Artificial Intelligence & Generative AI

Why organisations work with David Roberts His Exponential Leadership framework draws a hard diagnostic line between revolutionary and truly disruptive technology – giving senior teams a structured method for a decision most organisations currently make by instinct. He holds an MIT degree in Artificial Intelligence alongside a Harvard MBA, and built ventures backed by Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla, and In-Q-Tel – his understanding of technology disruption is operational, not theoretical. As Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program, he has stress-tested these frameworks with senior leaders across sectors and geographies at scale. His background spans classified U.S. government programs – satellite systems, drone development, intelligence fusion centers – giving him credibility on high-stakes technological complexity that most innovation speakers cannot claim. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley Business Schools have written and taught case studies on his leadership and decision-making – a level of academic scrutiny that validates the substance of the framework, not just its presentation. Biography highlights MIT B.S. Computer Science and Engineering, Distinguished Graduate, majored in Artificial Intelligence and Bio-Computer Engineering Harvard MBA Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program; Distinguished Faculty member Coined the term Exponential Leadership in 2010; founder of Exponential Leadership organisation Co-founder and President of FireDrop and Zaplet, acquired by MetricStream; ventures backed by Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla, Cisco, Oracle, Accenture, and In-Q-Tel Chairman of 1QBit, one of the world’s first quantum computing software companies Career U.S. government officer: Air Force officer, decorated Special Agent; led development of satellite programs and the U.S. Drone Program; received personal citation from the Director of the FBI Media coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, USA Today, The New York Times, and CNN Biography Roberts studied AI at MIT before the term had reached the boardroom – under the guidance of Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of ELIZA and one of the discipline’s founding figures. That technical grounding was followed by a Goldman Sachs M&A posting and then a career in the U.S. government, where he led the development of satellite systems and the U.S. Drone Program across multiple national agencies. By the time he entered Silicon Valley, he had spent years building the technologies that other people were still learning to name. His venture career – FireDrop and Zaplet, backed by Kleiner Perkins and In-Q-Tel and ultimately acquired by MetricStream – gave him a second operational lens: what it takes to build and fund companies around genuinely disruptive technology, not merely competitive ones. That distinction became the foundation of his intellectual contribution. In 2010, working in a government context, he coined the term Exponential Leadership – a framework built on a single, testable claim: that the leadership models most organisations rely on were engineered for incremental change, and that they structurally fail when technologies start compressing competitive timelines from decades to years. Roberts went on to serve as Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program, reaching senior leaders across sectors with that framework. His talks do not stop at diagnosing the gap between technology speed and leadership capability – they give organisations a structured method for distinguishing truly disruptive technologies from merely revolutionary ones, and a leadership model calibrated to act on that distinction. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley Business Schools have used his leadership and decision-making as the basis for case studies. His technology ventures have been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and CNN. Key speaking topics Exponential Leadership Technology disruption and disruptive innovation theory Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies Quantum computing and advanced technology platforms Entrepreneurship and high-growth venture strategy Strategic decision-making in exponential environments Leadership development for technology-driven organisations Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating technology-driven transformation Strategy and innovation leaders in sectors facing accelerating competitive disruption Corporate leadership development programmes seeking a framework for exponential change Boards and executive committees assessing long-term technology risk and strategic positioning Audience outcomes A working distinction between revolutionary and genuinely disruptive technology, with a framework for applying it to current strategic decisions Understanding of why traditional leadership models underperform in exponentially changing environments, and what a more effective model looks like in practice Clearer organisational language for discussing exponential change – moving beyond general awareness to specific, actionable diagnostic categories Exposure to emerging technologies – including AI, quantum computing, synthetic biology, and autonomous systems – framed through their leadership and strategic implications A practical foundation for aligning leadership behaviour and decision-making with the actual pace of technology change

Why organisations work with David Mattin Trend-Driven Innovation (Wiley) gives the organisations Mattin works with a named, repeatable method for identifying which emerging trends will reshape customer expectations – built on the counter-intuitive argument that the best signal is not in what customers say they want but in what leading businesses are already doing. His central argument – that human needs are fundamentally stable across decades even as technology accelerates – transforms trend analysis from a speculative exercise into a discipline with clear criteria, and gives leaders a reliable filter for deciding which AI-driven changes will actually matter. As Technology Lead at Global Macro Investor, his analysis of emerging technology is read and acted on by institutional investors including hedge funds, pension funds, and family offices – which subjects his commercial judgements about which technology shifts matter to a level of scrutiny that most trend and foresight work never encounters. The 30,000-subscriber New World Same Humans community – spanning business leaders, academics, and policymakers – means his frameworks are continuously tested against the exact professionals organisations are trying to anticipate and influence. Biography highlights Co-author, Trend-Driven Innovation: Beat Accelerating Customer Expectations (Wiley) – a structured framework for turning emerging trends into innovation strategy Former Global Head of Trends and Insights, TrendWatching Member, World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Consumption Technology Lead, Global Macro Investor; co-founder of The Exponentialist research service with macro investor Raoul Pal Founder, New World Same Humans – weekly newsletter on trends and technology with 30,000+ subscribers across business, academia, and policy Opening keynote at the NEXT Conference (Accenture Song) on multiple occasions; over 150 keynotes across five continents and 40+ countries Writing published in The Times, Quartz, Wired, Fast Company, the Guardian, and Google Think Quarterly; documentary work for BBC Radio 4 Graduate, University of Cambridge; began career at the