Business Model Innovation

Why organisations work with Trabucchi and Buganza The Platform Thinking Matrix gives strategy and transformation teams a structured instrument for identifying precisely where platform mechanisms can be applied to existing business models, built from a decade of research on established companies, not borrowed from startup literature. The Digital Phoenix Effect draws on analysis of 140 platform initiatives across S&P 500 companies, with detailed cases from Siemens, AXA, Eni, and Domino’s – the organisations their research is built around look like most audiences, not like Silicon Valley startups. With 100+ peer-reviewed publications in journals including the Journal of Product Innovation Management and Technovation, their frameworks can be tested against sustained evidence – not just a practitioner’s conviction codified into a model. As Scientific Directors of the Platform Thinking HUB within Politecnico’s Digital Innovation Observatories, they give organisations access to live, connected research, not a fixed set of frameworks. Shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award in Digital Thinking: the body that the Financial Times has described as producing the Oscars of management thinking. Biography highlights Associate Professor of Platform Thinking (Trabucchi) and Full Professor of Leadership & Innovation (Buganza), School of Management, Politecnico di Milano Co-founders and Scientific Directors of the Platform Thinking HUB within Politecnico’s Digital Innovation Observatories, and of LEADIN’Lab; Buganza chairs the EIASM International Product Development Management Conference Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024; shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award, Digital Thinking category Co-authors of Platform Thinking: Read the Past. Write the Future (Business Expert Press, 2023) – shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2024 and translated into Italian and Chinese – and The Digital Phoenix Effect (Platform Thinking Publishing, 2025) 100+ peer-reviewed articles in journals including the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technovation, and Information Systems Journal Co-founders of Symplatform (2018), the annual international conference on digital platforms connecting researchers and practitioners Biography Most digital transformation advice is written for companies that do not yet exist. Trabucchi and Buganza study the ones that do: established firms with legacy assets, existing customer relationships, and infrastructure they cannot simply abandon. Over more than a decade at Politecnico di Milano’s School of Management, they developed Platform Thinking as a named strategic framework. It is not a description of what Uber or Airbnb do. It is a method for how any established organisation can activate its existing assets to generate the multi-sided value that platform businesses create. The Platform Thinking Matrix formalises this as a practical instrument for strategy and transformation teams. Their 2025 book, The Digital Phoenix Effect, draws on 140 platform initiatives analysed across S&P 500 companies, with cases from Siemens, AXA, Eni, and Domino’s. The argument that incumbent firms cannot compete in the platform economy on their own terms is a common one. Trabucchi and Buganza make the opposite case, and back it with sustained empirical research. Both were included in the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024 and shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award in Digital Thinking. As co-founders of Symplatform and Scientific Directors of the Platform Thinking HUB, they connect rigorous academic research to active practitioner communities. Their frameworks emerge from sustained, peer-reviewed inquiry – over 100 published articles across journals including the Journal of Product Innovation Management and Technovation – not from advisory work alone. Key speaking topics Platform thinking and business model transformation Legacy organisations in the platform economy The Platform Thinking Matrix Data as a platform asset GenAI and internal platform development Platform leadership and innovation management Multi-sided platforms and ecosystem strategy Ideal for Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Digital Officers leading platform transformation in established businesses CEOs and boards of legacy organisations facing disruption from platform competitors Innovation and transformation leads in non-digital-native companies Executive MBA and corporate learning audiences focused on digital business model innovation Audience outcomes A working definition of Platform Thinking and how it differs from conventional digital transformation advice The Platform Thinking Matrix as a practical framework for identifying where platform mechanisms apply to existing business models Real cases from established firms – Siemens, AXA, Eni, Domino’s – showing how legacy assets become platform advantages Clarity on the specific leadership conditions that enable platform-based change within established organisations A starting point for assessing their organisation’s platform potential against a research-backed framework

Chris Heemskerk: Innovation Leader and Global Keynote Speaker Drawing on more than a decade of leadership experience at leading technology firms such as Google and Apple, Chris Heemskerk is widely regarded as an authority on corporate innovation. He currently leads The Innovation Alliance, a global network of executives and thought leaders dedicated to advancing innovation across industries. As Google’s former Head of Scaled Acquisitions for North America, Chris reshaped his business operation into a global benchmark for innovation and operational excellence. He later served as an advisor to Google’s Innovation Lab, collaborating with Harvard Business School to document its pioneering work in two HBS case studies in which he is featured. To help organizations innovate with consistency, Chris created The Innovation Scorecard™, a comprehensive framework that enables companies to strengthen their innovation capabilities and unlock new avenues for growth. A highly sought-after speaker and facilitator, Chris has led impactful innovation sessions at Google and on international stages. His speaking engagements include major platforms such as the United Nations in Rome, as well as leading organizations including Amazon, Salesforce, and Verizon. Committed to lifelong learning, Chris serves as a faculty member at The European Institute of Innovation for Sustainability (eiis.eu). He holds Executive Certifications in Innovation Leadership from Harvard Business School, where he also completed the High Potential Leadership Program (2019). In addition, he is certified in Design Thinking from Stanford University and earned an MSc in Marketing from the London School of Business and Finance. Chris splits his time between Europe and the United States, where he lives with his wife and young son.

