Customer Experience & Marketing

Why organisations work with Ida Kymmer Brings a working knowledge of how the same technologies are deployed in commercial, defence, and peacebuilding contexts, so leaders see the full surface area of a decision rather than one face of it. Founder of House of PeaceTech, the ecosystem platform connecting investors, startups, governments, and NGOs working on conflict prevention and recovery technology, which gives clients access to a network most strategy advisors cannot reach. Has shaped immersive technology programmes for BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido during her tenure at Journee, so the perspective is built on real brand deployment, not theory. Active across MENA, Korea, and the Nordics through Infinite Reality, Hub71, and Vinnova, giving organisations a read on emerging technology adoption beyond the usual US and Western European frame. Publishes Tech for War and Peace weekly, so the analysis a client receives is built from continuous primary research, not refreshed every booking cycle. Biography highlights Director of Business, MENA at Infinite Reality Founder of House of PeaceTech, the ecosystem platform for technology in conflict prevention and recovery Former Director of Global Affairs at Journee, working with BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido Author of Tech for War and Peace, a weekly newsletter on defence, conflict, and peacebuilding technology Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies Startup judge for Vinnova (Sweden) and Hub71 (Abu Dhabi); speaking record at World Economic Forum, SXSW, Gitex, TechBBQ, and Deloitte Innovation Day Biography Emerging technology rarely arrives with a clean use case. The same systems that power immersive retail can be repurposed for surveillance, defence, or disinformation. Most advisors look at one face of that surface. Few look at all of them. Ida Kymmer’s work sits across the commercial, defence, and peacebuilding applications of the same technologies. She holds a Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies and founded House of PeaceTech, an ecosystem platform connecting investors, startups, governments, and NGOs working on conflict prevention and recovery. Her weekly newsletter, Tech for War and Peace, tracks how defence-adjacent technologies move between sectors. Her commercial credibility is built on deployment, not theory. As Director of Global Affairs at Journee from 2021 to 2023, she shaped immersive technology programmes for BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido. She now serves as Director of Business, MENA at Infinite Reality, and judges startups for Sweden’s Vinnova and Abu Dhabi’s Hub71. The geographic and linguistic range matters here. She has lived in nine countries, speaks five languages, and reads emerging technology adoption from Seoul, the Gulf, and the Nordics as fluently as from Silicon Valley. Boards in any of those markets get a perspective that the usual American or Western European advisory pool does not provide. Key speaking topics Emerging technology and innovation strategy Defence and peace technology Immersive technology and commerce Disinformation and information integrity Sustainability and the green transition Korean innovation systems and soft power MENA technology ecosystems Ideal for Boards and executive teams making frontier technology investment or deployment decisions Chief innovation, strategy, and digital officers in consumer brands, automotive, and luxury Government, defence, and policy audiences engaging with dual-use technology Sustainability and ESG leads scrutinising green-transition supply chains Audience outcomes A clearer map of how a single technology operates across commercial, defence, and humanitarian use cases Specific examples of immersive technology deployment from named global brands A working view of innovation ecosystems in Korea, MENA, and the Nordics Sharper questions to put to internal teams on dual-use exposure, supply chain ethics, and emerging technology partnerships

Why organisations work with Rodney Williams He has built two venture-backed fintech companies from concept to scale, including SoLo Funds, the only Black-led Certified B Corp fintech in the US, with over 1 million loans funded for 1.5 million users. He raised more than $40M for LISNR with clients including Visa, Ticketmaster, Jaguar Land Rover, and Lenovo, giving him operating experience inside the commercial functions of global brands rather than a venture-capital perspective from the outside. He brings a working operator’s view of financial inclusion that does not collapse into advocacy, anchored in his testimony to federal regulators and direct experience designing products for working and middle-class consumers. Named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list five times across nine years, a recurrence that is unusual and signals durable founder relevance rather than one moment of attention. Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, with the framing capacity that programme selects for, which translates to a keynote that argues rather than just narrates. Biography highlights Co-founder and President, SoLo Funds, the largest community finance platform in the US, with over 1 million loans funded since 2018. Founder and Chair, LISNR, an ultrasonic data-transmission company backed by Visa with over $40M raised. Former Brand Manager, Procter & Gamble, leading digital strategy and ecommerce for Pampers North America. 2019 Henry Crown Fellow, Aspen Global Leadership Network. CNBC Disruptor 50 honouree in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2023. Cannes Gold Lion (2015); Ad Age 40 Under 40 (2012); Black Enterprise Tech Entrepreneur of the Year (2016); Ebony Power 100 (2018). Biography SoLo Funds has facilitated more than a million loans to working and lower-middle-class Americans since 2018, and it did so by treating its users as both borrowers and lenders to each other. The business depends on a functioning peer community, not on a marketing community. That distinction sounds semantic until a leadership team tries to operationalise it. Rodney Williams co-founded SoLo Funds after building LISNR, an ultrasonic data-transmission platform he scaled to over $40M in funding with commercial deployments at Visa, Ticketmaster, Jaguar Land Rover, and Lenovo. Before LISNR, he ran digital and ecommerce strategy for Pampers North America at Procter & Gamble, which is where he learned how large consumer organisations actually think about customer acquisition, retention, and brand economics. That sequence matters. He has built community-led commercial models inside a $300B consumer goods business, inside a B2B technology company selling to global brands, and inside a fintech that has become the only Black-led Certified B Corp in its category. The arguments he makes about community as a commercial mechanism are operating arguments, not theoretical ones. He has been named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list five times across nine years, including 2023, and is a 2019 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. His most pointed contribution for a corporate audience is on what financial inclusion actually requires from product, regulatory, and capital partners once advocacy ends and operations begin. SoLo’s growth has placed him in direct conversation with federal regulators, congressional offices, and tier-one investors including Serena Ventures, ACME Capital, and Endeavor Catalyst, and he speaks from inside those conversations rather than from a panel about them. Key speaking topics Community as commercial operating model Founding and scaling venture-backed fintech Financial inclusion and the underserved consumer Brand building inside large consumer organisations Inclusive capital raising and founder ecosystems Disruptive product strategy in regulated markets Black entrepreneurship and category creation Ideal for CMOs, brand leaders, and growth executives at consumer-facing organisations rethinking community as a commercial channel. Boards and leadership teams of banks, fintechs, and financial services firms reassessing the underserved-consumer opportunity. Founders, venture investors, and corporate venture units focused on inclusive innovation and scale-up discipline. DEI, ESG, and impact leaders looking for a founder-operator voice on inclusive commercial outcomes rather than advocacy framing. Audience outcomes A concrete view of how community functions as an operating mechanism inside a commercial business, not as a brand layer. A founder-operator perspective on building, financing, and defending an inclusive product inside a regulated category. Arguments and case material on why the working and lower-middle-class consumer is structurally underserved, and what product responses actually move the market. Direct experience and pattern recognition from raising capital as a Black founder, applicable to inclusive investment and founder-development programmes.

