Corporate Culture

Why organisations work with Amy Carroll She works on the specific moments leadership training usually skips: board challenges, negotiations that stall, team conversations that tip into defensiveness. Leaders leave with something they can apply on Monday, not a model to file. Her 7 Partner Mindset methodology, built on the licensed Predator, Prey or Partner model from Pat Kirkland Leadership, gives executives a usable vocabulary for power dynamics most leaders feel but cannot name. The client list runs through organisations that do not buy soft skills lightly: Nestle, Novartis, Cisco, UBS, Ernst and Young, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the European Stability Mechanism. Thirty years across psychology, executive coaching, and psychiatric and managed-care settings give her range on human behaviour that communications trainers rarely carry. Recognition from Global Gurus, including a Top 20 position in the Communication category, places her among a small group of named practitioners in the field. Biography highlights Author of The Ego Tango: How to Get More of What You Want More Often with Less Hassle, Using These 7 Partner Mindset Techniques Host of Partner Up! with Amy Carroll on VoiceAmerica Business Channel, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Ranked among Global Gurus’ Top 30 Communication Professionals, placing #18 in 2023 Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, with a BA in Psychology Coaching and training clients include Nestle, Novartis, Microsoft, Cisco, UBS, Ernst and Young, Procter and Gamble, Medtronic, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and the European Stability Mechanism Licenses the Predator, Prey or Partner model from Pat Kirkland Leadership Inc. and built the 7 Partner Mindset methodology on top of it Biography Most leadership failures happen in conversation. A board member challenges an assumption and the chief executive concedes ground she should have held. A senior partner pushes harder than the client will accept. A team leader in a performance review slips from clarity into apology. The cost is rarely dramatic, but it compounds, and it sits outside what strategy decks or standard communications training address. Amy Carroll works on that gap. Her 7 Partner Mindset methodology, built on the licensed Predator, Prey or Partner model from Pat Kirkland Leadership, gives executives a working vocabulary for the power dynamics they feel in the room but cannot usually name. The framework draws from three decades in psychology, executive coaching, and earlier work in psychiatric and managed-care settings, which is a wider behavioural base than most communications coaches bring. Her book, The Ego Tango, sets out the methodology through cases from the workshops she runs with multinational clients. The client list is instructive: Nestle, Novartis, Cisco, UBS, Ernst and Young, Medtronic, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the European Stability Mechanism. These are organisations where a senior leader’s composure under challenge is a measurable commercial asset. She hosts Partner Up! with Amy Carroll on VoiceAmerica Business Channel, and has been named among Global Gurus’ Top 30 Communication Professionals, including a Top 20 placement in 2023. The recognition is useful context; the substance is the work itself, which is a repeatable method for holding authority when the stakes rise. Key speaking topics Leadership communication under pressure Power and influence in senior conversations Executive presence and authority High-stakes negotiation dynamics Emotional intelligence for senior leaders Storytelling and persuasion in business Coaching culture and leadership development Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams preparing for board, investor, or regulator-facing conversations Partners and client-facing leaders in professional services and financial services HR and Learning leads building executive development programmes Senior women navigating authority in traditionally male-dominated rooms Audience outcomes A named vocabulary for the power dynamics that sit beneath difficult conversations, so leaders can diagnose what is happening in the moment Specific techniques from the 7 Partner Mindset model to stay composed when challenged and to influence without escalating A sharper read on their own default patterns under stress, including where they concede and where they overreach Language for feedback, negotiation, and disagreement that holds authority without damaging the relationship A practical sense of how senior presence is built through behaviour, not positioning

Why organisations work with Jenny Radcliffe She has spent decades being paid to break into client buildings, networks and confidence; the briefings she gives boards are based on what worked, not what theory predicts. She runs Human Factor Security, the consultancy she founded to handle authorised physical-access and social-engineering testing for organisations that want their human layer stress-tested rather than surveyed. Her induction into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame placed her among a small group recognised for shifting the industry’s view of human risk from a training problem to a security discipline. People Hacker, published by Simon and Schuster, gives senior audiences a single readable account of how cons, pretexts and physical infiltration actually work inside corporate environments. She translates attacker behaviour into specific decisions about hiring, access, vendor management and culture, which is what a CISO’s report to the board usually leaves out. Biography highlights Founder and director of Human Factor Security, the consultancy she set up in 2013 to focus on human-factor risk. Inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame in 2022 and delivered that year’s Hall of Fame Annual Lecture. Author of People Hacker: Confessions of a Burglar for Hire, Simon and Schuster. Host of the Human Factor podcast, awarded European Best Security Podcast at the 2018 European Blogger Awards. Multiple TEDx speaker on social engineering, deception and influence. Featured “HQ Hunter” on Channel 4’s Hunted, applying her OSINT and undercover tradecraft on screen. Regular keynote contributor at Infosecurity Europe, RANT, Cisco events, Trend Micro events and the PCI Security Standards Council Community Meetings. Biography The fastest way past most corporate security is to ring the doorbell. Jenny Radcliffe has spent her career proving it, working as an authorised social engineer hired to walk into offices, data centres and executive floors using nothing more than confidence, a cover story and a careful read of the people in front of her. Human Factor Security, the consultancy she founded in 