Artificial Intelligence & Generative AI

Why organisations work with Allister Frost A named, proprietary framework, the ReadyAlready Growth Cycle, that gives audiences a shared language for working through change fatigue, rather than a generic motivational message. Operator credibility from inside Microsoft’s first digital marketing strategy function, including the “I’M A PC” campaign and global Windows and Office launches, applied directly to the human side of technology adoption. Two decades of brand and transformation work at Kimberly-Clark and Microsoft, recognised by a Cannes Silver Direct Lion and twice by the Lester Wunderman Award for Outstanding Creative Work. A track record of large all-hands and culture-led audiences at BBC, Vodafone, 3M, Cisco, Pfizer, Hyundai, GE HealthCare and Reckitt, where the brief is energy and adoption, not abstract futurism. Recognition by his own profession: Chartered Marketer, Elected Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, twice UK Digital Marketing Personality of the Year, and Winner at The Speaker Awards 2023. Biography highlights Microsoft’s first Head of Digital Marketing Strategy, responsible for global Windows and Office launch campaigns, including “I’M A PC”. Former Kimberly-Clark marketing leader for Andrex, Kleenex and Huggies. Author of ReadyAlready: The Future-Ready Mindset to Keep Up, Stand Out, and Shape What’s Next. Cannes Silver Direct Lion winner; twice winner of the Lester Wunderman Award for Outstanding Creative Work. Chartered Marketer and Elected Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. UK Digital Marketing Personality of the Year, 2013 and 2019; Winner, The Speaker Awards 2023. Biography Most large organisations have not run out of change programmes. They have run out of people willing to engage with the next one. Years of restructure, platform migration and now AI rollout have left workforces more fatigued than resistant, and that is the harder problem to solve. Frost spent two decades inside that problem before he started speaking about it. At Kimberly-Clark he led marketing for Andrex, Kleenex and Huggies. He then moved to Microsoft as the company’s first Head of Digital Marketing Strategy, where he ran global launch campaigns for Windows and Office and the “I’M A PC” work. The work earned a Cannes Silver Direct Lion and two Lester Wunderman Awards for Outstanding Creative Work. Since 2012 he has built a speaking practice around a single framework, the ReadyAlready Growth Cycle, set out in his book ReadyAlready: The Future-Ready Mindset to Keep Up, Stand Out, and Shape What’s Next. The argument is that the gap holding back most transformation programmes is not strategy or technology, it is the human appetite to engage. The framework gives audiences a working language for that gap. His audiences reflect the brief. He has worked with BBC, Vodafone, 3M, Cisco, Pfizer, Hyundai, GE HealthCare, Reckitt, Bloomberg and Network Rail, typically at all-hands events, culture forums and senior leadership retreats. The Chartered Institute of Marketing has elected him a Fellow, and the UK industry named him Digital Marketing Personality of the Year in 2013 and again in 2019. He won at The Speaker Awards 2023. Key speaking topics Future-Ready Mindset Change fatigue and workforce adoption The human side of AI and digital transformation Employee engagement at scale Culture in technology-led change Leadership communication during transformation Marketing and brand reinvention Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers, and internal communications leads planning all-hands and culture moments Transformation and change leaders preparing workforces for AI and digital adoption C-suite and senior leadership teams running annual kickoffs, town halls, and strategy retreats CMOs and brand leaders rebuilding marketing function capability in an AI-shaped market Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for naming and working through change fatigue inside a team The ReadyAlready Growth Cycle as a usable framework, not just a model on a slide A clearer view of which human capabilities still matter as AI absorbs more of the work Practical prompts to turn passive consumers of change into active contributors Re-energised commitment to the next phase of transformation, anchored to specific personal habits

Why organisations work with Zahaan Bharmal He sits inside Google at senior level, shaping how the company communicates AI to enterprise and policy audiences across EMEA. Boards get an insider’s read on where AI is actually heading, not a consultant’s deck. His book The Art of Physics gives him a developed framework for using ideas like uncertainty, entropy and chaos to interrogate strategic decisions. Audiences leave with a vocabulary for thinking, not a slide of takeaways. He founded YouTube Space Lab, the international science competition run with NASA, ESA and JAXA, and holds NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. That is a credential almost no other corporate keynote speaker carries. He moves between physics, AI, government and frontier industry, advising the commercial space station company Vast. The result is a speaker who can talk to a board about AI strategy and to a STEM audience about scientific curiosity without changing register. Biography highlights Senior Director at Google, London, with seventeen years at the company across strategy, marketing and communications, including work with Google DeepMind. Author of The Art of Physics: Eight Elegant Ideas to Make Sense of Almost Everything (2024), published in the UK by Hodder and in North America by Greystone Books. Founder of YouTube Space Lab, run with NASA, ESA, JAXA and Lenovo, reaching students in over eighty countries. Recipient of NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. Physics graduate of the University of Oxford and Fulbright Scholar with an MBA from Stanford University. Regular contributor on physics and space to The Guardian; advisor to commercial space station company Vast. Biography Frontier AI is being deployed inside organisations faster than most boards can build the judgement to govern it. The hard question is not what the technology can do. It is how to make defensible decisions when the underlying system is changing every quarter and the available evidence keeps shifting. That is the territory Zahaan Bharmal works in. As a Senior Director at Google with seventeen years at the company, he has