Change Management

Why organisations work with Pellegrino Riccardi His TEDxBergen talk on cross-cultural communication has been viewed nearly two million times – giving him a level of pre-built credibility and independent reach that few speakers in this space can point to before they walk on stage. He does not study cultural difference from the outside. Born in the UK to Italian parents and living in Norway since 1995, he has navigated three distinct cultural systems from the inside – a quality of embedded perspective that changes what his audiences trust him to know. His “Six Basic Human Needs” framework gives leadership teams a diagnostic for why motivation and engagement falter in multicultural environments – not a generalisation about national character, but a universal human model applied precisely to the point where cultural difference becomes organisational friction. He makes the Nordic workplace model legible and actionable for global organisations – addressing a specific and growing gap for multinationals operating in, entering, or partnering with Scandinavian markets. Named Norwegian Speaker of the Year by Talerlisten in 2020, selected from more than 600 national nominees, and a finalist in both 2021 and 2022 – a competitive national award that reflects consistent delivery rather than a single strong appearance. Biography highlights Norwegian Speaker of the Year 2020 (Talerlisten); finalist 2021 and 2022 – selected from a field of more than 600 national nominees Three TEDx talks; TEDxBergen cross-cultural communication talk approaching two million views Two Master’s degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oslo; additional qualifications in psychology, NLP, and pedagogy Author of Drowning Quietly: Memoir of a Man’s Shortcomings (Greenleaf Book Group, 2022) Regular commentator on Norwegian national television on culture and immigration Client work spans Merck, Skanska, DNB, IKEA, IBM, BP, ExxonMobil, and the European Commission Biography Most cross-cultural training starts with the other culture. Pellegrino Riccardi starts with you. His central argument – that misunderstanding in multicultural teams rarely begins with ignorance of another culture, but with the unchecked assumptions you carry about your own – has reached nearly two million people through his TEDxBergen talk alone. It is not an academic position. It is a practitioner’s diagnosis, sharpened over three decades of working with organisations where the gap between cultural intent and daily reality was costing them real performance. Riccardi was born in the UK to Italian immigrant parents and has been based in Norway since 1995. He is not a consultant who has studied these three cultural systems – he has lived inside all of them. That distinction is audible in the room. His definition of culture, “a system of behavior that helps us act in an accepted or familiar way,” is deliberately simple: it is designed to move the conversation from observation to self-examination, fast. For senior leaders who have sat through cultural awareness sessions and left unchanged, the shift in entry point matters. His frameworks give organisations something to work with after the session. The Six Basic Human Needs – which he describes as the human batteries that determine whether people bring their full energy to work – and the Three Human Drives give teams a shared language for diagnosing disengagement that does not reduce to personality or politics. He holds two Master’s degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oslo, with further qualifications in psychology, NLP, and pedagogy, and appears regularly on Norwegian national television as a commentator on culture and integration. In 2020 he was named Norwegian Speaker of the Year by Talerlisten from a field of more than 600 national nominees – a recognition he followed with finalist standings in both 2021 and 2022. His memoir Drowning Quietly (Greenleaf Book Group, 2022) extends his examination of human identity and behaviour beyond the professional context. His organisational client list includes Merck, Skanska, DNB, IKEA, IBM, BP, ExxonMobil, and the European Commission. Key speaking topics Cross-cultural communication and workplace dynamics Corporate culture and culture transformation Nordic workplace values and leadership mindsets Employee motivation and human engagement Multicultural team performance Change, uncertainty, and organisational resilience Storytelling as a driver of business culture Ideal for CHROs and People & Culture leaders managing globally distributed or multicultural workforces Leadership teams of multinationals operating in, entering, or partnering with Nordic markets Organisations navigating culture change, post-merger integration, or rapid workforce diversification Senior leaders seeking to move beyond cultural awareness programmes to measurable change in team communication and trust Audience outcomes Why good people misunderstand each other at work, and the invisible assumptions that drive it A working definition of culture that changes how leaders recognise the source of cross-cultural friction The Six Basic Human Needs framework, and a sharper read on why unmet needs surface as quiet disengagement rather than open dissatisfaction How Nordic communication norms (silence, economy of language, psychological safety) read to outsiders, and what global teams need to do differently Practical ways to build trust and create the kind of conversations people actually feel safe having

Why organisations work with Oscar van Weerdenburg He brings a published, evidence-based diagnostic. The Intercultural Readiness Check, co-developed with Ursula Brinkmann and built on a dataset of roughly 30,000 international respondents, lets leaders move from impression to assessment. He is part of the Trompenaars lineage. His work began with Fons Trompenaars at the University of Amsterdam in 1992, and his frameworks sit inside the Trompenaars Hampden-Turner network rather than alongside it. His M&A and integration track record is operational. He has been brought into post-deal integration work at major European and global firms to handle the cultural friction that derails synergy targets. He teaches inside INSEAD Executive Education and has lectured at Michigan Business School and Rotterdam School of Management, so the same content runs in front of senior leaders before it reaches their teams. His delivery is Anglo-Dutch in register: direct, often dryly funny, low on jargon. Buyers report sessions that are usable on Monday morning, not just well-received in the room. Biography highlights Co-author, Intercultural Readiness: Four Competences for Working Across Cultures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), with Ursula Brinkmann. Co-founder and Managing Director, Intercultural Business Improvement (IBI), founded 1996. Co-creator of the Intercultural Readiness Check, drawn from a 15-year research programme of roughly 30,000 respondents. Visiting professor, INSEAD Executive Education; former lecturer at Michigan Business School and Rotterdam School of Management. Long-standing partner in the Trompenaars Hampden-Turner network, with collaboration with Fons Trompenaars dating to 1992. Lecturer of the Year 2008, Chalmers Professional