Data Analytics

Why organisations work with Sidney Shapiro Argues openly against AI hype. His featured keynote “Stop Believing the AI Hype” treats vendor claims as a leadership evaluation problem, which is the conversation regulated buyers and procurement teams actually need to have. Has published governance work in peer-reviewed venues. A Routledge book chapter on AI governance for higher education institutions, and a forthcoming IGI Global chapter on the governance of generative AI, give him a documented position on what responsible deployment looks like in practice. Brings a decade of operational data science alongside the academic work. A former Data Science Manager at Sofvie building occupational health and safety software, he speaks to the integration and accountability problems that follow a proof of concept. Active in the working practitioner conversation. Hosts the AI in Action podcast and organises the Southern Alberta AI Conference, which together keep his perspective grounded in what organisations across healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and public administration are actually trying to ship. Biography highlights Assistant Professor of Business Analytics, Dhillon School of Business, University of Lethbridge Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Lethbridge Book chapter on AI governance frameworks for higher education published by Routledge (2025); forthcoming chapter on the governance of generative AI with IGI Global Host of the AI in Action podcast and organiser of the Southern Alberta AI Conference Former Data Science Manager at Sofvie Inc., building data systems for occupational health and safety in the mining sector Featured or quoted in The Globe and Mail, CBC News, Lethbridge Herald, and Canadian Family Offices Magazine Biography Most organisations have already run AI pilots. The harder question is what happens after the proof of concept ends. Procurement standards stay unclear, and the governance frameworks people quote in slides do not survive contact with real workflows. This is the gap Sidney Shapiro works in. He is Assistant Professor of Business Analytics at the Dhillon School of Business at the University of Lethbridge, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer Science. Published work includes a Routledge book chapter on AI governance frameworks for higher education and a forthcoming IGI Global chapter on the governance of generative AI. Both set out what responsible deployment actually requires from organisations. His authority on the operational side comes from a decade in data-centric roles before academia. He worked as a Data Science Manager at Sofvie, an occupational health and safety software company in the mining sector, and previously coordinated the Business Analytics graduate program at Cambrian College. That background shapes how he addresses the procurement and integration problems that follow proof of concept, which is where most AI initiatives slow or stall. Public engagement keeps the work current. Shapiro hosts the AI in Action podcast, interviewing practitioners and researchers across healthcare, education, finance, and software development on what AI deployment actually looks like in their organisations. He also organises the Southern Alberta AI Conference. Recent audiences include Indigenous Services Canada, McCain Foods, EY Calgary, CMC Alberta, and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. These are buyers with low tolerance for vendor language and high tolerance for hard questions. Key speaking topics AI governance and responsible deployment Generative AI in business and society Data privacy and trust in AI systems AI literacy for non-technical leaders Analytics leadership and digital transformation AI in higher education policy Ideal for C-suite leadership teams and boards facing AI governance and accountability decisions CIOs, CTOs, and Chief Data Officers moving AI from pilot to operational deployment Public sector leaders, including municipal and federal government, working under privacy and equity constraints on AI adoption Higher education executives shaping institutional policy on generative AI in teaching and research Audience outcomes A working framework for evaluating vendor AI claims against operational reality, in time to shape procurement decisions Sharper questions to ask of any AI initiative on data governance and where accountability sits when AI is wrong A grounded view of what generative AI does well today and where it still fails, with the implications for organisational adoption Reference points for designing operational AI governance: procurement standards, acceptable-use policies, and accountability mechanisms

