Artificial Intelligence & Generative AI

Why organisations work with Alison McCauley She brings a Stanford-trained social scientist’s lens to AI adoption, focused on the human and organisational variables that decide whether a deployment moves the operating numbers. Her LinkedIn Learning course on emerging technology has reached more than 90,000 enterprise learners, evidence she can translate complexity into something a non-technical workforce can act on. How To Think With AI is built on a year of fieldwork with hundreds of early adopters, giving her a usable framework for cognitive performance with AI rather than a survey of capabilities. She has tracked technology adoption cycles across blockchain and AI since 2016, which gives boards a pattern recogniser, not a vendor pitch, when assessing what is signal and what is hype. Her writing in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and VentureBeat, plus LinkedIn Top Voice status, gives senior audiences a credible voice they can quote internally after the keynote. Biography highlights Bestselling author of Unblocked: How Blockchains Will Change Your Business (O’Reilly Media) and How To Think With AI. Founder and CEO of Unblocked Future, a strategy firm advising leaders on adoption of emerging technology. Chief Advocacy Officer at Think with AI. LinkedIn Learning course creator with more than 90,000 students enrolled in her enterprise technology programme. Named a LinkedIn Top Voice; published in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and VentureBeat. BA in Psychology and MA in Organization Design and Development, Stanford University. Speaking platforms include SXSW, the Aspen Ideas Festival, Columbia University, and UC Berkeley. Biography Most AI rollouts stall at the same place. The model works, the licence is bought, and three months later the only people getting value from it are the same handful who would have found a way regardless. The variable that matters is not the technology. It is whether the rest of the workforce learns to think with it. That is the operating problem Alison McCauley has spent two decades on. Her training is in psychology and organisational behaviour, both at Stanford, and her consulting career has put her opposite C-suites at firms including Adobe, Oracle, IBM, PNC, First Data, and Verizon. She studies the human side of how new technology lands inside organisations, which is why her work reads differently from technologist commentary on AI. She wrote Unblocked with O’Reilly Media in 2018, before blockchain literacy was a board concern, and her LinkedIn Learning course on the same topic became a default executive education resource with more than 90,000 enrolments. Her current book, How To Think With AI, is built on a year of fieldwork with hundreds of generative AI early adopters and translates what they do differently into a framework leaders can teach. As Chief Advocacy Officer at Think with AI and founder of Unblocked Future, she works with senior teams on the practical question of what changes when AI becomes a capability rather than a tool. Her articles appear in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and VentureBeat. She has been named a LinkedIn Top Voice. The reason boards bring her in is not to be told that AI matters; it is to be shown what their workforce has to do differently for the next eighteen months to count. Key speaking topics AI adoption and workforce capability Human-centred technology change Generative AI for cognitive performance Digital transformation strategy Emerging technology pattern recognition Executive AI literacy Future of work in the age of AI Ideal for C-suite and board audiences setting AI strategy beyond pilots CHROs and learning leaders rebuilding capability around AI Transformation and innovation leads moving deployment from tooling to operating advantage Executive education and senior leadership programmes Audience outcomes A clear vocabulary for the human variables that determine AI return on investment A practical framework, drawn from fieldwork with early adopters, for how individuals and teams use AI to lift cognitive performance A sharper read on which AI signals matter for their sector and which are vendor noise Confidence to lead AI conversations internally without deferring to technology vendors A point of view on workforce redesign that holds up in a board setting

Why organisations work with Tom Roach He originated the “performance plateau” framework, a specific, named diagnosis of the growth ceiling that confronts brands over-indexed on performance channels, developed in collaboration with econometrician Dr Grace Kite and published in Marketing Week. His IPA Effectiveness Gold Awards span McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, and Barclays, among the most analytically rigorous advertising effectiveness cases in UK industry history. As Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB, he worked directly alongside Les Binet, the most cited figure in marketing effectiveness research, placing him at the centre of the field’s most serious practitioner thinking. He is one of the few voices making the commercial case for brand investment from inside a performance-first agency group, giving his arguments about the brand/performance divide an operational credibility that consulting positions rarely carry. His “Share of Model” framework addresses an unmapped emergent risk: how large language models represent brands, and what that means for commercial visibility as AI increasingly mediates discovery and purchase intent. Biography highlights VP Brand Strategy at Jellyfish, part of The Brandtech Group; prior roles at adam&eveDDB, BBH London, Leo Burnett, and AMV BBDO – a career spanning over two decades at the leading edge of UK advertising Multiple Gold IPA Effectiveness Awards across campaigns for McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, and Barclays Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB working directly alongside Les Binet Key contributor to BBH London’s designation as IPA Effectiveness Company of the Year 2018–19 Marketing Week columnist; regular speaker at Cannes Lions, SXSW, Google Firestarters, and IPA Effweek Originator of the “performance plateau” concept (with Dr Grace Kite) and associated “Bothism” brand/performance integration framework, widely adopted in marketing practice Biography Many marketing organisations are measuring the right things in the wrong sequence. Brands that concentrated investment in performance channels – search, social, display – often found their growth curve flattening at precisely the moment leadership expected it to accelerate. Tom Roach named this pattern the “performance plateau,” developing the concept with econometrician Dr Grace Kite and publishing it in Marketing Week, where it has since entered mainstream marketing vocabulary. The credibility behind that argument is operational. As Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB, Roach worked directly alongside Les Binet – the most cited figure in marketing effectiveness research – before that, spending seven years