Customer Experience & Marketing

Why organisations work with Adolfo Fernandez Operator perspective from inside the two platforms reshaping global retail. He has led commercialisation strategy for Google Shopping’s mid-market segment and now Global Product Strategy and Operations for TikTok’s eCommerce advertising suite. A working framework for cross-border growth, drawn from running Google’s internationalization advisory practice for the mid-market. It addresses the question most growth-stage companies misjudge: when domestic plateau means it is time to enter a new market, and on what terms. Recognised by the World Economic Forum, which invited him into its Expert Network on Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle, and Digital Communications. That credential signals depth that bureau platforms alone cannot. Comfort across three buyer registers: regulators and policy bodies (UN, WTO), executive education audiences (IE Business School, MIT), and corporate boards. Leaders get a speaker who can move between policy frame and operating frame without losing either. Delivery in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, which makes him useful for European and Latin American leadership audiences that other Silicon Valley operators cannot reach without translation. Biography highlights Global Director of Product Strategy and Operations for eCommerce advertising at TikTok, based in San Francisco Former Google leader: Business Development Manager for Spain and Portugal, Global Program Manager for Internationalization advisory, and Google Shopping commercialisation strategy lead for the SMB segment World Economic Forum Expert Network member since 2019 in Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle, and Digital Communications Speaker at more than 200 international conferences, including United Nations and World Trade Organization platforms Guest lecturer at IE Business School and MIT MA in International Management, IE Business School; BA in Business Administration, University of Santiago de Compostela Biography Most companies still treat international expansion as a sequencing problem: which market next, in what order, on what timeline. The harder question is platform-shaped. Discovery, conversion and brand association now run through a small number of global commerce environments, and the rules of entry differ across them. That is the terrain Adolfo Fernandez works in. He is currently Global Director of Product Strategy and Operations for eCommerce advertising at TikTok, where he leads product strategy, product marketing and go-to-market for the platform’s commerce advertising suite. The role sits at the centre of one of the most consequential shifts in consumer attention of the last five years. Before TikTok, he spent close to a decade at Google. He started as Business Development Manager for Spain and Portugal in 2015, then took over Google’s Internationalization advisory services for the mid-market in 2018, before moving to San Francisco to lead Google Shopping commercialisation strategy for the SMB segment. The arc gave him an unusual vantage on how mid-sized firms actually win, and lose, in cross-border digital commerce. His public-facing work has reached the UN and the World Trade Organization, executive audiences at IE Business School and MIT, and the World Economic Forum, which invited him into its Expert Network on retail, consumer goods and digital communications in 2019. He works in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, which extends his reach into European and Latin American audiences that most Silicon Valley operators cannot serve directly. Key speaking topics Digital commerce and platform strategy International growth and market entry Retail technology and consumer behaviour Brand building in digital-first markets Innovation and product strategy Future of work in technology-led organisations Ideal for Boards and executive teams of mid-market and large companies planning international growth CMOs, commercial directors and digital leaders rethinking discovery, paid media and conversion economics Retail, consumer goods and lifestyle leadership teams reassessing platform dependency Executive education and leadership development audiences in Europe and Latin America Audience outcomes A clearer read on how Google and TikTok are changing the economics of consumer attention and commerce A practical lens for deciding when and how to enter new international markets A working distinction between innovation and creativity inside large organisations Specific examples of how digital-native brands have built relevance and speed without losing core values

Why organisations work with Andy Milligan Seven books across Kogan Page and Financial Times imprints, including Bold (CMI Management Book of the Year, e-book category, 2012) and On Purpose with Shaun Smith, give him a documented track record on brand-led growth that consultants without published evidence cannot match. He works the full chain from purpose to promise to operational delivery, which is rare. Most advisors stop at strategy or stop at touchpoint design. He has spent thirty years on the connection between them. Client work spans Nissan, McLaren, Barclays, Unilever, FIFA, IHG, Roche and WWF across Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the USA and Europe. The breadth of categories and geographies means his examples land with audiences in heavily regulated, consumer, and B2B sectors equally. His starting position is that brand lives in employee behaviour before it lives in customer perception. For leaders trying to align a fatigued workforce behind a customer promise, that is the more useful framing. Biography highlights Founding partner of The Caffeine Partnership, the UK brand and growth consultancy he co-founded in 2006. Began his career at Interbrand in London; ran the firm’s Singapore office and later led its Internal Brand Management practice. Co-author of On Purpose (Kogan Page, 2015) and Bold: How to be Brave in Business and Win with Shaun Smith. Bold won the CMI Management Book of the Year award in the e-book category in 2012. Co-author of Myths of Branding with Simon Bailey (Kogan Page, 2017; second edition 2022). Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; media commentator for BBC, Sky and CNN on brand issues. Biography Brand is an operating discipline, not a marketing one. That has been the thesis of Andy Milligan’s work since his time at Interbrand in the 1990s, where he ran the Singapore office and later led the firm’s Internal Brand Management practice. The argument is now unfashionable enough to be useful again: customers do not experience strategy decks, they experience employees, products and service moments. In 2006 he co-founded The Caffeine Partnership, a brand and growth consultancy that has advised Nissan, McLaren, Barclays, Unilever, FIFA, IHG, Roche, WWF and Thai Airways across Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the USA and Europe. The work moves between purpose definition, customer experience design and employee engagement, treated as one connected problem rather than three departmental ones. The same argument runs through seven books. Uncommon Practice and See, Feel, Think, Do with Shaun Smith examined the link between corporate culture and brand experience. Bold: How to be Brave in Business and Win won the CMI Management Book of the Year in the e-book category in 2012. On Purpose (Kogan Page, 2015) set out a practical framework for translating purpose into a branded customer experience. Myths of Branding with Simon Bailey, now in its second edition with Kogan Page, dismantles the assumption that brand work is a logo problem. Milligan is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and comments regularly for BBC, Sky and CNN. The reason senior teams bring him into commercial growth conversations is straightforward: he has spent thirty years arguing that organisations get the customers their employees deserve, and he can show them where the gap is. Key speaking topics Brand-led business growth Customer experience strategy Employee engagement and brand Purpose and commercial strategy Brand culture and organisational alignment Marketing and brand myths Ideal for CMOs, CCOs and brand directors aligning marketing with operational delivery CHROs and CPOs connecting employee engagement to customer outcomes CEOs and boards repositioning a business around a sharper purpose Customer experience and transformation leads moving from strategy to execution Audience outcomes A clearer view of where brand promise and customer experience are diverging in their own organisation A working definition of purpose that can be tested against employee and customer behaviour, not slogan Named case examples across consumer, financial services, automotive and sport that translate to the audience’s category A short list of brand myths their leadership team is probably still operating under

Why organisations work with Ozwald Boateng He rebuilt Savile Row’s relevance to a younger global market without abandoning its craft. Few living designers have shifted a 200-year-old category that decisively. He was the first black designer to lead menswear at Givenchy under LVMH, a working case study in taking a personal aesthetic into a heritage luxury house. He co-founded the Made in Africa Foundation and helped launch the $2bn Africa50 infrastructure fund with the African Development Bank, giving him a track record few creative figures can match on capital and continental development. His commercial collaborations span Coutts, Johnnie Walker, Virgin and British Airways, alongside film work for Marvel’s Black Panther. The brand reach is unusually broad for a fashion founder. Biography highlights First English tailor to present a catwalk show at Paris Fashion Week (1994). Creative Director of Menswear at Givenchy, LVMH (2003 to 2007). OBE for services to the clothing industry (2006). Best Menswear Designer, Trophees de la Mode, Paris (1996); Best Menswear Designer, British Fashion Awards (2000). Subject of a V&A Fashion in Motion event (2005), one of a small group including Vivienne Westwood, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen. Co-founder, Made in Africa Foundation; co-launched the $2bn Africa50 infrastructure fund with the African Development Bank. Biography Savile Row was a closed system when Boateng arrived. The category meant heritage, sober colour, and a customer his father’s age. He kept the cut and changed almost everything else. By 1994 he was the first English tailor to stage a catwalk show at Paris Fashion Week. By 1995 he had a boutique on Vigo Street, the south end of the Row, and a younger clientele was buying suits again. The category shift mattered commercially. In 2003, LVMH appointed him Creative Director of Menswear at Givenchy, a role he held until 2007. He was the first black designer to lead menswear at the house. The OBE followed in 2006 for services to the clothing industry. A new flagship at 30 Savile Row, co-designed with the architect David Adjaye, opened in 2008. The second act is less expected. Boateng co-founded the Made in Africa Foundation in 2011 to finance large-scale African infrastructure. With the African Development Bank he helped launch Africa50, a $2bn fund aimed at closing the continent’s infrastructure gap. He has worked with several African governments on industrial and development policy, and the work has been covered by CNN, Bloomberg and Pan African Visions. The collaborations sit alongside the official roles. Coutts, Johnnie Walker, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways have commissioned him; Ruth E. Carter put one of his teal mohair suits on screen in Black Panther. The throughline is consistent: a craft practice used as a lever on much bigger systems, from a London street to LVMH to continental capital allocation. Key speaking topics Luxury brand building and reinvention Creative entrepreneurship at scale Heritage brand leadership African economic development and investment Design, identity and cultural representation Diversity in luxury and creative industries Ideal for CEOs and CMOs of heritage brands considering category reinvention Boards and leadership teams of luxury, retail and consumer goods businesses Organisations with significant African market or investment exposure Senior creative and design leaders in fashion, hospitality and lifestyle Audience outcomes A working view of how one founder shifted a 200-year-old category and what that took commercially. A frank account of running a personal aesthetic inside a heritage LVMH house. A specific, named perspective on African infrastructure investment from someone who has helped raise it. A model for building cross-sector collaborations that compound a creative practice over decades.