Why organisations work with Lolita Taub She runs a working venture fund built on the community-as-moat thesis, so the argument is tested against capital decisions every week, not theorised from the outside. She has sat on both sides of the cap table: $50M-plus in enterprise tech sold at IBM and Cisco, then 100-plus pre-seed and seed investments through Backstage Capital, The Community Fund and Ganas Ventures. She built Ganas Ventures as the first Latina-led traditional VC fund using a public fundraising structure under SEC Rule 506(c), which gives her direct experience of investor access as a design problem, not a diversity slogan. Her audience network of 90,000-plus founders, funders and operators, plus a 22,000-subscriber newsletter, is itself proof of the playbook she teaches. Biography highlights General Partner and founder, Ganas Ventures, investing pre-seed and seed across the US and Latin America. Co-founder of The Community Fund with Jesse Middleton and Flybridge, a $5M vehicle backing community-driven startups. Forbes 30 Under 30 Finalist; World Economic Forum Global Shaper across San Diego, Madrid and New York hubs. 2x TEDx speaker; keynote stages at Meta, Zoom, Stanford and Harvard. 2025 Stella Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award; 2025 ¡HOLA! Latina Powerhouse in the Disrupters category. MBA, IE Business School; BA International Relations, University of Southern California. Biography Most early-stage companies are built on a marketing assumption that no longer holds. Distribution channels are saturated, paid acquisition costs keep climbing, and customers move on the moment a cheaper alternative appears. The companies that survive are the ones whose users, contributors and earliest believers feel ownership over the product, and that is a structural design choice, not a campaign. Ganas Ventures was built around that observation. As General Partner and founder, Taub invests pre-seed and seed cheques into community-driven companies across the US and Latin America, and runs the fund itself as a community of operators, angels and LPs rather than a closed institutional vehicle. Before Ganas, she co-founded The Community Fund with Jesse Middleton and Flybridge, a $5M fund seeding the same thesis into 100 startups. The argument has weight because she sold the technology stack before she invested in it. Seven-plus years at IBM and Cisco produced the first US Cloud sale at QAD and the first Cisco IoT Connected Cities project, and a track record across data analytics, security and cloud. She then moved through Backstage Capital, Indie.VC, K Fund and NextGen Venture Partners, and now sits on more than 100 portfolio cap tables. Outside the fund, she is a 2x TEDx speaker and World Economic Forum Global Shaper who has keynoted at Meta, Zoom, Stanford and Harvard. The 2025 Stella Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and a place on ¡HOLA!’s Latina Powerhouse list recognise a working venture practice, not a personal story. Key speaking topics Community as commercial moat Early-stage venture strategy Building investor and founder networks Underestimated founders and capital access Latin America and US cross-border tech Responsible AI and bias in product Inclusive investing and Rule 506(c) fund design Ideal for Founders and operating teams at pre-seed through Series A Corporate venture, innovation and ecosystem leads building community plays CMOs and growth leaders rethinking brand around customer ownership LP and family office audiences allocating to emerging-manager strategies Audience outcomes A working definition of community moat that can be applied to a specific product, not a generic brand claim A view of how early capital is actually allocated to community-driven companies, from a GP writing those cheques Practical reference points from 100-plus portfolio investments, including what separates a real community from an audience A grounded reading of how inclusion shows up in commercial strategy and fund design, away from political signalling Direct exposure to the US and Latin America early-stage landscape from an investor active on both sides

Why organisations work with Max Lenderman He wrote the founding text of experiential marketing. Experience the Message (2005) put the category on the map. Twenty years on, his thinking is the underlying logic most brand-experience practice still draws from. He has run the experiential function at the agencies that shape global brand work: founder of the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, former CEO of School, current Chief Experience Officer at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing. He moves brands from broadcasting purpose to operating on it. His “invertising” approach starts inside the organisation, with employees, and makes brand purpose a commercial driver rather than a campaign line. He has been working on web3, NFTs, and the digital-physical convergence since 2021, before most CMOs had a position on any of it. His Adweek “Into the Metaverse” column is one of the longer-running serious treatments of the territory. He has built campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Absolut, and DaimlerChrysler. The case material in the room is from inside the work, not observed from outside it. Biography highlights Author of Experience the Message: How Experiential Marketing Is Changing the Brand World and Brand New World: How to Reach Billions, Not Millions Chief Experience Officer at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing, the world’s largest experiential marketing agency Founder of the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky; former CEO of School (Project Worldwide) Founding member of the International Experiential Marketing Association (IXMA) Columnist for Adweek and Campaign magazines, including the “Into the Metaverse” column Speaker at SXSW, Consensus, Forbes CMO Summit, Advertising Week, and X-Prize Biography Experience the Message was published in 2005. It is the book that put the phrase “experiential marketing” into the advertising vocabulary, and the thesis behind it, that the brand is what the customer experiences, not what the brand says about itself, is now