Customer Experience & Marketing

Why organisations work with Dr Darren Coleman He treats brand as an investment asset with measurable commercial return, giving CMOs and CFOs a shared language for defending budget when growth tightens. His Brand Experience Blueprint maps the path from strategy to frontline delivery, closing the gap between what marketing promises and what operations execute. Twenty-five years of B2B and services brand work across Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia and Japan, with named delivery for Johnson & Johnson, Singapore Airlines, Goldman Sachs, FUJIFILM, Nikon and Maybank. A doctoral grounding in B2B services brand performance, peer-reviewed publication in Industrial Marketing Management and the European Journal of Marketing, and a Kogan Page book in three languages. Visiting lecturer at the University of Warwick, with a teaching practice that keeps the frameworks tested against current MBA cohorts and corporate clients in parallel. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Consultant, Wavelength Marketing. Author, Building Brand Experiences: A Practical Guide to Retaining Brand Relevance (Kogan Page); translated into Korean, Turkish and Mandarin. PhD in B2B services brand performance; MA in marketing. Visiting Lecturer in Corporate Brand Management, University of Warwick. Peer-reviewed publication in Industrial Marketing Management and European Journal of Marketing. Keynote speaker at Electronic World Marketing Summit (Kotler Impact), Brand Week Istanbul, B2B Marketing Ignite and Fifteen Seconds Graz. Biography Service brands sell something customers cannot pick up, weigh or return. What they buy is an experience, and the gap between what marketing promises and what operations actually delivers is where loyalty, pricing power and referral are won or lost. Closing that gap is the work Dr Darren Coleman has spent twenty-five years on. His Brand Experience Blueprint is built around three operating layers: the environment shaping customer perception, the strategic essentials that anchor the brand, and the enablers that translate strategy into frontline delivery. Clients including Johnson & Johnson, Singapore Airlines, Goldman Sachs, FUJIFILM, Nikon, Maybank and Orange have used it to rebuild positioning, justify brand investment to finance, and make service consistent across markets. The intellectual foundation is academic. Coleman holds a PhD in B2B services brand performance, has published in Industrial Marketing Management and the European Journal of Marketing, and teaches Corporate Brand Management at the University of Warwick. The applied output is Building Brand Experiences, published by Kogan Page and now in Korean, Turkish and Mandarin editions, used by marketing teams and MBA programmes as a working operating manual rather than a theory text. What CMOs and CEOs take from him is a way to argue for brand investment in commercial terms. He reframes brand from a cost centre defended on faith into a measurable asset that protects margin when competitors discount and acquisition costs rise. Key speaking topics Brand experience strategy and execution Brand-driven growth for service organisations B2B services branding Brand as a commercial investment asset Customer experience and brand relevance Employer brand and internal alignment Sustainable brand differentiation Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams in B2B and service businesses C-suites in financial services, professional services, technology and healthcare evaluating brand investment Customer experience and operations leaders responsible for closing the strategy-to-delivery gap Executive education and senior leadership programmes covering brand, growth and customer strategy Audience outcomes A commercial argument for brand investment that holds up in a finance conversation A working model for translating brand strategy into operational customer experience Diagnostic clarity on where the brand promise and the customer reality currently diverge Practical reference points from Johnson & Johnson, Singapore Airlines, Goldman Sachs and other named service brands

Why organisations work with Karen Nelson-Field She runs Amplified Intelligence, the company whose eye-tracking dataset of 55,000+ panellists sits behind the IAB and MRC’s 2025 attention measurement accreditation standards. The category she explains is the category she helped define. Her three books, published by Oxford University Press and Springer, give CMOs and media leads a defensible academic spine for redirecting budget away from cheap reach and toward attention-weighted media. A decade inside the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute means her commercial advice rests on the same evidence base as How Brands Grow, the most influential marketing science framework of the last twenty years. Her client list, Google, Meta, Snapchat, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Mars, Unilever, OMD, means she addresses media owners and advertisers using the same vocabulary, neither captured by either side. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Amplified Intelligence (founded 2016) Industry Professor of Media Innovation, The University of Adelaide Former Senior Research Associate, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science Author of three books on media science, published by Oxford University Press and Springer Judge, IPA Effectiveness Awards 2022 Work covered in The New York Times, Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, The Drum, WARC Biography For two decades, advertising spent more on media than on any other line of marketing investment, and verified less of its return than almost any other category of corporate spend. The industry standard for measuring whether an ad worked was whether the pixels were technically on screen. Whether a human looked at them was a separate question, mostly unasked. Karen Nelson-Field is the researcher who turned that question into a measurable category. As Founder and CEO of Amplified Intelligence, she built the eye-tracking and machine-learning infrastructure that quantifies active and passive attention across TV, digital, and social