Why organisations work with June Sarpong She has run inclusion at scale inside one of the world’s largest media organisations. As the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity, she sat on the Executive Committee and oversaw a £100m commissioning commitment, which gives boards a credible peer voice rather than an outside consultant. Her three HarperCollins books (Diversify, The Power of Women, The Power of Privilege) build an economic argument for inclusion, drawing on Nuffield College, Oxford research that put the cost of UK discrimination at £127bn a year. Buyers get a speaker who can frame the case in commercial terms. Through Diversify International, she has worked with Burberry, Barclays, Nike, Google, Unilever, EY and the NHS, so the room can ask practical questions about what works in regulated, consumer-facing and public-sector contexts. She moves naturally between keynote and host or moderator, which makes her usable across formats: a leadership offsite opener, an internal town hall, an awards stage, or a chaired board conversation on diversity. Biography highlights First Director of Creative Diversity at the BBC and first Black woman on the BBC Executive Committee. Oversaw a £100m commitment to diverse and inclusive content commissioning at the BBC. Author of three HarperCollins titles on inclusion: Diversify, The Power of Women, The Power of Privilege. Founder of Diversify International, with corporate clients including Burberry, Barclays, Google, Nike, Unilever, EY, Facebook and the NHS. MBE (2007) and OBE (2020) for services to broadcasting and to broadcasting respectively. Non-Executive Trustee of Tate, appointed by the Prime Minister. Biography Inclusion is now a board-level question because the audiences, workforces and customer bases of most large organisations have changed faster than the people running them. June Sarpong’s work sits exactly in that gap. She argues, in commercial language, that closing it is an operating decision, not a values statement. She made that case from inside one of the world’s most scrutinised institutions. As the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity, she sat on the Executive Committee and oversaw a £100m commissioning commitment to diverse and inclusive content. It was the first time a UK public broadcaster of that scale tied inclusion to a budget line and reported against it. The argument is also published. Her three HarperCollins books, Diversify, The Power of Women and The Power of Privilege, draw on Nuffield College, Oxford research that put the annual cost of discrimination in the UK at £127bn. The books are used as a frame in her keynote work, which is how she became useful to companies trying to move beyond statements: Burberry, Barclays, Google, Nike, Unilever, EY and the NHS have all engaged Diversify International, the consultancy she founded after leaving the BBC. Her career began in broadcasting, and that range still matters commercially. She presented Channel 4’s T4 for nine years, interviewed Tony Blair for the strand, and is a regular panel and broadcast voice. The same craft that lets her host a leadership offsite or chair a board conversation also lets her bring difficult inclusion content into a room without it landing as a lecture. She is a Trustee of Tate, appointed by the Prime Minister, and holds an OBE for services to broadcasting. Key speaking topics Inclusion as an operating commitment Diverse audiences and consumer reach Workforce composition and talent The economic case for inclusion Allyship and privilege Women in leadership Culture change inside large organisations Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers and DEI leads under pressure to show measurable inclusion outcomes Boards and executive committees revisiting inclusion strategy after the post-2020 reset Marketing and brand leaders rethinking how products and content connect with diverse audiences Leadership offsites, internal town halls and conferences that need a credible host as well as a speaker Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what inclusion looks like as a budget and operating decision, drawn from a real public-sector example The commercial argument for inclusion in language a CFO or board chair will accept A practical reading of what worked and what failed across consumer, financial and public-sector deployments A sharper view of the difference between inclusion programmes and inclusion communications

Why organisations work with David Siegel He led the carve-out of Meetup from WeWork to AlleyCorp in March 2020, a transaction completed inside the first weeks of the pandemic, and can speak from inside the deal rather than around it. He took Investopedia through a near-fivefold valuation increase and the sale to Dotdash, which gives him operator authority on building a category-leading consumer brand and exiting it. His book, “Decide and Conquer,” published by HarperCollins Leadership, gives audiences a structured 44-decision framework written from the chair, not the seminar room. He teaches strategic planning and entrepreneurship at Columbia University, which means the operational material is sharpened by working with the next generation of founders and senior leaders. His “Keep Connected” podcast has turned community-building into a measurable commercial discipline, useful for organisations rebuilding internal engagement or customer affinity. Biography highlights Former CEO of Meetup; led the company through the WeWork-to-AlleyCorp acquisition in March 2020. Former CEO of Investopedia; led the sale to Dotdash after tripling revenue and driving a near-fivefold valuation increase. Former President of Seeking Alpha and former SVP at 1-800-Flowers; early-career executive at DoubleClick. Author of “Decide and Conquer: 44 Decisions that will Make or Break All Leaders” (HarperCollins Leadership). Adjunct professor at Columbia University, teaching strategic planning and entrepreneurship. Bylines in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, CNBC, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur. Biography