Why organisations work with Dhar Mann He has done what most CMOs are still trying to do: build a content engine that earns ten billion views a year without buying media, and is willing to explain the mechanics behind it. He is one of two entrepreneurs ever ranked #2 on Forbes’ Top Creators list two years running, and he runs it from a 125,000 sq ft Los Angeles studio with a full production staff. Buyers get a working operator, not a personal brand. He was named to the inaugural TIME100 Creators list and dubbed the “Moral Philosopher of YouTube” by The New York Times, which makes him uniquely credible on values-led content as a commercial strategy, not as a CSR talking point. He scaled LiveGlam from $600 of starting capital to eight-figure subscription revenue before founding the studio, which means his commentary on customer acquisition and creator-led growth comes from two successful builds, not one. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Dhar Mann Studios; the world’s #1 digital scripted creator, with more than 140 million followers and over 10 billion annual views across platforms. Named to the inaugural TIME100 Creators list, 2025. Ranked #2 on Forbes’ Top Creators list in 2024 and 2025. Three-time Telly Award winner; Shorty Award for Best YouTube Presence; multiple Kids’ Choice Awards nominations for Favourite Male Creator. Founder of LiveGlam, the cruelty-free cosmetics subscription business he grew from $600 to eight-figure annual revenue. Confirmed 2026 keynote at NATPE Global and the Realscreen Summit, Miami, alongside Dhar Mann Studios CEO and former MTV president Sean Atkins. Biography The creator economy is now worth more than $250 billion, and most large organisations are still trying to work out how to participate in it without losing their brand to it. Dhar Mann Studios is one of the clearest answers in market. From a 125,000 sq ft production base in Los Angeles, the company publishes scripted shorts that have generated over 10 billion views a year and a following of more than 140 million people, built without traditional media spend. The studio model is what distinguishes the proposition. Dhar Mann is the founder and CEO, but the business is run as a vertically integrated production house, with a full writers’ room, actors, post-production and distribution discipline. The New York Times called him the “Moral Philosopher of YouTube” for the values-led structure of the content; Forbes ranked him #2 on its Top Creators list in both 2024 and 2025; TIME named him to the inaugural TIME100 Creators list in 2025. The relevant point for organisations is that values, in his work, are an operating choice that drives retention and reach, not a brand veneer. Before the studio, he founded LiveGlam, a cruelty-free cosmetics subscription business he grew from $600 of starting capital to eight-figure annual revenue, an early proof that he can build a customer-acquisition engine inside a category he did not previously operate in. The same instinct, treating storytelling and community as the primary product, has carried into partnerships with MTV, Amazon, Universal and Instagram, and into a confirmed 2026 keynote at NATPE Global and the Realscreen Summit, where the brief is the convergence of creator economics and traditional media. For senior commercial leaders, the value sits in three places: how to think about content as a customer asset, how to structure a studio rather than a campaign function, and how to use values-led narrative as a loyalty mechanism in categories where awareness no longer converts. Key speaking topics Purpose-driven storytelling and brand loyalty The creator economy and the studio model Building customer acquisition at scale Entrepreneurship and category entry Empathy and values as commercial strategy Culture inside fast-scaling creative businesses Ideal for CMOs and brand leadership teams rebuilding their content function Founders and CEOs scaling consumer or subscription businesses Innovation, marketing and customer experience teams looking to act on creator economics Media, entertainment and platform organisations navigating the convergence with creators Audience outcomes A working view of how a scripted-content studio earns ten billion views a year, and which parts of that model port into a corporate brand function A specific take on values-led content as a commercial choice, with the loyalty and retention evidence to back it up The operating logic behind taking a business from a few hundred dollars to eight-figure revenue inside a new category A clearer read on where the creator economy and traditional media are actually converging, and what that means for marketing spend

