Cultural Intelligence

Why organisations work with Skip Bowman The Safe2Great model is the only publicly available integrated framework that treats psychological safety and growth mindset as a single system – giving organisations one coherent diagnostic language that connects leadership behaviour, team dynamics, and organisational culture without requiring them to hold multiple competing frameworks simultaneously. The Growth Mindset Leadership 360 converts leadership culture into quantified, benchmarked data – replacing the subjective impressions that dominate most culture assessments with comparative insight on where specific leaders are enabling or blocking growth, measured against a global dataset. His research found that more than 60% of leaders assess their own impact inaccurately relative to how their teams experience them – a specific, repeatable finding that reframes the conversation with senior leadership teams from aspiration to accountability. The Safe2Great model names and maps three distinct protective mindsets – controlling-competitive, complying-complacent, and critical-skeptical – that remain invisible in standard leadership frameworks, enabling organisations to identify the specific cultural blockers at play rather than working against a generic leadership gap. Both the book and the assessment tools are designed for practitioner deployment through a formal accreditation programme, meaning organisations can embed the methodology independently – Bowman’s work scales beyond the keynote. Biography highlights Author of Safe to Great: The New Psychology of Leadership (Figure 1 Publishing, 2023) Creator of the Safe2Great model and suite of four proprietary diagnostic tools including the Growth Mindset Leadership 360 – available in over ten languages Founder and CEO of Global Mindset, leadership and organisational development consultancy based in Denmark MA in Psychology and Languages (Copenhagen); MA in Organisational Psychology (Denmark); trained in cross-cultural management, group dynamics, and coaching Over 25 years of applied consulting with global organisations including Danfoss, Siemens, Nestlé, Ericsson, VELUX, and Merck Bilingual in English and Danish; consulting engagements across Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East Biography Skip Bowman starts from a finding that most leadership programmes prefer to avoid: the majority of leaders believe they behave very differently from how their teams actually experience them. His Safe2Great research, conducted across more than 500 leadership teams, found that over 60% of leaders inaccurately assessed their own impact. That data point is the foundation of everything he does. His 2023 book, Safe to Great: The New Psychology of Leadership (Figure 1 Publishing), sets out the argument in full. The central claim is that psychological safety is not a cultural aspiration that organisations approach through values statements and team workshops – it is a direct output of specific, identifiable leadership behaviours. The Safe2Great model maps those behaviours against three protective mindsets – controlling-competitive, complying-complacent, and critical-sceptical – and connects them to a suite of validated diagnostic tools that make the invisible visible. The Growth Mindset Leadership 360 is the operational core of this system. It benchmarks leaders against a global dataset, measuring the behaviours that enable or obstruct growth-oriented team dynamics. Combined with the Great Teams Assessment and Culture for Growth Survey, the result is an assessment architecture that links individual leadership behaviour to team experience to organisational culture in a single, connected methodology. The tools are available in over ten languages and come with a formal practitioner accreditation programme. Bowman grew up in Perth, Australia, and has spent the majority of the last 25 years in Europe – working in Switzerland, England, France, and Denmark and consulting across Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. He holds an MA in Psychology and Languages from Copenhagen and an MA in Organisational Psychology from Denmark, with additional training in cross-cultural management, group dynamics, and coaching. His consulting client history includes Danfoss, Siemens, Nestlé, Ericsson, VELUX, and Merck. Key speaking topics Psychological safety and leadership behaviour Growth mindset in leadership and organisational culture The Safe2Great model and leadership diagnostics Transforming organisational culture Leading change and transformation Cross-cultural and global leadership Leadership development and behavioural change Ideal for Senior leadership teams and executive committees navigating transformation or cultural change CHROs and people directors responsible for leadership development strategy and investment decisions L&D and organisational development leads in multinational or cross-border organisations Boards evaluating the relationship between leadership behaviour and organisational performance Audience outcomes A clear, working model for understanding how leadership behaviour directly creates or dismantles psychological safety in teams – beyond the concept, into measurable practice Ability to identify the three protective mindsets that most commonly obstruct cultural change, and to recognise them in their own leadership environment A shared organisational language connecting leadership assessment, team dynamics, and culture in a single coherent framework Practical understanding of what a diagnostic-led approach to leadership development looks like, and why design matters more than content in producing lasting behavioural change The research basis for understanding why leadership development programmes frequently fail to change the behaviours they are designed to change

Why organisations work with Pellegrino Riccardi His TEDxBergen talk on cross-cultural communication has been viewed nearly two million times – giving him a level of pre-built credibility and independent reach that few speakers in this space can point to before they walk on stage. He does not study cultural difference from the outside. Born in the UK to Italian parents and living in Norway since 1995, he has navigated three distinct cultural systems from the inside – a quality of embedded perspective that changes what his audiences trust him to know. His “Six Basic Human Needs” framework gives leadership teams a diagnostic for why motivation and engagement falter in multicultural environments – not a generalisation about national character, but a universal human model applied precisely to the point where cultural difference becomes organisational friction. He makes the Nordic workplace model legible and actionable for global organisations – addressing a specific and growing gap for multinationals operating in, entering, or partnering with Scandinavian markets. Named Norwegian Speaker of the Year by Talerlisten in 2020, selected from more than 600 national nominees, and a finalist in both 2021 and 2022 – a competitive national award that reflects consistent delivery rather than a single strong appearance. Biography highlights Norwegian Speaker of the Year 2020 (Talerlisten); finalist 2021 and 2022 – selected from a field of more than 600 national nominees Three TEDx talks; TEDxBergen cross-cultural communication talk approaching two million views Two Master’s degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oslo; additional qualifications in psychology, NLP, and pedagogy Author of Drowning Quietly: Memoir of a Man’s Shortcomings (Greenleaf Book Group, 2022) Regular commentator on Norwegian national television on culture and immigration Client work spans Merck, Skanska, DNB, IKEA, IBM, BP, ExxonMobil, and the European Commission Biography Most cross-cultural training starts with the other culture. Pellegrino Riccardi starts with you. His central argument – that misunderstanding in multicultural teams rarely begins with ignorance of another culture, but with the unchecked assumptions you carry about your own – has reached nearly two million people through his TEDxBergen talk alone. It is not an academic position. It is a practitioner’s diagnosis, sharpened over three decades of working with organisations where the gap between cultural intent and daily reality was costing them real performance. Riccardi was born in the UK to Italian