Artificial Intelligence & Generative AI

Why organisations work with Raffaello D’Andrea He has built two commercially-deployed autonomous systems from the ground up – Kiva Systems, now the architecture powering over a million Amazon Robotics units across 300+ facilities, and Verity, whose autonomous indoor drones operate at nearly 200 sites worldwide. Most technology speakers have observed others build at scale; D’Andrea has done it twice. His account of the gap between academic research and industrial deployment is not speculative. He moved from Cornell professor to co-founder to chief technical advisor to ETH faculty, and back to founder again – carrying hands-on engineering responsibility at every stage. That trajectory gives organisations a rare, inside view of what makes autonomous systems fail or succeed in practice. The Kiva story – a $775M acquisition that became the operational backbone of the world’s largest e-commerce company – is a fully documented, publicly available case study in redesigning an entire industry’s logistics model around autonomous systems. D’Andrea can speak to that case from the inside, as the architect of the core system. His ongoing research at ETH Zurich, through platforms like CyberRunner, Cubli and the Flying Machine Arena, sits at the frontier of autonomous learning and control. Audiences hear what is actually being solved in research today, not what is being forecast by analysts. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering, inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the Kiva system, and recognised by the Logistics Hall of Fame – D’Andrea holds formal peer recognition across engineering, invention and industry simultaneously, a combination that is rare among technology speakers. Biography highlights Professor of Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich; founder of ETH’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control Co-founder of Kiva Systems, acquired by Amazon in 2012 and now operating as Amazon Robotics, the autonomous fulfilment system at the core of Amazon’s global warehouse operations Founder and CEO of Verity, autonomous indoor drone company deployed at nearly 200 sites worldwide, with clients including IKEA, Maersk and UPS Elected member, National Academy of Engineering (2020); National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee (2022); Logistics Hall of Fame inductee (2024) IEEE Fellow; IEEE Robotics and Automation Award (2016); Engelberger Robotics Award (2015); Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2001); named on more than 40 US patents TED Global 2013 and TED 2016 speaker; TED and research videos with tens of millions of views New media artworks held in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada and France’s FRAC Centre; exhibited at the Venice Biennale Biography The systems running inside Amazon’s warehouses today – more than a million autonomous robots across over 300 facilities – trace their core architecture directly to Raffaello D’Andrea. As co-founder of Kiva Systems, D’Andrea designed the navigation logic, fleet coordination algorithms and adaptive control systems that made warehouse automation economically viable at commercial scale for the first time. When Amazon acquired Kiva in 2012, it rebranded the company as Amazon Robotics and made it the operational foundation of its global fulfilment network. That work was built on a research track record with real competitive stakes. Before Kiva, D’Andrea was at Cornell University, where he led the Robot Soccer Team to four consecutive RoboCup world championships – using autonomous multi-agent competition as a proving ground for the kinds of coordination and real-time decision-making that large-scale robotics deployments require. The move from academic research to commercial deployment, and back to academic research, is the defining pattern of his career. At ETH Zurich, where he founded the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, D’Andrea leads research through hands-on experimental platforms – CyberRunner, Cubli, the Flying Machine Arena, the Distributed Flight Array – that probe the real limits of autonomous learning, not its theoretical promise. In 2014, he co-founded Verity, whose autonomous indoor drone systems now operate at nearly 200 sites worldwide, automating inventory tracking and operational data collection for clients including IKEA, Maersk and UPS. The company raised a $43M Series B in 2023 with Qualcomm Ventures among the investors. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering and inducted into both the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the Logistics Hall of Fame, D’Andrea holds formal peer recognition across engineering, invention and industry – a combination that reflects a career built on closing the distance between what autonomous systems can do in a laboratory and what they can sustain across an industrial operation. Key speaking topics Autonomous systems design and commercial-scale deployment AI, machine learning and physical intelligence Warehouse automation and supply chain operations Deep-tech entrepreneurship and venture building Autonomous flight and drone systems The gap between robotics research and real-world application The future of human-machine collaboration in physical operations Ideal for COOs, heads of supply chain and logistics leaders evaluating or scaling autonomous operations CTOs and technology leadership teams making investment decisions in robotics and AI deployment Boards and executive committees setting autonomous systems strategy Innovation and transformation leadership forums focused on operational technology Audience outcomes A practitioner’s framework for distinguishing autonomous systems that create genuine operational value from those that stall between proof of concept and deployment Concrete understanding of the systems design conditions that make robotics reliable and economically viable at industrial scale An insider account of how Kiva Systems redesigned warehouse operations – and what that process reveals about the real requirements of large-scale autonomous deployment A more accurate picture of where AI and robotics are heading, grounded in what is already working at commercial scale rather than in market speculation Sharper criteria for evaluating autonomous technology partnerships, vendor claims and investment priorities

Why organisations work with Piers Linney He is running an AI-agent business while he speaks about one. Implement AI has rolled out managed digital workforces inside more than 120 UK companies, so the deployment patterns he describes are ones he is shipping. His finance and policy lens is unusual for an AI speaker. Former Non-Executive Director of the British Business Bank during the GBP 90 billion Covid loan programmes, with prior careers in M&A at Credit Suisse and venture capital. He has been on both sides of the cap table. Co-CEO of Outsourcery through AIM listing and administration, then Dragon on BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den, then investor and co-founder again. He is a credible voice on diversity and social mobility without using the word as a slogan. MBE 2026, European Diversity Champion 2024, founding trustee of the Powerlist Foundation. He works on stage in the register a senior buyer needs: operator, not analyst. Mainstage keynotes at Tech Show London, AI and Big Data World, DTX, ICAEW and Elite Business Live. Biography highlights Co-founder and Executive Chairman, Implement AI, winner of AI Startup of the Year (London), UK Startup Awards 2025. Investor on BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den, series 11 and 12, and subject of Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire. Former Non-Executive Director, British Business Bank, appointed 2017. MBE, King’s New Year Honours 2026, for services to small