Creativity

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

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

Key speaking topics Assistive technology innovation Prosthetic design and development Bioengineering applications Creative problem-solving through engineering Resilience and overcoming physical challenges Youth innovation and invention Ideal for Healthcare and medical technology conferences Engineering and STEM-focused events Innovation and product development forums Education and university audiences Audience outcomes Insight into the practical development of assistive technology prototypes Understanding of how engineering principles can be applied to real-world challenges Greater awareness of user-led innovation in prosthetics Perspective on resilience in the context of scientific and technical work Why organisations work with David Aguilar Brings direct experience of designing and building functional assistive technology. Connects bioengineering study with practical invention. Recognised by an internationally verified record authority. Offers a case study in applied innovation relevant to healthcare, engineering, and technology audiences. Biography David Aguilar is recognised internationally for developing functional LEGO® Technic-based prosthetic arm prototypes, demonstrating how practical engineering and creative design can intersect to address real-world challenges. His work has earned a Guinness World Records title for creating the first functional LEGO® prosthetic arm and has been featured by major global platforms including Guinness World Records and Great Big Story (CNN). With an academic background in bioengineering from Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona), Aguilar combines formal technical training with hands-on invention. He also received UIC’s bioengineering innovation recognition, reflecting the academic credibility behind his applied work. Born with Poland syndrome affecting the development of his right forearm, Aguilar has channelled personal experience into practical innovation. His progression of self-designed prosthetic prototypes illustrates the power of user-led design, iterative development, and accessible technology. For organisations navigating innovation, engineering challenges, or inclusive technology development, Aguilar offers a clear case study in applied problem-solving. His work speaks directly to audiences in healthcare, technology, education, and research seeking tangible examples of creativity translated into functional outcomes.

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

Why organisations work with Andrew Grant His central argument – that the organisational push to innovate faster actively undermines the creative capacity required for innovation – inverts the standard case most leadership teams are making internally, and is backed by three decades of research across more than 40 cultures. The Innovation Climate Indicator (iCLi) and Dynamic Polar Positioning (DPoP) tool give leadership teams validated instruments to assess their actual innovation readiness – scored diagnostic outputs, not a conceptual model to discuss. His books draw on the concept of “creativogenic cultures” – the specific conditions under which creativity can survive organisational pressure – giving the cultural argument cross-cultural evidence that few other innovation speakers can produce. Clients including Google, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Disney, PwC, and Salesforce have engaged Tirian at C-suite and country manager level, not just for conference keynotes – the repeat and depth of engagement reflects the consultancy proposition, not the speaker circuit. As a facilitator for Duke University Corporate Education and consistently the top-rated speaker at YPO (9.6/10) and APEC CEO Summit, Grant operates credibly across executive development, board-level strategy conversations, and large-scale conference formats. Biography highlights Founder and director of Tirian Innovative Solutions, an international innovation and culture consultancy Co-author of Who Killed Creativity?…And How Do We Get It Back? (Wiley, 2012), an international bestseller, and The Innovation Race: How to Change a Culture to Change the Game (2016) Developer of the Innovation Climate Indicator (iCLi) and Dynamic Polar Positioning (DPoP) tool – validated instruments for assessing innovation readiness and leadership ambidexterity TEDx speaker; opening keynote at the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) Global Leadership Conference; keynote speaker at the APEC CEO Summit, Danang Educator and facilitator for Duke University Corporate Education; top-rated YPO global facilitator (9.6/10) Featured in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, BBC, Reuters, and ABC TV; clients include Google, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Disney, PwC, and Salesforce Biography Most organisations treat innovation and creativity as interchangeable – investing in sprints, programmes, and processes designed to produce new output faster. Andrew Grant’s research, conducted across more than 40 cultures over three decades, points to a different problem: the management behaviours used to accelerate innovation are measurably suppressing the creative thinking that makes innovation possible. His co-authored book Who Killed Creativity? names the specific culprits – seven “creativity killers” that emerge under organisational pressure – and maps the conditions required to reverse the decline. Grant founded Tirian to convert that research into tools leadership teams can actually use. The Innovation Climate Indicator (iCLi) profiles a team’s innovation readiness against validated criteria. The Dynamic Polar Positioning (DPoP) tool helps organisations surface the leadership paradoxes – between speed and stability, exploration and execution – that determine whether a creative culture can be sustained under commercial pressure. The output is a management conversation grounded in data, not a framework to be filed after the conference. His second book, The Innovation Race, extends the argument through cross-cultural evidence, examining which societies and organisations have built genuinely enduring innovation capacity – and why. Developed in collaboration with Dr. Gaia Grant, whose PhD research at the University of Sydney Business School provides the academic foundation, the book identifies cultural prerequisites that most innovation investment bypasses entirely. Clients including Google, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, and PwC have engaged Tirian at C-suite level to work through those prerequisites in practice. Grant has delivered the argument at the APEC CEO Summit, the YPO Global Leadership Conference, and through Duke University Corporate Education. His sessions consistently receive the highest ratings at international forums – a pattern most visible in leadership teams navigating the specific tension between the urgency of digital change and the creative culture their strategies ultimately depend on. Key speaking topics Innovation culture and creativogenic conditions The creativity-innovation paradox Leadership behaviours that enable or block creative thinking Organisational culture diagnosis and transformation Innovation readiness assessment and diagnostics Collaborative intelligence in competitive environments AI adoption and the leadership paradoxes of digital change Ideal for CEOs and senior leadership teams investing in innovation capability and not seeing returns on that investment CHROs and culture leads responsible for diagnosing the conditions that either enable or suppress creative thinking Strategy and transformation leads managing the tension between innovation acceleration and organisational stability Corporate learning and development functions building innovation leadership programmes for senior executive cohorts Audience outcomes A specific diagnosis – through the iCLi and DPoP tools – of where their organisation currently sits on the creativity-to-innovation continuum Understanding of the four key innovation paradoxes that shape leadership decision-making under pressure, and how to navigate them without defaulting to either extreme A reframe of what innovation investment should target – cultural conditions rather than programme outputs – that shifts how senior leaders plan and measure culture change Identification of the specific leader behaviours that either enable or shut down creative thinking in teams under pressure Clarity on the distinction between creativity and innovation – and why conflating them is one of the most common reasons innovation programmes underperform