driving BBH London’s effectiveness practice to IPA Effectiveness Company of the Year status in 2018–19. The IPA Gold Awards he contributed to, across McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, and Barclays, represent some of the most analytically demanding advertising cases in UK industry history. At Jellyfish, part of The Brandtech Group, Roach holds a position that few brand effectiveness thinkers occupy: making the case for long-term brand investment from within a digital-first, performance-oriented agency. That vantage point has produced frameworks with real institutional friction behind them, “Bothism” (the philosophy of ending the false choice between brand and performance), a revised model of how people enter and move through markets, and “Share of Model,” which addresses what large language models say about brands and why this matters commercially. He writes regularly for Marketing Week and speaks at Cannes Lions, SXSW, and IPA Effweek, using those platforms to pressure-test frameworks with practitioners rather than simply advocate positions. Key speaking topics Marketing effectiveness Brand and performance marketing integration The performance plateau Brand building in fragmented media Creative effectiveness Generative AI and brand strategy AI brand visibility and Share of Model Ideal for CMOs and marketing leadership teams whose growth from performance channels is flattening CFOs and senior leaders challenged to build the internal case for long-term brand investment Brand and performance marketing teams operating in organisational silos Agency leadership and strategy teams working across integrated client portfolios Audience outcomes A specific diagnostic for identifying whether their organisation has hit the performance plateau, and a framework for addressing it Clearer understanding of how brand building and performance marketing are commercially interdependent rather than competing priorities A framework for evaluating creative effectiveness across fragmented, platform-native media environments Practical thinking on what AI-mediated search and discovery means for brand visibility (Share of Model) Language and commercial evidence to make the case for brand investment to boards and finance leadership

Why organisations work with Kevin Lane Keller He authored the framework most senior marketers were trained on. The Customer-Based Brand Equity model, his 1993 Journal of Marketing paper, is the reference point that brand equity conversations still anchor to. He co-authors the standard MBA marketing textbook. Marketing Management with Philip Kotler is in its 16th edition and sits on the syllabus of most top business schools, which means his vocabulary is already shared by the room. He has advised brand strategy at Accenture, American Express, Disney, Ford, Intel, Nike, P&G, Samsung, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Google, so the case material is current rather than historical. He treats the tension between short-term performance marketing and long-term brand building as a capital allocation question, not a creative one, which lands with CFOs and CEOs as well as CMOs. He brings the academic credibility of 135+ peer-reviewed papers and a Tuck professorship without retreating into theory; the work has been pressure-tested in expert witness testimony for Amazon, Meta, Mercedes-Benz, and the NFL. Biography highlights E. B. Osborn Professor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. Author of Strategic Brand Management, 5th edition, co-authored with Vanitha Swaminathan, widely referred to as the “bible of branding.” Co-author with Philip Kotler and Alex Chernev of Marketing Management, 16th edition. Originator of the Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model, 1993 Journal of Marketing. Former Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute, 2013 to 2015. Previously held tenured marketing posts at Stanford Graduate School of Business, UC Berkeley, and UNC Chapel Hill. Biography The argument over what brand investment is actually for has moved from the marketing function to the boardroom. Finance leaders want a defensible link between brand spend and enterprise value. Marketing leaders are negotiating between short-term performance metrics and the longer arc of customer preference. Keller’s work is the framework most of those conversations are still built on. His 1993 Journal of Marketing paper introduced the Customer-Based Brand Equity model, which redefined brand value as what customers know, feel, and recognise about a brand rather than as a balance-sheet residual. The CBBE pyramid remains a standard reference for measuring brand strength inside organisations like Accenture, American Express, Disney, Nike, P&G, and Samsung, all of which have drawn on his counsel. He co-authors Marketing Management with Philip Kotler and Alex Chernev, now in its 16th edition, and Strategic Brand Management with Vanitha Swaminathan, now in its 5th. Both textbooks are core curriculum at most top business schools, which means most CMOs in the room were trained inside his vocabulary. He has held tenured positions at Stanford, Berkeley, and UNC before Tuck, and served as Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute. Keller’s current work focuses on how brands hold their position when AI reshapes media buying, customer experience, and pricing simultaneously. He addresses the tension senior teams face directly: how to keep building the brand asset when every dashboard rewards the campaign. Key speaking topics Customer-based brand equity Building global power brands Brand strategy and brand architecture Integrated marketing communications The economics of brand investment AI and the future of brand management Marketing strategy at the CEO and CFO level Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders defending brand investment to boards and finance functions CEOs and CFOs evaluating how brand contributes to enterprise value Marketing leadership offsites and senior marketing development programmes Global brand and category teams in consumer, technology, and financial services Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary, grounded in the CBBE framework, for discussing brand value across marketing, finance, and the executive team A clearer view of how short-term performance activity and long-term brand building reinforce or undermine each other Diagnostic tools for assessing where a brand is strong, vulnerable, or under-leveraged in current category dynamics A current perspective on what AI changes, and does not change, for brand strategy Case context from senior brand decisions inside Nike, Disney, P&G, Samsung, Google, and others

