Teknologins framtid speakers

Why organisations work with Katie Prescott She covers the AI infrastructure, capital and policy story as her day job for The Times, which means clients get a current read rather than a recycled keynote deck. Her book on Mike Lynch and the Autonomy sale to Hewlett-Packard is a working case study in how technology valuations, governance and cross-border legal exposure actually collide; few speakers can talk through that material with original reporting behind it. A decade at the BBC, including business news on Radio 4’s Today programme, gives her a rare ability to host and interview senior executives on stage without scripted stiffness. Tech Commentator of the Year at the 2024 UK Tech Awards confirms what bookers already use her for: trusted, named commentary at the level a board will quote back internally. She co-hosts The Times Tech Podcast with Danny Fortson, which keeps her sourced inside both London and Silicon Valley rather than reliant on second-hand briefings. Biography highlights Technology Business Editor, The Times, and weekly business columnist. Co-host, The Times Tech Podcast, with Danny Fortson, Sunday Times West Coast Correspondent. Author, The Curious Case of Mike Lynch (Macmillan Business, 2025); named a Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2025. Tech Commentator of the Year, UK Tech Awards, 2024. Approximately a decade at the BBC, including presenting business news on Radio 4’s Today programme and reporting from the BBC New York Bureau. Degree in Modern Languages, University of Oxford. Biography The 2011 sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for more than 11 billion pounds turned into a thirteen-year legal fight, two transatlantic trials and, in August 2024, the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off Sicily. The Curious Case of Mike Lynch, published by Macmillan Business in 2025, is the most detailed account of that story to date, and Katie Prescott reported and wrote it while running The Times’ technology business desk. That dual role is the point. Prescott covers AI capital flows, hyperscaler infrastructure, government and Big Tech relations, and UK technology policy as her standing brief, with a weekly column and The Times Tech Podcast co-hosted with the paper’s West Coast correspondent Danny Fortson. The reporting is current. It is also sourced; she is on the phone to founders, investors and regulators in the week she walks on stage. Before The Times, she spent roughly a decade at the BBC, presenting business on Radio 4’s Today programme and reporting from the corporation’s New York Bureau. That background shows on stage. She moderates senior panels, interviews chief executives in front of their own customers, and chairs board-level discussions with the timing of a working broadcaster rather than a guest speaker. The 2024 UK Tech Awards named her Tech Commentator of the Year, and her Mike Lynch book was selected as a Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2025. The combined record is what serious organisations are buying: a working journalist with the access to call the technology story accurately, and the platform to be quoted doing it. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence, capital and infrastructure The technology business in 2026 Founders, fraud and governance lessons from the Autonomy case Government, regulators and Big Tech The UK and European technology sector Hosting, moderation and on-stage interviews Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI investment and vendor strategy CTOs, CIOs and chief digital officers needing an outside read on the sector Investor days, partner summits and customer conferences requiring a credible interviewer Communications and policy leadership preparing for greater regulatory and media scrutiny Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI capital is actually flowing and which infrastructure dependencies matter A working sense of how technology valuations, governance and litigation interact, drawn from the Autonomy and Hewlett-Packard case Named, current examples from The Times’ technology coverage rather than recycled trend material For hosted formats, executive interviews that get past prepared answers without becoming hostile

Why organisations work with Kelly Vero She has shipped AAA games (including credits across the Lara Croft and Transformers franchises) and now runs an AI-powered digital fashion business, so she speaks about immersive technology from the inside of two different commercial stacks, not from a consultancy slide. As CEO and CTO of NAK3D, she gives leadership teams a concrete view of how 3D content, AI and consumer brands are starting to fit together at production scale. Her book How Video Games Made the Metaverse: From Pixels to Portals (Routledge) gives executives a structured way to read the metaverse as the natural extension of forty years of game technology, not a marketing fad. She has worked at policy and institutional level with the European Commission and Pro Helvetia, which means she can frame technology questions in terms a regulated board will recognise. Biography highlights CEO and CTO of NAK3D, a Swiss AI-powered digital fashion start-up. Chief Metaverse Officer at Aequaland, an educational platform for children. Author of How Video Games Made the Metaverse: From Pixels to Portals, published by Routledge. Earlier edition nominated for the British Business Book Awards 2024. 