Business Strategy & Growth

Why organisations work with Gary Hamel He gives leadership teams the vocabulary to see their own bureaucracy. Terms he co-introduced, core competence, strategic intent and now humanocracy, are the language many boards already use to argue about strategy and design. He pushes past the innovation-theatre version of transformation. His work with Michele Zanini on Humanocracy is a data-backed argument that most large companies are organised to slow people down, and it offers a specific model for dismantling that. He sits at the intersection of strategy and organisation design that few thinkers occupy. Most strategists stop at the market; most organisation specialists stop at culture. Hamel argues the two are the same problem. He brings credentials senior buyers recognise on sight: more than three decades on the London Business School faculty, the most reprinted author in Harvard Business Review, Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee. Biography highlights Visiting Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, London Business School, for more than 30 years Most reprinted author in Harvard Business Review history Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, inducted 2022; ranked inside the global top 30 management thinkers across five successive Thinkers50 lists Co-author with C.K. Prahalad of “Strategic Intent” (1989) and “The Core Competence of the Corporation” (1990), two of the most cited HBR articles ever published Author or co-author of Competing for the Future, Leading the Revolution, The Future of Management, What Matters Now and Humanocracy Founder of Strategos and the Management Lab; Fellow of the Strategic Management Society and the World Economic Forum Biography Strategy schools teach leaders to study their markets. Hamel’s career has been a long argument that the harder problem sits inside the building. Competing for the Future, written with C.K. Prahalad in 1994, reframed competitive advantage around distinctive capability rather than market position, and the HBR articles behind it, “Strategic Intent” and “The Core Competence of the Corporation”, remain fixtures on executive reading lists three decades later. That work made him one of the defining strategy voices of the 1990s. What he did next is the part senior leaders tend to value most now. Across The Future of Management and Humanocracy, written with Michele Zanini, he has turned the same analytical lens on the management model itself, arguing that the structures most companies rely on were built for compliance and control and are actively hostile to the initiative, agility and judgement those same companies say they want. Humanocracy is the sharp edge of that argument. Drawing on data from more than 10,000 employees and a set of named case companies, the book sets out what it takes to replace bureaucratic routines with a model in which people are the point rather than the resource. It became a Wall Street Journal bestseller and anchors his current speaking work with boards and executive committees. The credentials behind that argument are unusually thick. Hamel has been on the London Business School faculty for more than thirty years, is the most reprinted author in HBR’s history, and was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2022. Fortune has called him the world’s leading expert on business strategy; the Financial Times calls him a management innovator without peer. Key speaking topics Management innovation and the future of the management model Humanocracy and post-bureaucratic organisation design Strategic intent and core competence in contested markets Organisational agility and resilience at scale Building innovation capability inside large incumbents Leadership for strategic renewal Ideal for CEOs and executive committees wrestling with strategy-to-execution drift CHROs and chief transformation officers redesigning operating models Board conversations on long-horizon competitiveness and management capability Leadership programmes inside large, bureaucratic incumbents Audience outcomes A sharper read on where their own management model is costing them speed and initiative Specific language, core competence, strategic intent, humanocracy, that senior teams can use to argue about strategy the next morning Named case examples of companies that have dismantled bureaucratic routines and what it took A clearer line between strategy work and organisation design, and why treating them as separate projects fails A view of innovation capability as a systems problem, not a culture slogan

Why organisations work with Freek Vermeulen He has built a specific, named argument that “best practices” are frequently bad practices in disguise. Leaders leave with a method for stress-testing the practices their company has stopped questioning. His book Breaking Bad Habits, published by Harvard Business Review Press, is built on empirical research across industries from newspapers to IVF clinics to West End theatre. The examples carry, because they are not from the usual case-study roster. He bridges academic rigour and operating language better than most. Published in Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science and Strategic Management Journal, but read in the boardrooms of Bosch, BP, Goldman Sachs, Maersk and Vodafone. He was the first recipient of LBS’s Excellence in Teaching Award and named to the 2016 Thinkers50 Radar. The audience signal: he is among the management thinkers actively shaping how strategy is taught at senior level. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, London Business School. PhD, Tilburg University. Author of Breaking Bad Habits (Harvard Business Review Press) and Business Exposed (FT Prentice-Hall). Translated into seven languages. Named to the Thinkers50 Radar list, 2016. First recipient of the LBS Excellence in Teaching Award; also recipient of the school’s Best Teacher Award. Regular contributor to Harvard Business Review; one of his 2025 HBR articles was named among HBR’s Most Popular Articles of 2025. Academy of Management Journal Best Paper Award; INFORMS/ISA Best Paper Award; Vienna University of Economics and Business Theory-to-Practice Award. Biography Industries inherit habits. A newspaper prints on broadsheet because newspapers print on broadsheet. A consultancy charges by the day because that is what consultancies do. Most of these habits started with a reason. Most have outlived the reason. Almost none are questioned, because everyone in the industry is still doing them. This is the territory Freek Vermeulen has spent his academic career mapping. His book Breaking Bad Habits, published by Harvard Business Review Press, argues that the most damaging strategic mistakes are not bold moves that fail. They are conventions that nobody is auditing. The same logic appears across his Harvard Business Review writing, where he has been a regular contributor, including a 2025 piece with a London Business School colleague that was named among HBR’s Most Popular Articles of 2025. Vermeulen is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School, where he has chaired the Strategy and Entrepreneurship department and served on the school’s Management Board and Board of Governors. He was the first person to receive the school’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and the 2016 Thinkers50 Radar list identified him as one of the management thinkers most likely to shape the next decade of organisational practice. The work is academic in origin, with Best Paper Awards from the Academy of Management Journal and INFORMS, and it