2013, runs that work as a discipline rather than a stunt. Clients commission live infiltration tests, pretext calls and on-site assessments; the findings then feed into board-level guidance on how culture, process and physical design create the openings attackers actually use. Her book People Hacker: Confessions of a Burglar for Hire, published by Simon and Schuster, sets out the playbook in detail, and the Human Factor podcast has built a long-running audience among security and risk professionals, winning European Best Security Podcast at the 2018 European Blogger Awards. Television work on Channel 4’s Hunted and multiple TEDx talks have widened the audience well beyond the cyber industry. In 2022 she was inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame and delivered the Hall of Fame Annual Lecture, “Facta Non Verba: Six Life Lessons from a Social Engineer”. For senior buyers, that recognition matters less than the underlying point: she is one of a small number of voices the security industry now treats as authoritative on the human side of the threat, and she briefs boards in the same plain language she uses to brief her own clients after a successful break-in. Key speaking topics Social engineering and human-factor security Physical-access testing and corporate infiltration Fraud, scams and modern-day con tactics Security culture and workforce behaviour Deception, influence and non-verbal communication Insider threat and pretext attacks Board-level cybersecurity briefing Ideal for CISOs, CSOs and heads of information security commissioning human-risk programmes Boards and executive committees reviewing cyber and operational resilience Heads of risk, compliance and governance overseeing fraud and insider threat Corporate security, facilities and HR leaders responsible for access, vetting and culture Audience outcomes A clear picture of how attackers actually combine pretext, OSINT and physical access against organisations like theirs. Specific control points where human behaviour, not technology, decides whether an attack succeeds. Sharper questions to put to security, HR and facilities teams about access, vetting and incident response. A working vocabulary for discussing social engineering and human risk at board level. Confidence that security awareness can be redesigned around real attacker behaviour rather than generic training.

Why organisations work with Frederika Roberts An applied positive psychology MSc and doctoral research base, rather than the wellness-industry credentialling that dominates this space. Author or co-author of five published works on character education and whole-school wellbeing, including titles with Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Sage. European Representative for IPPAed, giving access to current global research on positive education before it filters into mainstream practice. Working content for both education sectors and workplaces, covering character strengths, psychological safety, and Appreciative Inquiry as a change method. Operates in English, Italian, French, and German, which matters for European multi-site organisations and international school groups. Biography highlights MSc in Applied Positive Psychology; doctoral researcher in Education focused on whole-school wellbeing. European Representative for IPPAed, the International Positive Psychology Association’s Positive Education division. Founder of Educate to Flourish CIC, a social enterprise embedding wellbeing into school communities. Co-author, “Character Toolkit for Teachers” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018) and “Character Toolkit Strength Cards” (2020). Co-editor, “The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing” (2021); author, “For Flourishing’s Sake” (2020) and “Recipe for Happiness” (2013). Member of the Professional Speaking Association and the Global Speakers Federation; iPPL Expert Member. Biography Wellbeing has become one of the most over-claimed and under-delivered categories in organisational life. Initiatives proliferate; engagement and mental health indicators rarely move with them. The gap is methodological. Most wellbeing work is built on motivational content rather than on the published research that the field of positive psychology has produced over the last two decades. Roberts works inside that research base. She holds an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and is completing doctoral research on whole-school wellbeing using Appreciative Inquiry, a change methodology that focuses organisational attention on what is already working and how to build from it. As European Representative for IPPAed, the International Positive Psychology Association’s Positive Education division, she connects practitioners with current academic findings before they reach the trade press. Her published output gives organisations a clear sense of how she translates evidence into practice. “Character Toolkit for Teachers” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018) and the “Character Toolkit Strength Cards” (2020) provide working tools rather than abstract frameworks. “The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing” (2021), which she co-edited, sits across the major contributors in the field. “For Flourishing’s Sake” sets out how policy and practice can be redesigned to put flourishing at the centre. She founded Educate to Flourish CIC to take this work into schools as a social enterprise, and extends the same practice into workplaces, drawing on character strengths, psychological safety, and strengths-based approaches. The work is unusual in the wellbeing market for being explicitly research-grounded and equally credible in front of educators, HR leaders, and policy audiences. Key speaking topics Positive psychology in organisational and educational settings Whole-school and whole-organisation wellbeing Character education and character strengths Appreciative Inquiry as a change method Psychological safety and strengths-based culture Mental health and flourishing at work Ideal for HR and people leaders responsible for wellbeing strategy beyond surface-level programmes School leaders, MAT executives, and university leadership teams Conference audiences in education, public sector, and not-for-profit Boards or executives in family-owned and values-led organisations rethinking culture Audience outcomes A working understanding of what positive psychology research has actually shown about wellbeing and performance. Specific tools from character strengths, Appreciative Inquiry, and strengths-based practice that can be applied immediately. A sharper distinction between wellbeing programmes that produce change and those that do not. Language and a model for connecting individual flourishing to organisational outcomes.

