AI Ethics & Responsible Technology

Why organisations work with Sandra Wachter Her Counterfactual Explanations framework – co-developed at Oxford and adopted in production by Google, IBM, Microsoft, Accenture, and Vodafone – gives organisations a legally defensible method for explaining algorithmic decisions to the individuals they affect, not just to internal audit teams. Her Conditional Demographic Disparity (CDD) bias test demonstrated that 13 of 20 widely used bias detection tools fail EU non-discrimination standards. Amazon and IBM implemented CDD in their cloud services; it was deployed in 2024 to expose systemic bias in the Dutch national education system, resulting in a ministerial apology and formal reform. She works at the precise intersection of legal standards and technical metrics – meaning she can tell risk and compliance teams not only what accountability requires but how to measure whether systems actually deliver it. As a member of the European Parliament Working Group on AI Liability and the World Bank Task Force on Access to Justice and Technology, she tracks how regulatory frameworks are being written in real time, giving organisations visibility into requirements before they become mandatory. Her research has shifted institutional practice at the NHS and MHRA, which are revising medical device licensing standards using her findings on the unintended consequences of common group fairness measures – a concrete precedent for how her work moves from publication to policy. Biography highlights Professor of Technology and Regulation, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; Humboldt Professor of Technology and Regulation, Hasso Plattner Institute Leads the Governance of Emerging Technologies (GET) Research Programme at Oxford Co-developer of Counterfactual Explanations (now deployed by Google, IBM, Microsoft, Accenture, and Vodafone) and the Conditional Demographic Disparity (CDD) bias test (implemented by Amazon and IBM; applied in the Netherlands education reform, 2024) Published in Science Robotics, Nature Electronics, and Nature Reviews Physics; cited over 20,000 times (Google Scholar) Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award (2025, €3.5M); O2RB Excellence in Impact Award (2018, 2021); Computer Weekly Women in UK Tech Award (2021); Privacy Law Scholar Award (2019); CognitionX AI Ethics Award (2017, 2023) Policy roles: European Parliament Working Group on AI Liability; World Bank Task Force on Access to Justice and Technology; WEF Global Futures Council on Values, Ethics and Innovation; UNESCO; UK Police Ethics Guidance Group Previously Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School; Research Fellow, The Alan Turing Institute Media profiles in the Financial Times, Wired, New York Times, BBC,Guardian, Harvard Business Review, Reuters, Time Magazine, and MIT Technology Review Biography Sandra Wachter is Professor of Technology and Regulation at the University of Oxford’s Oxford Internet Institute and Humboldt Professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute. She leads Oxford’s Governance of Emerging Technologies Research Programme – work that sits not in the space of ethical aspiration but in the harder territory of legal standards and technical verification. The tools her research has produced are in use at scale. The Counterfactual Explanations framework she co-developed is deployed in production by Google, IBM, Microsoft, Accenture, and Vodafone. Her Conditional Demographic Disparity (CDD) bias test – built after demonstrating that 13 of 20 commonly used bias tools fail EU non-discrimination law – was adopted by Amazon and IBM in their cloud services. In 2024, CDD was used to expose systemic bias in the Dutch national education system; the Dutch Minister of Education apologised and initiated formal reform. The NHS and MHRA have revised their medical device licensing practices using her findings on the consequences of widely applied group fairness measures. Her publications appear in Science Robotics, Nature Electronics, and Nature Reviews Physics, and she has been cited over 20,000 times. Awards include the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award (2025, €3.5M), the O2RB Excellence in Impact Award (2018, 2021), the Privacy Law Scholar Award (2019), and the CognitionX AI Ethics Award (2017, 2023). She sits on the European Parliament Working Group on AI Liability, the World Bank Task Force on Access to Justice and Technology, the WEF Global Futures Council on Values, Ethics and Innovation, and the UK Police Ethics Guidance Group, and was previously Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. For boards and risk leaders, her most immediate value is diagnostic: the gap between what organisations say their AI governance achieves and what the regulatory and technical evidence supports is larger than most assume. She has spent a decade building the instruments to measure that gap precisely. Key speaking topics AI governance and regulation Algorithmic accountability and explainability Algorithmic bias and non-discrimination law Generative AI and legal liability The EU AI Act and regulatory compliance Profiling, inferential analytics, and data protection Platform regulation and internet governance Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams making AI adoption and governance commitments Chief Data Officers and technology leadership teams designing accountability frameworks Legal, compliance, and risk leaders responsible for AI deployment decisions Public sector and regulatory audiences shaping AI policy and standards Audience outcomes A clear-eyed assessment of where current AI governance practices fall short of EU and UK legal standards – and why common assumptions about bias testing are insufficient Practical grounding in legally defensible tools for explainability and bias measurement, including frameworks already adopted by major technology companies Informed foresight into how the EU AI Act and emerging AI liability frameworks will affect deployment requirements Understanding of how generative AI creates specific new liabilities around hallucination, misinformation, and the emerging legal question of AI truthfulness The ability to distinguish between stated accountability commitments and governance that can withstand external scrutiny

