Corporate Culture

Why organisations work with Elia Gourgouris Eighteen years of private clinical psychology practice behind the keynote. When he talks about mental health and workplace wellbeing, the substance is clinical experience translated for a corporate audience. A named framework in 7 Paths to Lasting Happiness, now published in Mandarin, Cantonese and Greek editions. Audiences leave with a structured model they can put into operational practice the following week. A dedicated crisis playbook in 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis, co-written with Konstantinos Apostolopoulos for pandemic-era and crisis conditions. Useful when leaders need wellbeing guidance that still works when the ground is moving. Active across the US and Europe, with recent keynotes at KPMG’s 25 HR Symposium and the Hellenic Institute of Customer Service in Greece. A practical option for organisations with European operations that want a speaker fluent in both Anglo-American and Greek corporate cultures. Works with leaders between events, not only from the stage. An active executive coaching practice means the keynote is grounded in current client work, and follow-up coaching is available when an organisation needs more than a one-off session. Biography highlights President of The Happiness Center, a positive psychology practice focused on corporate wellness and personal success. Founding Partner at The Global Institute of Thought Leadership. Author of 7 Paths to Lasting Happiness, Amazon bestseller translated into Mandarin, Cantonese and Greek. Co-author with Konstantinos Apostolopoulos of 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis: A Practical Guide to Emotionally Dealing with Pandemics and Other Disasters. Keynote engagements include KPMG’s 25 HR Symposium, the Hellenic Institute of Customer Service, and sessions for Bank of America audiences. BA in Psychology from UCLA, followed by MA and PhD in psychology, and eighteen years in private clinical practice before moving into executive coaching and keynote work. Regular contributor to Thrive Global; co-host of The Kindness and Happiness Connection podcast. Biography Workplace wellbeing programmes often fail at the join between clinical insight and operational reality. Clinicians know what changes behaviour under pressure. Boards know what gets funded. Most corporate well-being work lives in the first category without translation to the second. Eighteen years as a clinical psychologist in private practice sit behind Dr. Gourgouris’s current work as an executive coach and keynote speaker. His 7 Paths to Lasting Happiness framework, published in 2015 and now available in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Greek editions, is the practitioner synthesis of that clinical career. The second book, 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis, co-written with Konstantinos Apostolopoulos, extends the framework to acute conditions. It was written during the pandemic and has since been used across corporate transitions and personal adversity. Recent corporate keynotes include KPMG’s 25 HR Symposium, the Hellenic Institute of Customer Service, and sessions for Bank of America audiences. Outside the corporate practice, Gourgouris was Executive Producer of the reality series Cash Cowboys and is developing a new series, The Kindness Givers. He contributes regularly to Thrive Global and co-hosts The Kindness and Happiness Connection podcast. The media work reaches audiences that the HR briefing rarely does, and carries the same clinical argument across. Key speaking topics Positive leadership Corporate wellbeing and mental health Workplace culture and trust Resilience and agility Crisis navigation and recovery Employee engagement and retention Ideal for CHROs and people leaders are rebuilding culture after a period of change or organisational distress. CEOs and senior leadership teams where burnout and retention have become board-level issues. Wellbeing and mental health function leaders looking to add clinical credibility to in-house programmes. Corporate audiences in Greece and wider Europe, where a speaker fluent in both Anglo-American and Greek corporate cultures adds value. Audience outcomes The 7 Paths to Lasting Happiness model is applied to personal practice and to how a team is run. Language and evidence to argue for wellbeing and mental health as measurable business inputs. Specific techniques for building team resilience and trust that can be used in the next team meeting. A clinical perspective on what actually changes behaviour under pressure, and what tends to fail.

Why organisations work with Shola Kaye Her Emotional Audacity™ framework reframes empathy as an organisational capability – not a personal virtue – giving leaders a structured approach to courageous communication that is immediately applicable in high-pressure, high-stakes environments She holds an unusual credibility position: a Cambridge and Emory-trained scientist who also performed professionally on four continents. That combination makes her content land differently with technical and analytical audiences who typically resist people-skills programming Her work addresses a gap that DEI programmes and EQ training often miss separately: the intersection of speaking up, psychological safety, and inclusive communication as a single, integrated practice Her two published books and LinkedIn Learning instructor role mean buyers are extending into a content ecosystem, not just a single keynote She has worked across the full range of organisational contexts – from board-level at institutions including The United Nations and Deloitte to company-wide culture programmes – with consistent evidence of rebooking Biography highlights BA Natural Sciences, Cambridge University; PGCE, Oxford University; MSc Analytical Chemistry / Neuropharmacology, Emory University, with postgraduate research at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Early career in IT management consulting with clients including Goldman Sachs and Prudential Assurance, followed by account director roles in aviation and finance Professional entertainer and jazz singer; performed on four continents including BBC appearances Author of How to be a D.I.V.A. at Public Speaking (Amazon.com #1 bestseller) and Big Talk, Small Talk and Everything in Between (Callisto Media, 2020) Winner of the Jenny Seagrove Speaking Award (2016); Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), Toastmasters International; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) Regular contributor to Management Today, HR Zone, and People Management; featured in Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Forbes, and BBC; TEDx speaker on empathy in the workplace Biography Shola Kaye spent her early career moving between worlds that rarely overlap: neuroscience research at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, management consulting at investment banks in New York and London, and professional performance on stages across four continents. That trajectory is not a curiosity: it is the basis of her work. She understands analytically rigorous environments, the dynamics of corporate invisibility, and