Education. Biography Most cross-border failures inside multinationals are not strategic. They are cultural. Synergy targets in M&A slip, global rollouts stall, and senior hires struggle because the assumptions people carry about hierarchy, conflict, and time were never made visible. That is the territory Oscar van Weerdenburg has worked in for more than three decades. He began this work in 1992 with Fons Trompenaars at the University of Amsterdam, the partnership that became the foundation of modern intercultural management consulting. In 1996 he co-founded Intercultural Business Improvement with the psychologist Ursula Brinkmann. Together they built the Intercultural Readiness Check, a diagnostic drawn from a fifteen-year research programme of roughly thirty thousand respondents across four continents and published as Intercultural Readiness: Four Competences for Working Across Cultures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). The IRC is what separates his practice from consulting impressionism. It gives leaders a measurable read on four competences that predict whether their teams can actually work across cultures, and it sits inside the Trompenaars Hampden-Turner network rather than competing with it. He teaches the underlying material on INSEAD Executive Education programmes and has lectured at Michigan Business School and Rotterdam School of Management, with a client list that includes Shell, HSBC, Qantas, BASF, PepsiCo and Goldman Sachs. What buyers tend to value is the operational edge. He has been brought into post-merger integrations and global team builds where cultural friction was already costing money, and he leaves leaders with vocabulary and a diagnostic, not abstractions. Chalmers Professional Education named him Lecturer of the Year in 2008 for the same reason: the room walks out with something usable. Key speaking topics Cultural intelligence as a measurable capability Leading multicultural and global teams Cultural integration in mergers and acquisitions International negotiation Strategic dilemmas in global business Cross-cultural leadership development The Intercultural Readiness Check as a leadership diagnostic Ideal for CHROs and global L&D leads building intercultural capability across regions M&A integration leads and post-deal sponsors handling cultural fit and synergy execution Global team leaders, country heads, and matrixed senior managers with cross-border accountability Executive education and leadership programme directors at multinationals Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the cultural assumptions that drive most cross-border friction Familiarity with the four intercultural competences measured by the IRC and how to apply them A clearer read on where their own team or deal is most exposed to cultural breakdown Practical moves for international negotiation, integration, and global team design they can use the following week

Why organisations work with Oliver Bierhoff His perspective is executive, not athletic. He spent 18 years running one of world football’s most scrutinised national programmes – managing coaching changes, institutional restructuring, and major tournament cycles – as a director, not a player. He has managed through both sides of accountability. He was part of Germany’s 2014 World Cup-winning operation and was the senior official who left following the 2022 Qatar group-stage exit. Few speakers can speak with equal authority about sustaining success and owning failure. The structural reform he led at the DFB – unifying men’s football, women’s football, and the national academy under one strategy for the first time in German football history – is a transferable case study in how large institutions resist and achieve meaningful integration. His current advisory roles span strategy consulting (McKinsey & Company), American professional sport (New England Patriots), and sports investment (FINVIA Sports GmbH) – he is operating at the intersection of sport, finance, and organisational strategy, not stepping back from it. He holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business economics and conducted his studies by correspondence during his playing career, a signal of intellectual intent that goes beyond the typical athlete-to-speaker trajectory. Biography highlights Scored the first «Golden Goal» in major international football history – Germany’s Euro 96 final – and earned 70 caps, scoring 37 goals for the national team Serie A top scorer in 1997–98 (27 goals); Serie A champion with AC Milan in 1998–99; holds the league record for most headed goals in a single season (15) Appointed Germany’s first national team manager in 2004; part of the management structure that delivered the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2017 Confederations Cup Served as DFB Director of National Teams & Academy from 2018–2022; first to unify women’s football, men’s football, and the national academy under a single organisational strategy in German football history Business Advisor to the New England Patriots (DACH region); Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company; Chairman and Co-Founder of FINVIA Sports GmbH Diplom-Kaufmann in business economics, University of Hagen, completed by correspondence during his professional playing career Biography Oliver Bierhoff scored the first Golden Goal in major international football history in Euro 96 and went on to become Serie A’s leading scorer, a champion with AC Milan, and a 70-cap Germany international. Most sports speakers stop there. What followed was the more instructive part of his career. In 2004, he was appointed Germany’s first national team manager – a role created specifically to bridge players, coaches, sponsors, and the football association across multiple coaching cycles. He held that responsibility through the 2014 FIFA World Cup win in Brazil and the 2017 Confederations Cup, before being elevated to Director of National Teams & Academy in 2018. In this role, he integrated men’s football, women’s football, and the DFB Academy under a single department and unified strategy – the first time this had been done in German football history – and launched the «Project Future» youth development programme in partnership with the German Football League. That tenure ended in December 2022, when Germany were eliminated in the group stage of the Qatar World Cup. Bierhoff accepted accountability and left by mutual agreement. That willingness to be held responsible for outcomes – not just processes – is the thread that runs through everything he says about performance culture and leadership under scrutiny. Since leaving the DFB, he has moved into strategic advisory work at a level that goes beyond sport: Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company, Business Advisor to the New England Patriots for their DACH market expansion, and Chairman and Co-Founder of FINVIA Sports GmbH, a sports investment vehicle. He holds a business economics degree completed by correspondence during his playing career. The organisations that work with him are not looking for a former footballer with motivational stories. They are looking for someone who built systems, owned consequences, and kept operating. Key speaking topics Building performance