environments. The company now operates the largest human attention panel in the world, and its data informed the IAB and MRC’s 2025 attention measurement accreditation standards. Her authority predates the company. A decade at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, working alongside Byron Sharp on buyer behaviour and brand growth, gave her the evidence-based grounding that distinguishes her from attention commentators who appeared after the category became fashionable. Her three books, Viral Marketing, The Attention Economy and How Media Works, and The Attention Economy: A Category Blueprint, are read as the field’s reference texts rather than its trade press. For boards and CMOs, the practical value is direct. She names where current media metrics are misleading, what the replacement looks like, and how to allocate budget against the new evidence. Clients including Google, Meta, PepsiCo, Mars, and Unilever commission her not for trend commentary but for the underlying mathematics of where their advertising money actually performs. Key speaking topics Attention as a media currency The economics of advertising effectiveness Brand growth and buyer behaviour Media planning under digital fragmentation AI and machine learning in audience measurement Marketing science and evidence-based strategy Ideal for CMOs and marketing directors reassessing media investment frameworks Media agency leadership renegotiating attention-based trading models Platform and media owner executives benchmarking against new measurement standards Board-level conversations on marketing accountability and budget governance Audience outcomes A working definition of attention that distinguishes it from viewability, reach, and exposure Specific evidence on which formats and platforms convert attention into commercial outcome A clear view of where IAB and MRC 2025 measurement standards change buyer obligations Direct guidance on reallocating media budget against attention-weighted metrics An evidence base drawn from the same school as How Brands Grow, applied to current media conditions

Why organisations work with Maria Luisa Mariscal de Körner She addresses migrant and diaspora communities as both a workforce question and a consumer market, the two halves most diversity speakers and most marketing speakers each cover only one of. In her work the talent function and the brand function share a single conversation, which is rare. As a German immigration lawyer (Dr. iur.), she advises employers on what changed under the 2026 update to the Skilled Immigration Act: higher EU Blue Card salary thresholds and tighter compliance duties, translated into hiring decisions rather than general legal commentary. Operating experience in market entry, not analysis from outside the process. Her consultancy has advised foreign companies establishing operations in Germany, and German employers recruiting internationally, since 2014. A legally grounded case that cultural difference creates value twice over: in the workforce a company builds and in the market it sells to. Biography highlights Doctorate in law (Dr. iur.) with a focus on economics, diversity, and law, from the University of Würzburg; LL.M. in German and international law (magna cum laude); study in Bolivia and Germany. Teaches ethno-marketing and intercultural management at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (Kleve), and has lectured since 2008 across nine institutions on three continents. Founder since 2014 of Malu Mariscal, Innovation und Vielfalt, advising on market entry into Germany, international recruiting, and diversity and intercultural management. Author of four specialist and academic books and the bilingual children’s book “Der Herrscher der Berge: Eine unglaubliche Reise”, which addresses prejudice and difference. Co-founder of a migrant women’s network and initiator of free legal-advice services at universities; recognised with the first Bavarian Integration Award (2012) as part of the Würzburg theatre group Tschungulung. Winner of the first Bavarian Integration Award (Bayerischer Integrationspreis, 2012), as part of the Würzburg theatre group Tschungulung, recognised by the Bavarian Landtag and Integration Council. Works with a network of more than 200 advisors and freelancers across three continents; presents in German, English, and Spanish. Biography Most organisations treat migration as one problem: a recruiting and integration task solved once, at the point of hire. But the same communities a company recruits from are also markets it sells to, and the two functions almost never share data or a strategy. Maria Luisa Mariscal de Körner works on that gap. She is a German immigration lawyer and a Dr. iur. from the University of Würzburg, with an LL.M. in German and international law. Her doctorate focused on economics, diversity, and law. She has lectured since 2008 at nine institutions on three continents, and now teaches ethno-marketing and intercultural management at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences in Kleve. That grounding carries into current practice. The 2026 update to the Skilled Immigration Act raised EU Blue Card salary thresholds and tightened employer compliance, and her consultancy, Malu Mariscal, Innovation und Vielfalt, advises foreign companies entering Germany and German employers recruiting internationally on what those rules mean operationally. She works with a network of more than 200 advisors and freelancers across three continents. Her argument to leaders is concrete: cultural difference creates value in two directions at once, in the workforce a company builds and in the market it sells to. It does so only when the organisation removes the legal and cultural friction that keeps both at the edges. Key speaking topics The diaspora dividend: migration as workforce and as market Skilled-worker immigration law and employer compliance under the 2026 Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz Market entry into Germany: where international companies actually fail Diversity as an innovation lever, not a compliance line Leading multicultural, multigenerational teams in the AI era Ideal for CHROs and heads of talent acquisition internationalising the workforce Marketing and brand leaders weighing diaspora and migrant communities as consumer markets Boards and executive teams in German-speaking markets reviewing international hiring strategy DEI leads who need a partner grounded in legal and economic detail, not awareness training Audience outcomes A single operating view of diaspora communities across talent and marketing, instead of two separate HR and brand problems A read on what the 2026 Skilled Immigration Act changes mean for their own hiring decisions, not just their legal team’s The specific points where international companies fail entering the German market, and the legal and cultural reasons why A legal and economic case for cultural difference as an innovation driver, distinct from a compliance argument

