AI Ethics & Responsible Technology

Why organisations work with Toju Duke Ten years inside Google, including three running Responsible AI programmes across product and research teams on large-scale models. The framework she teaches is the one she ran. A published, structured Responsible AI framework covering fairness, transparency, safety, privacy and robustness across the full ML lifecycle, available to leadership teams as a shared reference point. Operator credibility on the question boards actually ask: how do we deploy AI at pace without inviting regulatory, reputational or human-rights exposure. Independent of any platform or model vendor. With no product to sell, her advice on governance and deployment answers only to the organisation buying it. Biography highlights Author of Building Responsible AI Algorithms (Apress, 2023), a structured framework for fairness, transparency, safety, privacy and robustness across the machine learning lifecycle. Co-author with Prof Paolo Giudici of Responsible AI in Practice (Apress/Springer Nature). Ten years at Google. Final three years as Responsible AI Programme Manager working across product and research teams on large-scale models. Founder and CEO of Diverse AI, a community interest organisation running education and research programmes for groups underrepresented in AI, including a project to build a dataset documenting the cultures of communities without internet access. Media contributor including BBC One Sunday Morning Live, Sky News, Al Jazeera, CGTN America, El Pais, La Vanguardia and Sifted. Biography Most organisations now have an AI policy. Very few have the operating mechanisms to make it real. Toju Duke spent the final three years of a ten-year career at Google building exactly those mechanisms, as a Responsible AI Programme Manager working across product and research teams on large-scale models. That work became Building Responsible AI Algorithms, published by Apress in 2023. The book takes Responsible AI out of principles documents and into the machine learning lifecycle: how to define a problem, audit data, evaluate fairness, document a model, and decide whether to ship. A second volume, Responsible AI in Practice, co-authored with Prof Paolo Giudici, extends the framework into regulation, risk taxonomies and assessment. She advises boards and executive teams on governance, AI readiness, and deployment, and sits on the programme committee for the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics and Society. Through Diverse AI, the community interest organisation she founded, she runs education and research programmes for groups underrepresented in the field, including a project to build a dataset documenting the cultures of communities the internet has left out. Governance and inclusion are the same question seen from two sides of the model. She speaks and writes for serious outlets, including BBC One Sunday Morning Live, Sky News, Al Jazeera, CGTN America, El Pais, La Vanguardia and Sifted. For a board weighing how to govern an AI programme it does not fully understand, she brings the rare combination of operator experience inside a frontier-model team and a published framework to organise the conversation around. Key speaking topics Responsible AI frameworks and governance AI ethics and accountability Generative AI risk and oversight AI regulation and policy Fairness, bias and inclusion in AI systems Diversity in AI talent and design Implementing AI principles across the machine learning lifecycle Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning or governing AI programmes Chief AI officers, CTOs, CIOs and chief data officers building Responsible AI operating models Risk, audit, legal and compliance leaders translating AI regulation into controls DEI and people leaders working on inclusion in technical organisations Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for Responsible AI grounded in a published framework rather than vendor marketing. A view of where AI risk actually sits in the machine learning lifecycle, from problem definition through deployment. A reference model for translating AI principles into review processes, documentation and accountability structures. A sharper read on how regulation, fairness and human-rights considerations intersect for organisations deploying large-scale models.

Why organisations work with Robert Smith He is a working AI researcher with more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, not a consultant translating other people’s science. When a board asks how a model actually behaves, he can answer at the level of the maths. His book Rage Inside the Machine sets out a specific thesis on why algorithmic bias is structural rather than incidental. It gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for the risk before they have to defend a hiring, credit, or pricing decision. He has built and deployed AI inside organisations where failure is expensive: NASA, Boeing, Airbus, the Bank of England, the UK Competition and Markets Authority. The reference points are operational, not theoretical. He led AI and data science at Digital Catapult, the UK government’s deep tech innovation centre. He has seen what separates the firms that move beyond pilots from the ones that stall. As a Founding Trustee of We and AI and a Senior Fellow at UCL, his independence on responsible AI is institutional, not positional. That matters when the audience needs a voice that does not sell the technology. Biography highlights Author, Rage Inside the Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All (Bloomsbury Business). Shortlisted, UK Business Book Awards, Specialist category. Former Director of AI and Data Science, Digital Catapult. Senior Honorary Fellow, Computer Science Faculty, University College London. Co-founder, UCL Centre for Decision-Making Uncertainty. Founding Trustee, We and AI. Author of over 100 peer-reviewed papers in artificial intelligence, with a focus on evolutionary computation, knowledge representation, and machine learning. Applied AI work for NASA, Boeing, Airbus, BT, the European Union, the Bank of England, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, and US national laboratories. Biography The history of artificial intelligence is older than most boardrooms assume, and so are the design choices that made today’s models prone to bias. That is the argument running through Robert Smith’s work as a complexity scientist, and it is the reason serious organisations book him when they need an AI conversation that holds up under scrutiny. Smith spent more than three decades inside applied AI before the current wave of public attention. He built systems for NASA, Boeing, Airbus, BT, the Bank of England, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, the European Union, and US