Why organisations work with Joerg Niessing He teaches inside the C-suite of the brands most boards benchmark against, Google, L’Oréal, Roche, Walmart, Marriott, Diageo and Samsung among them, and brings that pattern recognition into the room. Twenty-five years of advisory work at Prophet plus a senior INSEAD faculty role gives him both the operator’s view of transformation and the academic’s discipline. Few digital strategy speakers credibly hold both. His book The Definitive Guide to B2B Digital Transformation is built around a specific argument that customer centricity, not technology stack, is the variable that separates growth from stalled programmes. The Case Centre’s 2025 Outstanding Case Teacher award recognises a rare ability to make complex transformation cases land with senior executives, which translates directly into keynote and workshop work. He co-directs INSEAD’s flagship Leading AI and Digital Marketing Strategy programme, so his content reflects what CMOs and CEOs are actually being taught at the frontier, not what was written eighteen months ago. Biography highlights Senior Affiliate Professor of Marketing, INSEAD. Former Partner, Prophet. Co-author of The Definitive Guide to B2B Digital Transformation (2020) with Fred Geyer. Winner, Outstanding Case Teacher Competition 2025 (The Case Centre); previous Best Marketing Case award winner. Co-director, INSEAD executive programmes including Leading Digital Marketing Strategy and Leading AI and Digital Marketing Strategy. Has authored 30+ executive cases on companies including Google, Jaguar Land Rover, AccorHotels, BMW Startup Garage and Majid Al Futtaim. Biography Digital transformation programmes do not usually fail on technology. They fail because the strategy, the culture and the data operating model are not aligned, and the customer experience that results is incoherent. That gap between investment and commercial outcome is the territory Joerg Niessing has spent his career on. At INSEAD, he is a Senior Affiliate Professor of Marketing and co-directs flagship executive programmes including Leading Digital Marketing Strategy, Leading AI and Digital Marketing Strategy and B2B Marketing Strategies. His research and teaching focus on digital customer experience, marketing analytics, brand management and the strategic implications of AI for commercial leaders. Before moving to full-time faculty work he was a Partner at Prophet, the brand and customer experience consultancy, where he led client engagements with global businesses across consumer goods, automotive, healthcare and B2B technology. That operating background sits underneath his 2020 book with Fred Geyer, The Definitive Guide to B2B Digital Transformation, which argues that growth comes from prioritising customers over technology, an argument that has aged well as more transformation budgets are scrutinised. The Case Centre named him Outstanding Case Teacher in 2025, recognition of a 30-strong case portfolio on companies including Google, Jaguar Land Rover, AccorHotels, BMW Startup Garage and Majid Al Futtaim. For a senior buyer, that body of work is the substance behind the keynote: he is testing these arguments on executives from the world’s largest brands every week. Key speaking topics Customer-centric digital transformation B2B digital transformation and growth AI and digital marketing strategy Brand building in a digital and AI-driven world Data and analytics as a commercial capability Business model innovation from product to solution Culture and leadership of transformation programmes Ideal for CMOs, Chief Customer Officers and Chief Digital Officers running enterprise transformation programmes. CEOs and boards reviewing the commercial return on multi-year digital and AI investment. B2B leadership teams shifting from product-led to customer-led and solution-led growth. Senior marketing, brand and customer experience teams inside large consumer and B2B businesses. Audience outcomes A sharper view of where customer centricity, not technology, is the binding constraint on growth. A working framework for connecting strategy, culture and data inside a transformation programme. Practical reference points from named global brands, not generic case study language. A clearer commercial agenda for AI in marketing, customer experience and brand. Confidence to challenge the technology-first defaults in their own transformation plans.

Why organisations work with Didem Ün Ateş She has operationalised responsible AI inside three of the world’s largest organisations (Microsoft, Accenture, and Schneider Electric) as an executive with direct accountability, not as an external advisor. That gives her a precise understanding of where enterprise AI governance breaks down in practice. Her role as Advisor and Generative AI Council Member for Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, working with over 300 portfolio companies, gives boards and investment teams a live investor-grade view of how AI strategy translates, or fails to translate, into commercial value and risk-adjusted returns. LotusAI’s documented methodology, running 60 co-creation workshops across more than 200 SVPs and VPs to identify and prioritise 200 generative AI use cases inside a single Fortune 500 company, is a concrete, tested model for enterprise AI adoption, not a conceptual framework. As an accredited algorithm auditor and former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow, she connects organisations to the governance principles emerging at the regulatory and multilateral level, including the responsible-AI debates shaping how the technology is regulated globally. Her dual degree from the University of Pennsylvania (BS in Engineering from the Moore School and BS in Economics from the Wharton School), combined with an MBA from Columbia Business School, means she can engage credibly at both the technical architecture and commercial investment layers of an AI decision, a combination that is genuinely uncommon. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of LotusAI Ltd, advising private equity firms, hedge funds, financial institutions, and Fortune 500 companies on AI strategy, responsible AI governance, and talent transformation Former Vice President, AI Strategy & Innovation at Schneider Electric, where she defined the company’s AI and generative AI strategy, innovation roadmaps, ecosystem partnerships, and responsible AI programme Former Head of Data & AI / General Manager, Data & AI at Microsoft (EMEA) and former Managing Director of Data & AI, Europe at Accenture’s Microsoft Business Group; earlier roles at Capgemini, EY, BT, and Motorola Advisor and Generative AI Council Member for Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, working with the firm and over 300 portfolio companies Board member of the Edge AI Foundation, the Wharton AI Alumni Studio, the Columbia Business School Women’s Circle, and the Hg Foundation Technology Advisory Board Certified Algorithm Auditor and Executive Coach; former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow; Forbes Technology Council member TechWomen100 Champion and Trailblazer 50 honouree; 2025 recognition includes CEO of the Year Awards UK in the AI Advisory category, Responsible AI Innovation & Growth in Business Award, New Technology Consultancy of the Year, Best New Business of the Year, and British Business Excellence Award Alumna of the University of Pennsylvania (Management & Technology dual degree: BS in Engineering from the Moore School and BS in Economics from the