Corporate Culture

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

Key speaking topics High-performance leadership Decision-making under pressure Teamwork in elite environments Risk management and accountability Performance culture Strategy and execution Media, sport, and business crossover Ideal for Senior leadership teams Corporate conferences and leadership events Organisations operating in high-pressure or high-risk environments Sports, media, and performance-driven businesses Audience outcomes Clear insights into performing under sustained pressure Practical perspectives on leadership accountability Understanding of how elite teams align strategy and execution Lessons on managing risk and decision-making in fast-moving environments Why organisations work with David Coulthard Organisations work with David Coulthard for his direct experience operating at the highest level of global sport, his credibility as a former Formula One winner, and his ability to translate elite performance principles into clear, commercially relevant insights for leadership and business audiences. Biography David Coulthard brings first-hand experience from the highest level of global motorsport, shaped by a Formula One career that delivered 13 Grand Prix victories and consistent top-three championship finishes. Racing for Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull Racing, he operated in environments defined by speed, risk, and relentless performance expectations. At McLaren, Coulthard secured multiple race wins and played a central role in championship campaigns, while later helping to establish Red Bull Racing on the Formula One podium. His career reflects sustained performance within complex teams where decision-making, accountability, and execution are tested under extreme pressure. Beyond the cockpit, Coulthard has remained closely connected to the sport’s strategic and governance landscape. He serves as President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, the organisation that owns and operates Silverstone Circuit, and is a familiar face in Formula One broadcasting through his work with Channel 4 and on the sport’s global broadcast feed. Coulthard is also active in motorsport and media entrepreneurship. He is co-founder of Whisper, a UK-based sports and entertainment production company, and Velocity Experience, which delivers premium brand and motorsport experiences. He has also co-founded More than Equal, a programme focused on accelerating the development pathway for elite female racing drivers. He is the author of It Is What It Is and The Winning Formula, which explores leadership, strategy, and motivation through the lens of Formula One. Awarded an MBE, Coulthard combines elite sporting credibility with board-level perspective, making his insights highly relevant to organisations focused on performance, leadership, and culture under pressure.

Why organisations work with Dave Stewart Stewart’s credibility is operational, not academic. He has built multiple businesses across music, media, film, and technology – from Weapons of Mass Entertainment to The Hospital Club to RARE Entity – and can demonstrate from firsthand experience what the structural conditions for creative output actually look like at scale. No case study is borrowed. His book, The Business Playground (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with branding expert Mark Simmons and published in eight languages, provides a replicable methodology for applied creative thinking in business contexts. It draws on scientific research, structured exercises, and interviews with figures including Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen – with a foreword by Richard Branson. He has worked inside major corporations as a practitioner, not an outside voice: serving as Nokia’s «change agent» and as US creative director at The Law Firm. Clients including Nokia, Visa International, and Credit Suisse have drawn a direct line between exposure to his thinking and changes in how they approached innovation. His current venture, RARE Entity (launched January 2026), is a venture builder that shifts IP ownership and commercial control back to the creators who generate it. He is speaking to one of the most urgent tensions in business today – who owns creative output and who benefits from it – from the position of someone actively building companies to solve it. The credential combination is genuinely unusual: a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Award winner who has also built media ventures, co-authored a business book for a major publisher, scored West End and Broadway musicals, and spent four decades proving that the artist’s approach to making things is also the most commercially effective approach. Biography highlights Co-founder of Eurythmics with Annie Lennox; over 100 million album sales across a four-decade career Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee (2022); Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee (2020); UK Music Hall of Fame inductee (2005) Grammy Award winner; Golden Globe Award winner; four Ivor Novello Awards (Best Songwriter); four BRIT Awards (Best Producer), including a Lifetime Achievement Award Author of The Business Playground: Where Creativity and Commerce Collide (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with Mark Simmons, foreword by Richard Branson, published in eight languages Founder and chairman, Weapons of Mass Entertainment; co-founder, The Hospital Club, London, with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen Served as Nokia’s «change agent» and US creative director at The Law Firm; executive producer, NBC series Songland (2019) Co-founder, RARE Entity (2026) – a venture builder dedicated to returning IP ownership and commercial control to creators Biography For most organisations, creativity is somewhere between a priority and a problem. It is cited in strategy documents and killed in planning meetings. The organisations that get it right tend to have someone who understands it not as a mindset but as a structural challenge. Dave Stewart has spent 40 years being that