Change Management

Why organisations work with Erik Wahl A live speed-painting keynote that converts creativity from an abstract value into a visible act on stage, giving leaders a shared reference point they can take back into the business. A thesis grounded in two trade-published books, Unthink (Crown, 2013) and The Spark and the Grind (TarcherPerigee, 2017), that argues creativity is a discipline, not a personality trait. A client list that reads as validation for risk-averse buyers: Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, London Business School. TED2012 selection and a keynote slot at Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year, signalling that the content stands up in front of rigorous business audiences. A philanthropic record of over USD 1.5 million raised through art auctions, which gives the performance a credible backbone beyond corporate entertainment. Biography highlights Author of Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius, Crown Business / Random House, 2013. Named CEO Reads Book of the Year. Author of The Spark and the Grind: Ignite the Power of Disciplined Creativity, TarcherPerigee, 2017. Selected speaker for TED2012: Full Spectrum. Keynote speaker at Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year and Entrepreneur Magazine’s Growth Conference. Clients include Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, London Business School. Raised over USD 1.5 million for charitable causes through art auctions including One Fund Boston, Linda’s Voice, and Miracle-Ear Foundation. Biography Creativity is the one capability most organisations claim to prize and systematically suppress. Erik Wahl spent eight years inside a corporate firm, rising to partner, before the dot-com collapse made that point unavoidable. He rebuilt his working life around the question: why is the thing everyone says they want the hardest thing for companies to actually do? The answer became a two-book argument. Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius, published by Crown in 2013, took the position that creativity is a recoverable discipline, not a fixed trait, and was named CEO Reads Book of the Year. The Spark and the Grind, published by TarcherPerigee in 2017, extended the thesis into the operational layer: how leaders pair inspiration with the unglamorous work of sustained execution. The keynote is where the argument becomes legible. Wahl paints live on stage, usually a recognisable face such as Steve Jobs or Michael Jordan, while making the case that organisations need to rebuild the muscle their systems quietly erode. The format has carried him to TED2012 and to client rooms at Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, and London Business School. It is also how he has raised over USD 1.5 million for charity through auctioned work, including One Fund Boston and Linda’s Voice. What he gives a leadership audience is not motivation. It is a disciplined case for why the innovation strategy on the wall keeps failing, and a visible demonstration of the capacity the room has forgotten it has. Key speaking topics Disciplined creativity in large organisations Innovation capacity and execution Creative leadership Change and reinvention Peak performance and creative discipline Storytelling and business communication Ideal for CEO, COO, and strategy leaders running innovation or transformation mandates Sales and commercial leadership conferences opening a new growth cycle Talent and learning leaders building creative capability at scale Annual kick-off audiences where the brief calls for a sharp creative reset rather than a process lecture Audience outcomes A concrete argument for why creativity is a business discipline, not a personality asset Language and imagery leaders can reuse back in the business to frame innovation conversations A direct experience of what creative risk looks like when it is executed, not described A set of practical habits drawn from The Spark and the Grind for pairing ideas with sustained execution

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 Enda Kenny He ran a national economy through its deepest post-war crisis and handed it over as the fastest-growing in the EU, with unemployment below 5 percent and full market access restored. He chaired the Council of the European Union during the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework negotiation, which gives him a working view of how Brussels, the Parliament, and national capitals actually reach agreement. He called and won the 2015 marriage equality referendum, the first national vote of its kind anywhere, and built the Citizens’ Assembly model that other democracies now study. He sits inside the Global Leadership Foundation alongside former heads of state and chairs the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital, so his current reading of Europe is informed by active advisory work rather than memoir. Biography highlights Taoiseach of Ireland, March 2011 to June 2017; first Fine Gael Taoiseach in history to be re-elected. Leader of Fine Gael, 2002 to 2017, the longest tenure of any leader in the party. Chaired the Council of the European Union during Ireland’s 2013 Presidency, delivering agreement on the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework, Erasmus+, and a negotiating mandate for TTIP. Elected to Dail Eireann at age 24 in 1975, re-elected in every subsequent general election until his retirement in 2020. Chair of the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital and its Impact Ireland fund. Member of the Global Leadership Foundation; recipient of the Golden Victoria European of the Year (2012) and the inaugural Trinity European Laureate Award (2025). Biography Ireland entered 2011 in an EU-IMF assistance programme with unemployment above 15 percent and sovereign borrowing rates near distressed levels. Six years later the country was the fastest-growing economy in the European Union, with rates on ten-year borrowing at zero and unemployment under 5 percent. Enda Kenny was Taoiseach for all of it. He led Fine Gael for fifteen years, the longest tenure in the party’s history, and became the first Fine Gael Taoiseach to win re-election. The substance of the government’s work was fiscal stabilisation, bank restructuring, and the orderly exit from the troika programme; the political work was holding a coalition together while doing it. In 2013 he chaired the Council of the European Union during Ireland’s Presidency, brokering the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework, the Erasmus+ settlement, a negotiating mandate for TTIP, and reforms of the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies. The same government called the 2015 marriage equality referendum, the first national vote anywhere to legalise same-sex marriage, and established the Citizens’ Assembly as a deliberative route for constitutional questions. He now chairs the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital and its Impact Ireland fund, sits within the Global Leadership