Corporate Culture

Why organisations work with Howard Schultz He is one of the only major executives to have led a full crisis turnaround at the same global company twice. That longitudinal experience produces a very different quality of insight than a single transformation story. His 2011 number-one New York Times bestseller “Onward” presents a specific and testable argument: recovering a business means restoring what people came for, not restructuring around it. Within three years of his 2008 return to Starbucks, the stock had risen more than five times from its crisis low. His case for employee investment is built on commercial evidence, not values rhetoric. Starbucks under Schultz was among the first U.S. companies to extend healthcare to part-time workers and to offer equity participation to hourly employees. He presents attrition, service quality, and customer loyalty as the direct outputs. Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011 and included in Time’s “Time 200” most influential people, he holds ethics recognition from Columbia Business School, Notre Dame’s Mendoza College, and UCLA Anderson – providing academic validation of a practical executive record. As co-founder of Maveron, a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management, he brings pattern recognition on consumer brand durability well beyond the Starbucks story. Biography highlights Chairman and CEO of Starbucks across three leadership periods (1986-2000, 2008-2017, 2022-2023), growing the company from 11 stores to 28,000 locations across 77 countries Took Starbucks public in 1992; oversaw nearly $100 billion added to the company’s market capitalisation between 2008 and 2017 Author of four books including “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” (2011), a number-one New York Times bestseller Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011; included in Time magazine’s “Time 200” most influential people Ethics and leadership awards from Columbia Business School (Botwinick Prize), Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business (Hesburgh Award), and UCLA Anderson (John Wooden Global Leadership Award) Co-founder of Maveron (1998), a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management and early investments including eBay and Zulily Biography The most destructive leadership decisions at scale are rarely made during crises. They accumulate during the growth years, when speed and efficiency gradually crowd out the cultural foundations that made a business worth building. Howard Schultz experienced this from the inside, as the architect of Starbucks’ global expansion and the executive who had to reverse the damage when it became visible. His 2008 return as CEO is documented in “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul,” a number-one New York Times bestseller. The argument at the centre of the book is precise: the path back to financial health ran directly through culture, not around it. Employee retraining, the restoration of the in-store experience, and a deliberate recalibration of what Starbucks stood for came before the financial metrics recovered. Within three years of his return, the stock had risen more than five times from its crisis low. His approach to employees follows the same logic. Starbucks under his leadership was among the first U.S. companies to extend healthcare benefits to part-time workers, and it offered equity participation to hourly employees through a programme called Bean Stock. Schultz presented these not as social obligations but as commercial decisions: loyalty, retention, and service quality are measurable outputs of how people are treated, not side effects of good intentions. Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011 and included in Time magazine’s “Time 200,” Schultz holds ethics recognition from Columbia Business School, Notre Dame’s Mendoza College, and UCLA Anderson. As co-founder of Maveron, a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management, he has extended this analysis of brand durability well beyond the Starbucks story. His perspective reaches audiences navigating growth, crisis recovery, and the sustained tension between operational efficiency and cultural health. Key speaking topics Values-based leadership at scale Crisis leadership and organisational recovery Brand culture and long-term commercial performance Global consumer brand strategy Employee investment as competitive strategy Entrepreneurship and growth Corporate responsibility and business ethics Ideal for CEOs and executive leadership teams navigating rapid scaling decisions or organisational turnaround Chief People Officers and HR leadership examining employee value proposition at scale Brand, marketing, and commercial leadership in consumer-facing organisations Boards and senior leaders weighing cultural priorities against short-term commercial pressure Audience outcomes A tested framework for treating culture and commercial performance as mutually reinforcing, not competing priorities Concrete, sequenced lessons from a live turnaround at global scale – what decisions were made, in what order, and why A reframe of employee investment from a cost line to a commercial variable with traceable outcomes Perspective on how a brand’s identity is preserved or eroded through the decisions made at pace and scale Practical insight into leading across multiple organisational phases, including growth, institutional crisis, and recovery

