Business Model Innovation

Why organisations work with Andrew Lloyd Gordon He brings a working academic’s grasp of behavioural science into the room where pricing, positioning and campaign calls actually get made, rather than leaving it at theory. His Google Digital Academy and “We Are Squared” training work gives him a current, practitioner-grade read on how digital marketing is actually taught and executed inside the platforms buyers depend on. His Warwick teaching post on the business MSc at WMG means his material is tested on senior post-graduate students, not only conference audiences, which sharpens the frameworks before they reach a client room. He has delivered to commercial, public-sector and charitable buyers at the same level of specificity – Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, the NHS, University of Cambridge – so the behavioural-science argument holds up outside the usual marketing-conference audience. Biography highlights Assistant Professor, WMG, University of Warwick, teaching on the post-graduate business MSc. MSc Business Psychology (Distinction), Coventry University; BA (Hons) Psychology, University of Liverpool; Organisation Studies, Warwick Business School. Trainer on Google’s “We Are Squared” digital marketing programme and member of Google’s Digital Academy training team. Client work with the UK Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, Hitachi, Hearst Magazines, the NHS, Universal Music, Kings College London, UCAS and the University of Cambridge. Signature keynote topics include customer psychology, the psychology of pricing, marketing-led growth and innovation adoption. Speaks internationally across the UK, USA, Middle East, Europe and the West Indies, to audiences ranging from 30 to 3,000. Biography Buying decisions are not made on the spreadsheet side of the brain. Price sensitivity, brand preference, the decision to try something new, the decision to stay with a supplier – these sit in territory that behavioural science has spent four decades mapping. Most commercial functions have not caught up. That gap is the working material of Andrew Lloyd Gordon’s career. He is a business psychologist with an MSc from Coventry, undergraduate psychology from Liverpool and organisation studies from Warwick Business School, and he holds an Assistant Professor post at WMG, University of Warwick, teaching on the post-graduate business MSc. The academic grounding is real; the output is commercial. His practitioner credentials sit next to the academic ones. He is a trainer on Google’s “We Are Squared” digital marketing programme and a member of Google’s Digital Academy training team, which keeps his material close to how digital acquisition is actually executed inside the platforms most organisations rely on. Client work spans the UK Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, Hitachi, Hearst, the NHS, Universal Music, Kings College London, UCAS and the University of Cambridge. The argument he makes to senior commercial audiences is narrow and useful. Pricing, persuasion, innovation adoption and customer retention are psychological problems before they are channel problems, and teams built around funnels and attribution models routinely miss this. His keynotes walk leaders through the specific behavioural mechanisms – how price is perceived, how influence actually works, why new products stall on launch – and translate them into decisions marketing and product teams can take the next morning. Key speaking topics Customer psychology and the science of influence Behavioural pricing Marketing-led business growth Innovation adoption inside organisations Digital marketing strategy Applied behavioural science for commercial teams Ideal for CMOs, marketing directors and commercial leaders rebuilding how their teams think about customer decision-making. Pricing, revenue and product leaders who need a behavioural-science lens on pricing architecture and positioning. Innovation and transformation leads launching new propositions into sceptical internal and external audiences. Senior leadership teams in regulated or public-sector contexts where persuasion and adoption matter as much as the policy itself. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the behavioural mechanisms that drive customer choice, with named principles rather than anecdotes. Specific questions to take back to pricing, marketing and product teams about where psychology is being ignored in current practice. A sharper read on why well-resourced campaigns and launches underperform, and what to change first. Practical examples drawn from Google training and FTSE-scale client work, not laboratory studies alone.

Why organisations work with Roland Mouret He has lived the entire commercial cycle of a creative brand, from the global hit of the Galaxy dress to losing the rights to his own name in 2005, buying them back in 2010, and the brand entering administration in 2021. He talks about that as a practitioner, not a case study. He is one of very few designers who can describe what happens when capital structure and creative authorship come into conflict, and what a founder retains when the legal name is no longer theirs. He is the published author of “Roland Mouret: Provoke, Attract, Seduce” (Rizzoli), a monograph documenting twenty years of work, which gives audiences a clear point of entry into how his thinking on craft and identity holds up across decades. He acted as mentor to Victoria Beckham on the launch of her fashion line, a relationship he discusses publicly and which gives commercial audiences a credible view of how creative authority gets transferred between brands. He is an active voice on sustainability in luxury fashion, including the #SwitchToBlue circular hanger campaign with Arch & Hook and the British Fashion Council, and brings a designer’s view of where the industry’s environmental claims actually break down. Biography highlights British Designer of the Year, Elle Style Awards, 2002. Designer of the Galaxy dress, the defining red-carpet silhouette of the mid-2000s, worn by Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johansson, Victoria Beckham, the Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan Markle. Author of “Roland Mouret: Provoke, Attract, Seduce”, published by Rizzoli with Alexander Fury. Founder of the eponymous Roland Mouret label, sold internationally and acquired by Han Chong’s SP Collection (parent of self-portrait) in 2022. Launched the #SwitchToBlue circular hanger initiative with Arch & Hook, supported by the British Fashion Council. Mentor to Victoria Beckham at the launch of her fashion line in 2008, featured in her 2024 Netflix documentary. Biography