features desk of The Times Biography Most organisations study their own customers closely. David Mattin’s core argument, developed during a decade leading trends intelligence at TrendWatching, is that the more useful signal lies elsewhere – in the moves leading businesses and disruptive startups are making to redefine what those customers consider normal. That argument found its fullest expression in Trend-Driven Innovation (Wiley), which made a counter-intuitive case: to anticipate what customers will want next, stop looking at customers and start tracking the businesses already reshaping their expectations. The underlying framework rests on a philosophical claim that runs through all of his work: human needs are fundamentally stable across decades, even as technology accelerates. New trends emerge when a technology or business innovation unlocks a new way to serve a need that was always there. Track those needs, observe which innovations are serving them, and the expectation gaps that matter become visible before competitors act. His current work extends that discipline into the era of AI. At Global Macro Investor, one of the world’s leading independent research services for institutional allocators, he serves as Technology Lead; he co-founded The Exponentialist alongside macro investor Raoul Pal. That institutional context means his analysis of emerging technology is regularly tested against the demands of hedge funds, pension funds, and family offices – not just conference audiences. The NEXT Conference (Accenture Song) has invited him to open the event on multiple occasions; he has delivered over 150 keynotes across five continents for clients including Meta, McKinsey, Google, Mastercard, Unilever, and Audi. His writing has appeared in The Times, Quartz, Wired, and Google Think Quarterly, and he has produced documentary work for BBC Radio 4. He read at Cambridge and began his career at the features desk of The Times. Key speaking topics AI and emerging technology strategy Consumer trends and expectation gap analysis Innovation strategy in a technology-driven market Scenario planning and strategic foresight Brand strategy and organisational culture in a transparent world The future of business and society in an era of exponential technology change Ideal for Strategy and innovation leadership teams evaluating medium-to-long-term technology bets CMOs and heads of customer experience navigating AI-driven shifts in consumer behaviour Boards and senior executive teams requiring a disciplined framework for separating technology signal from noise Investment professionals and corporate allocators seeking technology intelligence with commercial rigour Audience outcomes A named, replicable framework for identifying which emerging trends are likely to reshape customer expectations before competitors recognise them Clearer criteria for distinguishing technology-driven shifts that will prove durable from those that will not Industry-specific examples of how leading businesses have used expectation gap analysis to create competitive advantage A working understanding of how AI is changing the landscape of customer expectations – and which human needs remain stable enough to anchor innovation decisions A conceptual map of the technology convergences most likely to generate new commercial opportunities over the next five to ten years

Why organisations work with David Hanson He built Sophia. Few speakers on AI can point to a single, globally recognised artefact of their work that has been granted citizenship by a nation state and appointed the UN Development Programme’s first Innovation Champion. His perspective combines sculpture, materials science and AI in a way almost no other robotics founder can credibly claim. RISD-trained, Disney Imagineering-trained, PhD from UT Dallas, peer-reviewed in IEEE and SPIE. He has built and run a robotics company through the commercial reality of hardware, not just the AI software conversation. That grounds his view of where human-facing AI actually works and where it does not. The 2005 AAAI first-place prize for open AI system interaction, Tech Titans Innovator of the Year, and Sophia’s 2018 Edison Award give the innovation claim a named, credible track record rather than a marketing line. He is one of the small group of AI voices who can hold a serious conversation about ethics, emotional design and commercial deployment in the same session. That is what executive audiences increasingly want from the topic. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Hanson Robotics, Hong Kong Creator of Sophia, the first robot granted honorary citizenship (Saudi Arabia, 2017) and UN Development Programme’s first Innovation Champion Sophia awarded a 2018 Edison Award in robotics Co-recipient of the 2005 AAAI first-place prize for open interaction of an AI system PhD, Interactive Arts and Technology, University of Texas at Dallas; BFA, Rhode Island School of Design Co-author, “The Coming Robot Revolution” (Springer, 2009); author, “Humanizing Robots” Former Walt Disney Imagineer; earlier design and robotics roles at Universal Studios and MTV Featured in the New York Times, WIRED, Scientific American, Popular Science, BBC and CNN Biography Sophia was activated in February 2016 and made her first public appearance weeks later at SXSW. Within eighteen months she had honorary Saudi Arabian citizenship and a UN title, and David Hanson’s company, Hanson Robotics, had become the reference point for what a human-facing robot could look like. The artefact was the argument. The background behind that artefact is unusual. Hanson trained at the Rhode Island School of Design in film, animation and video, then spent years as a sculptor and material researcher inside Disney Imagineering before taking a PhD in Interactive Arts and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas. The skin materials, the expression mechanisms and the facial architecture on his robots come from that rare combination of arts practice and engineering. The research record sits alongside it. Papers in IEEE, SPIE, IROS, AAAI and AI Magazine. A Springer-published co-authored book, “The Coming Robot Revolution”. A 2005 AAAI first-place prize for open AI system interaction. NASA and NSF awards. Tech Titans Innovator of the Year. His own company, founded in 2013 and scaled out of Hong Kong, building robots now deployed in research, therapy and education. For executive audiences, the value is a founder who can speak with authority about where human-facing AI is heading, how ethical and emotional design choices get made inside a real robotics programme, and what changes for industries from healthcare to customer experience when the machine has a face. Sophia is the headline. The argument behind her is why leadership teams book him. Key speaking topics Humanoid robotics and social AI Human-robot coexistence in work and everyday life AI ethics and responsible development The design and engineering behind Sophia Science fiction, storytelling and the shaping of real-world robotics The future of AI in healthcare, education and customer-facing industries Ideal for Executive teams and boards setting strategy for AI-mediated customer, patient or citizen interaction Innovation, R&D and technology leadership in healthcare, education, hospitality and customer experience Corporate conferences, industry summits and innovation festivals seeking a founder-level voice on human-facing AI Audiences exploring AI ethics, emotional design and the societal consequences of humanoid machines Audience outcomes A grounded view of where humanoid AI is today, told by the person who built the most visible example of it A clear read on the commercial sectors most likely to be reshaped by social robotics over the next decade The ethical questions serious robotics programmes are actually wrestling with, not the media version of them A sense of how arts, materials science and engineering combine to produce AI that people trust and engage with Direct exposure to Sophia when the format permits, and an informed discussion of what that interaction implies for their own organisation