cultures in institutional organisations Leadership continuity across coaching and management transitions Accountability and decision-making under public scrutiny Structural integration and organisational reform in complex institutions Translating elite team sport into business performance frameworks Pressure, resilience, and the psychology of competitive environments The business of sport: investment, strategy, and international expansion Ideal for Executive leadership teams and C-suite audiences focused on performance culture and organisational resilience CHROs, Chief People Officers, and transformation leads navigating structural change Organisations rebuilding or reorienting after public setbacks or leadership transitions Sports business, private equity, and investment audiences interested in the intersection of elite sport and institutional strategy Audience outcomes A clearer framework for distinguishing performance culture from performance results, and why the gap between them causes most high-profile failures Practical perspective on managing accountability across leadership transitions without sacrificing stability Insight into how institutional restructuring actually works at executive level: what changes, what resists, and what determines whether integration sticks A more honest lens on public failure: what it demands of leaders, how to process it, and how to use it without being defined by it Transferable lessons from an 18-year executive career in one of world sport’s most scrutinised environments

Why organisations work with Oleg Konovalov He has codified vision as a working leadership skill in The Vision Code (Wiley, 2021), drawing on primary interviews with senior visionary leaders rather than abstracted theory. He was named #1 Global Leading Coach at the Marshall Goldsmith Thinkers50 Awards, a credible signal of standing among working executive coaches. His Visionary Leadership Framework gives boards and executive committees a shared vocabulary for diagnosing where a vision is failing, before it shows up in numbers. He works on the C-suite side of the desk: the brief is usually about getting senior teams aligned and credible to their own organisations, not motivational set pieces. His earlier books on organisational anatomy and corporate culture mean he can connect a vision conversation to the structural and cultural conditions that allow it to land. Biography highlights Doctoral degree, Durham University Business School. Author of The Vision Code (Wiley, 2021), with foreword by Marshall Goldsmith. Author of LEADEROLOGY, Corporate Superpower, Organisational Anatomy, Hidden Russia, and The Fisherman’s Path to Leadership. Named #1 Global Leading Coach, Marshall Goldsmith Thinkers50 Awards. Shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Award in Leadership, 2021. Listed in Global Gurus Top 30 in Leadership; Forbes contributor. Biography Most corporate visions do not survive contact with the operating year. They sit on a wall, get quoted in townhalls, and quietly disconnect from the decisions executives actually make. Oleg Konovalov’s work begins from that disconnect, and treats vision as a measurable leadership skill rather than a communications artefact. The Vision Code, published by Wiley in 2021 with a foreword by Marshall Goldsmith, set out his Visionary Leadership Framework. The book is built on primary interviews with senior leaders across industries, including Garry Ridge of WD-40 and the branding strategist Martin Lindstrom, and it argues that vision can be diagnosed, taught, and executed with the same rigour as any other senior capability. His earlier books, including LEADEROLOGY, Organisational Anatomy, and Corporate Superpower, sit alongside that work and connect the vision conversation to organisational design and culture. He holds a doctorate from Durham University Business School and writes regularly for Forbes. The recognition reflects working credibility with senior leaders rather than a media profile alone. He was named #1 Global Leading Coach at the Marshall Goldsmith Thinkers50 Awards, shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Award in Leadership, and listed in the Global Gurus Top 30 in Leadership. Key speaking topics Visionary leadership Vision execution and strategy alignment Corporate culture in the digital era Leadership in disruption Organisational diagnosis Executive coaching and C-suite development Ideal for CEOs and executive committees setting or resetting strategic direction Board chairs and non-executive directors assessing senior leadership capability CHROs and chief learning officers designing senior leadership development Founders and scale-up leaders translating ambition into an operating vision Audience outcomes A working definition of vision that can be tested against the organisation’s current direction A diagnostic for where a stated vision is failing inside the leadership team A clearer view of how culture, structure, and vision interact in execution Practical questions senior leaders can take into their next strategy or board conversation

Why organisations work with Neal Petersen A first-person account of self-leadership at the edge of human tolerance: 195 days alone at sea, completing the 1998 to 1999 Around Alone circumnavigation as the first Black sailor to race solo around the world A story arc that translates directly to senior leadership: a hip defect, apartheid-era barriers, and no capital, met with a multi-year build of his own ocean-racing yacht and a top-five finish in his class Material credibility for diversity, inclusion, and access conversations that goes beyond commentary, grounded in lived experience inside an elite, almost entirely white sport A National Outdoor Book Award winning memoir, Journey of a Hope Merchant, and a PBS documentary, which give audiences a coherent reference text to engage with after the keynote A track record of repeat keynotes for IBM, Microsoft, Intel, MasterCard, Salesforce, and senior government audiences, with content adapted to the specific operating challenge in the room Biography highlights First Black sailor to race solo around the world, completing the 1998 to 1999 Around Alone race in Class II Designed and built his own 38-foot yacht, Stella R, while funding the project through North Sea oil-rig and commercial diamond diving work Author of Journey of a Hope Merchant: From Apartheid to the Elite World of Solo Yacht Racing (2004), winner of the 2005 National Outdoor Book Award, History/Biography Subject of the PBS documentary No Barriers: The Story of Neal Petersen Repeat keynote speaker for IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Salesforce, MasterCard, AXIS Capital, and US federal and state government audiences Born 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa, into apartheid-era classification with a hip defect that required three childhood surgeries Biography The 1998 to 1999 Around Alone circumnavigation was a 27,000-mile solo yacht race, completed by nine sailors, with Cape Horn and the Southern Ocean as the central trial. Neal Petersen, racing in Class II aboard a yacht he had built himself, was one of those nine. He finished the course after 195 days at sea, becoming the first Black sailor to race solo around the world. The