heritage; bilingual English and German. Biography Most multinational organisations treat culture as a soft variable. Strategy is hard, culture is decoration. The teams running the actual work know better. They are the ones absorbing the friction when a German engineering function tries to land a project inside a Brazilian commercial team, or when a British acquirer tells a Japanese subsidiary that “nothing will change”. Marina Ibrahim has spent more than 25 years inside that gap. Through Globility Insights, the consultancy she founded in 2011, she has worked with BMW Group, Bentley, Nike, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo, BP, UBS and Deutsche Telekom on the parts of cross-cultural collaboration that do not show up on a strategy slide: trust between merged teams, decision-making across British and German operating styles, the difference between an inclusion statement and a multicultural team that actually functions. Her own profile is part of the credibility. Born to a German mother and Egyptian father, British-German, bilingual in English and German, she is the lived case study behind the work. The method is not. GLOBE+, her signature framework, runs senior teams through Country Navigator, Wiley Everything DiSC, Wiley Five Behaviours, GlobalDISC and ICQ Growth 2.0, so leaders leave with diagnostic data on how their teams actually operate, not a set of stories. In 2024, the Federation of Small Businesses named Globility the West Midlands Diversity and Inclusion Award winner, an externally judged signal that the practice she built holds up under scrutiny. For senior teams trying to make global structures actually perform, that is the relevant test. Key speaking topics Cultural agility as a competitive advantage Inclusive leadership in multinational organisations High-performing multicultural teams Post-merger cultural integration British and German business cultures and operating styles Unconscious bias and inclusive decision-making in practice Leading internationally distributed and hybrid teams Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads embedding inclusion beyond policy into team behaviour Executive teams running cross-border integrations or post-merger collaboration Global function heads managing multicultural and internationally distributed teams Leadership development programmes for senior leaders preparing for international roles Audience outcomes A working definition of cultural agility that names what behaviours actually shift performance across borders A diagnostic view of where their own multicultural teams break down, drawn from established cultural instruments rather than opinion Specific moves leaders can use the next day to manage British, German and broader European operating differences A sharper sense of where current inclusion efforts are stalling and what to do about it

Why organisations work with Marissa Afton She brings a published, board-ready framework for compassion paired with difficult action, set out in Compassionate Leadership (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), not a generic wellbeing message. She works at the inside edge of what leaders actually face right now: how to communicate restructure, layoff and AI-driven role change in a way that retains the people who stay. Her client base spans Apple, Bloomberg, Cisco, Google, Eli Lilly and Amgen, so her examples are drawn from leadership teams operating at the same scale and pressure as the buyer’s. More Human (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) gives her a second published framework, this time for the AI transition. It names awareness, wisdom, and compassion as the qualities leaders build as machines take on more of the analytical work. In Harvard Business Review she set out the operational version at IBM, whose HR unit reinvested the hours AI saved into developing its managers, and put AI to work as a leadership coach. Biography highlights Partner and Head of Global Accounts, Potential Project. Co-author, More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead (2025) and Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way (2022), both Harvard Business Review Press. Contributing author, The Mind of the Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, 2018). Recurring contributor to Harvard Business Review, including “How Gen AI Can Create More Time for Leadership”, “Using AI to Make You a More Compassionate Leader”, “To Succeed with AI, Adopt a Beginner’s Mindset”, and “Connect with Empathy, But Lead with Compassion”. Client engagements at Apple, Bloomberg, Cisco, Eli Lilly, Google and Amgen. More than 25 years of formal mindfulness practice, applied to executive development at scale. Biography Hard decisions are arriving faster, and the audience for them has changed. Boards are being asked to restructure, redeploy and let people go in the same year they ask for innovation, retention and engagement. The leaders inside that contradiction need a way to act decisively without becoming the problem they were hired to solve. That is the territory Marissa Afton works in. As Partner and Head of Global Accounts at Potential Project, she runs leadership engagements with companies including Apple, Bloomberg, Cisco, Google, Eli Lilly and Amgen, and the brief is consistently the same: how do senior people deliver difficult news, drive hard change and still hold the room. Her co-authored book Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022) is the published frame for that work. The argument, developed with Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter in HBR, is that empathy on its own makes leaders worse at hard decisions. What organisations need instead