business, entrepreneurship, banking, diversity and social mobility. Chairman and co-founder, Atherton Bikes, additive-manufactured mountain bikes used to win the 2023 UCI Downhill World Championships. Former Co-CEO of Outsourcery (AIM-listed cloud and communications business) and former Trustee of Nesta. Biography Implement AI now runs managed digital workforces inside more than 120 UK businesses, from manufacturers to marketing agencies. It is the latest company built by Piers Linney, who co-founded it in 2023 with Dr Aalok Shukla and serves as Executive Chairman. The work sits at the practical edge of the AI conversation: not whether to use it, but how to get agents into the operating model and measure what they return. That operator stance is reinforced by an unusually wide finance and policy track record. Linney trained as a solicitor at SJ Berwin, moved into M&A investment banking at Credit Suisse, then ran the buyout that became Outsourcery, taking the cloud and communications business onto AIM in 2013 in a GBP 13 million flotation. He was later appointed Non-Executive Director of the British Business Bank, where he sat through the design of the UK government’s Covid SME loan programmes. Audiences know him from Dragons’ Den, where he invested as a Dragon for series 11 and 12, and from Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire. He chairs Atherton Bikes, the additive-manufactured mountain bike maker whose frames carried Atherton siblings to UCI Downhill World Championship titles in 2023. He sits on Sky’s Diversity Advisory Council and was a founding trustee of the Powerlist Foundation. The MBE in the 2026 New Year Honours captured the through-line: small business, entrepreneurship, banking, diversity and social mobility. For boards trying to convert AI ambition into deployed capability, the value he brings is the rare combination of someone who has built and sold a tech business, sat on the board of a development bank, picked winners on national television, and is now shipping an AI-agent platform. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the digital workforce AI agent deployment and operating model redesign Entrepreneurship and scaling technology businesses Future of work and workforce transformation Access to capital and SME financing Diversity, social mobility and inclusion in business Ideal for Boards and executive committees moving from AI pilots to deployed agent capability. CEOs, COOs and transformation leads redesigning operations around digital workers. Entrepreneur and scale-up audiences, including investor networks and chamber of commerce events. CHROs and learning leaders preparing workforces for AI-augmented roles. Audience outcomes A working picture of what an AI-agent operating model looks like, with concrete examples from live deployments. Sharper questions for vendors, internal teams and investors about where AI does and does not pay back. A perspective on the capital environment shaping technology investment, drawn from a former development-bank director. Confidence in framing AI as an operating decision, not an IT project.

Why organisations work with Philippe Dewost He has run digital transformation from inside the state. As director of a €4.25 billion programme at Caisse des Dépôts, he is one of the few practitioners who can speak to public capital, regulation, and operating execution as a single problem. He authored the 2013 report that produced La French Tech. Leaders briefing him on ecosystem strategy are talking to the person who designed one. He built LaBChain, the 27-partner blockchain consortium at Caisse des Dépôts, before most boards had a working vocabulary for distributed ledgers. His material on blockchain is mechanism-first, not hype. He has operated at every layer of the stack: co-founder of Wanadoo, CEO of a Cambridge startup acquired by Apple, head of Leonard at VINCI, director general of a French engineering school. The same person has shipped consumer products, sold technology to Apple, and built a national policy instrument. Biography highlights Co-founder of Wanadoo, France Telecom’s consumer internet service, which became Europe’s leading ISP at peak. Former CEO of imSense (Cambridge), the image-processing company acquired by Apple in 2010. Director of a €4.25 billion digital programme at Caisse des Dépôts under France’s Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir. Author of the 2013 report to the French Prime Minister that gave rise to La French Tech, announced in January 2014. Founder of LaBChain, a 27-partner blockchain R&D consortium led from Caisse des Dépôts. Director of Leonard, VINCI Group’s corporate innovation and foresight programme; led EPITA, the IT and cybersecurity engineering school; author of “De Mémoire Vive” (2022), preface by Cédric Villani. Biography Wanadoo was an internal France Telecom project in 1995 when Philippe Dewost helped build its product management. Four years later it was Europe’s leading internet service provider with over a million subscribers. That early experience set the pattern: technology only matters when it reaches operating scale and the institutions around it learn to govern it. After running imSense, the Cambridge image-processing company acquired by Apple in 2010, he joined Caisse des Dépôts in 2011 to direct a €4.25 billion digital investment package under France’s Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir. In 2013 he authored the report to the Prime Minister that became the design document for La French Tech, the initiative launched in January 2014 with €215 million of public funding. He then built LaBChain, a 27-partner blockchain consortium that became one of Europe’s earliest serious cross-sector experiments in distributed ledgers. At VINCI Group from 2017 he ran Leonard, the corporate innovation and foresight programme, leading exploration across autonomous vehicles, climate resilience, AI and four other long-horizon topics. The intrapreneurship engine he built there is now a reference model for other large corporates. From October 2021 he ran EPITA, the IONIS Group engineering school, focusing it on cybersecurity and on a presence at the cyber campus in La Défense. He is also Operating Partner at C4 Ventures, Pascal Cagni’s consumer high-tech fund, and sits on the board of agritech firm SunR. His 2022 book “De Mémoire Vive”, with a foreword by mathematician Cédric Villani, is a personal history of the digital revolution by someone who was inside several of its turning points. It was published with 42 unique NFT-numbered first editions, an editorial choice that says something about the author’s instinct for where the technology is going next. Key speaking topics Digital sovereignty Blockchain as institutional infrastructure Corporate innovation and intrapreneurship at scale Building national technology ecosystems Cybersecurity as a strategic capability Artificial intelligence in operating environments Smart cities and autonomous mobility The history and trajectory of the digital revolution Ideal for Board members and CEOs setting digital, AI or sovereignty strategy at a European scale CIOs, CTOs and Chief Innovation Officers moving from pilots into operating deployment Public sector leaders and policy teams designing ecosystem or industrial policy in technology Corporate venture and innovation leads building intrapreneurship and partnership engines Audience outcomes A working mental model of how digital ambition translates into operating capability, with named examples from French and European programmes. A clear-eyed read on blockchain as a coordination mechanism between institutions, not as a product category. A senior practitioner’s view of where corporate innovation programmes succeed and where they stall. A specific framing of digital sovereignty that boards can use to interrogate vendor, infrastructure and talent dependencies.