Foundation alongside other former heads of state, and in 2025 received the inaugural Trinity European Laureate Award from Trinity College Dublin and Teneo for his contribution to European ideals. Key speaking topics European Union governance and the politics of the single market Economic recovery and fiscal stabilisation after crisis Political leadership in coalition and minority government Sovereign market confidence and investor relations Constitutional reform and citizen deliberation Ireland, the UK, and the post-Brexit settlement Impact investment and national economic strategy Ideal for Boards and executive committees of firms with material European exposure Financial services, asset managers, and sovereign-facing investors Policy, regulatory, and public affairs conferences focused on Europe CEO forums and leadership programmes addressing crisis and recovery Audience outcomes A working account of how a national government executes fiscal consolidation without losing the coalition or the electorate A first-hand read on how Brussels, the European Parliament, and national capitals actually negotiate multi-year budgets A clear view of the political mechanics behind the 2015 marriage equality vote and the Citizens’ Assembly model A sharper sense of where Ireland and the wider EU sit in the transatlantic relationship after Brexit Direct reflections on what holds under pressure when a country is being asked to take painful decisions quickly

Why organisations work with Eddie Jones Thirty years of head-coach experience at the top of international sport, tested against the sharpest public scrutiny three national rugby unions can apply. A working account, set out in his 2021 book “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, of how to raise standards, rebuild confidence, and hold a team accountable when results are not yet on the board. Authored the single most studied upset in modern rugby: Japan’s 34-32 win over South Africa at the 2015 World Cup, the “Brighton Miracle”, built over three years of culture and conditioning work. World Rugby Coach of the Year 2017, after leading England to a Grand Slam and a record run of consecutive Test wins. A rare speaker who has built and rebuilt teams in three different national cultures (Japanese, Australian, English) and can translate between them for executive audiences. Biography highlights Head coach of England 2015 to 2022: first non-British coach, two Six Nations titles, 2016 Grand Slam, 2019 Rugby World Cup final. World Rugby Coach of the Year, 2017. Head coach of Japan 2012 to 2015, re-appointed December 2023. Head coach of Australia 2001 to 2005, leading the Wallabies to the 2003 Rugby World Cup final. Head coach of the ACT Brumbies, Super Rugby champions 2001. Technical adviser to the Springboks’ 2007 Rugby World Cup-winning squad. Author of “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby” (Macmillan, 2021) and “My Life and Rugby: The Autobiography” (Macmillan, 2019). Biography Japan beat South Africa 34-32 in Brighton in September 2015. The squad had been together three years, trained to a schedule their opponents would not recognise, and made the late call to turn down a draw for a winning try. The head coach was Eddie Jones. That match is the cleanest single case study in his career, but not the only one. Jones has held senior head-coach roles with Japan, Australia, and England, reached two Rugby World Cup finals, served as technical adviser to a third World Cup-winning team, and won a Super Rugby title with the Brumbies in 2001. The through line is not a single style. It is a method for taking on teams that are underperforming relative to their resources, setting a higher standard than the group thinks it can meet, and holding it. His 2021 book, “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, makes that method explicit. It draws on the 2015 Japan campaign, the 2016 England turnaround, and the failures in between to argue that elite performance is a daily discipline of selection, feedback, and standard-setting, not a product of talent or motivation. Jones was named World Rugby Coach of the Year in 2017 after leading England to a Grand Slam and a run of consecutive Test wins second only to the All Blacks. For a senior audience, the value is in the translation. Three national cultures, three turnarounds, one argument about how leaders behave when the team is not yet winning. That is what he brings into a room. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure and public scrutiny Building and turning around elite teams Standards, accountability, and high-performance culture Decision-making in compressed time frames Cross-cultural leadership across international organisations Talent development and succession Ideal for Boards and executive committees leading a turnaround or performance reset CEO and C-suite offsites on standards and accountability CHRO and people leaders working on high-performance culture at scale Sales and commercial leadership teams operating in competitive, results-measured environments Audience outcomes A clearer view of what separates elite teams from good ones in day-to-day behaviour Specific examples of how standards are set, reinforced, and recovered when they slip A model for leading through scrutiny without losing the team Practical reference points from three national turnarounds, not one Language for talking to executives about accountability without euphemism

Why organisations work with Ed Jackson He turns resilience from a slogan into a method. Jackson rebuilt movement, identity and career after a C6/C7 spinal injury, and the incremental decision logic he used is directly translatable to teams managing prolonged uncertainty. His credibility sits on two separate careers, not one. Professional rugby captaincy at England U16 and U18 level, followed by a second career as a Channel 4 Paralympics and rugby presenter, charity founder and author. He wrote the book, literally. “Lucky” (HarperCollins) became a Sunday Times bestseller and is the primary source text for his keynote material, not a marketing tie-in. His charity work is operational, not ornamental. Millimetres 2 Mountains, which he co-founded, delivers structured recovery programmes for people facing physical or psychological trauma, giving him a working frame for how individuals rebuild after rupture. The feature documentary “The Mountain Within Me,” released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in 2024, gives audiences a shared reference before he walks on stage, which shortens the distance between story and application. Biography highlights Former professional rugby union No. 8 for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons. England captain at U16 and U18 level; part of the U18 Four Nations-winning squad. Author of “Lucky” (HarperCollins), a Sunday Times bestselling autobiography. Subject of “The Mountain Within Me,” a feature documentary distributed by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Co-founder of Millimetres 2 Mountains, a registered charity