led strategy and communications across marketing, operations and Google DeepMind, focused on how AI is understood and adopted by enterprise and policy audiences in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He brings boards an insider’s view of how a frontier AI organisation actually thinks about deployment, risk and credibility. His book The Art of Physics, published in 2024 by Hodder in the UK and Greystone in North America, sets out eight ideas from physics, including uncertainty, entropy and chaos theory, and uses them to interrogate everyday decision-making. The argument carries weight because of where he sits: a physicist by training who has spent a career inside one of the companies building the systems that now sit on every executive agenda. Before Google, Zahaan studied Physics at Oxford, worked as a management consultant and then as a UK Government policy adviser, before winning a Fulbright Scholarship to Stanford for an MBA. He founded YouTube Space Lab with NASA, ESA and JAXA, the largest international school space science competition, for which he received NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. He writes on science for The Guardian and advises Vast, the private company building commercial space stations. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the practical limits of corporate decision-making Ideas from physics applied to leadership under uncertainty Science communication and public trust in AI Curiosity, complexity and innovation Resilience and composure in fast-moving systems The future of space and frontier industries Ideal for Board and executive committee sessions on AI strategy and responsible adoption Senior leadership audiences in regulated industries grappling with frontier technology decisions CHRO, CSO and transformation leads working on decision quality under uncertainty Innovation, R&D and STEM audiences inside scientific and engineering organisations Audience outcomes A clearer mental model for making decisions when the evidence base is moving Specific physics-derived heuristics for thinking about uncertainty, entropy and chaos in commercial contexts An insider’s view of how AI is being built, deployed and communicated inside a frontier technology company Renewed appetite for scientific curiosity as a leadership trait, not a soft skill

Why organisations work with Marcel Pesch He runs a structured AI executive education programme, MMAI, with practitioner faculty drawn from Deutsche Bahn, E.ON, Strategyzer, and academic and legal specialists. Few keynote speakers come with their own curriculum. His material covers the full operating stack: generative AI, data science, AI Act compliance, automation and agents, and leadership in the AI era. Audiences leave with a managerial map, not a tour of tools. He treats fairness, bias, and equality of opportunity as operating problems for organisations deploying AI, not as a separate ethics conversation. Fifteen years of coaching practice underpins the keynote register. Sessions translate into how managers behave on Monday, not just what they understood on Friday. Active member of the German AI Association (KI Bundesverband), with a stated engagement in AI standards and ethical guidelines. Biography highlights Founder of academy4.ai, an AI education and training organisation Designer of the MMAI (Master Management with AI) programme, a nine-module cohort-based course covering AI strategy, compliance, and deployment Faculty network on MMAI includes Prof. Dr. Johannes Stübinger (HS Coburg), Dr. Kristina Schreiber (LOSCHELDER), and practitioners from Deutsche Bahn, E.ON, and Strategyzer Member of the German AI Association (KI Bundesverband) Over 15 years of professional coaching experience with individuals and organisations Keynote topics include “AI on Steroids”, “AI & Diversity and Inclusion”, “AI & Inequality of Opportunity”, and “AI & the Workforce of Tomorrow” Biography Most companies have already bought into AI. The harder question is whether their managers can use it well: govern its decisions, interrogate its outputs, and redesign work around it. That is the gap Marcel Pesch built academy4.ai to close. Through the MMAI (Master Management with AI) programme, Pesch and his faculty take working professionals through nine modules covering generative AI, data science, AI Act compliance, marketing and sales applications, automation and agentic systems, sustainability, project management, and leadership in the AI era. Faculty draw on academic specialists, legal experts at LOSCHELDER, and practitioners from Deutsche Bahn, E.ON, and Strategyzer. Alongside the curriculum, Pesch speaks publicly on the harder political content of AI deployment: bias in algorithmic systems, equality of opportunity, and the way AI is reshaping who gets which jobs. He is a member of the German AI Association (KI Bundesverband), engaged in standards and ethical guidelines for the field. Fifteen years of coaching shape his keynote register. Sessions are designed to leave senior audiences with a managerial map of where AI changes their work, where it does not, and where the next governance and fairness decisions will sit. Key speaking topics AI literacy for managers and executives Operationalising AI beyond pilots AI Act and regulatory compliance for business leaders Bias and equality of opportunity in algorithmic systems Automation and agentic systems in the workplace The AI-era workforce and future skills Leading teams in AI-augmented organisations Ideal for C-suite teams and senior managers preparing to deploy AI across operations Heads of HR, transformation, and learning planning AI workforce upskilling Boards seeking a structured view of AI governance, compliance, and risk DEI and ethics leads working with technical teams on algorithmic fairness Audience outcomes A practical map of where AI changes managerial work and where it does not Sharper language for governing AI decisions, model outputs, and vendor claims A clearer view of bias and equality-of-opportunity questions in algorithmic systems A workable next step for AI literacy across leadership and team levels