national laboratories at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. He went on to lead AI and data science at Digital Catapult, the UK’s deep tech innovation centre, where the question shifted from research to deployment at scale. His book Rage Inside the Machine, published by Bloomsbury Business and shortlisted for the UK Business Book Awards, traces algorithmic bias back through the intellectual history of computing. The case is technical, not rhetorical: apparently neutral data and models can encode prior injustice across hiring, credit, insurance, policing, and content moderation. He gives leadership audiences a way to interrogate their own systems without needing to read the code. Smith holds a PhD, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Senior Honorary Fellow at UCL Computer Science where he co-founded the Centre for Decision-Making Uncertainty, and a Founding Trustee of We and AI. He has more than 100 peer-reviewed papers to his name and has presented at Google, the UK Financial Conduct Authority, and corporate, academic, and policy venues internationally. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and generative AI AI ethics and responsible technology Algorithmic bias and governance Digital transformation Data analytics Future of technology Risk management Ideal for Boards and executive committees signing off on enterprise AI strategy CTOs, CIOs, Chief Data Officers, and heads of AI looking for a credible external voice on governance and bias Risk, compliance, and regulatory leaders in financial services, insurance, healthcare, and public sector Senior HR and people leaders deploying AI in hiring, performance, or workforce decisions Audience outcomes A clearer view of where bias actually originates inside their AI systems, with examples drawn from peer-reviewed research and operational deployments. A working language for board-level conversations about AI risk, beyond the vendor pitch and the headline. Specific questions executives can put to their data science teams and external suppliers to test whether claims about model behaviour are defensible. A grounded sense of where AI is genuinely creating value in regulated environments, and where it is creating exposure. A perspective on responsible AI that comes from a working scientist and trustee of an independent charity, not from a platform vendor.

Why organisations work with Lisa Feldman Barrett She has reshaped the scientific consensus on emotion. Her theory of constructed emotion is now taught in psychology, neuroscience and affective computing curricula, and it directly contradicts the assumptions baked into most corporate EQ training and emotion-detection AI. She translates first-tier neuroscience for boardrooms without diluting it. Her two trade books, How Emotions Are Made and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, are written for general readers but cite the same primary research she publishes in Science and Nature Neuroscience. Her work has been adopted by audiences that need it to be right, including FBI behavioural analysts, the legal community through her role as Chief Science Officer at the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior, and senior medical faculties at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital. A leader who books her gets a researcher with NIH Pioneer Award and Guggenheim credentials, not a popular-science communicator working from secondary sources. Biography highlights University Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Chief Science Officer, Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital. Author of How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain. TED speaker, with the talk “You Aren’t at the Mercy of Your Emotions” passing 6.5 million views. NIH Director’s Pioneer Award; Guggenheim Fellowship; APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award; APS William James Fellow Award. Past President of the Association for Psychological Science; co-founder of the Society for Affective Science; over 275 peer-reviewed publications. Biography The textbook view of emotion, that anger, fear and joy are hard-wired circuits with universal facial signatures, dominated psychology, psychiatry and product design for most of the last century. It is also wrong. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s laboratory at Northeastern has spent twenty-five years showing that the brain constructs emotion in the moment, drawing on past experience, bodily state and cultural learning. Her theory of constructed emotion has reshaped affective science and is now reaching the institutions that depend on getting emotion right. She advises the FBI on behavioural analysis, serves as Chief Science Officer at the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior, and her work is cited in debates over emotion-detection AI and courtroom evidence. Barrett holds a University Distinguished Professorship at Northeastern, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She has published more than 275 peer-reviewed papers, sits among the top 0.1 percent most-cited scientists in the world, and has received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. For senior leaders, the practical payoff is a sharper model of how their own brains, and their people’s, actually work under uncertainty. That model contradicts a great deal of what corporate wellbeing, EQ training and emotion-aware technology currently sell. Key speaking topics The science of emotion in the workplace Brain, prediction and decision-making under uncertainty Stress, allostasis and the body budget The neuroscience of self-regulation for senior leaders Emotion-detection AI and the limits of affective computing Mental health and the construction of experience Communication and influence grounded in brain science Ideal for CEOs, CHROs and senior leadership teams reassessing wellbeing, EQ training and performance management Boards and risk committees evaluating emotion-recognition AI, behavioural surveillance, or affective computing investments Healthcare, legal and security organisations whose decisions hinge on interpreting human behaviour Senior leaders wanting a substantive, science-led perspective on stress, resilience and decision quality Audience outcomes A working understanding of how the brain predicts and constructs emotion, replacing the “universal emotions” model that underpins most corporate EQ content. A clearer view of what emotion-detection technology can and cannot reliably do, useful for evaluating vendors and policy. Practical implications for stress, recovery and senior decision-making, grounded in the brain’s energy regulation rather than pop-psychology. Sharper questions about how performance reviews, hiring assessments and customer research read emotional signals.