Why organisations work with Ben Edmonds Patent record. He is named inventor on commercial patents inside Dyson’s New Product Innovation team and earlier at Xyratex, including the global stowage system on the Dyson DC49 vacuum cleaner. He speaks about innovation from the perspective of an engineer who has shipped commercial products. Inside view of an engineering-first culture. More than a decade at Dyson taught him what structural conditions allow teams to produce original products consistently. He can name the specific choices that distinguish companies that innovate from companies that talk about it. Tactile method, not slideware. His sessions involve teams building real prototypes from cardboard. Senior leaders walk out having designed something with their own hands. Translates equally to executives and children. Edmonds runs an international Inventor Club for young people alongside corporate work. The discipline of teaching twelve-year-olds removes abstraction from how he explains innovation to senior leaders. Biography highlights Twelve years at Dyson, leaving as Principal Designer in the New Product Innovation department. Named inventor on multiple patents assigned to Dyson Technology Limited and earlier to Xyratex (since acquired by Seagate), including the global stowage system on the Dyson DC49. Bachelor’s degree in Computer Aided Product Design from the University of Portsmouth. Founder of InnovationBen and the international Inventor Club, an innovation programme running with young people across multiple countries. Speaking clients include Airbus, the UK Ministry of Defence, Dyson, and the UK Sheet Plant Association. Founder of CRINNAC, a prototyping and product development workshop for hardware founders. Biography At Dyson, engineering ran the show and marketing followed. Engineers solved the problem first, then marketing built the story to sell it. That ordering is the structural difference between companies that ship original products and companies that talk about wanting to. Edmonds spent more than a decade inside that culture, working in Dyson’s New Product Innovation department and rising to Principal Designer. He is the named inventor on commercial patents covering parts of the Dyson product range, including the stowage system for the DC49 vacuum cleaner. Before Dyson he led design at Xyratex, where his team built the storage hardware that held data for IBM, Dell and NetApp. His teaching draws a direct line between two settings most innovation speakers keep separate: the corporate boardroom and the school workshop. He runs an international Inventor Club for children alongside corporate engagements with Airbus, the Ministry of Defence and the Dyson alumni network. The same five-step discipline applies in both: observe a problem, generate options, build a prototype, test it, communicate what you found. The work he does with senior teams uses cardboard prototyping. It looks playful, and audiences laugh through it. The point is serious. Within an hour, a finance team or head office leadership group has designed and built something that did not exist when they walked in. Key speaking topics Innovation culture and structural design Practical creativity in the workplace Product design and rapid prototyping Building inventive teams Engineering thinking applied to commercial problems Creative confidence and problem-solving The structural conditions for sustained innovation Ideal for Heads of R&D, innovation directors, and chief product officers responsible for new product pipelines Executive teams in engineering-led businesses asking how to scale creative output without losing rigour Heads of culture and people functions tasked with building innovation capability across non-technical teams Off-sites and leadership retreats where the goal is for teams to leave having built something together Audience outcomes A working prototype their own team built during the session A diagnosis of which structural conditions in their business help or hinder new ideas Tools they can apply the next day to spot problems worth solving Methods for treating creative problem-solving as a learnable team discipline

Why organisations work with Azeem Rafiq Primary-source authority on how a major British institution mishandled a discrimination complaint, with the parliamentary record, Cricket Discipline Commission outcomes, and governance changes to evidence it. A working answer to the question every CHRO privately asks: what happens to the person who reports, after they report? Rafiq describes the years that followed his disclosure, not only the moment of speaking out. Lived credibility on the gap between policy and practice. The policies at Yorkshire existed. They were not implemented. The reform conversation he triggered is now standard reading for sport, regulators, and corporate ER teams. A name that lands with sceptical audiences. Boards and senior teams who have seen too many polished DEI keynotes engage differently with a speaker whose testimony is a matter of parliamentary record. Biography highlights Former professional cricketer for Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire CCC; captained England under-15 and under-19 sides. Appointed Yorkshire CCC’s youngest captain and first of Asian heritage in 2012. Gave evidence to the DCMS Select Committee in November 2021; witness statement published by the committee. Triggered a Cricket Discipline Commission process that upheld charges and led to the resignation of Yorkshire’s chair and a board reset under Lord Kamlesh Patel. Author of It’s Not Banter, It’s Racism (Hachette, 2024), longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2024. Submitted further written evidence to Parliament’s Sport Governance inquiry in 2022. Biography Yorkshire County Cricket Club had policies for racism, bullying and player welfare. They were not enforced. When a complaint was raised internally in 2018, the institutional response was to manage the complainant rather than the complaint. That is the gap most organisations underestimate, and it is the gap Azeem Rafiq has spent the past five years describing in evidence. His professional record is on the public file: junior international captain for England, professional contracts at Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire, and the youngest captain in Yorkshire’s history. The reason senior audiences listen now is not the career. It is the witness statement, published by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, and the Cricket Discipline Commission findings that followed. The reform consequences are documented. Yorkshire’s chair resigned. Lord Kamlesh Patel was installed to rebuild the board. The England and Wales Cricket Board was forced to confront governance failures it had previously minimised. Rafiq’s 2024 book with Hachette, It’s Not Banter, It’s Racism, was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and remains one of the more honest published accounts of what happens after a whistleblower stops being useful to the institutions briefly aligned with them. What he offers senior audiences now is closer to a case study than a story. He talks about the specific points at which a complaint becomes politically inconvenient, about the role of HR, legal and PR functions in absorbing or deflecting it, and about the human cost on the person at the centre. It is the content most diversity programmes do not have access to. Key speaking topics Institutional racism and culture reform Whistleblowing and speak-up systems in practice Inclusion when policy and practice diverge Governance and accountability in sport Mental health and family impact of public disclosure The aftermath of speaking out Ideal for CHROs, employee relations leads and DEI heads in organisations re-examining their speak-up architecture. Boards and audit committees with whistleblowing oversight responsibilities. Sports governing bodies, regulators and member organisations confronting culture inquiries. Senior leadership offsites where the inclusion conversation has gone stale. Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how a major institution failed to act on its own policies, and the operational reasons why. A more accurate read on what protection a whistleblower actually receives once a complaint enters the system. Specific questions to test inside their own organisation, drawn from cricket’s governance failures. Renewed seriousness about the personal cost of disclosure, useful for anyone designing or sponsoring a speak-up channel.