Why organisations work with Michelle K. Lee A rare three-sided view of AI: senior executive inside Google, Vice President of Amazon Web Services’ Machine Learning Solutions Lab, and a presidentially appointed agency head responsible for national IP and technology policy. Board-room credibility built on board service. Current director at MassMutual, Unity Technologies and The MIT Corporation, so audiences hear a peer, not a presenter. AI governance grounded in the law and the operating reality. Founder and CEO of Obsidian Strategies, advising on AI opportunity selection and the governance that goes with it. A track record of running AI at scale. Led a global AWS team that built machine learning into operations, customer experience and new revenue lines for clients across industries. Federal-scale execution. Ran the 10,000-person USPTO as the first woman to direct the agency, including its own AI strategy and digital modernisation. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Obsidian Strategies, advising Fortune-class companies and boards on AI opportunities and AI governance. Former Vice President, Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision, Amazon Web Services. Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the first woman in the role. Former Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy at Google. Board director: The MIT Corporation, MassMutual, Unity Technologies. Co-founder of ChIPs. MIT-trained computer scientist (B.S., M.S., EECS) and Stanford Law graduate (J.D.). Featured by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, NPR, MIT Sloan Management Review, CES, SXSW, the World Knowledge Forum and the National Association of Corporate Directors. Biography Most boards have moved past the question of whether AI matters. The harder problem is which AI decisions belong with the board, which belong with the operators, and how to govern a technology whose capabilities and regulatory picture keep moving. Michelle K. Lee has worked that problem from every side of the table. At Google she spent eight years inside one of the most consequential technology companies of the era, ending as Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy. At Amazon Web Services she ran the Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision businesses as a Vice President, leading a global team that helped clients across industries build machine learning into operations, customer experience and new revenue lines. Few AI advisors have actually shipped AI at that scale. Between those roles she was appointed by the President to serve as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the first woman to hold the position. She ran a 10,000-person agency, set its own AI strategy, and was the principal advisor to the President on intellectual property policy. That public-sector vantage point is what makes her boardroom counsel on AI regulation and governance unusually grounded. Today she runs Obsidian Strategies, advising Fortune-class companies and their boards on where to deploy AI for material return and how to govern it credibly. She sits on the boards of MassMutual, Unity Technologies and The MIT Corporation, so the people she advises know she is making the same decisions in her day job. Key speaking topics AI strategy for the board and the executive team AI governance, ethics and regulation Generative AI: opportunities and operational risks Machine learning in customer experience and operations Digital transformation and innovation Intellectual property in the age of AI Director-level technology oversight Ideal for Boards and audit, risk or technology committees framing AI oversight and governance. CEO, CIO, CTO, Chief AI Officer and General Counsel audiences moving AI from pilot to production. Senior leadership offsites on AI strategy, regulation and competitive positioning. Industry events convening regulated sectors (financial services, insurance, healthcare, public sector) navigating AI policy. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI investment produces measurable return and where it does not. A practical board-level framework for AI governance, risk and accountability. A read on where AI regulation is heading and what it means for current strategy. A more honest conversation about generative AI: what to deploy, what to defer, and what to refuse. Confidence that the speaker has personally built, operated and regulated the technology under discussion.

Why organisations work with Zack Kass He built the commercial engine inside OpenAI that translated frontier research into deployed products, which is a different vantage point from any external futurist or consultant. His “Unmetered Intelligence” framework gives boards a concrete way to plan for AI as infrastructure, not as a vendor decision, and it travels into capital allocation conversations rather than staying inside the IT function. He works directly with the leadership teams of named global organisations, including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, and Amgen, so the room recognises that the playbook has been pressure-tested against companies they compete with. His Wiley book, The Next Renaissance, is a USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and LA Times bestseller, which gives a CHRO or CIO a coherent reference for their executive team and not only a keynote. He is a recurring voice on Bloomberg and CNBC on AI risk, capital, and workforce impact, so the credibility check a buyer does after the call confirms the brief. Biography highlights Former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI; built the sales, partnerships, and customer success teams. Author of The Next Renaissance: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential (Wiley, 2026); USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and LA Times bestseller. Executive-in-Residence, University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce. Founder of ZKAI LLC; author of the “Unmetered Intelligence” white paper. Advisor to Fortune 1,000 leadership teams including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, PayPal, MetLife, TikTok, Amgen, and The Hartford. Recurring AI commentator for Bloomberg and CNBC; bylined contributor to Fortune. B.A., University of California, Berkeley. Biography OpenAI’s research only became a market because someone had to translate model weights into contracts, support, and adoption inside the world’s largest companies. That commercial scaffolding was built by the team Kass led as Head of Go-To-Market, and it is the unusual seat that shapes what he now offers to boards. The proposition is operational. Most leadership teams have approved AI pilots. Few have made the harder decisions about where intelligence sits in the workflow, who is accountable for outcomes, and what gets reorganised when cognitive capacity stops being scarce. Kass writes about that shift in his Wiley book, The Next Renaissance, and codifies it in his “Unmetered Intelligence” framework, which treats AI as infrastructure on the order of electricity rather than as a product category. The advisory base is concrete. Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, PayPal, MetLife, TikTok, Amgen, and The Hartford have all worked with him directly, and the case studies that surface in his keynotes are drawn from those rooms. Bloomberg and CNBC use him as a recurring voice on AI risk and capital allocation, and his Fortune writing pushes the same argument into wider business debate. He is also Executive-in-Residence at UVA McIntire, which keeps the research and the boardroom work on the same circuit. What boards take from him is a sharper read on the next two to three years of AI deployment, written in the language of operating decisions rather than technical features. The choices around workforce, capital, and capability sequencing are no longer theoretical for most executive teams, and Kass is one of the few voices who has watched them get made from the inside of the company that triggered them. Key speaking topics Applied AI strategy for Fortune 1,000 leadership teams The Unmetered Intelligence thesis AI deployment beyond pilots Workforce redesign in the age of AI The Next Renaissance: AI and human potential AI risk, regulation, and board governance Capital allocation and AI infrastructure Ideal for CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, and CHROs setting enterprise AI strategy Boards and audit committees pressure-testing AI risk and governance posture Senior leadership offsites focused on AI deployment and workforce redesign Industry conferences for financial services, technology, healthcare, and consumer goods Audience outcomes A clearer line between AI experimentation and the operating decisions that follow it A board-ready framing for AI as infrastructure, drawing on the Unmetered Intelligence thesis Specific reference points from named Fortune 1,000 deployments rather than generic case studies A defensible position on AI risk, capital allocation, and workforce impact to take back to executive teams

Why organisations work with Greg Orme A book-length, award-winning thesis behind every keynote. The Human Edge won Business Book of the Year 2020 and gives senior audiences a single, memorable framework, the four “superpowers”, they can apply to their own teams the next morning. London Business School pedigree as a builder, not just a teacher. He founded LBS’s Centre for Creative Business and ran executive programmes there for seven years, so the content has been pressure-tested on senior cohorts before it reaches a client stage. Recognised by peers in the people function. HR Magazine named him among its Most Influential Thinkers in 2022, which matters to CHROs sponsoring leadership and capability work. Translates the AI conversation into something a workforce can act on. Where most AI speakers describe the technology, Orme tells leadership teams what human behaviours their organisation now has to develop deliberately. Biography highlights Author of The Human Edge: How Curiosity and Creativity are Your Superpowers in the Digital Economy (Pearson, 2019), named Business Book of the Year 2020 and translated into Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. Author of The Spark: How to Ignite and Lead Business Creativity (FT Publishing, 2014). Founding CEO of London Business School’s Centre for Creative Business; programme director and lecturer at LBS for seven years. Named to HR Magazine’s Most Influential Thinkers 2022. Forbes contributor writing on leadership, creativity and the digital economy. Clients include Microsoft, Accenture, BMW, EY, Sky, Virgin Media O2, ING, Novo Nordisk, the International Olympic Committee and the World Economic Forum. Biography The arrival of generative AI has forced a question that most leadership development programmes were not built to answer. If machines can now write, summarise, analyse and code, what exactly should an organisation expect from its human workforce? Greg Orme’s work is a direct response to that question. His book The Human Edge, published by Pearson and named Business Book of the Year 2020, argues that four human capabilities, consciousness, curiosity, creativity and collaboration, become more commercially valuable as routine cognitive work is absorbed by technology. The thesis has travelled. The book has been translated into Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese, and the framework now sits behind his keynote and executive education work. That work has institutional roots. Orme founded London Business School’s Centre for Creative Business and spent seven years there as a programme director and lecturer, building and running executive education for senior cohorts. He holds an LBS MBA. HR Magazine named him among its Most Influential Thinkers in 2022, a recognition that matters in the people function where his content is most often commissioned. What separates him from other voices in the AI conversation is the audience he is talking to. He is not selling tooling, and he is not forecasting. He is telling leadership teams what their organisations have to develop in their people, deliberately and at scale, so that an AI strategy produces advantage rather than displacement. Key speaking topics Human capability in the age of AI Leadership in the digital economy Creativity and innovation as organisational disciplines Curiosity and learning culture Purpose-driven leadership Influence and storytelling for senior leaders Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers redesigning leadership and learning around AI. Executive committees setting the human capability agenda alongside a digital or AI strategy. Senior leadership offsites where the brief is to reset behaviours, not roll out tools. Boards and partner groups in professional services confronting AI’s impact on talent value. Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary, the four superpowers, for what the organisation now needs from its people. A clearer view of where AI raises the value of human judgment and where it erodes it. Specific behavioural prompts senior leaders can model in their own teams the following week. A sharper sense of which leadership development investments still pay back in an AI-enabled organisation.