is wise compassion, the willingness to act on hard truth while keeping the human in view. She has practised formal mindfulness for more than 25 years. More Human (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) carries the argument into the AI transition. It names awareness, wisdom, and compassion as the qualities leaders build as machines take on more of the analytical work. In Harvard Business Review she showed the operational version: IBM’s HR unit reinvested the hours AI saved into developing its managers, and used AI itself as a leadership coach. Key speaking topics Compassionate leadership and hard decisions Leading through restructure, layoffs and change The mind of the leader and mental agility Mindful leadership and self-leadership at senior levels Resilience and burnout prevention for executives Women in senior leadership Leading in the age of AI Building human connection in hybrid work Ideal for CEOs, CHROs and senior HR leaders running restructure, redeployment or layoff programmes Executive leadership teams working on culture and trust through periods of significant change Boards and ELT offsites where the brief is to combine commercial honesty with humane delivery Women’s leadership programmes and senior leadership development cohorts Audience outcomes A working language for combining hard decisions with humane delivery, drawn from a published HBR Press framework A clearer view of where empathy helps leaders and where it begins to undermine them Specific practices for self-leadership under pressure, grounded in mental training rather than motivation A perspective on AI-era leadership that treats human attention as a scarce, trainable resource

Why organisations work with Mark Barton The instinct to know when a speaker is avoiding the question comes from 10,000+ live interviews with central bankers, finance ministers, and CEOs. That is not something a professional facilitator acquires through facilitation training. A moderator who anchored Bloomberg Television’s coverage of six US elections, six UK general elections, the global financial crisis, and Brexit can challenge an economist or minister with authority rather than deference. For executives facing media scrutiny, Barton is among a very small group of coaches who can genuinely recreate the pressure of a live news anchor interrogation: because he spent 23 years on that side of the camera. He has chaired forums for Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute; organisations that expect substantive interrogation of the room’s most senior participants, not event management. As one of the five journalists who built Bloomberg Television’s European operations from the ground up in 1995, he brings an institutional relationship with the world of global finance and markets that most conference professionals simply do not have. Biography highlights One of five founding journalists, Bloomberg Television’s European operations, London, 1995 23-year Bloomberg TV anchor; hosted Countdown, First Word On Money, European Market Report, Bloomberg Markets, and The European Close Covered six UK general elections, six US elections, the global financial crisis, and Brexit across Bloomberg’s flagship prime-time programming Radio broadcaster: Daybreak Europe (Bloomberg Radio); financial bulletins on NPR, LBC Radio, Jazz FM, and Riviera Radio Conference host at the World Media Awards and The AIBs; moderator at the Horasis Global Meeting and Zurich Global Risk Management Summit Post-Bloomberg clients include Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute University of London, history Biography Bloomberg Television launched its European operations in London in 1995 with five journalists. Mark Barton was one of them. Over the next 23 years, he anchored the channel’s flagship programming: Countdown, European Market Report, Bloomberg Markets, The European Close. Those two decades built the editorial instincts and financial market depth that define his work today. His coverage record is specific. Six UK general elections. Six US elections. The global financial crisis. Brexit. More than 10,000 live interviews with world leaders, finance ministers, central bankers, and chief executives, including Bill Gates, Jean-Claude Trichet, and Shimon Peres. The experience of managing live, unscripted conversations with the world’s most guarded public figures is not one that transfers through conventional facilitation training. Beyond television, Barton presented Daybreak Europe on Bloomberg Radio and delivered financial market bulletins on NPR, LBC Radio, Jazz FM, and Riviera Radio. He also trained dozens of Bloomberg journalists in on-air communication: work that forms the basis of the media coaching he now delivers to business leaders preparing for public scrutiny. Since leaving Bloomberg in 2018, he has moderated for organisations including Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute. At the 2019 Horasis Global Meeting, he chaired a plenary on global governance featuring the former Prime Ministers of Romania and Belgium and the former President of Slovenia. The consistent thread: rooms that require a moderator with the credibility to hold their most senior participants to account. Key speaking topics Global financial markets and economic trends Geopolitical risk and international affairs Conference hosting and high-stakes panel moderation Executive media and communications coaching Live broadcast journalism and interviewing Business and financial crisis coverage Presentation skills under pressure Ideal for Boards and senior leadership teams commissioning high-profile forums on global economic risk, geopolitics, or financial markets Conference producers