immigrant parents and has been based in Norway since 1995. He is not a consultant who has studied these three cultural systems – he has lived inside all of them. That distinction is audible in the room. His definition of culture, “a system of behavior that helps us act in an accepted or familiar way,” is deliberately simple: it is designed to move the conversation from observation to self-examination, fast. For senior leaders who have sat through cultural awareness sessions and left unchanged, the shift in entry point matters. His frameworks give organisations something to work with after the session. The Six Basic Human Needs – which he describes as the human batteries that determine whether people bring their full energy to work – and the Three Human Drives give teams a shared language for diagnosing disengagement that does not reduce to personality or politics. He holds two Master’s degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oslo, with further qualifications in psychology, NLP, and pedagogy, and appears regularly on Norwegian national television as a commentator on culture and integration. In 2020 he was named Norwegian Speaker of the Year by Talerlisten from a field of more than 600 national nominees – a recognition he followed with finalist standings in both 2021 and 2022. His memoir Drowning Quietly (Greenleaf Book Group, 2022) extends his examination of human identity and behaviour beyond the professional context. His organisational client list includes Merck, Skanska, DNB, IKEA, IBM, BP, ExxonMobil, and the European Commission. Key speaking topics Cross-cultural communication and workplace dynamics Corporate culture and culture transformation Nordic workplace values and leadership mindsets Employee motivation and human engagement Multicultural team performance Change, uncertainty, and organisational resilience Storytelling as a driver of business culture Ideal for CHROs and People & Culture leaders managing globally distributed or multicultural workforces Leadership teams of multinationals operating in, entering, or partnering with Nordic markets Organisations navigating culture change, post-merger integration, or rapid workforce diversification Senior leaders seeking to move beyond cultural awareness programmes to measurable change in team communication and trust Audience outcomes Why good people misunderstand each other at work, and the invisible assumptions that drive it A working definition of culture that changes how leaders recognise the source of cross-cultural friction The Six Basic Human Needs framework, and a sharper read on why unmet needs surface as quiet disengagement rather than open dissatisfaction How Nordic communication norms (silence, economy of language, psychological safety) read to outsiders, and what global teams need to do differently Practical ways to build trust and create the kind of conversations people actually feel safe having

Why organisations work with Pankaj Mishra His Age of Anger thesis ties populist nationalism in the US, Britain, India, Russia and Turkey to the same 19th-century intellectual origins, giving boards a single coherent frame for what most analysts treat as separate national stories. He brings the perspective of the world’s majority, drawn from original archival work across India, China, Iran and Turkey, into rooms where geopolitical analysis is still calibrated to a Western-led order. He works at the level of cause. Most commentary explains what just happened; his books explain why this kind of thing keeps happening across very different countries. Yale’s Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, the Weston International Award and a Royal Society of Literature fellowship sit behind two decades of essays in the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, Foreign Policy and the Guardian. The name carries weight in senior rooms. His 2025 book, The World After Gaza, is one of the most discussed treatments of the moral rupture in the global order since October 7, useful for any leadership team weighing reputational and political risk in a polarised market. Biography highlights Author of From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia (2012), winner of Germany’s Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding in 2014, the first non-Western writer to take the prize. Author of Age of Anger: A History of the Present (2017), Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race and Empire (2020) and The World After Gaza: A History (Penguin Press, 2025). Recipient of Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for nonfiction (2014) and the Weston International Award for career achievement in nonfiction (2024). Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Long-form contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Foreign Policy and Harper’s. Previously a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Past visiting fellowships at the Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library and the Department of English at University College London. Biography The populist nationalism remaking democracies from Washington to Delhi to Ankara to Moscow is usually told as four separate stories. The argument running through Pankaj Mishra’s books is that they share a single 18th-century origin. A slow global civil war over the meaning of progress has been underway ever since. In Age of Anger (2017), he traced the rage and resentment of the present to Rousseau’s quarrel with Voltaire and the disappointed promises of European modernity. From the Ruins of Empire (2012), which won Germany’s Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding, ran the same exercise in reverse. It followed the Asian intellectuals (Tagore, Liang Qichao, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani) who watched their civilisations being subordinated by the West. The intellectual apparatus they built shapes everything today, from Chinese state strategy to political Islam. His latest book, The World After Gaza (Penguin Press, 2025), reads the post-1945 moral order through the present war and the global response to it. It has placed him at the centre of one of the most consequential intellectual debates of the moment. The book builds on the body of nonfiction that won Yale’s Windham-Campbell Literature Prize and the 2024 Weston International Award for career achievement. For senior audiences, the value is not commentary on the news. Mishra works the level beneath it: the long-running shifts in power and legitimacy that determine where capital and credibility actually go. The Weston jury described him as “a writer for and of this difficult and complex world we are creating.” That captures why his analysis is in demand whenever the meaning of the present moment is genuinely in question. Key speaking topics The roots of populism and political anger Geopolitical risk and the post-1945 global order The view from the global majority Nationalism, identity and the politics of resentment India under Modi and the geopolitics of South Asia The intellectual history of modernity Decolonisation and its long aftermath Ideal for Boards and CEOs setting strategy in markets where political risk and the shifting balance between Western and non-Western centres of power materially affect long-horizon decisions Investment committees, sovereign wealth funds and family offices with significant exposure across emerging markets and the wider Global South Senior leadership off-sites where the geopolitical context of capital allocation and major strategic decisions is on the agenda Audiences in financial services, energy, media, foreign policy and academia who buy serious intellectual content over motivational commentary Audience outcomes A unified intellectual frame for the populism and political anger reshaping major democracies. Most coverage offers separate national stories; Mishra shows them as one connected phenomenon. A clearer sense of how the rest of the world reads the same shift in the global order, and what that means for organisations operating across the West and non-West. Historical context for the present moment that goes well beyond the news cycle, with arguments built from original archival research. Sharper questions to take into long-horizon strategic discussions, particularly on political risk and on operating in markets aligned to non-Western centres of power.