Why organisations work with Henry Timms He has operated at the top of two of the most scrutinised cultural institutions in the United States, Lincoln Center and 92nd Street Y, and can speak to legacy transformation from inside the seat, not from a consulting deck. “New Power,” co-written with Jeremy Heimans, was a Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year finalist and is now one of the standard references for leaders thinking about participatory influence. Buyers get the author, not a secondary interpreter. He built GivingTuesday from a single idea at 92Y into a movement operating in 100 countries that has generated over $13 billion in giving. That is hard evidence of how the framework works in practice. As CEO of Brunswick Group, he now advises global boards and CEOs on exactly the reputational and influence problems the framework was built to address, which keeps the material current rather than retrospective. Biography highlights Chief Executive Officer, Brunswick Group (2024 to present) President and CEO, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (2019 to 2024); oversaw the $550 million renovation of David Geffen Hall Co-founder of GivingTuesday (2012), active in 100 countries Co-author, “New Power” (2018, Doubleday), Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year shortlist Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to the arts and to philanthropy (2022) Hauser Leader, Harvard Kennedy School; Senior Fellow, Stanford University and the United Nations Foundation; member, Council on Foreign Relations Biography Most legacy institutions are not structured for participation. They are structured for authority that flows one way, from the board and the executive outward, and that structure is now breaking in public. The problem Henry Timms works on is what leaders do about it. Timms and Jeremy Heimans gave the shift a name in their 2018 book “New Power,” shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. Old power, in their argument, is held like a currency: hoarded, closed, pushed down. New power operates like a current: open, participatory, shaped by the many. The point is not that one replaces the other. It is that serious leaders now have to run both systems at once. He has done this in practice. At 92nd Street Y he co-founded GivingTuesday in 2012, a movement that now operates in 100 countries and has generated over $13 billion for charitable causes. At Lincoln Center, where he was President and CEO from 2019 to 2024, he oversaw the $550 million renovation of David Geffen Hall and repositioned one of America’s most visible cultural institutions for a more participatory era. As CEO of Brunswick Group, he now advises global boards and CEOs on reputation, influence and institutional trust, with affiliations at Harvard Kennedy School, Stanford, Oxford and the Council on Foreign Relations. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2022 for services to the arts and to philanthropy. Key speaking topics New power and the shift in how influence operates Leading legacy institutions through transformation Building and scaling participatory movements Reputation and trust in a networked era AI and the future of institutional authority Philanthropy, purpose and stakeholder engagement Ideal for CEOs and boards of legacy institutions facing relevance or trust challenges Chief communications, marketing and brand officers rethinking stakeholder influence Foundation and nonprofit leadership teams designing participatory programmes Senior leadership offsites on culture, reputation and institutional change Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for distinguishing old power and new power inside their own organisation Named examples of how global institutions have built participatory strategies without surrendering discipline A clearer read on where their organisation’s authority is eroding and where it can be rebuilt Practical reference points from GivingTuesday, Lincoln Center and Brunswick client work

Her «neurosignature diversity» framework, developed in The Brain-Friendly Workplace, gives leadership teams a precise, science-based explanation for why talent attrition persists after conventional DEI investment – and a specific mechanism to address it. She names the «neurogap» – the structural drift toward dopamine- and testosterone-dominant personality profiles at the top of organisations – and provides a testable diagnostic for closing it, rather than a general aspiration toward inclusion. Her background spans neuroscience research at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and management consulting at McKinsey and Company – a combination that gives her credibility in two domains that most neuroleadership speakers claim from only one. Audiences leave with four