Meetup was a difficult business when David Siegel inherited it. It had been bought by WeWork, was burning cash, and was about to face a pandemic that emptied the rooms where its product lived. Inside eighteen months, he had made it profitable for the first time in its history, and in March 2020, he led its carve-out to a consortium led by AlleyCorp. That arc, distressed asset to functioning standalone business under pandemic conditions, is what gives his speaking work its weight. Before Meetup, he was CEO of Investopedia, where he tripled revenue and led the sale to Dotdash at a near-fivefold valuation. Before that, President of Seeking Alpha and an SVP at 1-800-Flowers, with an early-career chapter at DoubleClick. His book, “Decide and Conquer,” published by HarperCollins Leadership, is organised around the 44 decisions he argues a new chief executive will face. It is a working playbook, not a memoir, and it draws on the specific judgement calls, hiring, pricing, communications, and board management that he made in the seat. He teaches strategic planning and entrepreneurship at Columbia University, hosts the “Keep Connected” podcast on community as a business lever, and has published bylines in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, CNBC, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur. The teaching and writing keep the operator material structured; the operator material keeps the teaching honest. Key speaking topics Decision-making for chief executives and founders Community as a commercial growth engine Carve-outs, turnarounds, and post-acquisition leadership Scaling consumer internet businesses Building and selling category-leading brands Entrepreneurial leadership through crisis Ideal for Founders and CEOs of scaling businesses, particularly those facing a financing event, carve-out, or sale Boards and executive teams working through restructure, integration, or post-acquisition leadership questions Senior commercial and product leaders rebuilding customer community or engagement at scale Audience outcomes A working set of decision frames drawn from a real CEO seat, not a consulting model A clear view of how community translates into commercial outcomes, with examples from a platform business Specific lessons from a pandemic-era carve-out, applicable to current restructure and divestment conversations A sharper read on what to do in the first ninety days of a new chief executive role

Why organisations work with Peter Field His IPA Effectiveness Databank analysis – spanning over 1,000 campaigns, 80+ categories, and 30 years – gives senior marketers an empirical base for budget decisions that no internal dataset can match in scale or authority. The 60:40 principle he co-established with Les Binet is now the dominant reference point for CMO-level investment decisions globally; organisations use it to resist short-term pressure from finance and hold the case for brand building with the board. His 2019 Crisis in Creative Effectiveness report – showing that creatively-awarded campaigns had lost their effectiveness advantage entirely due to short-termism – gives marketing leaders the evidence to argue for sustained creative investment rather than disposable activation. The Creative Effectiveness Ladder, co-developed with James Hurman for Cannes Lions and WARC, gives organisations a practical evaluation tool for assessing the long-term ambition of creative work before it runs. His extension of effectiveness principles into B2B – The Five Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing – fills an empirical gap that most B2B marketing leaders have had to navigate without equivalent guidance. Biography highlights Cambridge graduate; 15 years as a strategic planner at advertising agencies including BMP (later part of the DDB network) Co-author with Les Binet of the IPA Effectiveness Databank series: Marketing in the Era of Accountability (2007), The Long & The Short of It (2013), Media in Focus (2017), Effectiveness in Context (2018) Author of The Crisis in Creative Effectiveness (IPA, 2019) – analysing 24 years of data on the declining relationship between creative awards and business outcomes Co-author with James Hurman of The Effectiveness Code (Cannes Lions/WARC, 2020), which produced the Creative Effectiveness Ladder framework Honorary Fellow of the UK Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Regular keynote speaker at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, IPA EffWeek, and WARC Sessions Biography Marketing measurement has a structural flaw: the channels easiest to measure in real time are the ones least suited to building durable growth. Peter Field has spent 25 years making that argument with evidence – the IPA Effectiveness Databank, a repository of independently verified advertising effectiveness data spanning more than three decades. With Les Binet, Field co-authored the series of IPA Effectiveness Databank reports that set the empirical terms for decisions about budget allocation, media strategy, and creative investment. The Long and the Short of It (2013) established the 60:40 principle: most organisations systematically under-invest in brand building relative to short-term activation. Long-term emotional campaigns, the data showed, generate roughly double the profit of short-term approaches. The series has been cited in over 70 international academic publications and textbooks. Field’s solo research extended these findings into the relationship between creativity and effectiveness. The Crisis in Creative Effectiveness (IPA, 2019) revealed that creatively-awarded campaigns had become no more effective than non-awarded ones – the first time in 24 years of data – driven by the industry’s shift toward short-term activation work. His co-authored Creative Effectiveness Ladder, developed with James Hurman for Cannes Lions and WARC, provides a practical framework for evaluating the long-term ambition of creative work before it runs. A Cambridge graduate and former strategic planner at BMP, Field is an Honorary Fellow of