Why organisations work with Trabucchi and Buganza The Platform Thinking Matrix gives strategy and transformation teams a structured instrument for identifying precisely where platform mechanisms can be applied to existing business models, built from a decade of research on established companies, not borrowed from startup literature. The Digital Phoenix Effect draws on analysis of 140 platform initiatives across S&P 500 companies, with detailed cases from Siemens, AXA, Eni, and Domino’s – the organisations their research is built around look like most audiences, not like Silicon Valley startups. With 100+ peer-reviewed publications in journals including the Journal of Product Innovation Management and Technovation, their frameworks can be tested against sustained evidence – not just a practitioner’s conviction codified into a model. As Scientific Directors of the Platform Thinking HUB within Politecnico’s Digital Innovation Observatories, they give organisations access to live, connected research, not a fixed set of frameworks. Shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award in Digital Thinking: the body that the Financial Times has described as producing the Oscars of management thinking. Biography highlights Associate Professor of Platform Thinking (Trabucchi) and Full Professor of Leadership & Innovation (Buganza), School of Management, Politecnico di Milano Co-founders and Scientific Directors of the Platform Thinking HUB within Politecnico’s Digital Innovation Observatories, and of LEADIN’Lab; Buganza chairs the EIASM International Product Development Management Conference Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024; shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award, Digital Thinking category Co-authors of Platform Thinking: Read the Past. Write the Future (Business Expert Press, 2023) – shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2024 and translated into Italian and Chinese – and The Digital Phoenix Effect (Platform Thinking Publishing, 2025) 100+ peer-reviewed articles in journals including the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technovation, and Information Systems Journal Co-founders of Symplatform (2018), the annual international conference on digital platforms connecting researchers and practitioners Biography Most digital transformation advice is written for companies that do not yet exist. Trabucchi and Buganza study the ones that do: established firms with legacy assets, existing customer relationships, and infrastructure they cannot simply abandon. Over more than a decade at Politecnico di Milano’s School of Management, they developed Platform Thinking as a named strategic framework. It is not a description of what Uber or Airbnb do. It is a method for how any established organisation can activate its existing assets to generate the multi-sided value that platform businesses create. The Platform Thinking Matrix formalises this as a practical instrument for strategy and transformation teams. Their 2025 book, The Digital Phoenix Effect, draws on 140 platform initiatives analysed across S&P 500 companies, with cases from Siemens, AXA, Eni, and Domino’s. The argument that incumbent firms cannot compete in the platform economy on their own terms is a common one. Trabucchi and Buganza make the opposite case, and back it with sustained empirical research. Both were included in the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024 and shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award in Digital Thinking. As co-founders of Symplatform and Scientific Directors of the Platform Thinking HUB, they connect rigorous academic research to active practitioner communities. Their frameworks emerge from sustained, peer-reviewed inquiry – over 100 published articles across journals including the Journal of Product Innovation Management and Technovation – not from advisory work alone. Key speaking topics Platform thinking and business model transformation Legacy organisations in the platform economy The Platform Thinking Matrix Data as a platform asset GenAI and internal platform development Platform leadership and innovation management Multi-sided platforms and ecosystem strategy Ideal for Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Digital Officers leading platform transformation in established businesses CEOs and boards of legacy organisations facing disruption from platform competitors Innovation and transformation leads in non-digital-native companies Executive MBA and corporate learning audiences focused on digital business model innovation Audience outcomes A working definition of Platform Thinking and how it differs from conventional digital transformation advice The Platform Thinking Matrix as a practical framework for identifying where platform mechanisms apply to existing business models Real cases from established firms – Siemens, AXA, Eni, Domino’s – showing how legacy assets become platform advantages Clarity on the specific leadership conditions that enable platform-based change within established organisations A starting point for assessing their organisation’s platform potential against a research-backed framework

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