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

Why organisations work with Eleanor Mills She has built the most detailed evidence base in the UK on ABC1 women aged 45 to 60, including partnership research with HSBC on midlife female entrepreneurs and with Accenture on the economic power of women over 45. She names a category most boardrooms still treat as a footnote, the “Queenager”, and gives employers and brands a working vocabulary for talent retention, marketing strategy and product design aimed at this group. She has 22 years of editorial authority at The Sunday Times, including running the magazine when it won Supplement of the Year at the 2018 Press Awards, which gives her communications work with senior leaders genuine craft behind it. Her book, Much More to Come (HarperCollins, 2024), turns midlife transition into a leadership story about reinvention after redundancy, divorce and caring responsibilities, the same pressures organisations are failing to design around. She convenes a 50,000-strong community at Noon, which means her insight is continually refreshed by the audience itself, not drawn from a one-off study. Biography highlights Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Noon (noon.org.uk), launched 8 March 2021. Former Editorial Director of The Sunday Times and Editor of The Sunday Times Magazine, 1998 to 2020. Chair of Women in Journalism, 2013 to 2021. Author of Much More to Come (HarperCollins, 2024), a Sunday Times bestseller; co-editor of Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs (2005). Recipient of the International Alliance for Women World of Difference Award (2012); editor of the Press Awards Supplement of the Year (2018). Research partnerships with HSBC (Fearless and Thriving) and Accenture (The Rise of the Queenager). Biography The most economically active female demographic in Britain is also the one most likely to leave senior roles before reaching the top. Women aged 45 to 60 hold disposable income, household decision-making power and decades of operating experience, yet employers and consumer brands consistently underestimate both their commercial weight and their willingness to stay. This is the gap Eleanor Mills has spent the last five years documenting. After 22 years at Times Newspapers, including running The Sunday Times Magazine when it won Supplement of the Year at the 2018 Press Awards, she left in March 2020 and founded Noon on International Women’s Day 2021. Noon is now a 50,000-strong community and a research platform, with partnership studies for HSBC on midlife female entrepreneurs and Accenture on the economic power of women over 45. Her book Much More to Come (HarperCollins, 2024) extends that argument into the territory of reinvention. It draws on her own redundancy and the pressures her readers describe: menopause, divorce, empty nests, caring for elderly parents, second careers. The book reframes midlife as a productive stage organisations should design around, not write off. For a senior buyer, the value is precise. She gives a board the vocabulary, the data and the editorial sharpness to act on a workforce and consumer segment most strategy decks treat as a rounding error. Key speaking topics Women in midlife as a talent and consumer category Retention of senior women through menopause and caring years Reinvention after redundancy and career disruption Marketing and brand strategy for women over 45 Personal storytelling in leadership communication Resilience in transition Ideal for CHROs and talent leaders designing retention strategies for senior women CMOs and brand leaders targeting the over-45 female consumer Boards reviewing DEI and culture beyond entry and mid-career pipelines Leadership programmes for women navigating career and life transitions in their forties and fifties Audience outcomes A working definition of the Queenager category and what makes it commercially distinct Specific intervention points where organisations lose senior women, and what changes the curve Evidence drawn from named partnership research with HSBC and Accenture, not generic DEI argument A reframing of midlife transition as a leadership and reinvention story rather than a wellness theme

Why organisations work with Elemi Atigolo He has put a generative AI product through UK financial regulation. Finley AI worked with the FCA Advice Unit on guidance models before evolving into an agentic financial AI agent that institutions integrate by API, which gives him a reference point on supervision and compliance that few AI speakers hold. He has handled the work he now advises on. A wealth manager at HSBC and a partner at St. James’s Place before he co-founded City Wharf Private Wealth, he has dealt with client suitability and adviser workflow first-hand. His thinking is on the record. His 2026 paper on the Agentic Profit Paradox sets out how agentic AI can improve client outcomes while weakening the human-bounded revenue that funds a firm’s margins, which reframes AI from an efficiency question into a question about the business model itself. He works at executive level, not only with technology teams. At Consult Venture Partners he advises boards on where generative and agentic AI changes the operating model and the economics, a conversation that needs someone who has carried both commercial and regulatory responsibility. Biography highlights Managing Partner