has translated into a client list that includes Bosch, BP, GE, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lufthansa, Maersk, Novartis, Roche, Toshiba and Vodafone. The reason for the breadth is the angle. Vermeulen does not tell senior leaders what to do next. He tells them which of the things they are already doing have stopped earning their place. Key speaking topics Strategic innovation and corporate transformation Why “best practices” become bad practices Strategy execution and making strategy happen Profitable growth and international expansion Acquisitions, alliances and corporate scope Organisational learning and industry evolution Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and corporate strategy teams in mature industries facing flatlining growth Board and ExCo audiences re-examining what their company does because it has always done it M&A, post-acquisition integration and corporate development leaders Strategy and transformation conferences at multinational scale Audience outcomes A specific method for distinguishing practices that create value from practices that have simply been inherited A sharper view of how industry conventions form, persist and quietly damage performance Worked examples drawn from research across multiple industries, not the usual handful of case studies A frame for strategy execution that treats the deletion of bad habits as seriously as the launch of new initiatives

Why organisations work with Erik Saelens The Triple-A Brand Index (Authenticity, Accountability, Activation) gives leadership teams a structured diagnostic – not a creative brief – for understanding why brand trust is gained or lost, and what to do about it. His research base of 300+ rebranding and renaming operations worldwide is one of the largest of its kind; most brand consultants draw on case studies, Saelens draws on a proprietary empirical database. He operates at board level rather than at agency level – having served as senior brand advisor to the board of Royal Dutch Telecom KPN and as a current board director at multiple companies – which means his framing of brand problems maps directly onto the decisions executives actually face. His work on brand and M&A strategy addresses a gap that most marketing speakers ignore: the specific identity and equity challenges that arise when companies merge, acquire, or prepare for IPO. The Brandhome Method® gives marketing and strategy teams a replicable operating system for brand building, not a set of principles to interpret. Biography highlights Founder and executive strategic director of Brandhome Group, established 1995; active across strategy, design, and brand consultancy Creator of the Triple-A Brand Index – a proprietary brand measurement framework built around Authenticity, Accountability, and Activation Researched and executed more than 300 rebranding and renaming operations worldwide Former senior brand advisor to the board of Royal Dutch Telecom KPN; earlier career at Sodexo’s international brand management team Board director at Unbox (Belgium), CQ (US), and Stackin (US) Author of 15+ books on brand marketing, including The Brandhome Method®, The Story Wars, In Triple-A® We Trust, and Branded Columnist for The Drum; regularly profiled by the London Speaker Bureau and other international platforms Biography Brand equity is consistently listed as one of the most valuable intangible assets on a company’s balance sheet – and consistently treated as one of the least manageable. The gap between what organisations believe their brand is worth and their ability to actively steer it is where most brand strategy fails. Erik Saelens has spent 25 years closing that gap. As founder and executive strategic director of Brandhome Group, he has built one of the more unusual intellectual positions in brand strategy: a proprietary empirical base of more than 300 rebranding and renaming operations that allows him to speak about brand transformation not as a philosophy but as a pattern-recognition exercise. His Triple-A Brand Index – built around Authenticity, Accountability, and Activation – gives organisations a diagnostic framework for auditing brand trust, not just measuring brand awareness. His credibility at the executive level is grounded in practice rather than proximity. Before founding Brandhome, Saelens served as senior brand advisor to the board of Royal Dutch Telecom KPN, and he currently sits on the boards of companies including Unbox, CQ, and Stackin. His work on brand strategy in M&A and IPO contexts gives him a specific fluency in the decisions that matter most when brand equity is genuinely at stake – acquisition integration, identity rationalisation, and the reputational dimensions of market entry. Across 15 books – including The Brandhome Method®, The Story Wars, and In Triple-A® We Trust – and as a regular columnist for The Drum, Saelens has developed a body of work that is practical in architecture and commercially framed in argument. His audiences leave with a structured vocabulary for brand decisions, not a renewed conviction that branding matters. Key speaking topics Brand strategy and commercial brand architecture Rebranding and renaming operations Brand trust measurement and the Triple-A framework Brand management in M&A and IPO contexts Storytelling as a strategic brand instrument Internal branding and identity-driven organisations The future of marketing and consumer attention Ideal for CMOs and marketing leadership teams navigating brand transformation or post-acquisition integration Boards and C-suite executives making decisions on brand equity in M&A, IPO, or market expansion contexts Strategy and transformation leads in organisations undergoing identity change Senior marketers and brand managers seeking a structured, evidence-based approach to brand building Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of brand as a commercial asset with measurable dimensions, not a creative output Practical familiarity with the Triple-A framework as a diagnostic tool for brand trust A structured way to think about what changes – and what must be protected – in a rebranding operation Sharper criteria for brand investment decisions, particularly in M&A, IPO, and market entry scenarios An accessible methodology (the Brandhome Method®) for building or rebuilding brand from a strategic starting point

Why organisations work with Dominique Turpin He has led two of the most internationally respected business schools, IMD and CEIBS, which gives him a rare operational read on how senior teams actually make commercial decisions under pressure. His case library, ranked by The Case Centre among the top 50 bestselling globally for several consecutive years, is taught inside the MBA programmes of the companies that buy his counsel. He combines a PhD from Sophia University Tokyo with decades of client work across Japan, China and Southeast Asia, useful to any European or North American board navigating Asian market entry or partnership. He works from named case material, not generic frameworks: Nespresso, Jollibee, Ducati, Toyota KINTO, among others, each linked to a specific brand or customer-centricity argument. His writing for Financial Times, MIT Sloan Management Review and European Business Forum gives executive audiences a concrete reference point for the arguments he develops on stage. Biography highlights Professor Emeritus of Marketing Strategy, IMD; former President and Nestle Professor, 2010 to 2016. President Emeritus of CEIBS; served as President (European) based out of the Zurich campus. PhD in Economics, Sophia University, Tokyo; MSc