Timandra Harkness is a writer, broadcaster and presenter. Timandra is a familiar voice on radio, writing and presenting BBC Radio 4’s FutureProofing and other series including How To Disagree, Steelmanning and Political School. BBC Radio documentaries include Data, Data Everywhere, Divided Nation, What Has Sat-Nav Done To Our Brains, and Five Knots. She was resident reporter on all 8 seasons of social psychology series The Human Zoo, and is regularly asked to comment on science, technology and statistics in the news. Her book ‘Big Data: does size matter?’ was published by Bloomsbury Sigma in 2016, with an updated paperback edition in June 2017. Her second non-fiction book, ‘Technology is Not the Problem’, published in 2024 by Harper Collins, is now out in paperback. Since winning the Independent newspaper’s column-writing competition, she has written for many publications including the Telegraph, Guardian, Sunday Times, Unherd, BBC Focus magazine, WIRED, Unherd, the New Statesman, Men’s Health and Significance (the journal of the Royal Statistical Society). Timandra chairs and speaks at public events for clients including Cheltenham Science Festival, the Royal Society, the British Council, the Royal Geographical Society, the RSA, the Institute of Ideas, the British Library, Wellcome Collection, the Alan Turing Institute, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and many others. She is honoured to work with the Abel Prize for Mathematics. After performing improvised & stand up comedy, & touring with a tented circus, she formed the first comedy science double-act in the UK with neuroscientist Dr. Helen Pilcher. Since then she has written and performed scientific and mathematical comedy from Adelaide (Australia) to Pittsburgh PA. In 2010 she co-wrote & performed Your Days Are Numbered: The Maths of Death, with stand-up mathematician Matt Parker. They performed the show to average audiences of 100.3 and 4 star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe, then toured it in the UK and Australia. Timandra’s science comedy since then includes cabaret, gameshows, and solo live show Brainsex (with Socrates the rat). Timandra has a BA in Film and Drama with Art & Art History, a BSc in Mathematics & Statistics, and an MA in Philosophy from Birkbeck College, where she is now researching for an MRes in Philosophy. She is a member of the Royal Statistical Society Council of Trustees, and chairs the editorial board of their journal, Significance.

Why organisations work with Kieran Gilmurray He has shipped AI and intelligent automation programmes inside named enterprises including Rapid7, Mercer, and Pearson, with documented savings in the tens of millions. That track record sits behind every framework he presents. His three books on generative AI, agentic AI, and organisational digital transformation give boards a structured reference, not a hype reel. They are written for the executive who has to decide, not the engineer who has to build. He treats agentic AI as an operating model question. The conversation moves quickly from “what is an AI agent” to which decisions an agent should own, what governance the board needs to put around it, and how the workforce is redesigned in response. Seven LinkedIn Top Voice recognitions and Thinkers360 rankings in generative and agentic AI mean the audience is hearing from a voice already widely cited in their own feeds, which lifts the in-room credibility of the conversation. Biography highlights Author of Agentic AI: A Business Leader’s Guide to the Future of Work and Digital Labour, The A to Z of Generative AI, and The A-Z of Organizational Digital Transformation. CEO and Founder, Kieran Gilmurray and Company Limited. Chief AI Innovator, Technology Transformation Group. Seven-time LinkedIn Top Voice in AI and related categories. Listed by Thinkers360 in the Top 50 Generative AI and Top 100 Agentic AI thought leaders. MBA (1st Class Distinction, Entrepreneurship Award) and MSc in Computer Science, both Queen’s University Belfast. Biography The gap between AI ambition and AI in operation has become the defining management problem of the decade. Pilots prove the technology works. Boards then struggle to convert those pilots into structural advantage, and most leadership teams still lack a clear view of which decisions an AI agent should now own. This is the territory Kieran Gilmurray works in. As CEO of Kieran Gilmurray and Company Limited and Chief AI Innovator at the Technology Transformation Group, he advises boards and executive teams on moving generative and agentic AI from concept into operating reality. His work spans finance, HR, customer service, and the wider digital labour stack. The credibility behind the advice is operational. Programmes he has led inside Rapid7, Mercer, and Pearson are referenced across his bureau profiles with quantified outcomes in the tens of millions of pounds and dollars. His three books, including Agentic AI: A Business Leader’s Guide to the Future of Work and Digital Labour, give business leaders a structured way to think about agent design, governance, and workforce redesign without retreating into engineering language. Independent recognition reinforces the position. Kieran has been named a LinkedIn Top Voice seven times and ranks on Thinkers360 leaderboards for both generative AI and agentic AI. He holds an MBA with distinction from Queen’s University Belfast and an MSc in Computer Science from the same institution, a pairing that maps directly onto the audience he writes for: business leaders who need the technology to make commercial sense. Key