Why organisations work with Dave Coplin His central argument – that the «digital deluge» is not a productivity crisis to be managed but a strategic opportunity to be led – gives boards a reframe that most AI and digital transformation programmes never offer: the question is not adoption, but what kind of organisation you are willing to become. He built that argument from the inside: twelve years at Microsoft UK as the executive responsible for imagining the human future of technology, a vantage point that neither pure academics nor management consultants can replicate. His books Business Reimagined (2013) and The Rise of the Humans (2014, Harriman House) give organisations a specific, portable framework – the choice between efficiency and effectiveness – that leadership teams can apply directly to their own AI strategy decisions. NED board experience at Mitchells & Butlers plc, Vianet Group plc, and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association means his perspective on digital strategy carries weight at governance level, not just at conference level. His positioning at the intersection of generative AI adoption and organisational performance means he addresses the question executive teams are now actually asking: how do we become more effective through AI, rather than just faster at what we already do? Biography highlights Founder and CEO of The Envisioners, a digital strategy consultancy established in 2017 after a 12-year career at Microsoft UK Former Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft UK – a role he created, focused on the future of the human-technology relationship Author of Business Reimagined (2013) and The Rise of the Humans (2014, Harriman House) Independent Non-Executive Director at Mitchells & Butlers plc, Vianet Group plc, and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association Regular contributor to BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times, Channel 4, and CNN on AI, digital transformation, and the future of work Keynote speaker for clients including Microsoft, Barclays, HP, Vodafone, Ernst & Young, Facebook, and Google, as well as the UK and EU Parliaments Biography Technology investment reliably outpaces the organisational willingness to change. That gap – between what digital tools can do and what organisations are willing to become – is where Dave Coplin has built his career, first as Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft UK and now as founder of The Envisioners. His book The Rise of the Humans (Harriman House, 2014) sets out the core argument: the digital deluge of data, tools, and competing demands is not something to survive – it is something to harness. The organisations that succeed are those that stop asking how to automate what they already do and start asking how to reinvent what they do entirely. That argument was relevant when the book was written. With generative AI now reshaping every sector, it has become the defining strategic question for boards and leadership teams. Coplin spent twelve years at Microsoft UK before founding The Envisioners in 2017, advising organisations and governments on what technology-led change actually requires of the people leading it. His clients have included Barclays, Vodafone, Ernst & Young, and the UK and EU Parliaments. He serves as an independent non-executive director at Mitchells & Butlers plc and Vianet Group plc, and has held the same role at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association. He is a regular contributor to the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and CNN. His first book, Business Reimagined (2013), made the case for collaborative and flexible working as a technology-enabled opportunity rather than a cultural preference. Both books frame the same consistent argument: the human decision about how to relate to technology matters more than the technology itself. Key speaking topics Generative AI and organisational effectiveness Digital transformation strategy The future of work Human-technology relationship AI adoption and workforce change Reimagining how organisations create value Ideal for CIOs, CTOs, and senior technology leaders shaping AI and digital strategy CEOs and executive teams navigating generative AI adoption decisions CHROs and transformation leads managing the human impact of digital change Board members and non-executive directors overseeing digital governance and technology investment Audience outcomes A clear framework for distinguishing between technology-led efficiency and technology-led effectiveness, and why that distinction matters commercially A reframe of generative AI from operational risk to strategic lever – and the conditions under which that reframe becomes actionable Practical perspective on why human agency and organisational culture are the deciding factors in whether digital investment delivers A sharper view of where AI strategies are likely to stall, and what leadership teams can address before they do Confidence to engage with AI at a strategic rather than technical level – including in board and senior leadership conversations

Why organisations work with Daniel Burrus He offers a named, tested method for distinguishing Hard Trends (future certainties) from Soft Trends (future possibilities), giving executive teams a shared vocabulary for strategic bets. The Anticipatory Organization model has been implemented inside the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider, Deloitte, Lockheed Martin and IBM, so the framework has been stress-tested inside institutions where the cost of being wrong is high. He has tracked exponential technology shifts since the early 1980s, which means his AI commentary is grounded in four decades of pattern recognition rather than recent opinion. He sits inside the NSA CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, a credential held by fewer than 300 speakers worldwide, which is a meaningful signal of platform craft alongside the intellectual content. Seven books with two New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers give buyers a body of work to pre-read and align their teams around before the engagement. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Burrus Research Associates, operating since 1983. Author of seven books including Flash Foresight (New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller) and The Anticipatory Organization. Inductee, National Speakers Association CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame. Founding member of the Department of Defense Joint Services Futures Group. Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Wired and Huffington Post; LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 1.2 million followers. Creator of the Hard Trend Methodology, adopted inside Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, IBM and the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider. Biography Strategy teams spend most of their planning time on things that might happen. The harder question is which parts of the future are already fixed. The Hard Trend Methodology, developed by Daniel Burrus over more than thirty years of research at Burrus Research Associates, is built to answer that question in a way executive teams can actually use. The method separates Hard Trends, which are projections grounded in measurable demographic, technological and regulatory change, from Soft Trends, which are projections that look solid but can be influenced. Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, IBM and the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider have applied the framework to reshape how they forecast and plan. The Anticipatory Organization, his 2017 book, is the public statement of that model and was an Amazon number one new business release. Burrus started tracking exponential technology shifts in the early 1980s, long before AI became a boardroom topic. That long arc gives his current work on artificial intelligence, automation and digital transformation a pattern-recognition quality that newer commentators cannot match. Flash Foresight, his 2011 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, set out the underlying cognitive approach for senior leaders working without a futures team. His platform credentials match the intellectual ones. He is a CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame inductee, a LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 1.2 million followers, and a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Wired and Huffington Post. He is a founding member of the Department of Defense Joint Services Futures Group, which is how a serious foresight practitioner signals that the work has been tested in environments where the cost of strategic surprise is highest. Key speaking topics Hard Trend Methodology and Anticipatory Organization Artificial intelligence strategy for senior leaders Disruptive innovation and exponential technology Digital transformation Strategic foresight and long-horizon planning Future of business and technology-driven growth Competitive advantage through anticipation Ideal for CEOs, COOs and strategy leaders running multi-year planning cycles under accelerating technology change Board directors and executive committees assessing AI and technology bets Transformation and innovation leads inside regulated or capital-intensive industries Government and defence leadership teams building foresight capability Audience outcomes A working distinction between Hard Trends and Soft Trends they can apply to their own strategic bets A shared vocabulary for anticipating disruption before it lands, rather than reacting after it does A concrete read on the exponential technologies most likely to reshape their industry in the next planning cycle A clearer view of where AI investment produces durable competitive advantage and where it produces noise Practical moves for shifting an organisation from reactive to anticipatory posture

Why organisations work with Clay Shirky He is running one of the most closely watched AI transitions inside a major research university, giving leaders a live view of how a complex institution is actually absorbing the technology, not a theoretical account. His 2008 book Here Comes Everybody is still the reference text for how networks dismantle hierarchical coordination. He brings two decades of that argument to the current question of what AI does to professional work. He has spent his career identifying the moment a technology stops being a tool and starts changing who gets to do the job. Leaders use him to pressure-test where that line sits inside their own organisation. He writes and speaks in plain language. Senior teams come away with a sharper vocabulary for decisions they had been circling: about integrity, expertise, and the parts of the business that AI makes cheaper to replace than to defend. Named originator of the Shirky Principle, which is quoted back at boards more often than most of them realise: institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. Biography highlights Vice Provost for AI and Technology in Education, New York University. Associate professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program. Former Chief Information Officer, NYU Shanghai. Author of Here Comes Everybody, Cognitive Surplus, and Little Rice, published by Penguin. Edward R. Murrow Visiting Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center. Contributor to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Wired. TED speaker with multiple talks on collaboration, cognitive surplus, and the politics of networked media. Biography The question most organisations are now quietly asking about AI is not technical. It is institutional. If the tools available to a junior employee can produce output that used to require a senior one, what happens to the rungs of the ladder in between? That is the terrain Clay Shirky has been working on for twenty years, first as a theorist of digital networks, now as the person running AI strategy inside one of the largest research universities in the world. At NYU he is Vice Provost for AI and Technology in Education, with responsibility for how the university teaches, examines, and credentials students in an environment where a generative tool can write a plausible essay in seconds. Before that he was Chief Information Officer of NYU Shanghai. He holds faculty positions at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and the Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program. Here Comes Everybody, published in 2008, set out the argument that group action no longer requires a formal organisation to coordinate it. Cognitive Surplus extended the case into what people do with the time that television used to absorb. Little Rice looked at the same dynamics through the smartphone industry in China. The through-line is consistent: when the cost of coordination falls, the shape of every institution that depended on that cost changes. The Shirky Principle, named by Kevin Kelly, captures the argument leaders take back to their own boards: institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. He has made that case to audiences at TED, at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center as Edward R. Murrow Visiting Lecturer, and in the pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Wired. The current application, and the reason senior teams are booking him, is AI. Key speaking topics AI and the future of knowledge work Institutional change in the age of generative AI Networked collaboration and the economics of group action The future of education, credentialing, and academic integrity Digital disruption of professional expertise Technology policy and the public internet Organisational design for a post-hierarchical era Ideal for Boards and executive teams working through AI strategy beyond productivity use cases. University, publishing, media, and professional services leaders whose business model depends on credentialed expertise. CHROs and learning leaders rethinking how people are trained, assessed, and promoted when AI can do parts of the job. Policy and public sector leaders examining how digital networks and AI are reshaping institutional trust. Audience outcomes A sharper reading of which parts of their organisation AI makes cheaper to replace than to defend. A working vocabulary for the decisions leaders are already making about integrity, authorship, and expertise. A clearer sense of what a major research university is actually doing about AI, from someone running the work. A framework for thinking about institutional change that does not collapse into either hype or fatalism. Concrete examples of networked coordination and AI adoption drawn from two decades of original research and current practice.