treated as common sense by most serious CMOs. The author wrote it from inside the work, not as a theorist looking on. Max Lenderman has spent the last two decades building the function he named. He launched the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, served as CEO of School, the purpose-led consultancy inside Project Worldwide, and now holds the first Chief Experience Officer post at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing. The client list, Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Absolut, DaimlerChrysler, NASCAR Canada, gives him operating ground in categories where brand experience moves revenue. Two ideas anchor his current work with senior marketers. The first is “invertising,” the argument that brand purpose has to be operationalised through employees before it can be sold to customers, and that the financial return on purpose is measurable when treated this way. The second is the “phygital” frontier, where digital and physical experiences are designed as a single product rather than as a campaign with a digital extension. His Adweek column “Into the Metaverse” has tracked this territory since 2021. What he gives a senior marketing audience is the founding logic of the category and twenty years of inside work applying it. He cites a PwC finding that 86% of US buyers will pay more for a better brand experience, then shows what that figure actually requires of a brand operating model. Key speaking topics Customer experience and brand operating reality Experiential and “phygital” marketing Brand purpose as commercial driver Web3, NFTs, and the metaverse for marketers AI as creative amplifier in marketing Sports marketing and live brand experience Marketing innovation and emerging consumer behaviour Ideal for CMOs, CBOs, and brand directors rethinking the role of marketing in commercial strategy Customer experience and brand experience leads inside large consumer businesses Agency leaders and creative directors briefing on web3, AI, and digital-physical integration Sports, entertainment, and live-event sponsors building brand experience programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of brand experience that separates it from communications and advertising A view of brand purpose as an internal operating commitment, not a campaign theme A sharper read on where web3, NFTs, and the metaverse have commercial traction for marketers, and where they do not A direct argument for treating AI as a creative amplifier inside marketing teams Case material from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, School, and GMR Marketing applied to the audience’s own brand questions

Why organisations work with Harold Hughes He has built a venture-backed company on blockchain infrastructure, raised more than four million dollars, and survived past the cohort year that kills most peers. The lessons are operating lessons, not theory. His Catalyst Labs curriculum has been adopted by Benedict College, the University of Texas, and Furman University, which means his programme has been pressure-tested by institutions that do not run on hype. He has a published book, A Kids Book About Blockchain, that translates Web3 into language a non-technical audience can act on. Few speakers in this space can do that without losing the substance. He is one of the few operators who has both written about social capital and used it to raise capital from inside underrepresented networks. Senior buyers get an inclusion conversation grounded in revenue, not rhetoric. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Bandwagon, a venture-backed live-experience identity and analytics company applying blockchain to ticketing and fan data Founder of NFNTE Capital and co-founder of Catalyst Labs, a 12-week accelerator for emerging founders Author, A Kids Book About Blockchain, published by A Kids Co. and distributed by Penguin Random House Inaugural cohort, IBM Blockchain Accelerator; finalist in the Smart Dubai Office Global Blockchain Challenge BA in Economics and Political Science and MBA, Clemson University; named to Clemson’s «Roaring 10» young alumni list Angel investor with a portfolio that includes Partake Foods, Liquid Death, Athletic Greens, and Broadway productions including Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen Biography Bandwagon began with a simple operating problem in live entertainment. Teams and venues knew almost nothing about the people sitting in their seats, and ticket fraud was eating into the relationship. Harold Hughes built a venture-backed company that uses blockchain infrastructure to give organisers verifiable identity and analytics. Bandwagon has raised more than four million dollars from investors including Backstage Capital and the State of South Carolina, was part of the inaugural IBM Blockchain Accelerator, and acquired Seattle-based IdealSeat in 2020. The work outside Bandwagon is what gives Hughes range. As founder of NFNTE Capital and co-founder of Catalyst Labs, he runs a twelve-week accelerator for emerging entrepreneurs whose curriculum has been adopted by Benedict College, the University of Texas, and Furman University. He wrote A Kids Book About Blockchain, published by A Kids Co. and distributed by Penguin Random House, because he saw that most explanation of Web3 had been written for people who already understood it. Hughes is a serious angel investor as well as an operator. His portfolio includes Partake Foods, Liquid Death, Athletic Greens, and Broadway productions such as Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen. The thesis behind that activity, and behind his programmes, is that social capital is a measurable input into commercial outcomes, and that founders from under-represented backgrounds have been systematically priced out of it. That is the point he made before the diversity conversation hardened, and it is the point he can still make commercially. He holds a bachelor’s in Economics and Political Science and an MBA from Clemson University, where he was named to the «Roaring 10» young alumni list in 2019. The credentials are useful context. The argument he brings to a senior audience is that early-stage discipline, operating clarity about new technology, and access to networks are the same problem, and the people who solve all three are the ones who scale. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and scale-up discipline Blockchain and Web3 in the enterprise Social capital as a commercial asset Diversity in venture and founder access to capital Customer identity and data in live experience Future of technology in consumer industries Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and leadership teams of growth-stage companies looking to build durable advantage from technology and network strategy Corporate innovation, brand, and partnership leaders working with sport, music, and live-experience platforms Diversity, talent, and people leaders who want a substantive operator voice on under-represented founder economics Universities, accelerators, and entrepreneurship programmes designing curricula for first-generation and emerging founders Audience outcomes A working understanding of how blockchain creates verifiable identity and ownership in consumer settings, beyond cryptocurrency A specific method for mapping personal and organisational networks as commercial inputs, taken from the Catalyst Labs and NFNTE programmes A frank account of what it took to raise capital and survive as a Black founder in venture markets, with implications for corporate inclusion strategy A scale-up operator’s view of the decisions that separate companies that get funded from those that get acquired or close

Why organisations work with Courtney Caldwell She has run demand generation at both ends of the company lifecycle: inside Oracle’s worldwide digital marketing group and at RightNow Technologies before its $1.45B sale, and again from zero at ShearShare. Few speakers can argue commercial strategy with that lived range. She built and exited a two-sided marketplace in a $500B services category that most enterprise marketers never touch. Beauty and barbering is not adjacent to enterprise SaaS, and her cross-vertical fluency makes her useful to leaders whose growth playbook is too narrow. She is a credible voice on founder economics from the inside, including raising venture capital as a Black woman, scaling through Google Demo Day, YC Fellowship and 500 Startups, and selling under financial pressure. The exit was not a clean Silicon Valley story. One of a small number of speakers who can move a room from enterprise SaaS marketing to gig-economy workforce dynamics in the same talk, because she has operated in both. Biography highlights Cofounder and former CEO of ShearShare, acquired in November 2024 after scaling to over 1,000 cities. Former global director of Oracle’s Worldwide Digital Marketing Strategy & Innovations Group. Former head of digital demand generation and JAPAC field marketing at RightNow Technologies, acquired by Oracle for $1.45B. Inc. magazine 2019 Female Founders 100 honoree; 2019 Ada Lovelace Female Tech Founder of the Year; 2017 L’Oreal USA Women in Digital NEXT Generation Award finalist. 2024 EY Entrepreneurs Access Network cohort member. BBA, SMU Cox School of Business; MBA in Marketing, UT Dallas. Biography Most enterprise marketers have never had to build supply. Inside a mature SaaS business, the funnel exists, the segments are mapped, and the work is to compound what is already there. Building a two-sided marketplace from zero asks for a different skill: acquiring two customers at once, in different verticals, with different motivations, before either side trusts the platform. Courtney Caldwell has done both. At Oracle she was global director of the Worldwide Digital Marketing Strategy and Innovations Group. Before that, she ran digital demand generation and JAPAC field marketing at RightNow Technologies in the run-up to its $1.45B acquisition by Oracle. The discipline she carried out of enterprise software was demand-gen rigour at scale: segmentation, attribution, funnel ownership. She then applied that discipline to a $500B services category that enterprise marketing usually ignores. ShearShare, the salon and barbershop booth rental marketplace she cofounded with Dr. Tye Caldwell, reached more than 1,000 cities and over 70,000 small businesses before being acquired in November 2024. The platform was a Google Demo Day winner, a YC Fellowship and 500 Startups alum, and a 2022 Fast Company World-Changing Ideas honoree. The exit was not the textbook version. ShearShare was sold to a strategic buyer under financial pressure during a dispute with M&T Bank. Caldwell speaks publicly about both halves of the journey, the recognition lists (Inc. Female Founders 100, Ada Lovelace Founder of the Year, L’Oreal Women in Digital, EY Entrepreneurs Access Network) and the harder economics underneath. That candour, paired with a Fortune 500 marketing pedigree, is the unusual combination she brings to a room. Key speaking topics Marketplace growth and two-sided customer acquisition Demand generation and digital marketing at scale Founder economics and venture-backed scale-up Future of work in the experience and gig economy Black women in technology and founder mental health Local startup ecosystems outside Silicon Valley Partnership, parenthood and entrepreneurship Ideal for CMOs and heads of growth at SaaS and consumer platforms reassessing demand-generation discipline. Founders, CEOs and operating partners building or backing two-sided marketplaces and scale-ups. Corporate innovation leads exploring services-vertical platform opportunities outside core tech. Diversity, leadership and ERG programmes commissioning substantive Black-women-in-tech content rather than generic representation talks. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where enterprise demand-gen discipline applies to early-stage marketplace growth, and where it does not. Specific tactics from inside Google Demo Day, YC Fellowship and 500 Startups that translate to corporate venture and intrapreneurship programmes. A frank account of what scaling and exiting a marketplace looks like when the cap table and operating economics are under pressure. A sharper read on the gig and experience economy from someone who operated a platform inside it, not just analysed it.