and event directors requiring a moderator with genuine domain authority, not just facilitation skills Chief Communications Officers and communications teams preparing executives for live media exposure C-suite leaders undergoing media training ahead of investor events, public testimony, or broadcast interviews Audience outcomes A moderated panel or forum with the editorial discipline and intellectual challenge of a live news broadcast Executives with a clearer understanding of how to communicate complex positions under real media pressure – not simulated conditions A more productive leadership dialogue: one that surfaces genuine disagreement rather than managing it toward pre-approved consensus Practical techniques for live interview performance, grounded in the experience of 10,000+ actual broadcast interviews Increased confidence in high-stakes public settings, drawn from observing how the world’s most scrutinised figures handle live questioning

Why organisations work with Mark Denton Lived authority on earning commitment with no command power. He led 17 amateur sailors, around 70% of them first-time sailors, across 32,000 miles for ten months, unable to hire, fire, or coerce anyone. Belief had to be won daily. Translates that into named diagnostics (Navig-8, CULTIV-8, COLLABOR-8, DOMIN-8) that exec teams can use after the keynote, rather than a story that fades by Monday. Runs a twenty-year consulting practice through MAXVMG, so the room is addressed by someone who works inside organisations, not only on stage. Licensed partner of Amy Edmondson’s Fearless Organisation Scan, which gives him a defensible position on psychological safety alongside the performance material. Voted Bookers Choice at the 2024 Speaker Awards by the agents who book speakers for a living, a sharper signal than self-reported ratings. Biography highlights Skippered BP Explorer to the podium in the BT Global Challenge round-the-world yacht race, leading a crew of seventeen amateurs, around 70% first-time sailors, for ten months at sea. Founder of MAXVMG, an organisational development consultancy focused on leadership, team performance, and change. Bookers Choice winner at the 2024 Speaker Awards, voted by booking agents. Licensed partner of Amy Edmondson’s Fearless Organisation Scan, the psychological safety diagnostic developed at Harvard Business School. Contributor to Inspiring Leadership: Staying Afloat in Turbulent Times, the Henley Management College text by Cranwell-Ward, Bacon, and Mackie on emotional intelligence and sustained performance. Has spoken to leaders and teams in more than 30 countries; IVCA Gold Award recipient for speaking; accredited executive and team coach. Biography A skipper on the BT Global Challenge cannot hire, fire, or pay a crew into line. The seventeen people on BP Explorer were amateurs, around 70% of them first-time sailors, committed for ten months and 32,000 miles the wrong way around the world. Mark Denton led that crew to the podium, and every ounce of their commitment had to be earned rather than ordered. That is the problem most senior leaders now recognise. In matrixed, cross-functional organisations, authority no longer guarantees commitment, and teams have to move as one without a clear chain of command. The academic term is followership: the earned commitment that gets people to perform when they cannot be compelled to. Denton has spent the twenty years since converting that experience into a consulting practice. Through MAXVMG, his organisation development firm, he advises leadership teams on performance, culture, and change, working from structured diagnostics (Navig-8 for resilience, CULTIV-8 for culture, COLLABOR-8 for team dynamics, DOMIN-8 for performance) that give clients something to use after the keynote. The intellectual spine comes from two places. He contributed to the Henley Management College text Inspiring Leadership: Staying Afloat in Turbulent Times, on emotional intelligence and sustained performance, and he is a licensed partner of Amy Edmondson’s Fearless Organisation Scan, the psychological safety diagnostic developed at Harvard Business School. In 2024 the agents who book speakers for a living voted him Bookers Choice at the Speaker Awards, a useful signal in a category where lived experience without operational substance is the failure mode. Key speaking topics Collective performance Leading without authority and earned commitment High-performance team dynamics Leadership under sustained pressure Resilience and recovery in volatile conditions Cross-functional and matrix team alignment Psychological safety in performance cultures Decision-making under uncertainty Ideal for CEOs and executive teams entering an extended period of operational pressure or transformation. Leaders running cross-functional or matrixed teams, where outcomes depend on influence rather than direct authority. HR and people directors building resilience and psychological safety capability across senior populations. Sales, operations, and project leaders running high-stakes programmes where the team has to perform for sustained periods without burning out. Audience outcomes A working model of how commitment is earned when a leader cannot rely on rank or reward. A vocabulary for diagnosing team dysfunction (the Navig-8, COLLABOR-8, and DOMIN-8 frameworks) that leaders can take back into their own meetings. The link between psychological safety and performance, grounded in Edmondson’s research. Specific examples of how an amateur crew outperformed expectations, and what senior leaders can borrow from the mechanics. Reset points for leaders and cross-functional teams heading into a prolonged period of pressure.