from ESSCA, France. Author of more than 100 books, articles and case studies, including The Essential Book of Business and Life Quotations (Anthem Press). Ranked on The Case Centre Top 50 Bestselling Case Authors for multiple consecutive years. Chairman of DAA Capital Partners; advisory and board roles across listed companies and educational institutions including Stockholm School of Economics and Waseda Business School. Biography Most global brands still describe themselves as customer-centric. Very few can show a senior leader what that actually changes inside a weekly country review. That gap between brand statement and operating behaviour is where Dominique Turpin has spent almost four decades of teaching and advisory work. Turpin joined IMD in 1986 after several years in Tokyo representing a French firm in Japan. He went on to hold the Dentsu Chair in Marketing, direct the MBA programme and serve as IMD President and Nestle Professor from 2010 to 2016. In 2022 he was appointed President (European) of CEIBS, the China Europe International Business School, a role he held until late 2025. He is now Professor Emeritus at IMD and President Emeritus at CEIBS. His case studies, taught inside companies as much as in classrooms, sit behind this body of work. Nespresso, Jollibee, Ducati, Toyota KINTO. Each uses a named company to argue a specific point about brand coherence, pricing power or customer design. The Case Centre has listed him among its top 50 bestselling case authors for several consecutive years, which is unusual longevity in a field dominated by one-off hits. The Japan and Asia dimension matters in his advisory work. Clients have included Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestle, Philips, KAO, Mondelez and Panasonic, and much of his applied research has examined how Asian firms build and defend brand equity in markets where European playbooks stall. He is Chairman of DAA Capital Partners, a Geneva-based private equity firm, and sits on boards and advisory councils including Stockholm School of Economics and Waseda Business School. Key speaking topics Brand management and brand strategy Customer centricity in multinational organisations Global marketing strategy Marketing leadership in Asia, with focus on Japan and China Corporate communications strategy Case-led executive development in commercial functions Ideal for CMOs and brand presidents inside consumer, industrial and healthcare multinationals. CEOs and group leadership teams setting Asia entry, partnership or expansion strategy. Executive development programmes for commercial and country-leadership populations. Boards and investment committees assessing brand-led businesses or consumer-facing acquisitions. Audience outcomes A working definition of customer centricity that survives contact with a country P and L. Named case examples senior teams can immediately apply to their own brand or pricing questions. A clearer view of how Japanese and Chinese firms build and defend brand equity, and what Western firms miss. Direct questions to ask marketing leadership about brand discipline, positioning and investment allocation. A vocabulary for talking about brand and customer strategy that aligns CEO, CFO and CMO.

Why organisations work with Dirk Ahlborn He has operated, not theorised, one of the largest crowd-powered equity companies ever built, with hundreds of contributors working for future equity on a single transport moonshot. He took an open concept posted publicly by Elon Musk and turned it into an incorporated global venture with government-level feasibility partnerships, giving leaders a concrete template for converting ideas into companies. His JumpStartFund platform is studied as a Harvard Business School case on crowd-powered innovation ecosystems, which gives the argument institutional weight beyond bureau bios. He brings a specific point of view on how to structure incentives, intellectual property and contribution when the workforce is distributed, part-time and equity-aligned rather than payrolled. He speaks from direct operator experience in alternative energy, manufacturing and transport, not from consulting on innovation as an abstract discipline. Biography highlights Co-founder and Chairman of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, a company incubated on a crowd-powered equity model. Founder and CEO of JumpStarter Inc., operator of the JumpStartFund crowdsourcing platform. Subject of a Harvard Business School case study on crowd-powered innovation ecosystems. Keynote speaker at SXSW, the World Economic Forum, CES and the Smart Mobility World Congress. Featured in Forbes, Wired, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe. Contributor to the Bosch Global thought leadership platform. Biography Hyperloop Transportation Technologies was set up in 2013 using a method almost no serious company had tried at that scale: hundreds of contributors working ten hours a week in exchange for stock options, coordinated through an online platform. The company that emerged went on to sign feasibility agreements with multiple governments. The interesting argument is not the train. It is the operating model. That model came out of JumpStartFund, the crowdsourcing platform Ahlborn launched the same year in El Segundo. The platform was designed to solve a specific problem, which is that most ideas never become companies because the capital, talent and coordination to build them sit in separate silos. JumpStartFund compressed those into one process. Harvard Business School has published a case study on how that works. Ahlborn’s background is unusually operational for someone running a moonshot. He started in Berlin banking in 1993, moved to Italy and built alternative energy and interior design businesses through the 1990s, and joined the Girvan Institute of Technology in Southern California in 2009 to help commercialise early-stage tech linked to NASA’s Ames Research Center. That sequence matters because his argument is not theoretical. He has built, sold and scaled businesses across sectors that rarely share a playbook. What he offers serious organisations is a working thesis on how to mobilise contribution at scale without hiring at scale, tested against one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the last decade. The thesis is portable. The specifics, stock-for-time structures, advisory-point commissions, crowd-led IP generation, translate into any organisation trying to attempt something its existing headcount and budget were not designed to deliver. Key speaking topics Crowd-powered venture building New business models for the post-industrial economy Entrepreneurship and distributed equity The future of transportation Innovation ecosystems and platform design Leading moonshot projects inside and outside the corporation Ideal for CEOs and founders designing new venture models outside conventional VC structures. Innovation, strategy and corporate venture leads running moonshot or skunkworks programmes. Transport, infrastructure and mobility leaders tracking what comes after road and rail. Boards weighing how to structure equity, IP and contribution in distributed organisations. Audience outcomes A concrete framework for running a crowd-powered venture, drawn from an operating example rather than a theoretical model. A clearer view of when equity-for-time structures work, and when they break. Specific language for pitching non-standard venture models to boards and institutional partners. A sharper read on what the next decade of transport, mobility and infrastructure investment is likely to reward.