30-year career in interactive entertainment, with credits across the Lara Croft and Transformers franchises. Consultant to the European Commission, Pro Helvetia (Swiss Arts Council) and Confetti Media Group. Won a Startup Innovation Award at a World Economic Forum-linked event in Davos, January 2024. Biography The metaverse arrived in the boardroom as a slogan and left as a question: where is the operational substance behind any of this. The honest answer is that it sits inside the games industry, where 3D worlds, real-time content pipelines and live-service economies have been working at scale for two decades. That is the world Kelly Vero has spent thirty years inside. Her credits stretch across the Lara Croft franchise and Hasbro’s Transformers games, taking her from script and character work into production at the heart of mass-market AAA development. The result is a deep, practitioner-level grasp of how immersive technology actually gets built, shipped and monetised. She now applies that experience as CEO and CTO of NAK3D, a Swiss AI-powered digital fashion company sitting between gaming, virtual platforms and consumer brands. NAK3D won a Startup Innovation Award at a World Economic Forum-linked event in Davos in January 2024. Vero is also Chief Metaverse Officer of the children’s education platform Aequaland, and has consulted for the European Commission and Pro Helvetia on technology and creative policy. Her book How Video Games Made the Metaverse: From Pixels to Portals, published by Routledge, treats the metaverse as the next chapter of a long technical lineage, not a sudden hype cycle. For boards trying to decide what to fund, what to ignore and what to build, that frame is more useful than any forecast. Key speaking topics AI and 3D commerce The metaverse as commercial infrastructure Digital fashion and virtual goods Generative AI in creative production Game design as a model for customer experience Web3 and immersive platforms Innovation strategy in deep tech Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders deciding how to commit to virtual goods, digital fashion and immersive customer experience CEOs and boards of consumer and entertainment businesses weighing AI and 3D investment CTOs and digital transformation leads scoping AI commerce, content pipelines and creative AI Investors and innovation teams in retail, fashion, media, gaming and adjacent sectors Audience outcomes A clear read on which immersive and metaverse claims are commercially serious and which are not Concrete examples of how AI and 3D content are already reshaping fashion, retail and entertainment commerce A working frame for treating game technology as the parent discipline of the metaverse, with practical implications for product and platform decisions Confidence to scope a first credible AI or 3D content initiative, rather than commission another exploratory study

Why organisations work with Kemal Apaydin He speaks from the builder’s seat. He is currently building an AI product that prices and anticipates risk for health insurers, so his read on where agentic AI works and where it breaks comes from shipping it. He connects the frontier to the decision that follows it. His sessions take a live example such as the open-source agent OpenClaw and turn it into the choice leaders actually face: how much autonomy to delegate, and where to keep a human. He has built at the edge of more than one technology cycle. Before AI he founded one of Turkey’s early blockchain communities, which gives him a pattern-level view of how emerging technology moves from hype to infrastructure. He treats privacy and human agency as design questions, not disclaimers. That framing is useful for organisations that want the upside of autonomous systems without signing away control of their data or their decisions. Biography highlights Founder of Alon Health, an AI product that uses wearable-device data to help health insurers assess and anticipate risk, based in Berlin. Alon Health went through Y Combinator. Founder of ARTI Innovation and a TEDx speaker (TEDxOZU, Özyeğin University). Founder of Blockfellow, an early blockchain community and co-working initiative in Turkey. Co-founder and CEO of Chain Networking, and co-founder of Shelly Sleep, a privacy-oriented sleep-diagnostic wristband. Studied at Bilkent University and completed executive study with Harvard Business School Online. Biography An open-source project called OpenClaw spread to tens of thousands of developers within days of launch, letting an AI agent read your messages and act across your accounts. That shift, from software that answers to software that acts, is what Kemal Apaydin works on. He builds in it rather than watching it. His company, Alon Health, applies the same idea inside insurance. It reads signals from wearable devices to help insurers anticipate risk and shape decisions about pricing and cover. Building it has given him a grounded read on where autonomous systems earn trust and where they lose it. This is not his first frontier. Before AI, he founded Blockfellow, an early blockchain community in Turkey, and ran education programmes that pulled hundreds of students from Istanbul universities into the field. The pattern across his work stays the same: get inside a technology while it is still forming, then figure out what it will mean once it settles. He can take a live system like OpenClaw and walk leaders through the question underneath it: how much of a purchase or a decision they will hand to software, and what they keep for a human. That conversation matters for any organisation weighing how far to let autonomy run. The harder one sits right behind it. When an agent acts on someone’s behalf and gets it wrong, who is accountable? Key speaking topics Autonomous and agentic AI Personal AI assistants Enterprise AI strategy and adoption Designing and deploying autonomous AI workflows AI governance, safety, and responsible autonomy Privacy and human agency in AI systems Applied AI in insurance and risk Ideal for Chief technology and chief information officers weighing where to deploy agentic AI and where to hold back Innovation and digital transformation leaders who want a builder’s read on personal AI, not a vendor pitch Strategy teams and boards mapping how autonomous systems change products and accountability Insurance and financial services leaders looking at AI-driven risk and the data questions it raises Audience outcomes They leave knowing what today’s AI agents can actually do, and what the demos leave out, drawn from systems already in use. A working test for deciding which tasks to hand to autonomous software and which to keep under human control. The governance and accountability questions to settle before an agent acts on the organisation’s behalf. A builder’s view of where agentic and personal AI are heading, and what it changes for their sector.