Why organisations work with James Barrat Twelve years of sustained, on-record argument about AI risk, beginning with Our Final Invention in 2013 and updated in The Intelligence Explosion in 2025. Few speakers can show that length of intellectual track record on the same question. Direct interview access to the people building frontier AI, used as primary source material rather than secondary commentary. Boards get a view from inside the labs, filtered through someone outside them. A documentarian’s craft for making technical material legible without diluting it. His PBS NOVA and National Geographic films were built for non-specialist audiences who still needed to understand the substance. Independent voice. Barrat is not selling a model, a consultancy methodology or a vendor stack. The argument is unencumbered by commercial alignment with any AI provider. Named by Time in 2014 as one of five serious thinkers on AI catastrophic risk, alongside figures including Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking. The framing has aged into mainstream policy debate. Biography highlights Author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era (St. Martin’s Press, 2013), named a Huffington Post Definitive Tech Book of 2013. Author of The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything (St. Martin’s Press, 2025), endorsed by Max Tegmark and Gary Marcus. Named by Time magazine as one of “5 Very Smart People Who Think Artificial Intelligence Could Bring the Apocalypse.” Award-winning documentary filmmaker for National Geographic, PBS NOVA, BBC, Discovery Channel and History Channel; credits include The Gospel of Judas, Herod’s Lost Tomb, Extreme Cave Diving, Spillover: Zika, Ebola and Beyond and Facing Suicide. Featured commentator on AI for CNN, BBC World Service and the 2018 feature documentary Do You Trust This Computer? B.A. in philosophy, Davidson College. Biography The people closest to frontier AI systems are the most candid about not understanding them. That admission, repeated by senior researchers at the leading labs, sits uncomfortably alongside the pace at which boards are being asked to commit to AI strategies, hiring plans and disclosures. James Barrat has spent over a decade interviewing those researchers and translating what they say into language that non-specialists can act on. His 2013 book Our Final Invention was among the first serious mainstream works to argue that artificial general intelligence carried catastrophic as well as commercial implications. The argument was once treated as fringe. It is now the working assumption inside policy debates in Washington, London and Brussels. Time named him in 2014 as one of five public thinkers warning seriously about AI risk. Elon Musk recommended the book publicly. The 2025 sequel, The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything, draws on fresh interviews with the engineers and ethicists working on recursively self-improving systems. Max Tegmark and Gary Marcus have endorsed it. The book lays out the technical pathways to AGI and the governance gaps that accompany them, written for citizens and policymakers rather than for the labs themselves. Underneath the AI work sits a long career as a documentary filmmaker for National Geographic, PBS NOVA, BBC, Discovery Channel and History Channel, with credits including The Gospel of Judas, Herod’s Lost Tomb and the PBS feature Facing Suicide. That craft is what allows him to take a board through capability overhang, alignment risk and regulatory exposure in a sitting, without losing the room. Key speaking topics Autonomous AI cyberattacks and the security and regulatory response Artificial intelligence risk and governance The path to artificial general intelligence AI policy and regulation AI ethics and corporate responsibility The capability and alignment problem in frontier models AI and the future of human work Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning or approving enterprise AI strategy Chief risk officers, general counsel and policy leads with AI oversight responsibility Government, regulatory and public-sector audiences shaping AI policy Investor and asset-allocator audiences with concentrated AI exposure Audience outcomes A working mental model of how today’s frontier AI systems behave and where the next capability jumps are likely to come from. A sharper view of the specific governance, legal and reputational exposures AI creates for the organisation. Direct exposure to what the people building these systems actually say in private about risk. A clearer reading of the regulatory direction of travel in the US, UK and EU. Confidence to ask harder questions of internal AI teams and external vendors.