route to that starting line is the substance of the keynote. Born in Cape Town in 1967, classified under apartheid, and recovering from three childhood hip surgeries, he taught himself the sport from magazines in a hospital bed. He funded the yacht, Stella R, by working as a North Sea oil-rig diver and a commercial diamond diver off the South African coast. The boat was built from donated and reclaimed parts. Journey of a Hope Merchant, his 2004 memoir, won the 2005 National Outdoor Book Award in the History and Biography category, and PBS produced a documentary on the same story. The published record gives senior audiences a coherent reference text rather than a stage anecdote, which matters for the kind of programme that wants the talk to keep working after the lights go up. The booking pattern reflects what corporate audiences actually want from this material. Repeat engagements with IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Salesforce, MasterCard, and senior government audiences point to a speaker whose value lies in the practical content of composure: how to make decisions when the cost of being wrong is total, how to hold a course through months of degraded conditions, and how to lead yourself when no one is watching. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under sustained pressure Resilience and decision-making in extreme conditions Diversity, inclusion, and access in elite environments Goal-setting and execution over multi-year horizons Adaptability when plans break down Building from limited resources Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership offsites focused on resilience and composure Sales kickoffs and annual conferences that need a credible, non-generic peak-performance keynote DEI leadership programmes seeking lived experience over commentary Government, defence, and association audiences working under prolonged operational strain Audience outcomes A reference framework for self-leadership during sustained adversity, drawn from a documented multi-year build and a 195-day solo race Specific decision-making lessons from the Southern Ocean, applicable to leaders operating without immediate support A renewed view of barriers as design constraints rather than stop signs A coherent narrative audiences can carry back into team conversations, supported by an award-winning memoir and a PBS documentary

Why organisations work with Mike Abrashoff He has a documented operational turnaround, not a theory. As Commander of USS Benfold he cut turnover to 1 percent, tripled the promotion rate, reduced operating expenses by 25 percent, and won the Spokane Trophy for combat readiness, all with the crew he inherited. His book It’s Your Ship (Grand Central Publishing) has sold more than 1.3 million copies and is read in corporate leadership programmes as well as in the military. Senior teams leave with a vocabulary their middle managers already recognise. He translates the turnaround into a method, not a sea story. Aegis Performance Group, the consulting firm he founded, runs follow-on work with client teams after the keynote, so the material gets operationalised rather than admired. His prior role as Military Assistant to Secretary of Defense William J. Perry gives him a top-of-organisation perspective on how senior decisions land on the people meant to execute them. He speaks to both ends of the chain credibly. Biography highlights Former US Navy Commander; took command of USS Benfold at 36 as the most junior commanding officer in the Pacific Fleet. Within twelve months, USS Benfold was ranked best ship in the Navy on performance metrics, with turnover at 1 percent, promotion rate tripled, and operating expenses cut by 25 percent. USS Benfold won the Spokane Trophy for the highest degree of combat readiness in the Pacific Fleet. Military Assistant to Secretary of Defense William J. Perry prior to taking command of Benfold. Author of It’s Your Ship (Grand Central Publishing), a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller with more than 1.3 million copies sold, plus follow-on titles It’s Our Ship and Get Your Ship Together. Founder of Aegis Performance Group; work referenced in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and The New York Times. Biography USS Benfold was one of the worst-performing ships in the United States Pacific Fleet when Mike Abrashoff took command of it at 36. He was the most junior commanding officer in the fleet, handed a destroyer with low morale and the highest turnover rate in the Navy, and a crew he had no authority to replace. Twelve months later, Benfold was rated the best ship in the Navy on its performance metrics, with the same people. The method that produced the result is the substance of his keynote and his consulting work. Turnover dropped to 1 percent. The rate of promotions tripled. Operating expenses fell by 25 percent. Benfold won the Spokane Trophy for the highest degree of combat readiness in the Pacific Fleet. The single line Abrashoff uses to describe what changed has become the title of the book that documents it: “It’s your ship.” The crew owned the outcome because the command structure made room for them to. The book, It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy, was published by Grand Central Publishing and went to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. It has sold more than 1.3 million copies and sits on corporate reading lists as widely as military ones. Two follow-on books, It’s Our Ship and Get Your Ship Together, extend the argument into civilian organisations. Before commanding Benfold, Abrashoff served as Military Assistant to Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, which gives him a working understanding of how senior decisions translate into operational reality. What makes him useful in a corporate setting is not the uniform. It is that the Benfold turnaround was achieved without firing the crew, increasing the budget, or rewriting the rules of the Navy. The constraints inside which it happened look a great deal like the ones most senior leaders are operating in now. Key speaking topics Leadership and culture turnaround Employee engagement and retention Execution under constraint Accountability and ownership at every level Building high-performing teams from existing people Trust as an operating discipline Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and division heads inheriting underperforming teams or businesses. CHROs and people leaders rebuilding engagement, retention, and culture without a change of headcount. Senior leadership offsites focused on execution, ownership, and operating performance. Frontline and middle-management audiences in operationally intensive industries (manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, financial services, energy). Audience outcomes A concrete playbook for lifting performance from existing teams without changing personnel or budget. A working principle for distributing ownership down the chain without losing control of standards. A practical view of what employee engagement looks like as an operating discipline, not a survey result. A reframe of leadership in difficult conditions: from heroic intervention to systematic enablement of the people already there.