Why organisations work with Christian Kromme He reads AI through the lens of biological evolution, not technology alone. His “seven wave patterns” framework maps how disruptive technologies develop along the same sequences nature follows. Leadership teams leave with a predictive tool for what is coming next. His institutional position does real work. As Senior AI Research Fellow at The Conference Board, he briefs Fortune 100 and 500 executives on AI’s societal and organisational impact on a continuous basis. The material he brings to a keynote is the same material he tests weekly on senior audiences. Two books form the spine of the argument: Humanification: Go Digital, Stay Human (a #1 Amazon bestseller in its category) and The Human Spark – Beyond AI, both published by Choir Press. A buyer gets a specific intellectual position they can interrogate before committing. He approaches AI without the usual binary. Most AI keynotes either sell the hype or sound the alarm. Kromme’s proposition is that technology becomes more human as it matures, and that an organisation’s commercial job is to get ahead of that curve. Operator credibility behind the analysis. He founded and ran the innovation agency Artificial Industry for over a decade before selling it to a multinational in 2014, and continues to build and advise tech companies. The result is a speaker who understands how change actually lands inside a commercial organisation. Biography highlights Author of the international bestseller Humanification: Go Digital, Stay Human (Choir Press), a #1 Amazon bestseller in the Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership category. Author of The Human Spark – Beyond AI (Choir Press, 2026), launched at a sold-out event at Singer Theater in the Netherlands in January 2026. Senior AI Research Fellow at The Conference Board, with a dedicated AI content channel (“The Zone”) on the Conference Board platform. Founder of the innovation agency Artificial Industry (sold to a multinational in 2014) and founder of Symbiosys, an AI-powered organisation-as-a-service platform. Keynote speaker at Europol, Shell, BP, Cisco Systems, Philips, ManpowerGroup, Oracle, TEDx and TEDxINSEAD, among others. Recognised with the Shell LiveWIRE Young Business Award, the SAN Award, and the Broos van Erp Prize. Biography Every wave of disruptive technology rewires what an organisation needs from its people. The internet commoditised distribution. Mobile made attention the contested resource. AI is now absorbing the cognitive work most knowledge businesses are built on. The commercial question for leadership teams is what remains valuably human once the thinking layer is automated. That is the question Christian Kromme has spent a decade answering. His book Humanification: Go Digital, Stay Human set out the thesis. The evolution of human-made technology follows the same patterns as biological evolution. The most successful technologies are those that amplify what is most human about their users, not what is most mechanical. The book became a #1 Amazon bestseller in the Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership category. His follow-up, The Human Spark – Beyond AI (Choir Press, 2026), sharpens the argument for the current moment. Drawing on evolution, neuroscience and real-world case work, Kromme maps a transition he calls Human 3.0 to Human 4.0. Human 3.0 was optimised for intellect and industrial output. Human 4.0 treats intuition, creativity, awareness and connection as the strategically decisive capabilities. He positions this as a commercial consequence of where machine intelligence is headed, not a cultural preference. The credibility behind the argument is institutional and operator-level at once. As Senior AI Research Fellow at The Conference Board, Kromme briefs Fortune 100 and 500 leadership teams on AI’s societal and organisational impact. He founded the innovation agency Artificial Industry in 2002 and sold it to a multinational in 2014. He now advises and builds tech companies, including Symbiosys, an AI-powered organisation-as-a-service platform he founded. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the future of business Human-centred AI strategy Disruptive innovation and exponential technology Biological patterns of technological change The future of work in the age of AI Organisational agility in AI-driven markets Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams setting AI strategy where the question is commercial positioning, not just deployment. CHROs and heads of organisation design rethinking how work is structured when cognitive tasks become machine-native. Chief transformation officers, CTOs and CIOs building the case for AI adoption with human capability at the centre. Leadership offsites, innovation summits and industry congresses where the audience is responsible for the next three-to-five year horizon. Audience outcomes A predictive model for what the next wave of technological disruption looks like before it arrives, based on how biological and technological evolution move in parallel. A clear position on what AI can and cannot replace, and where the organisation’s human capability is commercially under-invested. A reframe of AI adoption as a human capability question, with implications for how teams, roles and strategy are designed. Shared vocabulary (Humanification, Human 3.0 to Human 4.0, the seven wave patterns of innovation) that leadership teams can use to continue the conversation after the session.

Why organisations work with Christian Howes He reads social and behavioural data the way a broadcaster reads a room, which means boards and marketing teams leave with a view of their customers that feels observed rather than modelled. He has been trusted on live television, from Big Brother’s Bit on the Side with Emma Willis to BT Sport and Channel 4’s alternative election night, to make data intelligible to audiences who are not data people. His corporate work spans PlayStation, Diageo, HSBC, Lloyds, ASOS and Barclays, so he arrives already fluent in the commercial contexts most clients are operating in. He doubles as a host, MC and panel moderator, which makes him a practical choice for events that want one credible voice across keynote, stage linking and awards. Biography highlights Regular social-data contributor on Big Brother’s Bit on the Side (Channel 5), 2011-2012, alongside Emma Willis. Television appearances on BT Sport (The Clare Balding Show, BT Sport Panel, BT Sport Live), ITV’s This Morning, BBC1 National Lottery, Good Morning Britain, and Channel 4’s alternative election night coverage. Co-founder of Mr Bridger, a content business developing formats for production companies and broadcasters. Corporate and keynote work with Sony PlayStation, Diageo, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, ASOS, UMG, Channel 4, GoCompare, Skoda, Microsoft, Teradata and Cornerstone. Works as keynote speaker, conference host, awards presenter and panel moderator across UK and international business audiences. Biography Social data arrived in most boardrooms as a dashboard before it arrived as a story. Christian Howes built a career out of closing that gap. His route in was unusual: he started by modelling Twitter traffic around the Big Brother house to predict weekly evictions, which led to a weekly sofa spot on Big Brother’s Bit on the Side with Emma Willis, translating audience sentiment back to a live TV audience. That pattern, turning raw social signal into something a non-specialist can act on, became the core of his commercial work. He has gone on to appear as a data and digital contributor across BT Sport, ITV’s This Morning, BBC1’s National Lottery show, Good Morning Britain, and Channel 4’s alternative election night coverage. The broadcast craft is not decoration; it is the reason his corporate sessions land with marketing, CX and customer-service teams who have sat through too many unreadable analytics decks. His corporate roster reflects where social and behavioural data actually matters in large consumer businesses. He has worked with Sony PlayStation, Diageo, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds, Barclays, ASOS, UMG, Skoda, GoCompare, Microsoft and Teradata on what audiences are doing, what they are signalling, and how customer-service and merchandising operations should respond. In 2015 he co-founded Mr Bridger, a content business developing formats for production companies, which keeps his feet in the studio as well as the boardroom. The second half of his offer, and often the reason he is booked, is hosting. He anchors conferences, moderates panels and presents awards, and clients buy the combination: one voice that can deliver a substantive keynote on digital and data, then carry the rest of the room for the day. Key speaking topics Social media analytics and audience sentiment Big data and consumer behaviour Digital marketing and branding Customer experience and customer service transformation Conference hosting, awards presenting and panel moderation Media, broadcast and the attention economy Ideal for CMOs, brand and marketing directors in consumer-facing businesses Customer experience, customer service and digital transformation leads Conference and awards organisers needing one host across keynote and stage Retail, financial services and entertainment audiences working with large consumer datasets Audience outcomes A clearer read on what their customers are signalling on social and digital channels, with examples they recognise from their own category. A practical sense of where social and behavioural data should connect to operational decisions in marketing, CX and service. Concrete case references from consumer brands, financial services and broadcast, rather than generic digital theory. For hosted events, a single credible voice across keynote, interview and awards that keeps the room with you.