The Galaxy dress arrived in spring 2006 and became the defining red-carpet silhouette of the decade. Vogue ran the line that for weeks you could not open a magazine without seeing it on a Hollywood A-lister. Less than two months later, its designer had walked away from the company, and lost the legal right to use his own name. That fracture is the centre of Roland Mouret’s story. He is the self-taught French designer, raised above a butcher’s shop in Lourdes, who launched his first London collection in 1998 and won British Designer of the Year at the Elle Style Awards in 2002. He is also the founder who spent five years getting his name back, finally buying the trademark in 2010 with backing from Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment. The work since has been a study in what a designer rebuilds when the brand has to be reassembled around the same hands. He published “Roland Mouret: Provoke, Attract, Seduce” with Rizzoli, mentored Victoria Beckham on the launch of her own line in 2008, and pushed the industry on circular packaging through the #SwitchToBlue hanger campaign with Arch & Hook and the British Fashion Council. The brand entered administration in November 2021 and was acquired by Han Chong’s SP Collection the following year. For audiences, the value is the directness of the account. He speaks about creative authorship, capital, and the moments where the two stop agreeing, from inside the experience of a designer whose name has been on the door, off the door, and back on it. Key speaking topics Creative entrepreneurship in luxury fashion Brand authorship and ownership of the founder name Sustainability and circularity in the fashion industry The economics of independent design houses Reinvention after commercial loss Mentorship and creative succession Craft, draping, and the female silhouette Ideal for Founder-led creative businesses, design studios, and luxury brands navigating capital partners or succession CMOs and brand leaders working on authorship, identity, and the commercial weight of a name Sustainability and procurement leads inside fashion, retail, and consumer goods looking at circular packaging and supply After-dinner audiences in creative industries, hospitality, and luxury where storytelling and craft are central Audience outcomes A specific account of how a creative founder loses, then recovers, control of their own brand, with the legal and commercial mechanics named. A working view of where sustainability claims in fashion hold up and where they collapse, drawn from a designer’s daily decisions on fabric, factories, and packaging. A clearer sense of how mentorship between creative founders actually functions, taken from the relationship with Victoria Beckham. A direct read on the economics of an independent luxury house, including the conditions under which one tips into administration.

Why organisations work with Lucy Hitchcock She has done the thing she talks about. Partner in Wine went from a lockdown side project to stockists at Selfridges, Liberty London, Oliver Bonas and Urban Outfitters, with a TikTok video that drove a single-day sales lift of 1,700%. She runs the agency, Sassy Digital, that supports the playbook. Marketing teams get a practitioner view of Shopify, e-commerce design and short-form video, not a keynote abstraction of them. Her recognition is concrete and named: Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch, plus inclusion in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021 list. She is one of the few UK speakers who can explain how a viral moment converts into a buyer meeting at Selfridges, and what the operations behind that conversion actually look like. Biography highlights Founder of Sassy Digital, a Shopify and Squarespace digital marketing and e-commerce agency. Founder of Partner in Wine, stocked at Selfridges, Liberty London, Oliver Bonas and Urban Outfitters. Named to the Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch list. Featured in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021 following a viral product launch video. Host of The Winging It Podcast, a business and entrepreneurship show produced by Sassy Digital. Featured by BBC News, Business Insider, Mail Online and The Sun on her business growth story. Biography A warm glass of wine in a London park during lockdown is an unlikely starting point for a consumer brand that ends up on the shelves at Selfridges and Liberty London. Partner in Wine, the insulated wine bottle business Lucy Hitchcock launched in 2020, took that path inside eighteen months. A single TikTok video in March 2021 drove half a million views in twelve hours and a 1,700% spike in same-day sales. The reason this matters to a commercial audience is not the virality. It is the conversion. Most brands that go viral do not end up with a buyer meeting at a flagship retailer; Hitchcock did, and then repeated it with Oliver Bonas, Urban Outfitters and Liberty. The growth was bootstrapped, run from her parents’ house in the early months, and underwritten by the agency she had already built. That agency is Sassy Digital, which she founded at 23 to help small consumer businesses with branding, Shopify builds and e-commerce design. Working both sides of the table, founder and agency operator, gives her an unusual view of where short-form social actually breaks down for product brands and where the operations have to catch up. Recognition followed the work. Hitchcock was named to the Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch list, and Partner in Wine was featured in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021. She hosts The Winging It Podcast, where she interviews other founders on what they actually did, not what they wish they had. Key speaking topics Direct-to-consumer brand building Short-form social and TikTok for product growth Bootstrapped e-commerce scaling Retail distribution and buyer conversion Female founder journey Digital marketing for small business Ideal for Founders and CMOs of consumer and DTC brands Marketing leaders responsible for organic social and content Retail buyer and merchandising audiences exploring emerging brands Entrepreneurship programmes and female founder networks Audience outcomes A practitioner view of how a single piece of organic content converts into retail distribution. Specific operational lessons from scaling a bootstrapped consumer brand from kitchen-table launch to Selfridges shelf. A clearer read on what actually drives short-form social performance for product, versus what looks good on a deck. A founder’s account of the unglamorous mechanics behind a viral moment: stock, fulfilment, cash, buyer outreach.