speaking topics Agentic AI and digital labour Generative AI for business leaders AI strategy and operating model design Intelligent automation at enterprise scale Digital transformation in regulated industries AI governance and board-level oversight Future of work in the age of AI Ideal for Boards and executive committees moving from AI pilots to enterprise deployment CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, and Chief AI Officers designing operating models around generative and agentic AI CHROs and transformation leads redesigning roles and workflows as AI agents enter the workforce Industry conferences in financial services, professional services, technology, insurance, and the public sector Audience outcomes A working definition of agentic AI that distinguishes it from generative AI and earlier automation, with examples from named enterprises A board-level view of where AI agents are already producing operating savings and where they are still pilot theatre A practical map of governance questions a leadership team must answer before scaling AI agents across functions A clear framing of workforce redesign as AI shifts which decisions sit with humans and which sit with digital labour

Why organisations work with Didem Ün Ateş She has operationalised responsible AI inside three of the world’s largest organisations (Microsoft, Accenture, and Schneider Electric) as an executive with direct accountability, not as an external advisor. That gives her a precise understanding of where enterprise AI governance breaks down in practice. Her role as Advisor and Generative AI Council Member for Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, working with over 300 portfolio companies, gives boards and investment teams a live investor-grade view of how AI strategy translates, or fails to translate, into commercial value and risk-adjusted returns. LotusAI’s documented methodology, running 60 co-creation workshops across more than 200 SVPs and VPs to identify and prioritise 200 generative AI use cases inside a single Fortune 500 company, is a concrete, tested model for enterprise AI adoption, not a conceptual framework. As an accredited algorithm auditor and former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow, she connects organisations to the governance principles emerging at the regulatory and multilateral level, including the responsible-AI debates shaping how the technology is regulated globally. Her dual degree from the University of Pennsylvania (BS in Engineering from the Moore School and BS in Economics from the Wharton School), combined with an MBA from Columbia Business School, means she can engage credibly at both the technical architecture and commercial investment layers of an AI decision, a combination that is genuinely uncommon. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of LotusAI Ltd, advising private equity firms, hedge funds, financial institutions, and Fortune 500 companies on AI strategy, responsible AI governance, and talent transformation Former Vice President, AI Strategy & Innovation at Schneider Electric, where she defined the company’s AI and generative AI strategy, innovation roadmaps, ecosystem partnerships, and responsible AI programme Former Head of Data & AI / General Manager, Data & AI at Microsoft (EMEA) and former Managing Director of Data & AI, Europe at Accenture’s Microsoft Business Group; earlier roles at Capgemini, EY, BT, and Motorola Advisor and Generative AI Council Member for Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, working with the firm and over 300 portfolio companies Board member of the Edge AI Foundation, the Wharton AI Alumni Studio, the Columbia Business School Women’s Circle, and the Hg Foundation Technology Advisory Board Certified Algorithm Auditor and Executive Coach; former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow; Forbes Technology Council member TechWomen100 Champion and Trailblazer 50 honouree; 2025 recognition includes CEO of the Year Awards UK in the AI Advisory category, Responsible AI Innovation & Growth in Business Award, New Technology Consultancy of the Year, Best New Business of the Year, and British Business Excellence Award Alumna of the University of Pennsylvania (Management & Technology dual degree: BS in Engineering from the Moore School and BS in Economics from the Wharton School) and Columbia Business School (MBA) Biography Most enterprise AI strategies stall in the same place: at the gap between approved roadmap and accountable delivery. Didem Ün Ateş has worked on both sides of that gap inside organisations large enough for every failure to matter. As VP, AI Strategy & Innovation at Schneider Electric, she held direct accountability for the company’s generative AI strategy and innovation roadmap, its ecosystem partnerships, its responsible and sustainable AI programme, and the upskilling of its global workforce. Before that, she served as Head of Data & AI and General Manager, Data & AI at Microsoft EMEA, with revenue accountability of over $2.7 billion across more than 70 subsidiaries, and as Managing Director of Data & AI, Europe within Accenture’s Microsoft Business Group. She