Why organisations work with Michael Wade He runs IMD’s AI Maturity Index, which evaluates the 300 largest companies in the Forbes Global 2000 on how they have actually embedded AI across executive support, infrastructure, operations, workforce and ethics. The data behind it gives him a view of corporate AI adoption that is not available to the wider speaker market. The Digital Vortex framework, introduced in his 2017 Axiom Business Book Award winner and updated through IMD’s ongoing research, gives strategy teams a way to map how fast each industry is being pulled toward digital disruption. His books work as operating manuals. Hacking Digital and Orchestrating Transformation give boards and Chief Digital Officers structured playbooks for sequencing change, drawn from custom programmes with Vodafone, AXA, Credit Suisse, Nestle and Cartier. He founded and directs Leading Digital and AI Transformation at IMD, Europe’s first and largest executive programme on digital and AI. Many of the leaders setting the agenda inside their own boards have already been through his classroom. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Digital at IMD Business School in Lausanne and holder of the TONOMUS Professorship in Digital and AI Transformation Director of IMD’s TONOMUS Global Center for Digital and AI Transformation, which publishes the annual AI Maturity Index of the largest companies in the Forbes Global 2000 Co-author of Digital Vortex (winner of the 2017 Axiom Business Book Award), Orchestrating Transformation, Hacking Digital, ALIEN Thinking, Twin Transformation and GAIN: Demystifying GenAI Published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, MIS Quarterly and Strategic Management Journal; regular contributor to Fortune and Forbes Inducted into the Swiss Digital Shapers Hall of Fame in 2021 by Bilanz, Handelszeitung, Le Temps and Digitalswitzerland; named one of Switzerland’s top 10 digital thought leaders in 2016, 2017 and 2020 Hosts the IMD podcasts Management Under the Microscope and Mike & Amit Talk Tech; has designed custom executive programmes for Vodafone, AXA, Credit Suisse, Nestle, Cartier and others Biography Most digital and AI transformations do not fail at the technology layer. Research at IMD puts the failure rate around 87%, and the bottleneck almost always sits elsewhere. It is in the gap between the system that has been bought and the operating model that has to absorb it. Wade has spent two decades inside that gap. He is Professor of Strategy and Digital at IMD Business School in Lausanne, where he holds the TONOMUS Professorship and directs the school’s Global Center for Digital and AI Transformation. The Center’s AI Maturity Index ranks the 300 largest companies in the Forbes Global 2000 on how they have embedded AI in production. It is one of the few public benchmarks that separates companies running AI at scale from those still in pilot. Digital Vortex, the 2017 Axiom Business Book Award winner, gave executives a way to measure how fast their industry was being pulled toward digital disruption. Orchestrating Transformation and Hacking Digital followed with playbooks for what to do once that velocity is clear. Twin Transformation and GAIN, both published in 2025, extend the same discipline into AI and sustainability. The pattern is consistent: books written for the executive who has to deliver the change. In 2021, the Swiss media consortium Bilanz, Handelszeitung, Le Temps and Digitalswitzerland inducted him into its Digital Shapers Hall of Fame. He had been named one of Switzerland’s top 10 digital thought leaders three times before that. Boards still book him because he has taught their peers and run custom programmes for companies they benchmark against, including Vodafone, AXA, Credit Suisse and Nestle. Key speaking topics Digital and AI transformation Enterprise AI adoption at scale Industry disruption and competitive strategy The AI-augmented executive Innovation and breakthrough thinking Organisational agility and resilience Ideal for Boards and executive committees overseeing digital and AI strategy Chief Digital Officers and Chief AI Officers responsible for end-to-end transformation CEOs and senior leadership teams making capital allocation decisions on AI and technology Strategy and innovation leaders inside companies that are mid-transformation and need to course-correct Audience outcomes A specific read on where their organisation sits on the AI maturity dimensions, and what separates companies running AI in production from those still in pilot A working language for the gap between digital ambition and execution that boards and senior leaders can use in their own conversations A revised view of which industries are most exposed to digital disruption, and where defensive strategy and offensive moves should sit in the response A way to frame AI investment as an organisational change problem, with the operating model and leadership decisions as the binding constraint

Why organisations work with Michael Grade He has run three of the most scrutinised cultural institutions in Britain and turned each one around under public, political, and shareholder pressure. Few business leaders have a comparable record of operating in the spotlight. He brings the rare combination of operator and regulator. Having sat on both sides of the table at the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, and Ofcom, he can talk credibly to a board about how regulators actually think. He is a working authority on talent-led businesses. Grade built his career around commissioning, retaining, and managing creative talent at LWT, Channel 4, and ITV, and that perspective transfers directly to professional services and knowledge-economy firms. He sits in the House of Lords as Baron Grade of Yarmouth and chairs Ofcom, giving him a current view of the regulatory pressures shaping media, technology, and competition policy in the UK. He is a recognised figure of the Royal Television Society, a Fellow since 1991, and one of the most quoted commentators on the British broadcasting industry across four decades. Biography highlights Chairman of Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, since May 2022. Executive Chairman of ITV plc, 2007 to 2009, brought in to restructure the company through the financial crisis. Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, 2004 to 2006, appointed in the aftermath of the Hutton Report. Chief Executive of Channel 4, 1988 to 1997, where he commissioned and acquired hits including Friends, Frasier, and ER. Controller of BBC One, 1984 to 1986, and Director of Programmes at London Weekend Television before that. Non-executive Chairman of Pinewood Shepperton Film Studios from 2000 to 2016, and Chairman of Camelot Group from 2002 to 2004. Created Baron Grade of Yarmouth in 2011, appointed CBE in 1998, and Fellow of the Royal Television Society since 1991. Author of the 1999 autobiography “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” (Macmillan). Biography The BBC was bruised, ITV was losing money in a recession, and Channel 4 was a young challenger looking for a commercial identity. At different points across forty years, Michael Grade was asked to fix each one. He is the only person to have run all three of Britain’s major public-service broadcasters and then ended up chairing their regulator, Ofcom. His operating record is specific. As Chief Executive of Channel 4 from 1988 to 1997, he gave the channel a commercial spine while protecting its public-service brief, acquiring Friends, Frasier, and ER and building the schedule that defined its 1990s identity. As Chairman of the BBC from 2004, he steadied an organisation under political fire after the Hutton Report. As Executive Chairman of ITV from 2007, he restructured the company through the financial crisis. The thread is the same: large, scrutinised, talent-driven organisations under pressure to perform commercially without losing legitimacy. That tension, between brand, regulator, shareholder, and creative workforce, is now the standard operating environment for many sectors beyond media. Grade has lived inside it for four decades. He sits in the House of Lords as Baron Grade of Yarmouth, was appointed CBE in 1998, became a Fellow of the Royal Television Society in 1991, and chairs Ofcom on a four-year term running to April 2026. His autobiography, “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time,” was published by Macmillan in 1999. Key speaking topics Leadership of large institutions under public scrutiny Managing talent-driven businesses Media, broadcasting, and the regulatory landscape Crisis leadership and corporate restructuring The future of British public-service broadcasting Boardroom strategy in regulated industries Ideal for Chairs and CEOs of regulated, brand-sensitive businesses (financial services, media, telecoms, utilities) Boards facing reputational, political, or regulatory pressure Leadership audiences in talent-led professional services firms Audience outcomes A working frame for leading organisations whose performance is judged in public, not only on the P&L. A practitioner’s view of how regulators read a company, from someone who now sits in that chair. Concrete lessons from three of the most-watched corporate turnarounds in British media. A clear-eyed account of how to manage talent-driven cultures without losing commercial discipline.