Why organisations work with Seyi Akiwowo She built Glitch from a personal campaign in 2017 into a working UK charity on online gender-based violence, which gives her a different register from consultants who study the issue from outside. Her Penguin Life book How to Stay Safe Online is one of the few mainstream titles that treats online harm as a serious workplace and leadership concern, not a parenting issue, and gives executive audiences a reference text. She served as an elected councillor in Newham at 23 and addressed the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council, which means she is comfortable in regulated, scrutinised, formal rooms, not just activist spaces. She has held trust and safety advisory roles with major platforms including TikTok, which gives her direct read on how the largest platforms handle abuse, moderation, and policy. She declined an MBE publicly in 2022. That decision and the way she framed it gives her unusual credibility with audiences who are sceptical of inclusion as institutional theatre. Biography highlights Founder of Glitch, the UK charity addressing online abuse and online gender-based violence, established out of the 2017 #FixTheGlitch campaign. Author, How to Stay Safe Online, Penguin Life, 2022. Elected councillor for Newham, East London, at the age of 23, the youngest Black woman councillor in the UK at the time. Speaker at the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council on online gender-based violence; Amnesty International Human Rights Defender (2018). Digital Leader of the Year (2019); Marie Claire Future Shaper (2019); WIRED Changemaker cover (2021); TEDxLondon speaker (2019). Trust and safety advisory roles with platforms including TikTok; bachelor’s degree in social policy, London School of Economics. Biography In 2017, a recording of a speech delivered at the European Parliament went viral. The reaction was a flood of racist and misogynistic abuse, more than seventy reports filed with the platforms, and almost no response from them. The campaign that emerged from that experience, #FixTheGlitch, became the charity Glitch. Glitch is now a recognised voice on online abuse and online gender-based violence in the UK. It works with women, marginalised communities, parliamentarians, and platforms, and its evidence has been part of the policy conversation around the UK Online Safety Act. The work is operational, not theoretical: training, casework, lobbying, partnerships with platforms including TikTok where Akiwowo has held trust and safety advisory roles. Her credibility predates Glitch. At 23 she was elected a Labour councillor for Newham, the youngest Black woman councillor in the UK. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social policy from the London School of Economics. She has addressed the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council on online gender-based violence and was named an Amnesty International Human Rights Defender in 2018. Penguin Life published How to Stay Safe Online in 2022. It is the rare mainstream book that treats online harm as a serious leadership and workplace concern. In the same year she was offered an MBE and chose not to accept it, a decision she explained publicly. For corporate audiences thinking about inclusion, employee safety, and values-based leadership, that combination, an elected politician’s record, an operating charity, a Penguin book, and a refused honour, is the substance she brings into the room. Key speaking topics Online safety as a workplace duty of care Online gender-based violence and digital harm Values-based and inclusive leadership Digital self-care and resilience for senior leaders Platform accountability and trust and safety Inclusion in a contested political climate Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers and Heads of DEI rebuilding the inclusion case for sceptical executive audiences Heads of internal communications, employee experience, and risk responsible for staff wellbeing in public-facing roles Trust and safety, policy, and product leaders inside platforms and regulated technology businesses Senior women’s networks, employee resource groups, and leadership development programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of online harm as a workplace and leadership issue, not a personal coping problem A direct read on how platforms actually respond to abuse, drawn from advisory work with companies including TikTok Practical content from the Penguin Life book How to Stay Safe Online that audiences can use the next day A confident position on inclusion and values-based leadership that holds up in the current political climate A senior voice that has chosen difficult institutional decisions, including declining an MBE, and can speak credibly about leadership under public scrutiny

Why organisations work with Ghislaine Boddington She coined the Internet of Bodies, a named research concept now cited in academic and policy work on biometric data and human enhancement. Few speakers in this space own a defined intellectual territory of their own. Three decades of hands-on practice in body-responsive technology, telepresence, motion capture and immersive design. She speaks from inside the discipline, not from a desk review of it. A long-running co-presenter slot on BBC Digital Planet (BBC World Service) gives her a working week of structured exposure to global technology stories and the ethics around them. Sits inside formal advisory infrastructure: UK Government College of Experts via DCMS, advisory board of the Springer journal AI & Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Brings the inclusion dimension to technology conversations without losing the technical thread. Founder of Women Shift Digital, trustee at Stemettes Futures, former lead mentor on Deutsche Bank’s Women Entrepreneurs in Social Tech accelerator. Biography highlights Reader in Digital Immersion, University of Greenwich, School of Design and Creative Industries. Co-founder and Creative Director, body>data>space, an internationally exhibited interactive design collective. Co-presenter, BBC Digital Planet, BBC World Service. Author of “The Internet of Bodies, alive, connected and collective” in AI & Society (Springer, 2021). Adviser, UK Government College of Experts (DCMS); Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Recipient of the IX Immersion Experience Visionary Pioneer Award (2017), Society for Arts and Technology, Montreal. Biography Biometric data, immersive interfaces and human enhancement are moving from research labs into mainstream products, and most leadership teams are catching up in real time. Boddington has spent thirty years working inside that shift, first as a practitioner in body-responsive design, then as a research voice on what it means for identity, intimacy and consent. Her concept, the Internet of Bodies, sets out how physical and digital selves are merging through telepresence, biometric sensing, wearables and AI-enabled enhancement. The work appears as a peer-reviewed paper in the Springer journal AI & Society and runs through her keynote programme. The argument is not speculative. It is built from three decades of practice at body>data>space, the design collective she co-founded and still directs. The institutional footprint sits alongside the practice. Reader in Digital Immersion at the University of Greenwich, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, adviser to the UK Government’s College of Experts through DCMS, advisory board member at AI & Society. On BBC World Service she co-presents Digital Planet, which keeps her working through global technology stories week by week. Inclusion runs through the work as a technical condition, not a tone. She founded Women Shift Digital, mentors with Stemettes Futures and led Deutsche Bank’s Women Entrepreneurs in Social Tech accelerator. Her case is that immersive and biometric systems built without diverse human input encode the bias from the day they ship. Key speaking topics The Internet of Bodies Biometric data and digital identity Immersive technology and virtual presence Human enhancement and the body as interface AI ethics and embodied technology Inclusion and diversity in emerging tech Future human studies Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting policy on biometric data, AI ethics and immersive customer experience. Technology, product and R&D leaders building wearable, sensor-based or immersive products. Innovation, foresight and strategy functions inside regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, telecoms, media). Conferences and corporate events on the future of work, future human and responsible technology. Audience outcomes A working definition of the Internet of Bodies and what it means for organisations handling biometric, behavioural or sensor data. A sharper view of the ethical and consent issues that sit underneath immersive, wearable and AI-enabled products. A picture of where body-responsive technology is heading over the next five to ten years and which sectors are moving first. A specific argument for why inclusive design is a technical requirement in immersive and biometric systems, not a values statement.