Why organisations work with Mark Noon He has built leadership benches inside two of the most accountability-driven environments in American working life: the U.S. Air Force medical system and Studer Group’s healthcare client base. Senior teams get someone who has run the work, not described it. His signature framework, Set Up To Step In, gives organisations a concrete method for preparing successors before the seat opens, drawn from his book Set Up: Timeless Leadership Skills for Your Success. He has coached and presented inside more than 300 organisations across 43 states and several countries, which means the playbook has been pressure-tested across hospital systems, military units, and civilian operating environments. He treats employee engagement as a discipline rather than a sentiment, anchored in structured one-on-one rounding practices that frontline managers can repeat weekly. He pairs Studer Group’s service excellence lineage with first-hand command experience, a combination that lands credibly with clinical leaders who are sceptical of theory imported from outside healthcare. Biography highlights Retired U.S. Air Force Major after roughly 20 years of service, including 12 years as a commissioned officer and clinical lab director. Career path moved from enlisted laboratory technician to officer with immediate appointment to a lab management role. Served across nine assignments in seven U.S. states and a tour of duty in the Middle East. Spent approximately eight years as a coach with Studer Group, working with healthcare systems on operational and service excellence. Currently a Professional Speaker, Executive Coach and Developer of Leaders with LeadershipTen. Author of Set Up: Timeless Leadership Skills for Your Success (T.H.E. Studer Group, 2018). Biography The hardest moment in any organisation is the one nobody schedules: a seat opens, and the person expected to fill it is not ready. That gap is rarely a hiring problem. It is the cumulative result of small leadership habits that were never made routine. Mark Noon spent 20 years inside the U.S. Air Force watching that pattern up close, then nearly a decade at Studer Group helping healthcare leaders fix it. He retired as a Major after 12 years as a commissioned officer and clinical lab director, with assignments across seven states and a tour in the Middle East. The path from enlisted lab technician to officer running a lab gave him a working theory of leadership grounded in operational reality rather than abstraction. That theory became Set Up: Timeless Leadership Skills for Your Success, published by T.H.E. Studer Group in 2018. The book and its companion keynote, Set Up To Step In, treat succession as a daily discipline, not an annual planning exercise. Leaders are not chosen, they are prepared, through repeatable habits that show up in how meetings are run, how feedback is given, and how one-on-one rounding is conducted with the people closest to the work. His client work now runs through LeadershipTen, where he coaches and speaks inside hospital systems, military units, and operationally demanding civilian organisations. The footprint covers more than 300 organisations across 43 states and several countries, which gives senior teams something useful: a coach who has seen which engagement and culture practices survive contact with a stretched workforce, and which do not. Key speaking topics Leader development and succession readiness Employee engagement and one-on-one rounding Culture aligned to strategy Healthcare leadership and service excellence Managing up and team reliability Lessons from military command for civilian leaders Ideal for Healthcare CEOs, COOs, and chief nursing officers building leader benches across hospital systems Heads of leadership development and learning leaders responsible for succession and frontline manager capability Senior military and veteran-serving organisations translating command experience into civilian operating practice Operationally complex organisations where frontline leadership turnover threatens service quality Audience outcomes A clear, named set of habits that distinguish leaders who are setting up successors from those who are not A working method for one-on-one rounding that frontline managers can run inside their existing week Language for talking about engagement as an operational discipline, not a survey result A frame for connecting daily leader behaviours to the strategy and culture senior teams have already committed to Confidence that the practices have been tested across military, healthcare, and civilian operating environments

Why organisations work with Mark Ritson His “diagnosis, strategy, tactics” framework gives marketing functions a structure for connecting brand spend to commercial outcomes – a discipline most organisations have never been taught and cannot easily develop internally. He spent 13 years as in-house brand consultant for LVMH, working with Louis Vuitton, Dom Perignon, and Hennessy. His commercial credibility comes from inside the world’s most valuable luxury portfolio, not from agency pitches or conference circuit opinion. His doctoral thesis on the social uses of advertising won the 2000 Ferber Award – the first non-US researcher to receive it – and his co-authored pricing research was cited by George Akerlof in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. No other marketing speaker working today holds that combination of peer-reviewed standing and practitioner track record. The MiniMBA, which he founded and teaches personally, has graduated more than 20,000 practitioners globally. That scale gives him a precise, evidence-based view of where marketing competence breaks down in real organisations – and what it costs them commercially. Nearly 20 years of weekly column-writing in Marketing Week – and multiple PPA Business Columnist of the Year awards – have made him the most credible dissenting voice against marketing faddism. Organisations bring him in when they need someone to challenge internal orthodoxies with evidence rather than instinct. Biography highlights PhD in Marketing, Lancaster University; doctoral thesis won the 2000 Ferber Award as the best dissertation published in the Journal of Consumer Research – the first non-US recipient in the award’s history Faculty positions at London Business School, the University of Minnesota, Melbourne Business School, MIT Sloan (visiting), and Singapore Management University (visiting); MBA Best Teacher prizes at all four institutions In-house brand consultant for LVMH from 2002 to 2015, working directly with senior executives at Louis Vuitton, Dom Perignon, and