Why organisations work with Jo Malone She has built, sold, and rebuilt a luxury consumer brand from scratch. Few founders speaking on entrepreneurship can claim that arc twice. Her creative process is concrete: how a scent becomes a product, how a product becomes a counter, how a counter becomes a category. Useful for marketing, retail, and innovation teams who deal in intangibles. She speaks honestly about selling a business that carries your name, the non-compete years that follow, and the discipline of starting again. Rare territory for founder talks. Her story converts personal adversity into commercial argument without sentimentality. Dyslexia, leaving school at 13, and a cancer diagnosis at 40 are framed as inputs to how she built, not as motivational set pieces. She brings the credibility of a brand that defined a category, alongside the operator’s view of what it took to do it. Biography highlights Founded Jo Malone London in 1994; opened the first store in Walton Street, London; sold the company to The Estee Lauder Companies in 1999. Served as Creative Director of Jo Malone London after the sale, departing in 2006. Founded Jo Loves in 2011, building a second fragrance house from her kitchen table in London. Author of Jo Malone: My Story, published by Simon and Schuster UK in 2016. Co-presented BBC One’s High Street Dreams (2010) with Nick Leslau, mentoring small product entrepreneurs. Awarded MBE in 2008 and CBE in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the British economy and the GREAT campaign. Biography Jo Malone London opened on Walton Street in 1994 with a handful of scents and almost no marketing budget. By 1999 it had been acquired by The Estee Lauder Companies and built into one of the defining luxury fragrance houses of the next two decades. The founder stayed on as Creative Director until 2006, then left the brand that carried her name. Five years of non-compete agreement followed. In 2011 she launched Jo Loves, again from a kitchen, this time with the experience of having scaled a category leader and the constraint of building a fragrance brand without trading on her own name in the way she had before. Two distinct businesses, both rooted in the same craft of scent as a commercial proposition. The personal arc behind the businesses is unusually direct. Severely dyslexic, she left school at 13 and trained as a facial therapist. In 2003, two years after the sale to Estee Lauder, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer and treated in New York. Both episodes appear in the 2016 memoir Jo Malone: My Story, and in her speaking work, as material rather than backdrop. For senior audiences the value is concrete. She has run the founder’s job at two different stages, knows what acquisition does to a brand and to its founder, and can describe the specific decisions, pricing, packaging, retail design, distribution, that translated an idea into a category. Her CBE in 2018 was awarded for services to the British economy and the GREAT campaign, recognising the export weight of what she built. Key speaking topics Founder craft and consumer brand building Scaling luxury from kitchen table to global counter Selling a business that carries your name Reinvention after acquisition and non-compete Creativity as commercial discipline Resilience under personal and commercial pressure British creative industries on the international stage Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and boards of consumer, retail, and luxury businesses Marketing, brand, and product leaders building or repositioning premium propositions Innovation and creative teams translating intangible craft into commercial outcomes Leadership audiences working through acquisition, integration, or post-exit founder questions Audience outcomes A founder’s account of how a category-leading brand is actually built, priced, and merchandised, told from inside the decisions A direct view of what selling and integration do to a business and its founder, useful to anyone preparing for or living through that transition A working example of creative discipline: how a scent, a candle, a counter become a coherent commercial proposition A grounded perspective on resilience, drawn from severe dyslexia, a cancer diagnosis, and starting twice from nothing Renewed conviction that craft and commercial scale are not opposites in consumer business

Dambisa Moyo is an author of three New York Times best-selling financial publications. She has travelled extensively and has studied the political, economic, and financial workings of numerous emerging economies. She looks at the relationship between these countries and international business in order to identify investment opportunities. She serves on the board of Barclays Bank, SABMiller and Barrick Gold. She holds a PhD in Economics from Oxford and a Masters from Harvard. Dambisa was named to the list of Time 100 Most Influential people in the world and writes for the Financial Times, WSJ Barron’s and Harvard Business Review. Dambisa Moyo’s Background / History Dambisa Moyo was born in Zambia in 1969, but spent the first eight years of her life in the US. She then returned to Lusaka with her parents who were both economists. At 19 she left for the United States again to study for a degree in chemistry at American University in Washington DC which was followed by an MBA in finance. She also has a Masters from Harvard and a PhD in economics from Oxford. She took positions at the World Bank and Goldman Sachs, before publishing her first book in 2009. Career The book “Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa” – made Moyo’s name and became a New York Times bestseller. In it she argued, somewhat controversially, that western aid was hindering the development of 3rd world countries and she was consequently seen by some to be the anti Bono. Her next book “How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly and the Stark Choices Ahead” has been called a devastating obituary of America’s supremacy and paved the way for her 2012 book “Winner Take All: Chinas Race for Resources and What it Means for the World” in which she argues that China is already well on the way to gaining the upper hand. She outlines how China has embarked on a conscious strategy of taking control of large chunks of the worlds finite resources. Despite being a passionate free market capitalist she is a great admirer of the way the Chinese have gone about courting the unloved countries of Africa and South America, doing deals by co-operation not coercion. However she says the outcome could easily be wars over commodities. Dambisa also authored “How Boards Work: And How They Can Work Better in a Chaotic World”, which offers an insider’s view of corporate boards, their struggles, and why they must adapt to survive. In How Boards Work, Dambisa Moyo addresses fundamental questions: The three (3) key responsibilities of a corporate board The levers and limitations boards have to create change across the business landscape Whether corporate boards remain the ideal governance structure in the 21st century As well as more urgent questions: How boards should address financial shareholder versus stakeholder capitalism, and balance profit motives with growing broader expectations of society How boards should approach quotas as they look to address diversity, and the emergence of a new cultural frontier around data privacy, worker advocacy, and environmental concerns Whether being ESG-compliant is at odds with investing in China How to best to tackle 21st century challenges from digitization to deglobalization