Cybersecurity

Why organisations work with Robert Cringely Four decades of first-person reporting on Silicon Valley, from the InfoWorld “Notes from the Field” column (1987 to 1995) through PBSs “Triumph of the Nerds” and “NerdTV” to the long-running I, Cringely site, give him a pattern memory across every major computing wave that few other speakers can match. He runs a public, self-graded annual technology prediction column, which forces a level of accountability about where the industry is heading that most futurists avoid. His book “Accidental Empires” remains a reference text on how the personal computer industry actually got built, used by leaders who want to understand the cultural mechanics of Silicon Valley rather than the press-release version. He has written for The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek and Worth on technology business, so the framing he brings to a corporate audience is editorial and argument-led, not a vendor pitch. Biography highlights Author of the 1992 best-seller “Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition and Still Can’t Get a Date”. Wrote the “Notes from the Field” column at InfoWorld for eight years, 1987 to 1995. Host and writer behind the PBS documentary series “Triumph of the Nerds” (1996) and “Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet” (1998). Producer and host of “NerdTV” on PBS (2005 to 2006); wrote the “I, Cringely: The Pulpit” column on PBS.org through 2008. Bylines as Cringely have appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek and Worth. M.A. in Communication Research from Stanford University; B.A. from the College of Wooster. Biography Silicon Valley keeps selling boards a story that the next wave will look nothing like the last one. The track record says otherwise. The same patterns of overfunding, platform consolidation, and quiet operating change show up in the PC era, the internet era, the cloud era, and now in generative AI. Robert Cringely has been writing those patterns down in real time since 1987. His column “Notes from the Field” ran in InfoWorld through the formative years of the PC industry, and the 1992 book “Accidental Empires” turned that reporting into the canonical account of how Silicon Valley actually behaves under pressure. PBS adapted the book into the three-part series “Triumph of the Nerds” in 1996, followed by “Nerds 2.0.1” on the rise of the internet, and later the “NerdTV” interview series. As Cringely, he has written for The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek and Worth. What sets the work apart is the prediction discipline. Each January he publishes specific calls on where computing, networks and now AI are heading, and each year he goes back and grades the prior years record in public. Few commentators in the field do this; almost none have done it for as long. For a corporate audience, the value is editorial judgement on a noisy market. Cringely will tell a leadership team which AI claims are doing real operating work, which look like the dot-com years repeating, and where the durable economics of compute, data and platforms actually sit. Key speaking topics Generative AI and the next phase of enterprise computing The economics and geopolitics of cloud and compute Silicon Valley business models and platform consolidation Annual technology predictions and the discipline of forecasting The history of the PC, internet and cloud as a guide to the AI cycle Cybersecurity and infrastructure risk in a connected economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees forming a view on AI investment and platform exposure Strategy, technology and innovation leaders responsible for the corporate AI agenda Industry conferences and offsites in technology, financial services, telecoms and media Investor and analyst audiences seeking an editorial read on Silicon Valley signals Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and platform claims are durable and which are cycle-driven Pattern recognition across the PC, internet, cloud and AI waves applied to the audience’s own bets Sharper questions for vendors, partners and internal technology teams A practical framework for tracking and grading technology predictions over time

Why organisations work with Robert Herjavec Two major business exits anchor the credibility. BRAK Systems sold to AT&T Canada for $30.2 million in 2000, and Herjavec Group’s majority stake sold to Apax Partners in 2021. Senior teams hear from an operator who has built and exited at scale. Seventeen years as an original Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank, evaluating thousands of founder pitches in real time. Audiences get a working investor’s read on what closes a deal and what kills one. A sales-first view of business growth. You Don’t Have to Be a Shark, his Wall Street Journal bestseller, frames sales as the universal skill of business and gives non-sales people a usable discipline. Operator-level cybersecurity context from founding and running Herjavec Group, once one of Canada’s largest information security firms, before its 2022 merger into Cyderes. Useful when boards want the threat landscape explained without a vendor agenda. An immigrant-founder narrative with verifiable outcomes. Arrived in Halifax at age eight from communist Yugoslavia, then built and exited multiple technology businesses while helping launch one of the most successful business reality formats on network television. Biography highlights Founder of Herjavec Group (2003); served as CEO until stepping down in September 2024 following the company’s 2022 merger with Fishtech Group and rebrand to Cyderes Sold BRAK Systems to AT&T Canada for $30.2 million in 2000 Original cast member on ABC’s Shark Tank since the show’s 2009 debut; also a panelist on Canada’s Dragons’ Den and Shark Tank Australia Author of three business books: Driven (2010), The Will to Win (2013), and You Don’t Have to Be a Shark (St. Martin’s Press, 2016), a Wall Street Journal bestseller Recipient of the 2012 Ernst & Young Ontario Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Technology and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal BA in English literature and political science, University of Toronto Biography Most leaders manage businesses someone else built. Robert Herjavec has founded and exited three. BRAK Systems, the cybersecurity firm he started in his basement, was sold to AT&T Canada for $30.2 million in 2000. Ramp Network, which he ran as VP of Sales, was acquired by Nokia for $225 million. In 2003 he founded Herjavec Group, which grew into one of Canada’s largest information security businesses. Apax Partners bought a majority stake in 2021. After a 2022 merger with Fishtech Group it became Cyderes, where Herjavec served as CEO until September 2024 and remains an investor and board member. He has been an original Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank since the show’s 2009 debut. Across seventeen seasons he has heard thousands of founder pitches and decided in real time which to back and which to walk away from. The result is an unusual stockpile of pattern recognition on what closes a deal and what kills one from the investor’s side of the table. His three books work the same vein. Driven (2010) and The Will to Win (2013) were simultaneous Globe and Mail bestsellers about how persistence and self-discipline build careers. You Don’t Have to Be a Shark (St. Martin’s Press, 2016) reached the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, arguing that sales is a teachable craft any senior leader can use. He won the 2012 Ernst & Young Ontario Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Technology and was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Governor-General of Canada for outstanding service. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and the founder mindset Sales as a business discipline Building and scaling technology companies Resilience and persistence in business The cybersecurity threat landscape for enterprise leaders Growth strategy and going from zero to scale Pitch evaluation and the investor’s perspective Ideal for Sales kickoffs and revenue leadership offsites where credibility on selling as a teachable discipline is the priority Annual conferences and flagship events where a marquee, household-name keynote needs to anchor the agenda on entrepreneurship and growth Founder-led businesses and high-growth firms whose audiences want an operator with multiple verified exits behind him Cybersecurity, fintech, and enterprise technology audiences, where his industry pedigree adds weight to the broader entrepreneurship and growth conversation Audience outcomes A sharper read on what actually closes a sales conversation and what kills one before it starts The discipline of starting from zero, told by someone who arrived in Halifax with one suitcase and built three businesses worth nine-figure exits An investor’s lens on how to evaluate ideas and the founders behind them, built from seventeen years inside the Shark Tank panel A working argument that persistence and discipline outperform inherited advantage, with a verifiable career arc behind it: BRAK to AT&T, Ramp to Nokia, Herjavec Group to Apax A board-level perspective on cybersecurity risk informed by two decades inside one of Canada’s largest enterprise security operators

Why organisations work with Rod Beckstrom He has run cybersecurity at the level boards now have to think about it: founding Director of the U.S. National Cybersecurity Center, briefing executives who must translate cyber exposure into a number their audit committee can act on. He led ICANN through the DNSSEC signing of the DNS root and the opening of the new generic top-level domain namespace, decisions that shaped the operating environment every digital business sits inside. His Cybersecurity Value at Risk (CyberVaR) framework gives C-suites a single statistical figure for cyber exposure, replacing technical heat-maps with something a CFO and audit committee can use. The Starfish and the Spider, co-authored with Ori Brafman, gave executives a working vocabulary for why decentralised competitors, movements and threat actors keep outflanking traditional hierarchies. He has commented on cyber and internet policy across CNN, BBC, PBS, MSNBC and NPR, and has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet. Biography highlights Founding Director, U.S. National Cybersecurity Center, Department of Homeland Security. President and CEO of ICANN, 2009 to 2012; oversaw DNSSEC signing of the DNS root and the gTLD expansion. Co-author, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations (Portfolio/Penguin, 2006), translated into 16 languages. Originator of Beckstrom’s Law for valuing economic networks, presented at BlackHat and DefCon in 2009. Co-founder of CATS Software Inc., a derivatives risk management firm taken public on NASDAQ and acquired by Misys. Trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund; Stanford BA (Honors) and MBA; Fulbright Scholar. Biography Cyber risk is now a board-level question, but most boards still cannot put a number on their exposure. Rod Beckstrom built his career on closing exactly that gap. As founding Director of the U.S. National Cybersecurity Center inside the Department of Homeland Security, he sat at the point where federal cyber policy met operational reality. His CyberVaR framework translates that experience into something a CFO and audit committee can work with: a single statistical estimate of cyber Value at Risk. The internet itself has been part of his remit. As President and CEO of ICANN from 2009 to 2012, he led the organisation through the DNSSEC signing of the DNS root and the opening of the generic top-level domain namespace, two decisions that quietly reshaped the operating environment of every digital business. The work also took him through the politics of internet governance with governments, registries and civil society, which is the substance behind his commentary on CNN, BBC and the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet. His second body of work is about the shape of organisations. The Starfish and the Spider, co-authored with Ori Brafman and translated into 16 languages, gave executives a usable framework for why decentralised networks, from open-source projects to insurgencies to platform competitors, keep outperforming hierarchies on their own terrain. Beckstrom’s Law, his model for valuing economic networks, sits alongside it as an attempt to put the same intuition into numbers. Underneath the public roles is a working entrepreneur. He co-founded CATS Software Inc., a derivatives and risk management firm taken public on NASDAQ and later acquired by Misys, and continues to build and chair technology companies through his advisory firm BECKSTROM. The result is a speaker who treats cyber risk and decentralised networks as the same conversation: how senior leaders make defensible decisions about systems they do not fully control. Key speaking topics Cybersecurity as a board-level risk Cybersecurity Value at Risk (CyberVaR) for the C-suite Decentralised organisations and the Starfish model Internet governance and the future of the internet Network economics and Beckstrom’s Law Leadership in networked organisations Ideal for Boards and audit committees setting cyber risk appetite and oversight CISOs, CIOs and CFOs translating cyber exposure into financial language C-suite and corporate development teams navigating decentralised competitors and platforms Government, regulator and policy audiences working on internet and cyber governance Audience outcomes A working method for expressing cyber risk as a single financial figure boards can act on A clearer view of how decentralised networks compete with, and erode, traditional hierarchies Sharper questions to put to security leaders about exposure, recovery and accountability A grounded read on where internet governance and policy are heading and what that means for digital strategy