Why organisations work with Krista Jäntti She runs the validation work most internal innovation teams skip, separating generative AI and XR concepts that have a defensible business case from those that do not. Her perspective is operator-led, not analyst-led: as founder of EventuallyXR and Exthereal, she has built and shipped immersive products, not only written about them. She combines an Aalto Executive MBA with a working knowledge of AI, XR and blockchain, which lets her translate engineering reality into language a leadership team can act on. Selection for the 100 Women of the Future list and her advisory role at Aalto University place her inside the European deep-tech and creative-industries network, with current visibility into where the technology is actually heading. She speaks about AI and immersive technology with measured scepticism, naming the limits and risks alongside the opportunity, which lands well with senior audiences tired of hype. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of EventuallyXR, advising organisations on commercial use cases in extended reality, generative AI and blockchain. Founder of Exthereal, a digital fashion and immersive virtual production studio. Business Advisor at Aalto University, working inside the Aalto Digital Creatives programme. Named to the 100 Women of the Future list in 2023 for her work at the boundary of physical and generated reality. Aalto Executive MBA holder, with prior Master of Science training spanning life sciences and computer science. Task leader on the EU Horizon Seeds of Bravery programme supporting the Ukrainian deep-tech ecosystem. Published author on AI-powered digital humans and immersive UX in AR/VR Journey and on Medium. Biography Generative AI and extended reality keep arriving on board agendas faster than organisations can absorb them. The result, in most companies, is a pile of pilots, vendor demos and internal experiments that never connect to a commercial decision. Krista Jäntti’s work sits in that gap, between a technology that is genuinely interesting and a use case that is genuinely defensible. As founder and CEO of EventuallyXR, she advises organisations on where XR, generative AI and blockchain belong inside their business model, and where they do not. She is an operator first. Her second company, Exthereal, builds digital fashion and immersive virtual productions, which means she has shipped the kind of content and experience layer her clients are trying to evaluate. Her academic path runs from microbiology and biochemistry through computer science to an Aalto Executive MBA. That mix matters in the work, because emerging-technology decisions cut across engineering, design, regulation and commercial strategy at the same time. As Business Advisor inside Aalto University’s Digital Creatives programme, and as task leader on the EU Horizon Seeds of Bravery programme for the Ukrainian deep-tech ecosystem, she stays close to where the technology is being built, not only sold. She was selected for the 100 Women of the Future list in 2023, recognised for working at the boundary of physical and generated reality. Audiences who book her tend to want what that recognition implies: a speaker who can hold both the technical detail and the commercial question in the same sentence, and who will tell a leadership team which of their AI and XR bets are worth keeping. Key speaking topics Generative AI in business Extended reality and the metaverse Emerging technology validation AI-powered digital humans and immersive UX Digital fashion and virtual production Responsible adoption of AI and XR Innovation strategy for creative industries Ideal for CEOs, CDOs and innovation leaders shaping a generative AI or XR strategy. Boards weighing the commercial case for immersive and generative technology investment. Marketing, brand and creative leadership teams in consumer, fashion and media businesses. Corporate venture, R&D and emerging-technology teams choosing where to place pilot budget. Audience outcomes A clearer view of which generative AI and XR use cases have a defensible commercial case in their sector. A sharper sense of the difference between vendor narrative and real technical capability. Specific examples of how digital humans, immersive production and generative content are already being deployed. Language to brief internal teams and boards on responsible adoption of AI and immersive technology. Confidence to retire pilots that will not scale and double down on the ones that will.

Why organisations work with Kudzi Chikumbu He built TikTok’s creator marketing, education, and community functions from a small U.S. team into a global operation, so he speaks from inside the engine room rather than from the outside as a commentator. He teaches the operating logic of authenticity as a brand strategy, not as a values statement, with a specific framework brands can apply to product launches, executive presence, and creator partnerships. He carries dual credibility: a senior platform operator who has also built a personal creator brand (Sir Candle Man) at meaningful scale, with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter, WWD and The Economist. His perspective on diversity and representation is grounded in what actually moves engagement and trust on platform, which makes it usable for CMOs who need substance rather than signalling. He now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, which gives a structured curriculum behind what could otherwise be presented as anecdote. Biography highlights Former Global Head of Creator Marketing at TikTok; longest-serving member of TikTok’s U.S. team. MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business; current faculty at Stanford GSB. Began career as an accountant and management consultant at Deloitte. Author, Let It Burn: Illuminate Your Life with Candles & Fragrance (Chronicle Books). Creator of Sir Candle Man, featured in The Hollywood Reporter, WWD, NY Mag, The Economist, and on The Rachael Ray Show. Fortune 40 Under 40, The Hollywood Reporter Next Gen 35 Under 35, Variety’s Hollywood’s New Leaders, AdWeek Experiential Executive of the Year, ADCOLOR Innovator Award. Biography The shift in marketing power from media buyers to creators happened faster than most brand teams adjusted. The companies that responded well treated creators as an operating channel with its own logic. The ones that didn’t treated TikTok like a new ad placement and underperformed on both reach and reputation. Kudzi Chikumbu spent the years that defined that transition inside TikTok, where he built the creator marketing, education, partnerships and community functions as the platform scaled from new entrant to global infrastructure. He was the longest-serving member of TikTok’s U.S. team and rose to Global Head of Creator Marketing, working at the point where brand strategy, platform mechanics, and creator