Artificial Intelligence & Generative AI

Why organisations work with Claudia Bechstein A working chair for high-stakes technology and AI conversations, with the subject fluency to interrogate engineers, regulators and CEOs in the same panel without losing the room. Around 150 live appearances per year across IAA Mobility, GreenTech Festival, Bitkom AI & Data Summit and the German Federal Government Digital Summit, which means she walks into a tech main stage already knowing the room and the operators in it. Bilingual delivery in German and English at the level required for a Bundesregierung digital summit and an English-language CEO panel on the same brief, with no drop in confidence between the two. Co-creator of the KI Palooza Festival, the Stuttgart AI platform for mid-market companies, which gives her a working view of where AI is actually being deployed below the FAANG and DAX 40 level. A trained business psychologist, so the moderation is built around how people answer under pressure, not around a presenter script. Biography highlights MSc in Business Psychology, FOM University of Applied Sciences Berlin and University of San Diego (2020). Co-creator of KI Palooza, a Stuttgart AI festival for mid-market companies. Moderates approximately 150 live events per year, in German and English, across congresses, fireside chats, press conferences and hybrid formats. Recurring chair for IAA Mobility, GreenTech Festival Berlin, Bitkom AI & Data Summit, the German Federal Government Digital Summit, ABB Robotics and the Lobster Data Hero Summit. Worked with Bosch, Salesforce, Porsche, BMW, Dell Technologies, Vodafone, Telekom, Volkswagen, Samsung, Hyundai, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, UBS, Julius Bär, Handelsblatt and ZDF. Investor in HealthTech and shareholder in a media production company. Biography The chair of a serious technology conference is doing real work. They are deciding which question gets asked, which answer gets pushed back on, and which CEO is allowed to retreat into talking points. Claudia Bechstein has built a fifteen-year career around that specific craft, in German and English, at the level of IAA Mobility, the GreenTech Festival, the Bitkom AI & Data Summit and the German Federal Government Digital Summit. Her route into the role is unusual. She trained as a business psychologist, completing an MSc at FOM Berlin and the University of San Diego in 2020, and the discipline shows in how she runs a panel. She is interested in how people answer under pressure, where they get vague, and where the room stops believing them. That is a different toolkit from broadcast presenting, and it is the reason she is booked repeatedly for technical panels where executives have rehearsed answers and operators have unrehearsed ones. The subject base is technology, AI, mobility and the energy transition. She is co-creator of KI Palooza, a Stuttgart festival built around how mid-market German companies actually deploy AI, and an active investor in HealthTech. The work for Bosch, Salesforce, Porsche, BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Dell, Vodafone, Telekom, ABB Robotics, Volvo and Hyundai is in the same territory: industrial, automotive, data, transformation. For organisations running an AI conference, a transformation summit or a board-level mobility conversation, the practical question is whether the chair can hold the room. Bechstein’s commercial proposition is that she has done so, in two languages, at roughly 150 events a year, for the German industrial economy and a growing list of international clients. Key speaking topics Conference and panel moderation for technology and AI events Artificial intelligence and digital transformation Future of mobility and the automotive industry Sustainability, climate and the energy transition Industry 4.0 and industrial transformation Innovation in mid-market and DAX companies Data and digitalisation HealthTech and FinTech Ideal for Conference organisers running technology, AI, mobility or sustainability summits who need a working chair, not a presenter DAX and mid-market communications and event leads commissioning bilingual (German and English) main-stage hosting Industry associations and federal bodies running policy-and-industry events where the chair has to credibly interrogate ministers and CEOs Boards and executive teams running internal AI, transformation or leadership conferences that include external operators and regulators Audience outcomes A conference programme that runs to time and reads as a strategic conversation, not a series of vendor pitches Panels where the senior speakers are pushed past their prepared answers without the room losing them Bilingual coverage of the same brief, in German and English, without a drop in pace or precision A working AI, mobility or sustainability discussion that the in-house team can use as source material after the event

Why organisations work with Rohit Bhargava He brings a decade of annual trend research, distilled into the Non-Obvious and Megatrends book series, into a board or strategy off-site as a working method, not a slide deck. The SIFT framework gives marketing, innovation and strategy teams a shared language for separating durable shifts from passing noise, which most trend keynotes leave unresolved. His client list (NASA, Disney, World Bank, Intel, American Express) signals a track record with organisations that have to make capital decisions on long horizons, not just generate quarterly campaigns. Beyond Diversity, co-authored with Jennifer Brown, gives him a credible second register on inclusion as a commercial and cultural question, useful when a single keynote needs to cover both growth strategy and people. He works as a trained marketer (15 years at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett), which means innovation and trend content lands with sales, brand and customer leaders rather than staying at the level of abstract foresight. Biography highlights 3-time Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of ten books, including #1 WSJ bestseller Non-Obvious Megatrends. Adjunct professor of marketing and storytelling at Georgetown University. Co-founder of Ideapress Publishing and founder of the Non-Obvious Company. Co-author of Beyond Diversity with Jennifer Brown (Simon & Schuster / Ideapress); WSJ bestseller. Keynote and workshop work for NASA, Disney, Intel, American Express, World Bank, Coca-Cola, Microsoft. Featured speaker at five SXSW events; keynote at SXSW Sydney 2023, the first SXSW outside the United States. Biography Trend forecasting is crowded. Most of what circulates inside large organisations is a recycled version of the same six themes: AI, sustainability, hybrid work, generational change, geopolitics, the consumer. The harder question for a