Why organisations work with Wolfgang Ischinger Direct, first-person reading of the security order from someone who chaired the world’s leading security forum for fourteen years and ran German embassies in Washington and London. Operational mediation experience, including the 2007 EU Troika on Kosovo, that distinguishes him from commentators whose authority is only analytical. A published strategic argument, set out in “World in Danger” (Brookings, 2021), about Germany’s responsibility, European leadership, and the transatlantic link. Boards get a structured thesis, not a tour of the headlines. Convening credibility at the most senior level: heads of state, defence ministers, NATO leadership, and Fortune 500 chairs are part of the network he has worked with for decades. Bilingual fluency in the Washington and Berlin policy systems, which is rare among speakers offering geopolitical perspective to European and US executive audiences. Biography highlights Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, 2008 to 2022. Now President of the MSC Foundation Council. German Ambassador to the United States, 2001 to 2006. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2006 to 2008. Deputy Foreign Minister of Germany, 1998 to 2001. EU representative on the 2007 Troika negotiations on the status of Kosovo. Author, “World in Danger: Germany and Europe in an Uncertain Time”, Brookings Institution Press, 2021. Professor Emeritus at the Hertie School, Berlin, and Founding Director of its Centre for International Security. Recipient of the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of Germany, the French Legion of Honour (Commander), and the Nunn-Lugar Award. Biography The Munich Security Conference grew under Wolfgang Ischinger from a small annual gathering into the West’s most important strategic forum, with a year-round policy operation and a budget over 30 million euros. He chaired it from 2008 to 2022, the years in which the assumptions underpinning European security were dismantled in public. Before that he was Germany’s senior diplomatic figure in the two capitals that matter most to the transatlantic system. He served as Ambassador to the United States from 2001 to 2006, then as Ambassador to the United Kingdom until 2008. As Deputy Foreign Minister from 1998 to 2001 he was inside the policy machinery during the Kosovo intervention and NATO’s eastward enlargement. In 2007 he led the EU side of the Troika negotiations on Kosovo’s status. His book “World in Danger” (Brookings, 2021) sets out the argument he brings to executive audiences: the eclipse of an unchallenged American order, the re-emergence of great-power competition, and the case for a more capable Europe inside a renewed transatlantic alliance. The argument is structural, not topical, which is why it travels into boardroom conversations about exposure to China, energy security, and the credibility of NATO commitments. He now teaches at the Hertie School in Berlin, where he is Professor Emeritus of Security Policy and Diplomatic Practice and founding director of the Centre for International Security. He holds the Grand Cross with Star of the German Order of Merit, the rank of Commander in the French Legion of Honour, and the Nunn-Lugar Award for promoting nuclear security. Key speaking topics Transatlantic relations and the future of the Western alliance European security and defence policy Geopolitical risk for boards and senior executives Russia, Ukraine, and the European security order Germany’s strategic role in Europe US foreign policy and its implications for European business Multilateral institutions and the rules-based order Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to Europe, the United States, China, or Russia Chief strategy officers, heads of government affairs, and risk leaders setting geopolitical scenarios Leadership and partner conferences in financial services, energy, defence, and industrials Closed-door briefings for chairs and CEOs preparing for European or transatlantic policy shifts Audience outcomes A clearer view of where the transatlantic relationship is heading and what it means for cross-border strategy A working framework for thinking about European security and the credibility of NATO commitments A better-calibrated read on Russia, Ukraine, and the wider security order in Europe An informed perspective on Germany’s strategic posture and its implications for European business Direct exposure to how senior diplomatic figures actually think about risk, signalling, and negotiation

Why organisations work with Matt Davies He has built positioning work for both regulated giants and founder-led companies, including Nestle, Boots, Specsavers, Virgin, Nikon and Capital One, so the methods have been tested across categories rather than refined inside one. His Brand Strategy Triangle gives executive teams a single shared structure for four arguments they usually have separately: why we exist, who we serve, how we show up, and what we offer. He pushes back hard against generic purpose statements. His “Purpose Fatigue” argument is built for boards tired of green and social washing being mistaken for strategy. He sits inside the practitioner conversation, not above it. Co-hosting the JUST Branding podcast with over 500,000 downloads means the frameworks he brings into a room have been pressure-tested against the working strategists who use them. Operator credibility: he founded, scaled and sold a branding agency, then ran an in-house creative function at Capital One UK. He has been on the buyer’s side of brand work, not only the consultant’s. Biography highlights Author of Storyategy, a six-step process for building a brand strategy on story foundations. Co-host of the JUST Branding Podcast with Jacob Cass; 500,000-plus downloads, guests including Marty Neumeier, David Aaker, Denise Lee Yohn and Chris Do. Named Top 50 UK Advisor by Enterprise Nation in 2019, 2020 and 2021, in the branding and design category. Certified Level C Brand Specialist, Strategist and Architect; Silver Star recipient in the 2020 LEVEL C Metaskills Challenge. Founder of Matt Davies Consultancy Ltd; advisory and fractional roles at Newfound, Motto and ikon. Earlier career: founder of Attitude Design (2008 to 2017, acquired); Creative Department Manager at Capital One UK, where he established the in-house Creative Studio. Biography Most companies do not have a positioning problem. They have a clarity problem. The leadership team cannot agree, in plain language, on the answer to why we exist, who we serve, how we show up and what we sell. Marketing fills the