the UK Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. His research has been presented at Cannes Lions, WARC Sessions, and IPA EffWeek, and has shaped how CMOs, CFOs, and boards across the world evaluate the returns on marketing investment. Key speaking topics Marketing effectiveness and budget allocation Long-term brand building vs. short-term sales activation Creative effectiveness and the business case for creativity Measurement, metrics, and the limits of digital attribution Brand growth and pricing power B2B marketing effectiveness Evidence-based commercial strategy Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leaders under short-term commercial pressure from CFOs or boards CFOs and CEOs seeking an empirical framework for evaluating marketing investment decisions Brand and creative strategy leads making the case for long-term creative ambition internally B2B marketing directors who have lacked an effectiveness evidence base equivalent to B2C Audience outcomes A clear, evidence-based framework for allocating budget between brand building and short-term activation – grounded in 30+ years of campaign data A working understanding of why short-term digital metrics can systematically mislead commercial decision-making The analytical language to present the commercial case for brand investment to a CFO or board Practical criteria for evaluating whether a creative strategy is built for long-term effectiveness or short-term efficiency Awareness of how the Five Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing translate consumer effectiveness evidence into B2B strategy

Why organisations work with Neil West First-hand operator perspective from inside Apple Music, the App Store, Apple TV+ and iTunes during the period the company shifted a billion-dollar services business across Europe. A specific thesis on simplicity as competitive advantage, set out in It Just Works (Macmillan Business, 2026) and structured as nine rules leaders can apply to their own products and teams. Useful for the meeting after the strategy offsite: he speaks to the practical work of cutting features, killing projects, and protecting customer experience from internal politics. Co-founded the iTunes Festival and curated Apple’s relationship with artists from Beyonce to Bono, which gives the talks the texture of a content business, not a generic technology keynote. Translates Steve Jobs era principles into language that lands with commercial and product leaders who have to ship, not theorise. Biography highlights Head of Services, Apple Southern Europe, with responsibility for App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud, Books, Podcasts, Arcade and Fitness+ across the region. Head of Music, Apple UK and Europe, for ten years, including the period iTunes became the world’s largest music retailer. Co-founder and curator of the iTunes Festival. Author of It Just Works: The Nine Simple Rules of Apple’s Success, Macmillan Business, September 2026. TEDx speaker on The Beatles, Steve Jobs, and Team Management. Earlier career: European Editor-in-Chief at Rhapsody, the first music streaming subscription service, Creative Director at Garageband.com (founded with Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads and Sir George Martin), and Editor-in-Chief of NEXT Generation magazine. Biography iTunes was a record store before it was a streaming service, and the App Store was a developer experiment before it was a platform. The hard part of running those businesses across Europe was not adding features. It was deciding what not to build, what to pull, and which artist or partner relationship was worth defending against internal pressure to standardise. West did that work for sixteen years. As Head of Music for Apple in the UK and Europe, he led the team through the period iTunes became the world’s biggest music retailer, and co-founded the iTunes Festival as a way of binding the catalogue to a live cultural moment. He then ran Services for Apple Southern Europe, a billion-dollar portfolio covering App Store, Apple Music, TV+, iCloud, Books, Podcasts, Arcade and Fitness+, through the shift from downloads to subscription. His argument now, set out in It Just Works (Macmillan Business, 2026), is that Apple’s edge has always been a discipline for removing complexity rather than a talent for adding features. The book offers nine rules drawn from inside the business, on simplifying products, reducing friction in customer journeys, and protecting focus when an organisation grows. His TEDx talk on The Beatles and Steve Jobs makes the team-design version of the same case. For audiences in product, marketing, services and digital businesses, the value is the operator detail. He talks about specific decisions, named launches, and the politics of holding a line on customer experience when commercial pressure points the other way. Key speaking topics Simplicity as commercial operating discipline Customer experience in subscription and platform businesses The shift from downloads to streaming and what it taught the wider content economy Product and service launches at scale Building and managing creative teams Lessons from inside Apple’s services business Ideal for Product, services and platform leaders running multi-product portfolios CMOs and customer experience leaders in subscription, media and consumer businesses Innovation and transformation directors looking for an operator voice rather than a consultant frame Leadership teams resetting after a period of feature accumulation or proposition drift Audience outcomes A working definition of simplicity that can be applied to a roadmap, not just a brand line. Specific tests for deciding what to cut from a product, service or process. A view of Apple’s services business from inside the European operation, including how artist and partner relationships were handled. Language for protecting customer experience against internal pressure to add complexity. A team-design lens drawn from how Apple, and before it The Beatles, structured small creative groups for output.