Why organisations work with Damian Pelliccione They built Revry from a single product gap, no LGBTQ+ app on Apple TV at launch, into a platform with more than five million monthly active viewers across 130+ countries and distribution on Samsung, Roku, Vizio, Comcast Xfinity and Cox Communications. Revry reached cash-flow positive status as a niche-first streamer at a moment when the broader streaming industry was contracting. That is a credible answer to boards asking whether audience-led strategy can actually pay. A Goldman Sachs Black and Latinx accelerator graduate and Goldman Sachs “Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs” honouree, with first-hand experience of raising capital as a minority-owned founder against the actual mechanics, not the rhetoric, of inclusive investment. Creator of the GLAAD-recognised series “Drag Latina,” giving them a working understanding of how representation translates into content that audiences and awards bodies treat as serious. Brings a non-binary executive perspective into rooms where most senior speakers do not, useful for leadership teams who want substantive content on identity and inclusion rather than rehearsed talking points. Biography highlights CEO and co-founder of Revry, the LGBTQ+ global streaming network, with distribution on Samsung, Vizio, Roku, Apple, Comcast Xfinity, Cox Communications, Google and TiVo. Goldman Sachs “Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs” honouree and graduate of the Goldman Sachs Black and Latinx 2020 accelerator. Named to Business Insider’s “Top 16 Power Player Execs in AD Video Streaming Space.” Featured on the Out 100 list and recipient of the West Hollywood Rainbow Key Award. Creator of “Drag Latina,” recipient of a Special Recognition Award at the 35th GLAAD Media Awards in 2024. Adjunct Professor at Columbia College Chicago, with guest lectures at USC, Los Angeles Film School and BAU University Istanbul. Biography When the new Apple TV launched, there were zero LGBTQ+ apps on the platform. That observation became Revry, now a streaming network with more than five million monthly active viewers across 130+ countries and carriage on Samsung, Vizio, Roku, Apple, Comcast Xfinity and Cox Communications. Revry is a useful case study for any leadership team wrestling with how to build a defensible commercial position. The platform is certified minority-owned and operated, was founded by four intersectional co-founders, and has reached cash-flow positive operations while larger streamers have spent the last two years cutting content and reorganising around losses. Audience-led economics, treated seriously, turn out to scale. Damian Pelliccione has raised capital from Elevate Capital, Backstage Capital, Collab Capital and LOUD Capital, graduated from the Goldman Sachs Black and Latinx 2020 accelerator and was named to Goldman Sachs “Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs.” They were named one of Business Insider’s top sixteen ad-supported streaming executives and featured on the Out 100. They are also the creator of “Drag Latina,” which received a Special Recognition Award at the 35th GLAAD Media Awards in 2024. Pelliccione is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia College Chicago and has lectured at USC, Los Angeles Film School and BAU University Istanbul. For senior buyers, the most useful frame is this: a founder who has converted an under-served audience into a profitable global platform, and can speak to commercial, content and inclusion questions with the same first-hand authority. Key speaking topics LGBTQ+ media and the economics of niche-first streaming Building commercially defensible businesses around under-served audiences Fundraising as a minority-owned founder CTV, OTT and FAST platform strategy Inclusion, identity and non-binary executive leadership Gen Z and Millennial audience behaviour in digital media Ideal for Media, entertainment and streaming leadership teams CMOs and brand leadership reviewing audience strategy and inclusive marketing investment Founders, investors and accelerator cohorts focused on minority-owned scale-up DEIB councils and ERG leadership looking for content from a working CEO, not a consultant Audience outcomes A concrete reference case for how an under-served audience can become a defensible platform business A view of CTV, OTT and FAST distribution from a founder who has negotiated carriage with the major operators A grounded read on what minority-owned fundraising actually looks like, beyond the public messaging A working executive’s account of non-binary leadership inside corporate media Examples of how representation translates into content audiences and awards bodies take seriously

Why organisations work with Sean Pillot de Chenecey He turned the trust collapse into a working brand discipline. The Post-Truth Business, his Kogan Page bestseller, gives commercial leaders a concrete language for authenticity at a time when most marketing advice is still optimising for awareness. He sits inside formal futures-studies practice, not only commercial consulting. As UK Associate Partner at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, he runs the institute’s Foresight-Driven Innovation course, which he applies to client brand and innovation work. He holds office in the global futures-studies field. As Director of Public Affairs at the World Futures Studies Federation, the UNESCO-partnered global body for futures studies scholarship, he operates inside the same institutional network as the academics, policy specialists and foresight practitioners shaping how organisations think about long-range change. He has been doing trends and foresight long enough to know what holds. Co-founding The Future Laboratory in the 1990s, then operating his own consultancy Brand Positive, gives him three decades of pattern recognition across consumer, cultural and commercial cycles. His podcast, The New Abnormal, approaching 300,000 downloads, keeps him in continuous dialogue with academics, operators and activists shaping how organisations are perceived, which feeds directly into client work. Biography highlights Author of The Post-Truth Business (Kogan Page), No. 1 Business Bestseller, on rebuilding brand authenticity in a distrusting world. Author of Influencers and Revolutionaries (Kogan Page), shortlisted for the Business Book of the Year Awards. UK Associate Partner, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, leading the Foresight-Driven Innovation course. Director of Public Affairs, World Futures Studies Federation, the UNESCO-partnered global body for futures studies scholarship. Co-founder of trend forecasting agency The Future Laboratory; founder of independent strategy consultancy Brand Positive. Host of The New Abnormal podcast, approaching 300,000 downloads. Agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum; visiting lecturer at University of the Arts London (Central Saint Martins, London College of Fashion), the Royal College of Art, the University of Brighton and other leading creative and business schools for more than two decades. Biography Most brand thinkers stop at narrative. Most futurists stop at the macro picture. Sean Pillot de Chenecey works the join between the two, and that is where his commercial value sits. His Kogan Page bestseller The Post-Truth Business argued that brand authenticity, not louder advertising, is the operating answer to collapsing customer trust, and gave senior marketers a working framework rather than a critique. His career put him in the right place to take that argument seriously. In the 1990s he co-founded The Future