Why organisations work with Oscar van Weerdenburg He brings a published, evidence-based diagnostic. The Intercultural Readiness Check, co-developed with Ursula Brinkmann and built on a dataset of roughly 30,000 international respondents, lets leaders move from impression to assessment. He is part of the Trompenaars lineage. His work began with Fons Trompenaars at the University of Amsterdam in 1992, and his frameworks sit inside the Trompenaars Hampden-Turner network rather than alongside it. His M&A and integration track record is operational. He has been brought into post-deal integration work at major European and global firms to handle the cultural friction that derails synergy targets. He teaches inside INSEAD Executive Education and has lectured at Michigan Business School and Rotterdam School of Management, so the same content runs in front of senior leaders before it reaches their teams. His delivery is Anglo-Dutch in register: direct, often dryly funny, low on jargon. Buyers report sessions that are usable on Monday morning, not just well-received in the room. Biography highlights Co-author, Intercultural Readiness: Four Competences for Working Across Cultures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), with Ursula Brinkmann. Co-founder and Managing Director, Intercultural Business Improvement (IBI), founded 1996. Co-creator of the Intercultural Readiness Check, drawn from a 15-year research programme of roughly 30,000 respondents. Visiting professor, INSEAD Executive Education; former lecturer at Michigan Business School and Rotterdam School of Management. Long-standing partner in the Trompenaars Hampden-Turner network, with collaboration with Fons Trompenaars dating to 1992. Lecturer of the Year 2008, Chalmers Professional Education. Biography Most cross-border failures inside multinationals are not strategic. They are cultural. Synergy targets in M&A slip, global rollouts stall, and senior hires struggle because the assumptions people carry about hierarchy, conflict, and time were never made visible. That is the territory Oscar van Weerdenburg has worked in for more than three decades. He began this work in 1992 with Fons Trompenaars at the University of Amsterdam, the partnership that became the foundation of modern intercultural management consulting. In 1996 he co-founded Intercultural Business Improvement with the psychologist Ursula Brinkmann. Together they built the Intercultural Readiness Check, a diagnostic drawn from a fifteen-year research programme of roughly thirty thousand respondents across four continents and published as Intercultural Readiness: Four Competences for Working Across Cultures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). The IRC is what separates his practice from consulting impressionism. It gives leaders a measurable read on four competences that predict whether their teams can actually work across cultures, and it sits inside the Trompenaars Hampden-Turner network rather than competing with it. He teaches the underlying material on INSEAD Executive Education programmes and has lectured at Michigan Business School and Rotterdam School of Management, with a client list that includes Shell, HSBC, Qantas, BASF, PepsiCo and Goldman Sachs. What buyers tend to value is the operational edge. He has been brought into post-merger integrations and global team builds where cultural friction was already costing money, and he leaves leaders with vocabulary and a diagnostic, not abstractions. Chalmers Professional Education named him Lecturer of the Year in 2008 for the same reason: the room walks out with something usable. Key speaking topics Cultural intelligence as a measurable capability Leading multicultural and global teams Cultural integration in mergers and acquisitions International negotiation Strategic dilemmas in global business Cross-cultural leadership development The Intercultural Readiness Check as a leadership diagnostic Ideal for CHROs and global L&D leads building intercultural capability across regions M&A integration leads and post-deal sponsors handling cultural fit and synergy execution Global team leaders, country heads, and matrixed senior managers with cross-border accountability Executive education and leadership programme directors at multinationals Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the cultural assumptions that drive most cross-border friction Familiarity with the four intercultural competences measured by the IRC and how to apply them A clearer read on where their own team or deal is most exposed to cultural breakdown Practical moves for international negotiation, integration, and global team design they can use the following week

Why organisations work with Omer Wilson He has run the brand function inside three of the most consequential data centre platforms of the last decade, including Digital Realty in EMEA and APAC, giving him a working model of how technical infrastructure businesses actually win category leadership. He has been voted Datacloud Marketer of the Year on two separate continents, in Monaco in 2015 and Singapore in 2018, which is a rare double inside the industry’s only credible peer-voted award. He builds brand strategy that translates between cultures, with operational experience in the UK, Singapore and now Portugal, and a Turkish-British background that informs his work on Asia and emerging-market positioning. He is currently leading marketing for a 1.2 GW, EUR 8.5 billion AI-era data campus in Sines, which means his commentary on the next decade of digital infrastructure marketing is grounded in a live programme, not retrospective analysis. Biography highlights Chief Marketing Officer, Start Campus, leading brand and go-to-market for the SINES DC campus in Portugal. Former Chief Marketing Officer at Qarbon Technologies and Pure Data Centres Group. Senior marketing leadership at Digital Realty across EMEA and APAC, joining the company in 2011 in London. Datacloud Data Centre Marketer of the Year 2015, Monaco. Datacloud Asia Marketer of the Year 2018, Singapore. Founder and Chief Strategist, Anatolia.Asia Consulting Group; trained on the IBM Global Graduate Scheme; former Head of Corporate Solutions Marketing for Jones Lang LaSalle EMEA. Biography The data centre industry built its commercial story on power, cooling and square metres. As AI workloads have changed what hyperscale customers actually need, the buying conversation has shifted to sustainability, sovereignty and brand trust. The companies winning that conversation are doing marketing work most of the sector still treats as overhead. Wilson has been one of the operators inside that shift. At Digital Realty he ran marketing across EMEA and later APAC after joining the firm in London in 2011, then took the CMO seat at Pure Data Centres Group and Qarbon Technologies. He is now Chief Marketing Officer at Start Campus, the operator behind the 1.2 GW SINES