senior team is which of those headlines actually changes how they should allocate capital next year, and which signals further out are not yet on anyone’s deck. That gap is the work Rohit Bhargava has built a decade-long research practice around. His Non-Obvious book series, published annually from 2015 and culminating in the WSJ and USA Today #1 bestseller Non-Obvious Megatrends in 2020, reached more than a million readers. The follow-up, The Future Normal, co-authored with Henry Coutinho-Mason and launched at SXSW in 2023, covers thirty shifts shaping the next decade, from generative AI to biophilic design. The 2024 book Non-Obvious Thinking, written with Ben duPont, formalises the SIFT method, a four-step habit for curating ideas that audiences can take into their own teams. Before becoming a full-time author and speaker, Bhargava spent 15 years in brand strategy roles at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett, advising consumer brands on behaviour and storytelling. He teaches marketing and storytelling at Georgetown University as an adjunct professor, and writes a monthly column for Inc. on books that matter. With Jennifer Brown he co-authored Beyond Diversity, a Wall Street Journal bestseller published by Simon & Schuster and Ideapress, which examines inclusion across twelve domains including workplace, leadership and technology. The client list, NASA, Disney, the World Bank, Intel, American Express, Microsoft, signals where the work lands hardest: organisations that need to translate cultural and technological signals into product, capital and brand decisions on multi-year horizons. The point is not to predict the future but to teach a working team to spot it earlier than the competition. Key speaking topics Trend forecasting and the non-obvious method Innovation as a research discipline Marketing and brand in low-trust markets AI and the future of trust The Future Normal: thirty shifts reshaping commerce Inclusive growth and Beyond Diversity Storytelling for senior leaders Creative thinking and curation as a managed habit Ideal for Chief marketing officers, brand teams and customer experience leads navigating attention and trust in saturated markets Chief strategy officers, innovation leads and corporate development teams setting multi-year direction Boards and executive committees commissioning a sharper view of how cultural and technological shifts will hit their category Sales and partner kickoffs where a strategy team wants a working method, not a trend slide Audience outcomes A working knowledge of the SIFT method and how to use it inside a team A named set of cultural and commercial shifts that are relevant to the audience’s specific industry, not generic trend lists A shared vocabulary for separating durable signals from passing noise Practical examples of how organisations including NASA, Disney and World Bank have translated trend research into operating decisions Confidence that trend work can be a repeatable internal habit, not a one-off external report

Why organisations work with Melica Moshiri Operating knowledge of the AI scale-up hiring market. SkillTorch places go-to-market, C-suite and technical leaders into companies across automation, robotics, semiconductors and enterprise AI. A founder’s view of what it takes to start and run a specialist business from cold, not a consultant’s view of someone else’s growth. A public platform built through BBC’s The Apprentice (2025) and a TEDxWorthing talk, giving her access to audiences beyond a typical recruitment specialist. A working perspective on how AI is changing recruiting itself, drawn from running an AI-focused search firm and hosting the SkillTorch Disrupt podcast with founders and operators in the field. Biography highlights Founder, SkillTorch, retained and embedded search for venture-backed AI companies across North America and Europe Host, SkillTorch Disrupt podcast on hiring, leadership and applied AI TEDxWorthing speaker, October 2025: “How to reconnect in a robotic world” BBC The Apprentice 2025 contestant, reached Week 8, won five tasks including Project Manager Speaking platforms include NBCUniversal, Spotify and the University of Brighton BA (Hons) Law with Business, University of Brighton Biography AI companies in their first scaling phase usually have two problems at once. The product is moving faster than the leadership team can hire for, and the executive roles they need most are the ones the founders have never personally done. SkillTorch was built to sit inside that gap. Melica Moshiri founded SkillTorch in 2022 after a decade in recruitment that took her from Pareto Law in the UK through executive search in advertising technology to Los Angeles and Orange County, where she opened a US office for a UK firm before launching her own. The firm runs retained and embedded search for venture-backed AI companies across the US and Europe, placing senior commercial, technical and operational leaders into businesses in automation, robotics, semiconductors and enterprise AI. In 2025 she became a contestant on BBC’s The Apprentice, reaching Week 8 and winning five tasks, including one as Project Manager. The platform extended her public reach across BBC News, BBC Radio 5 Live, the Daily Mail, The Mirror and Persian broadcaster Manoto TV, and led to a TEDxWorthing talk later that year on how technology is reshaping the way people connect at work. She also hosts SkillTorch Disrupt, a podcast with founders and operators building applied AI in real-world settings. The recurring theme across her client work, her broadcasting and her speaking is the same: how small, recently funded companies design leadership teams that can hold up when growth gets ahead of the org chart. Key speaking topics Building and scaling a specialist business in the AI sector Executive hiring for venture-backed technology companies AI’s effect on recruiting and talent strategy Resilience and reinvention as a first-time founder Women founding and leading in technology Personal brand and visibility for entrepreneurs Ideal for Founders and CEOs of early-stage and Series A to C technology companies Heads of Talent and CHROs scaling teams inside AI-native businesses Entrepreneurship programmes, accelerators and university enterprise audiences Conferences on women in technology, leadership and founding Audience outcomes A working picture of how senior hiring inside AI scale-ups actually runs, from brief to closed offer Specific examples of what goes wrong when founders hire too late or too senior, and how to read the signals earlier A candid account of the public, financial and personal exposure that comes with founding a business and a media profile at the same time Practical positioning for women entering or founding in technology, drawn from her own market