supporting survivors of physical and psychological trauma. Channel 4 presenter for the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, European Champions Cup rugby highlights, and Six Nations commentary. Biography In April 2017, a dive into a shallow swimming pool fractured the C6 and C7 vertebrae of a 28-year-old professional rugby player. The diagnosis was Brown-Sequard Syndrome. The prognosis was that he would not walk again. Within a year, he stood on the summit of Snowdon. That compressed span between medical certainty and physical fact is the working material of the keynote. Before the injury, Jackson had already built a full career. He captained England at U16 and U18, won the U18 Four Nations in 2006, and played professionally for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons. The second career began from a hospital bed, and it has been more public. “Lucky,” published by HarperCollins, reached the Sunday Times bestseller list. The 2024 feature documentary “The Mountain Within Me,” released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment after premiering at Edinburgh International Film Festival, took the same story to cinema audiences. Alongside the speaking and writing, he co-founded Millimetres 2 Mountains with his wife Lois and former England international Olly Barkley. The charity runs structured outdoor recovery programmes for survivors of physical and psychological trauma. This matters for corporate audiences because Jackson is not describing resilience from a single data point. He is watching the same process play out across other people, every year, and refining what actually works. The Channel 4 broadcasting work, Paris 2024 Paralympics, Tokyo 2020, European Champions Cup, Six Nations, gives him a second professional register. He is used to speaking in front of cameras on live transmission to a national audience. For a corporate client that means a speaker who does not need to be managed on stage, and who has spent eight years refining how to make a recovery story useful to the person listening. Key speaking topics Resilience under prolonged pressure High performance after adversity Team trust and captaincy Rebuilding identity through change Mental and physical recovery Goal setting under constraint Purpose and motivation Ideal for Leadership offsites and all-hands events during periods of restructure or sustained change CHRO and wellbeing leads designing resilience and mental health programmes Sales kick-offs and commercial conferences where sustained performance under pressure is the theme Boardroom and executive team sessions on recovery, reputation and rebuilding after a difficult year Audience outcomes A working definition of resilience grounded in specific recovery decisions, not abstraction A usable model for continuing to perform when long-term outcomes are uncertain Language for talking about setback, mental health and vulnerability inside a professional team A shared reference point that teams continue to discuss after the event

Why organisations work with Dominic Alldis His sessions place executives inside a live orchestra or jazz band, making the dynamics of leadership – alignment, trust, listening under pressure – physically felt rather than conceptually described. No other leadership format uses professional live performance as the working medium in this way. The classical-vs-jazz framework gives organisations a precise vocabulary for a problem most struggle to name: when to follow the score and when to improvise – the alignment-versus-autonomy tension that runs through every complex team. The Orchestra Experience has been part of Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008, with endorsement from the programme’s Kravis Professor of Business – giving his approach academic standing alongside conference-format delivery. As an active professional musician and faculty member at the Royal Academy of Music since 1991, he brings current, first-person experience of high-performance ensembles – not a career retrospective applied to business. His client base runs from Microsoft, Google and Deutsche Bank to the United Nations, with executive education work at INSEAD, IMD Lausanne, London Business School and Columbia – evidence of trust from serious institutions across sectors and formats. Biography highlights Jazz pianist, orchestral conductor, arranger and singer; professional career began in Paris in 1982 and spans jazz clubs, concert halls and festival stages internationally Founder and Director of Music & Management, delivering music-based leadership development programmes for corporations and business schools worldwide Faculty member at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 1991, teaching jazz improvisation to classical pianists and opera singers; Honorary Associate since 2000; Steinway Artist since 2010 Music & Management has delivered the Orchestra Experience to Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008; executive education work also includes INSEAD/CEDEP, IMD Lausanne and London Business School Corporate clients include senior teams at Microsoft, WPP, Google, eBay, Deutsche Bank, LVMH, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, BCG, PwC, Mandarin Oriental and the United Nations Author of two books published by Hal Leonard Corporation: «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Harmony» and «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Improvisation» Founder of the Canzona Chamber Orchestra (2010), performing classical repertoire and jazz crossover projects Biography The tension between structure and spontaneity runs through every high-performing team. An orchestra delivers the score with precision; a jazz band improvises around shared norms. Dominic Alldis is a jazz pianist, conductor, and founder of Music & Management and has spent more than two decades translating this contrast into a direct learning experience for executives. The question he brings to business audiences is concrete: when should a team follow the score, and when should it improvise? His framework draws from a professional career that spans both traditions. Alldis studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, played jazz residencies in Paris and London, conducted orchestras across four continents, and has taught improvisation to classical pianists and opera singers at the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he holds the title of Honorary Associate) since 1991. That dual expertise is the engine of his practice: not music as illustration, but musical performance as a live laboratory for the dynamics organisations actually need to develop. Music & Management has embedded the Orchestra Experience in Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008 – endorsed by Paul Ingram, Kravis Professor of Business. Corporate clients include senior teams at Microsoft, WPP, Google, Deutsche Bank, LVMH and the United Nations. His executive education work spans INSEAD, IMD Lausanne and London Business School. Testimonials from CHROs, managing partners and