campus in Portugal, an EUR 8.5 billion programme positioned as one of Europe’s most sustainable AI data centres. His professional voice was shaped early by the IBM Global Graduate Scheme and then by running corporate solutions marketing at Jones Lang LaSalle across EMEA. That mix matters, because he treats brand as a commercial system: pricing, sales enablement and customer narrative working as one engine. He has been voted Datacloud Marketer of the Year twice, in Monaco in 2015 and Singapore in 2018, the industry’s clearest peer signal that the work travels. He also founded Anatolia.Asia Consulting Group, advising technology and infrastructure clients on positioning across Europe and Asia, and is a regular keynote speaker at Cloud Expo Asia, Data Centre World and DCD events. The through-line in his work is category creation: helping technical businesses build brand authority before commodity pressure forces a price conversation. Key speaking topics Brand strategy in technology and digital infrastructure Marketing leadership in data centres and hyperscale Category creation in B2B technology Cross-cultural positioning between Europe and Asia Sustainability and AI as commercial narratives Go-to-market for capital-intensive technology businesses Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leaders inside technology, infrastructure and capital-intensive B2B businesses CEOs and founders of scale-up technology companies preparing a category narrative Sales and commercial leadership teams in data centres, cloud, energy and adjacent infrastructure sectors Industry conferences in digital infrastructure, AI, cloud and sustainability Audience outcomes A clearer model for how brand work compounds commercial value inside technical categories. Examples from inside the data centre industry of how marketing has shifted from spec-led to narrative-led selling. Practical perspectives on positioning sustainability and AI claims so they hold up with sophisticated buyers. A sharper view of how Asia, Europe and emerging markets behave differently as B2B technology audiences.

Why organisations work with Miha Pogacnik His Macro Violin concept is cited by C. Otto Scharmer in Theory U and across MIT Sloan’s leadership writing. Senior teams engage with an arts-based framework that already has standing in serious management thought. He has worked inside the leadership floors of IBM, Microsoft, Bosch, Nike, Shell, Novartis and Porsche. The frame of reference is decades of access to people running companies that compete on judgment. His Resonance Platform method, taught at IEDC-Bled and in client sessions, moves a leadership group from positional debate into composed creative dialogue around the actual decision on the table. He has taught at Harvard, INSEAD, IMD, IESE Barcelona, CEIBS Shanghai and THNK Amsterdam, alongside his appointment at IEDC-Bled. The work is taken seriously inside management academia and in client rooms. Biography highlights Adjunct Professor of Arts and Leadership at IEDC-Bled School of Management; has taught at Harvard, INSEAD, IMD, IESE Barcelona, CEIBS Shanghai and THNK Amsterdam Macro Violin concept attributed to him is cited by C. Otto Scharmer in Theory U and across the MIT Sloan body of work on systemic leadership Founder of IDRIART (Institute for Development of Intercultural Relations through the Arts); originated the Chartres Festival d’Eté in 1981 Ambassador of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia Has worked with leadership teams at IBM, Microsoft, Nike, Shell, Novartis, Bosch, Coca-Cola and Porsche Speaker at the World Economic Forum (Davos and China), European Forum Alpbach and UN agencies; TEDx talk “A Creative Detour to Unleash Human Potential” Biography Most senior teams have absorbed every available framework for leadership. None of those frameworks change how they listen, or how they bring a room of expert voices into a coherent decision. The capacity that matters at the top is closer to conducting an orchestra than to running an analysis. That is the territory Miha Pogacnik has worked in for four decades. As Adjunct Professor of Arts and Leadership at IEDC-Bled School of Management, he uses musical performance to develop the listening and composed judgment that leadership at the top requires. His Resonance Platform method, taught in sessions with leadership teams at IBM, Microsoft, Bosch, Nike, Shell and Porsche, walks executives through the structural intelligence of a Bach fugue or a Brahms violin concerto and back to the decision on their desk. His distinctive intellectual contribution is the Macro Violin: the principle that a leader, like a violinist inside Chartres Cathedral, cannot perform on instrument alone but has to play the whole space. C. Otto Scharmer cites the concept in Theory U and across the MIT Sloan body of work on systemic leadership. That principle now sits at the centre of how arts-based leadership is taught at IEDC-Bled. The work has roots in something larger than corporate audiences. Pogacnik founded IDRIART in the early 1980s and went on to direct more than 200 intercultural festivals in crisis regions, including the Adriatic during the breakup of Yugoslavia and Central Europe in the years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He serves as Ambassador of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia. The first IDRIART festival ran at Chartres Cathedral in 1981, the same setting in which Pogacnik first identified the Macro Violin principle, and where the entire body of work begins. Key speaking topics Arts-based leadership development Listening as a leadership discipline Creativity and innovation through musical structure Cultural intelligence in international business Organisational learning through artistic practice The Resonance Platform method for senior teams The Macro Violin and ensemble leadership Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers designing executive development programmes CEOs and Chief Strategy Officers convening senior teams for board offsites or strategic dialogue Business school deans and EMBA directors integrating arts and humanities into leadership education Conference programmers leading flagship events on creativity and leadership Audience outcomes A demonstration of how musical structure reveals complex team dynamics, with a Bach fugue or Brahms violin concerto used as the diagnostic Live application of the Resonance Platform method to the strategic question the leadership team brings into the room A working vocabulary for leadership drawn from musical performance: composition, ensemble, listening from the periphery, and the macro violin The shift from treating the conductor as a metaphor to treating conducting as a working model of leadership