Why organisations work with Henrik von Scheel He is one of the named architects of Industry 4.0 as it was formalised in Germany’s high-tech strategy, so his frame of reference is the policy and standards layer most strategists only read about. His advisory seat on the EU AI Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM) lets him brief boards on regulation that is still being written, not regulation that has already shipped. He sits inside the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, whose trend material feeds the World Economic Forum, so the inputs he uses with clients are the same inputs shaping global agenda papers. His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption” gives clients a documented method for sequencing disruption response rather than a slide deck of trends. Co-authorship of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model, means he moves from boardroom narrative to operational specification inside the same engagement. Biography highlights Originated the term “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in 2011 as a member of the Advisory Group to the German Federal Ministry of Education & Research, with Prof August Wilhelm Scheer and Prof Henning Kagermann. Co-author of Germany’s Digital Agenda (2009 to 2010), later adopted as the European Commission’s Europe Digital Agenda 2020. Managing Director of the Institute of Strategic Intelligence and Professor of Economics and Strategy Management. Author of “Strategy in the Age of Disruption: A Handbook to Anticipate Change and Make Smart Decisions” (Wiley, 2024). Advisory Council Member on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM Scope 1 to 3); co-author of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. Recipient of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award (2019), the prize popularly described as the Nobel of knowledge sharing; named a leading authority on strategy by the Financial Times and a most influential futurist of the century by CNBC. Biography The phrase “Industry 4.0” was first written into a German federal policy paper in 2011, and the working group behind it had three names on it. One of them was Henrik von Scheel, then advising the Federal Ministry of Education & Research alongside August Wilhelm Scheer and Henning Kagermann. Two years later the concept was published as Germany’s high-tech strategy and became the dominant frame for industrial digitalisation across most advanced economies. That origin story matters because most strategists discuss digital transformation from outside the room. Von Scheel works from inside it. He co-authored Germany’s Digital Agenda with Scheer in 2009 to 2010, which the European Commission adopted as the Europe Digital Agenda 2020. He sits on the advisory council for the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board, where he is contributing to the Green Deal, FIT for 55 and CBAM. He is briefing boards on rules he is helping draft. The operational layer is just as concrete. Through the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, where he is Managing Director, he supplies trend research used by the World Economic Forum. He has co-authored 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. This is what lets him move a conversation from megatrend to operational specification without losing the room. His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption”, co-written with Ciprian Popa and Joshua von Scheel, sets out a method for anticipating change and sequencing decisions rather than reacting to disruption after the fact. Current demand reflects that range: law firms working through the future of legal practice, defence, banking, automotive and manufacturing leaders working through the move from automation to intelligence. Key speaking topics Industry 4.0 and industrial digitalisation Artificial intelligence strategy and the EU AI Act From automation to intelligence in industrial operations Strategic foresight and megatrend analysis Future of legal practice in the age of AI Digital transformation execution Supply chain and operations reinvention Sustainability, ESG and energy transition Ideal for Boards and CEOs in manufacturing, automotive, defence and banking setting AI, digital and Industry 4.0 strategy at group level Managing Partners and innovation leads in law firms working through how AI restructures legal practice and client work Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads sequencing capital and operating bets under disruption COOs and operations leaders reinventing factories, supply chains and service operations Government and policy audiences shaping national digital, AI or industrial agendas Audience outcomes A clear read on which megatrends are commercially actionable in the next planning cycle and which are still ten years out A defensible logic for sequencing AI, automation and digital investments against P&L impact An insider view of where EU AI and climate regulation is going before it lands A working method, drawn from his Wiley handbook, for making strategic decisions when the operating environment keeps shifting Confidence that the digital and Industry 4.0 narrative inside the organisation matches what is happening at policy and standards level

Why organisations work with Katja Schipperheijn A published methodology, the Learning Ecosystem, that gives executives a working model for how learning, technology, and culture connect inside an operating business, not a slide of principles. Authority on both sides of the human-machine question: trained at MIT Sloan in algorithmic business thinking and digital learning strategy, and recognised by getAbstract for the learning impact of her work. Two Kogan Page books that translate the research into language a CHRO, a CLO, and a CEO can use in the same conversation. Practical operator experience through Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, advising multinationals, governments, and scale-ups on how to embed continuous learning into the fabric of the business. Biography highlights Author of Learning Ecosystems (Kogan Page, 2022), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2023 in the International Business Book category. Author of The Learning Mindset (Kogan Page, 2024), winner of the getAbstract Global Book Award for Learning Impact, 2025. Founder of Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, advising clients across Europe, the Gulf, and Asia. MIT Sloan programmes in Algorithmic Business Thinking and Digital Learning Strategy; International eMBA, Antwerp Management School. Founder of the sCooledu foundation; digital citizenship workshops delivered to over 15,000 children. Named to the Global 200 Women Power Leaders list, 2024. Biography AI rollouts are outpacing the workforce capability needed to use them well. Most organisations still treat learning as a programme delivered to people, rather than a property of how the business operates. Schipperheijn’s work sits in exactly that gap. Her first book, Learning Ecosystems, set out a working model for how learning, technology, and stakeholder