Why organisations work with Stephanie Hare Technology Is Not Neutral, named a Financial Times Best Technology Book of summer 2022, gives her a published framework her audiences can read before and after the session, which lifts her work out of conference-keynote territory. Her career covers the three sides of technology decision-making that most speakers can only address from one: operator (Accenture, Palantir), analyst (Oxford Analytica, Accenture Research) and researcher (LSE PhD, St Antony’s Oxford). That combination is unusually hard to replicate. Since November 2023, she has co-presented Artificial Intelligence: Decoded on BBC television, which means corporate audiences making AI decisions often recognise her work on the same developments before they meet her. Her published writing in the Financial Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Harvard Business Review and WIRED gives clients a body of work they can share internally when briefing a session. The institutional client list, including KPMG, IKEA, LEGO, BAE Systems, CERN, the Royal Society and the Alan Turing Institute, signals that she operates comfortably across corporate, scientific and public-sector audiences. Biography highlights Author of Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics (London Publishing Partnership), FT Best Technology Books of summer 2022 PhD and MSc from the London School of Economics; BA University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; study at the Sorbonne Alistair Horne Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford Former Principal Director at Accenture Research; strategist at Palantir; senior Western Europe analyst at Oxford Analytica Selected for the BBC Expert Women programme; Foreign Policy Interrupted fellowship Co-presenter, Artificial Intelligence: Decoded, BBC television; contributor to BBC World Service Business Matters Selected for the BBC Expert Women programme and the Foreign Policy Interrupted fellowship; writing in the Financial Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Harvard Business Review and WIRED Biography Technology ethics is one of the few senior-leadership topics where the question is harder than the answer sounds, and Stephanie Hare has spent her career working on that gap. Technology Is Not Neutral, her book published by London Publishing Partnership, was named a Financial Times Best Technology Book of summer 2022 and has become a widely referenced practitioner text on how to think about the ethical consequences of AI, biometrics, surveillance and the platforms embedded in modern business operations. Her route to the argument is unusual. She holds a PhD and MSc from the London School of Economics, a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a year at the Sorbonne, and held the Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Her operator record covers Accenture, Palantir and Oxford Analytica, where she was a senior Western Europe analyst, before her current position as an independent researcher and broadcaster. That combination, academic, operator, analyst, gives her the register of each of the three rooms a technology ethics conversation usually has to run through. The media presence is specific. Since November 2023 she has co-presented Artificial Intelligence: Decoded on BBC television, the broadcaster’s programme analysing the latest developments in AI, and contributes to BBC World Service Business Matters. She was selected for the BBC Expert Women programme and the Foreign Policy Interrupted fellowship. Her bylines run across the Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, the Observer, Harvard Business Review and WIRED, which means corporate audiences often recognise the voice before they meet her. The advisory and speaking work sits across the organisations her argument is most relevant to: KPMG, IKEA, LEGO, BAE Systems, CERN, the Royal Society and the Alan Turing Institute. For boards, chief AI officers, chief technology officers and general counsel working through AI governance, biometric deployment and data strategy, Stephanie is one of the few commentators who can hold the ethics, the technology and the political risk in the same session. Key speaking topics Technology ethics and responsible AI AI governance and regulation Biometrics, surveillance and data strategy Political risk in technology and digital infrastructure Cybersecurity and emerging technology Climate action and the ethics of technology Ideal for Boards, chief AI officers and CTOs making defensible decisions on AI, biometrics and data General counsel, chief risk officers and compliance leaders facing accelerating AI and technology regulation Technology and advisory firms looking for a senior externally credible voice on ethics and governance Scientific institutions, research organisations and public-sector bodies running complex technology-ethics briefs Audience outcomes A working framework, drawn from Technology Is Not Neutral, for making and defending technology-ethics decisions A clearer view of where AI regulation and political risk are moving and how that should shape operating choices Reference material from the book and Stephanie’s published writing for teams to use internally after the session Cross-sector case examples drawn from her consulting work with KPMG, IKEA, LEGO, BAE Systems and the Alan Turing Institute

Why organisations work with Monique Morrow She speaks about cybersecurity and digital infrastructure as someone who built it. As the first CTO of Cisco Services and later CTO-Evangelist for New Frontiers Development and Engineering, she sat in the architecture seat through Cisco’s expansion into cloud, IoT and emerging networks. The standards organisations will operate under in extended reality and metaverse systems are partly being written by her. She chairs IEEE P7030 and IEEE P7016, two of the few global working groups defining how these technologies are assessed and built. Engineering credibility that few cybersecurity speakers match. More than seventeen USPTO patents covering networking, IoT, cybersecurity and data handling, plus three published technical books, mean she does not need to translate from analyst-speak. Board-level visibility into how distributed ledger governance actually works. As an Independent Director on the Hedera Council Board, she sees decisions on a major public DLT network being made, not just commented on. Her digital identity work has been pressure-tested against the hardest cases. Through The Humanized Internet, she has built frameworks for portable, self-sovereign identity for stateless and displaced populations, which sharpens her perspective on identity systems for corporate users. Biography highlights President and Co-Founder of The Humanized Internet, the Switzerland-based non-profit advancing self-sovereign digital identity for stateless and displaced populations Former first CTO of Cisco Services and CTO-Evangelist for New Frontiers Development and Engineering at Cisco; previously Senior Distinguished Architect for Emerging Technologies at Syniverse Technologies Independent Director on the Hedera Council Board, governing one of the larger public distributed ledger networks Chair of IEEE P7030 (global extended reality assessment standard) and IEEE P7016 (Standard for Ethically Aligned Design and Operation of Metaverse Systems) Co-author of The Humanized Internet (River Publishers, 2023), The Internet of Women (River Publishers, 2016) and Developing IP-Based Services (Morgan Kaufmann, 2003) Holder of more than seventeen USPTO patents in networking, IoT, cybersecurity and data handling; named one of Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech globally (2018) Biography Distributed ledger systems, extended reality platforms and digital identity protocols are being built faster than the governance around them. Once they scale, the rules embedded in them are very hard to remove. The decisions that matter