Why organisations work with Peter Thiel Zero to One gives leadership teams a concrete test for whether their strategy is genuinely new or a costly form of imitation – a distinction most strategy processes are designed to obscure rather than force. His operating record spans two structurally different technology businesses – PayPal in consumer finance and Palantir in national security data analytics – which gives his claims about technology-led company building an unusually wide evidential base. The “contrarian question” – what important truth do very few people agree with you on? – functions as a practical diagnostic for strategic differentiation, not a rhetorical warm-up. Leadership teams leave with a tool they can apply immediately. As the first outside investor in Facebook and a Founders Fund partner whose bets include SpaceX, Airbnb, and Stripe, his argument for backing unconventional ideas over consensus picks is grounded in pattern recognition, not theory. His argument that definite optimism – a concrete plan for the future – outperforms “optionality” as a leadership posture is a direct challenge to how most boards approach long-term planning. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of PayPal; led the company to its acquisition by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002 Co-founder and Chairman of Palantir Technologies since 2003; the company went public in 2020 and reached a market capitalisation exceeding $300 billion First outside investor in Facebook, acquiring approximately 10% of the company for $500,000 in 2004; board member until 2022 Co-founder and partner at Founders Fund, with a portfolio including SpaceX, Airbnb, Stripe, and Lyft Author of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (2014) – #1 New York Times bestseller and widely adopted reference text in investor and founder communities Holds a BA in Philosophy and a JD from Stanford University; has taught at Stanford Law School and serves on the Hoover Institution’s Board of Overseers Founder of the Thiel Fellowship, which provides $100,000 grants to young entrepreneurs who forgo university to build companies World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; TechCrunch Crunchie Award, Venture Capitalist of the Year Biography The most expensive strategic mistake a leadership team can make is to compete at full intensity for something not worth fighting over. Most organisations never ask that question. Peter Thiel has spent three decades asking it – and the answer, across PayPal, Palantir, and Founders Fund, has been the same: the most valuable companies do not win competitions; they make them irrelevant. Thiel co-founded PayPal in 1998, led it as CEO through its 2002 acquisition by eBay for $1.5 billion, and then co-founded Palantir Technologies, a data analytics firm now serving governments and major institutions worldwide. He was also the first outside investor in Facebook, acquiring roughly 10% of the company for $500,000 in 2004. His Founders Fund portfolio – built on a philosophy of backing what others won’t – includes SpaceX, Airbnb, and Stripe. His 2014 book Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future made the underlying argument explicit. The most valuable businesses go from zero to one – they create something genuinely new rather than competing for a larger share of something that already exists. Going from one to n, Thiel argues, is replication. Competitive markets grind down returns until no one profits. The strategic question worth asking is not how to win – it’s whether to compete at all. Thiel chairs Palantir’s board and is a partner at Founders Fund. He holds a BA in Philosophy and a JD from Stanford, where he has taught at the law school and serves on the Hoover Institution’s Board of Overseers. He founded the Thiel Fellowship, which grants $100,000 to young founders who leave university to build companies – a direct expression of his conviction that conventional paths often foreclose the unconventional thinking that creates real value. Key speaking topics Creative monopoly and competitive strategy Technology company building and venture capital Contrarian thinking and differentiated investment Artificial intelligence and the future of technology Long-term strategic planning and definite optimism Entrepreneurship and company formation The stagnation of technological progress Ideal for Executive and board leadership teams examining competitive strategy and business model differentiation Chief Strategy Officers, transformation leads, and senior leadership forums in technology-intensive industries Founder and investor communities at the intersection of innovation and capital allocation C-suite audiences focused on AI, data infrastructure, and long-term technology strategy Audience outcomes A concrete framework – the zero-to-one distinction – for evaluating whether a strategy is genuinely new or a structured form of competitive imitation Understanding of why monopoly, correctly defined, is the goal of lasting business strategy, and what the four durable sources of monopoly advantage are A practical diagnostic tool – the contrarian question – for identifying differentiated insight in their own market or category A grounded perspective on how power-law logic in venture capital applies to internal resource allocation and portfolio thinking A clearer view of where technology is genuinely advancing, where it has stalled, and what that means for decisions made today

Why organisations work with Peter Hinssen His Never Normal concept and the seven transformation levers of The Uncertainty Principle give leadership teams a shared language for permanent disruption and a structured way to allocate innovation effort across multiple time horizons, a practical alternative to the generic instruction to “be more innovative.” His background runs the full organisational arc, from three technology exits (including a stock-exchange listing) to an Entrepreneur in Residence role at McKinsey & Company and a former non-executive board seat at Belfius Bank, which means he speaks with equal credibility to founders, operators, and board members. The Uncertainty Principle (Lannoo, 2025), endorsed by the Chairman of MIT CISR, gives boards seven concrete levers of transformation for treating systemic uncertainty as a strategic input. His client roster spans TSMC, Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, BMW, Unilever, PepsiCo, LVMH, Microsoft, and Bloomberg, which gives him cross-sector pattern recognition on how the innovation-operations tension shows up differently depending on industry structure and ownership context. Biography highlights Founder, nexxworks, an innovation company that runs masterclasses and