Why organisations work with Rory Cellan-Jones He has reported on every significant technology cycle from the dot.com bust to generative AI, which gives senior teams a working baseline for how this wave will and will not behave. His book Always On argues that the smartphone is the Model T Ford of the 21st century and traces the loss of public trust from the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony to Cambridge Analytica. That argument frames a board conversation on AI legitimacy in language buyers can use. He brings the institutional memory of the BBC technology desk into the room, including direct interviews with the founders and chief executives now setting the AI agenda. His OBE for services to journalism, honorary fellowship at the National Museum of Computing, and current advisory roles at FTI Consulting and Brands2Life signal a credibility that survives the move from press gallery to boardroom. He hosts and moderates with the discipline of a live broadcaster, which makes him a strong choice when the brief is a serious panel rather than a single keynote. Biography highlights BBC Technology Correspondent, 2007 to 2021, with prior roles on The Money Programme, Newsnight, and the Today Programme. Appointed OBE in the 2024 Birthday Honours for services to journalism. Author of Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era (Bloomsbury), Dot.Bomb, the memoir Ruskin Park, and Sophie From Romania. Co-host of the Movers and Shakers podcast on Parkinson’s disease, launched 2023. Senior Advisor, FTI Consulting; Senior Media and Strategy Consultant, Brands2Life. Honorary Fellow, National Museum of Computing; honorary degree, University of York. Biography The dot.com bust ran straight through Cellan-Jones’s first stint as a technology reporter. He had just been appointed BBC Internet Correspondent when the bubble broke, and the book he wrote about it, Dot.Bomb, set the pattern for a career spent reporting on technology as something that has to survive contact with markets, regulators and the public. That long memory is what senior teams now use him for. Across fourteen years as BBC Technology Correspondent, from January 2007, he covered the rise of the iPhone, the social media platforms, the cryptocurrency cycles, and the early arguments about AI safety. His book Always On reads that period as a single arc, with the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony as the high water mark of techno-optimism and the Cambridge Analytica revelations as the moment public trust broke. He left the BBC in 2021 and has since taken senior advisory roles at FTI Consulting and Brands2Life, which keep him close to the corporate side of the same questions he reported on as a journalist. He was appointed OBE in the 2024 Birthday Honours. The current AI debate is where the back catalogue earns its keep. Boards are being asked to make commitments at a pace that exceeds the evidence, and the reflex to copy whichever competitor moves first is exactly the pattern he watched go wrong in 2000, again in 2008, and again in 2017. Few speakers can frame that lesson with the same authority. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the public trust problem The smartphone era and the social contract of technology Disruptive innovation and the corporate response Technology regulation and the limits of self-governance Cybersecurity in consumer and corporate life Long-run lessons from forty years of technology cycles Health, technology and the patient experience Ideal for Boards setting AI adoption policy and accountability CIO, CTO and CDO leadership offsites looking for an outsider perspective on the current cycle Communications, public affairs and policy teams managing technology reputation risk Conferences requiring a moderator or host with deep subject knowledge Audience outcomes A clearer read on which parts of the current AI narrative match historical patterns and which are genuinely new A working framework for thinking about public trust as a corporate input, not an externality A sense of the regulatory direction in the UK, EU and US and what that implies for product and policy decisions Questions a board should be asking its own technology and risk leadership in the next twelve months

Why organisations work with Rory Cormac He brings archival-grade authority on how states actually conduct covert action, drawn from declassified British and allied intelligence records, not commentary or speculation. His work on the grey zone gives boards a structured way to read sabotage, subversion and information operations as connected forms of state pressure, not isolated incidents. He translates the playbooks of Russian and Chinese covert activity into specific implications for industries exposed to critical infrastructure, supply chains and intellectual property. How to Stage a Coup (Atlantic, 2022) is one of the few mainstream studies of secret statecraft to be taken seriously by both academic intelligence scholars and practitioners. Fakers (Oxford University Press, 2026) reads the British Cold War forgery operations as a working playbook for present-day state disinformation, giving leaders a historical pattern they can apply to current incidents. He has given oral evidence on foreign interference to parliamentary inquiries in both the UK and Australia, and has fronted three Channel 4 documentaries with Richard Aldrich on intelligence and the British state, making him equally credible in front of policy committees, expert rooms and public audiences. Biography highlights Professor of International Relations and lead for security and resilience research at the University of Nottingham, specialising in secret intelligence and covert action. Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; previous Leverhulme and AHRC Fellowships. Author of Fakers (Oxford University Press, 2026) on state disinformation, How to Stage a Coup (Atlantic, 2022), Disrupt and Deny (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Confronting the Colonies (Hurst, 2014). Co-author with Richard J. Aldrich of The Black Door and The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown from Victoria to Diana (Atlantic, 2021). Co-presenter of three Channel 4 documentaries: Spying on the Royals, D-Day: The King who Fooled Hitler, The Queen and the Coup. Has given oral evidence on foreign interference to parliamentary inquiries in the UK and Australia, with regular appearances across national press, radio and television on intelligence matters. Biography Most boards still treat espionage as a film genre. The pipeline interruption, the leaked tender, the social media campaign that crashes a launch, the supplier suddenly entangled in a sanctions investigation: these are read as separate operational problems, not as connected acts of state pressure. The work of Rory Cormac, Professor of International Relations at the University of Nottingham, is to give senior leaders the language and the historical pattern recognition to see them as one problem. Cormac is Professor of International Relations and lead for security and resilience