most are being made at the architecture layer, often in working groups most senior leaders cannot name. Monique Morrow has spent more than twenty-five years inside that layer. She was the first CTO of Cisco Services and later CTO-Evangelist for New Frontiers Development and Engineering. The brief was to read economics, technology and research together and identify what was coming next for the business. She holds more than seventeen USPTO patents in networking, IoT, cybersecurity and data handling, and in 2005 was named Cisco’s first Distinguished Consulting Engineer. She is President and Co-Founder of The Humanized Internet, the Swiss non-profit working on portable, self-sovereign digital identity for the more than one billion people without legal identity. Her 2023 book of the same name from River Publishers makes the argument that identity systems built for stateless and displaced populations produce more robust architecture than systems built for corporate convenience. She chairs IEEE P7030, the global working group writing the assessment standard for extended reality, and IEEE P7016, the standard for ethically aligned metaverse design. She also sits as an Independent Director on the Hedera Council Board, where governance of one of the larger public distributed ledger networks is decided. The rules organisations will operate under in the next decade are being drafted in rooms she chairs. Key speaking topics Cybersecurity strategy and risk Digital identity and self-sovereign identity systems Extended reality and metaverse governance Distributed ledger and blockchain infrastructure Privacy and data governance Ethics in emerging technology Standards and governance for AI and connected systems Ideal for CISOs, CTOs and chief digital officers setting cybersecurity and emerging technology direction Boards and audit committees scrutinising digital identity, AI and distributed ledger exposure Telecommunications, financial services and infrastructure organisations weighing investments in DLT, XR and biometric systems Policy and standards bodies shaping technology governance frameworks Audience outcomes Sharper view of where the actual risks sit in their cybersecurity and emerging technology architecture, separated from vendor noise Working knowledge of the IEEE, GSMA and WEF standards that will shape extended reality, distributed ledger and digital identity over the next five years Grounded perspective on what self-sovereign identity actually requires, from someone building systems for the hardest cases Specific questions to put to vendors and regulators on AI ethics, DLT governance and XR deployment A view of where the next set of regulatory and reputational pressures on emerging technology are likely to land

Why organisations work with Martin Smith He built SASIG from a private forum into a community of more than 11,000 cybersecurity practitioners across roughly 4,500 organisations, which gives him a unique read on what CISOs actually worry about, not what vendors say they should. His argument that breaches are behavioural before they are technical reframes the cyber conversation for boards that have over-invested in tooling and under-invested in people. Three decades of operational security experience across the RAF, Kroll, Standard Chartered and his own firm, The Security Company, lets him talk to executive audiences without retreating into jargon or vendor pitch. He speaks with the authority of an industry founder, not a commentator. SASIG, TSC, and his OSPAs Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 give him standing other cyber speakers cannot match in a UK boardroom. He is unusually effective with mixed audiences of technical and non-technical leaders, a direct consequence of his behavioural psychology background and a career spent translating between the two. Biography highlights Founder and Chairman of The Security Awareness Special Interest Group (SASIG), established 2004; now part of Nineteen Group following the January 2024 acquisition. Awarded the MBE for 15 years as a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force Security (Provost) Branch. Former Senior Director of Corporate Security at Kroll Associates (UK) and Head of Information Security at Standard Chartered Bank. Founded The Security Company (International) Limited in 1997, exiting via management buyout in December 2019. Lifetime Achievement Award, inaugural OSPAs (Outstanding Security Performance Awards), March 2017. BSc in Behavioural Psychology; FSyI (Fellow of The Security Institute); Freeman Emeritus of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. Biography The vast majority of cybersecurity failures start with a human decision, not a system flaw. That observation has driven Martin Smith’s work for three decades, and it is the argument SASIG, the network he founded in 2004, was built around. Today it represents over 11,000 practitioners drawn from roughly 4,500 organisations across UK industry, government, law enforcement, and academia. His credibility is operational, not theoretical. Fifteen years as a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force Security (Provost) Branch earned him an MBE. He then went into the commercial sector via Touche Ross, took on Senior Director of Corporate Security at Kroll Associates, and ran information security for Standard Chartered Bank before founding The Security Company (International) Limited in 1997. What ties that career together is a behavioural psychology background that shapes how he reads risk. Boards tend to think of cyber as a technical procurement problem. Smith’s work consistently pushes them toward the harder question of how staff behave under pressure, how culture is engineered, and how awareness is sustained beyond an annual training module. He retired from TSC in December 2019 in a management buyout to focus on SASIG, which Nineteen Group acquired in January 2024. In March 2017 he received the inaugural OSPAs Lifetime Achievement Award for his work on the human factor in security breaches, which remains the most precise summary of what he has spent his career arguing for. Key speaking topics Cyber and information security The human factor in security breaches Security awareness and behavioural risk Counter-terrorism and crisis management Risk and resilience for boards The business of security Ideal for CISOs, CIOs and CTOs assessing the cultural side of their cyber exposure Boards and audit committees recalibrating cyber risk beyond tooling spend HR and learning leaders responsible for security awareness programmes Public-sector and regulated-industry leaders working with sensitive information Audience outcomes A clearer view of where cyber budgets are misallocated between technology and people. Specific, practitioner-grounded examples of how organisations engineer security awareness into culture rather than treat it as a compliance event. A working understanding of the human-factor argument that has reshaped UK cybersecurity practice over the last twenty years. The perspective of a founder who has watched 11,000+ cyber practitioners articulate what really keeps them awake.