Why organisations work with Christer Holloman He built the playbook he now teaches. As founder and CEO of Divido, he scaled a white-label Buy Now Pay Later platform to 10 countries and an exit into NatWest, raising roughly $50 million from American Express and Sony along the way. His book “Transactional to Transformational: How Banks Innovate” is built on named case studies from Bank of America, BBVA, Citi, Deutsche Bank, ING, J.P. Morgan, Lloyds and Santander, not generic frameworks. He has been on the bank side as HSBC’s first Entrepreneur in Residence, so he speaks to incumbents from inside their own constraints, not as an outsider throwing stones. He works at the live edge of fintech: digital assets, open banking as a commercial play rather than a compliance exercise, and the shift from agentic AI into agentic commerce. Swedish by background, London and New York by career, multilingual, and at ease in a boardroom with both a retail CEO and a risk committee. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Divido (2014-2022); company acquired into NatWest in 2024. Author of “Transactional to Transformational: How Banks Innovate” (Wiley, 2021). Author of “The Social Media MBA” series and “How to Sell Online” (Wiley). Entrepreneur in Residence, HSBC (2022-2023). Co-founder and CEO of sustainable finance platform Credential. MBA, Said Business School, University of Oxford. Forbes contributor on fintech; former tech writer for Sky News. Biography Buy Now Pay Later looked like a retail feature before it looked like an asset class. Divido, the company Christer Holloman founded out of an Oxford MBA thesis in 2014, was one of the first platforms to treat it as infrastructure: a white-label product that banks and lenders could plug into any merchant, in any country, without rebuilding their own stack. By 2022 the business had raised around $50 million from investors including American Express and Sony, operated in 10 markets, and counted Mastercard, BMW and HSBC among its clients. In 2024 it became part of NatWest. That operator experience is the spine of everything he now teaches. After Divido, HSBC made him their first Entrepreneur in Residence, an unusual role that put a founder inside one of the world’s largest banks to challenge how it builds, buys and partners on new technology. It is also the reporting line behind his Wiley book “Transactional to Transformational: How Banks Innovate”, a collection of case studies drawn from named executives at Bank of America, BBVA, Citi, Deutsche Bank, ING, J.P. Morgan, Lloyds, Santander, Standard Chartered and others. The thesis is unsentimental: incumbents can innovate, but only when the operating model, not the PR team, gets redesigned. He has since moved to New York, co-founded the sustainable finance platform Credential, and continued to write for Forbes on fintech. Earlier in his career he launched Glassdoor in Europe for Rich Barton and ran digital product at The Times and The Sunday Times, which gives him a media-trained way of explaining complex regulated products to non-specialist audiences. What senior audiences get is someone who has raised the money, signed the bank partnerships, lived with the compliance questions and then written the book. He is particularly sharp on where AI, digital assets and embedded finance are about to collide inside balance-sheet businesses, and on the specific question of what serious incumbents should do about it. Key speaking topics Fintech and the future of banking Open banking as commercial strategy Digital assets and tokenisation Agentic AI and agentic commerce Buy Now Pay Later and embedded finance Innovation inside regulated industries Scaling a venture from founder to exit Ideal for Bank and insurance executive committees, innovation boards and retail banking leadership CDOs, CIOs and heads of innovation in financial services and large regulated enterprises Fintech, payments and retail finance conferences Corporate venture and M&A teams assessing fintech partnerships or acquisitions Audience outcomes A clear read on how incumbent banks are actually innovating right now, drawn from named case studies rather than consulting templates. Practical judgement on when to build, when to partner with a startup, and when to acquire. A working view of where open banking, digital assets and agentic commerce are converging into the next retail financial product. Founder-level honesty about what it takes to sell into, partner with and exit to a large bank.