Why organisations work with Martin Glenn He has run the P&L at four large consumer businesses and a national governing body, so brand arguments arrive with operator credibility, not agency theory. The Walkers story is a working case study, not an anecdote: he took share from roughly 30 percent to over 60 percent and built the Lineker campaign that still defines the category. He has done the hard version of culture change at the FA, including a 40 percent revenue lift and a record commitment to women’s football, while the senior England teams reached the 2018 World Cup semi-final. He led the United Biscuits turnaround through to a clean exit to Yildiz Holdings in 2014, which gives boards the rare combination of brand instinct and a private-equity-grade financial outcome. He is one of the few UK CEOs to have reached the top through marketing, which makes him useful when a board needs to rewire how the marketing function is positioned and resourced. He chairs PGMOL through one of the most publicly scrutinised reform programmes in English sport, and chaired Chapel Down through its admission to AIM and 2025 strategic review. Biography highlights Former Chief Executive of The Football Association, 2015 to 2019. Former CEO of United Biscuits, Birds Eye Iglo, and President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland. Architect of the Walkers crisps growth story, including the Gary Lineker advertising campaign. Chair of Professional Game Match Officials Limited since January 2024, the body that runs every referee in English professional football; Chair of the Football Foundation since 2020. Former Chair of Chapel Down Group, England’s largest winemaker, 2020 to 2025; oversaw the company’s admission to AIM in December 2023. Author of “The Best Job in the World”; President of The Marketing Society, 2014 to 2017; PPE graduate of Merton College, Oxford. Biography Walkers was a regional crisps brand in 1992. By the time Martin Glenn finished with it, it held more than 60 percent of the UK market and the Gary Lineker campaign had become the longest running advertising property in the country. That growth story is the spine of his career and the reason boards still bring him in. He spent fifteen years at PepsiCo, ending as President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland, before moving into private equity as CEO of Birds Eye Iglo and then United Biscuits, which he sold to Yildiz Holdings in December 2014. Each role asked the same question in a different setting: how do you grow a mature consumer business when distribution is solved and the next point of share has to come from the brand. In 2015 he answered a different version of the question at The Football Association. Over four seasons he restructured the organisation, oversaw a 40 percent rise in revenue, put a record investment behind the women’s game, and worked on the culture at St George’s Park that fed England’s run to the 2018 World Cup semi-final. He left at the end of the 2018-19 season into a portfolio of board roles. As Chair of Chapel Down from 2020 to 2025 he refocused the business onto premium sparkling wine and took it through its admission to AIM in December 2023. Since January 2024 he has chaired Professional Game Match Officials Limited, the body responsible for every referee in English professional football, helping the executive modernise an organisation that operates under permanent public scrutiny. He also chairs the Football Foundation, the UK’s largest sports charity. He is a PPE graduate of Merton College, Oxford, a former President of The Marketing Society, and the author of “The Best Job in the World”, which sets out the Walkers playbook in detail. The through-line is unusual: a CEO who came up through marketing and treats brand as the operating system of the business rather than a downstream function. Key speaking topics Brand-led growth in mature consumer markets Marketing as a route to general management Turnarounds and private equity exits Culture change inside national institutions The CEO operating model for FMCG businesses Leading governance reform under public scrutiny Ideal for CMOs, CEOs and boards in FMCG, retail and consumer health weighing brand investment against margin pressure. Chairs and CEOs of sports bodies, federations and member organisations facing structural reform. Private equity portfolio companies preparing for a brand-led value creation plan or exit. Senior marketing leaders being positioned for general management or P&L roles. Audience outcomes A clear view of how brand investment shows up in market share and enterprise value, drawn from the Walkers and United Biscuits numbers. A working model for the marketer-to-CEO transition, including what marketing leaders typically have to unlearn. A candid account of leading culture change inside a national institution under public scrutiny. Specific lessons on turnaround sequencing, from cost discipline through to brand reinvestment and exit.