Why organisations work with Digby Jones He has sat in both chairs that most business audiences only see from outside: head of the CBI and Minister of State for Trade. Very few speakers can tell a boardroom what the other side of the table is actually thinking. As Trade Minister he made 45 overseas visits to 31 countries in 15 months. That is a working map of how UK plc sells itself abroad, not a theory about it. His two Wiley books, Fixing Britain (2011) and Fixing Business (2017), set out a consistent argument about competitiveness, skills and responsible profit that still frames how he talks to boards today. He is a crossbencher by choice and a non-aligned voice in public life. For audiences tired of partisan framing, that independence is the point. The New Troubleshooter, his 2014 BBC Two series, put him inside three real British SMEs to diagnose and fix them on camera. It is a rare speaker credential: public evidence of how he actually thinks through a business problem. Biography highlights Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, 2000 to 2006. Minister of State for Trade and Investment, 2007 to 2008, jointly in BERR and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Life peer as Baron Jones of Birmingham, 2007; crossbencher in the House of Lords until retirement in 2020. Knight Bachelor, 2005 New Year Honours, for services to Business. Author of Fixing Britain (Wiley, 2011) and Fixing Business (Wiley, 2017); Fixing Britain shortlisted for the 2012 CMI Management Book of the Year. Presenter of BBC Two’s Digby Jones: The New Troubleshooter, 2014. Senior Partner at Edge & Ellison, Birmingham, 1995 to 1998, after two decades as a corporate lawyer in the West Midlands. Biography The CBI is where British business tells the government what it needs. The Department for Business is where the government tells British business what it is prepared to do. Digby Jones has run the first and served in the second. That combined vantage is what a boardroom is buying when it brings him in. He was Director General of the CBI from 2000 to 2006, then accepted an invitation from Gordon Brown to serve as Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2007 to 2008, joining the Lords as a crossbencher to take the post. In 15 months he made 45 overseas visits to 31 countries, pitching the UK as a place to invest and British firms as firms to buy from. He sat as a non-aligned peer until retiring from the Lords in 2020. The two books are where his argument lives. Fixing Britain (Wiley, 2011), shortlisted for the 2012 CMI Management Book of the Year, is a working plan for national competitiveness: skills, infrastructure, a functioning relationship between Whitehall and the wealth creators. Fixing Business (Wiley, 2017) extends the argument into how profitable companies can justify themselves to the societies they operate in. The thesis is consistent and it is his own. Before politics, he spent twenty years at Edge & Ellison in Birmingham, becoming senior partner, brokering deals for mid-market companies in a region that lives or dies by manufacturing. That is the register he still speaks in. On the BBC Two series The New Troubleshooter in 2014 he spent three episodes inside three British SMEs, arguing with owners and staff about pricing, exports and focus. A senior audience watching him work sees the same person they will meet on stage: direct, specific, unafraid to name the problem. Key speaking topics UK competitiveness and the business-government relationship Trade, exports and inward investment British economic policy and the view from Westminster Skills, productivity and the domestic labour market Responsible business and the case for profit Leadership from the employers’ side of the table Ideal for Board and executive committee offsites debating UK exposure, investment or political risk CEO and CFO audiences at trade associations, industry bodies and chambers of commerce Senior audiences at professional services and financial firms briefing clients on the UK economy After-dinner and conference keynotes where a non-partisan senior voice on British business is the draw Audience outcomes A candid read on where the UK economy and UK business policy actually stand, from someone who has worked both sides A clearer view of what government decisions mean for investment, exports and hiring A sharper argument for why skills and productivity remain the binding constraint on British growth A usable sense of how to talk about profit, responsibility and national interest in the same sentence Direct answers in Q&A: a working conversation with a senior practitioner, not a rehearsed set piece

Why organisations work with Diego Gilardoni He reads China the way a board needs it read: as a commercial relationship shaped by political signalling, cultural code and reputational exposure, not as a marketing opportunity that can be project-managed. He held a seat on the International Advisory Board of the National Image Research Centre at Tsinghua University, which gave him direct line of sight into how Chinese institutions think about Western corporate behaviour, a vantage point few external advisors actually have. His Oxford postgraduate work focused specifically on global reputation and corporate diplomacy, so he can move a leadership team from “we have a public affairs problem” to “we have an operating-model problem” without the usual translation costs. His strategic foresight training spans the Institute for the Future, Kairos Future, the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and the Oxford Scenarios Programme, which means scenarios for the room are built on recognised methodology rather than improvised futures language. Former broadcast journalist, current advisor, working trilingually across English, French and Italian, with lived professional experience across Europe, the US and China. The geopolitical reading carries the texture of someone who has actually operated inside these systems. Biography highlights Author, Decoding China: Cross-cultural strategies for successful business with the Chinese (2017). Former member, International Advisory Board, National Image Research Centre, Tsinghua University, Beijing. Former Visiting Professor in global business and corporate diplomacy, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), Beijing. Postgraduate Diploma in Global Business, University of Oxford; Oxford Scenarios Programme, Saïd Business School. Strategic foresight certifications from the Institute for the Future (Palo Alto), Kairos Future Academy (Stockholm) and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Contributor to the South China Morning Post and TEDx speaker on cross-cultural business. Biography The rules-based global economy that European and North American boards were trained inside no longer holds. China is a strategic relationship, not a market. Supply chains are political