Why organisations work with Chris Skinner His Intelligent Money thesis – that by 2030 AI will make money embedded, autonomous, and invisible within daily life – gives financial institutions a specific, time-bound structural challenge to test their strategy against, rather than a generic warning about disruption. Doing Digital draws on direct research inside transformation programmes at JP Morgan Chase, DBS, BBVA, ING, and China Merchants Bank – peer-level evidence on what structural change in banking actually requires, not what frameworks predict. The Finanser, updated daily for more than two decades, means organisations working with Skinner access a commentator whose knowledge base is built from continuous sector tracking rather than periodic research cycles. His advisory work spans the World Economic Forum, World Bank, United Nations, and White House – a perspective tested by global regulators and policymakers alongside market practitioners. The 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from The Payments Association, the largest payments professional community in the UK, represents recognition from peers within the sector rather than from the speaker circuit. Biography highlights Founder and Chair, the Financial Services Club – European financial industry network, founded 2004 Author of 18 books on digital banking and fintech, including Digital Bank, Doing Digital, Digital for Good, and Intelligent Money (Marshall Cavendish, 2024) 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award, The Payments Association Visiting lecturer, Cambridge University; TEDx speaker (TEDx Athens) Non-executive director, 11:FS (fintech consultancy firm) Former VP Marketing and Strategy, Unisys Global Financial Services; former Strategy Director, NCR Financial Services Fellow of the British Computer Society; Fellow of the Institute of Management Services; BSc Management Sciences, Loughborough University Regular commentator on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, and Bloomberg; contributor to American Banker Named among the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology, Wall Street Journal’s Financial News Biography The Finanser, Chris Skinner’s daily blog on financial markets and technology, has run for more than two decades. His 18 books – from Digital Bank to Intelligent Money (Marshall Cavendish, 2024) – form a sustained body of analysis on how digital technology is restructuring banking and what that means for institutions built around managing money on behalf of customers. Intelligent Money argues that by 2030 AI will make money embedded, autonomous, and invisible within daily life. This is a structural challenge asking institutions to account for what purpose they serve when AI handles financial decisions on the customer’s behalf. Doing Digital draws on direct research inside transformation programmes at JP Morgan Chase, DBS, BBVA, ING, and China Merchants Bank. It is one of the few comparative analyses of large-scale banking transformation built from institutional access rather than external observation. Before establishing The Finanser, Skinner was VP of Marketing and Strategy at Unisys Global Financial Services and Strategy Director at NCR Financial Services. He founded the Financial Services Club in 2004. He holds a BSc in Management Sciences from Loughborough University and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society. He has advised on financial system transformation at the World Economic Forum, World Bank, United Nations, and White House, and appears regularly on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, and Bloomberg. In 2023, The Payments Association awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a visiting lecturer at Cambridge University. Key speaking topics Digital transformation in banking and financial services AI and generative finance: the future of money Fintech, payments, and the restructuring of banking models Central bank digital currencies and the digital payments landscape Future banking strategy in a platform-driven economy Technology and ESG in financial services Ideal for Chief executives, strategy directors, and transformation leads in banking and financial services Boards and executive committees of financial institutions navigating digital restructuring Fintech leaders and payments executives Financial regulators and policy teams examining digital money and AI in finance Audience outcomes A specific framework for understanding what AI-driven financial systems mean for existing banking models – not just what technology is changing, but what institutions need to become Case study evidence from major banks including JP Morgan Chase, DBS, and BBVA on what large-scale digital transformation actually requires at an institutional level Clarity on the distinction between digitising banking processes and restructuring banking as a business model A grounded view of where central bank digital currencies, decentralised finance, and AI-managed money systems fit within existing regulatory and institutional frameworks A time-bound analytical perspective on the future of financial services, grounded in two decades of continuous sector tracking

Why organisations work with Chris Gledhill He has worked both sides of the fintech competitive line: inside Lloyds Banking Group’s disruptive innovation function, then co-founding the UK challenger bank Secco as its CEO. Audiences get an advisor fluent in incumbent constraints and start-up economics. His Secco thesis, that customer data and reputation can function as forms of banked value, pushed the UK challenger debate past interface and pricing into a harder conversation about what banks actually sell. He is a consistent top-tier voice in credible fintech influencer indices, including Onalytica’s Fintech Top 100, where he has ranked as high as third, and the CityAM Fintech Powerlist. He contributed to The FinTech Book (Wiley, edited by Susanne Chishti), the first crowdsourced reference work in the field. His chapter on the future evolution of money beyond cryptocurrency is part of the core literature. Biography highlights Former innovation technologist and lead mobile architect within Lloyds Banking Group’s Digital Innovation and Payments team, part of the bank’s disruptive innovation function Co-founder and former CEO of Secco, a pre-licence UK challenger bank built around customer ownership of money, data and reputation Contributor to The FinTech Book (Wiley), edited by Susanne Chishti of FINTECH Circle Author of “Consumerization: The Enterprise Guide to BYOD” Ranked #3 in Onalytica’s Top 100 Fintech Influencers and a recurring feature in CityAM’s Fintech Powerlist TEDx speaker and long-running commentator on fintech and digital banking Biography Most retail banks are not structured to reinvent themselves. They are built to run their current model efficiently, which is a different problem. The result is a sector that uses the language of transformation while iterating on the same product shelf. Chris Gledhill has argued the opposite case from both sides of the line. Inside Lloyds Banking Group’s Digital Innovation and Payments team, he worked as a lead mobile architect and innovation technologist within what the bank called its disruptive innovation lab. He then co-founded Secco, a pre-licence UK challenger bank, and became its CEO. Secco’s proposition went further than most. Where other UK challengers matched the incumbents on product and improved the interface, Secco proposed that a bank could hold data and reputation alongside money, with the