Hennessy Marketing Week columnist for approximately 20 years; multiple PPA Business Columnist of the Year awards, the highest award for magazine journalism in the UK; British Society of Magazine Editors Business Columnist of the Year in 2018 and 2022 Founder and lead instructor of the MiniMBA in Marketing and MiniMBA in Brand Management; more than 20,000 graduates globally AMI Sir Charles McGrath Award (the highest marketing honour in Australia); IPA Honorary Fellow (2024); co-authored pricing research cited by Nobel Laureate George Akerlof in his 2001 acceptance speech Published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Advertising Biography Marketing departments spend. The harder question – what that spending actually produces commercially – is the one most organisations cannot answer. Mark Ritson has spent over two decades building the frameworks that make that answer possible, working from inside business schools, luxury brand headquarters, and the pages of Marketing Week simultaneously. His academic foundation is unusually strong. His PhD thesis, “The Social Uses of Advertising,” won the 2000 Ferber Award as the best doctoral dissertation in the Journal of Consumer Research – the first time a researcher outside the United States had received the honour. A Thouron Scholar at Wharton in 1995, he went on to hold faculty positions at London Business School, the University of Minnesota, Melbourne Business School, and MIT Sloan, winning the best teacher prize at each institution. His co-authored pricing research was cited by George Akerlof during his 2001 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. What separates Ritson from other marketing academics is sustained proximity to practice. From 2002 to 2015, he served as in-house brand consultant for LVMH, working with senior executives across Louis Vuitton, Dom Perignon, and Hennessy. That access – combined with nearly two decades writing a weekly column for Marketing Week – gave him a vantage point that bridges research, boardroom, and brand operations in a way few practitioners have held at the same time. In 2019, he left academia to focus on the MiniMBA, an online platform he founded to make evidence-based marketing education available at scale. More than 20,000 practitioners have now completed the programme, built around his “diagnosis, strategy, tactics” framework. The AMI gave him the Sir Charles McGrath Award – the highest honour for marketing in Australia – and the IPA made him an Honorary Fellow in 2024. His consistent argument is that marketing’s commercial standing in the boardroom depends not on new technology or new trends, but on practitioner competence. Key speaking topics Marketing strategy and brand management Pricing strategy and commercial decision-making Marketing effectiveness and measurement Brand building versus performance marketing Marketing capability and practitioner competence Evidence-based marketing frameworks Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leaders facing board-level scrutiny of marketing budgets and accountability Executive leadership teams seeking a commercial framework for evaluating marketing investment Organisations investing in marketing capability development at scale Strategy, brand, and commercial functions in consumer-facing businesses where the link between brand and revenue is contested Audience outcomes A working framework for connecting marketing strategy to commercial outcomes, grounded in the “diagnosis, strategy, tactics” model Clarity on the evidence base for brand building versus short-term performance marketing, and practical guidance on how to argue for the right balance internally Sharpened understanding of pricing as a strategic rather than a tactical discipline Practical tools for improving the quality of marketing decisions: briefing standards, brand positioning, and market orientation The language and evidence to challenge marketing orthodoxies and fads in their own organisations

Why organisations work with Mark Sanborn The Fred Factor is a recognised internal language for service standards. Costco, FedEx, Harley-Davidson and ServiceMaster have used the book and keynote to give frontline employees a shared definition of what extraordinary looks like. He treats leadership as a behaviour, not a role. You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader gives organisations a way to mobilise discretionary effort from people who will never sit on an executive team. The Potential Matrix from The Potential Principle is a named framework for closing the gap between current performance and capacity, structured around four domains and four tools that managers can apply without consultants. Hall of Fame credentials with weight. Past President of the National Speakers Association, holder of the Cavett Award and a CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame member, the three highest distinctions the profession confers. Leadership Expert in Residence at High Point University since 2019, an active academic affiliation that grounds the keynote content in current student and faculty work. Biography highlights Author of The Fred Factor, over two million copies sold in 20-plus languages, a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and BusinessWeek bestseller. Eight books in total, including You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader, The Potential Principle and The Intention Imperative, published by Currency, Crown Business and Thomas Nelson. Leadership Expert in Residence, High Point University. Past President, National Speakers Association; CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame; Certified Speaking Professional. Cavett Award recipient, the NSA’s highest honour. Leadership programmes taught in 90 countries via Crestcom International; client list includes Costco, FedEx, Harley-Davidson, Cisco, IBM, KPMG, ESPN, General Motors and Toyota Financial Services. Biography Postal carrier Fred Shea delivered mail in Denver with such care that he became the subject of a book that has sold over two million copies in more than twenty languages. The Fred Factor turned a single neighbourhood story into a corporate standard for service, and gave Mark Sanborn the platform from which a much broader body of leadership work has been built. The work treats leadership as a daily behaviour rather than a position. You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader argues that organisations underestimate the influence of people without formal authority, and overestimate the influence of those who only have it. The argument lands with operating leaders because it maps onto