research at the University of Nottingham, specialising in covert action and secret statecraft. His authority is built on archival research into declassified British and allied records, the basis of Disrupt and Deny (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Confronting the Colonies (Hurst, 2014). With Richard J. Aldrich he co-authored The Black Door and The Secret Royals, broadening that material into a wider reading of how states use the hidden hand. How to Stage a Coup (Atlantic, 2022) brought the argument into the present. Eleven lessons drawn from a century of secret statecraft, applied to a world of sabotage, ambiguous warfare and adversaries operating just below the threshold of open conflict. Fakers (Oxford University Press, 2026) extends the work into disinformation directly, using the declassified history of Britain’s Cold War forgery operations to read the mechanics of present-day state influence campaigns. Both books sit at the centre of current debates on the grey zone among scholars and practitioners alike. Beyond the academy he is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a former Leverhulme and AHRC Fellow, and a co-presenter with Aldrich of three Channel 4 documentaries on intelligence and the British state. He has also given oral evidence to parliamentary inquiries on foreign interference in both the UK and Australia. The result is a speaker who can hold a room of historians, a corporate security committee, and a Hay Festival audience using the same material. Key speaking topics Covert action and secret statecraft Grey-zone conflict and hybrid threats Russian and Chinese subversion Disinformation and information warfare Intelligence history and the modern state Political risk for critical infrastructure and IP-heavy sectors Resilience against sabotage and infiltration Ideal for Boards and risk committees in defence, energy, telecoms and critical infrastructure Chief security officers, heads of corporate intelligence and political risk leads Government, military and policy audiences working on national resilience Industry associations and conferences focused on geopolitical exposure Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how state adversaries combine sabotage, subversion and disinformation against commercial targets A working vocabulary for the grey zone that makes specific incidents legible as part of a larger pattern A historically grounded view of Russian and Chinese covert practice, rather than headline impressions Sharper questions for security, communications and supply-chain teams about where the organisation is exposed A sense of where the boundary sits between state interference and ordinary commercial risk

Why organisations work with Saakshar Duggal He argues AI and cyber matters as a practising advocate at the Delhi High Court, so his guidance on governance reflects how liability is actually contested in practice. He helps run the Artificial Intelligence Law Hub and advises Cyberlaw University, which gives him early sight of how AI regulation and agentic-AI liability are taking shape in India. He builds AI literacy for teams with no legal background, turning governance obligations into decisions a product or operations lead can make on Monday. A prolific TEDx speaker who also coaches other specialists on speaking, he can take a subject as dry as AI liability to a full workforce or a board and hold the room. Biography highlights Practising advocate at the Delhi High Court, specialising in AI and cyber law. Chief Marketing Officer of the Artificial Intelligence Law Hub and Adviser, Academic Outreach at Cyberlaw University. Member of the Forbes Communications Council. Author of “Cybercrimes During Covid-19 & Legal Issues in India”. Speaker at the 2025 Global Summit on Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Tech Law and Governance, on the legal questions raised by quantum and AI. Has delivered more than 20 TEDx talks on AI law and cyber issues. Biography Most organisations are adopting AI faster than anyone inside them can explain what it is legally allowed to do. Marketing runs generative tools, operations automates decisions, and the legal function is brought in after the fact, if at all. The gap between what the technology can do and what the organisation understands about it keeps widening. This is the terrain Saakshar Duggal works in. He argues AI and cyber matters as a practising advocate at the Delhi High Court, and helps run the Artificial Intelligence Law Hub, one of India’s dedicated centres for AI legal and governance work. His reading of AI liability comes from live cases and forming regulation. Duggal is also unusually good at being heard. He has delivered more than twenty TEDx talks on AI law, sits on the Forbes Communications Council, and coaches other specialists on how to hold an audience. On a topic that usually reaches people as dense regulation, that is what gets a workforce or a board to engage with it. His current focus is the hardest part of the field. At the 2025 Global Summit on Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Tech Law and Governance, he took on the legal questions thrown up by quantum and AI together. The sharper commercial version is agentic AI: once software takes actions no one authorised in advance, the question of who is liable stops being theoretical and lands on the company that deployed it. Key speaking topics AI governance for corporates Legal liability of agentic AI AI literacy for non-technical teams Regulation of artificial intelligence Cyber law and cybercrime Deepfakes and AI-enabled fraud Data protection and digital responsibility Ideal for General counsel and legal teams setting AI usage and liability policy Chief AI officers, CTOs, and transformation leads deploying AI or agentic systems Boards and risk committees weighing AI governance and exposure Whole-workforce sessions building AI and cyber literacy across non-technical staff Audience outcomes A clear view of where legal liability actually sits when an AI or agentic system causes harm Governance steps a non-legal team can apply to real AI deployment decisions The vocabulary to question vendors and internal teams about AI risk with confidence A working knowledge of common AI-enabled fraud and deepfake tactics, and the exposure they create for the business