Wharton School) and Columbia Business School (MBA) Biography Most enterprise AI strategies stall in the same place: at the gap between approved roadmap and accountable delivery. Didem Ün Ateş has worked on both sides of that gap inside organisations large enough for every failure to matter. As VP, AI Strategy & Innovation at Schneider Electric, she held direct accountability for the company’s generative AI strategy and innovation roadmap, its ecosystem partnerships, its responsible and sustainable AI programme, and the upskilling of its global workforce. Before that, she served as Head of Data & AI and General Manager, Data & AI at Microsoft EMEA, with revenue accountability of over $2.7 billion across more than 70 subsidiaries, and as Managing Director of Data & AI, Europe within Accenture’s Microsoft Business Group. She founded LotusAI Ltd to apply that operational depth where boards and investment teams need it most. Her advisory relationship with Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, as Advisor and Generative AI Council Member, puts her in direct conversation with over 300 portfolio companies on AI value creation, governance, and risk. LotusAI’s engagements have included guiding a generative AI opportunity scan across more than 200 senior leaders in a Fortune 500 company, delivering a three-year use-case roadmap tied to the organisation’s strategic plan and regulatory requirements. Her work sits at the intersection of commercial strategy and institutional accountability. As an accredited algorithm auditor and former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow, where she has co-chaired sessions on AI and sustainability at WEF summits, she connects the boardroom conversation to the multilateral frameworks shaping how responsible AI is defined and regulated globally. She also sits on the Hg Foundation Technology Advisory Board, alongside senior leaders from ING, Google, McKinsey, and Accenture. She holds a dual degree from the University of Pennsylvania, in Engineering from the Moore School and in Economics from the Wharton School, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Recent recognition includes the CEO of the Year Awards UK 2025 in the AI Advisory category, the Responsible AI Innovation & Growth in Business Award 2025, and the British Business Excellence Award 2025, alongside the earlier TechWomen100 Champion and Trailblazer 50 honours. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and governance Generative and agentic AI adoption at scale Responsible and sustainable AI AI for private equity, private credit, and financial services AI-driven workforce capability and talent transformation AI risk management and regulatory compliance Edge AI, physical AI, embedded AI, and tinyML AI leadership training and executive workshops Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams (CEO, CTO, CDO, CAIO) building or pressure-testing enterprise AI strategies Chief Data and AI Officers designing governance frameworks for generative AI adoption Private equity and investment leadership teams assessing AI value creation and risk across portfolios Transformation and innovation leaders in financial services, industrial, and consulting sectors navigating responsible AI operationalisation Audience outcomes Practical criteria for identifying, prioritising, and sequencing AI use cases, tools, platforms, and agents within a complex organisation A clearer model of where enterprise AI governance frameworks typically break down, and what structural conditions make them durable A sharper understanding of how responsible AI principles translate into investment-grade governance, not just compliance documentation A working language for talent transformation in the agentic AI era, including the workforce decisions board members need to be ready to make More confident language for board-level conversations on AI risk, sustainability, and value creation Awareness of inclusive AI design as both a reputational risk and a long-term commercial consideration

Why organisations work with Paul Gibbons His Adaptive Adoption model – a seven-pillar behavioral science framework for AI adoption – and its companion diagnostic, the Adaptive Adoption Maturity Index (AAMI), give leaders a structured tool for assessing and addressing the human conditions that determine whether an AI investment delivers returns or stalls. This kind of named, built IP is rare in this topic area. «The Science of Organizational Change» is cited by Google’s change team and Microsoft’s internal culture group as having reoriented how they approach transformation: an unusual form of verification that the intellectual framework holds up under real operational pressure, not just in consulting engagements. He will tell an organisation what is wrong with its change thinking. The Chairman of KPMG described the experience as hearing «what we needed to hear, not what we wanted to hear», a quality that becomes valuable when senior leaders have quietly invested in approaches that are not working. His practitioner career spans founding one of Europe’s leading leadership consulting firms (Future Considerations), serving as Partner at IBM Consulting, and developing change management methodology in PwC’s Strategy, Innovation and Change practice, meaning the frameworks have been stress-tested in exactly the large, complex organisations that attend senior leadership events. His academic breadth spanning neurochemistry, economics, neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral science – allows him to draw on disciplines rarely applied to organizational transformation, and to name and debunk the pseudoscience that fills a field where, as Stanford’s Jeffrey Pfeffer has noted publicly, charlatanism is common. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Future Considerations (2001), one of Europe’s leading leadership and culture change consulting firms, with named clients including Shell, BP, HSBC, Barclays, and KPMG Former Partner at IBM Consulting (Talent and Transformation); former senior strategist at PwC’s Strategy, Innovation and Change practice, where he developed its change management and corporate transformation methodologies Author of eight books including «The Science of Organizational Change» – named among the top change management texts of all time – and «Adopting AI: The People-First Approach» (2025) Ranked #5 globally in organizational culture change by Global Gurus; named among the top 52 globally in AI in 2026 (London Speaker Bureau) Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA); Adjunct Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Denver (2015-2018); member of the American Philosophical Association and the U.S. Academy of Management Council Writing featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and The Guardian; endorsed by Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford Business School) and Simon Collins (Chairman, KPMG) Biography Most organisations know their AI and transformation investments are underperforming. The harder question is why and the honest answer, in most cases, is that the behavioural and cultural architecture of the organisation was never redesigned alongside the technology. Paul Gibbons has spent three decades building the evidence base that explains this failure, and the frameworks that help leaders act on it. His intellectual contribution begins with a provocation. In «The Science of Organizational Change,» Gibbons argues that most change management frameworks are built on myth and untested pop psychology, and replaces them with approaches grounded in behavioural economics, neuroscience, and complexity theory. Google’s change team and Microsoft’s internal culture group both credited the book with reorienting how they approach transformation. Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford Business School praised his work for bringing scientific rigour to what he described as a field riddled with pseudoscience. That critique evolved into a constructive framework for the AI era. His Adaptive Adoption model, a seven-pillar approach grounded in behavioral science, offers leaders a structured alternative to applying conventional change management to AI transformation. Its companion diagnostic, the Adaptive Adoption Maturity Index, helps organisations assess where they actually stand. The model draws on three decades of board and C-suite advisory work, including founding Future Considerations, one of Europe’s leading leadership consulting firms, serving as Partner at IBM Consulting, and developing change methodology in PwC’s Strategy, Innovation and Change practice. Gibbons is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is ranked among the top five globally in organizational culture change by Global Gurus, and among the top 52 globally in AI in 2026. He has taught business ethics and leadership at the University of Denver, serves on the board of Denver’s Institute for Enterprise Ethics, and hosts the Think Bigger Think Better podcast, which explores the intersection of AI, behavioral science, and organizational leadership. Key speaking topics Behavioral science and organizational change AI adoption and workforce transformation Culture change and behavior design Change management myths and evidence-based practice AI ethics and organizational governance Leadership in complex and uncertain environments The future of work and human-machine collaboration Ideal for CHROs and people transformation leaders navigating technology-driven organizational change Boards and C-suite leaders making AI adoption and governance decisions Organizational development and change management practitioners Digital and technology transformation leaders in large, complex organizations Audience outcomes A clear framework for understanding why culture change and AI adoption efforts typically fail, grounded in behavioral science rather than convention Practical tools for diagnosing where behavioral and cultural gaps are undermining technology investments A more rigorous basis for evaluating AI adoption strategies and distinguishing credible signals from market noise Language and framing for board and C-suite conversations about the organizational conditions required for successful transformation Familiarity with the Adaptive Adoption framework and Adaptive Adoption Maturity Index as structured, evidence-based alternatives to conventional change management applied to AI

Why organisations work with Katie Prescott She covers the AI infrastructure, capital and policy story as her day job for The Times, which means clients get a current read rather than a recycled keynote deck. Her book on Mike Lynch and the Autonomy sale to Hewlett-Packard is a working case study in how technology valuations, governance and cross-border legal exposure actually collide; few speakers can talk through that material with original reporting behind it. A decade at the BBC, including business news on Radio 4’s Today programme, gives her a rare ability to host and interview senior executives on stage without scripted stiffness. Tech Commentator of the Year at the 2024 UK Tech Awards confirms what bookers already use her for: trusted, named commentary at the level a board will quote back internally. She co-hosts The Times Tech Podcast with Danny Fortson, which keeps her sourced inside both London and Silicon Valley rather than reliant on second-hand briefings. Biography highlights Technology Business Editor, The Times, and weekly business columnist. Co-host, The Times Tech Podcast, with Danny Fortson, Sunday Times West Coast Correspondent. Author, The Curious Case of Mike Lynch (Macmillan Business, 2025); named a Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2025. Tech Commentator of the Year, UK Tech Awards, 2024. Approximately a decade at the BBC, including presenting business news on Radio 4’s Today programme and reporting from the BBC New York Bureau. Degree in Modern Languages, University of Oxford. Biography The 2011 sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for more than 11 billion pounds turned into a thirteen-year legal fight, two transatlantic trials and, in August 2024, the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off Sicily. The Curious Case of Mike Lynch, published by Macmillan Business in 2025, is the most detailed account of that story to date, and Katie Prescott reported and wrote it while running The Times’ technology business desk. That dual role is the point. Prescott covers AI capital flows, hyperscaler infrastructure, government and Big Tech relations, and UK technology policy as her standing brief, with a weekly column and The Times Tech Podcast co-hosted with the paper’s West Coast correspondent Danny Fortson. The reporting is current. It is also sourced; she is on the phone to founders, investors and regulators in the week she walks on stage. Before The Times, she spent roughly a decade at the BBC, presenting business on Radio 4’s Today programme and reporting from the corporation’s New York Bureau. That background shows on stage. She moderates senior panels, interviews chief executives in front of their own customers, and chairs board-level discussions with the timing of a working broadcaster rather than a guest speaker. The 2024 UK Tech Awards named her Tech Commentator of the Year, and her Mike Lynch book was selected as a Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2025. The combined record is what serious organisations are buying: a working journalist with the access to call the technology story accurately, and the platform to be quoted doing it. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence, capital and infrastructure The technology business in 2026 Founders, fraud and governance lessons from the Autonomy case Government, regulators and Big Tech The UK and European technology sector Hosting, moderation and on-stage interviews Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI investment and vendor strategy CTOs, CIOs and chief digital officers needing an outside read on the sector Investor days, partner summits and customer conferences requiring a credible interviewer Communications and policy leadership preparing for greater regulatory and media scrutiny Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI capital is actually flowing and which infrastructure dependencies matter A working sense of how technology valuations, governance and litigation interact, drawn from the Autonomy and Hewlett-Packard case Named, current examples from The Times’ technology coverage rather than recycled trend material For hosted formats, executive interviews that get past prepared answers without becoming hostile