economics meet. His operating thesis is that authenticity functions as a commercial system, not a value statement. Audiences pay attention when a brand or executive shows up with a specific point of view, a clear identity, and a willingness to be legible as a person or a culture. He has tested that thesis on himself: as Sir Candle Man, he built a luxury fragrance creator brand recognised by The Hollywood Reporter, WWD, The Economist, and Chronicle Books, which published his book Let It Burn. He now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, the same institution where he earned his MBA after starting his career at Deloitte. The combination of platform operator, working creator, and faculty member is unusual, and gives him a vocabulary that translates between marketing teams, executive sponsors, and the creator partners they are trying to work with. Key speaking topics Creator marketing and partnerships Brand authenticity as a commercial discipline Niche communities and audience strategy The future of social platforms and digital content Diversity and representation in consumer brands Personal brand and executive presence online Career pivots and reputation strategy Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams rebuilding their creator and platform strategy Communications and corporate affairs leaders preparing executives for visible digital presence Consumer brand, retail and lifestyle businesses where culture and creator influence drive purchase DEI, talent and culture leaders working on representation as a commercial, not symbolic, lever Audience outcomes A clearer model of how creator partnerships actually create commercial value, beyond reach metrics Specific tests for whether a brand’s content is platform-native or simply repurposed advertising A practical view of what authenticity means in marketing decisions, from product to executive voice Sharper understanding of how niche communities convert into durable audience relationships Renewed perspective on personal brand and online presence for senior leaders and emerging executives

Why organisations work with Lara Lewington Fourteen years inside BBC Click gives her a first-hand catalogue of which AI and health-tech claims held up and which collapsed, useful for boards trying to triage vendor pitches. Hacking Humanity (Penguin, 2025) is a structured, sourced argument on the technologies extending healthspan, not a survey article, so audiences leave with a thesis rather than a topic tour. Formal study in the Ethics of AI at the London School of Economics, layered onto her broadcast work, makes her a credible voice in governance and risk conversations, not only product showcases. She is regularly trusted to host the main stage at AI Summit London, Founders Forum, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which means she moves comfortably between keynote and high-stakes moderation in the same event. Long-form access to the people building this technology, from Silicon Valley founders to NHS clinicians, lets her describe what is actually being deployed rather than what is being announced. Biography highlights Co-presenter of BBC Click, the corporation’s flagship technology programme, for seven years until the show ended in March 2025; reporter on the programme from 2011. Author of Hacking Humanity: How technology can save your health and your life (Penguin, WH Allen, July 2025). Fronted BBC Panorama’s “Beyond Human: Artificial Intelligence and Us” and BBC One documentary “Forever Young?” on biological age reversal. AI Agony Aunt on ITV’s Lorraine since 2023; recurring technology commentator on Good Morning Britain, Woman’s Hour and BBC Radio 5 Live. Studied Ethics of AI at the London School of Economics; Senior Fellow at the John Schofield Trust mentoring early-career journalists. Host and moderator at AI Summit London, Founders Forum Global, LEAP Tech Arena, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Biography Most boardroom conversations about artificial intelligence and health technology run aground on the same problem. The pace of announcement outstrips the pace of verification. Lara Lewington has spent 14 years inside the programme that, more than any other in British broadcasting, exists to do that verification on the public’s behalf: BBC Click. She reported for the show from 2011, co-presented from 2018 with Spencer Kelly, and stayed until the programme ended in March 2025. Hacking Humanity (Penguin, July 2025) takes the same instinct into book form. It examines the AI, gene editing and robotics now reshaping medicine, with a clear thesis: the meaningful prize is healthspan, the years lived in good health, not raw lifespan. Endorsed by Lorraine Kelly, Davina McCall and Dr Amir Khan, it draws on access from Silicon Valley founders to NHS clinicians, and frames where the science is real, where it is premature, and where the ethical exposure sits. The AI ethics work is anchored by formal study at the London School of Economics and a steady stream of fronted documentaries: Panorama’s “Beyond Human: Artificial Intelligence and Us”, BBC One’s “Forever Young?”, ITV’s “Tonight: Healthy Ageing”, and BBC Radio 4’s “A Documentary: By ChatGPT”. She is the AI Agony Aunt on ITV’s Lorraine, a regular voice on Good Morning Britain and Woman’s Hour, and a Senior Fellow at the John Schofield Trust. Event organisers book her for two distinct jobs. She delivers keynotes on AI ethics, the human impact of automation and the healthspan revolution. She also hosts and moderates the main stage at AI Summit London, Founders Forum Global, LEAP Tech Arena, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering, where the brief is to interview a chief executive or scientist and keep the conversation honest in real time. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and its human impact AI ethics and responsible deployment Health technology and the healthspan economy Longevity science and biological age Wearables, diagnostics and consumer health data The role of robotics in care and clinical settings Technology hype versus evidence Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI policy and digital health strategy CHROs, chief medical officers and benefits leaders shaping workforce health programmes Health, life sciences and pharma leadership audiences tracking the AI inflection in their sector Conference organisers needing a credible host or moderator for AI, health-tech and innovation main-stage sessions Audience outcomes A clear read on which AI and health-tech claims are evidence-backed and which are still vendor narrative A working vocabulary for healthspan, longevity science and the technologies driving them Sharper questions to put to internal teams and external suppliers on AI ethics and data governance A grounded view of how rapidly diagnostic and preventive technology is moving from research into mainstream use