the gap they already feel between strategy and execution. Subsequent books extend the same thesis into structured frameworks. The Potential Principle sets out the Potential Matrix, four domains (thinking, performing, learning, reflecting) crossed with four tools (disrupt, refocus, engage, expand), for closing the distance between current and capable performance. The Intention Imperative argues that culture, inspiration and emotion are the three deliberate practices of the modern leader, not the soft consequences of good strategy. The credentials are unusually concentrated. Past President of the National Speakers Association, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame member, holder of the Cavett Award, Leadership Expert in Residence at High Point University, and creator of training programmes taught in 90 countries through Crestcom International. Costco, FedEx, Harley-Davidson and IBM return to the same body of work because it makes service and leadership behaviour teachable at scale. Key speaking topics Everyday leadership without formal authority Service excellence and customer experience standards Organisational performance and accountability cultures Personal and team potential Intentional culture and engagement Leadership legacy and succession Ideal for CEOs and operating leaders setting service or culture standards across a distributed workforce CHROs and learning leaders building scalable leadership development for non-managerial staff Customer experience and service leaders in retail, hospitality, logistics and financial services Franchise and dealer networks where brand experience depends on people the corporate centre does not employ Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for what extraordinary service looks like inside their own organisation A practical model for developing leadership behaviour in employees who hold no formal authority The Potential Matrix as a working tool for identifying where individual and team performance is capped A clearer view of culture, inspiration and emotion as deliberate leadership practices, not side effects Specific behavioural changes that frontline managers and individual contributors can apply the next working day

Why organisations work with Mark Williams He brings the evidence base that most performance and leadership content lacks. His research on perceptual-cognitive skill, decision-making and expertise is among the most cited in the field worldwide. He has translated that science into practice at the highest level of sport, advising FIFA, UEFA, the IOC, The FA, and teams across the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. The lessons travel directly into how executives think about talent and pressure. His book with Tim Wigmore, “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made”, gives leaders a shared language for what separates the very best from the merely good, built on interviews with athletes like Steph Curry, Pete Sampras and Marcus Rashford. He is Editor-in-Chief of three of the discipline’s leading journals, including the Journal of Sports Sciences. When he tells a board what the research says, it is not a summary of someone else’s work. He is unusually direct for an academic of his standing. The science is rigorous, the delivery is plain. Biography highlights Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC); formerly Professor and Chair, Department of Health, Kinesiology and Recreation, University of Utah. Co-author of “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made” (2020), with Telegraph and New York Times sports writer Tim Wigmore. Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sports Sciences, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, and Human Movement Science. Distinguished Scholar Awards from the International Society of Sport Psychology and the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity. Consultant to FIFA, UEFA, the IOC, The FA, and professional teams in the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the National Academy of Kinesiology, and the European College of Sport Science. Biography The reason one team performs under pressure and another collapses is rarely the talent on the pitch. It is what was built into the players, the coaching staff and the decisions long before kick-off. Mark Williams has spent more than three decades studying that question, and turning the answers into something coaches, federations and executives can use. His research focuses on the neural and psychological mechanisms behind expertise: how perception, decision-making and motor skill develop, and what separates a world-class performer from a very good one. The work has shaped programmes at FIFA, UEFA, the IOC and The FA, and inside teams across the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sports Sciences, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, and Human Movement Science. His book with Tim Wigmore, “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made”, brought that body of research to a wider audience through interviews with figures including Steph Curry, Pete Sampras, Kurt Warner and Marcus Rashford. The argument is built on evidence rather than anecdote: the conditions that produce sustained excellence can be described, designed and reproduced. For senior leaders, the value is the translation. The science of how people learn complex skills, hold their nerve in unfamiliar conditions and make better decisions under time pressure does not stop at the touchline. It is the same problem a board faces when it asks why a strategy works for one team and not for the next. Key speaking topics The science of expertise and skill acquisition Talent identification and development Decision-making under pressure Building high-performing teams The psychology of excellence Coaching, learning environments and instructional design Ideal for Executive teams and CHROs designing leadership and talent pipelines Learning and development leaders rebuilding how the organisation teaches complex skills Board and senior conferences focused on performance, culture and decision-making Sports federations, performance directors and coaching staff Audience outcomes A clearer view of what the evidence actually says about how expertise is built, and where most talent programmes go wrong. Specific cues for spotting the perceptual and decision-making skills that distinguish top performers from the rest. Practical principles for designing learning environments that produce skill, not just activity. A shared vocabulary for talking about pressure, decision-making and team performance that holds up under scrutiny.