Why organisations work with Louise Laing She has run the operating model she now sells advice on. As CEO of Shrimps she grew revenue by 240% and brought the business into positive EBITDA within three years, with senior prior roles at Burberry and Reiss in sourcing, development and supply chain. PhygitalTwin and Phygen give her a working technical view of how AI compresses pattern engineering and digital-to-physical production, not a consultant’s overview of the field. She translates between creative directors, production heads and technology teams. Heritage fashion businesses lose months because those three functions speak different languages; she has worked inside all three. Recode the Curriculum, the foundation she leads, gives her a credible voice on closing the technology confidence gap among young women, which connects her commercial work to a wider workforce question senior buyers care about. Biography highlights Founder, PhygitalTwin (2022), an AI platform converting 3D designs into game-ready digital assets and production-ready physical files. Founder, Phygen, AI-native pattern engineering platform. Former CEO, Shrimps (London fashion brand). Drove 240% revenue growth and positive EBITDA within three years. Senior leadership roles previously held at Burberry and Reiss, in sourcing, product development and supply chain. Founder, Recode the Curriculum, a foundation supporting girls into technology and entrepreneurship. Speaker at the World Economic Forum, Davos (January 2024, Phygital Wednesday with CV Labs and Phygicode). Contributor to The Interline. Biography Pattern engineering is the part of the fashion supply chain almost no one outside the industry sees. It is also where six to eight weeks of every new garment is spent. Louise Laing has built her last decade of work around the question of what happens when that cycle collapses to hours. PhygitalTwin, the company she founded in 2022, is an AI SaaS platform that converts a single 3D design into two commercial outputs: a rigged, game-ready digital skin and a print-ready file for physical merchandise. Phygen, a parallel venture, automates the pattern, grading and tech-pack work that traditionally sits between designer and factory. Both are built on a thesis she has lived inside: fashion’s waste problem is structural, and the solution sits in the production model rather than the marketing one. Before founding either company, she ran a fashion business. As CEO of Shrimps she grew revenue by 240% and took the company into positive EBITDA within three years, while protecting the brand’s creative identity. Earlier senior roles at Burberry and Reiss gave her direct operational experience of sourcing, product development and supply chain at scale, which is the operating context most heritage brands now have to redesign. Her wider work includes Recode the Curriculum, a foundation introducing girls to technology as a creative and entrepreneurial pathway. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos and writes for The Interline on fashion, gaming and brand strategy in virtual environments. Key speaking topics AI in fashion design and product development 3D and on-demand production Phygital fashion and the digital-to-physical product chain Supply chain optimisation in heritage and emerging brands Sustainability through production model redesign Entrepreneurship and scaling a fashion business Women and girls in technology Ideal for Boards and executive teams in fashion, retail and consumer brands considering operational redesign around AI. Heads of product, sourcing and supply chain looking for a working view of digital-to-physical workflows. Innovation, transformation and digital leaders in adjacent industries (consumer goods, luxury, sportswear) studying fashion as a sector ahead on phygital. Programme leads building gender-balanced technology talent pipelines. Audience outcomes A clearer operating picture of where AI compresses real cost and time in product development. Specific examples of how 3D, on-demand and digital twin technology change unit economics in a brand business. A view of phygital fashion as a commercial category, with the brand and IP questions it raises. An entrepreneur’s perspective on running a creative business through an operational reinvention.