mapped neurosignatures linked to specific workplace behaviours, stress responses, and collaboration styles – a concrete tool, not a mindset shift. Her frameworks are published and peer-accessible: a Harvard Business Review article and a Wall Street Journal bestselling book reduce the internal scepticism that evidence-oriented leadership teams typically bring to behavioural science. Biography highlights Neuroscientist trained at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research; alumna of McKinsey and Company Lead author of The Leading Brain: Neuroscience Hacks to Work Smarter, Better, Happier (Random House) – named a Best Management Book by strategy+business Author of The Brain-Friendly Workplace: Why Talented People Quit and How to Get Them to Stay – Wall Street Journal bestseller Harvard Business Review contributor; work featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsweek, and CNBC Member of the socio-political council of acatech, The German Academy for Technology, advising the German government on technology, digitalisation, and AI Advisory board member, NeuroColor; LinkedIn Top Voice Biography At the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Friederike Fabritius studied what actually happens inside the brain under pressure. At McKinsey and Company, she saw what organisations actually do – and how rarely those two things match. The gap between them is the problem her work is built to close. Her central argument, developed across two books and field-tested with organisations including EY, BCG, and Google, is specific: most leadership teams over-represent dopamine- and testosterone-dominant personality types, selecting for stress tolerance in ways that systematically exclude other cognitive profiles. She calls this the neurogap. It explains why talented people leave not because of poor managers but because of poorly calibrated environments – and why retention problems persist despite sustained DEI investment. In The Brain-Friendly Workplace – a Wall Street Journal bestseller – Fabritius maps four neurosignatures tied to distinct workplace behaviours, stress responses, and communication preferences. The framework gives HR and leadership teams a diagnostic built on brain chemistry rather than demographic proxies. Her Harvard Business Review article on neurosignature diversity brought the argument to a practitioner audience; her earlier book, The Leading Brain (named a Best Management Book by strategy+business), established the scientific credibility underpinning it. She serves on the socio-political council of acatech, The German Academy for Technology, which advises the German government on digitalisation and AI – a role that reflects the applied, policy-facing dimension of her science. For boards and senior teams wrestling with sustained performance, retention, and culture, she offers something distinctive: a testable causal model, not a call for behavioural change without a structural explanation. Key speaking topics Neurosignature diversity and talent retention Brain-based leadership and decision-making Peak performance and the neuroscience of flow Cognitive diversity and inclusion Neuroscience of change, uncertainty, and resilience Trust, collaboration, and the social brain Learning, neuroplasticity, and habit formation at work Ideal for CHROs and people leaders responsible for talent strategy and retention outcomes Senior leadership and executive teams seeking evidence-based frameworks for culture design Learning and development leaders building performance or cognitive diversity programmes Boards and transformation leads navigating hybrid work, workforce change, and sustained engagement Audience outcomes A named framework – neurosignature diversity – for diagnosing why current culture drives attrition, with specific, actionable steps to address the neurogap Practical understanding of how brain chemistry shapes performance, stress tolerance, collaboration style, and communication preference across a team Clearer grasp of how to design environments that support cognitive diversity beyond demographic targets Concrete approaches to managing hybrid and distributed teams in line with how different brain types actually work best under pressure Evidence-based perspective on why DEI initiatives stall at the neurological layer – and how to move past aspiration to structural change

Why organisations work with Emmanuel Gobillot His «Disciplined Collaboration» framework reframes organisational silos as a structural problem rather than a cultural failing, naming four specific fears that prevent collective work and providing a tested four-step method for removing them – replacing the generic language of culture programmes with operational tools senior teams can actually deploy. Alive Inside (Routledge, 2026) provides a named seven-principle model for the human leadership qualities – compassion, courage, intuition, presence, storytelling – that AI cannot replicate, giving executive teams a practical basis for deciding where to invest human leadership effort in an AI-enabled organisation. Follow the Leader identifies eight specific elements of