person. As co-founder of Eurythmics with Annie Lennox, Stewart helped build one of the most commercially successful creative partnerships in music history – over 100 million album sales, a Grammy Award, a Golden Globe, and induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. The creative process that produced those results was not accidental. It was the product of specific conditions, specific constraints, and a specific willingness to go into the unknown. Stewart has spent the decades since making that process legible for organisations that want to replicate it. His book, The Business Playground (Financial Times/Pearson, 2010), co-written with branding expert Mark Simmons, is the clearest articulation of his argument. Organisations that treat creativity as a personality trait will always struggle; those that build the right environment will consistently outperform. Published in eight languages, with a foreword by Richard Branson and interviews featuring Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, it remains a practical reference as much as a business book. His corporate work has included serving as Nokia’s «change agent» and as US creative director at The Law Firm. His most recent venture, RARE Entity (launched January 2026), is a venture builder that shifts IP ownership and commercial control back to the creators who generate it – the same argument he has been making for 40 years, now applied to one of the most contested challenges in the modern creator economy. Key speaking topics Creativity as a commercial capability Applied creative thinking in business Innovation culture and organisational conditions Entrepreneurship and venture building The creator economy and IP ownership Branding and cultural influence Technology, media disruption, and the future of creative industries Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and innovation leadership teams seeking to move beyond idea generation into repeatable creative output CMOs and marketing leadership working on brand distinctiveness, creative culture, and commercial differentiation Leadership teams at media, entertainment, and technology organisations navigating disruption to existing business models Entrepreneurship and growth strategy conferences; founder, scale-up, and creative industries audiences Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of why creativity fails as a corporate programme – and what structural conditions actually produce it Practical frameworks and exercises drawn from The Business Playground for running better creative processes, from problem framing to idea development A model for thinking about the relationship between creative ambition and commercial discipline – from someone who has built businesses where that relationship was the point A sharper view of the creator economy: who controls IP, what AI and platform concentration are doing to that landscape, and what organisations need to do now The ability to distinguish between organisations that talk about innovation and those that have built the conditions for it

Why organisations work with Dave Coplin His central argument – that the «digital deluge» is not a productivity crisis to be managed but a strategic opportunity to be led – gives boards a reframe that most AI and digital transformation programmes never offer: the question is not adoption, but what kind of organisation you are willing to become. He built that argument from the inside: twelve years at Microsoft UK as the executive responsible for imagining the human future of technology, a vantage point that neither pure academics nor management consultants can replicate. His books Business Reimagined (2013) and The Rise of the Humans (2014, Harriman House) give organisations a specific, portable framework – the choice between efficiency and effectiveness – that leadership teams can apply directly to their own AI strategy decisions. NED board experience at Mitchells & Butlers plc, Vianet Group plc, and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association means his perspective on digital strategy carries weight at governance level, not just at conference level. His positioning at the intersection of generative AI adoption and organisational performance means he addresses the question executive teams are now actually asking: how do we become more effective through AI, rather than just faster at what we already do? Biography highlights Founder and CEO of The Envisioners, a digital strategy consultancy established in 2017 after a 12-year career at Microsoft UK Former Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft UK – a role he created, focused on the future of the human-technology relationship Author of Business Reimagined (2013) and The Rise of the Humans (2014, Harriman House) Independent Non-Executive Director at Mitchells & Butlers plc, Vianet Group plc, and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association Regular contributor to BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times, Channel 4, and CNN on AI, digital transformation, and the future of work Keynote speaker for clients including Microsoft, Barclays, HP, Vodafone, Ernst & Young, Facebook, and Google, as well as the UK and EU Parliaments Biography Technology investment reliably outpaces the organisational willingness to change. That gap – between what digital tools can do and what organisations are willing to become – is where Dave Coplin has built his career, first as Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft UK and now as founder of The Envisioners. His book The Rise of the Humans (Harriman House, 2014) sets out the core argument: the digital deluge of data, tools, and competing demands is not something to survive – it is something to harness. The organisations that succeed are those that stop asking how to automate what they already do and start asking how to reinvent what they do entirely. That argument was relevant when the book was written. With generative AI now reshaping every sector, it has become the defining strategic question for boards and leadership teams. Coplin spent twelve years at Microsoft UK before founding