On March 14, 2011, Moyo spoke in Westminster Abbey in London at a ceremony to mark Commonwealth Day in the presence of the Queen. Her work is regularly published in the Financial Times, the Economist, and the Wall St Journal. She is very TV friendly and is a contributing editor to CNBC; she has also made frequent appearances on BBC and Bloomberg TV. Her speaking engagements include the OECD, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and TED. She has homes in New York and London but describes herself as an African. Dambisa Moyo is an intelligent, articulate and punchy speaker. Lively and direct – she is sometimes controversial and much in demand on the TV and speakers circuit. She holds a PhD in Economics from Oxford and a Masters from Harvard. Dambisa was named to the list of Time 100 Most Influential people in the world and writes for the Financial Times, WSJ Barron’s and Harvard Business Review. Current / Past Roles & Positions Board member of Barclays Bank Board member of SABMiller Board member of Barrick Gold Author of “Winner Takes All” Patron of the children’s charity Absolute Return for Kids (ARK) Awards, Accolades, Achievements & Honours 2011 The Daily Beast selected Moyo as one of “150 Extraordinary Women Who Shake The World” In 2009, Dambisa was named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, and honoured by the World Economic Forum as one of its Young Global Leaders. 2009 Included on Oprah Winfrey’s power list of 20 remarkable visionaries. Speaking Style Formal, Passionate, Thought-provoking    

Why organisations work with Anna Bance First-mover operator in luxury fashion rental. She built the category in 2009, before “circular” was a retail strategy term, and has spent over a decade running the unglamorous infrastructure behind it. Direct line of sight on what rental does to a balance sheet. Inventory turns, dry-cleaning economics, customer acquisition costs and breakage rates are answered from experience, not from a McKinsey deck. Credibility on both sides of the luxury question. Former Head of UK PR at Hermès, then founder of a platform that puts luxury brands into a rental model many of them initially resisted. Backed by Global Founders Capital, the Rocket Internet associated fund of Oliver Samwer, with Girl Meets Dress one of its maiden investments. A useful proof point on commercial substance, not just narrative. Articulate on the consumer shift behind the model: experience economy, sustainability pressure, and the limits of “buy something new every season” as a retail proposition. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO, Girl Meets Dress, since 2009 Former Head of UK PR, Hermès, and PR for Temperley London BA (Hons) Fashion Promotion, London College of Fashion Early-career editorial roles at The Telegraph, Harper’s Bazaar and InStyle First institutional funding from Global Founders Capital, the Oliver Samwer fund Recognition includes Drapers Etail Innovation Award, NatWest Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year, Specsavers Everywoman in Retail, and a Management Today 35 Under 35 cover Biography Girl Meets Dress launched in 2009, before “circular fashion” was a retail board agenda item. The proposition was simple, the operations were not: rent designer dresses online, return them, repeat. Anna Bance built the company from inside the luxury PR world, where she had been Head of UK PR for Hermès, and where she had watched designer wardrobes sit unworn for most of their useful life. The harder part of the story is what comes after the idea. Rental at scale is a logistics business dressed as a fashion brand: dry cleaning, inventory rotation, repair, sizing accuracy, customer acquisition against a category most consumers had to be taught existed. Global Founders Capital, Oliver Samwer’s fund, named Girl Meets Dress as one of its maiden investments, and the business spent the next decade proving the unit economics of rental in a category designed for ownership. That operator vantage point is what makes her useful to retail and consumer leadership teams. The argument for circular commerce is well understood at this point. The argument that needs sharper voices is the operational one: where rental margins actually come from, why some categories work and others do not, what the brand consequences are when a luxury house lets its product enter a secondary access model, and how consumer behaviour around occasion-wear is shifting under experience economy pressure. Recognition has followed the build, not the pitch. Drapers Etail Innovation Award, NatWest Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year, Specsavers Everywoman in Retail, a Management Today 35 Under 35 cover. The work that earned them is still running. Key speaking topics Circular fashion and rental as a retail model The operational economics of access over ownership Luxury brand strategy in a secondary-use market Female founders and scaling a category-defining business Consumer behaviour in the experience economy Sustainability as commercial strategy, not marketing Ideal for Retail, fashion and consumer goods leadership teams reassessing wholesale and DTC models Brand owners and CMOs in luxury weighing entry into rental, resale or subscription Sustainability and strategy leads who need the commercial case for circular, not the ethical one Female founder networks, VC-backed scale-up audiences and entrepreneurship programmes Audience outcomes A sharper read on which retail categories rental works in and which it does not Honest numbers on what circular fashion does to inventory, margin and customer acquisition A clearer view of where luxury brands stand to gain or lose by entering rental A founder-level account of building a category before its time, and the operational cost of doing so

Why organisations work with William McDonough His Cradle to Cradle framework is not a sustainability philosophy but an operational design standard that underpins a third-party certification programme (Cradle to Cradle Certified™), This programme has been adopted by major global manufacturers and retailers, giving organisations a verifiable, externally recognised pathway to circular design rather than a set of principles to interpret internally. He provides a direct counter-argument to the prevailing ESG framing: that the goal is not «less bad» but genuinely positive material and ecological outcomes; a reframe that changes what boards ask of product and operations leaders, not just what they report. His consultancy work spans the molecular (material chemistry and product formulation via MBDC) through to the industrial-architectural (Ford’s River Rouge plant, NASA’s Sustainability Base): a cross-scalar range that almost no other figure in sustainable design can match from direct project experience. As inaugural Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on the Circular Economy (2014-2016), he has been involved in shaping the global policy and business conversation on circular economy at the highest level, giving organisations access to the strategic framing that has informed international standards. His argument that sustainability and economic abundance are not in tension – that well-designed systems generate more value, not less – addresses the specific internal resistance that sustainability strategies encounter from commercial and operations leadership. Biography highlights Co-creator of the Cradle to Cradle design framework and co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002) and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability-Designing for Abundance (2013), foundational texts of the circular economy movement Inaugural Chair, World Economic Forum Meta-Council on the Circular Economy (2014–2016); member, WEF Global Future Council on the Future of Environment and Natural Resource Security Co-founder, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) – the consulting and assessment body behind the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Programme Architect of landmark sustainable design projects including the Ford River Rouge/Dearborn Truck Plant (world’s largest living roof at the time of completion) and NASA’s Sustainability Base, Ames Research Center Recipient of three U.S. presidential honours: Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), first U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003), and National Design Award, Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian (2004) Named «Hero for the Planet,» Time magazine (1999); one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, Fortune magazine (2019); WEF Award for Circular Economy Leadership (2017) Commissioned to write The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability (1992) as official design guidelines for the City of Hannover’s EXPO 2000 Consulting Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University; former Dean, School of Architecture, University of Virginia (1994–1999) Biography The core problem with most corporate sustainability programmes is that they are built on top of systems that were never designed to be sustainable; product lines, manufacturing processes, and supply chains conceived entirely within a linear, extractive logic. Reducing harm at the margins is not the same as changing it. The question organisations are increasingly unable to avoid is whether their design intentions, and the material and industrial systems those intentions produce, are structurally compatible with a regenerative future. William McDonough is the architect and designer who, with chemist Michael Braungart, developed the Cradle to Cradle framework as a response to precisely that problem. Published in their 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, the framework reframes design around three principles drawn from natural systems: that all materials function as nutrients for subsequent use, that systems run on clean and renewable energy, and that diversity rather than uniformity strengthens resilience. The follow-up, The Upcycle (2013), extended the argument from harm reduction to the active generation of ecological and economic abundance. Through co-founded firm MBDC, these principles became the basis for the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Programme, an independent standard adopted by major manufacturers in fashion, consumer goods, and construction. His practice spans both the theoretical and the demonstrably built. McDonough’s architecture firm, William McDonough + Partners, has delivered some of the most cited proof points in industrial sustainability – among them the Ford River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, whose living roof became one of the most referenced examples of integrated green infrastructure in manufacturing, and NASA’s Sustainability Base at Ames Research Center. These projects are not showcases of green aesthetics; they are operational arguments that regenerative design performs economically and functionally at scale. He was commissioned to write The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability (1992) for the City of Hannover’s EXPO 2000 – a document that remains a reference point in sustainable design policy three decades on. At the World Economic Forum, McDonough served as inaugural Chair of the Meta-Council on the Circular Economy (2014-2016), positioning him within the institutional conversation that shaped how circular economy principles were adopted in global business and policy frameworks. For senior leadership, the value of that positioning is specific: McDonough is not a commentator on circular economy standards, he’s a figure who helped define them, and who speaks with direct authority to how the gap between current industrial design and those standards is closed. Key speaking topics Cradle to Cradle design and the circular economy Regenerative design for products, buildings, and industrial systems Material health and the elimination of waste as a design concept ESG strategy and circular business models Sustainable architecture and the built environment Carbon management and the Circular Carbon Economy The Next Industrial Revolution Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads shaping long-term material and production strategy Chief Operating Officers and heads of manufacturing or supply chain facing regulatory and investor pressure on circular design Product design and innovation leadership in consumer goods, construction, and manufacturing sectors Board-level and executive audiences grappling with the strategic gap between current operations and net-positive environmental commitments Audience outcomes A clear, working understanding of the difference between linear sustainability (less harm) and circular design (positive output), and what that distinction demands operationally Specific grounding in the Cradle to Cradle framework as a design and certification standard that organisations can apply to products, materials, and buildings An evidence-based case, drawn from major industrial projects, that regenerative design is economically viable and operationally executable, not aspirational A revised framing of ESG and circular economy commitments: from reporting exercise to design mandate Practical insight into where the current generation of sustainability strategies falls structurally short, and what a structurally different approach looks like

Why organisations work with Wayne Hemingway Built one of Britain’s best-known fashion labels from a Camden Market stall and sold it to Pentland in 1999, then converted that experience into a 25-year design consultancy advising developers, local authorities, retailers, and cultural institutions. Operates across categories most speakers do not: fashion, mass-market housing, public-realm regeneration, festival creation, and second-hand retail, all anchored in delivered projects rather than commentary. Founded Festival of Thrift and Charity Super.Mkt, turning sustainability and circular consumption into commercially viable consumer experiences rather than awareness campaigns. Brings an unusually direct view on what makes places, products, and brands resonate, formed by working with Wimpey, TfL, Shelter, the National Trust, Girlguiding, the Southbank Centre, and more than forty local authorities. Biography highlights Co-founder of Red or Dead; won British Fashion Council Streetstyle Designer of the Year three consecutive years, 1996 to 1998; brand sold to Pentland Group in 1999. Co-founder of HemingwayDesign, the multi-disciplinary studio behind the 760-home Staiths South Bank development in Gateshead, awarded Housing Design Awards, Best Housing-Led Regeneration Project by Building Magazine, and Building for Life. Co-founder of Festival of Thrift, the UK’s first large-scale festival of sustainable living, launched in 2013 and now a permanent fixture in the North East cultural calendar. Co-founder of Charity Super.Mkt with TRAID’s Maria Chenoweth; pre-loved fashion concept that launched at Brent Cross in January 2023 and has since traded in Westfield, Bond Street, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oxford, Bluewater, and Bristol. MBE, 2006, for services to the design and fashion industries; Professor of Built Environment at Northumbria University; honorary doctorates from Wolverhampton, Lancaster, and Stafford. Author of “Just Above the Mantelpiece: Mass-Market Masterpieces” (Booth-Clibborn, 2000). Biography Red or Dead started on a Camden Market stall in the early 1980s and ended in 1999 as a Pentland Group acquisition, with three consecutive British Fashion Council Streetstyle Designer of the Year awards along the way. That trajectory, market trader to multi-million-pound exit, is the foundation Wayne Hemingway has been building on for twenty-five years. HemingwayDesign, founded with his wife and business partner Gerardine in 1999, was set up explicitly around affordable and social design. The studio’s signature project, Staiths South Bank in Gateshead, was the practical answer to Hemingway’s “Wimpeyfication and Barrattification” critique of British mass house-building. 