charisma that followers respond to, starting from what followers need rather than what leaders should do – a structural inversion that produces more usable diagnostics than prescriptive leadership frameworks. His consulting record at Hay Group, leading both the Consumer Sector practice and the Leadership Services function, and subsequent client work with Google, Vodafone, AstraZeneca, Carlsberg, and the United Nations, gives his frameworks a testing ground that spans sectors, governance structures, and organisational scale. Ten books published with Kogan Page, Routledge, and De Gruyter over twenty years track how leadership must adapt through successive phases of technological change – mass collaboration, networked organisations, and now AI – giving organisations a framework that is cumulative rather than reactive to the latest disruption. Biography highlights Former Director at Hay Group, leading both the Consumer Sector Consulting practice and the Leadership Services function, advising Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 organisations Named corporate clients include Google, Vodafone, Carlsberg, Hilton, AstraZeneca, Zurich Financial Services, and the United Nations Author of ten published books, including Alive Inside (Routledge, 2026), an updated edition of The Connected Leader (De Gruyter, 2024), and earlier titles Leadershift, Disciplined Collaboration, and Follow the Leader (Kogan Page) Contributor to Chief Executive (chiefexecutive.net) on leadership and AI Educated at UWC Atlantic and the University of St Andrews; also holds a Diploma in Management Science from Nottingham Trent University Founder of Emmanuel Gobillot Limited; co-founder of Collaboration Partners consultancy Biography The gap between collaboration as a stated priority and collaboration as an operating reality is one of the most consistent problems in organisations. Most attempts to close it add process or culture without addressing the structural conditions that prevent people from working collectively in the first place. Emmanuel Gobillot has spent twenty years diagnosing that gap – and building the frameworks to close it. At Hay Group, he led the Consumer Sector Consulting practice and then the Leadership Services function, working directly with Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 organisations. Named clients – Google, Vodafone, Carlsberg, AstraZeneca, Zurich Financial Services, the United Nations – span sectors and governance structures. That breadth is the evidence base on which his frameworks are built. The best-known outputs of that work are The Connected Leader (updated edition, De Gruyter, 2024) and Disciplined Collaboration (Kogan Page). Both are built around a consistent argument: that leadership and collective performance require structural architecture, not cultural exhortation. Follow the Leader sharpens this through a specific focus on followership, identifying eight elements of charisma that followers respond to and asking what followers need rather than what leaders should do. Disciplined Collaboration names the four fears that make most collaboration programmes ineffective and provides a tested four-step method for removing them. His most recent book, Alive Inside (Routledge, 2026), extends this thinking into the AI era. Where most leadership responses to AI focus on skills and adaptation, Gobillot asks a more fundamental question: which human leadership qualities cannot be replicated by an algorithm, and how do leaders build authority around them? The answer – a seven-principle framework built on compassion, courage, intuition, presence, and storytelling – gives executive teams a practical model for investing human effort where it is most durable. Key speaking topics Disciplined collaboration and the architecture of collective performance Human leadership advantage in AI-enabled organisations Leadership and followership dynamics Connected leadership and trust-based influence Organisational culture and collective performance Leading through successive phases of technological disruption Ideal for Senior executive and C-suite teams addressing collaboration breakdown across divisions or functions CHROs and people leaders building leadership development programmes that account for AI-driven change Boards and transformation leads evaluating leadership models in AI-enabled environments Organisations where silos, cross-functional friction, or low collective performance are named strategic problems Audience outcomes A structural framework for diagnosing why collaboration initiatives fail and what architecture is missing A named set of human leadership qualities that AI cannot replicate, with a practical model for building authority around them Clarity on the distinction between the performance of teamwork and the structural conditions that produce genuine collective effort Tools drawn from the Disciplined Collaboration and Alive Inside frameworks that apply directly to existing leadership and culture programmes A reframe of the leader-follower relationship that shifts the design question from «what should leaders do?» to «what do followers actually need?»