Why organisations work with Nick Clegg He has sat on both sides of the table that defines tech policy: as the head of global affairs at Meta facing regulators, and as a head-of-government negotiator setting policy for a G7 economy. His 2025 book How to Save the Internet lays out a specific argument about how democracies, Silicon Valley and authoritarian states are pulling the internet apart, and what a workable settlement would look like. Boards get the thesis and the evidence behind it. He can map how Brussels, Washington and Beijing actually behave on AI and platform rules from direct experience of all three, not from secondary commentary. His coalition government experience gives him a working language for decision-making when no single party controls the outcome, which is the practical condition most boards now face on tech policy. Biography highlights Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 2010 to 2015, in Britain’s first post-war coalition government. Leader of the Liberal Democrats, 2007 to 2015; Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam, 2005 to 2017. President for Global Affairs at Meta Platforms, 2018 to January 2025, leading the company’s policy and regulatory engagement worldwide. Author of How to Save the Internet (Bodley Head/Penguin, 2025), Politics: Between the Extremes (2016), How to Stop Brexit (2017), and The Responsibilities of Democracy (2019, with Sir John Major). Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands, 1999 to 2004; earlier career at the European Commission. Knighted in 2018; recipient of the Financial Times David Thomas Prize, 1993. Biography The most consequential rules now shaping AI, data and the global internet are being written by a small number of governments that no longer agree with each other. Nick Clegg has worked at the centre of that argument from both sides. As Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015, he helped run a coalition government through the eurozone crisis. As President of Global Affairs at Meta from 2018 to early 2025, he led the company’s policy engagement with the US, EU, UK, India and beyond. Few people have moved between those two seats. The combination matters because tech policy is no longer a niche regulatory file. It is a board-level question of capital allocation, market access and operational risk. Clegg’s value to a senior audience is that he understands how the political logic of Brussels, the commercial logic of Silicon Valley and the strategic logic of Washington and Beijing actually collide. His 2025 book How to Save the Internet, published by The Bodley Head, sets out the argument in full. He proposes a “digital democracies alliance” to prevent the global internet fragmenting into incompatible national systems, and he is candid about where Big Tech, including his former employer, has misread the public mood. Earlier books, including Politics: Between the Extremes and The Responsibilities of Democracy with Sir John Major, focus on coalition, compromise and democratic resilience under stress. The throughline is governance under conditions where no one is fully in charge. That is the working environment for any senior leader trying to plan around AI rules, content liability, data flows and the geopolitics of semiconductors. Clegg has been in the room when those decisions were taken, on both sides of the regulator and the platform. Key speaking topics AI policy and regulation across the US, EU and UK The geopolitics of the global internet Big Tech, content moderation and platform governance Coalition government and political decision-making under uncertainty Democratic resilience in the age of social media and AI UK and EU relations after Brexit Trust, public discourse and the future of democratic institutions Ideal for Boards and executive teams of companies materially exposed to AI, data, content or platform regulation General Counsel, Chief Policy Officers and Heads of Government Affairs in multinationals CEO and CTO audiences planning AI deployment under divergent regulatory regimes Senior public sector and policy audiences working on tech, digital and AI strategy Audience outcomes A clearer read of where AI and platform regulation is heading in the EU, US and UK over the next planning cycle A working framework for how Silicon Valley, Washington, Brussels and Beijing each think about the internet, and where their positions are converging or diverging An informed view of the argument in How to Save the Internet, including the case for a digital democracies alliance A grounded sense of how senior decisions get made inside coalition governments and inside large global platforms, from someone who has done both

Why organisations work with Rory Cellan-Jones He has reported on every significant technology cycle from the dot.com bust to generative AI, which gives senior teams a working baseline for how this wave will and will not behave. His book Always On argues that the smartphone is the Model T Ford of the 21st century and traces the loss of public trust from the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony to Cambridge Analytica. That argument frames a board conversation on AI legitimacy in language buyers can use. He brings the institutional memory of the BBC technology desk into the room, including direct interviews with the founders and chief executives now setting the AI agenda. His OBE for services to journalism, honorary fellowship at the National Museum of Computing, and current advisory roles at FTI Consulting and Brands2Life signal a credibility that survives the move from press gallery to boardroom. He hosts and moderates with the discipline of a live broadcaster, which makes him a strong choice when the brief is a serious panel rather than a single keynote. Biography highlights BBC Technology Correspondent, 2007 to 2021, with prior roles on The Money Programme, Newsnight, and the Today Programme. Appointed OBE in the 2024 Birthday Honours for services to journalism. Author of Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era (Bloomsbury), Dot.Bomb, the memoir Ruskin Park, and Sophie From Romania. Co-host of the Movers and Shakers podcast on Parkinson’s disease, launched 2023. Senior Advisor, FTI Consulting; Senior Media and Strategy Consultant, Brands2Life. Honorary Fellow, National Museum of Computing; honorary degree, University of York. Biography The dot.com bust ran straight through Cellan-Jones’s first stint as a technology reporter. He had just been appointed BBC Internet Correspondent when the bubble broke, and the book he wrote about it, Dot.Bomb, set the pattern for a career spent reporting on technology as something that has to survive contact with markets, regulators and the public. That long memory is what senior teams now use him for. Across fourteen years as BBC Technology Correspondent, from January 2007, he covered the rise of the iPhone, the social media platforms, the cryptocurrency cycles, and the early arguments about AI safety. His book Always On reads that period as a single arc, with the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony as the high water mark of techno-optimism and the Cambridge Analytica revelations as the moment public trust broke. He left the BBC in 2021 and has since taken senior advisory roles at FTI Consulting and Brands2Life, which keep him close to the corporate side of the same questions he reported on as a journalist. He was appointed OBE in the 2024 Birthday Honours. The current AI debate is where the back catalogue earns its keep. Boards are being asked to make commitments at a pace that exceeds the evidence, and the reflex to copy whichever competitor moves first is exactly the pattern he watched go wrong in 2000, again in 2008, and again in 2017. Few speakers can frame that lesson with the same authority. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the public trust problem The smartphone era and the social contract of technology Disruptive innovation and the corporate response Technology regulation and the limits of self-governance Cybersecurity in consumer and corporate life Long-run lessons from forty years of technology cycles Health, technology and the patient experience Ideal for Boards setting AI adoption policy and accountability CIO, CTO and CDO leadership offsites looking for an outsider perspective on the current cycle Communications, public affairs and policy teams managing technology reputation risk Conferences requiring a moderator or host with deep subject knowledge Audience outcomes A clearer read on which parts of the current AI narrative match historical patterns and which are genuinely new A working framework for thinking about public trust as a corporate input, not an externality A sense of the regulatory direction in the UK, EU and US and what that implies for product and policy decisions Questions a board should be asking its own technology and risk leadership in the next twelve months

Why organisations work with Léa Steinacker Her “Code Capital” framework, developed through her University of St. Gallen doctorate and published by Nomos Verlag, gives executive teams a structured way to analyse what is embedded in AI systems from design through deployment, something most AI governance conversations currently lack. Her peer-reviewed research covers specific, contested AI applications, including cross-national surveys of facial recognition acceptance published in Government Information Quarterly and Public Understanding of Science, which gives her arguments empirical grounding rather than assertion. Her 2024 book co-authored with Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel (Rowohlt Verlag) reached both the Spiegel and Manager Magazin bestseller rankings, evidence that her framing of AI’s organisational and societal consequences resonates with senior business audiences, not only specialist ones. As co-founder of ada Learning, which has equipped thousands of employees from DAX companies, SMEs, and governments with AI transformation skills, she has tested her frameworks inside major institutions at scale, not only described them from the outside. Board-level experience at Weleda AG and active leadership as CEO of GaiaLogic AG mean her perspective on AI governance comes from someone directly accountable for it, not only someone who analyses it. Biography highlights PhD from the University of St. Gallen; doctoral thesis “Code Capital” published as an academic monograph by Nomos Verlag (2022) Co-author with Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel of “Alles überall auf einmal” (Rowohlt Verlag, 2024), ranked on both the Spiegel and Manager Magazin bestseller lists; published in English as “Everything Everywhere All At Once: How Artificial Intelligence Impacts Our World” and in Korean CEO of GaiaLogic AG; co-founder and former Executive Chairwoman of ada Learning GmbH, which has equipped thousands of employees from DAX companies, SMEs, and governments with AI transformation skills Member of the Board of Directors of Weleda AG; former member of the AI Advisory Board of Ringier AG Lecturer at the University of St. Gallen, teaching “Social and Economic Impacts of Artificial Intelligence” Peer-reviewed publications in Government Information Quarterly, Electronic Markets, Public Understanding of Science, and Data and Policy (Cambridge Core) Degrees from Princeton University (A.B.), Harvard Kennedy School of Government (MPP), and the University of St. Gallen (PhD) Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe; Medium Magazine Top 30 Under 30 Journalists; BCG Thought Leader; Atlantik-Brücke Young Leader; Munich Young Leader (Munich Security Conference and Körber Stiftung); Henry Richardson Labouisse Prize, Princeton University Biography Organisations moving quickly on AI adoption are finding that their governance structures are not keeping pace. Boards are increasingly accountable for what AI systems do to their decisions and their people, yet most lack the analytical frameworks to evaluate it. Léa Steinacker has spent a decade building exactly those frameworks. Her doctoral research at the University of St. Gallen produced Code Capital, a sociotechnical framework for analysing AI systems from design through deployment. Published by Nomos Verlag in 2022, it gives leaders a structured way to identify what AI systems actually contain, from design assumptions to deployment risks. Her peer-reviewed work, covering facial recognition adoption across four countries and published in journals including Government Information Quarterly and Public Understanding of Science, brings empirical grounding to arguments that too often stay at the level of principle. Her 2024 book with Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel (Rowohlt Verlag) became an immediate Spiegel and Manager Magazin bestseller and was subsequently translated into English and Korean. It moved the question of what AI means for people, organisations, and societies from ethical debate into practical leadership conversation. She now carries that perspective directly into practice as CEO of GaiaLogic AG and as a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen. As a member of the Board of Directors of Weleda AG, her perspective on AI governance is shaped by institutional accountability, not only academic analysis. She co-founded ada Learning, which has equipped thousands of employees from DAX companies, governments, and civil society organisations with AI transformation skills. She holds degrees from Princeton University, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the University of St. Gallen. Key speaking topics AI governance and responsible deployment The societal and organisational implications of AI Code Capital and sociotechnical analysis of AI systems AI regulation and the European policy framework Workforce transformation and AI readiness Human-AI collaboration and decision-making AI and the future of knowledge work Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives evaluating AI governance and accountability structures Chief Technology Officers, Chief Digital Officers, and transformation leads navigating AI adoption Policy, legal, and compliance teams working on AI regulation and enterprise risk Senior HR and people leaders managing workforce readiness and AI-driven organisational change Audience outcomes A framework, grounded in the Code Capital model, for evaluating what AI systems do to organisations beyond their stated technical capabilities Clearer understanding of where AI governance risk accumulates before it becomes visible at board level Practical grounding in European AI regulation and what it means for organisational decision-making and liability A more precise vocabulary for asking the right questions about AI in leadership and governance contexts Greater clarity on how to structure workforce readiness initiatives that treat AI transformation as an organisational challenge, not only a skills one