what it takes to hold a room. The core tension she addresses is one that organisations consistently underinvest in: the gap between stated inclusion values and the actual behavioural competencies required to make them real. Most people, even experienced leaders, struggle to give honest feedback, speak up under pressure, or navigate difficult conversations without defensiveness. Kaye’s Emotional Audacity™ framework names this gap explicitly: combining empathy, self-regulation, and courageous communication into a single, teachable practice. Her two books and a TEDx talk on workplace empathy establish the intellectual architecture behind the keynotes. Her contributors to Management Today, HR Zone, and People Management position her as a credible voice in the professional management conversation, not only on the conference circuit. Clients including The United Nations, Deloitte, HSBC, Google, and IBM have rebooked or extended her programmes into training formats, evidence that the content holds beyond a single session. What makes Kaye distinctive in a crowded DEI and communication space is the precise nature of her argument: that empathy, done seriously, is not a softening of leadership but a structural condition for high performance. For organisations navigating transformation, hybrid work, or underrepresentation challenges, that reframe tends to land where other approaches have not. Key speaking topics Empathy at work Inclusive leadership Psychological safety and communication Emotional intelligence Courageous workplace communication Diversity, equity and belonging People-first culture Feedback and difficult conversations Ideal for CHROs and People Directors building cultures where psychological safety is a practical reality, not an aspiration Leadership development programmes targeting mid-to-senior leaders managing diverse, distributed, or technically-oriented teams Organisations running DEI initiatives that need to move beyond awareness into behavioural change International Women’s Day and women’s leadership events where communication confidence and visibility are the focus Audience outcomes A named framework (Emotional Audacity™) for integrating empathy, courageous communication, and inclusive behaviour into daily leadership practice Practical tools for navigating difficult conversations, delivering constructive feedback, and creating environments where people feel safe to speak up Greater understanding of the structural conditions – not just the personal attitudes – that determine whether inclusion is felt in practice Specific techniques for communicating with clarity and impact, particularly for those in technical, analytical, or STEM-rooted working environments Renewed understanding of how communication behaviours at the manager level directly affect team performance, retention, and innovation output

Why organisations work with Dunja Hayali A working anchor on ZDF’s flagship heute-journal and main presenter of ZDF-Morgenmagazin, which means boards and conference organisers are hiring the same journalistic judgement that reaches millions of German viewers every morning. Trained to interview politicians, CEOs and activists on live television without losing the thread, an asset when a panel includes genuinely opposing positions or a keynote speaker the room wants pressed. Carries public recognition for civic engagement, including the Bundesverdienstkreuz and the Goldene Kamera Integration award, which signals to international audiences that the chair on stage has standing beyond the broadcast booth. Works fluently in German and English, useful for DAX-30, EU-level and cross-border corporate forums that need a single moderator across languages. Author of “Haymatland” (Ullstein, 2018), a published argument on belonging, migration and social cohesion that she can draw on directly when a brief calls for substantive contribution as well as stage craft. Biography highlights Main presenter, ZDF-Morgenmagazin (since 2010); joined the heute-journal presenting team in 2023. Former host, “dunja hayali” talk show on ZDF (2017-2020), and co-presenter of das aktuelle sportstudio (2018-2023). Recipient of the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit, 2018) for engagement against racism and online hate. Goldene Kamera 2016, Integration category. Author, “Haymatland: Wie wollen wir zusammenleben?” (Ullstein, 2018); co-author, “Ist’ was, Dog?” (Ullstein, 2014). UNICEF supporter and active with the initiative “Gesicht Zeigen! Fuer ein weltoffenes Deutschland”. Biography Live television is where reputations get made or broken in real time. For most of the last two decades, Dunja Hayali has been one of the German journalists entrusted with that responsibility, first on ZDF’s morning news strand and now also on the evening flagship heute-journal. That role is the anchor of her speaking work. When a corporate conference, political forum or industry gala books her, they are not buying a keynote lecture. They are buying the same interviewer who questions ministers before breakfast and the same composure that keeps a studio conversation on track when a guest tries to pull it elsewhere. Her publishing and civic work give that stage presence a specific edge. “Haymatland” (Ullstein, 2018) sets out her thinking on migration, belonging and social cohesion, drawing on her own Iraqi-German background. The Bundesverdienstkreuz followed in 2018 for her public stand against racism and online abuse, recognition anchored by her long association with Gesicht Zeigen! and UNICEF. The practical case for organisations is narrow and strong. When an event puts senior leaders, politicians or campaigners on the same panel and the room will not settle for bland, Hayali is one of the few moderators in the German market with the journalistic standing, bilingual reach and on-stage authority to run it cleanly. Key speaking topics Live event moderation and panel chairing Political and current affairs interviews Media, journalism and public discourse Social cohesion, integration and belonging Civic engagement and countering online hate Sport and public broadcasting Bilingual (German / English) corporate moderation Ideal for Corporate and industry conferences needing a senior moderator for keynotes, panels and plenaries with politicians, CEOs or regulators in the room. Award ceremonies, galas and anniversary events that require an anchor-grade host rather than an entertainer. CSR, DEI and civic-themed summits where the moderator’s own public record on integration and anti-racism adds credibility. Bilingual German / English forums in DAX-30, EU policy and cross-border corporate settings. Audience outcomes Conversations that stay on the agenda the organiser actually wanted, including the difficult questions. Senior speakers handled with the same level of preparation and follow-up they would expect from a flagship news interview. A neutral, credible chair presence that lets sensitive topics (migration, political polarisation, corporate controversy) be discussed without tipping into spectacle. Clear narrative threading across a multi-speaker programme, so that plenaries, panels and Q and A feel like one event rather than a sequence of slots.