Why organisations work with Susi O’Neill She translates frontier technology into language non-technical executives can act on, drawing on years running global brand content for Kaspersky, the world’s largest privately owned cybersecurity firm. Her practice is built around the adoption gap, not the technology itself, which is why she resonates with leaders whose AI rollouts have stalled at proof-of-concept. She brings a builder’s track record in tech storytelling, including the Platinum MarCom Award winning Insight Story podcast for Kaspersky and Editor-in-Chief roles on Secure Futures magazine and the Tomorrow Unlocked channel. Through EVA and her Rethinking the Hype Cycle newsletter, she works with leaders on inclusive AI adoption, including the lag in women’s engagement with AI tools and what closing it changes about who benefits from the technology. Biography highlights Founder and Executive Director of EVA, a London-based technology and communications consultancy. Former Head of B2B Brand Content (Global) at Kaspersky. Editor-in-Chief of Kaspersky’s Secure Futures magazine and Tomorrow Unlocked cyberculture channel. Creator and host of the Platinum MarCom Award winning Insight Story podcast. Named in Pepper Content’s Top 50 Global Women in Content 2023. Author of the Rethinking the Hype Cycle newsletter on AI and frontier technology adoption. Biography The hard part of AI is rarely the model. It is the distance between an executive sponsor and the team being asked to use a new tool by Friday. O’Neill has spent her career working that distance, first inside one of the world’s largest cybersecurity firms, now from the outside through her consultancy EVA. At Kaspersky, she ran global B2B brand content and edited Secure Futures, the company’s business-leader magazine, alongside the Tomorrow Unlocked cyberculture channel. She commissioned and hosted Insight Story, a podcast unpacking tech trends for executives that won a Platinum MarCom Award in 2023. The work taught her how senior buyers actually absorb information about complex technology, and where the standard tech-marketing playbook fails them. EVA, the practice she founded next, takes that experience into client work on AI strategy, responsible technology and adoption. Her newsletter Rethinking the Hype Cycle puts the same question to a wider audience: what does a serious organisation do once the AI announcement is out and the cultural work begins. She also writes and speaks on inclusive adoption, including the documented lag in women’s use of generative AI tools and what it costs organisations that ignore it. Earlier brand-content programmes for EY, GSK and Unilever, and a recognition in Pepper Content’s Top 50 Global Women in Content, sit behind that current work. The throughline is consistent. Technology only changes a business when the people inside it are willing to use it, and most organisations are still under-investing in the communications and trust work that makes that happen. Key speaking topics AI adoption and the hype cycle Responsible and trusted technology Frontier and emerging technologies for business Inclusive AI and women in technology Tech communications and thought leadership Cybersecurity culture and digital trust Ideal for CIO, CTO and Chief Digital Officer audiences whose AI programmes have stalled in pilot. CMO, communications and brand leaders building tech credibility with non-technical buyers. Boards and executive teams setting AI governance and responsible-use principles. Diversity, talent and L&D leaders working on inclusive AI capability across the workforce. Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where their organisation actually sits on the AI hype cycle, and which moves are worth making next. A practical sense of how to bring sceptical or hesitant employees with them, instead of around them. Specific examples of how serious organisations are translating frontier tech into adoption, not just announcements. A sharper view of inclusive AI as a capability question, including who is using these tools and who is being left behind.

Why organisations work with Daniel Hulme He runs AI inside a FTSE 100 holding company. When he talks about deployment at scale he is describing decisions he is currently making across WPP’s operating businesses, not modelling them from the outside. He sold the AI consultancy he founded, Satalia, to WPP after building it across clients including Tesco, Unilever, PwC, BT and the BBC. The deployment track record is operational, not slideware. As founder of Conscium, the first commercial research organisation on machine consciousness, he can address AI safety and the frontier governance questions that boards are starting to ask, without retreating into philosophy. His UCL credentials are substantive, an EngD in AI, the former directorship of the Applied AI MSc, and a current Entrepreneur-in-Residence role. The science behind the commercial advice is real. He signed the 2017 open letter to the United Nations on autonomous weapons alongside Musk, Hinton, Russell and Hassabis. He has been in the public AI governance conversation for almost a decade, well before it became fashionable. Biography highlights Chief AI Officer, WPP plc, coordinating AI strategy across the group since the 2021 acquisition of Satalia. Founder and former CEO of Satalia, the UK AI company named to Gartner’s Cool Vendors list for data science in 2016. Founder and CEO, Conscium, a London-based commercial research organisation studying machine consciousness and neuromorphic AI, founded 2024. EngD and Master’s in Artificial Intelligence, University College London. Computer Science Entrepreneur-in-Residence at UCL. Faculty member, Singularity University, on AI, ethics, innovation and organisational design. Founding Fellow, Academy for the Mathematical Sciences (2026). Co-author, Stories from 2045 (Economic Singularity Foundation, 2019). Signatory, 2017 open letter to the United Nations on lethal autonomous weapons. Biography WPP acquired Satalia in 2021 and made its founder its Chief AI Officer across the group. That move put one person in charge of AI strategy across a FTSE 100 advertising and marketing holding company, with operating brands that touch most of the world’s largest consumer businesses. The job is what most boards are now wrestling with on a smaller scale. Daniel Hulme founded Satalia in 2008 out of his AI research at University College London, where he earned his EngD and went on to direct the Applied AI MSc programme. Satalia’s work for clients including Tesco, Unilever, PwC, BT and the BBC sat at the unglamorous end of AI, optimisation, decision intelligence and operational decision-making, which is where deployment usually succeeds or fails. In 2024 he co-founded Conscium, a commercial research organisation focused on machine consciousness