760 homes were built with Wimpey on a Homezone model that re-thought streets, parking, and play, and the scheme won Housing Design Awards, Building Magazine’s Best Housing-Led Regeneration Project, and Building for Life. The same instinct, identify a category that has stopped trying and rebuild it with design at the centre, runs through everything that followed. Festival of Thrift, co-founded in 2013, made sustainability a free family weekend rather than a guilt trip. Charity Super.Mkt, launched at Brent Cross in January 2023 with TRAID’s Maria Chenoweth, turned charity-shop fashion into a destination format and reported £3 million in pre-loved sales inside two years. The wider HemingwayDesign client list runs from Transport for London and the National Portrait Gallery to more than forty local authorities working on town-centre and coastal regeneration. For organisations the value is specific: a designer-entrepreneur with the credentials of a fashion founder and the track record of a public-realm developer, who can talk credibly to boards about brand, to operators about retail, and to leadership teams about why design-led businesses outlast design-decorated ones. He is an MBE, a Professor of Built Environment at Northumbria, and an author, but the argument is the work itself. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and design-led business building Brand and creative direction Sustainability and the circular economy Place-making, regeneration, and the future of the high street Affordable housing and mass-market design Retail futures and pre-loved consumer behaviour Festivals, culture, and community-led commercial models Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and creative directors of consumer brands. Property developers, housebuilders, and local authority leadership teams responsible for placemaking and regeneration. Retail and hospitality leaders rebuilding propositions for second-hand, sustainable, and experience-led formats. Cultural organisations, charities, and festival operators looking to commercialise purpose without losing it. Audience outcomes A working view of how Red or Dead and HemingwayDesign turned design instinct into commercial categories that lasted. A clearer sense of where sustainability becomes a viable consumer business rather than a marketing position. Specific lessons from Staiths South Bank, Festival of Thrift, and Charity Super.Mkt on building new categories from a standing start. Direct, plainly spoken provocations on brand, place, and the social value of design that audiences leave talking about.

Why organisations work with Uri Levine Two billion-dollar exits in the same category give him a working method, not a single-case story. Waze and Moovit were sold to Google and Intel using the same problem-first discipline he now teaches. His handbook Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution sets out a usable operating system for early-stage product, fundraising and hiring decisions. Steve Wozniak called it a bible for entrepreneurs. An active portfolio of 20-plus board seats and 50-plus advisory roles keeps his perspective current. He is reading live cap tables and product roadmaps, not recycling a 2013 exit. Levine teaches inside corporates as well as startups. The framing translates for innovation leaders trying to make corporate venturing and intrapreneurship behave more like founder-led businesses. Biography highlights Co-founder of Waze, acquired by Google in 2013 for approximately $1.1 billion. Early investor and board member at Moovit, acquired by Intel in 2020 for approximately $1 billion. Author of Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs (BenBella, 2023). Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Practice at IE University. Founder, chairman or board member at Pontera, FairFly, Refundit, SeeTree, Fibo and others; former Chairman of Zoomcar; independent board member at Infosys. Forbes contributor; interviewed in The New York Times, CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox News. Biography Waze and Moovit were built on the same wager. Drivers and commuters were the source of the data, the product, and the network effect, and the problem worth solving was the daily friction of getting somewhere. Google paid roughly $1.1 billion for the first company in 2013. Intel paid roughly another billion for the second in 2020. The method behind both exits is what Uri Levine now teaches. Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, published by BenBella in 2023, is the operating handbook he wrote for founders and the executives funding them. Steve Wozniak called it a bible for entrepreneurs. It covers product-market fit, fundraising, hiring, scaling internationally and exit decisions, treated as a sequence of choices a founder can get right or wrong. The portfolio behind the writing keeps the material current. Levine has founded nine companies, sat on roughly twenty boards including Infosys and HERE, and advised more than fifty startups. He chaired Zoomcar through its public listing in 2023 and returned as strategic and financial advisor in 2024. He teaches the same approach as Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at IE University and runs a workshop on building unicorns. For corporate audiences the value is structural. Innovation pipelines stall when teams pick solutions before they have stress-tested the problem. Levine’s argument, and the discipline behind it, gives senior leaders a way to challenge that habit inside their own organisations, whether they are running a venture arm, a transformation programme or a category business losing ground to insurgents. Key speaking topics Disruptive innovation and category creation Problem discovery and product-market fit Entrepreneurship and scaling to unicorn status Fundraising and investor strategy Corporate innovation and intrapreneurship Mobility and the future of transportation Founder leadership through hypergrowth Ideal for Founders and CEOs of growth-stage and scale-up businesses Corporate innovation, venture and transformation leaders Investors, LPs and board directors evaluating early-stage portfolios Senior leadership teams in incumbent categories under disruption pressure Audience outcomes A working test for whether a problem is large enough and clear enough to build a company around. Specific lessons from inside two unicorn exits on hiring, fundraising, international expansion and timing the sale. The mistakes Levine has watched founders and corporate innovators repeat across fifty advisory engagements, and how to spot them earlier. A sharper frame for board-level conversations about which bets to back, which to kill, and when to pivot.