innovation tours for established organisations Author of six books, including The Uncertainty Principle (Lannoo, 2025) Serial entrepreneur: founded e-COM (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent), Streamcase (acquired by Belgacom), and Porthus (listed on the stock exchange in 2006, acquired by Descartes) Entrepreneur in Residence, McKinsey & Company, focused on digital and technology strategy Visiting Lecturer, London Business School Former Non Executive Board Member, Belfius Bank; former board member, Mediahuis LinkedIn Top Voice Biography Most companies are built to deliver predictable results, which is precisely the wrong design when disruption becomes the climate rather than the weather. Peter Hinssen calls this state the Never Normal: a condition of permanent change in which the only constant is uncertainty. Budget cycles reward certainty. Governance structures penalise experiments that take longer than a financial year to pay off. The result is a structural gap between operational excellence and the capacity for genuine reinvention. His body of work is a sustained answer to that gap. The Never Normal reframes constant disruption as an operating condition to design for, not an exceptional period to wait out. The Day After Tomorrow, his 2017 book, introduced a now widely used way to think across three time horizons. Leaders fund today’s operations, tomorrow’s plans, and the reinvention that decides who is still relevant a decade out. That argument carries weight because Hinssen has lived the full arc of a company’s life. He founded and scaled three technology firms, including Porthus, which listed on the Belgian stock exchange in 2006 before Descartes acquired it. He served as Entrepreneur in Residence at McKinsey & Company, was a Non Executive Board Member at Belfius Bank, and today runs nexxworks, the innovation company he founded. He is a Visiting Lecturer at London Business School. His sixth book, The Uncertainty Principle (Lannoo, 2025), makes the case most directly: uncertainty is not a risk to hedge but the raw material from which bold organisations build advantage. The book works through seven levers of transformation, including strategy, foresight, organisational design, culture, innovation, risk appetite, and the changing nature of work. Dr Peter Weill, Chairman of MIT CISR, calls it a guide to navigating between the forces of pessimism and possibility. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and multi-horizon investment The Never Normal and permanent disruption The Uncertainty Principle and decision-making under uncertainty Organisational reinvention and the Phoenix model Artificial intelligence and augmented intelligence Digital transformation and business-model change Leadership under permanent uncertainty Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams steering established businesses through structural disruption Chief Innovation Officers and transformation leads who own the innovation-operations tension Strategy teams that need a shared basis for multi-horizon investment decisions Large incumbents across consumer goods, healthcare, financial services, technology, and industrials facing a reinvention mandate Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for investing across three time horizons: today, tomorrow, and the bolder reinvention beyond A way to treat uncertainty as a strategic input rather than a threat, drawn from The Uncertainty Principle A reframing of AI as a structural accelerant of the innovation-operations challenge, not a standalone technology decision Clarity on the organisational design and governance choices that separate companies that reinvent from those that get disrupted

Why organisations work with Peter Diamandis He has built the institutions that defined modern moonshot thinking. XPRIZE, Singularity University and the International Space University are his, not references he cites. Diamandis turned a USD 10 million prize into the catalyst for a private space industry now valued in the hundreds of billions. Boards get a practitioner view of how incentive design unlocks markets. His three New York Times bestsellers with Steven Kotler give executives a shared vocabulary, abundance, exponential, convergence, that travels easily into strategy offsites and board reviews. Through Abundance360 and BOLD Capital Partners he is in continuous contact with the founders building the next wave of AI, longevity and space companies, which keeps the content current rather than retrospective. He frames technology as a commercial and human opportunity, not a threat narrative, which lands with leadership teams that need their organisation to move from caution to considered ambition. Biography highlights Founder and Executive Chairman, XPRIZE Foundation, originator of the Ansari XPRIZE won by SpaceShipOne in 2004. Co-founder and Executive Chairman, Singularity University, with Ray Kurzweil. Co-founder, International Space University, 1987. New York Times bestselling author of Abundance, BOLD and The Future Is Faster Than You Think, with Steven Kotler. Named by Fortune in 2014 as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. Founder or co-founder of more than 25 companies across space, longevity, venture capital and education, including Planetary Resources, Human Longevity Inc, Celularity, Space Adventures and Zero Gravity Corporation. Holds degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from MIT and an MD from Harvard Medical School. Biography Most boards plan five years ahead while the technologies reshaping their markets are doubling in capability every eighteen months. The result is strategy that ages faster than it ships. This is the territory Peter Diamandis has spent three decades mapping, first as the entrepreneur who built XPRIZE to prove that private teams could reach space, then as the co-founder of Singularity University with Ray Kurzweil to teach leaders how to think about what compounds. The Ansari XPRIZE, announced in 1996 and won in 2004 by SpaceShipOne, was an early demonstration of his core thesis. A well-designed incentive can move a market faster than a government programme. That logic now sits behind the private space industry and a generation of XPRIZE competitions in fields from carbon removal to longevity. Boards meet a practitioner who has used the same mechanism repeatedly at scale, not a commentator describing it. His three bestsellers with Steven Kotler, Abundance, BOLD and The Future Is Faster Than You Think, give leadership teams a working language for AI, robotics, biotech and the convergence between them. Through Abundance360, his community of founders and investors, and BOLD Capital Partners, he keeps a direct line to the