The Envisioners in 2017, advising organisations and governments on what technology-led change actually requires of the people leading it. His clients have included Barclays, Vodafone, Ernst & Young, and the UK and EU Parliaments. He serves as an independent non-executive director at Mitchells & Butlers plc and Vianet Group plc, and has held the same role at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association. He is a regular contributor to the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and CNN. His first book, Business Reimagined (2013), made the case for collaborative and flexible working as a technology-enabled opportunity rather than a cultural preference. Both books frame the same consistent argument: the human decision about how to relate to technology matters more than the technology itself. Key speaking topics Generative AI and organisational effectiveness Digital transformation strategy The future of work Human-technology relationship AI adoption and workforce change Reimagining how organisations create value Ideal for CIOs, CTOs, and senior technology leaders shaping AI and digital strategy CEOs and executive teams navigating generative AI adoption decisions CHROs and transformation leads managing the human impact of digital change Board members and non-executive directors overseeing digital governance and technology investment Audience outcomes A clear framework for distinguishing between technology-led efficiency and technology-led effectiveness, and why that distinction matters commercially A reframe of generative AI from operational risk to strategic lever – and the conditions under which that reframe becomes actionable Practical perspective on why human agency and organisational culture are the deciding factors in whether digital investment delivers A sharper view of where AI strategies are likely to stall, and what leadership teams can address before they do Confidence to engage with AI at a strategic rather than technical level – including in board and senior leadership conversations

Why organisations work with Danny Bent His argument that performance improves when people stop masking who they are is backed by his own experience building communities at scale – including a 3,328-mile relay across the United States that raised approximately $600,000 in weeks, organised by someone with no events infrastructure and a great deal of conviction. That is not a theoretical model; it is evidence. He produces an emotional shift in a room, not just intellectual content. Audiences at HSBC, Nike, and Google have described his sessions as physically changing the atmosphere within an hour – the kind of result most culture and engagement programmes take months to attempt. His willingness to speak openly about dyslexia, therapy, and the parts of himself he spent years performing around gives him rare credibility with audiences resistant to culture messaging. A Guinness World Record holder and BBC Special Forces finalist talking honestly about hiding and shame tends to disarm people who would tune out a conventional wellbeing speaker. His four named talk frameworks give event planners clear, differentiated choices across distinct use cases – personal identity, team belonging, leadership culture, and breaking default behaviour – without requiring bespoke development. His lived experience of building radically inclusive communities – Project Awesome across UK cities, multi-country running relays attracting thousands – gives HR and culture leads a concrete reference point for what genuine belonging actually looks and feels like, not just what it looks like in a framework. Biography highlights Author of “You’ve Gone Too Far This Time Sir” (account of cycling 9,000 miles from London to India; described as an international bestseller) and “Not All Superheroes Wear Capes” (about One Run for Boston and its impact on thousands of Americans) Two Guinness World Records, including for the I Move London Relay – 4,000 miles run by 2,000 participants across London in 2018 Organised One Run for Boston (2013) – a 3,328-mile continuous running relay from Los Angeles to Boston following the Marathon bombings, raising approximately $600,000 for victims Second overall on the BBC’s Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week; one of only three competitors to complete the programme TEDx speaker on the power of community; 100+ talks delivered at organisations including Google, HSBC, Nike, National Geographic, and the Royal Geographic Society Founder of Project Awesome, a free fitness community that has mobilised tens of thousands of participants across UK cities Former Great Britain triathlete Biography What happened after the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 is, at one level, a story about running. A 3,328-mile relay from Los Angeles to Boston, organised in days, ran by thousands of Americans who had no relationship with each other beyond a shared need to do something. It raised approximately $600,000 for victims and demonstrated something specific about what people are capable of when they feel permission to show up honestly. Danny Bent organised that relay. He also cycled 9,000 miles from London to India, founded Project Awesome (a free fitness community across UK cities) and broke two Guinness World Records. He came second in the BBC’s Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week. These achievements are real, but they are not the point. The point is the human pattern underneath them: what happens to people, and to teams, when they are trusted and given a reason to be honest. Danny is dyslexic, a former Great Britain triathlete, and the author of two books. He spent years performing a version of himself that looked capable and cheerful while keeping quieter parts hidden. His decision to change that shaped his current speaking directly. He has built four named talk frameworks: The Happiness in Being You, The Power of a Tribe Mentality, The All-Powerful You, and Breaking Free from Autopilot, each addressing a different aspect of what shifts when people stop masking who they are at work. He has delivered 100+ talks at organisations including Google, HSBC, Nike, National Geographic, and the Royal Geographic Society, and given a TEDx talk on the power of community. Audiences have consistently described his sessions not as explaining something but as changing something in the atmosphere, in the conversation, in what people say to each other afterward. Key speaking topics Belonging and psychological safety at work Authentic identity and self-permission Community building and collective purpose Team culture and trust Resilience through shared challenge Leadership through enabling others Storytelling as a tool for connection Ideal for CHROs, People Directors, and culture leads building engagement or belonging programmes where intellectual content alone is unlikely to shift behaviour Senior leadership teams and executive offsites where trust, openness, and team cohesion are the underlying agenda Company-wide away days and conferences that need a session capable of shifting energy and atmosphere, not just delivering content Sales, marketing, or client-facing team events where authentic connection and discretionary effort are performance drivers Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of the personal and organisational cost of masking authentic identity at work, expressed through direct, lived experience rather than framework Specific language for talking about belonging, psychological safety, and trust within their own teams Awareness of the default behaviours and autopilot patterns that limit individual and collective performance A reference point – grounded in real community-building at scale – for what genuine belonging actually feels like, not just what it looks like in a policy document A personal prompt to take one specific action toward showing up more honestly, in work or in life

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 Clarence Seedorf The only footballer to have won the UEFA Champions League with three different clubs (Ajax, Real Madrid, and AC Milan twice), meaning he has had to make elite performance work inside three very different institutional cultures. Senior leadership experience on both sides of the performance equation: former head coach of AC Milan, with subsequent head-coaching roles at Shenzhen FC, Deportivo La Coruña and the Cameroon national team. Commercial and institutional credibility beyond the pitch: Bocconi-educated in economics and management, builder of a business portfolio including On International and SK Sports Holding in Dubai (co-founded with Khabib Nurmagomedov), and Advisor to the UEFA President for Social Affairs. Cross-cultural bandwidth that is hard to match: played, led or coached on four continents, and works fluently in six languages (Dutch, English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Sranan Tongo). A substantive public record on inclusion and institutional impact as UEFA Global Ambassador for Diversity and Change, trustee of the UEFA Foundation for Children, founder of the Champions for Children Foundation and the Black Impact Foundation, and a Nelson Mandela Foundation Legacy Champion. Biography highlights Only player in football history to win the UEFA Champions League with three different clubs: Ajax (1995), Real Madrid (1998), AC Milan (2003 and 2007). Domestic league winner in the Netherlands, Spain and Italy; UEFA Club Midfielder of the Year 2006-07; included in the FIFA 100 list of greatest living players selected by Pelé. Former head coach of AC Milan, with additional head-coaching roles at Shenzhen FC, Deportivo La Coruña and the Cameroon national team. Studied economics and management at Bocconi University in Milan; speaks six languages (Dutch, English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Sranan Tongo). UEFA Global Ambassador for Diversity and Change, Advisor to the UEFA President for Social Affairs, trustee of the UEFA Foundation for Children, and a Nelson Mandela Foundation Legacy Champion. Founder of the Champions for Children Foundation (2004) and the Black Impact Foundation; FOX Sports studio analyst for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and lead soccer analyst for Amazon Prime in the UK and Italy. Biography Ajax beat AC Milan in the 1995 Champions League final. Clarence Seedorf, then 19, was in the Ajax midfield. Over the next twelve years, he lifted the trophy three more times, with Real Madrid in 1998 and AC Milan itself in 2003 and 2007. A four-time winner with three different clubs, a record no other footballer has matched. The record matters to organisations because of what it implies about sustained performance at the top. Ajax under Louis van Gaal, Real Madrid through its Galáctico years, and Milan under Carlo Ancelotti were three very different operating environments. Different tactical systems, different languages, different dressing-room cultures, different definitions of how an elite team should behave. Staying at the top of each, across more than a decade, required a specific discipline around what transfers between contexts and what has to be rebuilt from scratch. After retiring, Seedorf moved to the other side of the performance equation as head coach of AC Milan. He subsequently coached at Shenzhen FC, Deportivo La Coruña and the Cameroon national team, extending his professional experience across three more countries. He had already studied economics and management at Bocconi University in Milan during his playing years, which earned him the dressing-room nickname “Il Professore”. He now runs a commercial portfolio that includes the sport management firm On International, the Fingers restaurant group, and SK Sports Holding in Dubai, co-founded with UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. His public role extends into inclusion and institutional impact. He serves as UEFA Global Ambassador for Diversity and Change, Advisor to the UEFA President for Social Affairs, and trustee of the UEFA Foundation for Children. He founded the Champions for Children Foundation in 2004 and the Black Impact Foundation, and is a Nelson Mandela Foundation Legacy Champion chosen to carry Mandela’s message worldwide. Alongside