Why organisations work with Tony Fernandes The AirAsia acquisition – a loss-making airline bought for one Malaysian ringgit and turned profitable within two years – is not an anecdote; it is a live case study in the structural conditions required to make a low-cost model work, and Fernandes can examine its mechanics from the inside His experience running Capital A across aviation, fintech (BigPay), logistics (Teleport), and digital platforms gives him direct exposure to the question of whether and how a low-cost operating logic translates to adjacent categories; a question most diversifying businesses cannot answer from first-hand evidence He operated through several serious crises – the QZ8501 crash, the COVID-19 near-collapse of the aviation industry, and regulatory probes. He can speak to crisis leadership and institutional transparency from personal rather than theoretical experience His trajectory from accountant to entrepreneur, with career foundations at Virgin and Warner Music, gives him the financial fluency to discuss growth strategy at a structural level, not just as an inspirational narrative Named Forbes Asia Businessman of the Year (2010) and included in the TIME 100 (2015), providing credibility with senior international audiences Biography highlights Co-founder of AirAsia; acquired the airline in 2001 for MYR1 and MYR40 million in debt; turned it profitable within two years CEO of Capital A Berhad, the investment holding company whose portfolio spans aviation, logistics (Teleport), fintech (BigPay), and digital travel platforms Educated at the London School of Economics; Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants; member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales Career foundations at Virgin Communications (financial controller) and Warner Music Group (VP Southeast Asia) Forbes Asia Businessman of the Year (2010); included in TIME magazine’s TIME 100 list (2015) Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), conferred 2011; Commander of the Legion d’Honneur, awarded by the French government Author of Flying High (2017), an account of the AirAsia model and the entrepreneurial decisions behind it Biography Building a low-cost business is a specific discipline, not a general management philosophy. It requires a structural commitment to cost architecture that most organisations talk about but few maintain under the pressure of growth, competition, and investor expectations. The question of how that discipline is designed, defended, and scaled is one of the most practically useful strategic questions a senior leadership team can work through. And Tony Fernandes has lived it across one of the most scrutinised business turnarounds in Asian commercial history. Fernandes acquired AirAsia in December 2001 alongside three co-founders, taking on a government-linked airline carrying MYR40 million in debt. Within two years it was profitable. Within a decade it was Asia’s largest low-cost carrier by passengers carried, operating across multiple regulatory environments with a model that held its structural logic even as the network grew. The mechanics of that – cost discipline, people culture, regulatory negotiation, market sequencing – are what he brings to a conversation. His broader career adds analytical weight. Trained as an accountant at the London School of Economics and ACCA-qualified, he built his early career at Virgin Communications and as VP Southeast Asia at Warner Music before entering aviation. That foundation in financial control, combined with the scale of what he subsequently built, gives him a capacity to speak about growth strategy at the level of structure rather than story. The post-aviation chapter matters too. Capital A’s evolution from an airline group into a holding company spanning fintech, logistics, and digital travel platforms represents a live experiment in whether a low-cost operating logic can be applied beyond the category that originated it. Forbes Asia named him Businessman of the Year in 2010; he appeared on TIME magazine’s TIME 100 list in 2015. The CBE and Commander of the Legion d’Honneur reflect the international reach of what AirAsia built. Key speaking topics Low-cost business model design and defence Business turnaround and commercial restructuring Scaling across regulated, multi-market environments Entrepreneurial decision-making under constraint Crisis leadership and institutional transparency Diversification strategy and platform business models Southeast Asian market growth and aviation industry transformation Ideal for CEOs and boards of growth-stage or expanding businesses wrestling with cost discipline at scale Strategy and transformation leaders in capital-intensive or regulated industries Entrepreneurs and founders preparing for multi-market expansion Senior teams in aviation, logistics, travel, and adjacent industries benchmarking against proven low-cost operators Audience outcomes A structural understanding of what makes a low-cost business model sustainable, not as a cost-cutting exercise but as an operating architecture A clearer framework for thinking about diversification: when the core model’s logic translates to adjacent categories and when it does not Practical reference points from AirAsia’s expansion for organisations navigating multi-market regulatory complexity A more grounded view of crisis leadership: what transparency and accountability look like in practice when institutional reputation is at stake Sharper thinking about the relationship between people culture and commercial performance in high-growth, low-margin environments

Why organisations work with Simon Woodroffe He has founded and sold two category-defining hospitality brands, YO! Sushi, sold to Zensho Holdings for £494 million in 2023, and YOTEL, the compact airport hotel now operating internationally. The founder story is specific and verifiable: Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 1999, OBE in 2006, and a business built initially on extended supplier payment terms rather than venture capital. His appearance on the first series of Dragons’ Den gives him a recognisable profile with UK and Commonwealth audiences who grew up with the format. His career before entrepreneurship, stage design for major rock artists, extreme-sports TV production, gives his session a different register from the MBA-style founder speaker, more creative and more usable by brand and product audiences. His philanthropic work on prison rehabilitation with Make Justice Work adds a credible social-purpose thread for organisations running CSR or purpose-led events. Biography highlights Founder of YO! Sushi (1997), sold to Zensho Holdings for £494 million in 2023 Founder of YOTEL (2007); over 1,000 rooms across three countries by 2016 Appeared as an investor on the first series of BBC’s Dragons’ Den Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (1999); OBE (2006) for services to the hospitality industry Earlier career as theatre stagehand and stage designer for Rod Stewart, Jethro Tull and others Author of The Book of Yo! Biography YO! Sushi was the first conveyor-belt sushi brand in the UK, and for most of a generation it was the restaurant that taught British diners what the category was. Simon Woodroffe founded it in 1997 with extended supplier payment terms rather than investor capital, and spent