instruments. Reputation in one jurisdiction now creates legal and commercial exposure in another. Senior teams are still making capital decisions with a mental model from a different era. Diego’s work sits inside that gap. His Oxford postgraduate diploma in global business focused on reputation and corporate diplomacy, his subsequent foresight training runs through the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Kairos Future in Stockholm and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. The methodology is recognised. The application is commercial. China is the spine of his expertise. He served on the International Advisory Board of the National Image Research Centre at Tsinghua University and was Visiting Professor in global business and corporate diplomacy at UIBE in Beijing. Decoding China (2017) is the working manual for executives who need to operate inside the Chinese commercial system rather than perform competence at distance. Before the advisory work, he spent the first 15 years of his career as a journalist with Switzerland’s national broadcaster, reporting from Europe and the United States. He writes for the South China Morning Post and has authored two earlier books in Italian, one on the reputational fallout of the Swiss banks’ WWII assets crisis, one on US foreign policy in a multipolar world. The reputation thread runs the length of the career. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and global business in a fragmented order China strategy and cross-cultural commercial decision-making Corporate diplomacy and reputation across jurisdictions Strategic foresight and scenario thinking for boards Cultural intelligence as a board-level capability Strategic narrative and executive communication Ideal for CEOs, boards and executive committees with material China or wider Asia exposure Heads of strategy, corporate affairs and public affairs in multinational organisations Risk, supply chain and corporate development leaders re-pricing geopolitical exposure Leadership programmes inside global financial services, industrials, luxury and hospitality groups Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the China relationship is going and what that means for specific commercial decisions in the room. A working vocabulary for corporate diplomacy that closes the gap between public affairs, strategy and operations. Scenario logic the leadership team can take back into capital allocation and supply chain decisions. Concrete cross-cultural cues for negotiating, partnering and managing reputation across the China-West divide.

Why organisations work with David Thomas He lives in Cebu and works on active cross-border deal flow through Mabuhay Capital Corporation, the Philippines M&A advisory firm, so what he says about emerging Asia is being tested in live transactions rather than retrieved from a desk in London. His reading of Hong Kong and Greater China carries family proximity that other Asia speakers cannot match. His father, Michael Thomas QC CMG, was Attorney General of Hong Kong from 1983 to 1988 and contributed to the Sino-British Joint Declaration. His stepmother, Baroness Lydia Dunn, sat on Hong Kong’s Executive and Legislative Councils and went on to sit in the UK House of Lords. He has spent two decades running capital and investment delegations across emerging Asia, including the BRIC+ Program he co-founded (Brazil, Russia, India and China), so when he points at a corridor opening, he is usually already moving founders or capital through it. His North-South Corridor framework maps how capital and supply chains are moving between the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand. It is the lane that most of the cross-border activity of the next decade will be priced along, and it is the lane that most Western strategy decks still skip. His Three Cups of Tea framework, drawn from the book of the same name, gives Western leaders a working method for how commercial trust actually builds in Asian markets: Stranger, Friend, Family, in that order. Biography highlights Author of Three Cups of Tea: A 3 Step Guide to Doing Business in China and Year of the Rat, alongside further writing on Asian commerce. Lived and worked in Hong Kong through the 1980s and 1990s; ran his own wealth management firm there from 1988 to 1995. Father Michael Thomas QC CMG, Attorney General of Hong Kong (1983–1988); stepmother Baroness Lydia Dunn, senior unofficial member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and Legislative Council, and a UK House of Lords cross-bencher. Co-founder of the BRIC+ Program (2005–2010), running five years of Australian investment study tours into Brazil, Russia, India and China. Consultant to Mabuhay Capital Corporation (Philippines) on cross-border M&A and ASEAN capital flows. Founding President of the Australia China SME Association. Founder/CEO of Think Global Consulting. Graduate of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business CEO Program in Beijing (2019). Has spoken at corporate events for Deloitte, Westpac, Telstra, DHL, BT Financial Group, RMA Australia and others across Asia, Australia, Europe and the UK. Biography Western boards are still reading Asia through a US-China lens. The next two decades of cross-border capital and supply chain activity will move along a different lane: the corridor connecting the Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong, down through the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and broader ASEAN, to Australia and New Zealand. That lane is what David Thomas calls the North-South Corridor, and he has spent three decades inside it. That perspective begins with family. His father, Michael Thomas QC CMG, was Hong Kong’s Attorney General from 1983 to 1988 and contributed to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that determined the territory’s future. His stepmother, Baroness Lydia Dunn, was a senior member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and went on to sit as a cross-bencher in the UK House of Lords from 1990 to 2010. David lived in Hong Kong through the 1980s and 1990s and ran his own wealth management firm there from 1988 to 1995. He made his first trip to Beijing in 1989. What followed was three decades of running capital and trade work across emerging Asia. He co-founded the BRIC+ Program, an Australian investment delegation that ran for five consecutive years into Brazil, Russia, India and China and gave senior financial advisers structured access to all four markets simultaneously. His book Three Cups of Tea introduced a model now used by Western executives entering Asian markets: relationships build through three stages, Stranger, Friend and Family, and the real commercial work begins only at the third. He served as founding President of the Australia China SME Association and founded Think Global Consulting. He works with Mabuhay Capital Corporation on active cross-border M&A and capital flows across the Philippines and ASEAN. He is a graduate of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business CEO Program in Beijing, and recent client work has included executive briefings for senior freight and logistics teams gathered in Ho Chi Minh City and curated investor introductions for Australian and New Zealand founders raising into Asia-Pacific capital. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the North-South Corridor ASEAN as the next commercial growth axis Cross-border capital flow between developed markets and emerging Asia Supply chain repositioning under US-China decoupling Cross-cultural negotiation and trust architecture in Asian markets Strategic foresight on Asia for Western boards Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors with current or planned commercial exposure to Hong Kong, Greater China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia or broader ASEAN. Investment committees, family offices and venture firms allocating capital across the Greater Bay Area, ASEAN and Australia/New Zealand. Corporate development, M&A and market entry teams running cross-border transactions or joint ventures in emerging Asia. Industry associations and trade bodies briefing members on supply chain risk and the capital corridor connecting developed markets to ASEAN. Audience outcomes A working map of the North-South Corridor and where capital, supply chains and political risk are actually being repriced. A method for building commercial trust in Asian markets (Stranger, Friend, Family), and a clear view of why transactional Western approaches consistently fail there. A sharper read of US-China-ASEAN dynamics and where they intersect with their own organisation’s market and supplier exposure. An applied frame for market entry, joint venture and capital partner decisions across the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and broader ASEAN.

Why organisations work with David Smith More than three decades of reading the UK economy from inside the same national-press seat, which gives audiences a continuous interpretive line on monetary policy, fiscal cycles and recovery patterns that no rotating commentator can offer. A working journalist’s access. Smith writes the weekly Sunday Times economics column and a Times column, so briefings draw on live contact with policy thinkers, Treasury officials and City economists, not retrospective analysis. Authored catalogue covering the Thatcher-era monetarist experiment, the 2008 financial crisis, the China and India growth story, and post-crisis Britain. Few UK economics speakers can place a current decision against that depth of written record. Trusted by sector audiences for Budget and Spending Review briefings, including recurring briefings for the Disruptive Innovators Network in housing, which signals he reads as relevant to operational leaders, not just finance specialists. Academic credibility without academic remove: Honorary Professor at Nottingham and Visiting Professor at Cardiff, while still writing weekly for the national press. Biography highlights Economics Editor of The Sunday Times since 1989; also chief leader-writer, assistant editor and policy adviser. Weekly columnist for The Times since 2016. Honorary Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham; Visiting Professor, Cardiff University. Author of Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics, The Dragon and the Elephant, The Age of Instability, Something Will Turn Up and earlier titles including The Rise and Fall of Monetarism and North and South. Harold Wincott, Senior Financial Journalist of the Year; Economics Commentator of the Year (2013); Business Journalist of the Year, London Press Awards (2014); Property Columnist of the Year. Highly Commended Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards (2008). Biography UK economic policy has been rewritten at least three times in a generation: the monetarist experiment, the response to the 2008 crash, and the post-pandemic reset of inflation, rates and public spending. Reading each of those shifts as they happened, in the same national newspaper column, is a rare position. That is the seat David Smith has held since 1989. As Economics Editor of The Sunday Times, chief leader-writer and assistant editor, Smith writes the paper’s weekly economics column and contributes a separate weekly column to The Times. The work is grounded in continuous contact with Treasury officials, Bank of England watchers and City economists, which is why corporate audiences treat his Budget and Spending Review briefings as a baseline read rather than a comment piece. His books extend that frame backwards and outwards. The Rise and Fall of Monetarism, From Boom to Bust and North and South, track the structural arguments inside the UK economy. The Dragon and the Elephant set out the China and India growth story before it was a consensus board topic. The Age of Instability and Something Will Turn Up read the 2008 crisis and its long tail. The catalogue gives him a historical baseline that most current commentators do not have. Academic affiliations sit alongside the journalism rather than replacing it. Smith is Honorary Professor in Nottingham’s Faculty of Social Sciences and a Visiting Professor at Cardiff University, and has lectured at Nottingham’s Malaysia and Ningbo campuses. His awards record, including the Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year, the 2013 Economics Commentator of the Year and the 2014 Business Journalist of the Year at the London Press Awards, marks him as the commentator other commentators read. Key speaking topics UK economic policy and the Budget Bank of England and interest rate outlook Global markets and the US Federal Reserve UK and Europe after Brexit UK housing and property markets China, India and the shifting global economic order Long-run outlook for the UK economy Ideal for Boards and executive teams making capital allocation, hiring or pricing decisions against a moving macro picture CFOs, treasurers and heads of strategy are briefing leadership on the UK and global economic outlook Property, housing and real-estate leadership audiences planning against rate and policy cycles Annual conferences, partner meetings and client events are looking for a senior, non-partisan read of the UK economy Audience outcomes A clear, current read of where UK growth, inflation and interest rates are heading and what is driving each A view on the next Budget or fiscal event and how it changes the operating environment A grounded sense of how UK conditions sit against US, European and Asian economic shifts Confidence in distinguishing genuine structural change from short-term political and market noise Specific reference points from three decades of UK economic cycles that audiences can use in their own planning conversations