the boardrooms, he has spoken at Oxford, Harvard and the Council of Europe, and in 2026 returns to FOX Sports as a studio analyst for the FIFA World Cup. Key speaking topics High-performance team culture in elite environments Sustained performance across changing organisations and cultures Leadership at the top of global, high-pressure institutions The transition from elite performer to senior leader Cross-cultural leadership across languages and geographies Diversity, inclusion and institutional legacy Ideal for Senior leadership teams working through major strategic or cultural transitions CHROs, talent directors and heads of L&D designing leadership development or high-performance culture programmes Sales organisations and performance-driven functions looking to push established teams to a new level Global and multinational organisations operating across languages and geographies Audience outcomes A sharper view of what actually transfers when a team or organisation moves into a new culture or a new operating structure A vocabulary for talking about elite performance as a repeatable discipline that organisations can teach Specific examples from dressing rooms at Ajax, Real Madrid and AC Milan of how elite teams respond to pressure and setback Renewed confidence that sustained excellence can be built and rebuilt, team after team

Why organisations work with Christian Horner He rebuilt Red Bull Racing’s championship standing twice. The two dominant eras – 2010 to 2013 and 2021 to 2023 – are separated by eight years of Mercedes dominance, making his leadership record one of the few in elite sport that spans genuine decline and recovery, not just a single peak. His pivotal talent decisions include recruiting Adrian Newey from McLaren, developing Sebastian Vettel through the junior system, and promoting Max Verstappen mid-season at 18 – each a bold call taken before the outcome was certain, with verifiable long-term consequences. He ran an independent, UK-based team against factory-backed rivals with greater institutional resources and outcompeted them twice, on culture, structure, and strategic clarity rather than budget. His tenure included real organisational pressures – an FIA budget cap penalty in 2022, the departure of lead technical architect Newey in 2024, and sustained management conflict at parent company level – providing concrete case material on keeping an organisation competitive through reputational and structural challenge. He initiated Red Bull Powertrains and a long-term technical partnership with Ford – a decision to internalise a critical competitive dependency, taken while actively defending championship positions, with consequences measured in performance and cost over a decade. Biography highlights Former Team Principal and CEO, Red Bull Racing, 2005-2025 – longest-serving team principal in the sport during that period 14 Formula 1 World Championship titles: 8 Drivers’ Championships and 6 Constructors’, plus 124 Grand Prix victories Appointed youngest Team Principal in Formula 1 history at age 31 – a record unbroken at the point of his departure in 2025 Founded Arden International; led the team to three consecutive International Formula 3000 teams’ championships (2002-2004) before entering Formula 1 management OBE (2013) and CBE (2024) for services to motorsport Key verified talent decisions include recruiting chief designer Adrian Newey from McLaren and promoting Max Verstappen to the senior team mid-season at 18 Biography Red Bull Racing won its first Formula 1 World Championship in 2010 and its most recent in 2023 – thirteen years apart, with eight years of Mercedes dominance in between. Christian Horner CBE was Team Principal and CEO for all of it. Building the team from an uncompetitive acquisition into a championship operation required bold early decisions. Horner recruited Adrian Newey from McLaren as chief technical architect and developed Sebastian Vettel through the Red Bull junior system. Within five seasons, the team had moved from the back of the grid to world champions. The second era required different thinking. When regulation changes in 2014 ended the first dominant run, Horner navigated nearly eight years without a championship before switching engine supplier from Renault to Honda and promoting Max Verstappen from the junior team mid-season at 18. The four consecutive Drivers’ Championships from 2021 followed from decisions taken when those outcomes were far from certain. Horner led the organisation through an FIA budget cap penalty in 2022 and the departure of lead technical architect Newey in 2024. His CBE (2024), following an OBE (2013), marks national recognition for a record of 14 World Championships and 124 Grand Prix victories built across two decades. Key speaking topics High-performance team leadership Decision-making under competitive pressure Talent identification, succession, and bold recruitment Competitive strategy across long performance cycles Organisational culture in elite performance environments Leading through regulatory and structural change Sustaining resilience across extended performance cycles Ideal for Executive leadership teams and boards responsible for multi-year performance strategy CHROs and people leaders building talent pipelines in high-competition environments CEOs and managing directors leading organisations through competitive disruption or market shifts Transformation leads managing capability builds across multiple cycles Audience outcomes A concrete framework for distinguishing a performance system from a performance moment, and what it takes to build the former. Insight into talent decisions that compound over multiple competitive cycles, drawn from specific, verifiable recruitment and succession calls. Practical lessons in leading through genuine organisational crises – reputational, structural, and competitive – without losing competitive function. Clarity on the leadership differences between building for a first win and sustaining advantage when rivals close the gap. Case examples drawn from 20 years of high-stakes decisions with traceable long-term consequences.