Why organisations work with Hasnain Kazim He has spent a decade testing, in public, what actually works when people shout at you. “Post von Karlheinz” turned his replies to hate mail into a national bestseller, and the method underneath it travels directly into how leaders and communications teams handle hostile audiences. He reports from inside the conditions most executives only read about. Six years as a Der Spiegel foreign correspondent in Islamabad and Istanbul, ended by the Turkish state refusing to renew his press credentials, gives him concrete material on authoritarian drift, migration and press freedom rather than abstract commentary. He speaks and writes in German and English with equal fluency, which matters for DAX and European-headquartered organisations briefing a single voice across jurisdictions on identity, integration and public discourse. He works as both author and moderator. The same person who wrote the argument can host the board dinner, chair the panel, or carry an awards night, which reduces briefing overhead for events that need a serious thinker on stage. His published rhetorical guide, “Auf sie mit Gebruell!”, is specifically about how to argue in public against populism without losing the room. That is a usable internal-comms and leadership-communication frame, not a lecture topic. Biography highlights Der Spiegel South Asia correspondent, Islamabad, 2009 to 2013. Der Spiegel Turkey correspondent, Istanbul, 2013 to 2016; left after the Turkish government refused to renew his press credentials. CNN Journalist Award winner, 2009. Bestselling author with Penguin Verlag, including “Post von Karlheinz” (2018) and “Auf sie mit Gebruell!” (2019). Studied political science in Hamburg; served as an officer in the German Navy, 1994 to 2000. Keynote speaker at re:publica 2022 on language in times of division; regular contributor to IPS Journal and Goethe-Institut publications. Biography The Turkish government refused to renew his press credentials in 2016, and with them his legal residency. Hasnain Kazim had been Der Spiegel’s Istanbul correspondent for three years. He moved his reporting on Turkey, and later on identity and migration across Europe, to Vienna. The work before and after that moment is unusually concrete. Four years as South Asia correspondent in Islamabad, three in Istanbul, a CNN Journalist Award in 2009, and a German Navy officer’s commission before any of that. For organisations trying to understand what authoritarian pressure, migration and press freedom actually look like on the ground, this is first-hand material rather than commentary. The second arc of the career is what makes him useful in a room of executives. Since 2018, as a full-time author with Penguin Verlag, he has built a public method for responding to hostility. “Post von Karlheinz” collected his replies to racist and abusive reader mail, became a long-running bestseller, and turned him into a case study for the Dangerous Speech Project. “Auf sie mit Gebruell!” followed, a rhetorical handbook for arguing with populists without surrendering the tone. That body of work gives him something most geopolitics speakers do not have: a practical grammar for how leaders, communications teams and frontline staff should actually speak in a climate where silence reads as complicity and escalation damages the brand. He writes and speaks in German and English, and works as both keynote speaker and moderator for events that need a single serious voice to carry the evening. Key speaking topics Counterspeech and responding to online hostility Language, polarisation and public discourse Migration, identity and integration in Europe Populism, extremism and democratic resilience Press freedom and authoritarian pressure Germany, Turkey and South Asia in geopolitical context Ideal for CHROs and internal-communications leaders dealing with polarisation inside the workforce. External communications, public affairs and brand teams briefing leaders on migration, identity and reputational risk. Boards and executive committees at European-headquartered organisations working through integration, DEI or social-cohesion questions in their markets. Conference organisers and awards committees looking for a serious bilingual moderator or host. Audience outcomes A concrete method for replying to hostile or abusive communication, drawn from a published and tested body of practice. A clearer read on how language choices in internal and external communication either defuse or deepen division. First-hand perspective on Turkey, South Asia and migration into Europe from someone who reported on them under pressure. A sharper sense of what leaders can say in public on contested social questions without conceding ground to populism.