and neuromorphic AI. The work matters commercially because the next set of AI governance questions, around verification, autonomy and accountability, are not solved by the current generation of large language models. He was a signatory to the 2017 open letter to the United Nations on autonomous weapons, alongside Musk, Hinton, Russell and Hassabis, which placed him in the public AI safety conversation long before it reached boardrooms. He remains UCL’s Computer Science Entrepreneur-in-Residence, holds Singularity University faculty status, and was elected a Founding Fellow of the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences in 2026. The combination matters for one practical reason. When he discusses how AI is being deployed inside a FTSE 100 company, the technical claims are coming from someone with a research apparatus underneath them. Key speaking topics Applied AI in large enterprises AI strategy and the Chief AI Officer role AI ethics, safety and governance Machine consciousness and frontier AI research Decision intelligence and optimisation The future of work under AI Organisational design through technology Ideal for Boards and executive committees making AI investment and governance decisions Chief AI Officers, CTOs, CIOs and Chief Data Officers shaping enterprise AI strategy Risk, audit and compliance leaders working out AI accountability Innovation, transformation and digital leaders moving AI beyond pilots Audience outcomes A clearer view of what AI can realistically deliver inside their own organisation in the next 18 months, separated from vendor narrative. Working language for the governance and safety questions their board will be asked, including where the limits of current AI sit. A more honest read on which AI use cases are commercially defensible and which are not yet. Exposure to frontier research questions, including machine consciousness, that will shape the next wave of AI regulation.

Why organisations work with Christina Yan Zhang She co-writes the UN ITU standards her clients will eventually be measured against. Her CitiVerse evaluation framework spans 130 indicators across 14 domains, with input from more than 30 global authorities. She has converted that standards work into operational strategy for cities, including Tampere’s Metaverse Vision 2040, the first people-centred metaverse strategy adopted as a UN resource for governments. Her China innovation insight is grounded in direct operating experience, not commentary. As QS China Director from 2013 to 2020, she sat across hundreds of Chinese universities, national labs and science parks during the 13th Five-Year Plan. She holds advisory positions across the International Science Council’s Centre for Science Futures, The Economist Impact’s AI economy board, and TechUK’s Digital Twins Board, giving her unusually direct line of sight into where AI policy is heading. She was named in the 100 Global Women in AI 2025 list at Davos and chaired the jury of the 2024 Metaverse Entertainment World Awards under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco. Biography highlights CEO, The Metaverse Institute Vice Chair, UN ITU Metaverse Working Group on Sustainability, Accessibility and Inclusion Co-Chair, UN ITU Task Group on Pre-standardisation for the CitiVerse Author of the UN’s first approved technical report on People-Centred CitiVerse China Director, QS World University Rankings, 2013 to 2020 100 Global Women in AI 2025 (announced at Davos) Biography The rules for AI in cities, public services and immersive environments are being written right now, mostly inside the UN ITU. Christina Yan Zhang is one of the people writing them. As Co-Chair of the UN ITU Task Group on Pre-standardisation for the CitiVerse, she leads the evaluation framework that 30 plus global authorities have shaped and that hundreds of cities are expected to align to before 2030. That standards work feeds directly into operational strategy. Her team at The Metaverse Institute produced Tampere Metaverse Vision 2040, the first people-centred metaverse strategy commissioned by a city government and subsequently published by the UN as a resource for other administrations. She is also the author of the UN’s first approved technical report on People-Centred CitiVerse, which set out an 8-level entry framework for governments and operators moving into virtual environments. She arrived at this work through an unusual route. Her PhD in 2012 was on digital twin applications for the construction industry, well before the term entered mainstream board conversations. Between 2013 and 2020 she was China Director for QS World University Rankings, building the firm’s China operation from scratch and sitting close to the universities, science parks and national labs that drove the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan in research and innovation. She now advises across the International Science Council’s Centre for Science Futures, The Economist Impact’s AI economy board, and TechUK’s Digital Twins Board. The throughline is consistent: where AI, digital twins and virtual environments meet public infrastructure, she has been writing the standards before most boards have read them. Key speaking topics AI governance and the UN CitiVerse standards Digital twins for cities and critical infrastructure Responsible deployment of virtual environments People-centred AI strategy for governments and operators China’s innovation system and research capacity Future of work in AI-enabled cities Ideal for Boards and C-suites setting AI, digital and immersive technology strategy Government and city leadership teams designing smart city or CitiVerse roadmaps Heads of innovation, digital and infrastructure inside regulated industries Investors and operators positioning capital around AI-powered urban and built-environment plays Audience outcomes A working map of where UN ITU standards on AI and the CitiVerse are heading, and what that means for their own roadmap A clearer view of how digital twins move from technical pilot to citywide operating system Direct insight into China’s innovation engine from someone who operated inside it for seven years A framework for testing whether their current AI and virtual-environment plans will hold up against emerging international standards