Why organisations work with Sasha Qadri Her years as Senior Programming Director at Bloomberg Live mean she approaches moderation as an editorial problem: she understands what a discussion is supposed to achieve before she takes the stage to lead it – not just how to keep it moving. She started her career in investment banking and has worked extensively with financial institutions including Lloyds Bank and the Treasury – giving her genuine financial literacy that shows when chairing sessions on fintech, capital markets, and economic policy. Her live broadcast background – including breaking news on Sky News and production roles at CNN and CNBC – means she is rarely unsettled by format changes, difficult panellists, or unscripted moments in high-profile live environments. She has chaired the Innovate Finance Global Summit, co-hosted London Tech Week and its Global Leaders Summit, and emceed Money 20/20 in Europe: events where the participant list demands more than capable chairmanship. Her interviewee roster spans the Former UK Chancellor, the Head of GCHQ, leading technology CEOs, and AI researchers – giving her substantive range across the full landscape of technology, finance, and public policy that executive audiences expect a moderator to navigate. Biography highlights Anchored television news for Sky News; produced and reported for CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Reuters, and Channel 4 News Former Senior Programming Director, Bloomberg Live – curated and moderated flagship business and technology events Career began in investment banking (UBS cited by multiple bureau sources); subsequent commercial experience at lastminute.com during the dotcom era Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge; further study at The Sorbonne Recent events include: co-host, London Tech Week; chair, Innovate Finance Global Summit; emcee, Money 20/20 Middle East; main stage chair, Tech Show London; main stage chair and moderator, Global Health Exhibition; moderator, FII Institute and Cityscape Global Named interviewees include Rt. Hon. Philip Hammond (Former UK Chancellor), Anne Keast-Butler (Head of GCHQ), Mo Gawdat, Martha Lane Fox, Francesca Carlesi (Revolut UK CEO), and Mike Martin (Strava CEO) Recent corporate clients include Palo Alto Networks, Amazon, Akamai, Royal London, and Mastercard Biography Leadership events at the intersection of technology, finance, and business policy are only as good as the conversation they produce. Sasha Qadri is a broadcaster and event moderator whose career has run across two disciplines that rarely coexist: live television journalism – anchoring for Sky News, producing for CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg – and editorial leadership of major live events as Senior Programming Director at Bloomberg Live. That editorial role is what distinguishes her from the professional host market. At Bloomberg Live, she did not simply chair discussions – she curated them, shaping the content architecture of flagship business and technology events before taking the stage to lead them. The combination of knowing what a conversation is supposed to achieve, then making it happen with senior executives in front of a live audience, is the specific capability organisations are hiring when they book her. Her professional foundation adds further range. She began her career in investment banking and has since worked regularly with financial institutions including Lloyds Bank and the Treasury. A degree in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge gives her the grounding to operate across the full space where technology, finance, economics, and public policy intersect – and to interview figures including a former UK Chancellor and the Head of GCHQ with genuine comprehension, not just broadcast fluency. In 2025, she co-hosted London Tech Week and chaired its Global Leaders Summit, emceed Money 20/20 in Europe, and chaired the Innovate Finance Global Summit (the UK fintech sector’s flagship annual conference). The same year extended her chairing and moderation work across the Middle East, including FII Institute, Cityscape Global, and the Global Health Exhibition. Events that trust her with their main stage consistently feature participant lists where competent chairmanship is insufficient. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and digital transformation Financial services and fintech leadership Cybersecurity and technology risk AI adoption and generative AI Sustainability and energy transition Geopolitics, policy, and economic leadership Business strategy and technology innovation Ideal for CTOs, CISOs, and technology leadership conferences requiring a moderator with genuine sector depth, not just broadcast presence Financial services and fintech events – CFO, CEO, and C-suite panel formats where moderator literacy on capital markets, regulation, and digital disruption is material Public-private sector summits on technology, national security, and economic strategy, where interviewees include government officials and policymakers Major international conferences requiring anchor-standard broadcast experience combined with editorial event direction Audience outcomes Executive panel discussions that move past rehearsed positions into substantive exchange Clearer understanding of emerging intersections between technology, finance, and policy – framed for decision-makers, not technical specialists Confident navigation of complex or sensitive topics – AI ethics, geopolitical risk, fintech regulation – without losing audience accessibility A moderated session that maintains engagement and structure across multiple hours, formats, or speakers Conversations shaped by editorial intelligence that understands what the session is supposed to achieve before it begins

Why organisations work with Seyi Akiwowo She built Glitch from a personal campaign in 2017 into a working UK charity on online gender-based violence, which gives her a different register from consultants who study the issue from outside. Her Penguin Life book How to Stay Safe Online is one of the few mainstream titles that treats online harm as a serious workplace and leadership concern, not a parenting issue, and gives executive audiences a reference text. She served as an elected councillor in Newham at 23 and addressed the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council, which means she is comfortable in regulated, scrutinised, formal rooms, not just activist spaces. She has held trust and safety advisory roles with major platforms including TikTok, which gives her direct read on how the largest platforms handle abuse, moderation, and policy. She declined an MBE publicly in 2022. That decision and the way she framed it gives her unusual credibility with audiences who are sceptical of inclusion as institutional theatre. Biography highlights Founder of Glitch, the UK charity addressing online abuse and online gender-based violence, established out of the 2017 #FixTheGlitch campaign. Author, How to Stay Safe Online, Penguin Life, 2022. Elected councillor for Newham, East London, at the age of 23, the youngest Black woman councillor in the UK at the time. Speaker at the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council on online gender-based violence; Amnesty International Human Rights Defender (2018). Digital Leader of the Year (2019); Marie Claire Future Shaper (2019); WIRED Changemaker cover (2021); TEDxLondon speaker (2019). Trust and safety advisory roles with platforms including TikTok; bachelor’s degree in social policy, London School of Economics. Biography In 2017, a recording of a speech delivered at the European Parliament went viral. The reaction was a flood of racist and misogynistic abuse, more than seventy reports filed with the platforms, and almost no response from them. The campaign that emerged from that experience, #FixTheGlitch, became the charity Glitch. Glitch is now a recognised voice on online abuse and online gender-based violence in the UK. It works with women, marginalised communities, parliamentarians, and platforms, and its evidence has been part of the policy conversation around the UK Online Safety Act. The work is operational, not theoretical: training, casework, lobbying, partnerships with platforms including TikTok where Akiwowo has held trust and safety advisory roles. Her credibility predates Glitch. At 23 she was elected a Labour councillor for Newham, the youngest Black woman councillor in the UK. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social policy from the London School of Economics. She has addressed the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council on online gender-based violence and was named an Amnesty International Human Rights Defender in 2018. Penguin Life published How to Stay Safe Online in 2022. It is the rare mainstream book that treats online harm as a serious leadership and workplace concern. In the same year she was offered an MBE and chose not to accept it, a decision she explained publicly. For corporate audiences thinking about inclusion, employee safety, and values-based leadership, that combination, an elected politician’s record, an operating charity, a Penguin book, and a refused honour, is the substance she brings into the room. Key speaking topics Online safety as a workplace duty of care Online gender-based violence and digital harm Values-based and inclusive leadership Digital self-care and resilience for senior leaders Platform accountability and trust and safety Inclusion in a contested political climate Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers and Heads of DEI rebuilding the inclusion case for sceptical executive audiences Heads of internal communications, employee experience, and risk responsible for staff wellbeing in public-facing roles Trust and safety, policy, and product leaders inside platforms and regulated technology businesses Senior women’s networks, employee resource groups, and leadership development programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of online harm as a workplace and leadership issue, not a personal coping problem A direct read on how platforms actually respond to abuse, drawn from advisory work with companies including TikTok Practical content from the Penguin Life book How to Stay Safe Online that audiences can use the next day A confident position on inclusion and values-based leadership that holds up in the current political climate A senior voice that has chosen difficult institutional decisions, including declining an MBE, and can speak credibly about leadership under public scrutiny

Why organisations work with Silvia Leal She advises the OECD’s Global Forum on Technology on immersive reality, which gives boards direct line of sight to how international policy thinking on emerging tech is being shaped. The IV Premio Nacional de Management 2024 places her among Spain’s most recognised authorities on technology-led management, not on technology in the abstract. She has run innovation and technology programmes at IE Business School and held commercial roles at SAP and Banco Santander, so she speaks to senior teams as someone who has had to operationalise the technology, not only describe it. Her broadcast work on RTVE’s “La Cuarta Revolucion” trained her to make AI, automation and the future of work intelligible to non-specialist audiences, which translates directly into mixed-seniority rooms. She works fluently in Spanish and English, with published books and a regular podcast that give clients a body of public material to brief from. Biography highlights PhD in Sociology; expert member of the OECD Global Forum on Technology. IV Premio Nacional de Management 2024, presented at DLA Piper Spain. Former Director of Innovation and Technology Programs, IE Business School. Prior commercial experience at SAP and in Banco Santander’s technology division. Creator and presenter of “La Cuarta Revolucion” on RTVE La 2, produced with Onza. Author of “Ingenio y pasion” (IE Business Publishing), “Y de repente llego el Metaverso” and “Tendencias: Claves para entender el futuro y construir el presente”. Inspire Award 2021 from the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Association for AI popularisation. Biography Most senior teams now have an AI strategy on paper. Far fewer have a shared language for what the technology can already do well, what it cannot, and which calls have to be made this year. That translation problem sits at the centre of Silvia Leal’s work. She holds a PhD in Sociology and sits on the OECD’s Global Forum on Technology, where she contributes to the working group on immersive reality. Before that she ran the Innovation and Technology Programs at IE Business School, after commercial roles at SAP and in Banco Santander’s technology division. The combination gives her a clear view of both the policy thinking and the operational reality. In Spain her authority is recognised formally. In 2024 she received the IV Premio Nacional de Management at a ceremony hosted by DLA Piper, and in 2021 she was given the Inspire Award by the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Association for her work on AI popularisation. Her public-facing record includes “La Cuarta Revolucion”, the seven-part RTVE series she created and presented on La 2, and the podcast “Tendencias con Silvia Leal”. Her books, including “Ingenio y pasion” in the IE Business Publishing collection and “Y de repente llego el Metaverso”, read as practical management texts rather than tech commentary. For boards and executive teams trying to make AI, the metaverse and digital transformation legible to their own organisation, that practical register is the point. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence in the enterprise Digital transformation and innovation leadership The metaverse and immersive technology Future of work and workforce transformation Emerging technology policy and governance Cybersecurity as a leadership issue Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI and digital priorities. Chief Technology, Innovation and Transformation Officers translating strategy into operating decisions. CHROs and HR leaders preparing the workforce for AI-shaped roles. Industry associations and policy-facing events that need a credible bridge between European institutions and operating businesses. Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and immersive-tech capabilities are real today and which remain promise. Sharper questions for vendors, partners and internal teams when commissioning AI work. A practical framing of the metaverse and immersive reality as a business question, not a consumer trend. A more honest view of how AI is reshaping roles, skills and recruiting inside their own organisation.