Why organisations work with Lewis Dartnell Translates planetary-scale science into commercial foresight that leadership teams can actually use in strategy work. Author of The Knowledge, a Sunday Times bestseller built around a question every operator should be able to answer: which technologies in your value chain are foundational, and which are replaceable. Connects geology, biology and climate to the present-day shape of supply chains, geopolitics and consumer behaviour, drawing on the Origins thesis translated into thirty languages. Brings broadcast-grade communication craft from BBC Horizon, Stargazing Live and a main-stage TED talk, calibrated for board and executive audiences, not lecture rooms. One of a small number of working research scientists who can hold a 45-minute keynote at the level required by a CEO offsite without losing scientific rigour. Biography highlights Professor of Science Communication, University of Westminster. PhD in Astrobiology, University College London. Former UK Space Agency Research Fellow at the University of Leicester. Author of The Knowledge, Origins, and Being Human, plus Life in the Universe and a guide to the solar system; Sunday Times bestsellers translated into more than thirty languages. Main-stage TED speaker (TED2015) and regular BBC presenter across Horizon, The Sky at Night and Stargazing Live. Bylines and contributions in The Guardian, The Times, New Scientist and The Daily Telegraph. Scientific consultant on HBO Max’s Station Eleven and on Brian Cox documentaries. Biography Modern organisations sit on top of scientific systems that almost no one in the room can explain. Energy, materials, communication networks, food chains, the climate envelope they operate within. When those systems shift, the strategic consequences arrive quickly, and the executive team often lacks the language to see them coming. Lewis Dartnell’s work attacks that gap directly. The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch, a Sunday Times bestseller, asks which technologies a civilisation would have to recover first, and why. It is a thought experiment with a hard commercial edge. Strip away the assumptions, and what is actually foundational? A copy sits on the surface of the moon. The book has been adopted as a thinking tool in industries that depend on long-horizon decisions. Origins extended the argument to geology, plate tectonics and climate as drivers of human history, and has been translated into thirty languages. Being Human, his most recent book, examines how human biology and psychology continue to shape political, economic and consumer behaviour. The through-line is consistent: deep scientific structure explaining surface-level outcomes that boards spend their time arguing about. He holds a chair in science communication at the University of Westminster after research roles at University College London and the UK Space Agency programme at Leicester. His broadcast work for the BBC, his TED talk and his scientific consultancy on shows such as Station Eleven mean he speaks at a register designed for general audiences without losing the underlying rigour. For a senior leadership team trying to think clearly about technology, resources and the next twenty years, he is one of a small number of speakers who can hold both ends at once. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight and first-principles thinking Resilience and civilisational technology Long-range science and the future of business Geopolitics, resources and climate Space exploration and the commercial space economy Astrobiology and the search for life Human biology and behaviour as commercial forces Science communication and clear thinking Ideal for Board offsites and CEO leadership summits requiring scientific perspective on long-range risk CSOs, heads of strategy and corporate development teams running scenario work Innovation, R&D and technology leadership groups CHRO and leadership development audiences building first-principles thinking capability Audience outcomes A sharper view of which technologies and resources are foundational to the business, and which are substitutable A grounded understanding of the planetary and biological forces shaping geopolitics, supply chains and consumer behaviour A working vocabulary for long-range scientific risk that senior teams can use in their own strategy conversations A more disciplined first-principles approach to questioning assumptions inside the organisation Genuine intellectual engagement from senior audiences who normally tune out of “future trends” content

Why organisations work with Libby Jackson She ran live operations on the European module of the International Space Station as Columbus Flight Director, a seat where decisions are made in minutes with crew lives in the loop. That experience is rare on a corporate stage. She built and led the UK Space Agency education programme for Tim Peake’s Principia mission, an outreach effort that reached more than two million students and around one in three UK schools, evidence of operational leadership at national scale. Her account of decision-making under pressure draws on procedures used in mission control rooms, not metaphor, giving senior teams a working vocabulary for handling ambiguity and failure. An OBE for services to the space sector and the 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award place her credentials inside the small group of British human spaceflight leaders that buyers can name. She translates highly technical environments for non-technical audiences without softening the substance, useful for boards and leadership teams that want rigour without the jargon. Biography highlights Columbus Flight Director, European Space Agency Mission Control for the International Space Station, Munich. Head of Space, Science Museum, London, since March 2025, the first holder of the role. Former Head of Space Exploration, UK Space Agency, with prior responsibility for the Human Exploration Programme. OBE, 2023 New Year Honours, for services to the Space Sector. 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award, Exploration Museum, Iceland. BSc Physics, Imperial College London; MSc Astronautics and Space Engineering, Cranfield. Honorary DSc, University of Kent. Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Author of A Galaxy of Her Own (2017) and Space Explorers (2020), both Penguin. Regular BBC science contributor including Stargazing Live. Biography A Flight Director on the International Space Station has minutes, not hours, to make calls that involve crew safety, multinational politics, and millions of pounds of hardware. Libby Jackson held that seat at the European Space Agency’s Columbus Control Centre in Munich, the European module of the ISS. Seven years inside mission control gave her a working knowledge of how senior teams hold together when consequences are immediate and irreversible. She moved to the UK Space Agency in 2014, where she ran education and outreach for Tim Peake’s Principia mission, the British astronaut’s flight to the ISS. The programme reached more than two million students and around one in three UK schools, an operational result on a national scale. She later became Head of Space Exploration, coordinating UK investments across human and robotic missions, the ISS, and lunar and Mars activity. In March 2025 she took up a new post as Head of Space at the Science Museum in London, the first person to hold that title. Her two books, A Galaxy of Her Own and Space Explorers, both published by Penguin, sit alongside an OBE for services to the space sector and the 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award from the Exploration Museum in Iceland. For corporate audiences, the value sits in what mission control teaches about composure, sequencing and trust under load. Jackson does not offer the space career as inspiration. She uses it as a working case study in how trained teams make decisions when the data is incomplete, the clock is short, and the cost of error is absolute. Key speaking topics Decision-making under operational pressure Mission control leadership and team coordination Human spaceflight and the future of exploration Risk, failure, and recovery in complex systems The Artemis programme and the return to the Moon Women in science and engineering Translating technical work for non-technical audiences Ideal for Boards and executive teams preparing for crisis decision-making and incident leadership Heads of operations, engineering and safety in high-consequence sectors such as energy, aviation, healthcare and defence Transformation and innovation leaders working through high-stakes technical change Corporate STEM, early careers and women in leadership programmes seeking a credible British voice in space Audience outcomes A working picture of how mission control teams structure decisions when consequences are immediate Specific lessons from the Columbus and Principia missions on coordination across multinational expert teams A clearer view of where corporate decision processes break down compared with operational environments built around failure Renewed confidence in the value of preparation, role clarity and handover discipline as leadership tools A sharper sense of where the next decade of human spaceflight is heading, and what that means for industries adjacent to it

Why organisations work with Liv Boeree She gives boards a vocabulary, “Moloch traps,” for the race-to-the-bottom dynamics they already feel in AI deployment, pricing, and risk-taking, and a framework for naming when their organisation is inside one. Her decision-making content is grounded in nine years as a Team PokerStars Pro and a European Poker Tour championship, not theory. Senior leaders take her seriously on probability, expected value, and tilt because she has earned the right to teach it. She is one of the few speakers who can connect operator-level judgement under uncertainty to the systemic question of how the AI industry coordinates. That range matters for boards trying to hold both perspectives at once. Through Raising for Effective Giving, which she co-founded, she has moved more than twelve million dollars into evidence-weighted causes including AI safety. Her stance on responsible technology is backed by her own capital allocation, not just rhetoric. Her TED main-stage talk on competition in AI gives buyers a known reference point and an audience already primed to engage with the argument. Biography highlights First-class degree in Physics with Astrophysics, University of Manchester. European Poker Tour Sanremo champion and World Series of Poker bracelet winner; nine years as a Team PokerStars Pro. TED main-stage speaker, “The Dark Side of Competition in AI.” Co-founder, Raising for Effective Giving (REG), which has directed over twelve million dollars to high-impact causes. Host of the Win-Win Podcast, applying game theory to AI, climate, and coordination problems. Featured guest on The Jim Rutt Show and Ground Truths with Eric Topol, among other named outlets. Biography The AI industry is in a race that few of its participants would, on reflection, choose to be running. Speed is rewarded, caution is punished, and the incentive landscape pulls each lab away from the safety posture its own people quietly believe in. Liv Boeree calls this a Moloch trap, after the game-theoretic force that turns competition between rational actors into outcomes none of them want. Her route into that argument is unusual. She trained as a physicist at the University of Manchester, then spent nine years as a Team PokerStars Pro, winning a European Poker Tour championship and a World Series of Poker bracelet. Poker taught her a vocabulary for thinking under uncertainty: expected value, calibration, tilt, the difference between a bad outcome and a bad decision. That vocabulary now sits at the centre of how she talks to leadership audiences about judgement. In 2014 she co-founded Raising for Effective Giving, which has channelled over twelve million dollars from the poker community into causes including AI safety, disease prevention, and farm animal welfare. Her TED main-stage talk, “The Dark Side of Competition in AI,” extended the same argument to the largest technology firms: industries can be steered into outcomes the individual players inside them do not endorse, and the only way out is deliberate coordination. Her current work runs through the Win-Win Podcast and a steady cadence of writing and broadcast appearances on AI risk, governance, and how serious organisations should act inside competitive races. For boards and executive teams trying to hold both the operator’s question, what is the right next decision, and the systemic question, what game are we actually in, she offers a rare combined view. Key speaking topics AI race dynamics and Moloch traps Decision-making under uncertainty Game theory for leaders AI safety and alignment Effective philanthropy and capital allocation Probability, calibration, and forecasting Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI strategy and risk posture Chief Risk Officers, Chief AI Officers, and heads of AI governance Senior leadership offsites focused on judgement and decision-making under uncertainty Investor and philanthropic audiences weighing high-uncertainty capital allocation Audience outcomes A working definition of Moloch traps and a way to spot them inside their own competitive context. A sharper distinction between a bad decision and a bad outcome, drawn from professional poker practice. A more honest read of where AI industry incentives are pushing their organisation, and where governance can credibly intervene. A vocabulary for talking about expected value, calibration, and risk that travels between the boardroom and the operating team.