Why organisations work with Oliver Heath He authored the Human Spaces report with Interface, the first global study quantifying the impact of biophilic design on workplace wellbeing and productivity, and brings that evidence base directly into the room. His design practice has delivered biophilic workplace projects for Apple, Bloomberg, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank and Knight Frank Investment Management, so the talk is grounded in live commercial fit-outs, not theory. He works at the intersection of design and research through projects like the BRE Biophilic Office, giving leaders post-occupancy data on what design changes actually shift staff behaviour and outcomes. He translates complex environmental psychology into specific actions a property, HR or facilities team can brief their architects on the next morning. Biography highlights Founder and Director of Oliver Heath Design, an architecture and interior design practice focused on health, wellbeing and biophilic design in the built environment. Trained at Oxford Brookes and The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL (Postgraduate Architectural Studies, with distinction). Winner of the BBC Young Designer of the Year, 1998. Author of “Design a Healthy Home” (Dorling Kindersley, 2021) and “Urban Eco Chic” (Quadrille). Lead author and presenter of the Human Spaces global report on biophilic design in the workplace, in partnership with Interface. Television credits include BBC’s Changing Rooms, DIY SOS and Home Front, and a TEDxUCL talk titled “Biophilic Design: Supporting People and Planet”. Biography The argument for designing offices around human wellbeing used to sit on the soft side of a property brief. The Human Spaces report, written with Interface and based on data from sixteen countries, quantified what designers had been claiming for years: workplaces that bring in natural light, planting and views report measurable lifts in employee wellbeing and productivity. Oliver Heath was the lead voice behind that study. His Brighton-based practice, Oliver Heath Design, has applied the same principles to live workplace projects for Apple, Bloomberg, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank and Knight Frank Investment Management. The work pairs design with measurement; the Knight Frank project, for example, was followed by a post-occupancy staff survey to evidence the shift in how the space supported its people. He also sits on the research side. Oliver Heath Design has worked with the BRE on the Biophilic Office project, a long-running study of what specific design interventions do to occupant behaviour over time. That combination of practising studio and research collaborator is what allows him to brief a board on biophilic design without slipping into either jargon or hype. His training is architectural: Oxford Brookes, then a postgraduate at The Bartlett, UCL, with distinction. He won BBC Young Designer of the Year in 1998 and has remained a public-facing voice on sustainable and healthy interiors since, through his books “Design a Healthy Home” and “Urban Eco Chic”, a TEDxUCL talk on biophilic design, and television work for the BBC. Key speaking topics Biophilic design in the workplace Healthy buildings and occupant wellbeing Sustainable and regenerative interior design Workplace productivity and design strategy Post-occupancy evaluation and design evidence ESG and the built environment Healthy homes and residential wellbeing Ideal for Heads of corporate real estate, workplace and facilities planning a major office redesign or relocation CHROs and people leaders linking wellbeing, engagement and physical environment Sustainability and ESG leads embedding human-centred design into net zero programmes Architects, interior designers and developers commissioning research-led briefs Audience outcomes A clear definition of biophilic design and the specific patterns that have measurable wellbeing and productivity effects Quantified evidence from the Human Spaces report and BRE Biophilic Office on what design changes shift outcomes Named workplace examples, from Apple to Knight Frank, showing how biophilic design is actually delivered at scale A practical brief that property, HR and sustainability teams can take back to their architects and project managers A sharper view of how building design connects to wellbeing strategy, ESG reporting and talent retention

Why organisations work with Sue Garrard She has operated inside one of the most scrutinised corporate sustainability programmes in the world – accountable for 72 time-bound targets, managing teams across 180 markets, and delivering the commercial result: Unilever’s sustainable living brands growing 67% faster than the rest of the portfolio. She was part of the four-person leadership team that handled Kraft Heinz’s hostile takeover approach – giving her first-hand experience of the moment ESG strategy is tested by investor pressure in real time. She brings a specific, transferable argument: that sustainability is not a constraint on commercial performance but, if properly embedded, a measurable driver of brand growth. She has the data to demonstrate it. Her advisory work spans financial services (Lloyds Bank, NatWest), consumer goods (Mars, Danone, Heineken), and retail (Primark, O2) – sectors with structurally different ESG pressures – which means she can hold a credible board conversation across industries, not just in one. As Chair of Trustees at Blueprint for Better Business and a Fellow at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, she is positioned at the intersection of corporate practice and governance – not a pure consultant, not a pure academic. Biography highlights Former Executive Vice President, Sustainable Business and Communications, Unilever (2014–2018) – accountable for the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan across 180 markets Founder, Sue Garrard Consulting (2019–present); advisory clients include Mars, ABF/Primark, Lloyds Bank, NatWest Banking Group, Danone, Heineken, Natura, O2, the RHS, and the BBC Chair of Trustees, Blueprint for Better Business (founder trustee) Fellow, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL); tutors on senior executive education programmes Visiting Fellow, Cranfield School of Management; Fellow of the RSA Ranked 13th in Forbes’ Top 100 Women Sustainability Influencers Worldwide (November 2020) Board member, Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit Former Director General, Customer Strategy and Communications, UK Department for Work and Pensions Biography At Unilever, Sue Garrard held responsibility for the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan – 72 quantified, time-bound targets, teams across 180 markets, and a direct mandate to make sustainability a driver of brand performance. By the time she left in 2018, Unilever’s sustainable living brands were growing 67% faster than the rest of the portfolio and representing 70% of company growth. That is not a communications outcome; it is a commercial one, and it was achieved by connecting ESG commitments to operational accountability across the business. She was also part of the four-person team, led by the CEO, that managed the rebuttal of Kraft Heinz’s hostile takeover bid. That experience – sustainability strategy meeting acute investor pressure – gives her a board-level fluency that most advisers in this space do not have. She understands what it looks like when a company’s long-term purpose is tested by short-term market logic. Since founding Sue Garrard Consulting in 2019, she has advised boards and executive teams at Mars, Danone, Lloyds Bank, NatWest, ABF/Primark, Heineken, O2, and others across consumer goods, financial services, and retail. Both Primark and the Royal Horticultural Society launched public sustainability strategies in 2021 built on her work. She tutors on CISL’s senior executive education programmes at Cambridge, and serves as Chair of Trustees at Blueprint for Better Business. Forbes placed her 13th in its global ranking of the top 100 women sustainability influencers in 2020. Her public argument, consistently made across interviews and platforms, is direct: sustainability is not a