customer owning and controlling both. Gledhill set out the fuller argument in The FinTech Book (Wiley), edited by Susanne Chishti. His chapter asks what money becomes once value itself can be both social and programmable. He is a consistent feature in credible fintech indices, including Onalytica’s Top 100 Fintech Influencers, where he has ranked as high as third, and the CityAM Fintech Powerlist. For boards and strategy teams, that recognition reflects a decade of specific public arguments carried into industry discourse. Key speaking topics Fintech and the future of financial services Digital banking and challenger bank strategy Emerging technology in banking: AI, blockchain, biometrics Digital identity and customer data ownership Innovation inside incumbent financial institutions Open banking and the API economy Ideal for Banking and financial services leadership teams confronting digital-native competitors Heads of digital and innovation inside incumbent financial institutions Fintech and payments industry conferences and strategy offsites Financial services boards setting strategy through a period of technology-led disintermediation Audience outcomes A sharper strategic map of where digital banking is heading and what that means for incumbent business models First-hand perspective on the full-stack challenger bank thesis, including what Secco actually tried to build and why Better questions to take back to boards about customer data ownership and digital identity Informed judgement on which emerging technologies are genuine strategic levers for banks and which are features chasing problems

Why organisations work with Chris Barton He built a product under conditions that proved his point: no smartphones, no app stores, no viable algorithm, and a consensus view from MIT and Stanford that the problem was unsolvable. Shazam survived six years of near-bankruptcy before the App Store arrived. That timeline is the argument, not a metaphor for it. His two named frameworks – «Start from Zero» and «Creative Persistence» – give innovation leads something to work with after the event: a method for stripping assumptions back to first principles, and a model for distinguishing productive persistence from sunk-cost thinking. His role building Android’s carrier distribution infrastructure at Google, and leading mobile carrier partnerships at Dropbox, means his perspective on how transformative products actually reach scale is drawn from the operational history of three category-defining companies. He holds 12 patents across Shazam, Google, and Dropbox – including one employed in the Google Search algorithm – and testified as a key DOJ witness in the Google antitrust trial on the mobile default deals he personally negotiated. That depth of institutional involvement in the mobile computing era is not a speaker credential; it is a primary source. Guard Inc., his current startup applying AI to drowning detection in swimming pools, is a live demonstration that his frameworks are not retrospective lessons from one successful exit – he is still using them on a problem that experts regard as unsolved. Biography highlights Co-founder and first CEO of Shazam; the company was acquired by Apple in 2018 for a reported $400 million and has been downloaded more than 2 billion times First business development employee at Google focused on mobile partnerships; led the carrier agreements with Verizon and AT&T that established Android’s distribution infrastructure One of the first 100 employees at Dropbox, heading mobile carrier partnerships Holds 12 patents across Shazam, Google, and Dropbox, including one employed in the Google Search algorithm BA Economics and MBA, UC Berkeley; Master in Finance, University of Cambridge; early career at L.E.K. Consulting Key witness for the U.S. Department of Justice in the United States v. Google LLC antitrust trial (2023), testifying on mobile search default agreements he personally negotiated Founder and CEO of Guard Inc., an AI startup building drowning detection technology for swimming pools Biography Most organisations treat innovation as a culture question. Chris Barton treats it as a methods problem. As co-founder and first CEO of Shazam – the music recognition app Apple acquired in 2018 for a reported $400 million – he built a category that did not exist, under conditions that should have made it impossible. When Barton conceived the idea in 1999, there were no smartphones, no app stores, and no algorithm capable of identifying music from ambient audio. Professors at MIT and Stanford told him the pattern recognition problem could not be solved. Shazam launched commercially in 2002 and survived six years of near-bankruptcy before the App Store created its distribution opportunity. It reached 300 million monthly active users before Apple acquired it. The timeline matters: this is not a story about a fast breakthrough. It is a story about sustained method under prolonged failure. His track record inside the companies that built mobile computing adds a different layer of authority. At Google he was the first business development employee focused on mobile, leading the carrier agreements with Verizon and AT&T that established Android’s distribution infrastructure. At Dropbox he was one of the first 100 employees, heading mobile carrier partnerships. He holds 12 patents across all three companies, including one used in the Google Search algorithm, and in 2023 testified as a key DOJ witness in the United States v. Google LLC antitrust trial – speaking to the mobile default deals he personally negotiated. His frameworks – «Start from Zero» and «Creative Persistence» – extract a repeatable method from that experience: how to strip assumptions back to first principles, and how to sustain focus on core insight when resistance is at its strongest. He applies both now as founder and CEO of Guard Inc., an AI startup building drowning detection technology for swimming pools – a problem, again, that multiple experts have called unsolvable. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and startup creation Innovation under expert and institutional resistance Consumer AI and the origins of mobile technology Friction elimination and product simplicity Creative Persistence as an organisational method Technology and business model disruption Assumption-stripping and first-principles thinking Ideal for Senior leadership and innovation teams at large organisations launching new products or business units against internal or expert resistance Chief Digital Officers, CTOs, and heads of innovation building internal capability for breakthrough thinking Entrepreneurial organisations and scale-up leadership navigating prolonged uncertainty Conference audiences of founders, technology executives, and business leaders in high-disruption sectors Audience outcomes A working understanding of the «Start from Zero» and «Creative Persistence» frameworks, and how to apply them when pursuing ideas facing expert or institutional opposition A concrete model for distinguishing productive persistence from sunk-cost thinking – drawn from six years of near-bankruptcy at Shazam before the product reached scale Specific techniques for identifying and eliminating friction – the unnecessary effort that prevents otherwise viable ideas from reaching users A revised understanding of how transformative consumer products (Shazam, Android, Dropbox) were built from first principles, not from incremental improvement Greater organisational confidence in pursuing ideas that current consensus dismisses