companies operationalising these technologies. The keynote draws on what he is funding and seeing now, not on case studies that have already cycled through the business press. His training is unusual for a futurist. Molecular genetics and aerospace engineering at MIT, an MD from Harvard Medical School, and the co-founding of the International Space University while still in medical school. That depth is what allows him to talk credibly to a healthcare board about longevity and to an industrials executive about space, in the same week, without the content collapsing into generality. Key speaking topics Exponential technologies and business strategy Artificial intelligence and convergence with robotics, biotech and energy Innovation, moonshot thinking and incentive prize design Future of work and leadership in accelerating environments Longevity, healthspan and the science of human performance Space, frontier industries and new commercial markets Entrepreneurship and the building of category-defining ventures Ideal for CEO and board audiences setting strategy under exponential technology pressure Innovation, R and D and corporate venture leaders rethinking how bets are made Healthcare, life sciences and longevity leadership teams Founders, scale-up CEOs and investors at private capital and family office gatherings Audience outcomes A working sense of which technologies are converging, on what timeline, and what that means for their industry A vocabulary for moonshot thinking and 10x targets that survives the trip back to the executive team Concrete examples of how incentive design and prize mechanisms have unlocked markets that traditional R and D could not A clearer view of where AI, longevity and space are creating new revenue categories rather than only disrupting existing ones Renewed appetite among senior leaders for ambition that is grounded in what is now technically achievable

Why organisations work with Peter Cochrane A track record of forecasting major technology shifts before they entered mainstream conversation, including the wholesale move to remote working and biometric identification at scale, both documented in books from the early 2000s. Operational depth from running research and development at British Telecom, with a thousand-strong team and budgets up to £1 billion, reporting directly to the main board. Investor and founder credibility that connects foresight to commercial outcomes, including a founding director role at eBookers and a founding investment in Shazam. Active research at the University of Suffolk on AI sentience and cyber attack precursors, giving boards direct access to someone working on these problems rather than commenting on them after the fact. Communication credibility honed in the UK’s first Chair for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology at the University of Bristol, with a record of making complex engineering legible to non-technical executives. Biography highlights Former Chief Technology Officer of British Telecom (1999–2000), reporting to the main board with responsibility for a thousand-strong research team and budgets up to £1 billion. UK’s first Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology, holding the Collier Chair at the University of Bristol from 1999. Currently Visiting Professor at the University of Suffolk, the University of Hertfordshire and the University of Salford, with research focused on AI sentience, cyber attack precursors and truth engine development. Founding director of eBookers, which became the largest eTravel business in Europe within four years, and founding investor in Shazam. Recipient of the OBE for services to international communications (1999), the IEEE Millennium Medal (2000), the Queen’s Award for Innovation and Export (1990), and the City and Guilds Prince Philip Medal. Author of “Uncommon Sense: Out of the Box Thinking for an In the Box World” and “108 Tips for Time Travellers”, and co-editor of “Industry 4.0 and Engineering for a Sustainable Future”. Biography By the early 2000s, predictions of biometric identification at scale and a wholesale move to remote working sounded like science fiction to most boards. Peter Cochrane was already writing about both as engineering inevitabilities, with reasoning grounded in fibre economics and network behaviour. The work is rooted in four decades of operational engineering. A career at British Telecom progressed from linesman to Head of Research and then Chief Technology Officer, with a thousand-strong team studying optical fibre, mobile networks, eCommerce and artificial life. His doctoral research at Essex was pivotal in BT’s decision to go all-digital and all-optical in the 1970s, a call that shaped the company’s competitive position for decades. Outside BT, the work has spanned academia and venture investment. He held the Collier Chair at the University of Bristol as the UK’s first Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology. He co-founded ConceptLabs with members of Apple’s Advanced Technology team, was a founding director of eBookers and the founding investor in Shazam. Recognition includes an OBE for services to international communications, the IEEE Millennium Medal, the City and Guilds Prince Philip Medal, and the Queen’s Award for Innovation and Export. His current work at the University of Suffolk focuses on machine consciousness, cyber attack precursors and the engineering of trust in information systems. Key speaking topics Future of technology and AI Cybersecurity and cyber attack precursors Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0 Sentient systems and machine consciousness The engineering reality of 5G and 6G networks Innovation and the management of rapid change Ideal for Boards and executive committees making capital allocation decisions on AI, cybersecurity and connectivity infrastructure Chief Technology Officers and Chief Information Officers shaping multi-year technology and digital strategy Government departments and policy advisors on technology, communications and national resilience Industry conferences in telecoms, financial services, defence and energy where engineering reality matters to commercial decisions Audience outcomes A direct assessment of which emerging technologies will reshape industry over the next decade and which will not. A method for distinguishing engineering reality from commercial hype when evaluating AI, cybersecurity and infrastructure investment. Specific examples of how previous technology transitions played out, drawn from a CTO seat during the digitisation of telecommunications. An informed view of where current systems are most vulnerable to AI-augmented cyber attack, and what early warning signals look like.