Why organisations work with David Selves He runs corporate events, awards ceremonies and fundraising dinners as the figure at the front of the room, with a 50-year track record across broadcasting, business and hospitality to draw on. As a charity auctioneer, he has raised over £1 million for good causes, a tangible commercial outcome rather than a stage credit. His business background, including roles as Regional Chairman and National Board Member of the Small Business Bureau, gives him a credible footing on panels with founders, investors and small-business audiences. As Deputy Chairman of the London Press Club and a working broadcaster, he interviews with journalistic instinct, which makes him useful for on-stage Q&A with senior or politically sensitive guests. Biography highlights Founder of The Selves Group (1978), with interests across property, media, finance and leisure. Former Regional Chairman and National Board Member of the Small Business Bureau. Deputy Chairman of the London Press Club; founder of the London Grill Club. Charity auctioneer credited with raising over £1 million for charitable causes. Broadcaster on Radio Faversham, with a long-running interviewing practice. Author of four fictional thrillers, including “Quentin – A Spy” and “The Noble Challenge”. Biography A long evening of speeches, an awards running order or a fundraising auction lives or dies on the person holding the room. The technical name for this is hosting craft, and it is a different discipline from keynote speaking. David Selves has built his career around it. The career sits across banking, broadcasting, hospitality and small-business advocacy. He started as a management trainee at Midland Bank in 1969, founded The Selves Group in 1978, and has held senior positions at the Small Business Bureau as Regional Chairman and National Board Member. The London Press Club, where he is Deputy Chairman, and the London Grill Club, which he founded, anchor him in the working media community. The auctioneering record is the clearest commercial proof point. Over £1 million raised for charitable causes places him among a small group of British fundraising auctioneers who can move a room and a paddle in equal measure. His broadcasting on Radio Faversham, and a long interviewing practice across business and political subjects, give him the ear and pacing that live hosting demands. He also writes fiction, with four published thrillers including “Quentin – A Spy” and “The Noble Challenge”, a reminder that the working tools of the trade are language and timing. Key speaking topics After-dinner speaking Awards hosting Charity auctioneering and fundraising Panel moderation and on-stage interviewing Entrepreneurship and small business Media and broadcasting Ideal for Corporate event organisers booking a host or master of ceremonies for awards nights, gala dinners or conference plenaries. Charity development directors and fundraising leads are commissioning an auctioneer for a high-stakes appeal evening. Communications and marketing leads needing a panel moderator for journalist-style on-stage interviews. Small-business and entrepreneur networks are looking for an after-dinner speaker with operating credibility. Audience outcomes A running order that holds energy from welcome to close, rather than losing the room mid-evening. A fundraising auction run with pacing and judgement, designed to lift the final total. On-stage interviews with senior or politically sensitive guests are handled with journalistic instinct. An after-dinner address that mixes humour with substantive commentary on business, media, or current affairs.

Why organisations work with David Rowan He runs the climate-tech and health-tech investment funds at Voyagers and has personally backed more than 180 early-stage tech companies. The view he brings to a board is from active deal flow, not from a research summary. Nine years editing WIRED UK gave him direct working relationships with the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Spotify, Didi, Xiaomi and Nest while those companies were still being built. He reports on the frontier from inside the rooms where it is designed. His Penguin bestseller Non-Bullshit Innovation came out of a 20-country investigation into what real corporate innovation looks like once the theatre of accelerators and chief disruptive growth officers is stripped away. Boards get a tested set of strategies, not a list of trends. Every talk is researched and built around the sector in the room. Recent briefs include aviation (SITA), insurance, automotive after-market, real estate, luxury fashion and television. He converts frontier technology into the decisions a CEO has to take this quarter. Repeat clients include Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Google, Sky, Salesforce and Warner Bros. Biography highlights Founding Editor-in-Chief of WIRED UK, 2008-17 Author of Non-Bullshit Innovation (Penguin); Amazon #1 business bestseller; Financial Times Business Books of the Month; translated into Japanese, Korean, Russian and Ukrainian 900+ keynotes globally; event moderator for the World Economic Forum, the UK and French governments, the G8 Innovation Conference, the Royal Academy of Engineering and GITEX Dubai Technology columnist for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Sunday Times Investor in 180+ early-stage tech companies; named unicorns include Grammarly, Improbable, Maven Clinic, Cerebral, Commure, Rebellion Defense, Kitopi and Onfido Founder of Voyagers; manager of its climate-tech and health-tech investment funds; adviser to Lakestar Biography The length of task an AI agent can autonomously complete is doubling every seven months. Autonomous robots are already running factory shifts. Most boards are setting strategy from briefings that pre-date both. David Rowan’s working life sits inside the gap between those two realities. As founding Editor-in-Chief of WIRED UK, he built working relationships with the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Spotify, Didi, Xiaomi and Nest while those companies were still scaling. He has since backed more than 180 early-stage tech companies, eight of which have reached unicorn valuations: Grammarly, Improbable, Maven Clinic, Cerebral, Commure, Rebellion Defense, Kitopi and Onfido. He now runs the Voyagers climate-tech and health-tech investment funds. His Penguin bestseller Non-Bullshit Innovation came out of a 20-country investigation into how incumbent businesses actually generate new value, once the theatre of accelerators and chief disruptive growth officers is set aside. The book was named a Financial Times Business Book of the Month and translated into Japanese, Korean, Russian and Ukrainian. Its argument is that genuine innovation is a discipline with specific, testable strategies. His next book is on culture as the differentiating asset for