Dr Christina Yan Zhang – Visionary Metaverse Pioneer, Global Innovation Strategist & Policy Influencer Dr Christina Yan Zhang is CEO of The Metaverse Institute and a leading authority on the responsible use of AI and virtual worlds, now widely seen as a key pathway towards AGI. Recognised as one of the “100 Global Women in AI 2025” at Davos alongside leaders such as Mira Murati, she combines strategic vision, practical insight and a distinctive sense of humour that resonates strongly with forward‑looking corporate and automotive audiences. Christina serves as UN ITU’s Co‑Chair of the Taskgroup on Pre‑standardisation for the CitiVerse (AI‑powered future cities), where she has helped spearhead six UN standards and now leads the development of the UN’s CitiVerse evaluation and assessment framework. This framework uses 130 indicators across 14 domains and is supported by over 30 world‑leading authorities, including the Deputy CEO of the UN Pension Fund (USD 95bn AUM), senior executives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and Google’s Chief Security Advisor, to ensure AI‑driven future cities are people‑centred, secure and inclusive. Her work directly informs how smart cities, digital twins and AI will transform mobility, automotive value chains and consumer ecosystems in more than 2,000 cities worldwide. An award‑winning leader with 20 years’ experience turning visionary ideas into business success, Christina has extensive experience working with UN leaders, government ministers, university presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs on innovation. She is a pioneer in the virtual worlds, having begun her master’s research on virtual worlds in 2006 to support universities’ global strategies, and completing a PhD with full scholarship in 2012 on using digital twins for the architecture, engineering and construction industry. From 2013 to 2020, she was China Director for QS World University Rankings, starting from scratch and building the UK‑headquartered firm’s success in China. In 2016, the Chinese Vice Premier highlighted the use of QS rankings in a national speech, with the rankings influencing £750bn of funding allocations across more than 3,000 universities and 48 million students in China’s 13th Five‑Year Plan (2016–2020). Having evaluated and visited hundreds of leading Chinese universities, national labs, science parks and businesses, she brings a uniquely deep understanding of China’s innovation system, insight that is increasingly strategic given China’s position as the world’s largest automotive exporter. Her relevance to the automotive sector is further underlined by her opening keynote at Poland’s leading automotive conference, Moto Ideas 2024, where her session was voted #1 among more than 40 speakers, demonstrating her ability to connect powerfully with senior industry leaders. She has also delivered high‑impact keynotes at major global events, from Estonia’s sTARTUp Day (“It’s a Fair World After AGI? Building an Equitable Future with Frontier Tech”) to the UAE government’s GITEX Africa and Saudi Arabia’s Cityscape Global, where her closing keynote on “Citiverse – Where Smart Cities Put People First” addressed 200,000 attendees from 170 countries. Christina has held more than 20 advisory roles for organisations including UNESCO, the World Bank, the Commonwealth, the EU and UK Governments, leading global campaigns on international strategy, the future of work and skills, immigration, and equality, diversity and inclusion. She contributed to establishing the Commonwealth Students Association, representing 2 billion young people across 56 countries, and worked in the UK Parliament on policy for the Shadow Business, Innovation and Skills team. Alongside the 73rd President of the UN General Assembly and the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Christina is one of six leaders on the Global Advisory Council for the International Science Council’s Centre for Science Futures, helping the world’s largest science body to understand how AI and other frontier technologies will reshape global innovation. She also serves on The Economist Impact’s advisory board on the “AI economy” and is regularly consulted by the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies on AI governance. Through The Metaverse Institute, Christina and her team advise the UN, governments, investors and corporates on high‑value, people‑centred use cases for AI, metaverse and digital twins. Their work includes the Tampere Metaverse Vision 2040, the world’s first people‑centred metaverse strategy published on the UN website, and a landmark MoU with the African Telecommunications Union on African metaverse governance, shaping standards and policy for 52 member states and 1.3 billion people. The Metaverse Institute is recognised by ABI Research and highlighted by the World Economic Forum as a pioneer in citizen‑centred smart cities, with its approaches expected to influence at least 700 cities by 2030. Her global science and technology leadership is complemented by a long‑standing media and communications profile: she has contributed to the BBC as a campus journalist, presented for seven years on China’s People’s Daily, and is frequently featured in outlets including Emirates News Agency, Arab News, MIT Sloan Management Review, Wired and Yahoo. Don Tapscott, often described as the “father of the digital economy”, has personally endorsed her speaking, remarking that she “spoke better than many of the $100,000 keynote speakers” he has encountered. Christina regularly chairs and speaks on high‑level panels for bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, UNESCO, the UN High‑Level Political Forum and the UN Science, Technology and Innovation Forum, and she has been invited by The Economist, Google, NVIDIA, Mastercard, Lloyds Banking Group and MIT to speak on AI, fintech, cybersecurity, space, quantum and other frontier technologies. She also guest lectures at the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and London Business School on the global landscape of innovation and frontier technologies. She is one of six final judges for the Oxford University Saïd Climate Change Challenge.