Why organisations work with Markus Bernhardt He runs a continuous research programme, The Endeavor Report, built on client-led case studies of what is actually working in enterprise AI adoption, so the analysis a board hears is grounded in field evidence rather than vendor positioning. He translates AI capability into operating model decisions: where to redesign workflows, how to govern adoption, which workforce shifts to plan for. The conversation moves from technology curiosity to structural choice. He carries credibility on both sides of the table, having advised technology vendors on go-to-market and Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 leaders on transformation, which lets him read where vendor claims meet enterprise reality. His pragmatic stance is explicit: no silver bullet, no hype framing. Senior buyers get an honest read on adoption maturity, polarisation across the workforce, and the specific points where AI actually changes the cost or quality of work. Forbes Technology Council member and recurring contributor to Training Magazine, the Learning Guild and ATD, with two TD Magazine cover stories, giving the body of published thinking a paper trail leaders can verify. Biography highlights Founder of Endeavor Intelligence, an independent AI strategy research and advisory firm Author of The Endeavor Report, a research programme on applied workforce solutions and enterprise AI adoption Co-creator of the TTE AI Strategy Framework with The Thinking Effect Former Chief Evangelist at Obrizum, a deep-tech adaptive learning company Forbes Technology Council member; contributor to Training Magazine, the Learning Guild, ATD and Coaching Magazine Doctorate in physics; two decades of work with Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 organisations Biography Enterprise AI adoption rarely fails on the technology. It fails on the operating model around it: who owns the workflow change, which capabilities the workforce needs next, what governance has to sit underneath. Markus Bernhardt’s work at Endeavor Intelligence is built around that gap. The Endeavor Report, his flagship research programme, sits on real client case studies rather than vendor surveys. It plots organisations across efficiency accelerators, strategic enablers, capability creators and core process innovators, giving leaders a vocabulary for the adoption choice in front of them. The argument is field-tested, and it lands where boards actually decide. His earlier role as Chief Evangelist at Obrizum, a deep-tech adaptive learning company, gave him an operator’s read on how AI changes capability development inside organisations. That experience now feeds the workforce side of his research, alongside published work in Training Magazine, the Learning Guild and ATD, and a seat on the Forbes Technology Council. A physics doctorate sets the underlying disposition. Bernhardt is sceptical of pattern claims that do not survive the data, blunt about where AI actually shifts cost or quality, and explicit that there is no silver bullet for adoption at scale. For senior leaders weighing capital, structure and workforce moves at the same time, that posture is the point. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and adoption Applied workforce solutions AI governance and operating model design Workforce transformation and capability development Evidence-based decision support for senior leaders AI in learning and performance Future of work in AI-augmented organisations Ideal for C-suite leaders weighing AI investment, governance and operating model decisions CHROs and chief learning officers planning workforce capability shifts Strategy, transformation and innovation leads designing enterprise AI roadmaps Boards seeking an independent, research-backed read on AI adoption maturity Audience outcomes A clearer map of where their organisation sits across the four adoption archetypes Bernhardt’s research identifies A sharper read on which AI claims to discount and which to act on Specific governance and operating model questions to put to internal teams and vendors A framework for talking about workforce polarisation as adoption deepens Language a senior team can carry into the next board conversation on AI

Why organisations work with Martin Brooks He has taught body language to leaders at Henley Business School, London Business School and Judge Business School, giving the content a teaching-grade structure that most communication coaches lack. His sales-leadership background means the work lands with commercial audiences who tend to dismiss communication coaching as soft skills. His Body Language Decoder gives delegates a reference artefact that travels back into the business after the session, not just a one-day boost. Broadcasters book him to analyse political and corporate figures live on air (BBC2, LBC, Discovery, The Times), which is a useful proxy for how quickly he can read a room. Clients including IBM, PwC, KPMG, Procter & Gamble and the Financial Times have used him for executive coaching, pitch preparation, and leadership development. Biography highlights Author of Body Language Decoder (Laurence King / Hachette, 2021). Teaches “Body Language for Leaders” at Henley Business School. Course Director at the Chartered Institute of Marketing since 2008. Founder of his communications consultancy in 2002, after a career in sales and sales leadership. Media commentator on body language for BBC Radio, LBC, BBC2 election coverage, Discovery Channel and The Times. Clients include IBM, PwC, KPMG, Procter & Gamble and the Financial Times. Biography Most leaders prepare what they will say in a high-stakes meeting and almost nothing about how they will appear while saying it. The asymmetry shows. Boards, investors and senior peers form judgements on credibility within seconds, and the data they use is mostly nonverbal. Martin Brooks works in that gap. He has run his own communication consultancy since 2002, after a career in sales and sales leadership where the cost of looking uncertain in front of a buyer was immediate and personal. That commercial origin shapes how he teaches. The work is not theatre training and not motivational, it is operator instruction on what hands, eyes, voice, and posture are doing while a leader argues a point. The teaching has institutional weight behind it. Brooks delivers “Body Language for Leaders” at Henley Business School and has