Why organisations work with Simon Wheatcroft He offers a working case study, not a metaphor, of operating without the information channel most leaders treat as non-negotiable, with named technology partners including IBM and WearWorks behind the work. He has translated personal adaptation into shipped product: the Wayband haptic navigation device, piloted unaided across the 2017 New York City Marathon in 5:17:40, and the IBM-built eAscot corrective navigation app used in the 4 Deserts ultramarathon in Namibia. He pairs the keynote story with a credentialed teaching practice, holding the 2022 Pearson National Teaching Gold Award for Outstanding New Teacher in his first year teaching computer science at Outwood Academy Adwick. He gives technology and product audiences something rare: an accessible-design perspective from someone who is both the end user and a hands-on collaborator on the engineering, including data sonification work and the hackcessible accessible hackathon format. Biography highlights 2022 Pearson National Teaching Awards Gold Award for Outstanding New Teacher, computer science, Outwood Academy Adwick First blind person to run the 4 Deserts ultramarathon in Namibia solo, May 2016 Completed the 2017 New York City Marathon unaided using the Wayband haptic device, 5:17:40 Ran 260 miles solo from Boston to New York over nine days in 2014 Collaborator with IBM on the eAscot corrective navigation app and with WearWorks on the Wayband haptic navigation system Created hackcessible, a user-led accessible hackathon format Featured by CBS News Sunday Morning, BBC Click, CNN and the New York Times Biography Most leadership content treats adversity as a chapter to be survived. The harder question is what an organisation does when the conditions producing the adversity do not pass. That is the conversation Simon Wheatcroft is qualified to lead. He was registered blind at 17 with Retinitis Pigmentosa. The relevant fact is what came next. He taught himself to run outdoors using only a smartphone GPS app and his remaining senses, and progressed inside seven months to a hundred-mile race. The work to remove the guide dog and the helper from the route turned into a research practice. He partnered with IBM on eAscot, a corrective navigation app named after his guide dog, and with WearWorks on the Wayband, a haptic device that holds a user inside a virtual corridor through small vibrations. He ran the 2017 New York City Marathon with the Wayband, unaided, in 5:17:40. The teaching career runs in parallel and sharpens the speaking work. He teaches computer science at Outwood Academy Adwick in Doncaster, and in 2022 won the Pearson National Teaching Gold Award for Outstanding New Teacher in his first year in the classroom. He runs enrichment clubs in gaming and physical computing, and has built a separate body of work on data sonification and on hackcessible, a user-led accessible hackathon format that opens the design process to disabled participants. That combination, an endurance discipline that ships product, gives him a useful brief in front of senior teams. The keynote is not a story about courage. It is a working account of how to set achievable tasks, how to minimise risk inside a route you cannot fully see, and how to rebuild a team’s confidence around new sources of information. For technology and product audiences he can also speak with authority on inclusive design from inside the engineering, an angle most accessibility keynotes cannot offer. Key speaking topics Decision-making and risk under sustained adversity Self-leadership and adaptation when information channels fail Inclusive design and accessible technology Human-computer interaction and assistive wearables Resilience as an operating discipline Diversity in technology and engineering teams Ideal for Leadership and senior team offsites focused on resilience and judgement under pressure Product, engineering and design organisations working on inclusive and accessible technology Transformation, HR and DEI leaders rebuilding cultures of confidence and adaptation Conferences on the human side of AI, wearables and assistive technology Audience outcomes A concrete model for setting achievable tasks when the path ahead is uncertain A first-hand view of how accessible technology is actually built, tested and used A rebuilt sense of what a team can do when its usual information channels are degraded Sharper questions for inclusive-design briefs, grounded in a real end-user practice A working language for talking about risk, adaptation and recovery without slipping into metaphor

Why organisations work with Aaron Balick He sits at an uncommon intersection: clinical psychotherapy experience, a former directorship of the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, and a foundational book on the psychology of social media that is still cited in practitioner and academic literature. His media record gives audiences a speaker whose voice they already know: longest-serving mental health agony uncle on BBC Radio 1’s The Surgery, alongside regular appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Digital Human and The Moral Maze. His published writing runs from serious academic work to accessible self-help, which lets him move between main-stage keynote and in-depth workshop without dropping register. As founder and former CEO of Stillpoint Spaces, the international applied-psychology hub he built across London, Paris, Berlin and Zurich, he developed his reading of digital life from inside an operating organisation, not only from a consulting desk. His framing of AI and social media is psychological rather than technical, which is exactly the angle most executive teams are missing when making decisions about generative AI and platform strategy. Biography highlights Founder and former CEO of Stillpoint Spaces, an international applied-psychology hub formerly with locations in London, Paris, Berlin and Zurich Former director of the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex; continues as associate post-graduate