Why organisations work with Kai Gondlach Brings academic foresight methodology (Master of Arts in Future Studies, Freie Universitat Berlin) into rooms that usually receive trend talks. The difference shows in how scenarios are constructed, not just how they are presented. Co-editor of Arbeitswelt und KI 2030, the Springer Gabler reference volume that pulled together 78 contributors on AI and the world of work. Few keynote speakers on AI sit on a publication of comparable academic weight in the German-speaking market. Built the scientific methodology behind a major commercial trend-research institute (2b AHEAD) before founding PROFORE. Boards get a foresight practitioner, not a generalist commentator. Works in both German and English, with sustained client traction in regulated sectors, insurance, mobility, energy, public administration, where foresight needs to survive contact with risk and compliance teams. Biography highlights Master of Arts in Future Studies, Freie Universitat Berlin; bachelor degrees in Sociology and Political/Administrative Sciences from Universitat Potsdam. Founder and Managing Director, PROFORE Gesellschaft fur Zukunft mbH, Leipzig. Co-editor of Arbeitswelt und KI 2030 (Springer Gabler), with Inka Knappertsbusch. Author and editor of further volumes including KI Jetzt! and Regenerative Zukunfte und kunstliche Intelligenz. Former Senior Research Fellow at 2b AHEAD ThinkTank, where he established the institute’s scientific foresight methodology. Member of the World Futures Studies Federation; founding member of the German Master of Future Science alumni network. Biography Strategic foresight is the discipline most often demanded and least often supplied at board level. Companies ask for a view of the next decade and receive a trend list. Kai Gondlach trained in the academic version of the discipline at Freie Universitat Berlin, where he completed the Master of Arts in Future Studies, before bringing that methodology into commercial practice. His four years as Senior Research Fellow at 2b AHEAD ThinkTank in Leipzig were spent translating academic foresight into work that industrial clients could act on. He built the scientific basis for the institute’s trend studies, then left in 2019 to found PROFORE, his own Leipzig-based foresight institute. The shift was deliberate. Clients increasingly wanted long-range scenarios that held up under board scrutiny, not headline trends. His publishing record sits on Springer Gabler. Arbeitswelt und KI 2030, co-edited with Inka Knappertsbusch, gathered 78 contributors across research and industry on how AI reshapes the structure of work; a second edition followed in 2024. KI Jetzt! and the Regenerative Zukunfte und kunstliche Intelligenz volumes extend the same method into operational AI and into the ecological and social dimensions of the technology. Gondlach is a member of the World Futures Studies Federation and a founding member of the German Master of Future Science alumni network. Boards in insurance, mobility, energy, and public administration use him when the question is not whether AI matters, but how to plan capital, talent, and operating model around a future that resists single-point forecasting. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight and scenario planning Artificial intelligence in the world of work Future of work and workforce transformation Industry 5.0 and regenerative futures Mobility, energy and sustainability to 2050 Long-range megatrends for boards and executives Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting long-range AI and workforce strategy CHROs and transformation leads redesigning the workforce around AI capability CSOs and corporate strategy teams in regulated sectors (insurance, mobility, energy, public administration) Innovation and R&D leadership briefing senior stakeholders on long-horizon scenarios Audience outcomes A working method for thinking about long-range futures, not a memorable trend list Sharper distinction between trends, scenarios, and forecasts in their own strategy conversations A defensible language for talking about AI with boards that resists hype on either side Concrete reference points from German-speaking industry on how AI is restructuring the world of work

Why organisations work with Christian Stiegler He works at the rare junction of three constituencies that rarely speak the same language: regulators, corporates and creative-industry partners. His client list runs from the European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ to Björk, Phoebe Bridgers and the team behind #bravehood with Coldplay and The Rolling Stones. His MIT Press book, The 360° Gaze, gives him a peer-reviewed framework for immersive media that buyers can cite when justifying XR, metaverse or AI-content investments to a sceptical board. He has advised the European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ on algorithmic accountability and digital governance, which means his governance content reflects what regulators are actually pressing for, not a generic responsible-AI script. He runs Guiding Light, an organisation built specifically to convert ethics and sustainability principles into deployable technology programmes, so his keynotes connect to a delivery practice rather than ending at the slide deck. Biography highlights Director, Guiding Light (Organisation for Ethics and Sustainability in Technologies), Vienna and Berlin. Academic Director Design and faculty, IU International University of Applied Sciences, Germany; research focus on AI, XR, Metaverse and technology ethics. Former Wallscourt Associate Professor of Immersive Media, UWE Bristol; former Associate Professor / Senior Lecturer in Digital Media, Brunel University London. Author, The 360° Gaze: Immersions in Media, Society, and Culture (MIT Press, 2021); earlier monograph New Media Culture (transcript, 2015). Named advisor to the European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ on AI ethics, algorithmic accountability and digital governance. Speaker at SXSW, Cannes XR, Berlinale, International Film Festival Rotterdam, MIPTV Cannes and C21 Content Summit London. Biography Most organisations describe AI ethics as a principle and treat it as a compliance task. The decisions that decide outcomes, what training data is licensed, how a model is evaluated before release, who owns the recall trigger, sit several layers below the published policy. That is the operating gap Christian Stiegler works in. As Director of Guiding Light, the Vienna and Berlin organisation he founded for ethics and sustainability in technologies, he advises governments, multilateral bodies and corporates on translating governance principles into deployment decisions. Named advisory clients include the European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ, covering algorithmic accountability, AI ethics and digital policy. His academic anchor is The 360° Gaze: Immersions in Media, Society, and Culture (MIT Press, 2021), a peer-reviewed treatment of immersive media that underwrites his work on XR, the metaverse and AI-generated content. He holds faculty positions in technology ethics at IU International University of Applied Sciences in Germany, and was previously Wallscourt Associate Professor of Immersive Media at UWE Bristol and Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at Brunel University London. He also operates across the creative industries, an unusual range for an AI ethics voice. Through his #bravehood initiative with UNICEF and War Child he has worked with Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Björk, Phoebe Bridgers and others on the technology-driven design of social-impact campaigns. That cross-sector reach is what buyers in regulated industries tend to remark on; he can move between a regulator’s framing, a CTO’s risk register and a brand team’s storytelling problem without losing the thread. Key speaking topics AI ethics and algorithmic accountability Digital policy and AI governance Extended reality and the metaverse Sustainable and human-centred innovation Immersive media and cultural impact of emerging technologies Tech for good and social-impact technology design Ideal for Boards and audit committees setting AI governance and assurance frameworks Chief AI officers, CDOs and CTOs moving from responsible-AI principles to deployed controls Government, regulator and multilateral teams shaping digital policy and AI regulation Brand, content and creative leadership teams evaluating XR, metaverse and generative-AI investments Audience outcomes A clearer map of where regulator attention is actually concentrating across AI governance and digital policy A working distinction between AI ethics as principle and AI ethics as operating practice Reference frames from The 360° Gaze that audiences can use to assess XR, metaverse and generative-content decisions Examples from European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ advisory work that show how governance language converts into named deployment decisions

Why organisations work with Mike Evans He gives an audience a defence plan for AI disruption, not a forecast. The 7-Sided Pincer Movement maps the forces reshaping work, and the 5-Ingredient Kryptonite Defence sets out the capabilities that keep people and teams hard to replace. He has worked these forces since the 1990s, inside Kotter International, FranklinCovey, and Tom Peters Company, which puts three decades of change practice behind a topic most speakers picked up after 2023. He built and tested the frameworks inside 34 of the Fortune 50, with named results such as shorter decision cycles at Intel and a rebuilt pilot training pipeline at the US Army Aviation Center. He builds each keynote backward from a structured discovery call with the client, so the room gets its own challenges addressed rather than a stock talk. His Kryptonite Scorecard, a 30-behaviour diagnostic, and the distributed ownership thesis in Achieve with Accountability give a leadership team a way to keep working the plan after the session. Biography highlights Author of two books: Distinct or Extinct: Future-Proofing People and Organizations in the Age of AI (Pincer Press, 2026) and Achieve with Accountability (Wiley). Founder of Pincer Press; works full-time as a keynote speaker and author. Former senior consultant at Kotter International, FranklinCovey, and Tom Peters Company, working alongside John Kotter, Stephen Covey, and Tom Peters. Clients include 34 of the Fortune 50, among them Intel, Apple, PepsiCo, Caterpillar, Cargill, Capital One, and Pfizer. Developer of the 7-Sided Pincer Movement and the 5-Ingredient Kryptonite Defence, with the Kryptonite Scorecard diagnostic. Biography Seven forces are reshaping how organisations work at the same time: software, robotics, globalisation, outsourcing, digital transformation, disruptive competition, and AI as the accelerant that multiplies the rest. Most organisations defend one flank while the other six go unguarded. Mike Evans has worked these forces since the 1990s, well before AI made them urgent. He built his frameworks inside Kotter International, FranklinCovey, and Tom Peters Company. He worked directly with John Kotter on change acceleration, with Stephen Covey on personal effectiveness, and with Tom Peters on operational excellence. His 2026 book, Distinct or Extinct, turns that history into a method. It argues that people and organisations survive disruption by becoming hard to replace, through five capabilities: ideas, speed, talent, distinction, and leadership at all levels. Evans founded Pincer Press to publish it, choosing speed to market over a traditional deal so it reached leaders inside the 2026 disruption window. The frameworks were tested inside 34 of the Fortune 50, including Intel, Apple, PepsiCo, and the US Army Aviation Center. His Wiley book, Achieve with Accountability, supplies the execution layer beneath them, the distributed ownership that lets a workforce act on a plan rather than receive one. At Intel the work shortened decision cycles; at the US Army Aviation Center it rebuilt a pilot training pipeline under a constrained budget. Key speaking topics AI disruption and the future of work Future-proofing people and organisations The 7-Sided Pincer Movement and converging disruptive forces Distributed accountability and execution discipline Change leadership under permanent disruption Personal and organisational distinctiveness Resilience under repeated disruption Ideal for Boards and executive teams deciding how AI changes their workforce and operating model Chief People Officers and Chief Transformation Officers redesigning roles and accountability for an AI-shaped workforce Leadership conferences, annual meetings, and sales kickoffs in sectors under pressure from AI, such as financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, pharma, and technology Associations running “future of the industry” programmes where members are anxious about staying relevant Audience outcomes A map of the seven forces hitting their organisation at once, and which ones they are currently leaving unguarded The five capabilities that keep people and teams hard to replace as AI absorbs routine work A working model for distributing accountability so a workforce can act on the plan rather than receive it Specific changes leaders can put in motion within the week, beyond general AI awareness Shared language senior teams can use after the session to hold momentum