Why organisations work with Luciano Floridi His AI4People framework, developed in 2018 and formally adopted by the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI in 2019, is one of the intellectual foundations of the EU AI Act – the world’s first major AI regulation. Organisations engaging him are drawing on the reasoning that shaped it. The Fourth Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2014) introduced the “infosphere” and “onlife” frameworks – giving organisations a principled vocabulary for what happens to human agency, identity, and accountability when AI systems become environmental forces rather than discrete tools. He holds a specific, counterintuitive argument – that AI is a new form of agency rather than a new form of intelligence – with direct consequences for how boards assign responsibility, structure oversight, and communicate accountability to regulators. His advisory work spans the European Commission, the German Ethics Council, the UK Cabinet Office, and companies including Google, IBM, and Microsoft – grounding his perspective in the institutional realities of AI governance, not abstracted from them. His five-volume tetralogy on the philosophy and ethics of information, published by Oxford University Press, is the most systematic academic treatment of the field – giving organisations access to a structured intellectual architecture that briefings and AI ethics summaries cannot replicate. Biography highlights Founding Director, Digital Ethics Center, Yale University; John K. Castle Professor in the Practice of Cognitive Science Formerly OII Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information, University of Oxford, and Director of the Oxford Internet Institute’s Digital Ethics Lab Chair, AI4People Scientific Committee (2018); framework adopted by the European Commission’s HLEG on AI in 2019 and foundational to the EU AI Act Author of over 300 works; books include The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (OUP, 2023), The Fourth Revolution (OUP, 2014), and The Philosophy of Information (OUP, 2011) Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2022) – Italy’s highest national honour; IBM Thinker Award; Barwise Prize, American Philosophical Association Editor-in-Chief, Philosophy & Technology (Springer Nature), since 2010 Biography Most AI governance conversations begin with the technology and arrive at the harder questions only under pressure. What AI does to human agency, to accountability structures, and to the nature of responsibility inside organisations cannot be resolved by technical frameworks alone. Luciano Floridi has spent three decades building the conceptual tools that fill that gap. His 2014 book The Fourth Revolution (Oxford University Press) introduced the “infosphere” and “onlife” frameworks – arguing that digital technologies constitute a fourth revolution in human self-understanding, comparable in scale to those of Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud. His more recent work positions AI as a new form of agency rather than a new form of intelligence. That distinction has direct implications for how organisations assign accountability and design oversight structures. That thinking has had direct regulatory consequences. As chair of the AI4People Scientific Committee, Floridi developed the ethical framework the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI formally adopted in 2019. It underpins the EU AI Act – the world’s first major AI regulation. He also served on the HLEG itself. His advisory work spans the European Commission, the German Ethics Council, the UK Cabinet Office, and companies including Google, IBM, and Microsoft. Since 2023, he has been Founding Director of Yale University’s Digital Ethics Center, where he holds the John K. Castle Professorship in the Practice of Cognitive Science. He has published more than 300 works and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy & Technology (Springer Nature). In 2022 he was awarded the Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic – Italy’s highest national honour. Key speaking topics AI ethics and digital governance Philosophy of information The EU AI Act and responsible AI regulation Organisational accountability in AI-mediated environments Data protection and digital rights Generative AI: agency, not intelligence The infosphere and the digital transformation of human identity Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership teams making decisions about AI deployment and governance risk Chief Digital Officers, Chief Technology Officers, and Chief Risk Officers navigating AI regulation Regulatory, legal, and compliance functions operating under the EU AI Act or preparing for digital governance frameworks Government bodies and public sector organisations designing AI oversight structures Audience outcomes A working framework for understanding why existing AI governance policies often fail to address questions of accountability – and what a principled alternative looks like Familiarity with the “infosphere” and “onlife” concepts from The Fourth Revolution and their application to organisational decision-making A clear account of the “agency without intelligence” argument – and what it means for how organisations assign responsibility and structure oversight Practical orientation on the EU AI Act’s intellectual foundations and what genuine compliance requires beyond procedural checkboxes Insight into how governments, regulators, and major technology companies are approaching AI governance from someone who has participated directly in shaping those frameworks

Why organisations work with Lyndon Evans He ran one of the most complex engineering programmes in human history. The LHC took fourteen years, twenty member states and roughly nine billion Swiss francs to build, and it produced the 2012 Higgs boson discovery. The lessons translate. He has lived through the kind of public setback most leaders only theorise about. The 2008 quench accident delayed the LHC’s first physics run by more than a year; how he managed the recovery is the case study, not a slide. He is recognised by the engineering profession, not only the physics community. The IEEE Simon Ramo Medal was awarded for systems engineering leadership, which makes him unusually credible with senior technical and operations audiences. He carries the institutional credentials buyers test against: CBE, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the American Physical Society, Breakthrough Prize laureate. The credentials are useful because the underlying work is real. Biography highlights Project leader of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, 1994 to 2008 Director of the Linear Collider Collaboration from 2012, coordinating ILC and CLIC programmes 2012 Special Fundamental Physics Prize (Breakthrough Prize) for leadership of the LHC CBE, 2001 New Year Honours Fellow of the Royal Society (2010), Fellow of the American Physical Society (1991), Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales IEEE Simon Ramo Medal (2014) for systems engineering leadership of the LHC Biography The Large Hadron Collider was approved in 1994 and produced its first proton collisions in 2010. The fourteen-year gap is the story. Twenty member states, several thousand physicists and engineers, more than a hundred countries contributing components, and a budget of roughly nine billion Swiss francs had to be held together through funding rounds, design changes and a 2008 magnet quench that delayed the first physics run by more than a year. Lyndon Evans was the project leader who held it. That kind of work earns a different category of recognition. The 2012 Special Fundamental Physics Prize cited his leadership role in the discovery of the Higgs boson. The IEEE Simon Ramo Medal, awarded two years later, cited his systems engineering leadership specifically. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was appointed CBE in 2001. Since 2012 Evans has directed the Linear Collider Collaboration, the international body coordinating the next generation of particle colliders. The programmes he is now shaping, the International Linear Collider and the Compact Linear Collider, operate on similar timescales and similar coalitions to the LHC. The institutional questions are the same: how to keep a long-horizon scientific commitment alive through political cycles shorter than its delivery window. For corporate audiences the material is not particle physics. It is the management of complexity at a scale most organisations will not encounter, presented by someone who did the job rather than studied it. A Welsh chemist who switched to physics because he found it easier, Evans speaks plainly about coalitions, recovery from public failure, and the discipline of running programmes whose value will not be visible for a generation. Key speaking topics Leadership of large complex programmes Project recovery after public failure International scientific collaboration Engineering at the edge of feasibility Long-horizon delivery under political cycles Science, discovery and public trust Ideal for Boards and executive teams sponsoring multi-year capital or infrastructure programmes Chief operating officers and programme directors running cross-border delivery at scale Engineering and technology leadership audiences in regulated or research-intensive sectors Conferences on innovation, science and the long view of strategic investment Audience outcomes A working sense of what it takes to hold a long-horizon programme together when funding, politics and engineering all move on shorter cycles A specific account of how the LHC team handled the 2008 quench and what credibility recovery actually involved Language for talking about systems engineering and coalition management that translates from physics to business A grounded view of how scientific discovery is produced, useful for leaders sponsoring R&D, deep tech or moonshot programmes

Why organisations work with Maggie Aderin-Pocock She has built optical instruments that flew on ESA satellites and sit inside major ground-based telescopes, so her authority on STEM careers comes from doing the work, not commenting on it. She is one of a small group of scientists who can hold a prime-time television audience, which is why The Sky at Night has kept her on air since 2014. Internal communications teams use her to make technical strategy land with the rest of the business. The Institute of Physics awarded her the 2020 Kelvin Medal for public engagement, the first time a Black woman has received a gold medal from the IoP. That credential gives diversity and inclusion programmes a credible scientific anchor. Through Science Innovation Ltd she has run STEM outreach for more than 350,000 students, giving her practical evidence about what actually moves under-represented young people into technical careers, not just theory. She speaks openly about being diagnosed with dyslexia at eight and the assumptions teachers made about her, which lets leadership audiences hear an inclusion argument grounded in lived experience rather than policy language. Biography highlights BSc in Physics and PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London. Honorary research associate, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London. Chancellor of the University of Leicester. Co-presenter of BBC’s The Sky at Night, the world’s longest-running television science programme. Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), 2024, for services to science education and diversity. 2020 William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics. Author of The Sky at Night: Book of the Moon, A Guide to Our Closest Neighbour (Penguin / BBC Books). Biography The instruments that measure wind from space, or split starlight into its component frequencies on a Chilean mountaintop, are built by small teams of engineers most people will never hear of. Maggie Aderin-Pocock has spent her career inside those teams. She managed the observation instruments for the European Space Agency’s Aeolus satellite at Astrium, and led a group of seventeen engineers building a high-resolution spectrograph for the Gemini telescope in Chile. That hands-on instrumentation career sits underneath everything else she does. It is why a BBC commissioner trusted her with The Sky at Night, the longest-running television science programme in the world, and why universities and government bodies treat her science communication as substantive rather than decorative. Imperial College trained her as a physicist and mechanical engineer; University College London hosts her as an honorary research associate; the University of Leicester appointed her Chancellor in 2023. Public engagement is the second strand of the work, and it has been institutionally recognised. The Institute of Physics awarded her its 2020 Kelvin Medal for exceptional services to science education and physics communication. She was the first Black woman to receive a gold medal from the IoP. Through her social enterprise Science Innovation Ltd she has run hands-on STEM outreach for more than 350,000 students, much of it in inner-city schools that conventional pipelines do not reach. She talks publicly about being diagnosed with dyslexia at eight and being assumed to be heading for a career other than science. That is not autobiography for its own sake, it is the evidence base for how she argues about inclusion: leaders who want a wider technical pipeline have to look at where the system filters people out, not only where it lets them in. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2024 for services to science education and diversity. Key speaking topics Diversity and inclusion in STEM Science communication for non-specialist audiences Space science, satellites, and astronomy The future of space exploration STEM education and the technical talent pipeline Curiosity and creativity in technical organisations Ideal for CHROs and heads of talent building technical and STEM pipelines Heads of internal communications translating engineering or science strategy to general audiences DEI leads working on retention and progression of under-represented technical staff Leaders running large customer or employee events that need a credible science voice Audience outcomes A clearer view of where standard recruiting and education pipelines filter out under-represented technical talent, and what actually changes that. Practical language for explaining complex technical work to non-technical colleagues, customers, or boards. A current picture of where space science and satellite technology are heading and what that means for adjacent industries. Renewed conviction among technical staff that their work matters beyond the lab, told through someone who has built instruments that flew.