gap with purpose statements that could belong to any competitor in the category. That is the gap Matt Davies works in. His Brand Strategy Triangle reduces a year of internal debate to four questions a board can actually answer in a room together. His book Storyategy sets out the six-step process behind it, built on the argument that a brand is a story an organisation has to live, not a statement it has to write. The credibility comes from having sat in every seat. He founded the branding agency Attitude Design in 2008, ran it for nine years and sold it. He then built and led the in-house Creative Studio inside Capital One UK, learning what brand work looks like inside a regulated business with operational constraints. Today he advises CEOs, CMOs and founders through his consultancy and fractional strategy roles at Newfound, Motto and ikon, with named clients including Nestle, Boots, Specsavers, Virgin, Nikon, Fred Perry and Experian. He also keeps one foot inside the practitioner debate. The JUST Branding podcast he co-hosts with Jacob Cass has passed 500,000 downloads and put him in conversation with Marty Neumeier, David Aaker, Denise Lee Yohn and most of the working canon of brand strategy. Enterprise Nation has named him a UK Top 50 Advisor for three consecutive years in branding and design. Key speaking topics Brand positioning and category differentiation Story-led brand strategy Purpose, meaning and the limits of purpose marketing Customer experience and brand alignment Leadership vision and internal brand Culture and brand as one strategic asset Brand-led growth for founder and scale-up businesses Ideal for CEOs, founders and MDs leading a repositioning, a rebrand, or a category shift CMOs and brand directors are trying to land a single positioning argument across a leadership team Boards and ExCos are tired of generic purpose statements and are looking for a more commercial alternative Marketing and design leaders inside large or regulated organisations who need their work to be understood as strategy, not decoration Audience outcomes A working answer to the four questions of the Brand Strategy Triangle, applied to the audience’s own business A sharper view of where the company’s positioning is generic and where it is genuinely defensible A clearer language for talking about brand inside the leadership team, beyond logos and taglines A practical critique of purpose-driven messaging and a workable alternative built on customer-centric ideas Confidence that brand strategy is a commercial growth tool, not a marketing afterthought

Why organisations work with Rachel Treece A coach-led leadership thesis grounded in published work, not platform rhetoric: her book “The Henka Effect” sets out how coaching changes the operating behaviour of senior leaders, with named case studies from financial services. Operating credibility inside financial services. The Henka Institute reports work with a majority of the largest fund managers and investment banks, and her podcast “Flex and the City” speaks directly to FS leadership audiences. ICF-accredited coaching credentials (PCC, CPCC) and a psychology background, which means the content is built on practice-tested method, not opinion. A multinational and multilingual delivery range across 35 countries, useful for boards and leadership populations that span Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. A direct, no-platitudes register on inclusion and culture that buyers can put in front of mixed senior audiences without it landing as DEI theatre. Biography highlights CEO of The Henka Institute and fts global, a leadership development firm operating in 35 countries. Author of “The Henka Effect: How Coaching is Transforming Leadership and Organisations” (2022). Host of the podcast “Flex and the City – Great leadership in financial services”. ICF-credentialled executive coach (PCC, CPCC) and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Speaker at the ALFI Leadership Seminar, the leading industry forum for the Luxembourg fund and asset management sector. Co-founder of Dress for Success Luxembourg. Biography Most senior leaders know that pushing harder no longer produces the result it used to. Workforces are exhausted by repeated change, sceptical of slogans, and quick to disengage from leaders who default to control. The harder question is what leaders should do instead, and how to develop that behaviour at scale. Rachel Treece’s answer is coaching. Not coaching as a development perk, but coaching as the operating mode of senior leadership itself. Her book “The Henka Effect” sets out the argument with case material drawn from her work inside financial services, where she has spent much of her career advising FTSE and Fortune 100 leadership teams. That work runs through The Henka Institute, the Luxembourg-based firm she leads. The institute operates across 35 countries and reports clients including a majority of the largest fund asset managers and investment banks. Her credentials sit alongside the practice: PCC and CPCC coaching certifications, a psychology background, and Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. For organisations going through restructure, integration, or cultural reset, the value of her work is specific. She gives senior leaders a usable behavioural toolkit that replaces directive instinct with curiosity, ownership, and accountability, rather than asking them to soften their style and hope. Key speaking topics Coaching as a leadership operating model Leadership in financial services Inclusive and values-based leadership Change and transformation in regulated industries Communication and executive presence Organisational culture and trust Sustainable performance and leader energy Ideal for CEOs, CHROs, and heads of leadership development inside banks, asset managers, and other regulated financial institutions. Boards and executive committees navigating restructuring, M&A integration, or cultural reset. Senior leadership populations being asked to lead through change without burning out their teams or themselves. Audience outcomes A clear distinction between coaching as a development activity and coaching as a senior leadership behaviour, with the second framed as the lever for sustainable performance. Specific behavioural moves senior leaders can use to replace directive defaults in real conversations with their teams. A working model for building trust and ownership inside teams that have been through repeated change. An honest read on what inclusive leadership looks like in practice in commercial organisations, beyond statement-making.