Why organisations work with Fredrik Haren His formula IDEA = P(K+I) – a person combining existing knowledge with new information – converts creativity from an abstract value into a model that managers can act on; this is the foundation of how he runs workshops, not just a rhetorical device The Idea Book has been deployed as an internal training tool by HP, Ericsson, Volvo, China Mobile, and GE – demonstrating that his framework translates from conference platform to in-organisation application His research base is genuinely cross-cultural: 25 years of field interviews across 75 countries, including fieldwork in North Korea and Mongolia, gives him material that no Western-campus-based creativity theorist can replicate He holds the Global Speaking Federation’s International Ambassador Award – given to fewer than 15 speakers globally since 2001 and, at the time of his award, never previously to a non-native English speaker based in Asia – a peer-verified credential, not a self-declared one His most recent book, The World of Creativity (Capstone/Wiley), entered for The Business Book Awards 2026, signals that his thinking continues to develop rather than recycle the same material Biography highlights Author of 10 books including The Idea Book, listed among the 100 Best Business Books of All Time Recipient of the International Ambassador Award from the Global Speakers Federation – awarded to fewer than 15 speakers globally since 2001 One of approximately 30 Global Speaking Fellows (CSPGlobal) worldwide Speaker of the Year, Sweden (2007); founder of interesting.org 2,000+ speeches delivered across 75 countries and 6 continents over a 25-year career Clients include KPMG, Grant Thornton International, HP, IKEA, BMW, Ericsson, GE, Volvo, and American Express Biography Fredrik Haren’s starting point is a question most organisations avoid asking directly: if you need a new idea tomorrow, where does it come from? His formula – IDEA = P(K+I), meaning a person combining existing knowledge with new information – strips creativity of its mystique and reframes it as something organisations can design for. The Idea Book, first published in 2004, applied that thinking in a concrete format: 150 pages of frameworks combined with 150 blank pages for working. It became an internal training tool at HP, Ericsson, Volvo, China Mobile, and GE, and was listed among the 100 Best Business Books of All Time. His most recent book, The World of Creativity (Capstone/Wiley), draws on 25 years of field research – interviews with thousands of people across 75 countries including North Korea – to map how creativity is both universal and shaped by culture. That fieldwork is the differentiator. Where most speakers on innovation draw from research or theory, Haren’s material comes from direct observation across markets and contexts that Western organisations rarely access. It gives global conference audiences – whose reference points span multiple continents – a framework that holds across cultures rather than one that travels badly. His credentials within the professional speaking community are a useful proxy for depth: Certified Speaking Professional, one of approximately 30 Global Speaking Fellows worldwide, and recipient of the Global Speakers Federation’s International Ambassador Award – given to fewer than 15 speakers since 2001 and, at the time of his award, the first to a non-native English speaker based in Asia. Key speaking topics Business creativity and idea generation Innovation as a repeatable organisational process Cross-cultural creativity and global mindset Creativity in the age of AI Building creative capability in organisations Future skills and the innovation-ready workforce Ideal for Global conference audiences spanning multiple nationalities where a single Western-centric perspective will not land CHROs and Learning & Development leads seeking to build creative capability beyond individual talent acquisition Senior leadership teams of multinationals where innovation is a stated priority but no reliable process exists to support it Innovation and transformation executives accountable for sustaining competitive differentiation Audience outcomes A working model – IDEA = P(K+I) – for understanding how ideas are generated and how to apply it in their own context Practical techniques for stimulating idea generation individually and with teams, applicable on return to the office A cross-cultural perspective on how creative practice differs across markets – relevant for any organisation operating across geographies A reframe of creativity from personal talent to organisational skill, with direct implications for how teams are developed A clearer read on how AI changes – and does not change – the fundamentals of human creativity

Why organisations work with Fons Trompenaars His Seven Dimensions of Culture model gives boards and integration teams a shared vocabulary for diagnosing where global strategies break down, drawn from research across more than a hundred thousand managers. Dilemma reconciliation moves leaders past the false choice between universal standards and local adaptation, which is the recurring failure mode in M&A integration, joint ventures, and global rollouts. Thinkers50 Hall of Fame status places him in the same tier as Drucker, Porter, and Peters, useful credibility when the audience is a sceptical executive committee. Three decades of advisory work with Shell, BP, Heineken, Philips, Nike, General Motors, IBM, Johnson and Johnson, and Pfizer mean the case material is operational, not academic. He is one of the few cultural theorists whose framework is built around action: every dimension comes with a method for resolving the tension, not just naming it. That method now runs inside AI-enabled tools, including a Dilemma Solver trained on a proprietary database of more than 60,000 leadership dilemmas. Biography highlights PhD in social systems sciences, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 1983. Co-founder of Trompenaars Hampden-Turner with Charles Hampden-Turner in 1989; acquired by KPMG in 1998. Author of Riding the Waves of Culture, named to the Thinkers50 top ten Management Classics list in 2024 and translated into more than twenty languages. Co-author of Nine Visions of Capitalism, 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, Building Cross-Cultural Competence, and Servant Leadership Across Cultures. Co-authoring Tension to Traction with Bas Kemme, a forthcoming book built on CEO interviews that extends the reconciliation argument of “21 Leaders for the 21st Century.” Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2017; ranked among the most influential management thinkers in 2011, 2013, and 2015. Recipient of the ASTD International Professional Practice Area Research Award (1991) and the WFPMA George Petitpas Award (2023). Biography Most cross-cultural frameworks describe difference. They tell leaders that the Dutch are direct and the Japanese are deferential, then leave the leader to work out what to do about it. Trompenaars’ contribution is the next step: a method for reconciling competing cultural values rather than choosing between them. The Seven Dimensions of Culture, developed with Charles Hampden-Turner over a decade of empirical research, identifies the underlying tensions that surface when global organisations try to operate as one. Universal rules against particular relationships. Individual achievement against collective ascription. Sequential time against synchronous time. The model is built on data from over a hundred thousand managers and has anchored consulting engagements at Shell, BP, Heineken, Philips, Nike, IBM, Johnson and Johnson, and Pfizer. The intellectual foundation runs deep. A doctorate from Wharton, nine years inside Shell across nine countries, and the 1989 founding of the consultancy that became Trompenaars Hampden-Turner, later acquired by KPMG. “Riding the Waves of Culture” is a Thinkers50 Management Classic. The Hall of Fame induction in 2017 placed him alongside Drucker, Porter, and Peters. What makes the work commercially useful is dilemma reconciliation. Competing values, results and relationships, standards and local fit, individual and collective, are not trade-offs to be balanced but tensions to be integrated. For boards working through merger integration, global expansion, or post-acquisition culture programmes, that shift in framing is what turns cultural awareness into operational performance. The method now runs inside AI-enabled tools and underpins Tension to Traction, a forthcoming book with Bas Kemme on how CEOs turn competing pressures into a path forward. Key speaking topics Cross-cultural leadership and global team effectiveness Dilemma reconciliation as a leadership method Cultural due diligence in mergers and acquisitions The Seven Dimensions of Culture Leading change across multinational organisations Servant leadership across cultures Cultural reconciliation in the age of AI and polarisation Ideal for Executive committees and boards leading multinational integration, joint ventures, or post-acquisition culture work CHROs and global HR leaders responsible for leadership development across multiple regions Transformation leads running global change programmes where local resistance is the recurring blocker Leadership development programmes for newly international senior leaders Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the seven cultural tensions that surface inside global teams A method for reconciling competing values rather than defaulting to head office standards Diagnostic clarity on why specific global initiatives have stalled or fragmented Case material from Shell, Heineken, Philips, and other multinationals that can be applied to the audience’s own integration challenges

Why organisations work with Diego Gilardoni He reads China the way a board needs it read: as a commercial relationship shaped by political signalling, cultural code and reputational exposure, not as a marketing opportunity that can be project-managed. He held a seat on the International Advisory Board of the National Image Research Centre at Tsinghua University, which gave him direct line of sight into how Chinese institutions think about Western corporate behaviour, a vantage point few external advisors actually have. His Oxford postgraduate work focused specifically on global reputation and corporate diplomacy, so he can move a leadership team from “we have a public affairs problem” to “we have an operating-model problem” without the usual translation costs. His strategic foresight training spans the Institute for the Future, Kairos Future, the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and the Oxford Scenarios Programme, which means scenarios for the room are built on recognised methodology rather than improvised futures language. Former broadcast journalist, current advisor, working trilingually across English, French and Italian, with lived professional experience across Europe, the US and China. The geopolitical reading carries the texture of someone who has actually operated inside these systems. Biography highlights Author, Decoding China: Cross-cultural strategies for successful business with the Chinese (2017). Former member, International Advisory Board, National Image Research Centre, Tsinghua University, Beijing. Former Visiting Professor in global business and corporate diplomacy, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), Beijing. Postgraduate Diploma in Global Business, University of Oxford; Oxford Scenarios Programme, Saïd Business School. Strategic foresight certifications from the Institute for the Future (Palo Alto), Kairos Future Academy (Stockholm) and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Contributor to the South China Morning Post and TEDx speaker on cross-cultural business. Biography The rules-based global economy that European and North American boards were trained inside no longer holds. China is a strategic relationship, not a market. Supply chains are political instruments. Reputation in one jurisdiction now creates legal and commercial exposure in another. Senior teams are still making capital decisions with a mental model from a different era. Diego’s work sits inside that gap. His Oxford postgraduate diploma in global business focused on reputation and corporate diplomacy, his subsequent foresight training runs through the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Kairos Future in Stockholm and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. The methodology is recognised. The application is commercial. China is the spine of his expertise. He served on the International Advisory Board of the National Image Research Centre at Tsinghua University and was Visiting Professor in global business and corporate diplomacy at UIBE in Beijing. Decoding China (2017) is the working manual for executives who need to operate inside the Chinese commercial system rather than perform competence at distance. Before the advisory work, he spent the first 15 years of his career as a journalist with Switzerland’s national broadcaster, reporting from Europe and the United States. He writes for the South China Morning Post and has authored two earlier books in Italian, one on the reputational fallout of the Swiss banks’ WWII assets crisis, one on US foreign policy in a multipolar world. The reputation thread runs the length of the career. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and global business in a fragmented order China strategy and cross-cultural commercial decision-making Corporate diplomacy and reputation across jurisdictions Strategic foresight and scenario thinking for boards Cultural intelligence as a board-level capability Strategic narrative and executive communication Ideal for CEOs, boards and executive committees with material China or wider Asia exposure Heads of strategy, corporate affairs and public affairs in multinational organisations Risk, supply chain and corporate development leaders re-pricing geopolitical exposure Leadership programmes inside global financial services, industrials, luxury and hospitality groups Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the China relationship is going and what that means for specific commercial decisions in the room. A working vocabulary for corporate diplomacy that closes the gap between public affairs, strategy and operations. Scenario logic the leadership team can take back into capital allocation and supply chain decisions. Concrete cross-cultural cues for negotiating, partnering and managing reputation across the China-West divide.