Why organisations work with Adam Morgan Morgan coined the challenger brand concept in a named, commercially researched framework – the eight challenger credos in Eating the Big Fish – giving organisations a specific strategic vocabulary that has been in active use across global marketing for over two decades. His most recent research project, The Extraordinary Cost of Dull, quantifies in IPA-backed data what strategic sameness actually costs a business: dull communications require up to 2.6× the media spend of interesting ones to generate the same commercial result – a figure that reframes brand strategy as a finance conversation. Where most brand strategists stop at positioning, Morgan extends the argument to internal culture: The Pirate Inside addresses the behavioural and organisational conditions needed to sustain a challenger strategy over time. A Beautiful Constraint gives leadership teams a practical method for treating budgetary and structural limitations as strategic inputs rather than blockers – directly applicable to any growth brief operating under resource pressure. His work sits at the junction of brand strategy, marketing effectiveness, and organisational behaviour – a combination that is unusually rare in a single practitioner. Biography highlights Founder and Chair of eatbigfish, the international challenger brand consultancy Author of Eating the Big Fish (Wiley, 1999; 2nd ed. 2009) – international bestseller, translated into eight languages; coined the term “challenger brand” Author of The Pirate Inside (Wiley, 2004) and co-author of A Beautiful Constraint (2015, with Mark Barden) Former Joint European Planning Director, TBWA\Chiat\Day; TBWA clients included Apple, Absolut, and Sony PlayStation Co-creator of The Extraordinary Cost of Dull – multi-partner research with Peter Field, System1, the IPA, and Dr Karen Nelson-Field Speaker at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2023 and 2024 Host of the Let’s Make This More Interesting podcast (eatbigfish) Consultancy clients have included IKEA, Unilever, Lexus, and PepsiCo Biography Adam Morgan spent the formative years of his career at TBWA\Chiat\Day, the agency behind Apple’s relaunch, Absolut, and Sony PlayStation. When he left to found eatbigfish in 1997, his question was specific: how do brands with fewer resources than the market leader compete – and win? Eating the Big Fish, published in 1999, answered that question with a named framework: eight challenger credos drawn from research into forty brands that had grown rapidly against dominant incumbents. The book introduced the term “challenger brand” to a global marketing audience, became an international bestseller in eight languages, and established a body of research – The Challenger Project – that has continued to evolve through four further books and three decades of consultancy work. The most recent extension of that work is The Extraordinary Cost of Dull, a research collaboration with Peter Field, System1, the IPA, and Dr Karen Nelson-Field. Analysing IPA Effectiveness Databank data, the project quantifies what strategic sameness costs organisations at the P&L level: brands running dull communications need up to 2.6 times the media investment of those running interesting ones to achieve equivalent commercial returns. The finding moves brand strategy from a marketing conversation into a boardroom one. What makes Morgan’s perspective directly useful to senior leaders is the consistency of the underlying argument across all three registers – strategy (Eating the Big Fish), culture (The Pirate Inside), and resource constraint (A Beautiful Constraint). The thesis is the same in each case: ambition and specificity of point of view are not optional extras for challengers. They are the mechanism. Key speaking topics Challenger brand strategy Differentiation and market positioning Growth under resource constraint The commercial cost of strategic sameness Brand culture and internal challenger behaviour Marketing effectiveness and creative impact Constraint as competitive advantage Ideal for CMOs and marketing leadership teams responsible for brand growth and differentiation CEOs and strategy directors in organisations competing against dominant category incumbents CFOs and senior leadership teams seeking to connect brand investment to commercial return Brand and innovation teams operating under budget or resource pressure Audience outcomes A working definition of challenger strategy – and a clear way to assess whether it applies to their organisation’s current position Familiarity with the eight challenger credos as a practical diagnostic and planning tool A data-backed understanding of what strategic sameness costs in media spend terms, and how to use that argument internally A framework for identifying where organisational constraints can be reframed as strategic advantages rather than blockers Specific behavioural markers of a challenger culture – and how to diagnose whether their organisation has them