CEOs consistently name the sessions as the most memorable leadership experience their organisations have produced. His books – «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Harmony» and «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Improvisation», both published by Hal Leonard Corporation – reflect the same bridging instinct: rigorous musical thinking made accessible to practitioners who come from a different tradition. Key speaking topics Leadership through musical performance Classical and jazz models of organisational alignment Collaboration and collective decision-making Listening as a leadership competency Creativity and improvisation in organisations Change and adaptability in complex environments Team dynamics and organisational trust Ideal for Senior executive teams at strategic off-sites, leadership summits, and cultural transformation programmes CHROs and L&D Directors designing experiential leadership development at executive level Business schools and executive education programmes seeking immersive, non-traditional learning formats CEOs and boards seeking a high-impact, memorable format that connects music, leadership, and organisational performance Audience outcomes A direct, experiential encounter with how alignment, trust, and collective decision-making operate in real time – not as concepts, but as felt dynamics A working vocabulary for the tension between structured coordination and creative autonomy in teams Greater awareness of listening as an operational leadership practice, not only a communication skill New perspective on how change and improvisation can be navigated without losing coherent direction Personal observations about their own leadership behaviour, prompted by the musical experience rather than delivered through instruction

Why organisations work with Dietmar Dahmen Two decades inside the rooms where global brands are built, with senior creative leadership at DDB, Ogilvy and BBDO across Hamburg, New York, Los Angeles, Munich and Vienna. The reference points are operator reference points. A Chief Innovation Officer track record at ecx.io, the digital agency that scaled into an IBM acquisition, which gives him a working view of how creative ambition turns into delivered technology product. Author of “Transformation. BAMM!” with Marcus Bond, published by Murmann Verlag, with a specific thesis on the “volcano economy” and a working compass tool for leadership teams reshaping their business model. Recognised by the European Association of Communication Agencies as their expert on disruption and future marketing, which gives the perspective institutional weight beyond bureau marketing. A stage craft that lands the argument. The presentation is theatrical, with stage walls built and broken on cue, a flame thrower used to dramatise climate urgency, and custom animation cut for each event. Senior audiences who have seen too many slide decks remember the content because of how it is delivered. Biography highlights Senior creative leadership at DDB, Ogilvy and BBDO, including Chief Creative Officer and Managing Director roles. Chief Innovation Officer at ecx.io, the digital agency acquired by IBM. Founder and Managing Director of Brainkicks GmbH, his current consulting and keynote practice. Co-author of “Transformation. BAMM! Management in der Vulkanoekonomie” (Murmann Verlag, 2017) with Marcus Bond. Lecturer in disruptive advertising at Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg, with students collecting sixteen gold and silver awards at the Cannes Young Director Award during his tenure. Guest lecturer in marketing innovation at Boston University and LMU Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Honorary member of the Federal Association for AI Transformation in Germany (Bundesverband für KI-Transformation). Designated expert on disruption and future marketing for the European Association of Communication Agencies (EACA); member of Creative Club Austria and Art Directors Club Germany. Biography The category boundaries that organised global marketing for a generation are blurring. Customer journeys cross channels that did not exist five years ago, brand differentiation decays faster than media budgets can refresh it, and the parts of the business that used to be safe (distribution, pricing power, retail relationships) are the parts most exposed. Senior marketing and innovation teams know they are being asked to remake the commercial engine while it is still running. Dietmar Dahmen has worked that problem from inside the global creative system. He built his career as Creative Director at DDB, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy, and Chief Creative Officer and Managing Director at BBDO, across Hamburg, New York, Los Angeles, Munich and Vienna. The agency seat is what gave him repeated exposure to the moment when a brand has to choose between defending the position that made it and committing to the position that might. He then took the operator turn that gives the work its current shape. As Chief Innovation Officer at ecx.io, he helped scale the digital agency that IBM later acquired, which moved his thinking from creative campaign output toward technology-enabled customer experience and commercial model design. His book with Marcus Bond, “Transformation. BAMM!” published by Murmann Verlag in 2017, sets out the “volcano economy” thesis: markets where new positions emerge and disappear at unexpected points, and where conventional planning logic is precisely the constraint to challenge. The institutional credentials sit alongside the practitioner record. He is the European Association of Communication Agencies’ designated expert on disruption and future marketing, lectured disruptive advertising at Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg for close to a decade, and his students collected sixteen gold and silver awards at the Cannes Young Director Award during that period. Boards bring him in when the question is not “what is the trend” but “what are we willing to break, and what do we keep, when the category we built around no longer holds.” Key speaking topics Disruption and business model reinvention Future of marketing and brand Customer centricity and experience design Innovation strategy Digital transformation in marketing organisations Change leadership in creative and commercial functions Ideal for CMOs, brand presidents and heads of marketing transformation Chief Innovation Officers and digital strategy leads Boards and executive committees navigating category disruption Senior creative and agency leadership groups Audience outcomes A working language for diagnosing where their category is fracturing and where their current strategy is exposed. A sharper view of which assumptions in the existing business model are now constraints rather than advantages. Specific provocations on customer-centric reinvention drawn from inside global agency and digital transformation work. Renewed willingness in the room to commit to changes that the operating plan has been deferring.