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 Jenny Fleiss She has built a consumer business from a Harvard Business School idea to a publicly listed company, and a separate venture inside Walmart’s Store No. 8 incubator. That gives a board credible answers on both routes into a new market. She speaks from inside the operating cockpit of conversational commerce and AI-driven personalisation, not from a strategist’s deck. Jetblack used text and machine learning to handle real customer requests at scale. Her seat at Initialized Capital and prior investing work put her across hundreds of early-stage decks in e-commerce, consumer and AI. She can tell a corporate audience which startup behaviours are worth importing and which are noise. She brings board-level perspective from listed and private companies including The Lanvin Group, Shutterfly and Rent the Runway, which lets her translate founder language into governance language an audit and risk committee will understand. Biography highlights Co-founder and board member, Rent the Runway, the New York-listed designer rental company she started with Jennifer Hyman in 2008. Founder and former CEO of Jetblack, the conversational commerce startup launched inside Walmart’s Store No. 8 incubator in 2018. Former Partner at Initialized Capital, the seed-stage venture firm, where she led e-commerce, consumer and AI investing. Independent director, The Lanvin Group (since 2022); board member, Shutterfly (since 2019); board member, Arteza. MBA, Harvard Business School; BA in Political Science, Yale University, cum laude. Recognised on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 (2012), Inc. 30 Under 30 (2010), Forbes Disruptors 2013, and Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology. Biography Renting a designer dress through a website was not an obvious business in 2008. Jenny Fleiss and Jennifer Hyman started Rent the Runway from a Harvard Business School idea and turned it into a publicly listed consumer company. The work needed to be done in unglamorous places: dry cleaning logistics, returns flows, fit data, inventory forecasting. The brand sat on top of an operations problem. A decade later, Walmart asked her to build a startup inside its corporate body. Jetblack was a text-based, AI-assisted personal shopping service for high-spending New York households, incubated inside Store No. 8. The product taught Walmart what conversational commerce actually costs to run, what humans still have to do behind the model, and where machine learning genuinely earns its keep in retail. That double track, founder of a venture-backed unicorn and intrapreneur inside a Fortune 1 retailer, is what makes her useful in a corporate room. She has lived the trade-offs between speed and brand risk, between founder autonomy and parent-company governance, between AI promise and operating reality. Her investing work at Initialized Capital and as an angel adds a third lens: which early-stage signals are worth a corporate’s attention and which are theatre. Her board work at The Lanvin Group, Shutterfly, Rent the Runway and Arteza puts her in front of the same governance questions her audiences face. Boards want innovation, but they also want explanations. Key speaking topics Building and scaling consumer internet businesses Conversational commerce and AI in retail Corporate venture building and intrapreneurship Customer data and personalisation at scale Female founders and the funding gap Early-stage investing in consumer and AI Board governance for innovation programmes Ideal for CEOs and divisional presidents in retail, consumer goods and direct-to-consumer brands Heads of innovation, corporate venture and new ventures inside large incumbents Chief digital, chief data and chief AI officers responsible for customer-facing AI deployment Founder communities, accelerator cohorts and women-in-business leadership programmes Audience outcomes A clearer view of which startup behaviours translate into a corporate parent and which collapse on contact with it. A working vocabulary for what conversational commerce and AI personalisation actually require to run at scale. A board-level frame for sponsoring internal ventures: what to measure, what to protect, when to wind down. A grounded read on the current early-stage consumer and AI investment market from someone who has sat on both sides of the table.

Why organisations work with Henry Coutinho-Mason He brings a working method for trend-driven innovation, set out in Trend-Driven Innovation and refined across a decade as Managing Director of TrendWatching, rather than a curated list of things happening now. His second book, The Future Normal, co-written with WSJ bestseller Rohit Bhargava, gives executive audiences a structured view of the thirty shifts most likely to reshape the next decade, tailored by sector. He has delivered more than 100 keynotes and workshops across 30+ countries for Mastercard, Johnson & Johnson, Calvin Klein, Tata, Siemens, Google, HP and Marriott, so the material is already pressure-tested on senior corporate audiences. His AI sessions are built around a people-first innovation strategy, not a tools tour, which lands with leaders who need to commit capital and organisational focus rather than pilot for the sake of it. The 3Space track record, recognised by the FT/Citi Urban Ingenuity Awards and NESTA New Radicals, gives him operator credibility beyond the commentary layer. Biography highlights Co-author, The Future Normal: How We Will Live, Work and Thrive in the Next Decade, with Rohit Bhargava (Ideapress). Co-author, Trend-Driven Innovation: Beat Accelerating Customer Expectations. Former Managing Director, TrendWatching. Guest lecturer, HEC Paris. Co-founder, 3Space; European winner of the FT/Citi Urban Ingenuity Awards, commended by Fast Company World Changing Ideas, selected by NESTA New Radicals. Keynote and workshop engagements with Mastercard, Johnson & Johnson, Calvin Klein, Tata, Siemens, Telefonica, HP, Google, GE, Accenture, and Marriott. Biography Most large organisations know their customer expectations are moving. What they struggle with is turning that awareness into a pipeline of decisions a board will back. That gap, between trend awareness and commercial commitment, is where Coutinho-Mason does his work. He spent roughly a decade at TrendWatching, ending as Managing Director of what became one of the most widely referenced consumer trend intelligence firms in the world. That run produced a