supervisor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies Psychotherapist in private practice in London, with over 20 years of clinical experience Author of The Psychodynamics of Social Networking (Karnac), The Little Book of Calm and Keep Your Cool Longest-serving mental health agony uncle on BBC Radio 1’s The Surgery Regular BBC Radio 4 contributor; published in Wired, The Guardian, The Independent and Newsweek Biography The Psychodynamics of Social Networking, published by Karnac Books, remains one of the most widely cited practitioner texts on how the platforms senior leaders are now running their strategies through actually affect the people using them. Aaron Balick wrote it at a point when most commentary on social media was still either evangelical or dismissive, and the book set the register for a more serious psychological reading of digital life. His work sits at the seam between clinical practice and public commentary. He has maintained a private psychotherapy practice in London for more than two decades, trained in depth psychology and psychoanalysis, and formerly directed the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, where he continues as an associate post-graduate supervisor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies. The applied side of that work ran through Stillpoint Spaces, the international applied-psychology hub he founded and led across London, Paris, Berlin and Zurich. The media presence anchors him inside a mainstream audience. He was the longest-serving mental health agony uncle on BBC Radio 1’s The Surgery and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Digital Human and The Moral Maze. His writing has appeared in Wired, The Guardian, The Independent and Newsweek. Alongside his academic book, he has published two accessible titles, The Little Book of Calm and the children’s book Keep Your Cool. For organisations making senior decisions about generative AI, platform strategy, employee wellbeing or customer engagement, Balick brings something their technology advisers do not: a trained clinical reading of what digital experience actually does to the people on the other side of it. That perspective is increasingly what the better boards want on the table. Key speaking topics Psychology of social media, AI and digital connectivity Digital wellbeing and hyperconnectivity at work The psychologically intelligent workplace Personal leadership and authenticity Mental health in technology-mediated environments Ethics and psychology of generative AI Ideal for Executive teams and boards making decisions on AI deployment, platform strategy or digital customer experience CHROs, wellbeing leads and chief people officers designing mental health and engagement strategy Technology, media and platform leadership teams looking for a psychological voice on product and user impact Conferences and leadership events needing a media-recognised speaker who can connect AI, wellbeing and culture Audience outcomes A working psychological framework for understanding social-media and AI effects on people and behaviour Specific implications for wellbeing, engagement and customer experience strategy A clearer language for the ethical questions senior teams are quietly asking about generative AI Reference material from The Psychodynamics of Social Networking and his BBC contributions for internal follow-up

Why organisations work with Caroline Criado-Perez She built the public evidence base on the gender data gap. Invisible Women sits on the desks of regulators, engineers, and policy teams in more than thirty languages and is the default reference when the question is raised. She has won both the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year for the same work, a combination almost no other author can claim, and one that signals her rigour to both technical and commercial audiences. She translates the gender data problem into concrete operating examples: car crash test dummies, medical dosing, voice recognition, AI training data, urban infrastructure, workplace tools. Audiences leave with examples they recognise from their own organisation. She has actually changed policy. The Jane Austen banknote and the Millicent Fawcett statue are her campaigns; the credibility she brings to a corporate room is built on shifting state institutions, not commentary. Biography highlights Author, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, winner of the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize and the 2019 FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. OBE for services to equality and diversity, 2015. Author, Do It Like a Woman, profiling pioneering women globally. Founder of the campaigns that put Jane Austen on the Bank of England £10 note and Millicent Fawcett’s statue in Parliament Square. Liberty Human Rights Campaigner of the Year, 2013; Finland’s HÄN Honour, 2020; winner of the inaugural Unwin Award, 2025. Honorary doctorates from the University of Lincoln, the University of Westminster, and The Open University. Host of the Visible Women podcast with Tortoise Media; writes the Invisible Women Substack newsletter. Biography The crash test dummy used to certify most cars on the road is modelled on the body of an average male. Medical drug trials, voice recognition systems, office temperatures, and stab vests share a similar history. Invisible Women assembled this evidence into a single argument and made it impossible to ignore. Caroline Criado-Perez wrote the book that did this. It won the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year in the same year, a dual recognition that signals scientific rigour and commercial relevance at once. It has been translated into more than thirty languages and is used by policymakers, engineers, and product teams looking for a defensible account of where their data is incomplete. Her credibility with corporate audiences comes from changing institutions, not commenting on them. She ran the campaign that placed Jane Austen on the Bank of England £10 note. She campaigned for the