organisations in an era when AI risks commodifying everything else. Repeat clients include Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Google, Sky, Salesforce and Warner Bros. He moderates for the World Economic Forum, the UK and French governments, the G8 Innovation Conference and the Royal Academy of Engineering. His stated KPI for a keynote: leave the audience 91% excited about the future, and 9% afraid. Key speaking topics AI strategy for established businesses Exponential technology and industry disruption Innovation as a managed discipline inside incumbent organisations The future of work in the age of AI agents Culture and talent strategy under AI commodification Sector-specific technology foresight Ideal for CEOs and boards setting AI strategy for established businesses CHROs and Chief People Officers reshaping talent strategy as AI changes the shape of work Chief Innovation, Digital and Strategy leaders translating frontier technology into operating decisions Senior leadership teams in sectors facing acute technology disruption: finance, real estate, aviation, media, healthcare, insurance, automotive Audience outcomes A clearer separation of what is genuinely real at the AI frontier from what remains hype A practical triage of technology decisions: what to fund this quarter, what to pilot, what to ignore The 17 strategies from Non-Bullshit Innovation, applied to the audience’s own sector A sector-specific reading of what AI agents are likely to do to operating models and headcount over the next 24 months

Why organisations work with David Meerman Scott He wrote the book that reset the category. The New Rules of Marketing and PR sits in its ninth edition, has been translated into 29 languages, and is standard reading inside marketing functions worldwide. When he speaks to a commercial team, they are hearing from the person who named the model they already use. He coined Newsjacking, now in the Oxford English Dictionary, and turned it into a repeatable method for injecting a brand into live news cycles without a campaign budget. He has been inside HubSpot’s growth story since 2007, when the company had fewer than ten employees, and continues as its Marketer in Residence. The playbook he talks about is one he helped build in practice. Fanocracy, his Wall Street Journal bestseller with Reiko Scott, gives commercial leaders a second framework: how to turn customers into fans, and fans into a growth engine that competitors cannot copy. He sits on advisory boards across software, AI, and live-music businesses, which keeps his material in front of current commercial problems rather than recycled case studies. Biography highlights Author of more than a dozen books, including The New Rules of Marketing and PR (9th edition, 29 languages), Fanocracy, Real-Time Marketing and PR, Marketing the Moon, and Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. Coined “Newsjacking”; the term entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017. HubSpot advisory board member since 2007 and current Marketer in Residence. Keynotes and masterclasses delivered on all seven continents and in more than 45 countries, for clients including Cisco, HP, SAP, Google, Microsoft, Ford, PwC, NASDAQ, McKesson, the US Air Force, and the US Marine Corps. Advisor and board member to emerging companies including Eloqua (IPO 2012, acquired by Oracle), NewsWatch KK (acquired by Yahoo Japan), and GrabCAD (acquired by Stratasys). Serves on the advisory boards of the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz and the voter-registration nonprofit HeadCount. Biography The shift that matters in marketing is not a tool, it is a timing problem. Buyers move through most of a purchase decision on their own, using search, social, and peer networks, before a seller is ever involved. David Meerman Scott built his career by naming that shift and giving commercial teams a way to work inside it. The New Rules of Marketing and PR, first published in 2006 and now in its ninth edition, turned a set of emerging practices into a coherent model: publish useful content, reach buyers directly, and abandon the campaign calendar as the organising unit of marketing. The book has been translated into 29 languages and is now treated as a standard reference inside marketing functions from Fortune 500 incumbents to early-stage software companies. Real-Time Marketing and PR and Newsjacking extended the argument into live events and breaking news, and gave the commercial world a new vocabulary for opportunistic reach. His credibility is not only editorial. He has been on the HubSpot advisory board since 2007, when the company had fewer than ten employees, and remains its Marketer in Residence. He sat on the board of Eloqua through its IPO and sale to Oracle, and on NewsWatch KK through its sale to Yahoo Japan. With his daughter Reiko Scott he wrote Fanocracy, a 2020 Wall Street Journal bestseller that moved the conversation from reach to fandom, and gave leaders at companies like Hagerty, MeUndies, and HubSpot a framework for building customer communities that behave like a compounding asset. When Scott walks into a sales kickoff or a marketing leadership offsite, the value is compression. He has already tested these ideas across more than 45 countries, all seven continents, and hundreds of commercial teams, and he will tell a CMO in the room which parts of the playbook are load-bearing and which are noise. Key speaking topics Modern marketing strategy and the new rules of marketing and PR Newsjacking and real-time marketing Content-led sales and social selling Fanocracy and customer community as a growth engine Digital buyer behaviour and the shift from campaigns to always-on Marketing leadership inside high-growth technology companies Ideal for CMOs, marketing directors, and heads of brand rebuilding their function for a post-campaign buying journey. Chief Revenue Officers and sales leaders running kickoffs where marketing and sales need one shared operating model. Founders and leadership teams at growth-stage software, services, and consumer businesses looking for a repeatable customer-acquisition method. Corporate communications and PR leaders modernising earned-media strategy around live news and owned content. Audience outcomes A clear read on where their current marketing and sales model is leaking pipeline, and which specific tactics to retire. A working definition of Newsjacking and Real-Time Marketing, with concrete examples of how to execute both inside a regulated or conservative organisation. The Fanocracy framework for converting buyers into repeat advocates, with named examples from Hagerty, MeUndies, HubSpot, and HeadCount. A sharper view of what a modern marketing and sales operating rhythm looks like day to day, not as an annual plan. Practical language to align a CMO, CRO, and CEO on what good looks like in the next twelve months.