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 Rodney Williams He has built two venture-backed fintech companies from concept to scale, including SoLo Funds, the only Black-led Certified B Corp fintech in the US, with over 1 million loans funded for 1.5 million users. He raised more than $40M for LISNR with clients including Visa, Ticketmaster, Jaguar Land Rover, and Lenovo, giving him operating experience inside the commercial functions of global brands rather than a venture-capital perspective from the outside. He brings a working operator’s view of financial inclusion that does not collapse into advocacy, anchored in his testimony to federal regulators and direct experience designing products for working and middle-class consumers. Named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list five times across nine years, a recurrence that is unusual and signals durable founder relevance rather than one moment of attention. Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, with the framing capacity that programme selects for, which translates to a keynote that argues rather than just narrates. Biography highlights Co-founder and President, SoLo Funds, the largest community finance platform in the US, with over 1 million loans funded since 2018. Founder and Chair, LISNR, an ultrasonic data-transmission company backed by Visa with over $40M raised. Former Brand Manager, Procter & Gamble, leading digital strategy and ecommerce for Pampers North America. 2019 Henry Crown Fellow, Aspen Global Leadership Network. CNBC Disruptor 50 honouree in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2023. Cannes Gold Lion (2015); Ad Age 40 Under 40 (2012); Black Enterprise Tech Entrepreneur of the Year (2016); Ebony Power 100 (2018). Biography SoLo Funds has facilitated more than a million loans to working and lower-middle-class Americans since 2018, and it did so by treating its users as both borrowers and lenders to each other. The business depends on a functioning peer community, not on a marketing community. That distinction sounds semantic until a leadership team tries to operationalise it. Rodney Williams co-founded SoLo Funds after building LISNR, an ultrasonic data-transmission platform he scaled to over $40M in funding with commercial deployments at Visa, Ticketmaster, Jaguar Land Rover, and Lenovo. Before LISNR, he ran digital and ecommerce strategy for Pampers North America at Procter & Gamble, which is where he learned how large consumer organisations actually think about customer acquisition, retention, and brand economics. That sequence matters. He has built community-led commercial models inside a $300B consumer goods business, inside a B2B technology company selling to global brands, and inside a fintech that has become the only Black-led Certified B Corp in its category. The arguments he makes about community as a commercial mechanism are operating arguments, not theoretical ones. He has been named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list five times across nine years, including 2023, and is a 2019 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. His most pointed contribution for a corporate audience is on what financial inclusion actually requires from product, regulatory, and capital partners once advocacy ends and operations begin. SoLo’s growth has placed him in direct conversation with federal regulators, congressional offices, and tier-one investors including Serena Ventures, ACME Capital, and Endeavor Catalyst, and he speaks from inside those conversations rather than from a panel about them. Key speaking topics Community as commercial operating model Founding and scaling venture-backed fintech Financial inclusion and the underserved consumer Brand building inside large consumer organisations Inclusive capital raising and founder ecosystems Disruptive product strategy in regulated markets Black entrepreneurship and category creation Ideal for CMOs, brand leaders, and growth executives at consumer-facing organisations rethinking community as a commercial channel. Boards and leadership teams of banks, fintechs, and financial services firms reassessing the underserved-consumer opportunity. Founders, venture investors, and corporate venture units focused on inclusive innovation and scale-up discipline. DEI, ESG, and impact leaders looking for a founder-operator voice on inclusive commercial outcomes rather than advocacy framing. Audience outcomes A concrete view of how community functions as an operating mechanism inside a commercial business, not as a brand layer. A founder-operator perspective on building, financing, and defending an inclusive product inside a regulated category. Arguments and case material on why the working and lower-middle-class consumer is structurally underserved, and what product responses actually move the market. Direct experience and pattern recognition from raising capital as a Black founder, applicable to inclusive investment and founder-development programmes.