behaviour connect inside an organisation. Published by Kogan Page in 2022, it was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards the following year. The follow-up, The Learning Mindset (2024), extends the argument into AI: what human competencies leaders need to cultivate when machines take on more cognitive work, and how to build them at scale. The book won the 2025 getAbstract Global Book Award for Learning Impact. The research is paired with operating experience. Through Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, she advises multinationals, governments, and scale-ups on continuous improvement, learning culture, and the integration of AI into day-to-day work. Her academic grounding sits between Antwerp Management School, where she completed an eMBA, and MIT Sloan, where she trained in algorithmic business thinking and digital learning strategy. She is also founder of the sCooledu foundation, which has delivered digital citizenship workshops to more than 15,000 children. That work feeds back into her commercial argument: the capacity to keep learning is the capability that determines whether an organisation, or a society, gets value out of AI. Key speaking topics Learning ecosystems and continuous improvement AI and the future of work Human-machine symbiosis Workforce upskilling and reskilling Liminal leadership through disruptive change Digital learning strategy Innovation culture inside large organisations Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers redesigning workforce capability around AI Executive committees and boards setting the AI and workforce agenda together Transformation and innovation leads embedding learning into operating change HR, L&D, and talent leadership audiences inside multinationals Audience outcomes A working definition of a learning ecosystem and how it differs from a training function A clearer view of which human competencies become more valuable as AI capability grows, and which become less so Practical lenses for assessing whether their current L&D operating model can support AI-era work Language that connects the CHRO, CLO, and CEO agendas on workforce readiness Examples drawn from her advisory work across Europe, the Gulf, and Asia

Why organisations work with Lior Arussy He has the documented Mercedes-Benz USA case: a dealer network that moved from ninth to first in customer satisfaction, with 25,000 employees engaged through 80 full-day programmes. His method treats customer experience as an execution problem, not a brand or service problem. The deliverable is behavioural change at the frontline, tied to revenue and retention. He brings a published intellectual track. Seven books, including Next Is Now (Simon & Schuster) on building organisations for continuous change, and 300+ articles, with regular contributions to Harvard Business Review and Chief Executive. He has run more than 200 corporate transformations through Strativity, with clients including Mercedes-Benz, Royal Caribbean, Thomson Reuters, HSBC, SAP, FedEx, and Johnson & Johnson. The reference base is unusually deep for a CX speaker. His Generative AI keynote work addresses what the technology does to customer expectations and to the operating model of customer-facing teams. It is positioned as a strategic conversation, not a tooling demo. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Strativity Group, a global customer experience and strategy execution consultancy operating across multiple countries. Author of seven books, including Next Is Now (Simon & Schuster, 2018), Passionate and Profitable (Wiley, 2005), and Customer Experience Strategy. 300+ published articles, with regular contributions to Harvard Business Review and Chief Executive media. Led the Mercedes-Benz USA customer experience transformation, taking the dealer network from ninth to first in customer satisfaction. Named to the Global Gurus customer service and customer experience rankings; recipient of the CRM Magazine “Influential Leaders” award. MBA, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Previously held executive positions at Hewlett-Packard. Biography Most customer experience programmes do not fail at the strategy stage. They fail when an engaged steering committee meets a frontline that has been trained to comply with policy rather than own a customer outcome. Arussy has spent two decades closing that gap inside large organisations. He founded Strativity Group in 2003 and has since led more than 200 corporate transformations across customer experience, employee engagement, and strategy execution. The Mercedes-Benz USA work is the cleanest illustration: a dealer network that moved from ninth to first in customer satisfaction after 25,000 employees were engaged through 80 full-day programmes. A European logistics client he advised moved from 3% to 44% annual organic growth in two years. The work is consistently anchored in measurable commercial change, not in survey scores or brand language. The published track behind the consulting is substantial. He has written seven books, including Next Is Now (Simon & Schuster, 2018) on building organisations that thrive under continuous change, and Passionate and Profitable (Wiley, 2005) on why customer strategies typically fail. He has published more than 300 articles, including in Harvard Business Review, and contributes regularly to Chief Executive media. His current keynote work extends into the implications of generative AI for customer expectations and the operating model of customer-facing teams. For a senior buyer, the value is access to a CX practitioner who has done the work at scale and writes about it with the directness of someone who has watched it succeed and fail in real organisations. The references run from Mercedes-Benz and Royal Caribbean to HSBC, SAP, and Johnson & Johnson. Key speaking topics Customer experience as commercial growth strategy Strategy execution and behavioural change at the frontline Customer-centric culture and employee engagement The generative AI-empowered customer Leading continuous change and organisational reinvention Personal agency and ownership in transformation Ideal for Chief Customer Officers, CXOs, and Chief Marketing Officers leading enterprise-wide CX programmes. CEOs and COOs evaluating the gap between customer strategy and operating reality. Transformation and change leaders responsible for embedding new behaviours across large, distributed workforces. Boards and leadership teams in retail, financial services, automotive, hospitality, logistics, and B2B technology. Audience outcomes A practitioner’s account of what separates CX programmes that move revenue from those that move only dashboards. A clearer picture of how generative AI is reshaping customer expectations and the work of customer-facing teams. The five steps from Next Is Now applied to the audience’s own change environment. Named case material from Mercedes-Benz, Royal Caribbean, and other Fortune 500 transformations. A direct challenge to the policy-and-consistency model of customer service, with the alternative framed in operational terms.