Millicent Fawcett statue in Parliament Square, the first statue of a woman to stand there. An OBE, a Liberty Human Rights Campaigner of the Year award, and the inaugural Unwin Award are the public record of work that altered what the state chose to put in front of its citizens. Her current focus is on the operating consequences of the data gap for businesses making decisions about AI, product design, workforce policy, and customer experience. Through her Invisible Women Substack and Visible Women podcast with Tortoise Media, she continues to surface the specific cases where missing data on women becomes a material business risk. Key speaking topics The gender data gap Bias in AI training data and algorithmic systems Inclusive product and service design Workforce data and policy design Gender bias in medical and safety research Campaigning, influence, and institutional change Ideal for CHROs, chief diversity officers, and people analytics leaders auditing workforce data Heads of product, design, and data science teams in consumer-facing or safety-critical industries AI and machine learning leaders responsible for model bias and training data quality Boards and ESG committees reviewing how the organisation evidences its claims about inclusion Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for naming where the gender data gap shows up in their own products, policies, and decisions A clear view of the commercial and safety risks created by data that under-represents half the customer or workforce base Specific examples from medicine, automotive, technology, and infrastructure that translate the problem into terms their teams will recognise An understanding of how AI inherits and amplifies existing data bias, and what that means for governance A grounded sense of how institutional change actually happens, drawn from campaigns that succeeded

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 Jack Shaw Operator experience across successive AI waves, from expert systems and eCommerce through Knowledge-Based Expert Systems to today’s generative AI. That span of hands-on work is rare, and it is what lets him tell a board which shifts are durable and which are noise. Author of The AI Imperative Series, a planned multi-volume set examining AI transformation industry by industry. The first volume, Manufacturing’s AI Imperative, was published in April 2026; subsequent volumes covering healthcare, finance, distribution, and government are in preparation. Track record advising senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, GE, Caterpillar, Rockwell Automation, Coca-Cola, 3M, IBM, Oracle, and Bosch. The client mix skews industrial and regulated, which is directly relevant when the audience is not a technology company. A working framework that separates tactical AI initiatives, which can pay back inside twelve months, from strategic programmes that reshape the operating model over three to five years. The framework is built for executive teams running both tracks simultaneously without one starving the other. Presents in 26 countries and all 50 U.S. states, with material that adapts to manufacturing, distribution, financial services, and public sector audiences rather than a single vertical. Biography highlights Author of The AI Imperative Series; first volume, Manufacturing’s AI Imperative, published April 2026 Graduate of Yale University; MBA, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University Enterprise AI experience spanning commercial expert systems and machine learning through to today’s generative AI Former Vice President of Commercial Systems, Applied Systems Intelligence; previously led an AI software company in Knowledge-Based Expert Systems Advisor to senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, GE, Caterpillar, Rockwell Automation, Coca-Cola, 3M, IBM, Oracle, and Bosch Keynote presentations in 26 countries and all 50 U.S. states, across manufacturing, distribution, financial services, and public sector audiences Biography Knowledge-Based Expert Systems were running in defence and industrial settings long before ChatGPT gave AI a consumer face. Shaw was writing commercial software in that space in the 2000s as Vice President of Commercial Systems at Applied Systems Intelligence, after leading an AI software company through the previous wave. He has been inside enterprise AI since before most organisations were asking the question, which is why he can tell a board which shifts are durable and which are noise. Drawing on more than four decades in AI and enterprise technology, Shaw has delivered over 1,000 keynote presentations across 26 countries. As an AI transformation advisor, he works with senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, Bosch, GE, Caterpillar, IBM, Coca-Cola, and Oracle. His focus is where AI changes the economics of the business, not just its tooling. His work turns on a dual-path distinction between Tactical AI and Strategic AI. Tactical AI covers the applications that pay back inside twelve months; Strategic AI is the operating-model change that reshapes competitive position over three to five years. He frames the destination as the Autonomic Enterprise, where routine sensing and response run at machine speed and human judgement is reserved for the decisions that cannot be delegated. That thinking is now published. Manufacturing’s AI Imperative: An Executive Mandate is the first volume in The AI Imperative Series, an industry-by-industry set applying the framework to the AI decisions facing the C-suite, with volumes on distribution, government, healthcare, and finance in preparation. A Yale graduate with a Kellogg MBA, Shaw advises internationally on executive AI strategy, AI governance, and workforce transformation. He speaks directly to what boards are asking now: how to get out of pilot purgatory, how to cut the decision latency that stalls AI programmes, and how the gap between AI leaders and laggards compounds faster than in any previous technology shift. Key speaking topics Tactical AI and Strategic AI: the