Why organisations work with Didier Marlier Co-author of Engaging Leadership (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), which set out the Logos, Ethos and Pathos framework now used inside executive programmes at IMD, INSEAD, Nyenrode and Fundação Dom Cabral. Three decades of close work with European industrials, financial institutions and professional service firms, including BASF, Credit Suisse, Bank Julius Baer, Dow Chemical, Firmenich, KPMG and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Founded and ran the Enablers Network for almost thirty years before donating the brand to an independent association in 2024, an unusual signal of operating from conviction rather than commercial capture. Teaches change leadership across four continents in French, English and Portuguese, with deep practical exposure to Brazilian as well as European corporate cultures. Brings the same engagement methodology into professional sports environments, where the cost of disengagement is measurable on the scoreboard, and translates those lessons back into corporate boardrooms. Biography highlights Co-author of Engaging Leadership: Three Agendas for Sustaining Achievement, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Faculty and guest professor on executive programmes at IMD, INSEAD, Nyenrode, NEOMA and Fundação Dom Cabral. Founder of the Enablers Network, a European partnership of leadership and change practitioners, donated to the Enablers Association in 2024. MBA from IMD; law degree from Université de Lausanne. TEDx speaker and keynote at the GBTA Europe Conference 2013 in Prague. Long-standing client work with BASF, Credit Suisse, Dow Chemical, KPMG, Bank Julius Baer, Firmenich, Solvay, SAP and Total. Biography Strategy decks rarely fail on their logic. They fail because the people expected to deliver them never genuinely sign up. That gap, between the intellectual case for change and the behavioural reality of an organisation, is the territory Didier Marlier has worked in for three decades. His framework, set out with Chris Parker in Engaging Leadership (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), borrows from classical rhetoric. Logos is the strategic argument. Ethos is the behaviour and tone leaders model day to day. Pathos is the emotional commitment that turns compliance into ownership. The book argues that serious change requires all three running together, not strategy first and culture later. The client list reflects the breadth of that idea in practice: BASF, Credit Suisse, Bank Julius Baer, Dow Chemical, Firmenich, KPMG, Solvay and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer among them. He teaches the same material on executive programmes at IMD, INSEAD, Nyenrode and Fundação Dom Cabral, which gives him an unusually direct read on how European and Latin American executives experience change differently. In 2024 he donated the Enablers Network brand, which he had built over almost thirty years, to an independent association, and now works through DMD. He also applies the same engagement methodology inside professional sports teams, where disengagement shows up immediately in performance data and feeds back into how he advises corporate clients. Key speaking topics Leadership in the disruption economy Engagement through strategic, behavioural and emotional change Post-merger and post-acquisition integration Cultural transformation in multinational organisations Board and executive team effectiveness Change leadership across European and Latin American contexts Ideal for CEOs, executive committees and boards leading strategic, cultural or post-merger transformation CHROs and transformation leads responsible for behavioural adoption of new strategies Senior leadership programmes in multinational organisations with cross-cultural workforces Professional service firm partnerships managing change without command authority Audience outcomes A working language for diagnosing why a current change initiative is stalling A clearer line of sight between the strategic case for change and the day-to-day behaviour leaders must model Specific signals to watch for when intellectual buy-in masks emotional disengagement Cross-cultural reference points from European and Brazilian corporate practice

Why organisations work with David Thomas Measurable cognitive credentials that a buyer can name in one sentence: Guinness record for reciting Pi to 22,500 digits, International Grandmaster of Memory, US Memory Champion. Most motivational speakers cannot point to anything comparable. A lived story of reinvention from a troubled start and 11 years in the Fire Service to a global speaking career, which lands with audiences who are themselves being asked to reinvent roles, teams, and businesses. A practical toolkit, not a biography. Audiences leave with specific techniques for recall, preparation, and presenting under pressure that they can apply the next morning. 30 years of professional speaking across more than 30 countries, including after-dinner, keynote, and executive coaching formats, which gives the booker flexibility on room, tone, and length. A rare bridge between motivational storytelling and hard cognitive science, useful for sales kick-offs, leadership offsites, and learning events where a generic inspirational keynote would fall flat. Biography highlights Guinness World Record holder for reciting Pi to 22,500 digits from memory (1998), breaking an 18-year-old record. International Grandmaster of Memory and 2007 US Memory Champion; world record holder for memorising 100 individually shuffled packs of playing cards. Former operational firefighter with the UK Fire Service for 11 years before his speaking career. Author of “Improving Your Memory” in the DK Essential Managers series, published by Dorling Kindersley / Penguin Random House. Featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2003, with further coverage cited across BBC World Service, Wall Street Journal and The Times. Has delivered keynotes, workshops and after-dinner