Why organisations work with Chester Elton His frameworks are grounded in the largest empirical base of any comparable culture speaker: studies of more than one million working adults, anchored by a 300,000-person study conducted with Towers Watson for All In – giving boards and HR leaders data they can defend internally. The Carrot Principle and Anxiety at Work sit at opposite ends of the engagement challenge; his ability to address both recognition strategy and workplace anxiety within a single coherent body of work means organisations do not need two different conversations. As a Thinkers50 Coaching Award winner and member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches, his executive coaching practice carries independent third-party validation that extends his value beyond the main stage. His work provides a specific, operational diagnosis – the breakdown between what leaders say they value and what managers actually do day to day – and a toolkit that works at every level of the organisation, not just the C-suite. Named to Inc.’s 2025 Top 50 Leadership & Management Experts and consistently ranked among the world’s top organisational culture authorities by Global Gurus (2017–2025), his standing is validated by named external bodies rather than self-reported credentials. Biography highlights Co-author of five New York Times bestselling books, including The Carrot Principle, All In, Leading with Gratitude, and Anxiety at Work (Harper Business), co-written with Adrian Gostick Books sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide; translated into more than 30 languages Thinkers50 Coaching Award winner; member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Leadership (SCL) Certified Executive Coach Global Gurus research organisation: ranked consistently among the world’s top leadership and organisational culture experts, 2017–2025 Named to Inc.’s 2025 Top 50 Leadership & Management Experts (October 2025) Co-founder, The Culture Works, a global leadership and culture consultancy Media: NBC Today, CBS 60 Minutes, CNN, ABC; quoted in Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fast Company, Financial Times Biography Culture does not fail organisations because leaders lack values. It fails because most managers do not know how to make those values visible in the daily behaviours of their teams. Chester Elton has spent more than two decades building the research base that explains this gap, and identifying what high-performing organisations do differently. His work draws on studies of more than one million working adults, compiled across several large-scale research partnerships. The Carrot Principle established the direct, measurable link between purposeful employee recognition and business outcomes including retention, productivity, and customer satisfaction. All In, produced with research firm Towers Watson, drew on a 300,000-person study to identify the seven practices that generate genuine organisational buy-in. Anxiety at Work – published by Harper Business and the most recent of his five New York Times bestsellers – addressed the other side of the same equation: what happens when uncertainty goes unmanaged and workplace anxiety erodes the culture leaders worked to build. Taken together, these books form one of the most evidence-based frameworks available to executives on how culture is created, sustained, and recovered. Elton is a Thinkers50 Coaching Award winner, a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches, and a Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Leadership certified executive coach. Global Gurus has ranked him among the world’s top leadership and organisational culture experts every year from 2017 to 2025. Inc. named him to its 2025 Top 50 Leadership & Management Experts list. He is co-founder of The Culture Works and has consulted with organisations including American Express, The World Bank, and the New Jersey Devils. What distinguishes him is the range the research covers. Most speakers in this space address either motivation or stress. Elton’s body of work addresses both, and the connection between them. Key speaking topics Employee recognition and culture-building Organisational culture and high-performance teams Workplace anxiety and psychological safety Leading with gratitude Employee engagement strategy Multigenerational workforce leadership Manager capability and team trust Ideal for CHROs and People leaders designing, resetting, or embedding organisational culture programmes CEOs and senior leadership teams navigating workforce anxiety, change, or post-transformation culture repair Talent and leadership development functions seeking research-grounded frameworks for manager effectiveness HR and management associations and industry conferences where practitioner credibility and data-backed content are audience expectations Audience outcomes A diagnostic framework for identifying where culture commitment breaks down between leadership intent and frontline management behaviour Recognition practices tied directly to engagement and retention outcomes, grounded in large-scale empirical research rather than anecdote Practical strategies for identifying workplace anxiety early – before it affects team performance, absenteeism, or attrition A shared organisational vocabulary for discussing culture, gratitude, and psychological safety in operational rather than abstract terms Immediate, actionable steps that managers at any level can apply to strengthen trust and discretionary effort within their teams