Why organisations work with Sol Rashidi She has personally led AI and data deployments inside Estee Lauder, Merck, Sony Music, Royal Caribbean, and Amazon Web Services, so the advice is field-tested rather than theoretical. She wrote Your AI Survival Guide (Wiley, 2024), the practical deployment playbook that boards and CIOs have started to use as a reference text for moving past pilots. As Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center, she is shaping AI policy thinking at the level boards now have to engage with. She talks credibly to two audiences in the same room: technical leaders who need the architecture to be right, and executive teams who need the commercial and workforce implications spelled out. Her current role as Chief Strategy Officer for Data and AI at Cyera keeps her live inside the AI security and governance conversation that boards are being asked to own. Biography highlights Chief Strategy Officer for Data and AI at Cyera since April 2025. Senior Fellow 2025 to 2026 at Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. Author of Your AI Survival Guide (Wiley, 2024), a Top 100 AI book of 2024. Former four-time Fortune 100 C-suite executive: Estee Lauder, Merck, Sony Music, Royal Caribbean. Division Head of Technology, Startups, North America at Amazon Web Services. Holds 10 patents in data and AI; named Forbes “AI Maverick of the 21st Century” and to multiple Top 100 AI Leaders and Top 50 Women in Tech lists. Biography Most enterprise AI programmes look identical from the outside and fail in different ways on the inside. The strategy decks are confident. The pilots run. Then the operating model, the data foundation, or the workforce conversation breaks the deployment before it scales. Sol Rashidi has spent a career on the operator side of that problem, and now advises the boards and executive teams who own it. She helped launch IBM Watson in 2011, then became the first Chief Data and AI Officer in a Fortune 500 company. Across the next decade she ran data, analytics, and AI organisations as a four-time C-suite executive at Estee Lauder, Merck, Sony Music, and Royal Caribbean, and led the Startups technology division for Amazon Web Services in North America. The result is a practitioner record measured in 30 to 200+ AI deployments inside large enterprises, not in conference panels. That record is now packaged in two formats. Your AI Survival Guide (Wiley, 2024) is the playbook for non-technical leaders running real deployments, structured around strategy, use case selection, design, implementation, and long-term operations. As Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, she is developing an ontological framework for AI policy aimed at aligning government and business on what the technology actually is and how it should be governed. Her current operating role as Chief Strategy Officer for Data and AI at Cyera keeps her inside the AI security and governance debate that boards are now expected to lead. She holds 10 patents, has been named Forbes “AI Maverick of the 21st Century,” and has been recognised across multiple Top 100 AI and Top 50 Women in Tech rankings. The reason senior buyers keep coming back is simpler than the credentials: she has shipped this work, and she will tell a room what actually happens when you try. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI deployment and operating model AI governance, security, and responsible deployment Workforce redesign in the age of AI Data strategy and enterprise data readiness AI for boards and executive teams Post-AI organisational design Innovation discipline inside large enterprises Ideal for Boards and executive committees deciding how to own AI strategy and risk CDOs, CIOs, CTOs, and Chief AI Officers moving from pilots to enterprise deployment CHROs and transformation leads redesigning the workforce around AI capability CISOs and risk leaders building AI governance and security frameworks Audience outcomes A clearer view of where their AI programme actually sits on the path from pilot to enterprise deployment. A workable mental model for AI governance and security at board level, not a compliance checklist. A direct read on what the workforce conversation looks like once AI starts to land in operations. Specific deployment lessons drawn from named Fortune 100 environments, not abstract case studies. Confidence in deciding what to build, what to buy, and what to leave alone.

Why organisations work with Susi O’Neill She translates frontier technology into language non-technical executives can act on, drawing on years running global brand content for Kaspersky, the world’s largest privately owned cybersecurity firm. Her practice is built around the adoption gap, not the technology itself, which is why she resonates with leaders whose AI rollouts have stalled at proof-of-concept. She brings a builder’s track record in tech storytelling, including the Platinum MarCom Award winning Insight Story podcast for Kaspersky and Editor-in-Chief roles on Secure Futures magazine and the Tomorrow Unlocked channel. Through EVA and her Rethinking the Hype Cycle newsletter, she works with leaders on inclusive AI adoption, including the lag in women’s engagement with AI tools and what closing it changes about who benefits from the technology. Biography highlights Founder and Executive Director of EVA, a London-based technology and communications consultancy. Former Head of B2B Brand Content (Global) at Kaspersky. Editor-in-Chief of Kaspersky’s Secure Futures magazine and Tomorrow Unlocked cyberculture channel. Creator and host of the Platinum MarCom Award winning Insight Story podcast. Named in Pepper Content’s Top 50 Global Women in Content 2023. Author of the Rethinking the Hype Cycle newsletter on AI and frontier technology adoption. Biography The hard part of AI is rarely the model. It is the distance between an executive sponsor and the team being asked to use a new tool by Friday. O’Neill has spent her career working that distance, first inside one of the world’s largest cybersecurity firms, now from the outside through her consultancy EVA. At Kaspersky, she ran global B2B brand content and edited Secure Futures, the company’s business-leader magazine, alongside the Tomorrow Unlocked cyberculture channel. She commissioned and hosted Insight Story, a podcast unpacking tech trends for executives that won a Platinum MarCom Award in 2023. The work taught her how senior buyers actually absorb information about complex technology, and where the standard tech-marketing playbook fails them. EVA, the practice she founded next, takes that experience into client work on AI strategy, responsible technology and adoption. Her newsletter Rethinking the Hype Cycle puts the same question to a wider audience: what does a serious organisation do once the AI announcement is out and the cultural work begins. She also writes and speaks on inclusive adoption, including the documented lag in women’s use of generative AI tools and what it costs organisations that ignore it. Earlier brand-content programmes for EY, GSK and Unilever, and a recognition in Pepper Content’s Top 50 Global Women in Content, sit behind that current work. The throughline is consistent. Technology only changes a business when the people inside it are willing to use it, and most organisations are still under-investing in the communications and trust work that makes that happen. Key speaking topics AI adoption and the hype cycle Responsible and trusted technology Frontier and emerging technologies for business Inclusive AI and women in technology Tech communications and thought leadership Cybersecurity culture and digital trust Ideal for CIO, CTO and Chief Digital Officer audiences whose AI programmes have stalled in pilot. CMO, communications and brand leaders building tech credibility with non-technical buyers. Boards and executive teams setting AI governance and responsible-use principles. Diversity, talent and L&D leaders working on inclusive AI capability across the workforce. Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where their organisation actually sits on the AI hype cycle, and which moves are worth making next. A practical sense of how to bring sceptical or hesitant employees with them, instead of around them. Specific examples of how serious organisations are translating frontier tech into adoption, not just announcements. A sharper view of inclusive AI as a capability question, including who is using these tools and who is being left behind.