Why organisations work with David Thomas He lives in Cebu and works on active cross-border deal flow through Mabuhay Capital Corporation, the Philippines M&A advisory firm, so what he says about emerging Asia is being tested in live transactions rather than retrieved from a desk in London. His reading of Hong Kong and Greater China carries family proximity that other Asia speakers cannot match. His father, Michael Thomas QC CMG, was Attorney General of Hong Kong from 1983 to 1988 and contributed to the Sino-British Joint Declaration. His stepmother, Baroness Lydia Dunn, sat on Hong Kong’s Executive and Legislative Councils and went on to sit in the UK House of Lords. He has spent two decades running capital and investment delegations across emerging Asia, including the BRIC+ Program he co-founded (Brazil, Russia, India and China), so when he points at a corridor opening, he is usually already moving founders or capital through it. His North-South Corridor framework maps how capital and supply chains are moving between the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand. It is the lane that most of the cross-border activity of the next decade will be priced along, and it is the lane that most Western strategy decks still skip. His Three Cups of Tea framework, drawn from the book of the same name, gives Western leaders a working method for how commercial trust actually builds in Asian markets: Stranger, Friend, Family, in that order. Biography highlights Author of Three Cups of Tea: A 3 Step Guide to Doing Business in China and Year of the Rat, alongside further writing on Asian commerce. Lived and worked in Hong Kong through the 1980s and 1990s; ran his own wealth management firm there from 1988 to 1995. Father Michael Thomas QC CMG, Attorney General of Hong Kong (1983–1988); stepmother Baroness Lydia Dunn, senior unofficial member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and Legislative Council, and a UK House of Lords cross-bencher. Co-founder of the BRIC+ Program (2005–2010), running five years of Australian investment study tours into Brazil, Russia, India and China. Consultant to Mabuhay Capital Corporation (Philippines) on cross-border M&A and ASEAN capital flows. Founding President of the Australia China SME Association. Founder/CEO of Think Global Consulting. Graduate of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business CEO Program in Beijing (2019). Has spoken at corporate events for Deloitte, Westpac, Telstra, DHL, BT Financial Group, RMA Australia and others across Asia, Australia, Europe and the UK. Biography Western boards are still reading Asia through a US-China lens. The next two decades of cross-border capital and supply chain activity will move along a different lane: the corridor connecting the Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong, down through the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and broader ASEAN, to Australia and New Zealand. That lane is what David Thomas calls the North-South Corridor, and he has spent three decades inside it. That perspective begins with family. His father, Michael Thomas QC CMG, was Hong Kong’s Attorney General from 1983 to 1988 and contributed to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that determined the territory’s future. His stepmother, Baroness Lydia Dunn, was a senior member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and went on to sit as a cross-bencher in the UK House of Lords from 1990 to 2010. David lived in Hong Kong through the 1980s and 1990s and ran his own wealth management firm there from 1988 to 1995. He made his first trip to Beijing in 1989. What followed was three decades of running capital and trade work across emerging Asia. He co-founded the BRIC+ Program, an Australian investment delegation that ran for five consecutive years into Brazil, Russia, India and China and gave senior financial advisers structured access to all four markets simultaneously. His book Three Cups of Tea introduced a model now used by Western executives entering Asian markets: relationships build through three stages, Stranger, Friend and Family, and the real commercial work begins only at the third. He served as founding President of the Australia China SME Association and founded Think Global Consulting. He works with Mabuhay Capital Corporation on active cross-border M&A and capital flows across the Philippines and ASEAN. He is a graduate of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business CEO Program in Beijing, and recent client work has included executive briefings for senior freight and logistics teams gathered in Ho Chi Minh City and curated investor introductions for Australian and New Zealand founders raising into Asia-Pacific capital. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the North-South Corridor ASEAN as the next commercial growth axis Cross-border capital flow between developed markets and emerging Asia Supply chain repositioning under US-China decoupling Cross-cultural negotiation and trust architecture in Asian markets Strategic foresight on Asia for Western boards Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors with current or planned commercial exposure to Hong Kong, Greater China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia or broader ASEAN. Investment committees, family offices and venture firms allocating capital across the Greater Bay Area, ASEAN and Australia/New Zealand. Corporate development, M&A and market entry teams running cross-border transactions or joint ventures in emerging Asia. Industry associations and trade bodies briefing members on supply chain risk and the capital corridor connecting developed markets to ASEAN. Audience outcomes A working map of the North-South Corridor and where capital, supply chains and political risk are actually being repriced. A method for building commercial trust in Asian markets (Stranger, Friend, Family), and a clear view of why transactional Western approaches consistently fail there. A sharper read of US-China-ASEAN dynamics and where they intersect with their own organisation’s market and supplier exposure. An applied frame for market entry, joint venture and capital partner decisions across the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and broader ASEAN.