Why organisations work with Alex Polizzi She has walked into more than a hundred real struggling businesses on camera and named exactly what was failing – her credibility is documented and specific, not theoretical. Audiences working on customer experience get something rare: an operator who can describe the gap between management assumption and customer reality from both sides of the front desk. Her commercial advice carries a weight most speakers cannot match – she applies the same standards to The Polizzi Collection’s three boutique hotels as she applies to the businesses she advises, with her own balance sheet as the test. Her BBC Two series The Fixer took her diagnostic approach beyond hospitality into retail, manufacturing, and food service – making her relevant to any audience grappling with family-run or founder-led business performance, not only hotels. She founded and scaled Millers Bespoke Bakery from start-up to a supplier of Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Fortnum & Mason, giving her genuine entrepreneur-to-operator credibility that extends beyond the family hospitality dynasty. Biography highlights Presenter of Channel 5’s The Hotel Inspector since 2008 – nineteen-plus series visiting and turning around struggling British hospitality businesses Presenter of BBC Two’s The Fixer (four series, 2012-2015) – extending the business turnaround model to family enterprises across retail, manufacturing, and food Co-owner and active operator of The Polizzi Collection: Hotel Tresanton (Cornwall), Hotel Endsleigh (Devon), and The Star, Alfriston (East Sussex, opened 2021) Trained at the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong; worked for Marco Pierre White at the Criterion, London; held operational roles across Rocco Forte Hotels in Cardiff, Rome, and St Petersburg Read English at St Catherine’s College, Oxford Co-founded Millers Bespoke Bakery; grew to supply Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Fortnum & Mason Author, Alex Polizzi’s Little Black Book of Hotels (2010) Granddaughter of Lord Forte; mother is Olga Polizzi CBE, Director of Design at Rocco Forte Hotels Biography Most owners of service businesses are certain they know what their customers experience. Nineteen series of Channel 5’s The Hotel Inspector suggest otherwise. Alex Polizzi has spent more than fifteen years walking into struggling British hotels and family enterprises and naming, clearly, what the management cannot see from the inside. Her authority comes from two directions. She trained at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, worked for Marco Pierre White at the Criterion, and held operational roles across Rocco Forte Hotels in Cardiff, Rome, and St Petersburg. She also co-founded Millers Bespoke Bakery with her then-partner Marcus Miller – building it from a start-up to a supplier of Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Fortnum & Mason. She read English at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. That experience extends to The Polizzi Collection, three boutique hotels she co-owns and actively operates with her mother, the designer Olga Polizzi: Hotel Tresanton in Cornwall, Hotel Endsleigh in Devon, and The Star in Alfriston, East Sussex. Her advice to other businesses carries the weight of someone whose own commercial performance depends on the same standards she applies elsewhere. For BBC Two’s The Fixer (four series, 2012-2015), she extended the same diagnostic lens beyond hotels to family businesses in retail, manufacturing, and food – demonstrating that the tension between conviction and commercial reality is not a hospitality problem alone. The granddaughter of Lord Forte, she brings both the heritage of a three-generation hotel dynasty and the independence of someone who has built and operated alongside it on her own terms. Key speaking topics Hospitality leadership and operational improvement Business turnaround in service and family-run enterprises Customer experience and service standards Commercial positioning for independent and boutique businesses Entrepreneurship and scaling founder-led businesses Recruitment and performance in service industries Family business dynamics and succession Ideal for Hospitality industry conferences and hotel association events Family business forums and owner-managed business summits Customer experience and service excellence programmes (cross-sector) SME and entrepreneurial leadership events where founder perspective is central Audience outcomes A clearer framework for diagnosing the gap between what a business intends to deliver and what customers actually receive Practical understanding of the operational and cultural patterns that drive underperformance in service businesses Insight into how service standards, staff performance, and commercial positioning interact – and which lever to pull first Perspective on the specific challenges of running or advising family-owned enterprises, including how personal loyalty can mask business-critical problems Grounded confidence that improvement in service and commercial performance is achievable through process discipline, not wholesale transformation

Why organisations work with Margaret Heffernan She gives executive teams a precise vocabulary for organisational failure. “Wilful Blindness” turned the cognitive mechanics of why leaders ignore the obvious into a working diagnostic, and the Financial Times named it one of the most important business books of the decade. She has run companies, not just studied them. Five CEO roles across media and technology mean her arguments about hierarchy, dissent and decision-making are tested against the operational reality buyers actually face. She offers a serious counterweight to forecasting culture. “Uncharted” makes the case that prediction is a poor tool for navigating uncertainty, and gives leaders a more honest set of practices for acting without it. Thinkers50 inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2023 for lasting contribution to management thinking, which places her among the most established voices on organisational behaviour working today. She is trusted in the room with senior leaders. Through Merryck & Co. she mentors CEOs of major global organisations, and she serves as Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme. Biography highlights Professor of Practice, University of Bath School of Management. Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee, 2023. Author of eight books including “Wilful Blindness”, “A Bigger Prize” (Transmission Prize winner), “Beyond Measure”, “Uncharted” and “Embracing Uncertainty”, published by Simon & Schuster and Bristol University Press. TED Global speaker; four TED talks with more than 12 million combined views. Former Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCast Corporation; senior multimedia roles at Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard & Poor’s. Thirteen years as a BBC producer of drama and documentary programmes; regular Financial Times contributor and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster. Biography Most leadership teams do not lack information. They lack the conditions to act on the information they already have. That is the problem Margaret Heffernan has spent two decades naming, first as a CEO and now as one of the most respected voices on organisational behaviour in Europe. “Wilful Blindness”, her third book, set out the cognitive and cultural reasons people in organisations ignore what they can plainly see. The Financial Times listed it among the most important business books of the decade. “A Bigger Prize” challenged the assumption that competition reliably produces the best outcomes and won the Transmission Prize. “Uncharted” pressed further into the territory of how leaders should think, plan and decide when prediction stops working. The credibility behind the writing is operational. Heffernan ran five companies, including InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCast Corporation, after thirteen years producing drama and documentary programmes for the BBC. She holds a Professor of Practice post at the University of Bath, leads faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme, and mentors chief executives through Merryck & Co. Thinkers50 inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2023. Her TED talks, including “Dare to Disagree” and “The human skills we need in an unpredictable world”, have been viewed more than 12 million times. The reason senior teams keep returning to her work is simple: she gives them a serious account of why organisations fail to see, and a usable set of responses. Key speaking topics Organisational blindness and decision-making Leadership under uncertainty The limits of efficiency and forecasting Dissent, candour and constructive conflict Collaboration and the costs of competition Responsible leadership and corporate ethics Building organisational resilience Ideal for CEOs, board members and ExCo teams confronting strategic uncertainty CHROs and senior leadership development heads building executive judgement Audit, risk and governance leaders working on early-warning culture Partner-track and senior leadership programmes inside professional services and regulated industries Audience outcomes A clearer language for the cognitive and structural reasons organisations miss the obvious. A working alternative to forecasting-led strategy when conditions will not hold still. Concrete practices for surfacing dissent and constructive conflict at senior levels. A sharper view of where the pursuit of efficiency is quietly degrading resilience. Confidence to act on partial information rather than wait for certainty that will not arrive.

Why organisations work with Speech Thomas His B.R.A.V.E. framework (Bold, Resilient, Adaptable, Vulnerable, Encouraging) is proprietary, named IP built from firsthand experience navigating commercial failure, personal loss, and creative reinvention across a multi-decade career, not a theoretical model adapted from management literature He integrates live musical performance structurally into the keynote itself, creating a shared emotional experience that makes the framework’s principles felt rather than simply heard – a format no other leadership speaker with equivalent platform credibility replicates The vulnerability pillar of B.R.A.V.E. carries specific weight: his origin story involves growing up in statistically one of the most difficult environments for Black youth in America and losing both his grandmother and brother in the same week; circumstances that directly shaped the framework’s architecture His 16 Bars documentary – in which he led a songwriting and recording collaboration inside a Virginia jail – provides independently verified, third-party evidence that his approach to creativity and leadership character works in conditions far more demanding than any corporate conference room The Dr. Terence N. Thomas Scholarship, a 501(c)3 he established in 1992, has directed over $1M in educational stipends to students from underserved communities – demonstrating that the «encouraging» principle of B.R.A.V.E. is operational, not rhetorical Biography highlights Founder, lead vocalist and producer of Arrested Development; two-time Grammy winner: Best New Artist and Best Rap Performance (1993) Arrested Development’s debut album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of… achieved multi-platinum certification in the United States «Tennessee» named one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s «500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll» Solo single «Like Marvin Gaye Said» held #1 on Japan’s Tokio 100 chart for seven consecutive weeks; solo album Spiritual People certified Gold by the RIAJ Producer and collaborator on 16 Bars (2018), an award-winning documentary following a music rehabilitation programme inside Richmond City Jail — winner of Best Documentary at the Downtown L.A. Film Festival Creator of the B.R.A.V.E. leadership framework, now delivered as a keynote at corporate, association and government conferences globally Founder of the Dr. Terence N. Thomas Scholarship (501(c)3, est. 1992), which has provided over $1M in stipends to university students from at-risk communities across three decades Biography The qualities most organisations say they want from their leaders – courage under pressure, the ability to adapt without losing direction, the willingness to be honest when honesty is costly – are precisely the ones that conventional leadership development struggles to instil. Why? Because they cannot be taught from a slide deck. They are formed through experience, reinforced through narrative, and transmitted most effectively when the person articulating them has actually lived them. Speech Thomas built his B.R.A.V.E. framework (Bold, Resilient, Adaptable, Vulnerable, Encouraging) from a career that required each of those qualities under genuine pressure. As the founder and lead vocalist of Arrested Development, he led a group that achieved two Grammy Awards and multi-platinum sales for a debut album that ran directly against the dominant commercial trends of its era. When the group disbanded, he rebuilt independently, building a substantial solo career across five albums and finding his largest audience in Japan – territory he entered without the infrastructure that had supported the group’s earlier success. What distinguishes his keynote from the standard musical-career-as-leadership-metaphor format is that the framework is specific