Why organisations work with Nina Schick She published the first book on generative AI in 2020, years before the technology entered the boardroom conversation, which means her current strategic claims sit on a public track record rather than a recent pivot. She is one of very few commercial speakers who has briefed both a sitting US President and a former NATO Secretary General on AI and statecraft, giving senior audiences direct access to the language used at the top of Western policymaking. Her “Industrial Intelligence” thesis reframes AI from a software adoption question into an infrastructure and energy question, which is the conversation CFOs, infrastructure heads, and strategy teams now need but rarely get from a generalist AI speaker. Through Tamang Ventures she holds active advisory roles with frontier firms including Synthesia, valued at $4 billion in its January 2026 Series E led by Google Ventures, alongside Qlik and Truepic, so she speaks from inside the capital and product decisions she describes, not from the outside. Biography highlights Author, Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse (Hachette/Twelve, 2020), translated into multiple languages and widely cited as the first book on AI-generated content Briefed US President Joe Biden and advised former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen as Director of Rasmussen Global Worked on Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 presidential campaign and advised on the Democracy Perception Index, the largest annual study on global attitudes toward democracy Founder of Tamang Ventures; advisor to Synthesia (valued at $4B in its January 2026 Series E), founding AI Council member at Qlik, advisor to Truepic Strategic analyst contributor across CNN, Bloomberg, and Sky News during a decade of European political crises including Brexit and the war in Ukraine Half-Nepalese and half-German, with degrees from the University of Cambridge and University College London; now based in the United States after a decade inside UK and EU policy Biography The race to dominate artificial intelligence is no longer a software race. It is a contest over fabs, energy, compute, and the sovereign infrastructure that will determine which states and which companies hold the next decade of pricing power. That argument, which Nina Schick calls Industrial Intelligence, sits at the centre of her current work with governments, defence institutions, and frontier AI companies. She arrived at it earlier than most. Her 2020 book Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse, published by Hachette imprint Twelve, was among the first to describe the geopolitical and informational consequences of generative AI, written before ChatGPT existed as a public product. It introduced the concept of the Infocalypse and is cited as foundational reading in national security and policy circles. That early thesis is grounded in a long career inside European policymaking. As Director of Rasmussen Global, she advised Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary General, on political risk and the technological evolution of warfare. She worked on Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 presidential campaign and advised on the Democracy Perception Index, the largest annual machine-learning study on global attitudes toward democracy. She has briefed US President Joe Biden on AI, technological integrity, and statecraft, and works with the US Army, the United Nations, and Mastercard on AI and sovereignty. For seven years she also served as a strategic analyst contributor across CNN, Bloomberg, and Sky News during the Brexit, Trump, and Ukraine cycles. Through Tamang Ventures, the advisory firm she founded, she now sits inside the companies building the new stack: Synthesia in enterprise AI video, valued at $4 billion in its January 2026 Series E led by Google Ventures, Qlik in data analytics where she is a founding AI Council member, and Truepic in digital provenance. Now based in the United States, she works with the institutions and capital allocators that will shape what the AI infrastructure stack looks like at the end of this decade. The combination of policy access, commercial proximity, and a public thesis published five years before the market caught up is what makes her useful in a boardroom. Key speaking topics Industrial Intelligence and the AI infrastructure stack Generative AI and corporate strategy AI, semiconductors, and the US-China technology competition AI and energy demand Deepfakes, synthetic media, and information integrity AI in defence, NATO, and statecraft Sovereign AI and the future of national power Ideal for Boards, CEOs, and strategy heads recalibrating long-range AI investment around infrastructure rather than tooling CIOs, CTOs, and chief data officers needing a geopolitical lens on supply, partnerships, and dependency risk Defence, security, and public sector audiences working on AI policy, sovereignty, and statecraft Investor and capital allocator audiences pricing AI exposure across compute, energy, and software layers Audience outcomes A clear thesis about why AI is an infrastructure and energy contest, not only a software adoption question A working frame for assessing corporate exposure to compute, semiconductor, and energy supply constraints Specific examples of how policy, defence, and frontier AI companies are already operating inside the Industrial Intelligence framework Sharper questions to take into the next strategy review on AI, sovereignty, and dependency risk A grounded view of where deepfakes and synthetic media now sit in the corporate and political risk picture

Why organisations work with Kieran Gilmurray He has shipped AI and intelligent automation programmes inside named enterprises including Rapid7, Mercer, and Pearson, with documented savings in the tens of millions. That track record sits behind every framework he presents. His three books on generative AI, agentic AI, and organisational digital transformation give boards a structured reference, not a hype reel. They are written for the executive who has to decide, not the engineer who has to build. He treats agentic AI as an operating model question. The conversation moves quickly from “what is an AI agent” to which decisions an agent should own, what governance the board needs to put around it, and how the workforce is redesigned in response. Seven LinkedIn Top Voice recognitions and Thinkers360 rankings in generative and agentic AI mean the audience is hearing from a voice already widely cited in their own feeds, which lifts the in-room credibility of the conversation. Biography highlights Author of Agentic AI: A Business Leader’s Guide to the Future of Work and Digital Labour, The A to Z of Generative AI, and The A-Z of Organizational Digital Transformation. CEO and Founder, Kieran Gilmurray and Company Limited. Chief AI Innovator, Technology Transformation Group. Seven-time LinkedIn Top Voice in AI and related categories. Listed by Thinkers360 in the Top 50 Generative AI and Top 100 Agentic AI thought leaders. MBA (1st Class Distinction, Entrepreneurship Award) and MSc in Computer Science, both Queen’s University Belfast. Biography The gap between AI ambition and AI in operation has become the defining management problem of the decade. Pilots prove the technology works. Boards then struggle to convert those pilots into structural advantage, and most leadership teams still lack a