Why organisations work with Charles Hazlewood He founded the world’s first large-scale professional ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians, Paraorchestra, and can speak from direct experience about building a high-performing team by designing the assumptions out, not papering over them. His TED talk “Trusting the Ensemble” has been watched by more than half a million people and is used inside leadership programmes because it demonstrates, live on stage with a string ensemble, how trust is given, withheld and rebuilt in real time. He works regularly with the Royal Concertgebouw, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic and the BBC Concert Orchestra, so when he talks about getting sixty independent experts to act as one organism, he is describing his day job, not a metaphor. He converts conducting into a usable language for executives: how a leader holds the room without micromanaging it, how authority sits alongside vulnerability, how a single bad cue ripples through a group for the rest of the performance. He has been recognised by Making Music with the 2023 Sir Charles Groves Prize for outstanding contribution to UK musical life and holds an honorary doctorate in Social Inclusion from Bath Spa University, which locates him credibly at the intersection of artistic excellence and inclusive leadership. Biography highlights Founder and Artistic Director of Paraorchestra, the first large-scale integrated ensemble of professional musicians with and without disabilities. Won first prize at the European Broadcasting Union Conducting Competition, Lisbon, 1995. Conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic, the Swedish Radio Symphony and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Delivered the TED talk “Trusting the Ensemble” in 2011, viewed more than half a million times; one of three TED and TEDx appearances. Three Sony Radio Academy Awards for BBC Radio 2 music programming; Sky Arts Ambassador for Music since 2021. Awarded the Sir Charles Groves Prize by Making Music in 2023 and an Honorary Doctorate of Social Inclusion by Bath Spa University in 2025. Biography A good orchestra looks nothing like a command hierarchy once the baton comes down. Sixty independently brilliant specialists have to act as one living thing, at speed, with no time for committee. Charles Hazlewood has spent thirty years inside that problem, and has built a second career translating what he has learned back out to people running companies. He came up through the classical mainstream. An organ scholarship to Keble College, Oxford, first prize at the European Broadcasting Union conducting competition in Lisbon in 1995, and a conducting life that now runs through the Royal Concertgebouw, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Over 100 world premieres sit on the record. In 2011 he founded Paraorchestra with director Claire Whalley: the world’s first large-scale professional ensemble of disabled and non-disabled virtuosi. Its closing-ceremony debut at the London 2012 Paralympics, performed alongside Coldplay, reached a stated global audience of around a billion. In 2016 the ensemble became the first orchestral headliner at Glastonbury, with Philip Glass’s “Heroes” Symphony. His 2011 TED talk, “Trusting the Ensemble”, is the core of his work with organisations. He conducts a live ensemble on stage, withholds trust, restores it, and shows what each choice does to the sound. Making Music awarded him the Sir Charles Groves Prize in 2023 for outstanding contribution to UK musical life; Bath Spa University conferred an honorary doctorate in Social Inclusion in July 2025. The through-line is consistent: a room of experts does not become an ensemble by accident, and the leader’s job is to make the conditions in which it can. Key speaking topics Leadership and trust Ensemble performance Inclusive leadership and integrated teams Creativity under constraint Authenticity and vulnerability in leadership Culture change through the lens of a conductor Ideal for Executive teams and boards looking to operate as an ensemble rather than a collection of individual stars. CHROs and culture leads working on inclusive leadership, talent design, and what real integration looks like beyond policy. Leadership development programmes that want an embodied, live demonstration of trust and authority rather than a slide deck. Organisations navigating restructure or post-merger integration where the hard task is getting senior specialists to move as one. Audience outcomes A clear, tangible sense of what trust sounds like when it is present in a team, and what collapses when it is not. Language for talking about authority and vulnerability in leadership without defaulting to cliche. A reframe of inclusion grounded in a real example of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians performing at world-class level together. Specific cues for leading experts: how to hold the room without suffocating it, how to signal without scripting, how to recover from a missed entry. An unusually memorable session with a live conductor working with a live ensemble, not a talking-head keynote, that tends to be referenced back inside the business for months afterwards.