the following decade turning it into a national brand before selling the controlling stake in 2003. In 2023 the business was sold to Zensho Holdings for £494 million. His second brand, YOTEL, launched in 2007, took the compact airline cabin as the template for airport hotel rooms at Gatwick and Heathrow and has since scaled internationally. The route into hospitality was unusual. Woodroffe left Marlborough College at sixteen with two O-levels and worked as a theatre stagehand before moving into stage design for rock artists, including Rod Stewart and Jethro Tull, and later into television work selling concert rights and producing extreme-sports programming. The creative and production experience shows up in how his hospitality brands are designed: the tableside call buttons and self-heating plates at YO! Sushi, the airline-cabin compression at YOTEL. Public recognition followed the commercial record. He was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 1999, appointed OBE in 2006 for services to the hospitality industry, and appeared as one of the original investors on the first series of Dragons’ Den. His book The Book of Yo! codified his operating philosophy for entrepreneurs. For founder, hospitality, retail and brand audiences, Woodroffe brings a relatively rare combination: two category-defining consumer brands, a creative-industries background that informs the product design, and a direct, unguarded speaking style shaped by years in front of audiences on and off camera. His continuing work on prison rehabilitation rounds out the profile for CSR-oriented events. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and building consumer brands from nothing Creativity and business-model innovation in hospitality Financing growth with limited capital Customer experience and brand design Reinvention across creative and commercial industries Purpose, rehabilitation and business as a force for good Ideal for Entrepreneur and founder-focused events, particularly in hospitality, retail and consumer brands Corporate innovation, marketing and customer-experience conferences Leadership and all-hands events needing a main-stage creative-business voice Awards dinners and after-dinner engagements looking for a recognisable UK entrepreneur with a Dragons’ Den profile Audience outcomes A founder’s operating account of how YO! Sushi and YOTEL were actually built and financed Reference points from two category-defining hospitality brands applicable to the audience’s own brand or innovation agenda A creative-industries view of customer experience and design that is different from a standard consulting frame Direct material for founder and leadership cohorts on risk, reinvention and brand longevity

Why organisations work with Simon Torrance He frames AI as a board-level operating model decision, with named categories of strategic, financial, operational and regulatory risk, rather than a technology selection exercise. He brings four working frameworks that executive teams can sit inside the same week: The Agentic AI Accelerator, The AI Maturity Model, The Agentic AI Enterprise Blueprint, and The Agentic AI Stack. The platform and ecosystem track record is real and named. He co-authored Fightback with Felix Staeritz, served on the World Economic Forum’s Digital Platforms and Ecosystems working group, and teaches the same material at Singularity University. His client work concentrates in financial services and insurance, with named corporate audiences including Allianz, AXA, Zurich Direct and Huawei, so insurance and banking boards do not have to translate his references. Biography highlights Founder of AI Risk, a London-based strategy and innovation firm focused on the strategic deployment of agentic AI in large enterprises. Co-author of Fightback: How to Win in the Digital Economy with Platforms, Ventures and Entrepreneurs, with Felix Staeritz, LID Publishing. Member of World Economic Forum agenda councils, including the Digital Platforms and Ecosystems Working Group and the Accelerating Digital Transformation executive working group. Listed Expert at Singularity University on Digital Platforms and Ecosystems, Corporate Venture Building, and Embedded Finance and Insurance. Author of named industry frameworks including The Agentic AI Accelerator, The AI Maturity Model, The Agentic AI Enterprise Blueprint and The Agentic AI Stack. Keynote credits include the Financial Times Future of AI Summit, MIT Digital Economy Summit, Insurtech Insights and InsureNXT, plus internal events for Allianz and AXA. Biography The hard part of agentic AI is not building the agents. It is deciding what the firm will look like once they are running, and what the board is prepared to underwrite while that transition happens. Most leadership teams have not yet answered that question with the same discipline they apply to a major acquisition. Simon Torrance built his firm AI Risk around exactly this gap. It advises boards in banking, insurance and TMT on the strategic, financial, operational and regulatory exposure created by AI adoption, and on how to redesign the operating model so the economics actually move. His frameworks, including The Agentic AI Accelerator, The AI Maturity Model, The Agentic AI Enterprise Blueprint and The Agentic AI Stack, give executive teams a shared structure for those conversations. His authority on AI risk sits on top of two decades of work on business model transformation. He co-authored Fightback: How to Win in the Digital Economy with Platforms, Ventures and Entrepreneurs with Felix Staeritz, served on the World Economic Forum’s Digital Platforms and Ecosystems working group, and is a listed expert at Singularity University. The platform thesis, that incumbents must redesign their model rather than bolt on technology, is the same thesis applied to agents. Boardroom audiences and conference platforms reflect that focus. Torrance has spoken at the Financial Times Future of AI Summit, MIT Digital Economy Summit, Insurtech Insights and InsureNXT, and runs closed sessions for firms including Allianz, AXA and Zurich Direct, where the conversation is less about AI as a topic and more about which decisions the board has to take in the next twelve months. Key speaking topics Agentic AI in the enterprise AI risk and board governance Business model transformation Platform and ecosystem strategy Embedded finance and insurance Operating model redesign in financial services Corporate venture building Ideal for Bank, insurer and asset manager boards weighing the next phase of AI investment. CEO, CSO and CDO leadership groups in financial services, insurance and TMT. Chief Risk and Chief Audit officers responsible for AI risk frameworks. Strategy and innovation leads running platform, ecosystem or corporate venturing programmes. Audience outcomes A named taxonomy of AI risk that audiences can take into their own risk committee discussions. A clear distinction between AI pilots, AI productivity tooling, and an agentic operating model, with the implications of each for cost base and competitive position. A view of where platform and ecosystem economics intersect with agentic AI, and what that means for incumbents in regulated sectors. A short list of decisions a board should take within the next twelve months on talent, vendor exposure, and capital allocation toward AI.