Why organisations work with Matthew Luhn He spent more than 20 years inside Pixar’s story room, working on Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Up and Ratatouille, so the principles he teaches are the ones that actually shipped some of the most commercially successful films ever made. His book The Best Story Wins (Morgan James, 2018) gives buyers a named, documented methodology, not a generic storytelling pitch. Teams leave with a structure they can apply to a keynote, a sales call, or a brand campaign. He is one of very few speakers who has been inside a working creative culture at scale, and can speak credibly to how Pixar’s Braintrust process produces honest creative feedback without breaking trust. His client list on this material includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Capital One, Procter and Gamble, Sony and Target, which signals that senior brand, marketing and innovation leaders are the audience he is built for. He treats storytelling as a commercial competency, not a soft skill. The work is aimed at sharper messaging, stronger brand recall, and better internal communication of strategy. Biography highlights Story artist and story supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios across more than two decades, with credits on Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, Up, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University. One of the original 12 animators hired on the first Toy Story film in 1995. Youngest animator hired on The Simpsons at age 19, with credits on six 1992 episodes including Kamp Krusty and Lisa’s Pony. Author of The Best Story Wins: How to Leverage Hollywood Storytelling in Business and Beyond, Morgan James Publishing, 2018. TEDx speaker (TEDxUCSB), and corporate keynote speaker for Apple, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Capital One, Procter and Gamble, Sony, Target, Vrbo, Adidas and Lego. Trained at the California Institute of the Arts character animation program; BFA from the Academy of Art University. Biography Pixar built one of the most reliable creative engines in modern business by treating story as a discipline, not a talent. Inside that engine sat a small group of story artists whose job was to find, in every film, the emotional truth a global audience would respond to. Matthew Luhn was one of them, across more than 20 years and films including Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Up and Ratatouille. That work began early. He was the youngest animator hired on The Simpsons at 19, then joined Pixar in 1995 as one of the first 12 animators on Toy Story. He moved into the story room for Toy Story 2 and stayed there, eventually as story supervisor, through some of the most commercially successful animated films ever made. The carry-over to business is direct. The same questions a story artist asks about a film, what does the audience need to feel, what is the change, what is the one thing they should remember, are the questions a leader should be asking about a strategy launch, a sales pitch or a brand campaign. His book, The Best Story Wins (Morgan James, 2018), turns those questions into a working methodology. Buyers tend to find him through a specific tension. Their messages are accurate but not memorable. Their brand is recognised but not loved. Their internal communications inform but do not move people. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Capital One, Procter and Gamble, Sony and Target have used his work to address those gaps. Key speaking topics Business storytelling Brand narrative and customer engagement Creative culture and the Pixar Braintrust process Innovation and creative differentiation Leadership communication Sales and pitch storytelling Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and content leaders rebuilding how the company shows up to customers. Innovation leads and product organisations that need to make new ideas land internally and externally. Sales leadership and revenue teams sharpening pitch craft and customer-facing narrative. Internal communications and HR leaders running large town halls, change programmes or culture launches. Audience outcomes A working structure for building a story around any business message, drawn from the Pixar story process. Sharper sense of what makes a brand or product narrative memorable rather than merely accurate. Tools for giving and receiving honest creative feedback, modelled on the Pixar Braintrust. A clearer separation between information delivery and persuasion, applied to keynotes, pitches and internal comms. Specific, repeatable techniques the team can apply to the next campaign, all-hands or customer presentation.