Laboratory, the trend forecasting agency, before running his own consultancy Brand Positive for clients across consumer, financial services and technology. The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies brought him in as UK Associate Partner, and he leads the institute’s Foresight-Driven Innovation course, used by organisations who want innovation work grounded in real scenario method rather than ideation theatre. He also serves as Director of Public Affairs at the World Futures Studies Federation, the UNESCO-partnered global peak body for futures studies scholarship. His second book, Influencers and Revolutionaries, shortlisted for the Business Book of the Year Awards, mapped the founders, technologists and activists actually moving markets. The New Abnormal, his podcast, has crossed 250,000 downloads and now functions as a working research instrument; he is in continuous conversation with the academics, operators and cultural figures who shape how organisations are perceived. He has lectured on strategy and innovation at Central Saint Martins, the Royal College of Art, Chelsea College of Art, LSBU Business School, Miami Ad School, OMNES/INSEEC and the University for the Creative Arts for more than twenty years, and contributes to the World Economic Forum’s agenda. The combination, three decades of trends practice plus a formal futures-studies foothold plus a published thesis on trust, is what brings him into rooms where the brief is brand authenticity, customer trust or innovation strategy under uncertainty. Key speaking topics Brand authenticity and customer trust Foresight-driven innovation Megatrends and scenario planning Consumer behaviour in a post-truth environment Marketing strategy under uncertainty Anticipatory leadership Politics, philosophy and the future of business Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and customer experience leaders rebuilding trust with sceptical audiences. Chief strategy officers and innovation leads who need foresight integrated into commercial planning. Boards and executive committees setting brand and reputation direction in a low-trust environment. Marketing, communications and insight teams refreshing their approach to consumer and cultural change. Audience outcomes A working definition of brand authenticity that holds up against current consumer scepticism. A clearer view of which megatrends actually intersect with the audience’s commercial decisions, and which are noise. A method for moving from trend awareness to innovation choices that survive contact with the operating plan. Sharper questions about where customer trust is being earned, eroded or faked inside the organisation today.

Why organisations work with Georgie Frost A finance voice employees already trust. Frost reaches a mainstream UK audience every week through This is Money and Times Money Mentor, which makes her credible to a workforce that tunes out internal benefits messaging. A 2016 Headline Money Financial Broadcast Journalist of the Year award and a decade of national radio and TV work, so the credibility is external and verifiable, not bureau marketing. A live event operator. She has hosted from COP, Cannes Lions and Mobile World Congress, which means she can hold a complex commercial agenda on stage, not only deliver a keynote. A first-person story about debt, chronic pain and rebuilding a career that gives financial wellbeing sessions emotional substance without slipping into motivational territory. BBC sports broadcasting background and an MA in Political Communications from Goldsmiths, which together explain why she can translate technical finance into language a non-specialist audience will sit with. Biography highlights Host, This is Money podcast Editor-at-large, Times Money Mentor (The Times) Headline Money Financial Broadcast Journalist of the Year, 2016 Regular contributor, Times Radio, BBC national and regional stations, TalkRadio Event host at COP, Cannes Lions Festival, Mobile World Congress MA Political Communications, Goldsmiths; PGDip Broadcasting; BA History, University of Bristol Biography Personal finance is the most widely discussed and least well taught subject in British public life. Employees read about inflation, mortgage rates and pension changes every day, but most of them still describe themselves as financially anxious. Internal benefits communication rarely closes that gap. This is the territory Frost has worked in for more than a decade. As host of the This is Money podcast and editor-at-large at Times Money Mentor, she sits inside two of the largest mainstream personal finance audiences in the UK. Her weekly job is to make consumer finance, household economics and policy change legible to people who do not work in financial services. She moved into finance after a back injury in 2008 ended a decade of BBC sports broadcasting and pushed her into serious debt. An NHS pain management programme in 2014, followed by an MA in Political Communications at Goldsmiths and qualifications in consumer law and personal finance, was the route back. That biography is part of why her financial wellbeing work lands: she is talking about money from inside the problem, not above it. Outside the studio she has hosted live events at COP, Cannes Lions and Mobile World Congress, on briefs spanning climate, AI and marketing. Headline Money named her Financial Broadcast Journalist of the Year in 2016. Organisations book her to host a complex commercial agenda, to moderate finance and consumer panels, or to deliver a keynote on financial wellbeing where credibility with a non-specialist audience is the brief. Key speaking topics Financial wellbeing in the workplace Personal finance and consumer affairs Financial inclusion and engagement Women and money Resilience through health and financial setback Conference hosting and panel moderation Business of sport Ideal for CHROs and reward leaders designing financial wellbeing programmes Internal communications teams briefing employees on pay, pensions and benefits Financial services brands running customer or partner events Conference organisers needing a host across finance, consumer, sustainability or technology agendas Audience outcomes A clearer read on why financial wellbeing programmes fail to engage employees, and what changes the dynamic Language and framing that makes money conversations land with a non-specialist workforce A first-person account of rebuilding financial life after debt, injury and chronic pain A finance and consumer agenda chaired with the cadence of a live broadcast, not a corporate script