Why organisations work with Eric Ries He authored the operating method most used by modern product teams. When a CFO asks how an innovation portfolio should be measured and governed, the answer most large companies reach for is his. He has tested the method inside GE, IBM, Intuit, and the US federal government, not just early-stage startups, so the case studies he draws on are at enterprise scale. He founded the Long-Term Stock Exchange, a SEC-approved national securities exchange. That gives him a working perspective on how ownership structure and reporting cadence shape executive behaviour, well beyond a consultant’s view. His new book Incorruptible reframes corporate governance as a strategic act, addressing why successful companies drift from the principles that built them. Useful for boards under pressure on mission, accountability, and long-term value. Biography highlights Author of The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, and Incorruptible (Authors Equity, distributed by Simon & Schuster, 2026). Founder and Executive Chairman of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, approved by the SEC in 2019. Architect of GE’s FastWorks program under CEO Jeff Immelt, applied across thousands of GE executives. Former Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School and IDEO Fellow; advisor to Pivotal. Ranked #12 on the Thinkers50 list (2019); The Lean Startup on the Thinkers50 Management Classics Booklist (2023). Biography Most large companies are excellent at running the business they already have and unreliable at building the next one. The systems that govern the core business, budgets, milestones, quarterly review, were not designed for ventures whose value is mostly unknown at the point of funding. Eric Ries spent two decades turning that mismatch into a working method. The Lean Startup, published in 2011, codified validated learning, the minimum viable product, and innovation accounting as a portable management discipline. The book has been translated into more than thirty languages and now sits on the Thinkers50 Management Classics Booklist. Its follow-up, The Startup Way, captured what happens when those ideas are pushed into established companies. The case studies are drawn from inside GE, where Ries worked with CEO Jeff Immelt on the FastWorks program, alongside engagements with IBM, Intuit, and the US federal government. The governance question runs through all of his work. In 2015 he proposed the Long-Term Stock Exchange in The Lean Startup; the SEC approved LTSE as a national securities exchange in 2019, and Ries serves as Executive Chairman. His 2026 book Incorruptible, published by Authors Equity and distributed by Simon & Schuster, argues that good companies fail predictably because ownership, incentives, and accountability quietly reshape behaviour as they scale. The book was selected for the Thinkers50 Best New Management Booklist. What separates Ries from other innovation speakers is range. He has authored the methodology, run the corporate transformations that test it, and built a regulated capital-markets venue to address the structural problem his books diagnose. For senior teams that want innovation handled as a portfolio discipline, not a culture programme, he is the source. Key speaking topics Lean Startup methodology Innovation accounting and the management of internal ventures Entrepreneurial management inside established companies Corporate governance and long-term value AI applied to product validation and customer acquisition The Long-Term Stock Exchange and capital-markets reform Ideal for CEOs and boards of public companies wrestling with quarterly pressure versus long-horizon investment. Chief innovation, strategy, and transformation officers responsible for portfolios of new ventures inside large organisations. Founders and senior leaders of scale-up companies preparing for institutional ownership. Corporate development and venture teams looking to apply validated-learning discipline to internal investment decisions. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for measuring new ventures separately from the core business, drawn directly from innovation accounting. A clear diagnosis of why most corporate innovation programmes fail at the governance layer rather than the creativity layer. A view of how ownership structure, board cadence, and reporting rules quietly shape executive behaviour over time. Specific case material from GE, IBM, Intuit, and US federal agencies that audiences can map onto their own structures.

Why organisations work with Lara Lewington Fourteen years inside BBC Click gives her a first-hand catalogue of which AI and health-tech claims held up and which collapsed, useful for boards trying to triage vendor pitches. Hacking Humanity (Penguin, 2025) is a structured, sourced argument on the technologies extending healthspan, not a survey article, so audiences leave with a thesis rather than a topic tour. Formal study in the Ethics of AI at the London School of Economics, layered onto her broadcast work, makes her a credible voice in governance and risk conversations, not only product showcases. She is regularly trusted to host the main stage at AI Summit London, Founders Forum, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which means she moves comfortably between keynote and high-stakes moderation in the same event. Long-form access to the people building this technology, from Silicon Valley founders to NHS clinicians, lets her describe what is actually being deployed rather than what is being announced. Biography highlights Co-presenter of BBC Click, the corporation’s flagship technology programme, for seven years until the show ended in March 2025; reporter on the programme from 2011. Author of Hacking Humanity: How technology can save your health and your life (Penguin, WH Allen, July 2025). Fronted BBC Panorama’s “Beyond Human: Artificial Intelligence and Us” and BBC One documentary “Forever Young?” on biological age reversal. AI Agony Aunt on ITV’s Lorraine since 2023; recurring technology commentator on Good Morning Britain, Woman’s Hour and BBC Radio 5 Live. Studied Ethics of AI at the London School of Economics; Senior Fellow at the John Schofield Trust mentoring early-career journalists. Host and moderator at AI Summit London, Founders Forum Global, LEAP Tech Arena, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Biography Most boardroom conversations about artificial intelligence and health technology run aground on the same problem. The pace of announcement outstrips the pace of verification. Lara Lewington has spent 14 years inside the programme that, more