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

Why organisations work with David Coulthard He brings direct operational experience from three distinct Formula One team environments – Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull – across 15 seasons and 247 races. Most high-performance speakers have one team’s frame of reference. Coulthard has three, including a championship-contending team and an ambitious start-up that became the sport’s dominant force. The Winning Formula (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) is not a memoir retooled as a business book. It is a structured framework – drawing on F1 systems from pit-stop execution to real-time data decision-making – that gives corporate audiences a model to work with, not just a story to enjoy. His post-career record as co-founder of Whisper Films (Channel 4’s F1 production partner) and Velocity Experience means he has built commercial organisations and navigated partnership and governance structures. His leadership perspective is active, not historical. As President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club – the body that owns and governs Silverstone Circuit – he holds a current institutional role at the centre of elite motorsport. He is engaged with the governance and structural challenges of the sport today, not frozen at the moment he retired. His co-founding of More than Equal, a data-led programme to accelerate elite female racing drivers toward Formula One, gives him a credible and specific point of view on inclusive performance cultures – not as a topic layered on, but as something he is actively building. Biography highlights 13 Formula One Grand Prix victories across 15 seasons with Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull Racing (1994-2008); 62 podium finishes and 247 race starts Runner-up in the 2001 F1 World Drivers’ Championship; five top-three championship finishes in total, including a key role in McLaren’s 1998 Constructors’ Championship Delivered Red Bull Racing’s first Formula One podium at the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, elected 2019 (the BRDC owns and operates Silverstone Circuit) Author of The Winning Formula: Leadership, Strategy and Motivation the F1 Way (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) and autobiography It Is What It Is (2007) Co-founder of Whisper Films (Channel 4’s F1 production partner) and Velocity Experience; co-founder of More than Equal (2022), a data-led driver development programme for elite female racing drivers Channel 4 F1 commentator and analyst since 2016; previously BBC F1 pundit (2009-2016) Inaugural recipient of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award (1989); MBE (2010) Biography Formula One is the closest thing in sport to a working model of organisational performance under pressure. Every function – engineering, strategy, risk management, execution – must be aligned in real time, with the cost of misalignment immediate and public. David Coulthard spent 15 seasons inside that system, winning 13 Grands Prix across Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull. At McLaren through the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was part of one of the sport’s most technically and strategically demanding environments. He finished runner-up in the 2001 World Drivers’ Championship and played a central role in McLaren’s 1998 Constructors’ Championship. He later helped establish Red Bull Racing on the F1 podium in 2006 – the early foundation of what became the sport’s most dominant team. Those two environments give his perspective on performance culture an unusual range: what elite execution looks like when every resource is already optimised, and what it takes to build performance discipline in an organisation that is still finding its feet. His book The Winning Formula (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) sets out a structured framework for applying F1’s operational principles to business leadership. From pit-stop execution as a model for team accountability, to decision-making under real-time pressure with incomplete information, the book draws direct lines between elite motorsport practice and the challenges leadership teams actually face. As President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club – which owns and operates Silverstone Circuit – he holds an active governance role at the centre of the sport. Coulthard has built organisations as well as addressed them. He co-founded Whisper Films, which produces Channel 4’s Formula One coverage in the UK. He also co-founded More than Equal in 2022 – a data-led programme designed to create a pathway for the first woman to race in Formula One in the modern era. That combination of elite sporting record, published intellectual framework, and active commercial and institutional roles makes his leadership perspective harder to replicate than it might first appear. Key speaking topics High-performance decision-making under pressure Leadership accountability in elite team environments Strategy and execution alignment Performance culture and team cohesion Risk management in competitive conditions Entrepreneurship and commercial venture-building in elite sport Ideal for Senior leadership and C-suite teams in high-stakes or performance-driven industries CHROs and people leaders building or benchmarking high-performance team cultures Strategy and transformation leads examining how decision-making disciplines are built and sustained under pressure Executive development programmes at major corporate, professional services, or financial institutions Audience outcomes A transferable model for decision-making under pressure, drawn directly from F1 operational practice and articulated in The Winning Formula Concrete examples of how world-class teams structure accountability when execution cannot be approximate A sharper understanding of where the gap between strategic intent and operational delivery opens up – and how elite environments close it Reference points for building cultures where performance expectations hold under stress, not just in planning conditions Practical insight into what team composition, role clarity, and real-time feedback look like when they are working at the highest level

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