and co-founder of Consult Venture Partners, advising boards on generative and agentic AI adoption. Founder of the Autonomy Economics framework and author of the 2026 paper “The Agentic Profit Paradox and the Reorganisation of Value Capture”. Co-founder of INATIGO (WealthTech100 2024, selected by FinTech Global from 1,300 companies) and lead developer of Finley AI, now an agentic financial AI agent delivered by API, which engaged the FCA Advice Unit on guidance models. Former HSBC Wealth Manager and former partner at St. James’s Place; co-founder of City Wharf Private Wealth, Highly Commended for Most Innovative Wealth Management Model at the 2021 WealthBriefing European Awards. Member of the Forbes Advisor Advisory Board (since October 2024) and the MIT Technology Review Global Insights Panel; named in the Powerlist Top 30 Tech Titans 2021 for Fintech and Data (Refinitiv/LSEG) and a UK FinTech Awards “Innovator of the Year” finalist. Contributor to FT Adviser and The Banker; featured by The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, BBC, CNBC Africa, IBM, and Wealth Adviser; speaker at an Economist Impact summit (2023). Holds a BSc in Computer Science and Distributed Information Systems and an MA in Accounting and Finance. Biography Finley AI went through the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s Advice Unit before most banks had written an AI policy. Built by INATIGO, the company Atigolo co-founded, it began in 2019 as a conversational assistant. It now runs as an agentic financial AI agent that institutions integrate by API. That history anchors his work, at the point where AI in finance meets supervision and the realities of client suitability. His route into AI is unusual. He managed client portfolios at HSBC, became a partner at St. James’s Place, and co-founded City Wharf Private Wealth, a digital wealth firm recognised at the 2021 WealthBriefing European Awards. He has sat on both sides of the client relationship and the technology that now reshapes it. His current research turns that experience into an argument. In a 2026 paper he set out the Agentic Profit Paradox: firms adopt agentic AI to stay competitive, and in doing so erode the human-bounded revenue that produced their margins. He calls the wider field Autonomy Economics, the study of how value capture and commercial defensibility shift once work no longer needs continuous human direction. For a board, the question is rarely what AI can do, and almost always what to build, what to buy, what to govern, and what it does to the business model. Through Consult Venture Partners, where he is Managing Partner, Atigolo answers it as someone who has both written the models and signed the client suitability forms. Key speaking topics Generative AI in financial services AI agents and conversational interfaces in wealth management AI, regulation, and the FCA AI product strategy for regulated firms Client experience and adviser workflow in an AI-enabled firm Fintech innovation and WealthTech AI adoption for finance leaders Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and boards in banking, wealth, asset management, insurance, and private capital setting AI strategy Chief Technology, Data, and AI Officers scoping generative and agentic AI deployment in regulated environments Heads of Advice, Distribution, and Client Experience reworking the adviser-client model Compliance, risk, and regulatory leads assessing AI governance, and executives weighing what autonomous systems do to margins and operating models Audience outcomes A clear view of where generative and agentic AI is already viable in regulated financial services, and where it is not A working vocabulary for AI agents, conversational interfaces, and the governance questions behind them A sharper read on what the FCA and comparable regulators expect when AI touches client guidance A realistic picture of what changes for advisers, clients, and operating models when AI moves from pilot to live A view of how agentic AI can strengthen client outcomes while undermining the revenue that historically funded them, and what that means for strategy

Why organisations work with Ella Sy She reads consumer, retail, and technology change as a working strategist rather than a trend curator. She ran global strategy inside Publicis, then built an independent futures practice briefed by retailers and brands to call where behaviour is heading and to defend that call commercially. She pairs a futures lens with delivery discipline. Alongside the strategy work she runs programme at Elevate, so her view of change includes what it takes to operationalise it, not only name it. Her brief is genuinely cross-sector. Named client work spans Google, Microsoft, Jaguar Land Rover, Costa Coffee, Preferred Hotels, and KSL Resorts, which gives her material from both B2B technology and consumer-facing brands. She brings a non-Anglosphere cultural read. French-born, Asian heritage, London based, working in English, French, and Mandarin. Useful for boards with EMEA and APAC exposure who want more than a US-centric view. She is comfortable with soft territory that leadership teams often duck: meaning, purpose, human growth inside commercial strategy. Named bookings in this register rather than retrofitted from a trends talk. Biography highlights Former Business Futures Strategy Director at GDR, a retail and brand futures consultancy. Strategy Director and Head of Programme at Elevate, and Chair of its Youth Board Committee. Former Global Strategy Director at Zenith Worldwide, part of Publicis Groupe. 