moral addition to business strategy – it is business strategy, and the organisations that treat it otherwise are building structural risk into their commercial model. Key speaking topics Corporate sustainability strategy and commercial integration ESG governance and board accountability Sustainable brand growth and marketing Stakeholder and investor scrutiny Net zero strategy and organisational transition Purpose-led business leadership Public–private sector leadership Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives navigating ESG accountability and investor pressure Chief Sustainability Officers and sustainability leadership teams building or overhauling strategy Brand and marketing leadership teams connecting sustainability to growth Organisations in financial services, consumer goods, or retail at a strategic inflection point on sustainability Audience outcomes A clearer framework for connecting sustainability targets to commercial performance metrics, not just reporting obligations Practical understanding of what large-scale ESG integration looks like operationally – including where it fails and why A more credible way to articulate the business case for sustainability to boards, investors, and senior leadership teams Insight into how to navigate investor and stakeholder scrutiny when sustainability commitments are challenged Perspective on the governance structures that sustain long-term sustainability commitment through leadership and market cycles

Why organisations work with Sir Dave Brailsford His named “aggregation of marginal gains” framework is documented in the Harvard Business Review and has been formally referenced beyond sport – including in UK government education policy – giving it cross-sector credibility that sports performance anecdotes alone do not carry. British Cycling under his direction won eight Olympic golds at Beijing and eight more at London. The results are publicly verifiable, tracked to a specific method, and not attributable to a single talented athlete – which is precisely the argument he makes to senior leaders. He built Team Sky from scratch in a sport where no British rider had ever won the Tour de France, then guided three different British riders to six victories in seven years. The case is not that he managed winners – it is that he built the system that produced them. His MBA from Sheffield Hallam University and degree in Sports Science and Psychology mean his performance framework connects explicitly to business concepts leaders already know – including Kaizen and continuous improvement theory – but tested in conditions of measurable outcomes and full public scrutiny. As Director of Sport at INEOS, he has applied his performance architecture across multiple elite sport organisations and disciplines, testing where the method transfers and where it meets its limits – giving his cross-context perspective a rigour that pure sporting nostalgia does not. Biography highlights Performance Director, British Cycling, 2003-2014; Great Britain led the Olympic cycling medal table at both Beijing 2008 (8 golds) and London 2012 (8 golds) under his direction Founding Team Principal, Team Sky (2010), later INEOS Grenadiers; the team won six Tour de France titles in seven years, with Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, and Geraint Thomas Knighted in 2013, Queen’s New Year Honours, for services to cycling and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Featured in Harvard Business Review (October 2015): “How 1% Performance Improvements Led to Olympic Gold” BSc Sport and Exercise Sciences and Psychology, Chester College of Higher Education; MBA, Sheffield Hallam University BBC Sports Personality of the Year – Coach Award (referenced across multiple bureau profiles for the 2008 and 2012 successes); inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame Director of Sport, INEOS, from December 2021 Biography British Cycling in 2003 was a programme with one Olympic gold medal to its name in 76 years. Dave Brailsford arrived as Performance Director that year, bringing an MBA from Sheffield Hallam University and a degree in Sports Science and Psychology to a discipline that had been managed largely on instinct. Within five years, the team won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. The method he named the aggregation of marginal gains was built on a simple logic. Break down every element that contributes to performance, improve each by one per cent, and the compound effect becomes significant. In a Harvard Business Review interview in 2015, he described the underlying architecture as three Podium Principles – strategy, human performance rooted in behavioural psychology, and continuous improvement. The framework was designed to be systematic, not inspirational. He founded Team Sky as Team Principal in 2010, in a sport where no British rider had ever won the Tour de France. The team produced six Tour victories in seven years, each achieved by a different British rider. It became one of the most closely documented examples of system-driven, sustained performance in elite sport. Brailsford was knighted in 2013 for services to cycling and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. He was appointed Director of Sport at INEOS in 2021, extending his performance framework across multiple elite sport organisations. His argument to senior leaders has remained consistent: the distance between ambition and execution is almost always a systems problem, and systems can be designed. Key speaking topics Aggregation of marginal gains High-performance leadership systems Performance standards and organisational culture Continuous improvement at scale Building and governing elite teams Translating elite sport architecture to organisational contexts Ideal for CEOs and senior executive teams responsible for sustained organisational performance Boards and transformation leads working on closing the gap between strategic ambition and consistent execution Leadership development programmes seeking a systems-level, evidence-based framework for high performance Organisations undergoing significant performance reset, where standards, accountability, and culture are being rebuilt Audience outcomes A working understanding of the aggregation of marginal gains as a leadership framework – what it actually requires from an organisation, not just as a motivational concept A replicable architecture for the Podium Principles (strategy, human performance, continuous improvement) and how they apply outside elite sport A more precise language for the relationship between leadership standards, organisational culture, and consistent execution Specific insight into the limits of talent-based thinking and the structural advantages of systems-based approaches to performance A reference case for how a performance transformation is engineered, with results that are publicly documented and directly traceable to method

Why organisations work with Alf Rehn His central argument runs against the grain of the innovation industry: that most of what organisations call innovation is performance, not practice – and that rebuilding the real thing requires dismantling the very frameworks many have paid consultants to install. Innovation for the Fatigued (Kogan Page) provides a named, publishable framework – “deep innovation” – that gives leadership teams a vocabulary to diagnose and address innovation theatre without discarding ambition. His current research at SDU’s Center for Organizational Datafication and its Ethics in Society gives him a credible, peer-reviewed lens on how AI and algorithmic systems are reshaping management and innovation decisions – a perspective grounded in data, not trend commentary. Having held chairs at three universities across Finland, Denmark and Sweden, and served on the board of a billion-dollar corporation, he operates across the researcher-practitioner boundary in a way that is rare in the innovation speaking space. His Thinkers50 Guru Radar inclusion (2016) and coverage in the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and Harvard Business Review give buyers a named, verifiable body of external endorsement to anchor the engagement. Biography highlights Professor of