than any other in British broadcasting, exists to do that verification on the public’s behalf: BBC Click. She reported for the show from 2011, co-presented from 2018 with Spencer Kelly, and stayed until the programme ended in March 2025. Hacking Humanity (Penguin, July 2025) takes the same instinct into book form. It examines the AI, gene editing and robotics now reshaping medicine, with a clear thesis: the meaningful prize is healthspan, the years lived in good health, not raw lifespan. Endorsed by Lorraine Kelly, Davina McCall and Dr Amir Khan, it draws on access from Silicon Valley founders to NHS clinicians, and frames where the science is real, where it is premature, and where the ethical exposure sits. The AI ethics work is anchored by formal study at the London School of Economics and a steady stream of fronted documentaries: Panorama’s “Beyond Human: Artificial Intelligence and Us”, BBC One’s “Forever Young?”, ITV’s “Tonight: Healthy Ageing”, and BBC Radio 4’s “A Documentary: By ChatGPT”. She is the AI Agony Aunt on ITV’s Lorraine, a regular voice on Good Morning Britain and Woman’s Hour, and a Senior Fellow at the John Schofield Trust. Event organisers book her for two distinct jobs. She delivers keynotes on AI ethics, the human impact of automation and the healthspan revolution. She also hosts and moderates the main stage at AI Summit London, Founders Forum Global, LEAP Tech Arena, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering, where the brief is to interview a chief executive or scientist and keep the conversation honest in real time. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and its human impact AI ethics and responsible deployment Health technology and the healthspan economy Longevity science and biological age Wearables, diagnostics and consumer health data The role of robotics in care and clinical settings Technology hype versus evidence Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI policy and digital health strategy CHROs, chief medical officers and benefits leaders shaping workforce health programmes Health, life sciences and pharma leadership audiences tracking the AI inflection in their sector Conference organisers needing a credible host or moderator for AI, health-tech and innovation main-stage sessions Audience outcomes A clear read on which AI and health-tech claims are evidence-backed and which are still vendor narrative A working vocabulary for healthspan, longevity science and the technologies driving them Sharper questions to put to internal teams and external suppliers on AI ethics and data governance A grounded view of how rapidly diagnostic and preventive technology is moving from research into mainstream use

Why organisations work with Riaz Shah He has run reskilling at a scale almost no academic or consultant has matched: more than 400,000 employees and 24 million hours of learning a year inside EY. He built the EY Tech MBA, one of the first corporate degree programmes to put technology fluency at the centre of professional services training, and can speak about what it took to make it work. His authority on the future of work rests on operating responsibility, not research alone. He has been the executive on the hook for the budget, the platform choices and the outcomes. He chairs One Degree Academy, a free school for children in an underserved part of London now ranked among the world’s top ten in the Overcoming Adversity category of the World’s Best School Prizes. His argument that learning design matters at scale is supported by results, not theory. His OBE for Services to Education, awarded by HM King Charles III in 2023, signals that the credibility is recognised beyond the corporate audience. Biography highlights Professor of Practice for Innovation & Leadership, Hult International Business School. 27 years as a partner at EY, including Global Learning Leader, Managing Partner of London Assurance and Chief Operations Officer for EMEIA Markets. Architect of the EY Tech MBA, deployed across a workforce of more than 400,000 professionals. OBE for Services to Education, 2023. Founder and Chair of One Degree Academy, a Top 10 finalist for the World’s Best School Prize in the Overcoming Adversity category. Non-executive director, Genius Group (appointed July 2024). Biography Most large organisations have an AI strategy. Very few have a learning strategy capable of delivering it. That gap, between what a workforce is being asked to do next year and what it knows how to do today, is the specific problem Riaz Shah has spent the last decade inside. At EY, as Global Learning Leader, he carried operating responsibility for how more than 400,000 professionals were equipped for a market reshaped by automation, AI and digital platforms. His team delivered more than 24 million hours of learning a year and built the EY Tech MBA, a full corporate degree programme that put technology fluency at the centre of a professional services career. He had previously been Managing Partner of London Assurance and Chief Operations Officer for EMEIA Markets, so the work was anchored in commercial reality, not in the learning department’s preferences. He now teaches at Hult International Business School as Professor of Practice for Innovation & Leadership, where his sessions with senior executives concentrate on global megatrends, digital disruption and how organisations rebuild capability fast enough to keep up. He also chairs One Degree Academy, a state-funded free school for children aged 4 to 18 in an underserved part of London. The school is a Top 10 finalist in the Overcoming Adversity category of the World’s Best School Prizes, and is the practical expression of his argument that learning design, done seriously, scales. In 2023, King Charles III awarded him the OBE for Services to Education. He sits on the board of Genius Group, a Nasdaq-listed education business, and is a member of YPO. Key speaking topics AI and the future of work Reskilling and workforce transformation at scale Corporate learning as a strategic capability Innovation and growth mindset inside large organisations Generational shifts in the workplace Demographics and changing consumer attitudes Leadership in conditions of digital disruption Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers commissioning a workforce transformation tied to AI and automation. CEOs and executive committees of large services and knowledge businesses where the talent base is the product. Boards reviewing the capability assumptions inside a digital or AI strategy. Senior leadership conferences where the brief is to make the case for serious, not cosmetic, reskilling. Audience outcomes A sharper view of where the gap between AI ambition and workforce capability is biggest, and which gaps matter most commercially. A clearer picture of what corporate learning has to look like to keep pace with technology, drawn from running it at EY scale. An honest read on what worked and what did not in building the EY Tech MBA, with the operational detail intact. A more confident sense of how to talk to a workforce about AI without losing trust.