Why organisations work with Donald Miller He built the most widely adopted messaging framework in the market. Over a million business leaders have used the StoryBrand SB7 model, and companies including Chick-fil-A, Intel, TOMS Shoes, Tempur Sealy, and Trek Bicycles have applied it to live commercial work. He gives marketing and sales teams a shared vocabulary. The hero, guide, plan, and call-to-action structure gets a CMO, a founder, and a field rep aligned on the same customer story inside one session. He is a practitioner, not a consultant-at-a-distance. Miller runs StoryBrand, Business Made Simple, and Coach Builder, and the frameworks he teaches from stage are the ones his own companies run on. He translates narrative theory into revenue mechanics. The work connects story structure directly to website copy, sales emails, and lead generation assets that teams can ship the week after the keynote. He is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have stayed on the list collectively for more than a year, which means a room of senior marketers arrives already familiar with the thesis. Biography highlights CEO of StoryBrand, Business Made Simple, and Coach Builder. Author of Building a StoryBrand (2017) and Building a StoryBrand 2.0 (HarperCollins Leadership, 2025). Author of Marketing Made Simple and How to Grow Your Small Business: A 6-Step Plan. New York Times bestselling author; books have sold millions of copies and spent more than a year on the list collectively. StoryBrand framework adopted by Chick-fil-A, Intel, TOMS Shoes, Trek Bicycles, Tempur Sealy, Pantene, Zaxby’s, and Ford/Lincoln. Earlier bestselling memoirs include Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and Scary Close; Blue Like Jazz was adapted for film and premiered at SXSW. Biography Most companies talk about themselves when they should be talking about their customer. The StoryBrand framework, built by Donald Miller and laid out in Building a StoryBrand and its 2025 revision, forces that correction by borrowing the mechanics of narrative: a hero with a problem, a guide with a plan, a call to action, and stakes on both sides of the decision. The framework is now standard equipment in growth teams. More than a million leaders have run their messaging through the SB7 model, and named companies including Chick-fil-A, Intel, TOMS Shoes, Trek Bicycles, and Tempur Sealy have used it on live commercial work. What distinguishes the approach is not the use of story as metaphor, it is that the output is operational: a BrandScript that rewrites a homepage, a sales email, and a lead magnet in the same language. Miller runs the companies that teach it. He is CEO of StoryBrand, Business Made Simple, and Coach Builder, and the playbooks he takes to the stage are the ones his own businesses use to acquire customers. That closes the gap between theory and execution that most marketing speakers leave open. Before StoryBrand, Miller wrote the New York Times bestsellers Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and Scary Close. Blue Like Jazz was adapted for film and premiered at SXSW. The craft training those books represent is what makes the business work land: a CEO learning StoryBrand is being taught by someone who spent two decades writing narrative for general readers before applying it to commercial messaging. Key speaking topics StoryBrand messaging framework Marketing and customer acquisition Sales communication and conversion Brand clarity Small business growth Narrative in commercial strategy Ideal for CMOs, marketing directors, and brand leads responsible for messaging across a product or service portfolio Founders and CEOs of small and mid-sized businesses where the leader still owns the brand voice Sales leaders whose teams need a shared structure for prospect conversations and follow-up Agency and consulting networks who want a common framework across client engagements Audience outcomes A working vocabulary, hero, guide, problem, plan, stakes, for diagnosing any piece of marketing that is not converting A clear view of why customer-centric messaging outperforms feature-led messaging in measurable sales terms Practical editing instincts that apply immediately to websites, email sequences, and sales scripts A shared internal language that aligns marketing, sales, and leadership on the same customer story Confidence to cut the clutter from existing brand assets rather than adding more of it

Why organisations work with Terry Lundgren He executed one of the largest retail mergers in US history and rebranded more than 400 regional stores under a single national brand inside twelve months, a case study in integration that boards rarely get to hear from the person who ran it. He led a Fortune 100 retailer through the early omnichannel transition, making capital and organisational decisions that other CEOs were still debating. He sits on the board of Procter and Gamble and chairs its Compensation and Leadership Development Committee, which gives him a current view of how blue-chip boards are thinking about CEO succession and operating performance. His Deming Cup citation from Columbia Business School recognises sustained continuous improvement at scale, not a single transformation moment, which is the harder leadership question for most enterprises. Biography highlights Chairman and CEO of Macy’s, Inc. from 2003 to 2017; executive chairman until January 2018. Led the 2005 Federated/May acquisition, the largest US retail transaction at the time, creating a single national Macy’s brand from more than 400 regional stores. Director of The Procter & Gamble Company since 2013; chair of the Compensation and Leadership Development Committee. Executive in Residence, Columbia Business School; namesake of the Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing at the University of Arizona. Recipient of the National Retail Federation Gold Medal Award (2008) and the Columbia Business School Deming Cup (2012). Named one of Barron’s Top 30 CEOs in the World (2015) and WWD Newsmaker of the Year (2014). Biography Federated’s USD 11 billion acquisition of The May Department Stores Company in 2005 was, at the time, the largest retail transaction in US history. Inside a year, more than 400 regional department stores across the country had been rebranded under the Macy’s name. Terry Lundgren was the CEO who ran that integration. He had joined Federated in 1975, run Bullocks Wilshire at 35, served as Chairman and CEO of Neiman Marcus, and returned to Federated in 1994. By the time he became CEO of Macy’s, Inc. in 2003, he had spent almost three decades inside the operating layer of American retail. The fourteen years that followed are the substance of his speaking work. He launched the “My Macy’s” localisation programme in 2008, an early answer to the question of how a national chain competes with category specialists. He made the capital and organisational decisions that pulled Macy’s into omnichannel before most peers had committed. By his final year as CEO in fiscal 2016, the company was running sales of roughly USD 26 billion with about 140,000 employees. Since stepping down he has sat on the board of Procter and Gamble, chairing its Compensation and Leadership Development Committee, and served as an Executive in Residence at Columbia Business School. The Deming Cup citation from Columbia, awarded for continuous improvement at scale, is the credential that distinguishes him from CEOs known for a single defining moment. Key speaking topics Large-scale merger integration CEO leadership through structural change Omnichannel and the reinvention of retail Continuous improvement at enterprise scale Brand strategy and national brand building CEO succession and board-level talent decisions Ideal for CEO and board audiences working through merger integration or major restructuring. CHROs and Chief Talent Officers focused on CEO succession, executive development, and operating discipline. Retail, consumer, and consumer-adjacent leadership teams navigating channel transitions and brand consolidation. Senior leadership programmes inside large enterprises where the case studies need to come from someone who ran the company. Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what merger integration costs an organisation operationally, culturally, and in customer experience. A clearer view of the decisions a CEO actually faces when committing capital to a channel transition. Reference points from a fourteen-year tenure for how continuous improvement is institutionalised, not just announced. A board-level perspective on what compensation, succession, and leadership development look like inside a current Fortune 50 company.