Why organisations work with Monica Verma Operational CISO experience that informs every recommendation. Three CISO appointments, including Orange Business Cloud Services and the Norwegian Directorate of Health, mean her advice on AI risk comes from someone who has actually run the response. A hacker’s view of AI threats paired with a CISO’s view of governance. She started in offensive security finding web application vulnerabilities. She now advises boards on AI trust and accountability. Both perspectives in the same conversation. A proprietary maturity model. Her Cybersecurity Adoption Lifecycle Model, introduced in 2020, gives executive teams a way to locate themselves on the cyber and AI maturity curve. Credibility with technical and commercial audiences. Booked by FT Live in Luxembourg, the ACFE Fraud Conference Europe, and WCM 2025 in Brazil for an audience of 2,000 leaders. A clear point of view on the most contested question in the boardroom right now: how to adopt AI without breaking trust and governance. She has built her current keynote portfolio around it. Biography highlights Three-time Chief Information Security Officer with prior CISO appointments at Orange Business Cloud Services and the Norwegian Directorate of Health (Helsedirektoratet, Helfo, POBO). Director, International Cybersecurity & Resilience at Booz Allen Hamilton (2024). Recognised as Top #3 CISO in EMEA (2023), Top 50 Women in Tech (2022), and Outstanding Security Advisor at Norway’s Outstanding Security Performance Awards (2019). Board-certified Qualified Technology Expert (QTE) and former board member of Cloud Security Alliance Norway and Women in Cybersecurity Norway. Founder and CEO of Monica Talks Cyber and Cyber Foyer. Host of The Monica Talks Cyber Show podcast and author of The Predictability Factor newsletter. Contributor to Dark Reading. Featured speaker at FT Live, the ACFE Fraud Conference Europe, WCM Brazil, Cyber Root Malta, and the Norwegian Tax Authority’s IT Tech conference. Biography AI is now in the boardroom and in the threat model at the same time. Most leadership teams have someone who can speak credibly about one or the other. Few have someone with three CISO appointments behind them and an active AI advisory practice on top. Monica Verma’s career has run through both. The starting point was offensive security, finding vulnerabilities in web applications and cloud environments before attackers could. Three CISO appointments followed, including Orange Business Cloud Services and the Norwegian Directorate of Health. By 2024 she was Director of International Cybersecurity and Resilience at Booz Allen Hamilton. Her published work bridges the same divide. The Cybersecurity Adoption Lifecycle Model, which she introduced in 2020, adapts the technology adoption curve to give executive teams a usable map of their cyber maturity. Her current keynote portfolio takes that lens into the AI era: Innovating with AI Without Breaking Trust and Governing AI Before It Hacks You. The credentials track. Top #3 CISO in EMEA in 2023, Top 50 Women in Tech in 2022, Outstanding Security Advisor at Norway’s OSPAs in 2019. The booking pattern says more. FT Live brought her in for the European fund management industry in Luxembourg. The ACFE chose her to open its 2025 Fraud Conference Europe to ca. 500 anti-fraud executives. WCM Brazil put her in front of 2,000 leaders at one of the world’s largest strategy and leadership conferences. Key speaking topics AI security and governance Cyber resilience in the AI era AI risk and trust for the enterprise Cybersecurity leadership at board level The evolution of cybercrime AI-enabled fraud and threat response Ideal for Boards and executive committees making AI adoption decisions where governance and security are not yet aligned. CISOs, CIOs and CTOs whose teams are being asked to defend against AI-enabled threats while adopting AI internally. Financial services, healthcare and public sector organisations facing high regulatory exposure on both AI and cybersecurity. Audience outcomes Specific examples of how AI is currently breaking enterprise trust in regulated industries. A maturity check against the Cybersecurity Adoption Lifecycle Model that locates where the organisation sits. The questions a board needs to ask before approving its next major AI initiative. A view of how attackers are using AI today and which enterprise defences are still holding.

Why organisations work with Tabitha Goldstaub She chaired the UK Government’s AI Council for five years – a formal, operational appointment made by two Secretaries of State – which means she understands AI governance from the inside of the policy process, not from commentary on it. Her book How to Talk to Robots (HarperCollins, 2020) made a specific and publicly documented argument: that AI systems inherit the biases of those who build them, and that who governs AI is a governance question, not a diversity exercise. The argument travels directly into boardroom and leadership settings. As co-founder and Festival Director of CogX – which grew to 6,500 delegates and over 370 speakers at its peak – she has an unusually accurate read on how organisations across sectors are actually navigating AI adoption, rather than how they say they are. She sits on the board of Luminate, the international organisation focused on ensuring Big Tech and AI platforms respect human rights – giving her live insight into how civil society and regulators are evaluating the conduct of AI companies. Biography highlights Former Chair, UK Government’s AI Council (2018–2023); appointed AI Business Champion by the Secretary of State for DCMS MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to the artificial intelligence sector Author of How to Talk to Robots (HarperCollins, 2020); reviewed in the Financial Times Co-founder and Festival Director of CogX, which grew to 6,500 delegates and 370+ speakers Co-founder of Rightster (now Brave Bison), which floated for £20.4 million in 2013 Amy Johnson Inspiration Award, Women’s Engineering Society, 2018 Named in Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in Technology (2023) and London Evening Standard Progress 1000 Board member, Luminate; Non-Executive Director, Innovate Cambridge Biography Boards are being asked to sign off on significant AI investment while carrying little of the institutional knowledge needed to govern it responsibly. Tabitha Goldstaub MBE chaired the UK Government’s AI Council from 2018 to 2023 – the expert body that advised government on national AI strategy, responsible adoption, and societal impact. That appointment, made by two Secretaries of State, put her at the operational centre of the UK’s AI policy architecture at the moment it was being built. Her book How to Talk to Robots (HarperCollins, 2020), reviewed in the Financial Times, made a specific argument: that AI systems inherit the biases of those who design and govern them, and that widening who holds those roles is not a diversity initiative but a governance imperative. The Women’s Engineering Society gave her its Amy Johnson Inspiration Award in 2018 for advancing that case through her public roles. As co-founder and Festival Director of CogX, she built one of Europe’s largest annual AI leadership summits – growing it from 1,500 delegates at its founding in 2017 to over 6,500 in 2018, with more than 370 speakers on programme. That scale gave her a consistently clear view of where organisations across sectors are actually struggling with AI adoption, as distinct from the positions they present publicly. She now serves on the board of Luminate – the international organisation working to ensure that Big Tech and AI platforms respect human rights – and as Non-Executive Director of Innovate Cambridge. Named in Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in Technology in 2023, she is one of the few speakers in this space who has operated across government policy, commercial technology, and civil society governance at the same time. Key speaking topics AI governance and organisational accountability Responsible AI and ethics in practice AI policy and the regulatory landscape AI bias, inclusion, and structural risk Leadership decision-making in the age of AI Building AI literacy at board and executive level Technology entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems Ideal for Boards and audit or risk committees developing AI governance frameworks C-suite and senior leadership teams setting or reviewing AI strategy Public sector and regulated industry leaders navigating emerging AI policy Technology and digital transformation leads in organisations deploying AI at scale Audience outcomes A clearer framework for understanding what responsible AI adoption requires at leadership and governance level Greater confidence discussing AI accountability with technical teams, regulators, and boards Practical understanding of the policy and regulatory environment shaping AI deployment in the UK and Europe Sharper awareness of where AI bias risks arise and what governance mechanisms are available to address them Context for evaluating AI proposals, investments, or vendor relationships with more informed scrutiny

Why organisations work with Cristina Criddle A direct line into the AI story as it is being reported, from a journalist who breaks news on OpenAI, Google, Meta and TikTok for the FT, not a commentator reading the same coverage as the audience. First-hand authority on platform power and data governance: in 2022 ByteDance admitted its staff used her personal account data to try to identify her FT sources, which gives her an unusually concrete view of how large platforms actually behave. Award-recognised reporting credentials, including gold at the 2023 MHP Group 30 To Watch Journalism Awards for technology coverage. Translates frontier AI development into language a non-technical executive can act on, drawing on a decade across the BBC’s Today Programme, BBC Breakfast and BBC Three, in addition to the FT. Works as keynote, panellist, host and moderator, which makes her useful as both a content voice and a credible chair for senior internal AI conversations. Biography highlights Technology Correspondent, Financial Times, San Francisco, covering Artificial Intelligence. Previously the FT’s Technology Correspondent in London for three years. Former BBC technology reporter across the Today Programme, BBC Breakfast, TV, radio and online. Producer of the BBC Three documentary “The Instagram Effect” (2022) on the platform’s impact on user wellbeing. Gold winner, MHP Group 30 To Watch Journalism Awards 2023, Science, Environment & Technology category. Subject of ByteDance’s admitted 2022 internal surveillance operation, in which staff accessed her location data via her personal TikTok account to try to identify her FT sources. Biography The frontier AI story is being written from a small number of buildings in San Francisco, and most boards are reading it second-hand. Criddle reports it first-hand. As the Financial Times’s Technology Correspondent specialising in AI, she covers OpenAI, Google, Meta and the other labs setting the pace, and the regulators and rival platforms trying to keep up. Before the San Francisco posting, she spent three years as the FT’s Technology Correspondent in London, breaking stories on TikTok, Meta and the wider platform economy. Her reporting record was recognised with gold at the MHP Group 30 To Watch Journalism Awards in 2023 in the Science, Environment & Technology category. Her earlier career at the BBC, across the Today Programme, BBC Breakfast, TV, radio and online, included producing the 2022 BBC Three documentary “The Instagram Effect”, which used insider testimony to examine the platform’s effect on younger users. That mix of investigative reporting and broadcast experience is why she works as both a keynote voice and a chair for senior internal AI conversations. In December 2022, ByteDance admitted that four of its staff had used Criddle’s personal TikTok data to try to identify her FT sources. The company dismissed the staff and restructured its internal audit team. The episode is one of the few publicly confirmed cases of a major platform surveilling a named journalist, and it gives her a concrete point of view on platform governance, data access and trust that boards are increasingly being forced to take seriously. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the frontier labs Enterprise AI adoption and workplace impact AI regulation and governance Big Tech platform power Data privacy and platform surveillance Social media’s effect on users and society Future of technology and consumer adoption Ideal for Boards and executive committees making capital allocation decisions on AI CTOs, CIOs and Chief AI Officers tracking the frontier labs and policy environment Communications, policy and legal leaders responsible for AI risk and platform exposure Conference programme chairs looking for an FT-credentialled AI host or moderator Audience outcomes A current, named-source view of what is happening inside the major AI labs and how it is likely to land commercially A working understanding of the regulatory pressure on AI and large platforms, and where it is likely to bite Sharper questions to ask internal AI teams, vendors and platform partners about data, governance and safety A clearer sense of what is signal and what is noise in the AI news cycle

Why organisations work with Ben Owen He has spent more than two decades on the operational side of intelligence, from sniper duties in Iraq to leading covert teams against counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage targets. Few cyber speakers can speak from that side of the line. He runs live OSINT demonstrations from the stage, exposing what an attacker can assemble about a named executive in minutes. Audiences leave with a visceral understanding of their own exposure, not a slide on the threat landscape. As co-founder of The OSINT Group and Co-Director EMEA for Fortalice Solutions, he advises corporates and high net worth principals on digital risk every week. The keynote content is drawn from current casework, not historical anecdote. His Hunted profile gives him cultural reach that board members already recognise, which lowers the resistance non-technical executives bring to cyber conversations. Biography highlights Co-founder, The OSINT Group, an intelligence-led cyber security consultancy. Co-Director, EMEA Region, Fortalice Solutions, the global cyber and intelligence firm founded by former White House CIO Theresa Payton. Former British intelligence officer, with operational experience in counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage. Former sniper in the British Forces, deployed to Cyprus, Kuwait, and Iraq. Lead hunter and Head of Intelligence across the UK, US, and Australian versions of Hunted (Channel 4, CBS, Channel 10). Quoted by The National and Transport + Energy on online fraud and EV charging cyber risk. Biography The attack surface that matters to senior leaders is no longer the corporate firewall. It is the LinkedIn post that confirms a travel date, the loyalty programme that leaks an address, the family member whose social profile fills in the gap. Adversaries assemble these fragments into a picture. Most boards have never been shown that picture. Ben Owen has spent his