Innovation, Design and Management, University of Southern Denmark Head of the Center for Organizational Datafication and its Ethics in Society, SDU – researching AI’s effects on management, innovation and algorithmic ethics Previously held the Chair of Management and Organisation at Åbo Akademi University, Finland; and a professorship in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden Named to Thinkers50 Guru Radar (2016) – listed among “the 30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future of management” Author of Innovation for the Fatigued (Kogan Page) and Dangerous Ideas – the latter translated into eight languages Featured in the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and Harvard Business Review; over 1,000 keynotes delivered across five continents Biography Alf Rehn has spent much of his academic career making the same uncomfortable argument: that organisations are not suffering from a lack of innovation, but from an excess of innovation theatre. His book Innovation for the Fatigued, published by Kogan Page, names this problem directly – and his concept of “deep innovation” offers a framework for distinguishing creative cultures that produce real output from those that have learned to imitate one. That critique has weight because of where it comes from. Rehn holds a chair in Innovation, Design and Management at the University of Southern Denmark, where he also leads the Center for Organizational Datafication and its Ethics in Society – a research unit examining how AI and algorithmic technologies are changing the way executives, engineers and managers make decisions. He has previously held professorships at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, combining research across critical management studies, creativity and organisational theory. His earlier book Dangerous Ideas – translated into eight languages – argues that the ideas organisations most need are precisely the ones they are instinctively disposed to dismiss. Together, the two books form a coherent intellectual position: that genuine innovation requires not better processes but the courage to engage with what is uncomfortable, inconvenient and structurally difficult. Named to the Thinkers50 Guru Radar in 2016 and covered by the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and Harvard Business Review, Rehn engages boards and executive teams on the strategic gap between innovation ambition and innovation reality – and on how emerging technologies, including AI, are creating new versions of the same problem. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and organisational creativity Innovation fatigue and deep innovation Creative cultures and their destruction Dangerous and unconventional ideas in business AI, datafication and ethics in management Leadership paradox and contradictory demands on leaders Scenario planning and taboo futures Contrarian and critical thinking in strategy Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and strategy leads seeking to audit and rebuild innovation culture Executive leadership teams who have invested in innovation programmes with limited return Boards and C-suite audiences examining how AI is reshaping organisational decision-making CHROs and transformation leads working on the cultural conditions for sustained creativity Audience outcomes A clearer diagnostic for distinguishing genuine creative capacity from performative innovation activity Practical language and frameworks from Innovation for the Fatigued to challenge and rebuild internal innovation practice A more rigorous approach to unconventional and uncomfortable ideas, informed by the argument of Dangerous Ideas Familiarity with how AI and algorithmic systems are reshaping management decisions, grounded in current academic research A more honest account of what leadership under contradictory demands actually requires – and how to navigate it without resolving it

Why organisations work with Zara Janjua She brings broadcast-grade interviewing into corporate rooms, drawing on more than 500 live hours of television and national news experience across BBC, ITV and STV. She is the host NatWest chose for its Women in Business podcast, its skills development series, and its internal What’s The Chat? podcast, which makes her a credible anchor for organisations building long-running internal communications platforms, not one-off events. She has chaired the Financial Alliance for Women Summit and the EBRD Conference on Skills Development in Central Asia, so she is briefed on how senior delegates expect inclusion and skills conversations to be handled at international level. As a Scottish Pakistani broadcaster who reported from the New York Times Climate Hub at COP26 with interviewees including John Kerry and Al Gore, she carries cultural range and journalistic credibility into rooms where both are tested. She is an appointed member of NatWest’s Ethnicity Advisory Council, which gives her a working view of how a major institution actually moves on inclusion, not just how it speaks about it. Biography highlights BAFTA, NTA and RTS award-winning broadcaster across BBC, ITV and STV. Reporter for the New York Times Climate Hub at COP26. Host of NatWest’s Women in Business podcast and What’s The Chat? internal communications podcast. Highly Commended finalist, Women of the Future Awards, sponsored by Oxford University and the Financial Times. Named in Scotland’s Top 100 Business Women, 2024. Columnist for The Scottish Sun and contributor to The Guardian; founder of Scottistani Productions. Biography The corporate stage rewards a specific kind of host. Someone who can interview a senior leader without flattening them, hold a panel to its actual argument, and carry an audience through difficult subject matter without performing concern. Janjua has spent more than fifteen years building that craft in live television and national news. Her broadcasting career runs across BBC, ITV and STV, with national news, daytime and comedy credits, and more than 500 live hours of TV. She reported for the New York Times Climate Hub at COP26, securing interviews with John Kerry, Al Gore, Stella McCartney and Vanessa Nakate. That same interviewing discipline now shapes how she chairs summits and moderates panels for commercial clients. NatWest is the clearest signal of how she is used inside organisations. She hosts the bank’s Women in Business podcast, its skills development series and its internal What’s The Chat? podcast, and sits on its Ethnicity Advisory Council. That mix, external editorial work and internal communications anchoring, is the working pattern her corporate clients buy into. She has also chaired the Financial Alliance for Women Summit and the EBRD Conference on Skills Development in Central Asia, and she was named a Highly Commended finalist for the Women of the Future Awards, sponsored by Oxford University and the Financial Times. Her recurring subject matter, women’s progression, inclusion, mental health and engagement, is held together by a journalist’s instinct for the question that actually advances the conversation. Key speaking topics Event hosting and moderation Panel chairing and interviewing Internal communications and employee engagement podcasts Women in business and women’s progression Diversity, equity and inclusion Mental health in the workplace Storytelling and business communication Ideal for CHROs, internal communications leads and DEI directors anchoring long-running internal channels. Boards, summit organisers and awards committees commissioning a host for inclusion, women in business or skills conferences. Financial services, professional services and public-sector organisations briefing a moderator on senior international panels. International Women’s Day, employee resource group and culture-led event sponsors. Audience outcomes A panel or summit that lands its argument rather than drifting between speakers. An internal communications moment that employees actually listen to, anchored by a broadcaster they recognise as credible. Senior speakers drawn out on substance, not left to recite prepared lines. Sensitive subject matter on inclusion, mental health or women’s progression handled with editorial care.