and teachable, and the performance is structural rather than decorative. Speech integrates live music into the keynote itself because the argument he is making – that vulnerability and creative courage are leadership competencies, not personality traits – is demonstrated more effectively through song than through slides. His 16 Bars documentary, in which he led a songwriting and recording programme inside Richmond City Jail, provides third-party evidence that this methodology produces results in conditions that test it genuinely. The Dr. Terence N. Thomas Scholarship, which he established in 1992 following his brother’s death and which has since distributed over $1M to students from underserved communities, is where the «encouraging» pillar of B.R.A.V.E. becomes most legible. For boards and senior leadership teams evaluating whether a speaker’s values are substantive or performative, it is a credible and verifiable answer. Key speaking topics B.R.A.V.E. leadership framework Leadership character development Creativity and the artistic process as organisational tools Storytelling and voice in leadership communication Resilience and adaptability under pressure Music, culture and social impact Criminal justice reform and rehabilitation through creative practice Ideal for Senior leadership and executive teams exploring the relationship between character, culture and organisational performance CHROs and talent development leaders building leadership pipeline programmes that go beyond technical capability Conferences in creative industries, media, entertainment and arts sectors DEI and culture transformation events requiring a speaker whose credibility is built from lived experience rather than consultancy Audience outcomes A named, five-part leadership framework (B.R.A.V.E.) that individuals can apply to their own professional context A reframe of vulnerability from personal risk to leadership asset – with a credible, tested example of why it matters Practical perspective on how storytelling and creative expression function as tools for communication, not just culture A more concrete understanding of what distinguishes leadership under pressure from leadership in comfortable conditions Where a live performance element is included: a shared emotional experience that anchors the session’s themes in a way that participants recall and reference beyond the event itself

Why organisations work with Martin Smith He built SASIG from a private forum into a community of more than 11,000 cybersecurity practitioners across roughly 4,500 organisations, which gives him a unique read on what CISOs actually worry about, not what vendors say they should. His argument that breaches are behavioural before they are technical reframes the cyber conversation for boards that have over-invested in tooling and under-invested in people. Three decades of operational security experience across the RAF, Kroll, Standard Chartered and his own firm, The Security Company, lets him talk to executive audiences without retreating into jargon or vendor pitch. He speaks with the authority of an industry founder, not a commentator. SASIG, TSC, and his OSPAs Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 give him standing other cyber speakers cannot match in a UK boardroom. He is unusually effective with mixed audiences of technical and non-technical leaders, a direct consequence of his behavioural psychology background and a career spent translating between the two. Biography highlights Founder and Chairman of The Security Awareness Special Interest Group (SASIG), established 2004; now part of Nineteen Group following the January 2024 acquisition. Awarded the MBE for 15 years as a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force Security (Provost) Branch. Former Senior Director of Corporate Security at Kroll Associates (UK) and Head of Information Security at Standard Chartered Bank. Founded The Security Company (International) Limited in 1997, exiting via management buyout in December 2019. Lifetime Achievement Award, inaugural OSPAs (Outstanding Security Performance Awards), March 2017. BSc in Behavioural Psychology; FSyI (Fellow of The Security Institute); Freeman Emeritus of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. Biography The vast majority of cybersecurity failures start with a human decision, not a system flaw. That observation has driven Martin Smith’s work for three decades, and it is the argument SASIG, the network he founded in 2004, was built around. Today it represents over 11,000 practitioners drawn from roughly 4,500 organisations across UK industry, government, law enforcement, and academia. His credibility is operational, not theoretical. Fifteen years as a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force Security (Provost) Branch earned him an MBE. He then went into the commercial sector via Touche Ross, took on Senior Director of Corporate Security at Kroll Associates, and ran information security for Standard Chartered Bank before founding The Security Company (International) Limited in 1997. What ties that career together is a behavioural psychology background that shapes how he reads risk. Boards tend to think of cyber as a technical procurement problem. Smith’s work consistently pushes them toward the harder question of how staff behave under pressure, how culture is engineered, and how awareness is sustained beyond an annual training module. He retired from TSC in December 2019 in a management buyout to focus on SASIG, which Nineteen Group acquired in January 2024. In March 2017 he received the inaugural OSPAs Lifetime Achievement Award for his work on the human factor in security breaches, which remains the most precise summary of what he has spent his career arguing for. Key speaking topics Cyber and information security The human factor in security breaches Security awareness and behavioural risk Counter-terrorism and crisis management Risk and resilience for boards The business of security Ideal for CISOs, CIOs and CTOs assessing the cultural side of their cyber exposure Boards and audit committees recalibrating cyber risk beyond tooling spend HR and learning leaders responsible for security awareness programmes Public-sector and regulated-industry leaders working with sensitive information Audience outcomes A clearer view of where cyber budgets are misallocated between technology and people. Specific, practitioner-grounded examples of how organisations engineer security awareness into culture rather than treat it as a compliance event. A working understanding of the human-factor argument that has reshaped UK cybersecurity practice over the last twenty years. The perspective of a founder who has watched 11,000+ cyber practitioners articulate what really keeps them awake.