Why organisations work with Pedro Moneo Structural early sight of emerging technology. As publisher of MIT Technology Review in Spanish and Portuguese since 2008, he sees breakthrough research before it reaches mainstream corporate strategy. A working model for moving innovation out of pilot. Opinno has executed digital transformation, AI, and innovation programmes for large enterprises across Europe and Latin America since 2008. The work shows what survives contact with the corporate operating model. Engineering rigour applied to commercial decisions. His training as a nuclear engineer at the French Atomic Energy Commission, followed by reactor research at Argonne National Laboratory, gives him a system-design lens on technology adoption. Direct exposure to innovation markets outside the usual US-UK circuit. Opinno operates from offices across Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, giving him client experience that few speakers can offer. Biography highlights CEO and founder of Opinno, a global innovation consultancy with more than 230 consultants and twelve offices across Europe and Latin America. Publisher of MIT Technology Review in Spanish and Portuguese since 2008; former online publisher of Harvard Business Review in Spanish. Senior Advisor to NASA on cross-industry innovation summits. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2016), Eisenhower Innovation Fellow (2014), and Aspen Institute Adler Fellow (2016). Co-founder of the Madrid chapter of the XPrize Foundation. Member of the Board of Advisors at ESCP Business School. Featured as a published case study at IESE Business School. Biography Opinno was founded in Silicon Valley in 2008, the week Lehman Brothers collapsed. Pedro Moneo’s bet was that the crisis would force every large company to reckon with technologies they had been avoiding. He was right. The firm now operates from twelve offices across Europe and Latin America, working in the gap between emerging technology and the corporate operating model. His route to that role is less obvious than the bio of most innovation consultants. He trained as a mechanical engineer at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, then as a nuclear engineer at the French Atomic Energy Commission. He started his career on reactor research at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. Strategy consulting at Accenture and a deputy directorship at FEDIT, Spain’s largest private R&D network, followed before he started the company. Two adjacent roles anchor his view of emerging technology. Since 2008 he has been the publisher of MIT Technology Review’s Spanish and Portuguese editions. The role gives him sustained early sight of the research that eventually reaches corporate strategy. Since 2016 he has advised NASA on cross-industry innovation summits. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader in 2016, and the Eisenhower Foundation made him an Innovation Fellow in 2014. Inside a corporate boardroom, the question he keeps asking is the one most innovation programmes avoid. What does the operating model need to look like for this technology to generate revenue? The answers come from Opinno’s enterprise work across Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. Key speaking topics Innovation as a managed corporate discipline Digital transformation in established enterprises Artificial intelligence in the operating model Open innovation and ecosystem design Emerging technology and corporate strategy The Iberian and Latin American innovation landscape Ideal for Boards and CEOs trying to operationalise AI and emerging technology beyond pilot stage Chief Innovation Officers, CTOs, and transformation leads inside large corporates Executive teams in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking markets who need a credible local voice Industry bodies and ecosystem builders shaping national innovation policy Audience outcomes Which emerging technologies are close to commercial maturity, and which are not The specific reasons most corporate innovation programmes fail at the transition from lab to operating model Worked examples from Opinno’s enterprise engagements across Europe and Latin America The texture of corporate innovation in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking markets, where most US and Northern European speakers cannot offer first-hand evidence

Why organisations work with Omar Johnson He has a documented commercial result at the scale most marketers will never reach: Beats by Dre from $20 million to $2 billion, acquired by Apple for $3 billion. He is operating, not reminiscing. As founder of Øpus Intelligence, he is currently applying generative AI to cultural relevance for clients including Nissan, the NBA 2K League, and NFL franchises. He built the campaigns marketing teams still study: the 2012 Beats Olympics athlete play that drove a 600% international sales lift, and the “Straight Outta Somewhere” meme generator that reached over a billion people on a near-zero media budget. He gives senior marketing leaders a working model for cultural relevance as a commercial discipline, with named brand cases from Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, and Kraft, rather than agency-side theory. Biography highlights Former Chief Marketing Officer, Beats by Dre, and former Vice President of Marketing, Apple. Led Beats from $20 million to over $2 billion in revenue, culminating in the $3 billion acquisition by Apple in 2014. Founder of ØPUS United and founder of Øpus Intelligence, a generative AI platform for cultural relevance, with clients including Nissan, NBA 2K League, Tennessee Titans, and Minnesota Vikings. Author of “Dear White Corporate America,” following a full-page New York Times open letter on racial equity in June 2020. Named “Brand Genius” by Adweek and one of the “Most Innovative CMOs” by Business Insider. Earlier marketing leadership across Nike (including campaigns with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant), Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and Campbell Soup. MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Biography Beats by Dre grew from $20 million to more than $2 billion in revenue in four years and was acquired by Apple for $3 billion in 2014. Omar Johnson was the third employee through the door and the Chief Marketing Officer who built the brand engine that made the trajectory possible. The case studies have lasted longer than the headphones themselves. At the 2012 Olympics, instead of paying for sponsor rights, Beats put national-flag headphones on athletes through a private lounge, lifting international sales by 600%. In 2015, the “Straight Outta Somewhere” meme generator reached over a billion people on a near-zero media budget. Both built category leadership through cultural participation, not paid reach. After Apple, Johnson founded ØPUS United, a brand management firm, and then Øpus Intelligence, a generative AI platform that productises cultural relevance for marketers. Live clients include Nissan, the NBA 2K League, and NFL franchises, with a 2025 partnership with Sundial Media (parent of ESSENCE, Refinery29, AFROPUNK) extending the model further into culture media. His earlier career across Nike, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and Campbell Soup gave him the inside view of large brand systems; his post-Apple work gives him the operator’s view of what is breaking in them now. Adweek named him a Brand Genius. Business Insider named him one of the Most Innovative CMOs. His 2020 New York Times open letter, “My Open Letter to White Corporate America,” became the book “Dear White Corporate America.” Key speaking topics Brand building and category leadership Marketing strategy and growth Cultural relevance as a commercial discipline Generative AI in marketing and brand management Customer experience and brand authenticity Storytelling and creative campaign design Ideal for CMOs, brand directors, and senior marketing leadership teams CEO and executive committee offsites where growth depends on brand strength Consumer, retail, sports, media, and entertainment audiences Innovation, creative, and customer experience functions exploring AI in marketing Audience outcomes A working definition of cultural relevance that can be applied to a brand plan, not a slogan Named campaign cases (Beats Olympics, Straight Outta Somewhere, Nike commercials with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant) used to illustrate how cultural participation beats paid reach A current view from inside a generative AI marketing platform on what the technology actually changes for brand teams A direct provocation to senior leaders on authenticity, representation, and the commercial cost of getting either wrong