Why organisations work with Theresa Payton She has held the most accountable technology seat in the world – not as an adviser, but as the operator responsible for securing the Executive Office of the President. That is a different class of credential from the vendor or think-tank backgrounds most cybersecurity speakers bring. Her book Manipulated – on The Guardian’s Top 10 Books About Cybercrime list, maps the specific mechanics of AI-driven disinformation, deepfakes, and election interference; organisations working on trust, governance, or brand integrity get a strategic framework they can act on. As a patented inventor of security designs and co-founder of a cybersecurity product company (Dark3, acquired by Celerium), she brings the practitioner’s perspective, not the theorist’s: she has built the solutions, not just described the problem. She translates threat intelligence into board-level language. Her seventeen years across banking technology, government, and private advisory work means she can speak credibly to risk committees, technology leaders, and general business audiences in the same event. Biography highlights First female White House Chief Information Officer, serving under President George W. Bush, 2006–2008 Founder and CEO of Fortalice Solutions, ranked in the Global Cybersecurity Top 500 by Cybercrime Magazine Prior senior technology executive roles at Bank of America and Wells Fargo Author of Manipulated: Inside the Cyberwar to Hijack Elections and Distort the Truth, The Guardian Top 10 Books About Cybercrime list; revised edition published 2024 Co-inventor on an approved U.S. patent in security design Recipient of the FBI Director’s Award for Community Service; 2020 CISO MAG Cybersecurity Crusader of the Year; 2019 Woman Cybersecurity Leader of the Year Starred as Deputy Commander of Intelligence on the CBS reality series Hunted Regular security commentator on the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, CBS News, Fox News, and MSNBC Biography Theresa Payton ran cybersecurity for the White House. From 2006 to 2008, as Chief Information Officer for the Executive Office of the President under George W. Bush, she was accountable for the security of IT systems used by the President and 3,000 staff: not as an adviser, but as the person responsible. Before that, she spent sixteen years in senior technology roles at Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The combination is unusual: operational authority at the highest level of government, built on a banking technology foundation. That background shapes how she approaches cyber risk with corporate audiences. The question she puts to boards is not whether their organisation will face a breach, but whether their governance structures are designed to know about it, act on it, and contain it. As CEO of Fortalice Solutions, listed in the Global Cybersecurity Top 500, she has spent fifteen years working through exactly that question with Fortune 100 clients. Her book Manipulated, named one of The Guardian’s Top 10 Books About Cybercrime, examines how AI-generated deepfakes, self-replicating chatbots, and coordinated disinformation campaigns are used to compromise institutions from the outside in. A revised edition was published in 2024. She is also a co-inventor on an approved U.S. patent in security design, and previously co-founded Dark3, a cybersecurity product company later acquired by Celerium. Her profile extends beyond the conference circuit. She has testified before government bodies, served as Deputy Commander of Intelligence on the CBS series Hunted, and is a regular security analyst on networks including CNN, CBS News, and MSNBC. For organisations where the board genuinely needs to understand what it owns and what it is exposed to, she is one of the few speakers who has actually sat in that seat. Key speaking topics Cybersecurity governance and board-level risk AI-driven threats and deepfake manipulation Secured digital transformation Election security and information integrity Data privacy and digital identity Fraud and social engineering Cybersecurity leadership and workforce Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors navigating cyber and AI governance CISOs, CIOs, and CTOs developing organisation-wide security strategy Risk, compliance, and audit committees in regulated sectors Technology and transformation leaders in financial services, healthcare, and government-adjacent industries Audience outcomes A board-ready framework for assessing the gap between digital investment and security governance Practical understanding of how AI-driven threats – deepfakes, disinformation, autonomous attack tools – operate in practice, not just in theory Clearer accountability structures for cyber risk at executive level Awareness of the specific ways social engineering and fraud are evolving, with concrete defensive steps Language and framing to take cybersecurity from a technical department concern to a strategic leadership conversation