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

Why organisations work with Anil Gupta His research on China and India spans thirty years and six books: not a regional specialist’s tour d’horizon, but a body of work that produced frameworks now used by boards and strategy teams at major multinationals The «global mindset» framework distinguishing local depth from global connect gives leadership teams a diagnostic tool for identifying where strategic blind spots sit, not just a description of why diversity matters One of only three professors in the world elected a lifetime fellow of all three premier academic bodies in his field: the Academy of Management, the Strategic Management Society, and the Academy of International Business Organisations that have engaged Gupta have included GE, Walmart, IBM, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, and SAP; his frameworks are tested against the operational complexity of companies with genuinely global footprints, not just emerging market theory He is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee, the body convened by the World Bank and IMF to advise on global economic challenges, giving him line-of-sight into macro-structural debates that rarely reach corporate strategy teams Biography highlights Michael D. Dingman Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland 2024 inductee, Thinkers50 Hall of Fame; ranked continuously in Thinkers50 since 2013; 2023 C.K. Prahalad Award for Scholarly Impact on Practice, Strategic Management Society One of only three professors worldwide holding lifetime fellowship from all three major academic bodies in the field: Academy of Management, Strategic Management Society, and Academy of International Business Co-founder and chairman, China India Institute, Washington DC; visiting professor of strategy, INSEAD Author or co-author of six books (Wiley), including Getting China and India Right (Axiom Book Awards Silver Prize) and The Silk Road Rediscovered; contributor to Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek PhD, Harvard Business School; MBA, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad; B.Tech, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Member, World Economic Forum Global Expert Network and Bretton Woods Committee; regular participant at WEF Davos Biography Anil Gupta holds the Michael D. Dingman Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Here, he has spent three decades building one of the most specific bodies of research in global strategy: the competitive dynamics of China and India, and what their rise means for organisations competing across the global economy. His 2024 induction into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame recognised that work, explicitly citing his contribution to understanding globalisation trends over thirty years. Most strategy advice on emerging markets treats China and India as a category. Gupta’s argument, developed across six books and more than seventy academic papers, is that they represent four distinct strategic realities simultaneously: mega-markets, cost platforms, innovation bases, and springboards for fearsome new global competitors. Getting China and India Right, the clearest statement of that argument, received the Axiom Book Awards Silver Prize and was shortlisted for the Asia Society’s Bernard Schwartz Book Award. The Silk Road Rediscovered extended that work into the competitive dynamics between the two economies themselves. What separates Gupta’s perspective from macro-commentary is its institutional background. He is one of only three professors in the world elected a lifetime fellow of the Academy of Management, the Strategic Management Society, and the Academy of International Business simultaneously, a peer recognition that reflects the rigour of the underlying research, not its public profile. He was awarded the Strategic Management Society’s C.K. Prahalad Award for Scholarly Impact on Practice in 2023. He is also chairman of the China India Institute, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Expert Network, and sits on the Bretton Woods Committee convened by the World Bank and IMF. His work and opinion have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. He holds a PhD from Harvard Business School, an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, and a B.Tech from IIT Kanpur. Key speaking topics Global strategy and international competitive advantage China and India as strategic priorities Emerging markets and diverging economic trajectories Global mindset and cross-border leadership capability Geopolitical shifts and corporate strategy Global megatrends and scenario planning Globalisation, deglobalisation, and supply chain restructuring Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership teams with significant international exposure or expansion mandates Chief Strategy Officers and corporate strategy functions navigating market entry or competitive repositioning in Asia Investor and sovereign wealth audiences monitoring emerging market trajectories Executive education cohorts at graduate business schools focused on global strategy Audience outcomes A structured framework – the «global mindset» model – for diagnosing where an organisation’s international strategy assumptions are outdated or misaligned Clearer understanding of why China and India require distinct strategic logics, not a single emerging-markets approach Practical perspective on which emerging markets are better positioned for long-term growth and what that means for investment and competitive positioning Sharper criteria for evaluating when global expansion creates competitive advantage versus merely adding complexity An updated reading of the macro-structural forces – demographic, technological, environmental – reshaping international competition over the next decade