Why organisations work with Lior Arussy He has the documented Mercedes-Benz USA case: a dealer network that moved from ninth to first in customer satisfaction, with 25,000 employees engaged through 80 full-day programmes. His method treats customer experience as an execution problem, not a brand or service problem. The deliverable is behavioural change at the frontline, tied to revenue and retention. He brings a published intellectual track. Seven books, including Next Is Now (Simon & Schuster) on building organisations for continuous change, and 300+ articles, with regular contributions to Harvard Business Review and Chief Executive. He has run more than 200 corporate transformations through Strativity, with clients including Mercedes-Benz, Royal Caribbean, Thomson Reuters, HSBC, SAP, FedEx, and Johnson & Johnson. The reference base is unusually deep for a CX speaker. His Generative AI keynote work addresses what the technology does to customer expectations and to the operating model of customer-facing teams. It is positioned as a strategic conversation, not a tooling demo. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Strativity Group, a global customer experience and strategy execution consultancy operating across multiple countries. Author of seven books, including Next Is Now (Simon & Schuster, 2018), Passionate and Profitable (Wiley, 2005), and Customer Experience Strategy. 300+ published articles, with regular contributions to Harvard Business Review and Chief Executive media. Led the Mercedes-Benz USA customer experience transformation, taking the dealer network from ninth to first in customer satisfaction. Named to the Global Gurus customer service and customer experience rankings; recipient of the CRM Magazine “Influential Leaders” award. MBA, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Previously held executive positions at Hewlett-Packard. Biography Most customer experience programmes do not fail at the strategy stage. They fail when an engaged steering committee meets a frontline that has been trained to comply with policy rather than own a customer outcome. Arussy has spent two decades closing that gap inside large organisations. He founded Strativity Group in 2003 and has since led more than 200 corporate transformations across customer experience, employee engagement, and strategy execution. The Mercedes-Benz USA work is the cleanest illustration: a dealer network that moved from ninth to first in customer satisfaction after 25,000 employees were engaged through 80 full-day programmes. A European logistics client he advised moved from 3% to 44% annual organic growth in two years. The work is consistently anchored in measurable commercial change, not in survey scores or brand language. The published track behind the consulting is substantial. He has written seven books, including Next Is Now (Simon & Schuster, 2018) on building organisations that thrive under continuous change, and Passionate and Profitable (Wiley, 2005) on why customer strategies typically fail. He has published more than 300 articles, including in Harvard Business Review, and contributes regularly to Chief Executive media. His current keynote work extends into the implications of generative AI for customer expectations and the operating model of customer-facing teams. For a senior buyer, the value is access to a CX practitioner who has done the work at scale and writes about it with the directness of someone who has watched it succeed and fail in real organisations. The references run from Mercedes-Benz and Royal Caribbean to HSBC, SAP, and Johnson & Johnson. Key speaking topics Customer experience as commercial growth strategy Strategy execution and behavioural change at the frontline Customer-centric culture and employee engagement The generative AI-empowered customer Leading continuous change and organisational reinvention Personal agency and ownership in transformation Ideal for Chief Customer Officers, CXOs, and Chief Marketing Officers leading enterprise-wide CX programmes. CEOs and COOs evaluating the gap between customer strategy and operating reality. Transformation and change leaders responsible for embedding new behaviours across large, distributed workforces. Boards and leadership teams in retail, financial services, automotive, hospitality, logistics, and B2B technology. Audience outcomes A practitioner’s account of what separates CX programmes that move revenue from those that move only dashboards. A clearer picture of how generative AI is reshaping customer expectations and the work of customer-facing teams. The five steps from Next Is Now applied to the audience’s own change environment. Named case material from Mercedes-Benz, Royal Caribbean, and other Fortune 500 transformations. A direct challenge to the policy-and-consistency model of customer service, with the alternative framed in operational terms.