Why organisations work with Carl Honoré He makes a specific, testable claim that most management culture resists: that slowing down is not a productivity concession but a competitive advantage, and he has two decades of cross-sector evidence to support it. His Slow Fix framework gives organisations a direct alternative to short-termism in problem-solving, not as a philosophical preference, but as a structured approach to decisions that actually hold. On ageing and the workforce, he converts a topic most organisations treat as a compliance or HR issue into a commercial argument: mixed-age teams outperform across measurable metrics, and ageism is a business risk, not just a social one. His work sits at the junction of two urgent organisational pressures – sustainable performance culture and the longevity economy – giving him a rare dual relevance for leadership teams and people functions simultaneously. As the originator of the Slow Movement – a framework covered by the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist and Time, among others – he brings a level of intellectual ownership that very few speakers in the workplace culture space can claim. Biography highlights Author of In Praise of Slow (2004), Under Pressure, The Slow Fix, and Bolder – published in 36 languages, with bestseller listings across multiple countries Two main-stage TED Talks – «In Praise of Slowness» and «Why We Should Embrace Aging as an Adventure» – with combined views in the millions In Praise of Slow described by the Financial Times as the foundational text of the Slow Movement Journalist whose work has appeared in The Economist, Observer, National Post, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, and Time Named 2024 Advocate for Aging by Next Avenue and the American Society on Aging Creator and presenter of BBC Radio 4 series Status by Carl Honoré; previously presented The Slow Coach for BBC Radio 4 and Frantic Family Rescue for ABC TV Australia Bolder selected as BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and Reader’s Digest (UK) Book of the Month Graduated from the University of Edinburgh; reported across Europe and South America for over a decade before turning to books Biography Speed and youth are the two defaults of modern organisational culture. Carl Honoré has built a career and a global movement on the argument that both are miscalibrated, and that the evidence for changing them is stronger than most organisations acknowledge. In Praise of Slow (2004), the book that gave the Slow Movement its name and its intellectual framework, made a counterintuitive claim: that choosing when to be fast, rather than defaulting to fast, is a more reliable route to performance. The Financial Times placed it as the foundational text of the movement. His third book, The Slow Fix, extended that argument into problem-solving, building the case that organisations addicted to quick responses consistently underperform against those willing to invest time in diagnosis and depth. His more recent work, anchored in Bolder, applies the same analytical lens to age. The demographic case for rethinking older workers is well-established in research; the cultural and commercial case is Honoré’s contribution. His argument that ageism functions as a form of the same bias toward speed and novelty that distorts organisational decision-making, connects the two strands of his work into a coherent framework for leaders. In 2024, that work was recognised by both Next Avenue and the American Society on Aging, who named him an Advocate for Aging. Trained as a journalist at The Economist, Observer, and Time, among other outlets, Honoré brings a mode of inquiry to organisational topics that is grounded in evidence gathered across cultures and sectors, not in a single industry or institutional context. His two main-stage TED Talks have been viewed millions of times; his books are published in 36 languages. Key speaking topics Pace as organisational strategy The Slow Movement and workplace performance Multigenerational workforce design Ageism as a commercial risk Sustainable performance and decision quality The Slow Fix: problem-solving under pressure Status, hierarchy, and organisational culture Longevity and the future of work Ideal for CHROs and people leaders designing age-inclusive workforces and addressing talent retention across generations CEOs and senior leadership teams examining whether performance culture is undermining the quality of decisions and the depth of problem-solving Boards and executive committees navigating the commercial implications of ageing demographics and multigenerational customer bases Culture transformation leads and change management functions rethinking pace, productivity, and sustainable output Audience outcomes A clear framework for diagnosing where organisational speed becomes a liability – in decision-making, leadership, and creative work Evidence-based understanding of why multigenerational teams outperform and what structural changes enable that performance A reframed view of ageism as a commercial and strategic problem, not only a social or legal one Practical approaches drawn from the Slow Fix framework for tackling complex problems without defaulting to short-term solutions Greater awareness of the connection between pace culture and youth bias – and why addressing one typically requires addressing both