career on the other side of it. He served as a sniper in the British Forces in Cyprus, Kuwait, and Iraq, then moved into the British intelligence services, where he led covert teams running counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage operations. Twenty-five years of operational work sits behind the keynote. He now co-runs The OSINT Group, an intelligence-led cyber consultancy, and serves as Co-Director EMEA at Fortalice Solutions, the firm founded by former White House CIO Theresa Payton. Current client work, on high net worth principals, corporate executives, and institutional risk, supplies the material for his speaking. Television audiences know him as a recurring hunter across the UK, US, and Australian versions of Hunted; corporate audiences see the same skill set turned on their own organisation. On stage he runs live demonstrations. A volunteer’s name and employer are usually enough to build a profile in front of the room. The point is not theatre. It is to compress the gap between abstract cyber briefings and the operational reality a board now has to govern. Key speaking topics Cyber security as a board-level risk Open-source intelligence and digital footprint exposure The human element of modern cyber threats Executive and principal protection in a digital environment Counter-fraud and social engineering Operational leadership under pressure Surveillance, evasion, and the Hunted methodology Ideal for Boards, CISOs, and CROs commissioning a non-technical reset on cyber risk Executive offboarding, principal protection, and family office audiences Sales kick-offs and client events where a recognisable name needs to land a serious message Industry conferences on financial services, energy, transport, and professional services Audience outcomes A working picture of what a determined adversary can learn about a named executive from open sources alone Specific changes to personal digital hygiene that materially reduce exposure within a week A vocabulary for boards to interrogate their cyber and intelligence functions without retreating into IT jargon A sharper sense of where social engineering and OSINT meet, and why the human layer is now the primary breach vector

Why organisations work with Anne-Marie Imafidon She has run the experiment at scale. Stemettes has engaged more than 60,000 young women and non-binary young people across the UK, Ireland and Europe since 2013, giving her a live evidence base on what moves technical participation and what does not. Her technical credibility is not borrowed. Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science from Oxford at 20, Honorary Fellow of Keble College, and guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown for 60 episodes, so technical audiences engage her as a peer rather than an advocate. She sits inside the UK policy conversation on digital skills. Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work, 2022-2023 President of the British Science Association, and DSIT Women in Tech Envoy, which gives leaders a direct line to how regulation and industrial strategy are likely to land. She has a published thesis. She’s In CTRL (Transworld, 2022) argues that women need to take back tech as users, builders and decision-makers; that frame is portable into strategy conversations about product, customer and workforce. She is comfortable in front of non-technical boards. Her broadcast work and Chancellorship of Glasgow Caledonian University mean she translates between technical reality and senior decision-maker vocabulary without losing either. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of Stemettes, social enterprise founded in 2013 that has reached 60,000+ young women and non-binary young people across the UK, Ireland and Europe. Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Oxford, aged 20; Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. Appointed MBE in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to young women and STEM. Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University; 2022-2023 President of the British Science Association; Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work. Author of She’s In CTRL: How Women Can Take Back Tech (Transworld, 2022). Guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown across 60 episodes (2021-2022), first Black woman to take the Countdown board; voted Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Woman in UK Tech (2020); Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech. DSIT Women in Tech Envoy, co-chairing a UK government Taskforce with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (2025). Biography Stemettes was set up in 2013 after its co-founder returned from the Grace Hopper Celebration in 2012 and decided the UK needed its own infrastructure for girls in STEM. More than 60,000 young women and non-binary young people have passed through its programmes since, across the UK, Ireland and Europe. That operating record is the spine of Anne-Marie Imafidon’s authority on technology talent. The technical credentials are unusual. Imafidon took her Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science at Oxford at 20, is an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, and was the guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown for 60 episodes in 2021 and 2022, the first Black woman to run the Countdown board. She was appointed MBE in 2017 for services to young women and STEM. Her public roles put her inside the UK conversation on digital skills and industrial strategy. She is Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University, Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work, served as President of the British Science Association in 2022-2023, and in 2025 was appointed the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Women in Tech Envoy, co-chairing a Taskforce with the Secretary of State. Her book She’s In CTRL, published by Transworld in 2022, argues that women should treat technology as something to take control of, not just consume or be represented within. For senior leaders it reframes the DEI-in-tech conversation as a product and capability question: who builds the tools, who governs them, and whose problems they get designed to solve. Key speaking topics Women and underrepresented groups in STEM Technology talent pipelines and digital skills Future of work and AI Inclusive product and technology design Social entrepreneurship at scale UK digital policy and industrial strategy Responsible and inclusive AI Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and heads of talent building technology hiring pipelines beyond the usual funnel. CTOs, CDIOs and engineering leaders under pressure to improve retention and representation in technical teams. Boards and ExCos setting policy on AI, digital skills and workforce strategy, particularly in regulated sectors. Corporate foundations, ESG leads and public-sector partners designing STEM and social mobility interventions. Audience outcomes A sharper read on why conventional diversity-in-tech programmes under-deliver and where the real intervention points sit. A working vocabulary for discussing inclusive AI and technology design at board level without defaulting to platitudes. Concrete examples, drawn from Stemettes and UK policy work, of what moves technical participation and retention. A reframe of women-in-tech as a product, governance and capability issue, not only a hiring issue. A sense of how UK digital skills policy and regulation are likely to shape talent strategy over the next cycle.