Why organisations work with Ulrich Walter He brings the credibility of a flown astronaut and a sitting university chair to AI and robotics conversations that usually rely on consultants or vendor analysts. His role on the Bavarian Ethics Council gives him direct exposure to how regulators, ethicists and engineers are drawing the operating lines around AI, useful for boards setting their own. Disruptive-innovation content drawn from NASA mission cases and his own IBM project-management work, not from secondhand business literature. A working researcher in geriatronics and service robotics, which gives him a concrete view of what AI-assisted hardware can and cannot do today, beyond the generative-AI conversation. Comfortable in technical depth and broad audience formats. Eleven books, a weekly TV programme on Welt TV, and a Spiegel bestseller indicate a speaker who can carry a non-specialist room without softening the science. Biography highlights Payload Specialist, NASA Space Shuttle Columbia, Spacelab D-2 mission (STS-55), 1993. Chair of the Institute of Astronautics, Technical University of Munich, 2003 to 2023, now emeritus. Member, Bavarian Ethics Council on robotics and artificial intelligence. German Professor of the Year 2008 in engineering sciences and informatics. Author of eleven books including the Spiegel bestseller “Im Schwarzen Loch ist der Teufel los” and the Wiley textbook Astronautics. Host, Spacetimes, weekly space-science documentary on Welt TV since 2016. Biography Most leadership teams are asked to make decisions about AI and robotics without a working understanding of how the underlying systems behave. That gap is where Ulrich Walter does his most useful work. Trained as a physicist at the University of Cologne, with postdoctoral years at Argonne National Laboratory and UC Berkeley, he combines an active scientific career with a policy seat that few keynote speakers can match. In 1993 he flew Spacelab D-2 aboard Space Shuttle Columbia as Payload Specialist, running 89 experiments across materials science, life sciences and robotics in just under ten days in orbit. After the mission he managed satellite imaging programmes at the German Aerospace Center, then ran development projects at IBM, before being appointed to the Chair of Astronautics at TU Munich in 2003. At TUM he led research on service robotics, geriatronics, and the systems engineering behind human spaceflight. He also sits on the Bavarian Ethics Council on robotics and AI, advising on where the operational and moral limits of these technologies should fall. The work is technical, and it is current. For corporate audiences, the most useful translation is the one between high-risk technical environments and ordinary business decision-making. How does NASA assess disruptive change? How does a project manager at IBM apply mission-grade discipline? What does a working scientist on Germany’s AI ethics body actually think a board should worry about? Walter is unusually direct on all three. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and ethics Disruptive innovation Space technology and the NewSpace economy Robotics and geriatronics Systems engineering and project management The future of human spaceflight Science communication for non-specialist audiences Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting governance on AI and emerging technology Engineering, R&D and innovation leadership at industrial and aerospace firms Senior project and programme managers in complex, high-risk environments Conferences and offsites looking for a substantive technology keynote that can also carry a non-technical room Audience outcomes A working view of where AI and robotics genuinely change the operating picture, and where the hype runs ahead of the science. A practical translation of NASA-style risk management and project discipline into commercial settings. A clearer sense of how European regulators and ethicists are framing the limits of AI deployment. Exposure to the NewSpace economy and what it signals about the next generation of commercial technology. A reset of perspective on long-horizon strategic thinking from someone who has spent ten days looking at the planet from orbit.

Why organisations work with Yuval Noah Harari The NEXUS framework – which distinguishes self-correcting from self-reinforcing information networks – gives boards and governance teams a precise conceptual tool for evaluating AI strategy and regulatory exposure, grounded in historical evidence rather than prediction. Sapiens introduced the argument that large-scale human cooperation is built on shared fictions. For leadership teams, this reframes how institutions, legal systems, and monetary frameworks actually hold power – and what causes them to fail. Direct conversations with heads of state including Macron, Merkel, and Rutte put his arguments at the level of active geopolitical decision-making, not commentary. Audiences engage with someone whose thinking is tested at the highest levels of governance. His Distinguished Research Fellowship at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk anchors his arguments on AI in active institutional research on civilisational-scale risk – not opinion or futurism. The 100,000-year historical lens is genuinely rare in this space. It gives senior audiences a method for distinguishing structurally permanent change from cyclical volatility – applicable immediately to strategy, regulation, and organisational design. Biography highlights Professor of History, Department of History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; PhD from the University of Oxford, 2002 Author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and NEXUS – published in more than 65 languages; Sapiens held the Sunday Times bestseller top three for 96 consecutive weeks and ranked #10 in the NYT’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (2024) Distinguished Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge Two-time Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality (2009, 2012); Moncado Award, Society for Military History (2011); Handelsblatt German Economic Book Award for Homo Deus (2017) WEF Davos keynote speaker in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2026; CBS 60 Minutes profile (2021) Regular contributor to the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Economist, New York Times, and Nature Biography Organisations making decisions about AI governance are operating without historical context. The scale of information networks has changed before – with writing, printing, and broadcasting – and power has reorganised around each transition. What makes AI structurally different is not its speed or scale, but the fact that, for the first time, the network itself can generate and act on information without human instruction. Yuval Noah Harari is a Professor of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Distinguished Research Fellow at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. His