dual-path framework Enterprise AI from pilot to operating-model change The Autonomic Enterprise and the emerging Autonomic Economy AI governance, risk, and executive accountability Workforce transformation in the age of AI Industry-specific AI strategy for manufacturing, distribution, and regulated sectors Decision latency and compounding advantage in enterprise AI Ideal for Boards and C-suites setting enterprise AI and digital strategy CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs sequencing AI investment across competing priorities: infrastructure, workforce capability, data readiness, and vendor selection Manufacturing, automotive, distribution, and financial services leadership teams Industry associations and regulated-sector conferences asking where the technology actually lands in operations Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI capabilities matter for their specific industry and time horizon Concrete examples from Fortune 500 deployments rather than generic case studies Vocabulary to challenge vendor pitches and internal proposals with sharper questions A dual-path framework for separating the AI initiatives that pay back inside twelve months from the strategic programmes that reshape the operating model over three to five years, with a method for running both tracks simultaneously without one starving the other

Why organisations work with Dr. Mark T. Hofmann He has conducted anonymous, scientific interviews with active hackers and uncaught criminals on the darknet, so the attacker psychology in his keynotes is field-sourced, not theorised from headlines. His doctoral research at the University of Tubingen on psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism in hackers gives security and risk leaders a behavioural model for who is targeting them and why. He translates profiling and interrogation methods, the same toolkit used in serious crime work, into practical reading-people skills for negotiation, fraud detection, and executive due diligence. He has been certified as a Crime and Intelligence Analyst by the California Department of Justice and is regularly briefed on by international media including CNN, CBS, Forbes, and 60 Minutes Australia, which gives a buyer confidence the substance survives outside a stage. He covers the dark side of AI, deepfakes, voice cloning, and AI-assisted social engineering, with material that has been pressure-tested against actual perpetrator behaviour rather than vendor marketing. Biography highlights Master of Arts in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, University of Wuppertal. Doctoral candidate at the University of Tubingen, researching dark personality traits among hackers. Certified Crime and Intelligence Analyst, California Department of Justice, 2019. TED speaker, “Profiling Hackers: The Psychology of Cybercrime”. Featured on CNN, CBS, ARD, RTL, Forbes, Business Insider, and 60 Minutes Australia. Lecturer in Behavioral and Cyber Psychology and consultant for Management Circle AG. Biography Most cyberattacks do not begin with code. They begin with a person, a moment of trust, and a message that looked legitimate. The attacker’s craft is psychological before it is technical, and that is the layer most security programmes underinvest in. Dr. Mark T. Hofmann works on that layer for a living. A business psychologist trained at the University of Wuppertal and a Certified Crime and Intelligence Analyst credentialed by the California Department of Justice, he conducts anonymous, scientific interviews with active hackers and uncaught criminals to understand motive, method, and the soft signals that make a target. His doctoral work at the University of Tubingen examines psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism among hackers, which gives his stage material a research backbone rather than a headline one. That fieldwork translates directly into the questions a CISO, a CEO, or a head of fraud is wrestling with. How do attackers select targets inside a finance team? What does a deepfake voice request actually exploit in the listener? Why do executives keep authorising wires they should have queried? Hofmann answers those questions with case material drawn from people who do this for a living and were willing to talk. His reach extends beyond security. He teaches profiling and interrogation methods as a practical skillset for negotiation, fraud interviewing, and high-stakes meetings, the same techniques applied to commercial situations. He has been featured on CNN, CBS, Forbes, ARD, RTL, Business Insider, and 60 Minutes Australia, and has delivered a TED talk on profiling hackers. The combination is unusual: a keynote speaker whose primary research subject is the person on the other side of the attack. Key speaking topics Cyber profiling and the psychology of cybercrime Social engineering and the human firewall The dark side of AI, deepfakes, and synthetic identity Profiling in negotiation and high-stakes meetings Reading people, body language, and behavioural signals White-collar crime, psychopathy, and narcissism in organisations Ideal for CISOs, heads of information security, and cyber risk leaders rebuilding the human layer of their defence. CFOs, heads of treasury, and fraud teams exposed to deepfake-driven payment and impersonation attacks. Boards and executive committees that need a non-technical briefing on AI-enabled threat actors. Negotiation, M&A, and procurement leaders who want a practical toolkit for reading counterparties. Audience outcomes A working mental model of who is attacking the organisation, what motivates them, and how they choose targets. Specific behavioural cues that distinguish a manipulative request from a legitimate one in email, voice, and video. A clear view of where deepfakes and AI-generated content are already changing fraud and impersonation risk. Practical profiling and questioning techniques that can be applied in negotiation and internal investigation. A sharper read on dark-personality traits inside leadership pipelines and counterparties.