talks in more than 30 countries, with venues including Caesar’s Palace, Wembley and the Tower of London. Biography Most organisations treat memory and attention as personality traits. They are not. They are trainable, measurable disciplines, and the people who treat them that way outperform the ones who do not. David Thomas built a career on that distinction. The shift from the UK Fire Service to the World Memory Championships happened in under a year. Eight months after buying his first memory book to help him pass exams, Thomas placed fourth at the Championships. On 1 May 1998 he recited Pi to 22,500 digits, breaking an 18-year Guinness World Record. He later became an International Grandmaster of Memory, a US Memory Champion, and a world record holder for memorising 100 shuffled packs of playing cards. Those credentials matter because they separate him from the generic motivational field. When he talks about change, resilience, or performance under pressure, he is not borrowing language from the leadership canon. He is describing a discipline he has competed in at world level, published on through the DK Essential Managers series, and taught to more than 250,000 people across 30 countries. The work in the room is practical. Audiences leave with techniques they can use that week: how to remember names in a sales context, how to hold a room without notes, how to prepare when the stakes are real. It is why he still gets booked for sales kick-offs, leadership offsites, and after-dinner events nearly 30 years into the career, including a 2003 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show that took the message to a global audience. Key speaking topics Memory and cognitive performance Resilience and personal reinvention Change and adaptability Presentation and communication skills Peak performance under pressure Motivation and mindset Ideal for Sales kick-offs and commercial conferences where recall of product, client, and context is a direct revenue lever. Leadership offsites and learning events where a keynote needs to bridge inspiration with practical cognitive skills. After-dinner and awards audiences looking for a serious credential paired with a human story rather than generic motivational fare. Learning and development leaders building programmes on performance habits, attention, and executive presence. Audience outcomes Specific, named memory techniques audiences can apply the next day to recall names, data, and presentation content. A sharper sense of what trainable performance actually looks like, anchored in world-record discipline rather than slogans. Renewed appetite for personal reinvention, drawn from a first-person story of moving from the Fire Service to world-level competition. Practical approaches to preparing for and performing in high-stakes rooms, from boardroom pitches to stage presentations.

Why organisations work with Costas Markides His “Fast Second” argument runs directly counter to first-mover advantage orthodoxy: established firms should let small entrepreneurial companies take the risk of discovering new markets, then move in as consolidators once a market has been validated. That counter-intuitive thesis – developed with Paul Geroski and shortlisted for the FT/Goldman Sachs Management Book of the Year – changes how organisations think about where to place innovation investment. His framework for “playing two business models at the same time” addresses a structural problem that most strategy advice sidesteps: how a firm competes in its existing market while also contesting the model that is disrupting it. He identifies specific conditions under which this works, and the organisational reasons why it usually fails. A UK Research Excellence Framework impact case study credits his work as the first to identify the “business model” as a concept distinct from product innovation – a distinction that gives organisations a more precise lens for analysing competitive threats and deciding which type of response a given disruption actually demands. His ideas on business model innovation have been formally adopted by Nestlé, Roche, and If Insurance as the basis for executive transformation programmes – documented in the REF 2014 public record, not claimed from a speaker circuit. He has appeared on the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top management thinkers every year since 2005, and was ranked 31st in 2011 – a sustained peer recognition that reflects a body of work rather than a single book cycle. Biography highlights Robert P. Bauman Chair of Strategic Leadership; Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, London Business School (since 1990) MBA and DBA, Harvard Business School; BA (Distinction) and MA in Economics, Boston University Thinkers50 listing every year since 2005; ranked 31st in 2011; named in Forbes.com “Most Influential Management Gurus” 2009 Author of six books including Fast Second (shortlisted FT/Goldman Sachs Management Book of the Year 2005) and All the Right Moves (shortlisted Igor Ansoff Strategic Management Award 2000) Published in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, and Academy of Management Journal Board of Directors, Strategic Management Society; World Economic Forum participant, Davos Biography The hardest question for an established company facing disruption is not whether to respond – it is which response will not destroy the model that made it successful. Costas Markides has spent three decades at London Business School studying exactly that problem, building a body of research that challenges the accepted wisdom on disruption at almost every point. His most counter-intuitive contribution is the “Fast Second” thesis, developed with Paul Geroski: large established companies are structurally poor at discovering radical new markets and should not try to be first. Their role is to move in once a market has been validated – as consolidators, not pioneers. That argument, shortlisted for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Management Book of the Year, reframes