clear view of which decisions an AI agent should now own. This is the territory Kieran Gilmurray works in. As CEO of Kieran Gilmurray and Company Limited and Chief AI Innovator at the Technology Transformation Group, he advises boards and executive teams on moving generative and agentic AI from concept into operating reality. His work spans finance, HR, customer service, and the wider digital labour stack. The credibility behind the advice is operational. Programmes he has led inside Rapid7, Mercer, and Pearson are referenced across his bureau profiles with quantified outcomes in the tens of millions of pounds and dollars. His three books, including Agentic AI: A Business Leader’s Guide to the Future of Work and Digital Labour, give business leaders a structured way to think about agent design, governance, and workforce redesign without retreating into engineering language. Independent recognition reinforces the position. Kieran has been named a LinkedIn Top Voice seven times and ranks on Thinkers360 leaderboards for both generative AI and agentic AI. He holds an MBA with distinction from Queen’s University Belfast and an MSc in Computer Science from the same institution, a pairing that maps directly onto the audience he writes for: business leaders who need the technology to make commercial sense. Key speaking topics Agentic AI and digital labour Generative AI for business leaders AI strategy and operating model design Intelligent automation at enterprise scale Digital transformation in regulated industries AI governance and board-level oversight Future of work in the age of AI Ideal for Boards and executive committees moving from AI pilots to enterprise deployment CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, and Chief AI Officers designing operating models around generative and agentic AI CHROs and transformation leads redesigning roles and workflows as AI agents enter the workforce Industry conferences in financial services, professional services, technology, insurance, and the public sector Audience outcomes A working definition of agentic AI that distinguishes it from generative AI and earlier automation, with examples from named enterprises A board-level view of where AI agents are already producing operating savings and where they are still pilot theatre A practical map of governance questions a leadership team must answer before scaling AI agents across functions A clear framing of workforce redesign as AI shifts which decisions sit with humans and which sit with digital labour

Why organisations work with Andreas Welsch Two decades inside SAP, including a vice president role connected to its Global AI Center of Excellence, give him a working knowledge of enterprise AI at the scale Fortune 500 boards actually operate. His AI Leadership Handbook is built on 60+ named interviews with AI leaders and offers a practitioner framework rather than commentary on the market. The 9 Steps to Successful AI Projects gives leadership teams a sequence to challenge stalled programmes against, covering ownership, strategy alignment, cross-functional delivery and governance. His What’s the BUZZ? podcast, running since 2021 with hundreds of AI executives, keeps his material grounded in what is currently working inside enterprises, not what was true 18 months ago. Named LinkedIn Top Voice, Thinkers360 Top 10 in AI, Generative AI and Agentic AI, and DataIQ Data & AI Leader of the Year Finalist 2025, which signals he is taken seriously by the audiences that book him. Biography highlights Founder and Chief AI Strategist, Intelligence Briefing Former Vice President at SAP, with leadership roles connected to its Global AI Center of Excellence and Business AI go-to-market function Author of AI Leadership Handbook and The HUMAN Agentic AI Edge Host of What’s the BUZZ? AI in Business podcast since 2021 Adjunct Professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania; Editorial Board member, Journal of AI, Robotics, and Workplace Automation LinkedIn Top Voice; Thinkers360 Top 10 in AI, Generative AI and Agentic AI; DataIQ Data & AI Leader of the Year Finalist 2025; PEX Network Top 30 AI Leader 2025 Biography Enterprise AI has moved past the question of whether to invest. The harder question now is why most programmes never leave pilot. Welsch’s work answers it from the operator’s seat. Over two decades at SAP, including a vice president role connected to its Global AI Center of Excellence, he watched Fortune 500 organisations buy capability and fail to convert it into operating advantage. That experience is the substrate of the AI Leadership Handbook, his best-selling book drawn from 60+ interviews with AI leaders. The book sets out a practitioner sequence, The 9 Steps to Successful AI Projects, that leadership teams use to challenge stalled programmes against ownership, strategy alignment, cross-functional delivery and governance. Through Intelligence Briefing, the advisory he founded after SAP, Welsch now works with senior teams on agentic AI specifically: where autonomous systems sit on the org chart, how accountability survives when decisions are delegated to machines, and what workforce design looks like when AI agents are colleagues rather than tools. His second book, The HUMAN Agentic AI Edge, makes that argument in book form. His What’s the BUZZ? podcast, running since 2021, keeps the material fresh by putting him in regular conversation with named AI leaders inside Accenture, IBM, NVIDIA, PwC, SAP and Siemens. Thinkers360 ranks him in their top 10 globally on AI, Generative AI and Agentic AI; DataIQ named him a Data & AI Leader of the Year finalist in 2025. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and operating advantage Agentic AI and autonomous systems in the enterprise AI governance and responsible adoption Generative AI for business outcomes Workforce design for the AI-ready organisation AI leadership and executive readiness Change management for AI programmes Ideal for Boards, CEOs and executive committees commissioning enterprise-wide AI strategy CIOs, CTOs, CDOs and Chief AI Officers responsible for moving AI from pilot to operating model CHROs and people leaders redesigning roles around AI capability Industry conferences and leadership summits in technology, financial services, manufacturing and professional services Audience outcomes A sharper read on why most enterprise AI programmes stall and what changes when they do not Familiarity with The 9 Steps to Successful AI Projects as a diagnostic for their own programme A working position on agentic AI: where it belongs in the operating model and where it does not Specific governance questions to take back to the board on accountability, data privacy and risk A view of what other Fortune 500 AI leaders are actually doing now, from Welsch’s podcast research