four major works – Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and NEXUS – form a sustained argument about the relationship between information, power, and human agency, tracing it from the deep past to the governance decisions of the AI era. NEXUS, published in 2024, made that argument most directly relevant to organisations. Harari’s central distinction – between information systems that are self-correcting and those that reinforce existing power – gives leaders a practical framework for evaluating AI governance, regulatory exposure, and institutional design. The book argues that how organisations and governments navigate this distinction is the defining question of the current period. NEXUS reached number two on both the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller lists within a week of publication. Harari has held public conversations with heads of state including Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Mark Rutte on the future of AI and information. He has delivered keynote addresses at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2026, and contributes regularly to the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Economist, and Nature. His books have been translated into more than 65 languages. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and information governance The history and future of information networks Geopolitical risk and global power Long-term civilisational change and strategic foresight Human agency and technological disruption Shared fictions, institutions, and how societies hold together AI regulation and democratic resilience Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership teams navigating AI governance, information strategy, or long-term geopolitical risk Policy, government affairs, and strategic foresight functions at senior level Global conference and forum audiences at CEO, minister, or board director level Technology strategy and corporate affairs teams working on the societal and regulatory implications of AI Audience outcomes A macro-historical framework for reading which changes are structurally significant vs cyclical – applicable to strategy, governance, and regulatory positioning Practical understanding of the NEXUS distinction between self-correcting and self-reinforcing information systems, and its implications for AI governance design Clearer thinking about where power resides in information networks, and what that means for institutional and organisational decisions Historical context for positioning AI decisions within the longer pattern of how information technologies have redistributed political and economic power Sharper questions to bring back to leadership, board, and regulatory conversations already underway

Why organisations work with Fabian Hemmert He brings a working academic’s depth to a question most strategy teams treat too lightly: what does good human-computer interaction actually look like when AI is in the loop. His “Research Through Design” approach produces tested prototypes, not slideware. The “Data Touch” project, a finger ring that advances presentations by recognising objects, is the kind of artefact that shifts how a leadership team thinks about interface design. He speaks fluently across audiences. A PhD from Berlin University of the Arts, prior commercial work at Nintendo and Marvel, and stage time at SXSW, Lift and the Chaos Communication Congress give him range from board to design floor. He reframes AI as a design problem rather than a deployment problem. For organisations wrestling with adoption, that reframing tends to unlock conversations the technical roadmap cannot. Biography highlights Professor of Interface and User Experience Design, University of Wuppertal, heading the department since 2016. Dr.-Ing. from Berlin University of the Arts, with doctoral research at the Design Research Lab in collaboration with Telekom Innovation Labs. TEDxBerlin speaker; talk “The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone” hosted on TED.com. Conference platforms include SXSW, Lift, Chaos Communication Congress, EuroVision TV Summit, CeBIT, TEDxSalzburg and TEDxInnsbruck. Earlier industry experience at Nintendo of Europe and Marvel Comics during interface design studies. Published academic work on tangible interfaces and design research methodology, including a PhD thesis and book chapter on the Repertory Grid Technique. Biography Most digital products are built for the system, not the human using it. That mismatch is becoming harder to hide as AI moves from the back office into daily work. Fabian Hemmert’s research at the University of Wuppertal is a sustained attempt to close that gap through design rather than user training. He runs the Interface and User Experience Design department at Wuppertal’s industrial design school and earned his Dr.-Ing. at Berlin University of the Arts, working alongside Telekom Innovation Labs. The methodology is “Research Through Design”: build a prototype, put it in front of people, learn what changes. Projects such as “Data Touch”, a finger ring that controls a presentation by recognising the objects in a speaker’s hand, are how the research becomes argument. Earlier in his career he worked for Nintendo of Europe and Marvel Comics, which gives the academic frame a commercial spine. His public platform includes TEDxBerlin, SXSW, Lift, the Chaos Communication Congress, the EuroVision TV Summit and CeBIT. The through-line is consistent across all of them: intuitive technology is a design outcome, not an accident. For senior leaders, the value is a corrective. Strategy decks treat AI and digital tools as capability questions. Hemmert’s work makes the case that adoption, engagement and trust are decided much earlier, at the interface, and that organisations underestimate how much of their digital strategy is being shaped by design defaults they never examined. Key speaking topics Human-computer interaction Designing for AI in everyday use Tangible and embodied interfaces The future of mobile and personal devices Research Through Design methodology Design education and creative capability Play as a method for innovation Ideal for Chief design officers, heads of product and CX leaders rethinking digital interfaces in light of AI. Innovation and R&D teams looking for an academic perspective grounded in built prototypes. Leadership audiences at technology, telecoms, consumer electronics and media organisations. Universities, design schools and conferences focused on the future of human-machine interaction. Audience outcomes A sharper sense of why interface design, not model capability, often decides whether an AI deployment lands. Exposure to working prototypes that reframe assumptions about how digital systems should feel to use. A vocabulary for discussing tangibility, embodiment and intuition as commercial design variables. Confidence to challenge default assumptions about screens, devices and digital workflows in their own organisation.