Why organisations work with Sheena Allen She built and ran a venture-backed US digital bank to closure and is willing to talk in detail about what the regulatory environment, capital cycle, and category timing did to it. Practitioner perspective, not commentary. She bootstrapped a five-app mobile studio to millions of downloads before raising a dollar, so her view of fundraising versus self-funding comes from having done both. She is a credible voice on financial inclusion grounded in market reality, not advocacy posture, having designed product for banking-desert communities and seen what compliance and unit economics impose. She speaks to the non-technical founder problem with authority because she has built tech companies as a psychology and film major, including her current AI-product work through MindFull AI. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of CapWay, a Y Combinator Summer 2020 fintech and digital bank backed by Backstage Capital, Fearless Fund, and Khosla Ventures. Founder of Sheena Allen Apps, a bootstrapped mobile studio with five apps and millions of downloads. Currently leads CREAM Factory, a fintech venture studio and research organisation, and builds AI-native products through MindFull AI. Co-host of the Rich Lessons podcast with Sevetri Wilson Taylor. Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree. Featured in Google’s Webby Award-winning documentary series Black Women in Tech and in the film She Started It; author of The Starting Guide. Biography CapWay was a venture-backed US digital bank built to serve customers in banking deserts. It raised from Backstage Capital, Fearless Fund, and Khosla Ventures, went through Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 cohort, and closed in 2024 after the wider fintech regulatory environment turned against companies that depended on partner banks. Sheena Allen ran it from founding to wind-down. That arc is the spine of her work as a speaker. She talks about fintech not as a category to admire but as a category that punishes founders who underestimate compliance cost, capital cycles, and the dependency on infrastructure they do not own. After the Synapse collapse and the Evolve Bank breach, she was direct in the press about why the business could not raise another round. Before CapWay, she bootstrapped Sheena Allen Apps from her dorm room at the University of Southern Mississippi into a five-app mobile studio with millions of downloads. She studied psychology and film, not computer science, and she has built every venture since by assembling technical teams around her rather than coding herself. That is the perspective behind her current work at CREAM Factory, a fintech venture studio, and at MindFull AI, where she ships AI-native products as a non-technical founder. She is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree, co-hosts the Rich Lessons podcast with Sevetri Wilson Taylor, and was featured in Google’s Black Women in Tech series and the film She Started It. Her book, The Starting Guide, walks first-time founders through the operational decisions she made early and would now make differently. Key speaking topics Building venture-backed companies in regulated categories Financial inclusion and the economics of banking deserts Bootstrapping versus venture capital as founder strategies Non-technical founders and how they actually ship product AI tools for small teams and solo operators Mobile product strategy and pre-development planning Women and underrepresented founders in fintech Ideal for Founder programmes, accelerators, and venture studios looking for an operator who has built and closed a regulated business. Financial services, fintech, and banking conferences seeking a practitioner voice on financial inclusion and partner-bank risk. Diversity and inclusion programmes inside banks, payment networks, and large tech companies that want substance over symbolism. Innovation and product audiences inside non-technical industries that want to hear how non-technical founders ship. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how capital cycles and regulatory shifts decide which fintechs survive. Specific lessons from inside a Y Combinator-backed digital bank that closed, including what she would do differently. A grounded read on financial inclusion as a market problem, not a campaign theme. Concrete examples of how a non-technical founder builds and runs product teams, including with AI tooling. A useable mental model for choosing between bootstrapping and venture capital at different stages.