Why organisations work with Nick Bostrom He authored Superintelligence, the text credited with bringing AI existential risk into mainstream policy, technology and boardroom discussion. The vocabulary leaders are now using to debate frontier AI traces back to this work. He led the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford for nineteen years, a research programme whose alumni now staff AI safety teams at the major frontier labs and policy units in Washington, London and Brussels. His simulation argument and work on anthropic reasoning have made him one of the few philosophers whose primary papers are read inside technical AI research, not just adjacent to it. Deep Utopia, his 2024 follow-up, addresses the strategic question most leadership teams have not yet started on: what an organisation is for in a world where AI systems can perform almost any cognitive task better than humans. He treats AI governance as a question about the shape of the future, not a compliance exercise, which is the register most senior leaders need but rarely get from technical or regulatory briefings. Biography highlights Founding Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, 2005 to 2024. Founder and Principal Researcher, Macrostrategy Research Initiative. Author of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, New York Times bestseller, Oxford University Press. Author of Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World, Ideapress, 2024. Twice named on Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers. Recipient of the Eugene R. Gannon Award; ranked on Prospect magazine’s World Thinkers list as the highest-placed analytic philosopher. Biography Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies arrived in 2014 with a thesis few mainstream readers were ready for: that advanced AI systems would, on plausible development paths, present a control problem of civilisational importance. A decade later the book sits on the desks of frontier lab leadership, AI policy officials and the boards of companies whose products now depend on the technology it described. The work came out of the Future of Humanity Institute, which Bostrom founded at Oxford in 2005 and led until its closure in 2024. FHI built the early academic infrastructure for what is now a global field, training researchers who now sit inside OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind and the UK AI Safety Institute. His earlier paper on the simulation argument, published in The Philosophical Quarterly in 2003, became one of the few philosophical works to be taken seriously by technical AI researchers and physicists. His 2024 book, Deep Utopia, turns the lens around. The question is no longer whether humanity survives advanced AI, but what people and organisations do in a world where machines can perform almost any cognitive task. For executives whose strategic plans assume scarce human cognitive labour as their basic input, this is the next problem to think about, and very few credible voices have started. Bostrom is now Founder and Principal Researcher of the Macrostrategy Research Initiative, continuing the long-range work on technology, governance and the human future that began at Oxford. Foreign Policy has twice named him among its Top 100 Global Thinkers; Prospect ranked him as the highest-placed analytic philosopher on its World Thinkers list. Key speaking topics Frontier AI and existential risk AI governance and alignment under uncertainty Long-range technology strategy The simulation argument and the limits of knowledge Post-AGI economics and the meaning problem Anthropic reasoning and decision-making under deep uncertainty The future of human enhancement Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI strategy and risk posture for the next decade Heads of state, regulators and policy units shaping national AI governance Frontier technology leadership and corporate venture teams Investor and asset-allocator audiences thinking about exposure to AI-driven structural change Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for talking about AI risk, capability and alignment with the same precision used inside frontier labs A clearer view of which AI governance questions are tractable now and which require long-range thinking A grounded sense of how to plan for a post-instrumental economy where human cognitive labour is no longer the scarce input Recognition of how anthropic reasoning and scenario thinking apply to corporate decisions under deep uncertainty Familiarity with the arguments shaping how regulators, AI labs and national security communities are now framing frontier AI

Why organisations work with Mustafa Suleyman Few people in AI both ship the product and frame the public debate. As CEO of Microsoft AI he runs Copilot, Bing and Edge for hundreds of millions of users, while The Coming Wave was shortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year and called Bill Gates’s favourite book on AI. His “containment problem” framework gives boards a working language for asking governance questions about AI without lapsing into either hype or fatalism. He has been inside the founding team of three of the most consequential AI organisations of the past fifteen years: DeepMind in 2010, Inflection AI in 2022 and Microsoft AI in 2024. That operating vantage point on how AI strategy actually gets built is uncommon in the speaker market. A Senior Fellowship at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and a board seat at The Economist Group give him sustained credibility on policy and governance, not only on product. Biography highlights CEO of Microsoft AI since March 2024, with responsibility for Copilot, Bing, Edge, MSN and GroupMe. Co-founder of DeepMind (2010), former head of Applied AI; the company was acquired by Google in 2014 in its largest European deal at the time. Co-founder and former CEO of Inflection AI, where he built the Pi assistant with Reid Hoffman and Karen Simonyan. Author of The Coming Wave (Crown, 2023) with Michael Bhaskar: New York Times bestseller; shortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year; book of the year at the Financial Times, the Economist, Bloomberg and the Guardian. Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School; board member of The Economist Group. CBE in the 2019 New Year Honours; named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2023 and 2024; TED main-stage speaker, “What is an AI anyway?” (April 2024). Biography DeepMind, Inflection AI and Microsoft AI are three of the most consequential AI organisations of the past fifteen years. Mustafa Suleyman co-founded two and now runs the third. He co-founded DeepMind in 2010, where he led the applied AI work and the DeepMind Ethics and Society research unit. He went on to co-found Inflection AI in 2022 with Reid Hoffman and Karen Simonyan, building Pi, an assistant designed for emotionally responsive conversation. In March 2024 Microsoft brought him in as CEO of Microsoft AI, with responsibility for Copilot, Bing, Edge and the company’s MAI frontier model team. His public argument turns on the containment problem. It is the task of keeping powerful technologies inside the control of the institutions meant to govern them, even as those technologies become cheaper and more accessible. He developed that argument in The Coming Wave, the book he wrote with Michael Bhaskar. It became a New York Times bestseller and was named a book of the year by the Economist, the Financial Times, Bloomberg and the Guardian. Outside Microsoft, he sits on the board of The Economist and is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. Key speaking topics The future of artificial intelligence AI governance and the containment problem Frontier AI development and consumer deployment AI strategy for boards and senior leaders Technology, power and the nation-state The next wave of general-purpose technologies AI safety and alignment Ideal for CEOs and boards setting AI strategy and capital allocation Chief technology officers and chief product officers responsible for AI deployment Government leaders, regulators and policy advisors working on AI rules Senior leaders in financial services, healthcare, media and consumer technology Audience outcomes A working language for talking about AI risk and AI opportunity in the same conversation, anchored in the containment problem A clearer view of what frontier AI labs are actually building, from someone who runs one A sense of where consumer AI is heading over the next two to three years, beyond the current news cycle An honest read on which AI claims are worth taking seriously and which to discount

Why organisations work with Misiek Piskorski His proprietary multi-step framework reduces digital transformation to five or six sequenced decisions – giving leadership teams a replicable process to own and implement, not a theory to absorb and interpret. A Social Strategy (Princeton University Press, 2014) – the first book to use large-scale proprietary platform data to explain how companies build competitive advantage from social platforms – introduced three named diagnostic tests (social utility, social solution, and business value) that practitioners can apply to any platform investment decision. His transformation programmes are designed to span the full organisational hierarchy: CEO-level strategic advisory, top-team execution, middle-management education, and organisation-wide capability building – which means transformation logic does not stop at the boardroom door. As Co-Director of IMD’s AI Strategy and Implementation programme, he connects AI adoption directly to competitive strategy rather than treating it as a technology or operations question – giving executive teams a frame that boards can act on. Custom programmes delivered for organisations including Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, and the Asian Development Bank mean his frameworks have been stress-tested across industries and geographies, not built in one sector and applied to others by analogy. Biography highlights Professor of Digital Strategy, Analytics and Innovation and Dean of Executive Education, IMD Business School, Lausanne Previously Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit, Harvard Business School (ten years); prior faculty appointment at Stanford University Graduate School of Business Author of A Social Strategy: How We Profit from Social Media (Princeton University Press, 2014) – winner of the Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal, 2015 Research published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award 2019, Organisational Development category, for the Siam Commercial Bank digital transformation programme Co-Director, AI Strategy and Implementation programme, IMD; Programme Director, Developing Digital Transformation Strategies (IMD online) Associate Editor, Journal of Organization Design; editorial board member, Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, and Organization Science Biography Misiek Piskorski spent two decades studying why digital transformation succeeds or stalls – working first at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and then at Harvard Business School before joining IMD in Lausanne in 2014. The answer, he argues, is almost never about technology. It is about the sequence of strategic decisions that determines how digital capabilities translate into competitive advantage. His book A Social Strategy (Princeton University Press, 2014) was the first to draw on proprietary data from platforms including Facebook and LinkedIn to explain the commercial mechanism behind social platforms. The argument – that companies must first help users meet social needs that cannot be satisfied offline before asking for any commercial return – won the Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal in 2015. Three diagnostic tests introduced in the book (social utility, social solution, and business value) give executive teams a practical tool for evaluating any platform investment. At IMD, his work is deliberately structured to span the full organisation. Custom programmes for Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, and the Asian Development Bank move from CEO-level strategy through top-team transformation projects to executive education for middle managers and digital learning at scale. As Co-Director of IMD’s AI Strategy and Implementation programme, he applies the same sequenced-decision logic to AI adoption – connecting implementation directly to competitive strategy. His research has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He received the EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award in 2019 for his collaboration with Siam Commercial Bank on digital transformation, and serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Organization Design. Key speaking topics Platform strategy and competitive advantage Digital transformation decision frameworks AI strategy and enterprise-wide implementation Social platform economics and business value Data analytics and strategic decision-making Digital business model design Organisational digital capability building Ideal for CEOs and senior leadership teams navigating digital transformation at enterprise scale Chief Digital Officers and Chief Strategy Officers assessing platform and AI investment decisions Boards and executive committees evaluating digital readiness and competitive positioning CHROs and Learning & Development leaders designing organisation-wide digital capability programmes Audience outcomes A named, sequenced decision framework for planning and executing digital transformation across the organisation – not a conceptual model but a structured process Practical diagnostic tools (social utility, social solution, and business value tests) for evaluating whether a platform or digital investment is likely to create competitive advantage A clear model for distinguishing digital activity from digital strategy – and for identifying where current transformation efforts are likely to stall Understanding of how AI adoption decisions connect to competitive positioning rather than remaining isolated as technology or operations questions A working vocabulary for the five or six strategic decisions that determine whether transformation programmes deliver at scale