13+ years of strategy across retail, technology, wellness, banking, luxury, and FMCG. Client engagements include Google across LatAm markets, Microsoft, Jaguar Land Rover, Costa Coffee, Preferred Hotels, and KSL Resorts. MA in International Marketing and Communication. Works in English, French, and Mandarin. Biography Most organisations treat foresight as a slide at the start of strategy offsites. Ella Sy has spent her career selling it as a product: reading consumer and cultural signals for retailers and brands that need to place commercial bets on where behaviour is heading next. That is the discipline she brings into the room. Earlier she was Global Strategy Director at Zenith Worldwide inside Publicis Groupe, running strategy for large advertising clients. The thread running through her work is translation: taking messy, contradictory signals from culture, technology, and consumer behaviour and turning them into positions a leadership team can defend and a business can execute against. She also holds an operational role: Strategy Director and Head of Programme at Elevate, a UK youth mentoring organisation where she chairs the Youth Board Committee. That side of the work keeps her close to delivery rather than only advice, which is unusual for a speaker working in the futures space. Her client record crosses categories that rarely share speakers: Google across Latin American markets, Microsoft, Jaguar Land Rover, Costa Coffee, Preferred Hotels, KSL Resorts. French-born, of Asian heritage, based in the UK, she works in English, French, and Mandarin, and the cultural range shows up in how she frames audiences outside the Anglosphere default. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight and business futures Consumer and cultural signal reading Customer experience and brand strategy in an AI-shaped market Organisational culture under technological disruption Purpose-driven leadership and human growth Cross-cultural strategy across EMEA and APAC Ideal for CSOs, chief strategy officers, and transformation leads deciding where to place medium-term bets. CMOs and customer experience leaders in retail, hospitality, and consumer technology. Boards and executive teams setting a three-to-five year direction under technology and consumer volatility. International leadership groups that need a non-US-default reading of culture and consumer change. Audience outcomes A sharper read on which emerging signals in consumer behaviour and technology actually matter for the business in the room. Working language for talking about culture and customer experience together rather than as separate agendas. Examples from retail, luxury, hospitality, and technology clients that test the ideas against real commercial pressure. A more honest view of the gap between seeing change and executing on it inside a large organisation. Cross-cultural context for leaders whose markets extend beyond the US and UK.

Why organisations work with Emma Louise A working BBC presenter on Newsround and Radio 1, not a former broadcaster trading on past credits. The on-camera and on-mic discipline is current. Hosting range that crosses formats few presenters cover credibly: literary (#Merky Festival), industry (Series Mania Forum main auditorium, Radio Academy Festival), arts (Arts Council Awards) and corporate stages. Editorial production background at BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra. She can shape a run of show and rewrite a script under pressure, not only read what is in front of her. Comfortable with technical and policy content for non-specialist audiences, evidenced by presenting work on AI literacy for BBC Bitesize and climate and ocean science films for WWF, The Eden Project and the National Oceanography Centre. Brand-side hosting and content credibility with Samsung, HSBC, Nokia, KFC and Save the Children, which translates into a host who understands the commercial brief, not only the editorial one. Biography highlights Presenter, BBC CBBC Newsround Presenter, BBC Radio 1, including a four-series run of “Radio 1 Relax in Love” and regular cover on the Early Breakfast show Weekend presenter, Fun Kids Radio Radio Academy 30 Under 30 alumna Host credits include #Merky Festival, Series Mania Forum main auditorium, Arts Council Awards, and Radio Academy Festival Branded content and on-camera work for Samsung, HSBC, Nokia, KFC, Save the Children and WWF; BBC Bitesize Guide to AI; long-form environmental films for WWF, The Eden Project and the National Oceanography Centre Biography A live event lives or dies in the hands of its host. Emma Louise is a working BBC presenter, not a hired voice, and she runs a stage with the editorial instinct of a journalist who has produced as much as she has presented. She is on screen as a presenter on CBBC Newsround, broadcasting live from the BBC’s Salford studio and reporting across the UK. On Radio 1 she has fronted “Radio 1 Relax in Love” for four series and covers the Early Breakfast show on rotation. Her weekends sit on Fun Kids Radio. The Radio Academy named her in its 30 Under 30 cohort, the industry’s primary signal of presenters and producers on a serious trajectory. Her hosting roster is unusually wide. She has held the main auditorium at Series Mania Forum, anchored panels at the Radio Academy Festival, hosted #Merky Festival for Stormzy’s literary platform, and fronted the Arts Council Awards. The same host moves between literary, broadcasting industry, arts and corporate stages without changing register. That portability matters when a programme needs one presenter across a varied agenda. Subject range is the second differentiator. She has presented the BBC Bitesize Guide to AI for younger audiences and long-form environmental and ocean science content for WWF, The Eden Project and the National Oceanography Centre. Branded work for Samsung, HSBC, Nokia, KFC and Save the Children gives her a working understanding of how a commercial client wants its content shaped. A buyer is hiring a host who can interview a CEO, a scientist and a creative on the same stage and make all three sound their best. Key speaking topics Live event hosting and main-stage MC Awards ceremony hosting Panel moderation and on-stage interviews Conference and summit anchoring Broadcast journalism and on-camera presenting Environment, climate and ocean science communication AI literacy and technology storytelling for non-specialist audiences Ideal for Corporate conferences and internal summits looking for a senior, BBC-credentialed host Awards ceremonies and gala dinners Industry festivals and panel programmes needing a moderator who can carry technical content CMOs, comms directors and event leads briefing for a host who handles brand-side and editorial sensitivity in the same room Audience outcomes A confidently anchored programme that lands its key messages on schedule Panel conversations that surface specific points rather than drift Technical and policy material made accessible to a mixed audience without losing precision A host who absorbs late changes to the run of show without visible cost to the audience