Key speaking topics Luxury brand partnerships and long-term brand alignment Menswear design and commercial product collaboration Personal brand development in global markets Fashion, lifestyle and wellbeing positioning From modelling career to entrepreneurship Brand storytelling in premium consumer markets Media visibility and reputation management Ideal for Fashion, retail and luxury brand conferences Marketing and brand leadership teams Consumer lifestyle and wellbeing sector events Entrepreneurship and founder-focused forums Audience outcomes Clear understanding of building and sustaining premium brand partnerships Insight into transitioning from talent to entrepreneur Perspective on aligning product design with lifestyle positioning Practical lessons on maintaining brand relevance across markets Why organisations work with David Gandy Recognised global profile with first-hand experience of luxury brand campaigns. Direct experience launching and leading a consumer lifestyle brand. Commercial insight into menswear, licensing and product collaboration. Credibility across fashion, media and consumer wellbeing sectors. Biography David Gandy is internationally recognised for his long-standing association with Dolce & Gabbana, including high-profile global campaigns for the brand’s Light Blue fragrance. His work with leading names such as Hugo Boss and Marks & Spencer has positioned him at the centre of premium menswear and lifestyle branding. Beyond modelling, Gandy has built a commercially focused portfolio spanning product collaboration and brand development. His capsule collections with Marks & Spencer’s Autograph line covered underwear, swimwear and loungewear, translating personal brand equity into scalable retail partnerships. He also partnered with Aspinal of London on a limited Aerodrome-themed collaboration, extending his influence into travel and accessories. As founder and creative lead of David Gandy Wellwear, he has moved from brand ambassador to brand builder. The apparel and lifestyle venture is positioned around comfort, fabric performance and wellbeing, reflecting a clear commercial understanding of shifting consumer priorities. Gandy’s media work further reinforces his authority in the premium consumer space. He has written for GQ, including motoring content under the “David Gandy Drives” column, demonstrating insight into brand storytelling, lifestyle positioning and audience engagement. Alongside his commercial work, he serves as an ambassador for Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and for Vitabiotics’ Wellman range, reflecting established partnerships across charity and consumer health sectors.

Jahkini Bisselink: Youth Expert & Strategic Foresight Specialist Jahkini Bisselink is a highly regarded expert on Generation Z trends, with a passion for helping organizations become future-fit in an ever-evolving world. With a keen understanding of the next generation’s mindset, Jahkini brings deep insights into the values, behaviors, and aspirations of Gen Z, making her an invaluable resource for companies looking to connect meaningfully with this emerging demographic. She began her journey as a United Nations Youth Representative, a role that allowed her to represent the voices of young people on an international stage. This experience, coupled with her extensive research on generational trends, led Jahkini to join Whetston Strategic Foresight in 2020, where she serves as a youth expert. Her work focuses on guiding organizations through the complexities of generational shifts and helping them anticipate future challenges and opportunities. Jahkini’s impressive client roster includes global brands like Deutsche Telekom, the European Parliament, and Lloyds Banking Group. She has built a reputation as a memorable and engaging speaker, bringing fresh perspectives and actionable insights to her presentations. Through her talks, Jahkini equips her audiences with the knowledge and strategies they need to stay ahead in a rapidly changing world. By bridging the gap between generations and translating the values of Generation Z into practical strategies, Jahkini empowers organizations to not only understand the future but also thrive in it.

Why organisations work with Amy Thomson She has built and exited two businesses in distinct categories: a brand and content agency sold to Captivate Group, and a venture-backed femtech app used by more than 100,000 women. She is the named author of Moody, a Penguin-published guide to hormonal health, which gives her platform a level of editorial authority most consumer-health founders never reach. Her femtech work has been recognised by Apple (Top Female Health App) and named by Forbes as “the future of women’s hormonal and mental health”, giving her a credible voice on category creation in a stigmatised market. She speaks from inside the founder seat on raising capital, structuring lean teams and operating remotely, with specific reference to her £4.5 million seed round and the post-exit pivot into health tech. Her work sits at the intersection of data, clinical insight and consumer brand, which is where most femtech and digital-health businesses fail to align. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Moody Month, a femtech app with more than 100,000 users. Founder of SEEN (2011 to 2017), a brand and content agency with clients including Nike, Microsoft, RBS and Instagram, sold to Captivate Group. Author of Moody: A 21st Century Hormone Guide, published by Penguin. Moody named Apple’s Top Female Health App and featured on the App Store Today Tab. Co-founder, Future Girl Corp, with Sharmadean Reid, partnered with Google and Diageo. Sociology degree, Goldsmiths University. Biography Women’s hormonal health has been one of the most under-funded and under-built categories in consumer technology. The market exists, the clinical need is established, and yet most founders walk into it without a credible product, brand or capital story. Moody Month was an early attempt to do all three at once. Amy Thomson founded Moody Month in 2017 after selling SEEN, the brand and content agency she had run for