Why organisations work with Jeff de Kleijn Two decades inside HP and Canon across Asia Pacific and Europe, including running HP’s Large Format Printing business for APJ, gives him operating credibility with senior leaders who have lived through global restructures. Works fluently across Western systems thinking and Chinese strategic philosophy, useful for European and US executive teams navigating Asia exposure without simplifying it. Frames leadership as an operating system question, where decision rights, rhythm and supervisory clarity are the variables, not personality or style. Brings a working executive’s vantage point through his current role leading Dilaco, so the room hears a peer, not a retired commentator. Biography highlights Former General Manager, Large Format Printing Division, HP Asia Pacific and Japan. Senior executive roles at Canon across Europe and Asia. Chief Executive of Dilaco Group since 2019. Founder of Cortlandt Gulch, his leadership advisory and writing platform. Forthcoming book, Postmodern Leadership: Navigating Crises and Complexity in the Information Era. Trained in theatre and improvisation at the Bruges Conservatory of Music & Arts; works in English, Dutch and Chinese. Biography Most large organisations are still wired to push decisions up and instructions down. That structure is breaking against the speed and interdependence of the systems leaders now operate in. Jeff de Kleijn’s work begins from that mismatch, and from the specific question of how senior teams behave once they accept it. His authority on the subject is operational, not theoretical. He spent two decades in senior roles at HP and Canon, including running HP’s Large Format Printing business across Asia Pacific and Japan, before taking over Dilaco, a Belgian IT services group, in 2019. The throughline is leading commercial organisations through restructure, geographic complexity and technology shifts while the formal authority structure was always slightly behind events. He writes and advises through Cortlandt Gulch, and is finishing a book, Postmodern Leadership: Navigating Crises and Complexity in the Information Era, that sets out his core argument. Power inside large organisations has already moved from position to network connectivity. The leaders who are getting traction are the ones rebuilding their operating rhythm, supervisory cadence and decision rights around that fact, rather than working harder inside the old chart. What he brings to a room is the combination of a sitting executive’s vocabulary, exposure to both European and Asian operating cultures, and a stage discipline shaped by training in theatre at the Bruges Conservatory. Senior audiences leave with a sharper view of where their own authority architecture is misfiring, and a vocabulary for fixing it. Key speaking topics Networked and decentralised leadership Decision rights and supervisory clarity in complex organisations Leadership operating models under systemic uncertainty AI as an institutional, not technological, force Eastern and Western strategic thought in executive practice Restructuring and post-transformation leadership Ideal for Boards and executive committees redesigning how authority and decision rights operate post-restructure CEOs and group MDs of multi-region businesses with significant Asia exposure Private equity portfolio leadership teams under pressure to operate with fewer layers Transformation and strategy leads working on the leadership operating model, not just structure Audience outcomes A clearer read on where their current authority structure is the bottleneck, not the workload Specific language for separating control, coordination and supervision as distinct leadership tasks A working frame for combining Western strategic analysis with Chinese strategic thinking in real decisions A more honest internal conversation about what their organisation actually needs from its top team

Why organisations work with Ida Kymmer Brings a working knowledge of how the same technologies are deployed in commercial, defence, and peacebuilding contexts, so leaders see the full surface area of a decision rather than one face of it. Founder of House of PeaceTech, the ecosystem platform connecting investors, startups, governments, and NGOs working on conflict prevention and recovery technology, which gives clients access to a network most strategy advisors cannot reach. Has shaped immersive technology programmes for BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido during her tenure at Journee, so the perspective is built on real brand deployment, not theory. Active across MENA, Korea, and the Nordics through Infinite Reality, Hub71, and Vinnova, giving organisations a read on emerging technology adoption beyond the usual US and Western European frame. Publishes Tech for War and Peace weekly, so the analysis a client receives is built from continuous primary research, not refreshed every booking cycle. Biography highlights Director of Business, MENA at Infinite Reality Founder of House of PeaceTech, the ecosystem platform for technology in conflict prevention and recovery Former Director of Global Affairs at Journee, working with BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido Author of Tech for War and Peace, a weekly newsletter on defence, conflict, and peacebuilding technology Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies Startup judge for Vinnova (Sweden) and Hub71 (Abu Dhabi); speaking record at World Economic Forum, SXSW, Gitex, TechBBQ, and Deloitte Innovation Day Biography Emerging technology rarely arrives with a clean use case. The same systems that power immersive retail can be repurposed for surveillance, defence, or disinformation. Most advisors look at one face of that surface. Few look at all of them. Ida Kymmer’s work sits across the commercial, defence, and peacebuilding applications of the same technologies. She holds a Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies and founded House of PeaceTech, an ecosystem platform connecting investors, startups, governments, and NGOs working on conflict prevention and recovery. Her weekly newsletter, Tech for War and Peace, tracks how defence-adjacent technologies move between sectors. Her commercial credibility is built on deployment, not theory. As Director of Global Affairs at Journee from 2021 to 2023, she shaped immersive technology programmes for BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido. She now serves as Director of Business, MENA at Infinite Reality, and judges startups for Sweden’s Vinnova and Abu Dhabi’s Hub71. The geographic and linguistic range matters here. She has lived in nine countries, speaks five languages, and reads emerging technology adoption from Seoul, the Gulf, and the Nordics as fluently as from Silicon Valley. Boards in any of those markets get a perspective that the usual American or Western European advisory pool does not provide. Key speaking topics Emerging technology and innovation strategy Defence and peace technology Immersive technology and commerce Disinformation and information integrity Sustainability and the green transition Korean innovation systems and soft power MENA technology ecosystems Ideal for Boards and executive teams making frontier technology investment or deployment decisions Chief innovation, strategy, and digital officers in consumer brands, automotive, and luxury Government, defence, and policy audiences engaging with dual-use technology Sustainability and ESG leads scrutinising green-transition supply chains Audience outcomes A clearer map of how a single technology operates across commercial, defence, and humanitarian use cases Specific examples of immersive technology deployment from named global brands A working view of innovation ecosystems in Korea, MENA, and the Nordics Sharper questions to put to internal teams on dual-use exposure, supply chain ethics, and emerging technology partnerships