method, published as Trend-Driven Innovation, for converting shifting customer expectations into concrete innovation bets rather than observations. His second book, The Future Normal, written with Wall Street Journal bestselling author Rohit Bhargava, maps thirty ideas and instigators shaping the next decade, from generative AI to biophilic design. Leadership teams at Mastercard, Johnson & Johnson, Calvin Klein, Tata, Siemens and others have booked versions of the material tailored to their sector, often as the opening frame for a strategy offsite. Alongside the speaking and advisory work, he co-founded 3Space, a social enterprise that turns empty commercial property into space for charities and community groups. It won the European section of the FT/Citi Urban Ingenuity Awards and was commended by Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, a proof point that the innovation method travels beyond the corporate setting into organisations that have to ship results with little margin for error. Key speaking topics Trend-driven innovation Consumer and customer expectations Strategic foresight People-first AI strategy Future of retail, work and cities Business model innovation Growth strategy Ideal for CSOs and heads of strategy commissioning a multi-year innovation agenda CMOs and customer experience leaders recalibrating propositions against shifting expectations Chief innovation officers and transformation leads looking for a repeatable method, not a trend deck Executive offsites and board sessions opening a decade-horizon strategy conversation Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for distinguishing durable consumer shifts from short-cycle noise A working framework for translating trend signals into specific innovation bets A sharper view of where generative AI changes the economics of their category, and where it does not Concrete examples of how peer-scale organisations have already moved, drawn from cross-sector research A clear set of questions to take back to strategy, product and marketing teams

Why organisations work with Jennifer Hyman She has run the full arc of a venture-backed consumer subscription business, from a Harvard Business School idea in 2008 to a $1.7 billion IPO in 2021, and can speak to each stage with named decisions rather than highlight-reel anecdotes. She led Rent the Runway through a near-existential 2020, when its core demand collapsed overnight, and reset the cost base, capital structure and product. Boards under pressure want that recovery story from the operator who lived it. She sits on the board of The Estee Lauder Companies and advises Goldman Sachs through the Launch With GS council, giving her a working view of how large incumbents think about disruption from the inside. She is one of only 30 women to have taken a US company public and the first to do so with an all-female CEO, COO and CFO line-up. That credential travels well in conversations about leadership pipeline and capital access. She speaks from the operator seat on how AI is changing what a customer relationship actually is, drawing on Rent the Runway’s own use of data and personalisation rather than abstract framing. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of Rent the Runway since 2009; Chair of the Board. Took Rent the Runway public in October 2021, raising $357 million. Board Director, The Estee Lauder Companies. Audit Committee and Nominating and ESG Committee. Founding member of the NYSE Board Advisory Council. Adviser to Goldman Sachs via the Launch With GS Council. Named to TIME 100 Most Influential People (2019); Fortune 40 Under 40; Fast Company Most Creative People in Business; Forbes 12 Most Disruptive Names in Business. BA in social sciences and MBA, Harvard University. Biography Rent the Runway started as a Harvard Business School project in late 2008 and reached public markets in October 2021 as the first US listing led by an all-female CEO, COO and CFO trio. The company raised $357 million and listed at a $1.7 billion valuation. The person who built it from idea to ticker is Jennifer Hyman, co-founder, CEO and Chair of the Board. The interesting period for boards is not the launch. It is what happened after. The pandemic took out Rent the Runway’s core demand, weddings, events, office wear, almost overnight in early 2020. Hyman cut costs, restructured debt, reworked the subscription product, and brought the business through to IPO eighteen months later. She has since had to defend the model against shifting consumer behaviour, capital market repricing of growth, and the entry of larger players into resale and rental. Outside the operator role, Hyman serves on the Board of Directors of The Estee Lauder Companies, on its Audit Committee and Nominating and ESG Committee. She is a founding member of the NYSE Board Advisory Council and sits on the Launch With GS Advisory Council for Goldman Sachs, where the brief is improving capital access for female and diverse founders. She was named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People list in 2019, with the profile written by Diane von Furstenberg. Hyman’s value in a board conversation is the texture of having actually done the things most strategy decks describe. She can speak to category creation, to subscription unit economics under stress, to the use of AI in personalisation and inventory, and to the politics of taking a venture-backed consumer business through a public listing without losing operational grip. Key speaking topics Subscription business model design Category creation in consumer markets Recovery and reset after demand shock AI in consumer personalisation and inventory Capital access for founders and underrepresented operators Founder-CEO journey through IPO Ideal for Boards and executive teams reviewing strategy under model pressure CEO and CFO audiences in consumer, retail, fashion and subscription businesses Investor and capital-markets events focused on founder access to capital Women’s leadership and pipeline programmes at senior levels Audience outcomes A clear-eyed account of what category creation actually costs from someone who has done it A working view of how a venture-backed CEO restructures a business through a demand shock Insight into how AI is being used in subscription consumer businesses today, with named examples from Rent the Runway A senior-operator perspective on the IPO process and post-listing reality Specific arguments for how capital access changes when founder pipelines change