six years with clients including Nike, Microsoft, RBS and Instagram. The agency exit gave her the operating credentials. The company that followed gave her the category authority. Moody Month uses machine learning to give women personalised hormone insights, and has been recognised by Apple as a Top Female Health App. Her book, Moody: A 21st Century Hormone Guide, was published by Penguin and sits at the centre of her platform. It draws on endocrinology, gynaecology, nutrition and lived experience, and gives her work a level of editorial substance most consumer-health founders never produce. Forbes named her mission “the future of women’s hormonal and mental health” in 2019. What buyers get from her on stage is the working logic of a founder who has scaled and exited once, then chosen to build inside a category most investors had written off. She speaks specifically about category creation, capital strategy in stigmatised markets, and how to run lean, remote teams through funding cycles. Key speaking topics Building consumer businesses in women’s health Category creation in stigmatised markets Hormonal health, data and machine learning Founder-led brand and platform building Raising venture capital as a female founder Lean and remote operating models Burnout and the link between health and performance Ideal for Consumer health, FMCG and pharma leadership teams looking at the women’s-health opportunity. CMOs, brand directors and innovation teams designing into under-served consumer categories. Investor and venture audiences focused on femtech, digital health and consumer technology. Leadership programmes and founder networks where the brief is operator credibility, not generic inspiration. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where the commercial opportunity in women’s health actually sits, and which parts of the category are still open. A working frame for how to brand and position products in markets that carry stigma or have been historically under-served. A founder-eye view of how venture-backed health businesses raise, operate and scale through their first commercial cycles. A direct account of the link between hormonal health, burnout and sustained executive performance.

Why organisations work with Hubertus Porschen He speaks to mid-market boards from inside the same world. As the elected federal chairman of Die Jungen Unternehmer from 2015 to 2018, he represented Germany’s young Mittelstand owners directly to policymakers and to ASU/Die Familienunternehmer. He has built and run digital businesses, not just advised on them. App-Arena and iConsultants give him a working vocabulary for what actually breaks when a traditional company tries to digitise a business model. His book Digitaler Suizid frames digital inertia as an existential risk to German firms, an argument that lands with audiences who have heard the optimistic version too often. He works in German and English with equal credibility, which matters for groups whose senior leadership sits across DACH and the wider European market. Biography highlights Federal Chairman, Die Jungen Unternehmer (BJU), 2015 to 2018, the young-entrepreneurs body within the ASU/Die Familienunternehmer association. Doctorate in economics, University of Marburg, with a dissertation on the academic entrepreneur. Author of Digitaler Suizid, on the digitalisation gap in the German economy. Founder and operator of multiple digital ventures including App-Arena GmbH; partner at iConsultants GmbH. Lecturer at Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and the University of Cologne. Listed in Top 100 Speakers Excellence 2026 by Speakers Excellence. Biography The German Mittelstand is one of the most successful industrial structures in Europe. It is also one of the slowest to absorb new technology. That tension defines the working subject matter of Hubertus Porschen. He spent three years, from 2015 to 2018, as federal chairman of Die Jungen Unternehmer, the young-entrepreneurs wing of the ASU/Die Familienunternehmer association. The role put him in regular contact with policymakers in Berlin and with several thousand owner-managers running mid-sized German firms. The work that followed, as a speaker and as a founder, builds directly on that constituency. His operating experience is the second pillar. App-Arena, an online marketplace for social media applications, and iConsultants, a digital advisory practice, gave him direct exposure to the gap between digital strategy decks and the messy reality of changing how a 150-person company actually works. His book Digitaler Suizid develops the argument: German firms that treat digitisation as a marketing project rather than an operating one are quietly removing themselves from their own future. Today his keynote work concentrates on artificial intelligence: specifically the question of how a board moves from “AI-interested” to “AI-ready” without paralysing the operating business in the process. He lectures at Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and the University of Cologne, holds a doctorate from the University of Marburg, and is listed in Speakers Excellence’s Top 100 for 2026. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence in mid-market operations Digital transformation in family-owned and Mittelstand businesses Entrepreneurship and founder leadership Innovation and disruption in traditional industries Change management across generational workforces Digital business model design Ideal for Boards and executive teams of family-owned and Mittelstand firms in DACH CEOs, COOs and digital leaders confronting an AI adoption gap Industry associations and chambers of commerce convening member firms Founder networks and entrepreneurship programmes in German-speaking markets Audience outcomes A clearer sense of where their organisation sits on the line between AI-interested and AI-ready A working argument for why digital inertia is a strategic, not operational, risk Specific examples of how German mid-market companies have moved digital initiatives out of pilot Vocabulary to talk to a sceptical board about AI without leaning on vendor language