Why organisations work with Erik Saelens The Triple-A Brand Index (Authenticity, Accountability, Activation) gives leadership teams a structured diagnostic – not a creative brief – for understanding why brand trust is gained or lost, and what to do about it. His research base of 300+ rebranding and renaming operations worldwide is one of the largest of its kind; most brand consultants draw on case studies, Saelens draws on a proprietary empirical database. He operates at board level rather than at agency level – having served as senior brand advisor to the board of Royal Dutch Telecom KPN and as a current board director at multiple companies – which means his framing of brand problems maps directly onto the decisions executives actually face. His work on brand and M&A strategy addresses a gap that most marketing speakers ignore: the specific identity and equity challenges that arise when companies merge, acquire, or prepare for IPO. The Brandhome Method® gives marketing and strategy teams a replicable operating system for brand building, not a set of principles to interpret. Biography highlights Founder and executive strategic director of Brandhome Group, established 1995; active across strategy, design, and brand consultancy Creator of the Triple-A Brand Index – a proprietary brand measurement framework built around Authenticity, Accountability, and Activation Researched and executed more than 300 rebranding and renaming operations worldwide Former senior brand advisor to the board of Royal Dutch Telecom KPN; earlier career at Sodexo’s international brand management team Board director at Unbox (Belgium), CQ (US), and Stackin (US) Author of 15+ books on brand marketing, including The Brandhome Method®, The Story Wars, In Triple-A® We Trust, and Branded Columnist for The Drum; regularly profiled by the London Speaker Bureau and other international platforms Biography Brand equity is consistently listed as one of the most valuable intangible assets on a company’s balance sheet – and consistently treated as one of the least manageable. The gap between what organisations believe their brand is worth and their ability to actively steer it is where most brand strategy fails. Erik Saelens has spent 25 years closing that gap. As founder and executive strategic director of Brandhome Group, he has built one of the more unusual intellectual positions in brand strategy: a proprietary empirical base of more than 300 rebranding and renaming operations that allows him to speak about brand transformation not as a philosophy but as a pattern-recognition exercise. His Triple-A Brand Index – built around Authenticity, Accountability, and Activation – gives organisations a diagnostic framework for auditing brand trust, not just measuring brand awareness. His credibility at the executive level is grounded in practice rather than proximity. Before founding Brandhome, Saelens served as senior brand advisor to the board of Royal Dutch Telecom KPN, and he currently sits on the boards of companies including Unbox, CQ, and Stackin. His work on brand strategy in M&A and IPO contexts gives him a specific fluency in the decisions that matter most when brand equity is genuinely at stake – acquisition integration, identity rationalisation, and the reputational dimensions of market entry. Across 15 books – including The Brandhome Method®, The Story Wars, and In Triple-A® We Trust – and as a regular columnist for The Drum, Saelens has developed a body of work that is practical in architecture and commercially framed in argument. His audiences leave with a structured vocabulary for brand decisions, not a renewed conviction that branding matters. Key speaking topics Brand strategy and commercial brand architecture Rebranding and renaming operations Brand trust measurement and the Triple-A framework Brand management in M&A and IPO contexts Storytelling as a strategic brand instrument Internal branding and identity-driven organisations The future of marketing and consumer attention Ideal for CMOs and marketing leadership teams navigating brand transformation or post-acquisition integration Boards and C-suite executives making decisions on brand equity in M&A, IPO, or market expansion contexts Strategy and transformation leads in organisations undergoing identity change Senior marketers and brand managers seeking a structured, evidence-based approach to brand building Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of brand as a commercial asset with measurable dimensions, not a creative output Practical familiarity with the Triple-A framework as a diagnostic tool for brand trust A structured way to think about what changes – and what must be protected – in a rebranding operation Sharper criteria for brand investment decisions, particularly in M&A, IPO, and market entry scenarios An accessible methodology (the Brandhome Method®) for building or rebuilding brand from a strategic starting point

Why organisations work with Fernando Trias de Bes He is the only Spanish author to have co-written books with Philip Kotler, and the frameworks in Lateral Marketing and Winning at Innovation give leadership teams a shared vocabulary for where their ideas actually come from. Winning at Innovation, with its A-to-F Model, won the CMI Innovation and Entrepreneurship category at the 2013 Management Book of the Year Awards, a credential that speaks directly to boards asking how innovation should be structured inside the firm. He runs Salvetti and Llombart, a Barcelona-based consumer research and innovation consultancy whose client list has included PepsiCo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Nestle and McKinsey, which means the classroom work is tested against paying clients. He bridges two registers most economists do not reach, serious academic marketing theory and popular business writing, and audiences that have read La buena suerte or El libro negro