Why organisations work with Suzy Walton Triple-chartered credentials (Chartered Director, Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Chartered Scientist) that few governance speakers in the UK can match, paired with active board service across more than fifteen organisations. Direct Whitehall experience, including the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, and a 2025 Cabinet Office policy appointment by the Prime Minister. Operational military psychology background, including PhD research on suicide within the Armed Forces and lecturing at NATO events on terrorist profiling and behaviour under extreme stress. Nearly a decade as the longest-serving board member of the Institute of Directors, now a strategic advisor and chair of the IoD Accreditation and Standards Committee, giving boards a benchmark voice on director standards. A perspective on resilience grounded in real biographical fact: long-term widowhood, raising seven children, and a career rebuilt from the West End stage through to the Cabinet Office. Biography highlights Chartered Director, Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Chartered Scientist. PhD, Cranfield University, on suicide within the Armed Forces. Former senior civil servant: Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office, Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. Vice-President, Combat Stress; former Vice-President, Royal Society of Medicine (2019 to 2021). Longest-serving member on the Institute of Directors main board, 2013 to 2022; current strategic advisor. Honorary Doctorate, University of Hertfordshire, 2026; BSc and MSc in Psychology from the same institution. Former West End actress (Children of a Lesser God), BBC Television presenter and Sky News reporter. Biography The standard governance speaker tends to come from one track: City, Big Four, executive search. Suzy Walton arrives at four. She is a Chartered Director, Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Chartered Scientist, qualifications usually distributed across three different professions, and she has used all three in active board service. Her doctorate, awarded by Cranfield University, was on suicide within the Armed Forces and was initially classified. As a serving military psychologist, she designed Resistance to Interrogation training, built recruitment systems for classified roles, and lectured at NATO events on terrorist profiling and human behaviour under extreme stress. Senior civil service postings in the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit followed, and in 2025, the Prime Minister appointed her to a fresh policy role in the Cabinet Office. The board record is long and substantive. She was the longest-serving member of the main board of the Institute of Directors, from 2013 to 2022, and now sits as strategic advisor and chair of its Accreditation and Standards Committee. She has held positions at ACCA, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, the Royal Society of Arts, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Internet Watch Foundation, the University of Westminster, the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, the Social Security Advisory Committee and the State Honours Committee. She is Vice-President of Combat Stress. What she draws on in front of a senior audience is the unusual width of that record set against an unusual personal one: a former West End actress in Children of a Lesser God, BBC and Sky News broadcaster, mother of seven, widowed for many years. Boards interested in honest governance and serious resilience tend to be the ones that book her. Key speaking topics Corporate governance and board effectiveness Director of Standards and Chartered Practice Resilience and behaviour under extreme stress Women on boards and inclusive governance Public service leadership and civil service strategy Veterans’ mental health and Combat Stress Multi-role careers and reinvention Ideal for Boards, NEDs and chairs raising the standard of director practice Senior civil service, regulatory and public-sector leadership audiences CHROs, talent and inclusion leads working on women into board roles Healthcare, professional body and charity leadership audiences Audience outcomes A clearer benchmark for what good director conduct looks like, drawn from a chartered framework. A direct view of how Whitehall actually makes policy decisions, from someone who has been in the room. A grounded model of resilience that is not motivational but operational, built from military psychology and personal biography. Practical reference points for boards trying to take women, diversity and governance standards seriously at the same time.