Why organisations work with Duncan Wardle His Theory of Creativity™ is a named, commercially tested framework – not a philosophy but a practical toolkit developed and stress-tested across Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks before being applied with post-Disney clients including Apple, the NBA, Coca-Cola, and NBCUniversal. He treats creativity as a repeatable operational habit rather than a talent or a culture programme – giving leadership teams a concrete, tool-based answer to the question of how to make innovation everyone’s job, not a department’s. Specific tools within the framework – the “What If” method and the “Rivers of Thinking” model – address the cognitive and structural barriers that prevent established organisations from generating genuinely new ideas. These are actionable instruments audiences can use immediately, not post-event reading lists. He is one of the few speakers in this space who built an innovation function from the inside of a major global brand, rather than studying one from outside – a distinction that matters to senior audiences who have heard the Disney case study told at second hand. Author of The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation (2024), a practitioner resource designed to be used independently by organisations after an engagement, extending the shelf life of the session beyond the room. Biography highlights VP of Innovation and Creativity at The Walt Disney Company; previous VP roles include VP Global Public Relations and VP International Marketing and Sales, with postings across London, Paris, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Shanghai Founded Disney’s Creative Catalyst Team, responsible for embedding innovation across Imagineering, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks Founder and CEO of iD8 & innov8, a design thinking consultancy; clients include Apple, Coca-Cola, NBA, PepsiCo, IBM, NBCUniversal, and Spotify Author of The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation (Benbella Books, 2024) Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company; member of the Fast Company Executive Board Multiple TEDx speaker, including “The Theory of Creativity” (TEDxAUK) and “Creating Relationship Magic” (TEDxBocaRaton) Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration, Edinburgh Napier University (2014); White House American Citizen Award (2008); Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award; 2022 Nordic Business Forum Speaker Contest Winner Teaches Innovation Masterclasses at Yale and Harvard Biography Duncan Wardle joined The Walt Disney Company as an intern in the London office in 1987. Over the following 30 years he progressed through VP roles in global public relations, international marketing and sales, and ultimately VP of Innovation and Creativity – the function he built from scratch, founding Disney’s Creative Catalyst Team and deploying it across Imagineering, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks. His central argument is that creativity is not a talent distributed unevenly across the workforce. It is a capability that corporate structures systematically suppress – and one that can be restored with the right tools. The framework he developed inside Disney, the Theory of Creativity™, includes specific instruments: the “What If” method, used by Walt Disney himself to pivot the company from an animation studio to an entertainment and theme park pioneer, and the “Rivers of Thinking” model, which identifies the expertise-driven habits that stop large organisations from generating genuinely new ideas. Since founding iD8 & innov8, Wardle has applied these methods with clients including Apple, Coca-Cola, the NBA, PepsiCo, and NBCUniversal – demonstrating that a toolkit built for an entertainment brand translates across sectors where creative problem-solving is structurally harder. His 2024 book, The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation, packages the methodology as a practical resource organisations can use independently. He also contributes to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company, and teaches Innovation Masterclasses at Yale and Harvard. His formal recognition includes a White House American Citizen Award (2008), an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Edinburgh Napier University (2014), a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award, and the 2022 Nordic Business Forum Speaker Contest. He is a multiple TEDx speaker, with talks including “The Theory of Creativity” and “Creating Relationship Magic.” Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and the Theory of Creativity™ Design thinking and creative problem-solving Organisational barriers to creative thinking Customer experience innovation Human creativity and competitive advantage in the age of AI Building innovation culture at scale Creative leadership and entrepreneurial thinking Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams responsible for growth and competitive strategy Chief Innovation Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, and transformation leads Large organisations seeking to embed innovation beyond a dedicated function Conference audiences in technology, consumer, media, and professional services sectors Audience outcomes A named set of practical innovation tools – including the “What If” method and the “Rivers of Thinking” model – that teams can apply immediately A framework for identifying and removing the cognitive and structural barriers that block creative thinking in established organisations Clarity on how to separate the creative process from the operational process, and why the two must be managed differently An understanding of why human creativity is not threatened by AI – and how to build it as a source of commercial competitive advantage Concrete methods for making innovation a daily habit rather than a quarterly initiative