del emprendedor often arrive already familiar with his thinking. He presents in English and Spanish and has been delivering executive-level keynotes since 2003, with hundreds of international engagements behind him. Biography highlights Associate Professor of Marketing Management at ESADE Business School since 1994. Co-author with Philip Kotler of Lateral Marketing (Wiley, 2003) and Winning at Innovation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). CMI Management Book of the Year 2013, Innovation and Entrepreneurship category, for Winning at Innovation. Founder and President of Salvetti and Llombart, a consumer insight and innovation consultancy working with PepsiCo, Sony, HP, Nestle and McKinsey. Regular columnist for La Vanguardia, ARA and El Pais Semanal; author of more than twenty books of essay and fiction translated into more than thirty languages. Winner of the Premio Espasa de Ensayo (2015), Premio De Hoy de Ensayo (2009) and Shinpukai Prize (Japan, 2005). Biography Most innovation in large companies is lateral in name only. Teams segment further, tweak an existing product, and call it new. Fernando Trias de Bes spent two decades arguing, in books co-written with Philip Kotler, that this is the core reason corporate pipelines stall, and building methods that address it directly. Lateral Marketing, published by Wiley in 2003, set out a structured way to generate product concepts that do not come from narrower segmentation but from a different logical operation on the category itself. Winning at Innovation, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011, took the argument further with the A-to-F Model, a step-by-step description of the roles and stages an organisation needs to convert ideas into launches. The Chartered Management Institute named it Innovation and Entrepreneurship Book of the Year at its 2013 awards. Trias de Bes has taught marketing and innovation at ESADE Business School since 1994 and runs Salvetti and Llombart, the Barcelona consumer research and innovation consultancy he co-founded in 1996. Clients have included PepsiCo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, McKinsey and Nestle, which gives the academic frameworks a field of consumer goods and services to answer to. Beyond the business books he writes columns for La Vanguardia, ARA and El Pais Semanal, and has published essays and novels translated into more than thirty languages, including La buena suerte, co-written with Alex Rovira, and El libro negro del emprendedor. The Premio Espasa de Ensayo in 2015 sits alongside earlier recognition in Japan and Spain. That range, economist, consultant, columnist, novelist, is the unusual shape of the author, and it is what audiences tend to remember from the keynote. Key speaking topics Business model innovation Lateral marketing and creativity in commercial strategy The A-to-F Model for organising innovation Entrepreneurship and the economics of new ventures Economic trends and consumer behaviour Corporate reinvention and disruptive thinking Ideal for CMOs, CSOs and heads of innovation confronting commoditised categories and stalled pipelines. Executive committees running corporate strategy offsites on growth and reinvention. Business schools and management development programmes covering innovation, marketing and entrepreneurship. Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for lateral versus vertical innovation that a leadership team can use the next day. The A-to-F structure for assigning innovation roles and stages inside an organisation. Concrete examples, drawn from consumer goods and services, of where breakthrough ideas actually come from. A sharper read on why most corporate innovation produces line extensions rather than category moves.

Why organisations work with Flex He has built United View from a personal channel into a 130,000-plus subscriber football media brand without a broadcaster behind him, and can describe what actually retains an audience week to week. He sits inside English football’s broadcast ecosystem (Sky Sports, talkSPORT, DR Sports Media) while running an independent platform, which gives him a working view of where legacy media and creator media now compete and overlap. His perspective on inclusion is grounded in lived experience as a Black broadcaster, including a publicly reported racist-abuse incident outside Old Trafford that he chose to confront on the record rather than absorb privately. His career, from SEN teacher to elite-game broadcaster, gives him concrete material on reinvention and on speaking to young audiences, rather than abstract claims about purpose. One of YouTube’s UK Black Voices Class of 2022, a curated cohort selected and developed by the platform itself. Biography highlights Founder and presenter of United View, an independent Manchester United-focused YouTube channel with more than 130,000 subscribers. Presenter and broadcaster for Sky Sports (including Good Morning Transfers), talkSPORT and DR Sports Media. Selected for the YouTube UK Black Voices Creator Class of 2022. Host of the BTEC Awards and of UK Black Business Week; BTEC Ambassador. Former Special Educational Needs teacher; basketball player formerly contracted to the London Lions (previously MK Lions). Working R&B and Garage DJ alongside his broadcast and creator work. Biography Independent fan media has moved from a hobby tier to a structural part of how football is consumed. United View, the channel Flex founded in 2021 and grew past 130,000 subscribers, sits inside that shift. It runs without a broadcaster’s infrastructure and earns its audience by being closer to the matchday experience than legacy outlets can be. That operator vantage point is what makes him useful to a business audience. He can talk concretely about what holds an online community together, how trust is built when there is no studio behind you, and where independent creators and traditional broadcasters now compete for the same attention. His parallel work with Sky Sports, talkSPORT and DR Sports Media gives him a view from both sides of that line. Inclusion is the other live thread. As a Black broadcaster in English football he has had to address racism in his work