Why organisations work with Susan Cain A single, defensible thesis. Quiet sold over four million copies, spent multiple years on the New York Times bestseller list and translated into 40 languages, which gives a senior audience a shared reference point before she walks on stage. Operational, not theoretical. Through the Quiet Leadership Institute she has delivered corporate programmes at GE, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble, NASA and the Dutch Air Force, and partnered with Steelcase to redesign office space around introvert-friendly workflows. Reframes inclusion in language that lands with sceptical executives. Personality bias is a talent and productivity argument, not a values argument, which makes the conversation possible in rooms where DEI has become contested. Cultural reach that pulls audiences in. The TED2012 talk has been viewed more than 30 million times and named by Bill Gates as a personal favourite, and Bittersweet was an Oprah’s Book Club pick in 2023. Biography highlights Honours graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School; former Wall Street negotiations attorney Author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, #1 New York Times bestseller, four million copies sold, 40 languages Author of Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, #1 New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club selection TED2012 talk “The Power of Introverts” viewed over 30 million times; named by Bill Gates as a favourite TED talk Co-founder of Quiet Revolution and the Quiet Leadership Institute, with corporate programmes at GE, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble, NASA and the Dutch Air Force Recipient of Harvard Law School’s Celebration Award for thought leadership and the Toastmasters International Golden Gavel Award Biography A third to half of the workforce is introverted, yet most companies are built as though everyone in the room is an extrovert. Hiring rewards the candidate who presents best in an interview. Meetings reward whoever speaks first. Open-plan offices reward visibility over depth of thought. The cumulative cost in lost ideas, attrition and shallow decision-making is significant, and rarely measured. That is the operational problem Quiet named in 2012. The book has sold over four million copies, sat on the New York Times bestseller list for years and been translated into 40 languages, which is why senior leaders tend to arrive at the keynote already inside the argument. The accompanying TED2012 talk has been viewed more than 30 million times and was named by Bill Gates as one of his favourites. The work since then has been practical. Through the Quiet Leadership Institute, founded with former West Point professor Mike Erwin, Cain has run corporate development programmes for organisations including GE, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble, NASA and the Dutch Air Force. With Steelcase, she co-designed the Quiet Spaces office concept, a direct intervention into the open-plan trend. Her second book, Bittersweet, debuted at #1 on the New York Times nonfiction list and was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 2023, broadening the conversation into how organisations handle emotion, longing and creativity at work. Her Princeton and Harvard Law training, and her earlier career as a Wall Street negotiator, show up in the way she argues. The case is a talent and productivity case before it is a values case, which is what makes it land in rooms where leaders are tired of the usual inclusion language. Key speaking topics The hidden strengths of introverted leaders Personality bias in hiring, meetings and promotion Workspace and office design for cognitive performance Talent strategy across the introvert and extrovert spectrum Creativity, deep work and the conditions for original thinking Inclusion framed as a productivity argument Emotion, longing and meaning at work (drawing on Bittersweet) Ideal for CHROs, talent leaders and heads of organisational development rethinking how they hire, promote and retain CEOs and senior executives whose workforce skews toward knowledge work, research, engineering or design Heads of workplace strategy and real estate teams designing the next generation of office space Learning and leadership development teams building inclusive leadership curricula that move beyond conventional DEI framing Audience outcomes A concrete vocabulary for the personality bias built into common hiring, meeting and performance practices Specific design choices to test, in meetings, workspaces and team rituals, to surface ideas from quieter staff A reframed argument for inclusion that survives executive scrutiny on commercial grounds A clearer view of where deep work and solitude belong in the operating model of a knowledge organisation

Why organisations work with Sahar Hashemi She has built three commercial ventures from a standing start. Coffee Republic (110 stores, £50 million market cap), Skinny Candy (acquired by Glisten Plc) and Buy Women Built (2,000+ businesses, £2.5 billion combined turnover) give her a working library of how entrepreneurial behaviour actually feels day to day. Her Start Up Forever framework breaks the entrepreneurial mindset down into a small set of repeatable daily behaviours, which is what lets it survive contact with corporate hierarchy. The book was named a Financial Times Business Book of the Month. She translates between two worlds that rarely speak the same language: founders running on instinct and customer obsession, and senior executives running on process and structure. Most speakers can describe one of those worlds; she has lived both. Her credibility on women-led growth is operating credibility, not advocacy. Buy Women Built is a commercial channel built with major retailers, and she co-chaired the UK government’s Scale Up Taskforce on growing SMEs. Biography highlights Co-founder, Coffee Republic; scaled to 110 stores and a £50 million market capitalisation Founder, Skinny Candy (50% acquired by Glisten Plc) and Buy Women Built Author, Anyone Can Do It (Wiley, 2003) and Start Up Forever (Troubador, 2019, Financial Times Business Book of the Month) OBE for services to the UK economy and to charity, 2012 Birthday Honours Co-chair, UK government Scale Up Taskforce; board member, Scale Up Institute Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum Biography Coffee Republic opened on South Molton Street in 1995, the first US-style coffee bar chain in the UK. Within five years it ran 110 stores at a £50 million market capitalisation. Sahar Hashemi co-founded the business with her brother Bobby after leaving a career in law, and the speed of the build became the basis of everything she has worked on since. The question that has occupied her for two decades is why large companies struggle to act on what they already know. Most have the people, the capital and the data to behave entrepreneurially. They rarely behave that way in practice. Her book Start Up Forever, named a Financial Times Business Book of the Month, breaks that gap into a set of daily habits that survive inside corporate structure rather than dying in workshop rooms. The work has weight because it is grounded in three operating businesses she actually built, not consulting case studies. Skinny Candy, the sugar-free confectionery brand, was acquired by Glisten Plc. Buy Women Built, launched in 2020, now represents more than 2,000 women-built businesses with combined turnover above £2.5 billion and has become a working channel inside major UK retailers. She co-chaired the UK government’s Scale Up Taskforce and sits on the board of the Scale Up Institute. Senior teams at Microsoft, L’Oreal, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble and Sky have brought her in for the same reason: she gives a leadership group a usable answer to the question of what entrepreneurial behaviour looks like on a Tuesday afternoon at a 50,000-person company. She was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to the UK economy and to charity, and named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurial mindset inside large organisations Innovation and creativity as everyday discipline Building start-up culture in established businesses Intrapreneurship and behaviour change at scale Women-led entrepreneurship and scale-up growth Customer obsession as a leadership behaviour Courage, action and the founder’s bias to start Ideal for Executive teams running innovation, transformation or culture-change programmes CHROs and learning leaders who want behaviour change, not awareness Strategy and growth leaders trying to build new businesses inside an existing one Sales, marketing and customer teams rebuilding around customer obsession Audience outcomes A practical model of entrepreneurial behaviour that translates into Monday-morning habits Specific examples of how founder instincts (customer obsession, bias to act, comfort with ambiguity) operate inside corporate structure A clearer view of why innovation programmes stall, and what to remove rather than add Renewed confidence in personal agency: what an individual contributor or senior leader can change without permission Frameworks from Start Up Forever that teams can apply to their own products, customers and decisions