taught at London Business School and Judge Business School. He has been a Course Director at the Chartered Institute of Marketing since 2008. His Body Language Decoder, published in 2021 by Laurence King, sits as a 50-card field reference that delegates use after the session. Broadcasters use him as the in-studio analyst for politicians and corporate leaders under pressure. He provided live analysis on Discovery Channel of Mark Zuckerberg’s US Senate testimony, has covered UK general elections on BBC2, and contributes to BBC Radio, LBC and The Times. For a senior buyer, that body of live, on-record reading is the best available evidence that what he teaches in the room actually works under fire. Key speaking topics Body language for senior leaders Executive presence and credibility on stage Nonverbal communication in high-stakes meetings Pitch and presentation coaching Reading political and business figures in real time Ideal for Executive committees and senior leadership teams preparing for investor, board or town-hall communication CEOs and C-suite leaders stepping into more public-facing roles Sales leadership and pitch teams running competitive bids Leadership development and high-potential programmes Audience outcomes A vocabulary for what their own body is signalling while they speak The ability to read confidence, hesitation and disagreement in a room before words confirm it Concrete adjustments to posture, gesture and eye contact that they can use the same week A reference artefact (the Body Language Decoder cards) for ongoing use post-session Sharper judgement on how political and corporate figures are performing under pressure

Why organisations work with Matt Eversmann He brings a first-person, documented account of small-unit leadership inside the Battle of Mogadishu, one of the most analysed combat actions of the modern era, and translates it directly into commercial decision-making. His Bronze Star with Valor and 20 years in elite Ranger and Infantry units give credibility on team performance under stress that consulting frameworks cannot replicate. As co-author with James Patterson of three New York Times bestselling oral histories of soldiers and police officers, he has spent a decade interviewing operators about how teams hold together, which sharpens his content well beyond a single war story. His teaching record at the U.S. Army War College and the Johns Hopkins ROTC program means he speaks to leaders in the language of training and followership, not just battlefield anecdotes. He is the rare keynote a senior team will quote back to each other a week later, because the material concerns specific, named decisions, not abstractions about resilience. Biography highlights Retired U.S. Army First Sergeant, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment; 20 years of active service. Bronze Star Medal with Valor device for actions in the Battle of Mogadishu, October 3, 1993. Portrayed by Josh Hartnett in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001); the first source interviewed for Mark Bowden’s original book. Co-author with James Patterson of Walk in My Combat Boots, Walk the Blue Line and American Heroes, all New York Times bestsellers in the Heroes Among Us series. Former Operations Sergeant at the U.S. Army War College and former instructor in Johns Hopkins University’s ROTC program. Deployed to Iraq from 2007 to 2008 as an Infantry Company First Sergeant with the 10th Mountain Division during the Surge. Biography The Battle of Mogadishu on 3 October 1993 lasted roughly 18 hours. Inside it, a young staff sergeant from the 3rd Ranger Battalion was responsible for a chalk of soldiers fast-roping into a city that had already gone wrong. That sergeant was Matt Eversmann, and the decisions he made in those hours became one of the most studied case studies in modern small-unit command. The reason that experience matters in a boardroom is not symbolism. It is that the conditions Rangers train for, incomplete information, broken communications, no time to consult upward, are the same conditions senior teams now face during cyber incidents, supply shocks and reputational crises. Eversmann teaches what holds and what fails when a plan does not survive contact. His authority on the subject extends well beyond his own service. As co-author with James Patterson of Walk in My Combat Boots, Walk the Blue Line and American Heroes, he has spent years interviewing soldiers, police officers and first responders about the texture of decisions made under load. That body of work, three New York Times bestsellers, sits behind every keynote. Before founding Eversmann Advisory in 2018, he served as Operations Sergeant at the U.S. Army War College, taught leadership in the Johns Hopkins University ROTC program, and led an Infantry Company through the Iraq Surge. The result is a speaker who can move from a specific named moment in Mogadishu to a specific question a CEO is asking about command culture, without losing either audience. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure and in crisis Team performance in high-stakes environments Decision-making with incomplete information Accountability and followership inside elite units Trust and culture in small teams Lessons from the Battle of Mogadishu and combat command Service, sacrifice and operator stories from Walk in My Combat Boots Ideal for CEO and C-suite offsites focused on resilience, command culture and crisis decision-making. Leadership development programmes for senior operators, plant managers, regional heads and first-line commanders of large field organisations. Conferences for sectors with a high-consequence operating tempo: financial services, energy, healthcare, defence, law enforcement, and aviation. Annual sales kick-offs and partner meetings looking for a serious anchor keynote rather than entertainment. Audience outcomes A vocabulary for naming what their teams actually do well and badly when conditions go non-linear. Specific lessons from a documented combat action that translate to crisis governance and post-incident review. A clearer view of what accountability looks like at the team-leader level, distinct from individual performance. Renewed seriousness about preparation, rehearsal and standards as cultural artefacts, not HR processes. Stories with named operators and named events that senior leaders can reference back inside their own organisations.