directly, including a publicly reported incident outside Old Trafford in November 2024 that he chose to put on the record rather than carry quietly. His selection for YouTube’s UK Black Voices Creator Class of 2022 and his hosting roles at UK Black Business Week and the BTEC Awards place him inside the institutional side of that conversation as well. He came to broadcasting via a Special Educational Needs teaching career, basketball at the London Lions, and a continuing life as an R&B and Garage DJ. That track gives him substantive material for audiences thinking about reinvention, young talent and the route into creator-led careers, beyond the football frame. Key speaking topics Audience and community building in the creator economy Independent media and the future of sports broadcasting Diversity and inclusion in sport, media and the workplace Confronting racism in public-facing work Reinvention and non-linear careers Engaging young and digital-native audiences Hosting, panel facilitation and event presenting in sport and culture Ideal for CHROs, DEI leads and internal culture teams looking for a credible voice on inclusion that is grounded in lived experience rather than slideware. Marketing, brand and audience leaders working through the shift from broadcast to creator-led media. Employee network and ERG events, particularly around Black History Month, anti-racism programming and early-careers outreach. Sports, media and entertainment organisations briefing teams on how independent creators are changing fan and consumer behaviour. Audience outcomes A clearer working picture of how independent creators earn and keep audience trust, and what that means for in-house content and brand teams. A more honest framing of inclusion at work, from someone who has had to handle racism in public rather than discuss it in abstract. Material on building careers and platforms outside conventional broadcast and corporate routes, usable in early-careers and emerging-talent programmes. Sharper questions about where legacy media authority sits now that fans and employees increasingly trust people, not institutions.

Why organisations work with Gabriela Salinas She converts brand into a number a CFO will defend. Her methodology training underpins valuations used in M&A, licensing, litigation, and tax disputes at companies including Bank of America, Telefónica, and Repsol. She sits inside the rulebook. Membership of ISO/PC 231, the committee behind the international brand valuation standard, means she can speak with first-hand authority on what counts as a credible valuation and what does not. Her sustainability research pushes back on the prevailing ESG storyline. Perceived sustainability lifts brand value only when customers see it improving the product, a finding that reframes how marketing teams should brief CFOs on ESG spend. Three published books on brand valuation, including the Wiley reference manual cited across the discipline, give her a depth of source material that bureau speakers in marketing rarely match. She teaches the next generation of CFOs and CMOs at IE Business School, which means her frameworks are tested every term against live cases brought by senior executives. Biography highlights Senior Director, Brand Finance, and Global Managing Director of the Brand Finance Institute Adjunct Professor of Strategic Brand Management and Brand Valuation at IE Business School since 2011 Author of The International Brand Valuation Manual (Wiley, 2009) and two earlier brand valuation titles Member of ISO/PC 231, the international committee for the brand valuation standard Published in the Journal of Brand Management, Marketing Science Institute, and Harvard Deusto Business Review Previously Global Senior Brand Manager at Deloitte and Managing Director at Brand Finance Iberia Biography Brand is the largest single intangible on many corporate balance sheets, and one of the least understood by the people who sign off on its budget. Boards approve brand investment with little sense of how it converts to enterprise value. CFOs ask for a number and receive a story. Gabriela Salinas works at the seam between marketing and finance, where that confusion is most expensive. As Senior Director at Brand Finance and Global Managing Director of the Brand Finance Institute, she advises corporations on what their brand is worth, how to measure it, and how to manage it as a financial asset. Her client work has included Bank of America, Telefónica, Repsol, Mapfre, Iberia, LaLiga, and Johnson & Johnson. Her authority rests on three foundations. Twenty years of practitioner work across Brand Finance, Deloitte, and FutureBrand in New York, Madrid, Singapore, and Buenos Aires. Three published books on brand valuation, including the Wiley manual that remains a standard reference in the field. And membership of ISO/PC 231, the international committee that wrote the global standard for brand valuation methodology. Her recent research with Carmen Abril at Complutense University tests a question CFOs have been asking quietly for years. Does sustainability add brand value? The finding: only when customers see it improving the product. That answer travels well in rooms where marketing teams are under pressure to justify ESG spend in financial terms. Key speaking topics Brand valuation and intangible asset measurement Brand as a financial asset on the balance sheet Sustainability and brand value Corporate reputation and brand architecture Strategic brand management Brand portfolio strategy in M&A and licensing Ideal for CFOs and CMOs working to align brand investment with measurable enterprise value Boards reviewing brand performance, M&A intangibles, or ESG capital allocation Marketing and finance leadership teams jointly accountable for brand strategy Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for discussing brand in financial terms with CFOs, auditors, and investors Clarity on which brand metrics actually predict commercial outcomes and which are noise A defensible position on whether and how sustainability investment translates into brand value Familiarity with the ISO methodology that underpins formal brand valuation in M&A, tax, and litigation