how organisations think about where innovation investment belongs. His subsequent research sharpened the strategic question further. Game-Changing Strategies (2008) and Business Model Innovation (2023) identify the conditions under which an established firm can disrupt its own disruptor – and the structural reasons most firms fail when they try. A UK Research Excellence Framework impact assessment credits his work as the first to distinguish “business model innovation” from product innovation as a separate strategic concept – a distinction now embedded in how companies like Nestlé and Roche have approached their own transformation programmes. Markides holds the Robert P. Bauman Chair of Strategic Leadership and has held a faculty position at LBS since 1990. His appearance on the Thinkers50 list every year since 2005 reflects continuity of contribution rather than a single publication; his most recent book, Diversification in the World of Data and AI (2025), extends his long-running framework into the context of AI-driven market change. Key speaking topics Business model innovation for established firms Strategic response to disruption Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation culture Strategic innovation and new market creation Growth strategy for incumbents Managing two business models simultaneously Diversification strategy in the age of AI Ideal for Chief Strategy Officers and strategy leadership teams at large established companies facing competitive disruption Boards and senior executive teams evaluating major decisions about business model change or market entry Executive education cohorts focused on corporate strategy, innovation leadership, and competitive positioning Transformation leads and heads of innovation at organisations initiating enterprise-wide strategic renewal Audience outcomes A framework for categorising the type of disruption the organisation faces and the range of available responses Understanding of why the most commonly reached-for responses to disruption tend to fail, based on documented research rather than case-study selection bias A practical structure for assessing when and how to pursue two business models simultaneously without fracturing the existing one Clearer distinction between business model innovation and product innovation as strategic challenges requiring different organisational approaches A more accurate mental model of when large established firms can realistically pioneer new markets – and when they should not try

Why organisations work with Sir Clive Woodward Built the same culture system in two radically different contexts. In rugby, England moved from sixth in the world to World Cup winners. Across Team GB’s 26 Olympic sports he contributed to the country’s most successful modern Games at London 2012. The framework travels. His “Teamship” model is a written operational system. England’s Black Book ran to roughly 240 rules across 35 sections, drafted and owned by the players themselves. Audiences work with a documented method they can apply. One of the very few elite sports coaches to have turned his own methodology into an enterprise learning platform. Hive Learning, founded with Blenheim Chalcot in 2012, now works with Sky, Deloitte, Jaguar Land Rover, PepsiCo, Halma and the International Olympic Committee among others. Named tools audiences can use: Teamship, TCUP (thinking correctly under pressure), the DNA of a Champion and critical non-essentials. Each is a specific leadership discipline with a defined practice. Biography highlights Head Coach of the England men’s rugby union team from 1997 to 2004, winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup. England reached world number one during his tenure and remain the only Northern Hemisphere side to have won a World Cup. Director of Sport at the British Olympic Association, supporting Team GB across the Beijing, Vancouver and London Olympic Games. London 2012 produced Britain’s most successful modern Games by medal count. Head Coach of the British & Irish Lions for their 2005 tour to New Zealand. Founder of Hive Learning, a digital learning platform built with Blenheim Chalcot and now working with organisations including Sky, Deloitte and Jaguar Land Rover. Author of Winning! (2004) and How to Win (2019), both setting out the Teamship methodology. Inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame; knighted in the 2004 New Year Honours; member of the IOC Entourage Commission since 2012. Biography England rugby were sixth in the world when Woodward took the head coach’s role in 1997. Six years later the team lifted the Rugby World Cup in Sydney, holding the world number one ranking and an unbeaten home record at Twickenham. England remain the only Northern Hemisphere team to have won the tournament. The underlying framework was what Woodward called Teamship: a written, player-owned set of behavioural standards covering everything from punctuality to media conduct. The Black Book that held these rules ran to roughly 240 entries across 35 sections. Its premise was that values only matter when they translate into specific daily behaviours, and that the team should write those rules itself. He took the same approach into the British Olympic Association from 2006, serving as Team GB’s Director of Sport through the Beijing, Vancouver and London cycles. London 2012 produced Britain’s most successful modern Games by medal count. The task across 26 Olympic sports was closer to running a diversified business than to coaching a single squad. In 2012 he founded Hive Learning with Blenheim Chalcot, codifying the Teamship approach into an enterprise learning platform now used by Sky, Deloitte and Jaguar Land Rover, among others. His books Winning! (2004) and How to Win (2019) document the same method in full. The underlying conviction: culture is a design problem, and the rules that sustain it should be written down. Key speaking topics High-performance culture Leadership under pressure Team performance and behavioural standards Building