Why organisations work with Mark Pollock He hands leaders a decision framework (“facts, acceptance, hope”) they can actually use mid-crisis, tested under conditions where poor judgement carries permanent consequences. His collaboration work is credible because he has done it at scale, catalysing over $100 million of multi-party scientific collaboration with organisations including UCLA, Ekso Bionics and Onward Medical, the company now producing a clinical breakthrough in spinal cord injury treatment. Where most speakers on resilience rely on metaphor, his frameworks have been tested in polar expeditions and in the slow work of brokering scientific collaboration across institutions. His 2018 TED talk with Simone George has over 1.5 million views and has been translated into 12 languages, which means most senior audiences arrive with a shared reference point the keynote can build on. The senior endorsements are unusually specific: Satya Nadella has written publicly about him, and Bank of Ireland’s Group CEO positioned his contribution to the CEO Council as a leadership lesson drawn from hard practice. Biography highlights First blind person to race to the South Pole, completing the 43-day Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race alongside Simon O’Donnell and Inge Solheim in January 2009. First person with chronic complete paralysis to voluntarily take steps in a robotic exoskeleton, working with UCLA’s Prof. Reggie Edgerton on spinal cord stimulation research published by the IEEE. TED2018 speaker with Simone George, “A Love Letter to Realism in a Time of Grief”; over 1.5 million views in its first six months; translated into 12 languages. Author of Making It Happen; subject of the documentaries Blind Man Walking and Unbreakable: The Mark Pollock Story. Chairman of Collaborative Cures and founder of the Run in the Dark global running series, which drew over 250,000 participants across all seven continents between 2011 and 2024. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and former member of the Global Futures Council on Human Enhancement; honorary doctorates from Queen’s University Belfast and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland; currently pursuing a Professional Doctorate in Elite Performance (Sport) at Dublin City University. Biography Most frameworks for resilience were developed in environments where the stakes are low and the challenges are chosen. That is not where leaders need them. Mark Pollock’s 2018 TED talk with Simone George, “A Love Letter to Realism in a Time of Grief,” addresses the other category: the imposed challenge, where optimism alone becomes a liability and a team still has to make sound decisions. The talk has more than 1.5 million views and has been translated into 12 languages. The credibility comes from two tested sources. In January 2009, Pollock became the first blind person to race to the South Pole, a 43-day expedition across Antarctica in temperatures down to minus 50. In 2010 he fell from an upstairs window, broke his back, and has lived with paralysis since. The decade that followed took a distinctive shape. Pollock catalysed multi-party scientific collaboration worth over $100 million, connecting scientists, investors, technologists and regulators working on spinal cord injury. He became the first person with chronic complete paralysis to voluntarily take steps in a robotic exoskeleton, working with UCLA’s Prof. Reggie Edgerton. The company commercialising that research, Onward Medical, has since delivered the field’s most significant clinical breakthrough. Organisations like Microsoft, Google, GSK, EY and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One keep booking him. Senior audiences leave with two concrete frameworks: “competitor, realist, collaborator” for maintaining team conviction, and “facts, acceptance, hope” for sound judgement under pressure. Bank of Ireland’s Group CEO framed Pollock’s CEO Council session as a leadership lesson. Satya Nadella has written publicly about him. Key speaking topics Resilience under imposed pressure Decision-making in crisis Elite performance and mindset Cross-institutional collaboration Leadership in uncertainty Human and machine collaboration Adversity and opportunity Ideal for CEO and executive teams during major operational or strategic disruption Chief People Officers and transformation leads rebuilding team confidence during prolonged change programmes Leadership conferences and global off-sites that need a credible account of decision-making in crisis Sales and commercial leadership teams under sustained targets and multi-market complexity Audience outcomes A decision framework (“facts, acceptance, hope”) audiences can apply in real operational crises, with worked examples from extreme environments and from scientific collaboration. A mental model (“competitor, realist, collaborator”) for deciding how a team positions itself when the challenge is imposed. Concrete examples of how high-performance teams hold together across disciplines and geographies, drawn from Pollock’s multi-million-dollar scientific partnerships. A sharper account of what resilience actually requires when the situation is imposed.

Why organisations work with Mark Gallagher Fifteen years on the management boards of Jordan Grand Prix and Red Bull Racing, plus leadership of Cosworth’s F1 engine business. He has actually run the functions he describes. Author of The Business of Winning (Kogan Page) and co-author of The Future Business Formula with Sullivan & Stanley’s Adrian Stalham. His frameworks exist in print, with a track record in front of senior audiences since 1998. Direct experience on FIA technical working groups covering safety and sustainability, including the development of F1’s 2014 hybrid power unit. When he talks about decarbonisation or safety culture, he is describing rules he helped write. Close working relationships with current F1 drivers and teams through Performance Insights and Status Grand Prix, the A1 Grand Prix World Cup-winning outfit he co-owns. The paddock material he draws on is current. Biography highlights Former management board member of Jordan Grand Prix (1998 onwards) and senior figure in the commercial build-out of what became Red Bull Racing Former head of Cosworth’s Formula 1 engine business, which supplied roughly one-third of the grid under his leadership Founder and Managing Director of Performance Insights, his F1 consulting firm, and co-founder of Status Grand Prix, winner of the 2009 A1 Grand Prix World Cup of Motorsport Author of The Business of Winning (Kogan Page, 2014; 2nd edition 2021) and co-author of The Future Business Formula (Rethink Press, 2023) Member of FIA technical working groups on safety and sustainability, including the development of F1’s 2014 hybrid power-unit regulations Media contributor to BBC, Sky Sports, ESPN, CNN, Channel 4 News and Al Jazeera; columnist for GP Racing Magazine; lecturer at Cranfield University Biography Formula 1 is one of the few industries where an operational failure on Sunday becomes a balance-sheet issue by Monday. Regulations shift every season. Deadlines cannot be moved. Mistakes are broadcast to hundreds of millions, and the competitive gap between first and last is measured in hundredths of a second. That is the environment Mark Gallagher spent forty years inside. He sat on the management board of Jordan Grand Prix through its most competitive era, helped build the commercial arm of what became Red Bull Racing, and later ran Cosworth’s F1 engine business as it supplied around a third of the grid. His consultancy, Performance Insights, works with F1 teams and commercial partners today. His books give the method a shape