Why organisations work with Maher Mezher He holds a patent on the Innovators Process, a four-phase method filed across multiple jurisdictions, and uses it as the operating system inside the workshops he runs. His credibility is built on shipped products, not models on paper. The Fertility Loan he created in retail banking is a teaching case in Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing. He works in the languages and industries where innovation is hardest to land: regulated banking, telecom and pharma across the Middle East and Europe. He brings a tool stack, not just a talk. The Innovators Tool app, Innovators Habits and Become an INNOVATOR methodology give teams something to use the day after the keynote. He sits inside the regional innovation infrastructure, including Georgetown University in Qatar’s executive education and Qatar Foundation’s Stars of Science programme. Biography highlights Founder of Innovators League, a consulting and training firm focused on installing innovation capability inside large organisations. Inventor of the Innovators Process, a four-phase innovation method protected by patent filings. Creator of the Innovators Tool, an app for guiding teams from idea to commercial concept. Faculty for Leading Change through Innovation at Georgetown University in Qatar Executive Education. Mentor at Stars of Science, the Qatar Foundation pan-Arab innovation programme. Originator of the Fertility Loan, a retail banking product cited as a case study in Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing. Biography Most innovation programmes fail at the same point. Ideas are generated, pilots are funded, and then the work stalls between the lab and the line. Maher Mezher built his career on closing that gap, first as a banker shipping products, then as the operator of a method designed to make innovation behave like a managed process. His starting move was the Fertility Loan, a retail banking product he created that ran into a real customer need rather than a marketing brief. It later appeared as a case in Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing, which is the kind of citation that signals practitioner credibility rather than academic positioning. From that base he built Innovators League, the consulting firm through which he now works with banks, telcos, pharma companies and government bodies. The intellectual core is the Innovators Process, a patented four-phase method, supported by the Innovators Tool app and the Become an INNOVATOR methodology used inside client workshops. He sits inside the region’s innovation infrastructure as much as he speaks at it: faculty for Georgetown University in Qatar’s executive education on leading change through innovation, and a mentor on Stars of Science, the Qatar Foundation programme that backs Arab inventors. That mix of patent holder, product builder and teacher is what large organisations book him for. Key speaking topics Structured innovation process Innovation capability inside regulated industries Digital leadership and AI for non-technical leaders Creative leadership under uncertainty Innovator habits and behaviour change Product and business model innovation Innovation in financial services Ideal for CEOs and innovation leads in banks, telcos and pharma planning a multi-year innovation programme Heads of product and transformation responsible for moving concepts to launch Executive education and leadership academies in the Middle East and Europe Government and sovereign innovation bodies building national capability Audience outcomes A working understanding of the four phases of the Innovators Process and where their organisation breaks them A vocabulary for separating ideas, concepts and innovations, so teams stop conflating activity with progress Concrete examples of innovations that shipped in regulated industries, with the trade-offs named A method and tool set leaders can put into rotation the week after the session A sharper read on which innovation behaviours to hire for and which to coach

Key speaking topics Leadership presence Transformational leadership Executive development Peak performance in leadership Arts-based approaches to leadership development Leadership and personal development Ideal for Senior leaders and executive teams Board-level and C-suite audiences Organisations investing in leadership development programmes Corporate and public-sector leadership events Audience outcomes Greater understanding of leadership presence and its impact on performance Practical perspectives on transformational leadership Insight into integrating personal development with executive responsibility New approaches to leadership drawn from performance and arts-based disciplines Why organisations work with Nicholas Janni Combines authorship, executive education and consultancy experience. Brings cross-sector leadership development experience in corporate and public-sector contexts. Connects leadership theory with applied executive practice. Offers a perspective shaped by both business education and professional theatre training. Biography Nicholas Janni works at the intersection of leadership development, executive presence and organisational transformation. His work is designed for senior leaders and boards seeking to strengthen the human dimension of leadership in complex corporate environments. He is the author of Leader as Healer, published by LID Publishing, which won Business Book of the Year at the 2023 Business Book Awards, including Leadership Book of the Year. The book sets out his approach to leadership presence, responsibility and the inner capacities required for effective executive performance. Janni serves as a Visiting Professor of Leadership at IMD Business School, contributing to executive learning journeys and leadership programmes. His work in executive education connects personal development with organisational impact, supporting leaders in translating insight into practice. He founded CORE PRESENCE, his leadership development consultancy, and previously co-founded Olivier Mythodrama, an arts-based leadership development firm. This combination of consultancy and executive education experience underpins his practical, applied approach to leadership growth. Before focusing fully on leadership development, Janni worked in theatre direction and taught acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. This background informs his distinctive perspective on presence, performance under pressure and the embodied aspects of leadership in high-stakes environments.