winning teams Learning cultures Performance in elite environments Culture change across large, federated organisations Ideal for Executive teams and boards treating culture as a measurable performance lever CEOs, CPOs and heads of learning leading organisation-wide behaviour and capability programmes Leadership teams integrating businesses after mergers or major reorganisations Organisations operating in high-stakes environments where team cohesion directly affects outcomes Audience outcomes A working method for writing behavioural standards that teams author and enforce themselves, drawn directly from England’s Black Book Specific language for diagnosing culture problems in behavioural terms A framework for running performance culture change across large, federated organisations where no single leader commands the whole system Perspective on building through setbacks, grounded in the six-year arc between the 1999 and 2003 Rugby World Cup campaigns Named leadership tools including Teamship, TCUP (thinking correctly under pressure), the DNA of a Champion and critical non-essentials

Why organisations work with Christopher Howell He makes creativity visible as a method, not a mood. Magic gives the audience a direct experience of being wrong about what they just saw, which is a short route into discussions of assumption, bias and fixed thinking. His Project Illusions workshops have been booked into hard commercial environments, including a session for 25 senior leaders at Linklaters, then recognised as the FT’s most innovative law firm. He combines performer craft with coaching training, which means the content lands as a workshop, not a cabaret. Participants leave with techniques they can rehearse, not a memory of a show. His client list spans regulated professional services, global consumer brands and technology, including KPMG, Google, Procter and Gamble, BBC, Volkswagen, Danone and Arup. The material travels across sector and seniority. The format is unusually memorable in a category where most innovation keynotes blur together. For audiences that have sat through too many decks on disruption, his session is the one they still quote a year later. Biography highlights Member of The Magic Circle and Equity, trained under Jeff McBride and the late Eugene Burger, two of the most influential figures in late twentieth century stage magic. Founder of Project Illusions, a creativity and innovation programme delivered to BBC, Google, KPMG, Procter and Gamble, Volkswagen, Arup, Danone and Linklaters. Delivered a senior leadership workshop at Linklaters during the firm’s tenure as the Financial Times’ most innovative law firm, with a named endorsement from its Director of Strategy. Co-producer of the touring variety show Norvil and Josephine with Guinness World Record acrobat Desiree Kongerod. Performed at The Magic Castle (Hollywood), Wintergarten (Berlin), Hackney Empire and the Houses of Parliament. Holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Richmond University, London, classical singing training from Accademia Filarmonica, Bologna, and a Diploma in Life Coaching from Newcastle College. Supporter of Breathe Arts Health Research, which uses magic as occupational therapy for children with hemiplegia. Biography Creativity is the word every strategy deck asks for and every operating model quietly punishes. The gap between what leadership says it wants and what the working week actually rewards is where innovation programmes tend to die. Howell’s work starts in that gap. Project Illusions, the enterprise he founded, is built on a simple claim that is harder than it sounds: creativity is a skill, not a personality trait, and skills can be taught. The method uses magic as the teaching instrument. A trick lands because the audience held an assumption the performer quietly reframed. That mechanic, made explicit, becomes a workable model for how people get stuck on problems at work and how they get unstuck. The material has been delivered inside some of the less forgiving rooms in corporate life. BBC, Google, KPMG, Procter and Gamble, Volkswagen, Arup, Danone and Linklaters have all booked it. The Linklaters session, run for twenty-five senior leaders during the firm’s tenure as the Financial Times’ most innovative law firm, produced a named on-record endorsement from its Director of Strategy. Howell brings the training of a Magic Circle performer with mentors including Jeff McBride and Eugene Burger, a classical theatre and singing background, and a coaching qualification that keeps the sessions oriented around participant practice rather than spectacle. What separates his sessions from the usual innovation keynote is the evidence of change in the room. People who have just watched an assumption of their own dismantled in front of colleagues tend to hold their next assumption more lightly. That is the point. The magic is the teaching aid. The outcome is a group that leaves with a rehearsed way to question how they think. Key speaking topics Creativity as a trainable skill Innovation and change Problem solving under constraint Creative leadership Assumption and bias in decision making Personal and professional development Performance and presence Ideal for Senior leadership groups running innovation, transformation or strategy offsites Partners and directors in professional services firms facing commoditisation pressure Communications, marketing and brand teams looking for a culture-shifting plenary session Conferences and internal events where the brief is to make creativity stick rather than sound good Audience outcomes A working definition of creativity as a skill, with techniques that can be practised rather than admired. A shared language in the room for spotting assumptions, biases and default patterns in how teams approach problems. Specific methods for breaking fixed thinking, drawn from the craft of stage illusion and tested in coaching practice. A memorable shared experience that anchors follow-up work on innovation and change long after the session ends.