outside the paddock. The Business of Winning, published by Kogan Page, sets out his lessons on leadership, safety, performance management and communication. The Future Business Formula, co-written with Adrian Stalham of the change consultancy Sullivan & Stanley, translates F1’s operating principles into twelve design rules for organisations built to change at speed. Mika Häkkinen wrote the foreword. He has also served on FIA technical working groups on safety and sustainability, including the shift to hybrid power units in 2014, and lectures at Cranfield University. For a senior audience, the value is specific: a practitioner who has run the commercial, engineering and regulatory sides of one of the world’s most publicly scrutinised high-performance businesses, and can describe what each of those jobs actually demanded. Key speaking topics High-performance team culture in elite sport Leadership under non-negotiable deadlines Data, telemetry and decision-making at the operational edge Safety, risk management and regulatory change Sustainability and the energy transition in global sport Technology partnerships and digital transformation Change management in regulated industries Ideal for Senior leadership teams, boards and C-suite audiences responsible for high-stakes operational performance Engineering, manufacturing and technology organisations facing regulatory change or digital transformation Commercial, sponsorship and partnership teams working across technology-heavy sectors Safety, risk and sustainability leaders looking for a real-world reference point on culture and governance Audience outcomes A working sense of how F1 teams hit immovable deadlines without compromising safety or commercial discipline Specific examples of how telemetry, simulation and real-time analytics translate into faster decisions at the operational edge A credible reference point for treating safety culture as a performance lever inside the business Examples and language from elite motorsport that senior leaders can carry into their own strategy and change conversations

Why organisations work with Marc Descheemaecker He has done the thing that most change management speakers have only studied: turned around a nationally significant, politically exposed, heavily unionised institution, with verifiable numbers. That gives him a standing in board and C-suite conversations that credentialed academics cannot replicate. His SNCB experience surfaces a distinction most transformation programmes ignore: the difference between change in organisations that can move freely and change in organisations that cannot. Leaders in regulated industries, public bodies, and large state-influenced enterprises hear something they rarely get: a framework built for their actual constraints. Having chaired Brussels Airport during the 2016 terrorist attacks, he brings direct experience of leadership under acute operational crisis, not as a crisis consultant but as the person publicly accountable for the institution’s response and recovery. His simultaneous positions across a national railway, a national bus operator, Brussels Airport, the European Investment Bank, and the European Investment Fund gave him a view few practitioners hold: where European capital allocation meets national infrastructure governance, and where the two pull in opposite directions. Career that moved from McKinsey analysis through consumer goods and facilities services to four major European transport institutions gives him a genuine cross-sector perspective on operational transformation. He is not a transport specialist; he is a change practitioner who happened to work in transport. Biography highlights CEO, NMBS-SNCB (Belgian national railway), 2004–2013: grew passenger numbers by 60%, reduced workforce by approximately 20% Turned loss-making Belgian operations of Thalys and Eurostar into a profitable shareholding; oversaw the separation and partial sale of the SNCB freight division Chairman, Brussels Airport Company (BAC), 2013–2021 Chairman, De Lijn (Belgian national bus and tram operator), 2016–2022 Director, European Investment Bank (EIB), 2015–2022; Director, European Investment Fund (EIF), 2016–2022 Board member, Gimv NV (listed Belgian investment company) Postgraduate in European Economics, College of Europe, Bruges; Master in Business Economics (cum laude), UFSIA University Antwerp; career began at McKinsey Amsterdam Biography Belgium’s national railway was losing passengers and carrying a workforce structure it could no longer sustain when Marc Descheemaecker was appointed CEO in 2004. Over nine years, he reversed both. Ridership grew by 60%. The workforce reduced by almost 20%. Neither result was achieved by bypassing the constraints that define a state-owned enterprise. They were achieved by understanding them precisely, and leading within them. The SNCB work went beyond the headline numbers. The Belgian operations of Thalys and Eurostar were structurally loss-making; Descheemaecker restructured them into a profitable shareholding. The freight division, a separate challenge, was carved out as an independent entity and partly sold to a financial partner. These were not sequential projects. They ran concurrently, each requiring negotiation across government ministries, unions, and private capital. His subsequent board positions; Chairman of Brussels Airport Company, Chairman of De Lijn, Director at the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund extended that operational picture into institutional governance. Few practitioners have seen, from the inside, how capital decisions at European level translate into choices on the ground at a national transport authority. He has sat on both sides of the table. His academic formation; Master in Business Economics (cum laude) from UFSIA Antwerp, postgraduate in European Economics from the College of Europe in Bruges gave him the analytical base. The McKinsey apprenticeship sharpened it. The credential that resonates with senior audiences, however, is neither. It is a national railway, genuinely transformed. Key speaking topics Large-scale organisational transformation in politically constrained environments Change leadership in state-owned and regulated enterprises Workforce restructuring under political and union constraint Infrastructure governance and European investment strategy Operational crisis leadership Transport and mobility as a strategic policy challenge Board governance across public and private capital Ideal for CEOs and senior executives leading transformation in regulated industries, utilities, or public-sector adjacent organisations Boards and chairs of state-owned enterprises, infrastructure authorities, or large government-funded bodies CHROs and transformation leads navigating workforce restructuring in politically sensitive environments European policy, infrastructure, and public investment forums where governance and commercial strategy intersect Audience outcomes A clearer articulation of how change management in constrained organisations differs from private-sector transformation – and what that difference demands of leadership Concrete case material from the SNCB turnaround: what decisions were made, what levers were available, and what did not work A practical lens on managing multiple simultaneous stakeholder mandates (government, unions, commercial partners, and public) without losing operational momentum Insight into how European investment institutions think about national infrastructure; useful for leaders navigating public funding cycles and cross-border capital decisions Honest reflection on leading an institution through acute public crisis, and the communication and governance choices that followed