Why organisations work with Conn Bertish He built his resilience method from the inside of a rare adult brain cancer diagnosis, then road-tested it with oncologists at Groote Schuur, Red Cross Children’s Hospital, and Mediclinic before using it on corporate audiences. His Cancer Dojo platform is one of the only resilience tools that has been medically reviewed for use with patients under active treatment, which gives his frameworks a clinical credibility most motivational survivor stories lack. Twenty years inside top-tier creative agencies, including as executive creative director at JWT Cape Town and a member of the JWT Global Creative Council, means he can talk to leadership teams about creativity as an operating method, not a mood. His Cannes Lions record as speaker, judge, and award winner gives marketing and brand organisations a speaker who understands their craft from inside the jury room. He brings two distinct lenses, creative strategy and survival, to the same question: how do teams keep making good decisions when the ground is moving. Biography highlights Founder of Cancer Dojo, a mobile resilience platform for cancer patients, built with a clinical advisory team drawn from Groote Schuur, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, and Mediclinic. Former executive creative director at JWT Cape Town and former member of the JWT Global Creative Council. Cannes Lions speaker, juror, and award winner; has worked with Google, Airbnb, Nestlé, Merck, Standard Chartered, Coca-Cola, and Pfizer. Creator of the Happy People Are Harder To Kill and Never Fight The Ocean talk series, delivered to corporate, clinical, and creative-industry audiences. Creative Director for the Cape Town World Design Capital programme and steering committee partner at the Cape Town Design Network. Survivor of a rare form of adult brain cancer, Red Bull big wave surfer, downhill skateboarder, and winner of South Africa’s first Fear Factor. Biography Cancer Dojo began as a workbook that Bertish made for himself during treatment for a rare adult brain cancer. It became a mobile platform, reviewed by a panel of South African oncologists and psychologists, now used by patients across several countries. That is the unusual provenance of the resilience method he brings to corporate rooms. Before cancer, he spent two decades in advertising. He was executive creative director at JWT Cape Town, sat on the JWT Global Creative Council, and represented South Africa at Cannes Lions as a speaker, juror, and award winner. He walked away from a Chief Creative Officer role to build Cancer Dojo in 2015. Clients now include Google, Airbnb, Nestlé, Merck, Standard Chartered, Coca-Cola, and Pfizer. The talks sit under two series, Happy People Are Harder To Kill and Never Fight The Ocean, and they cover creative leadership under pressure, purpose inside teams, and mental health at work. What he offers a leadership audience is the collision of three things most speakers cannot combine credibly: senior creative-industry craft, clinical-grade resilience content, and a personal history of extreme pressure that stopped being metaphor in 2006. The Red Bull big wave record and the Fear Factor win are true, but the more useful fact is that his resilience curriculum has been signed off by the people treating cancer patients at Groote Schuur. Key speaking topics Creative leadership under pressure Resilience as a teachable organisational skill Mental health and performance at work Purpose-driven teams and collaboration Creativity as a strategic method, not a mood Leading through personal and organisational crisis Ideal for CEOs and executive teams navigating restructuring, layoffs, or sustained uncertainty CHROs and wellbeing leads designing resilience and mental health programmes with clinical credibility Chief Marketing Officers and creative leadership groups, particularly in agencies and brand organisations Leadership offsites where the brief is human performance under real pressure, not inspirational content Audience outcomes A practical vocabulary for talking about resilience as a skill their teams can build, not a personality trait Specific tools drawn from the Cancer Dojo workbook, adapted for workplace use A sharper view of how creative thinking functions as a decision-making method when conditions deteriorate An unusually honest account of what fear, crisis, and recovery look like from inside, useful for leaders holding the room through hard moments Language for connecting purpose, mental health, and performance without slipping into wellness cliché