founded LotusAI Ltd to apply that operational depth where boards and investment teams need it most. Her advisory relationship with Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator, as Advisor and Generative AI Council Member, puts her in direct conversation with over 300 portfolio companies on AI value creation, governance, and risk. LotusAI’s engagements have included guiding a generative AI opportunity scan across more than 200 senior leaders in a Fortune 500 company, delivering a three-year use-case roadmap tied to the organisation’s strategic plan and regulatory requirements. Her work sits at the intersection of commercial strategy and institutional accountability. As an accredited algorithm auditor and former WEF AI Governance Alliance Fellow, where she has co-chaired sessions on AI and sustainability at WEF summits, she connects the boardroom conversation to the multilateral frameworks shaping how responsible AI is defined and regulated globally. She also sits on the Hg Foundation Technology Advisory Board, alongside senior leaders from ING, Google, McKinsey, and Accenture. She holds a dual degree from the University of Pennsylvania, in Engineering from the Moore School and in Economics from the Wharton School, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Recent recognition includes the CEO of the Year Awards UK 2025 in the AI Advisory category, the Responsible AI Innovation & Growth in Business Award 2025, and the British Business Excellence Award 2025, alongside the earlier TechWomen100 Champion and Trailblazer 50 honours. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and governance Generative and agentic AI adoption at scale Responsible and sustainable AI AI for private equity, private credit, and financial services AI-driven workforce capability and talent transformation AI risk management and regulatory compliance Edge AI, physical AI, embedded AI, and tinyML AI leadership training and executive workshops Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams (CEO, CTO, CDO, CAIO) building or pressure-testing enterprise AI strategies Chief Data and AI Officers designing governance frameworks for generative AI adoption Private equity and investment leadership teams assessing AI value creation and risk across portfolios Transformation and innovation leaders in financial services, industrial, and consulting sectors navigating responsible AI operationalisation Audience outcomes Practical criteria for identifying, prioritising, and sequencing AI use cases, tools, platforms, and agents within a complex organisation A clearer model of where enterprise AI governance frameworks typically break down, and what structural conditions make them durable A sharper understanding of how responsible AI principles translate into investment-grade governance, not just compliance documentation A working language for talent transformation in the agentic AI era, including the workforce decisions board members need to be ready to make More confident language for board-level conversations on AI risk, sustainability, and value creation Awareness of inclusive AI design as both a reputational risk and a long-term commercial consideration

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 Harmeen Mehta She has run digital and AI transformation as an operator inside three of the world’s largest technology and telecoms incumbents (Equinix, BT Group, Bharti Airtel), not as an external advisor. She has built and scaled new digital businesses, including Airtel Payments Bank and Airtel’s cloud and security units, giving her credibility on revenue creation, not only cost out. Her board work at Lloyds Banking Group, including the IT and Cyber Advisory Forum, gives her direct line of sight on how non-executive directors expect technology risk and AI governance to be discussed. Recipient of the 2018 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award and the TM Forum Global CIO of the Year, both peer-judged on execution. Biography highlights Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Equinix (from April 2025). Former Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, BT Group (March 2021 to September 2024). Former Global CIO and CEO of Cloud and Security Business, Bharti Airtel (seven years). Earlier CIO positions at BBVA, HSBC, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Independent Non-Executive Director, Lloyds Banking Group; Vice-Chair and Board member, TM Forum. 2018 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award; TM Forum Global CIO of the Year; Women Economic Forum “Woman of the Decade in Innovation and Leadership.” Biography The gap between AI pilot and AI in production is where most enterprise value is currently lost. Boards want commercial outcomes; CIOs are still cleaning up legacy estate. Mehta has spent the last decade operating exactly in that gap, and her career arc is unusual because she has done it across three sectors. At Bharti Airtel, as Global CIO and head of the cloud and security business, she launched Airtel Payments Bank and built standalone cloud and security units serving hundreds of millions of customers. This is operating P&L experience, not advisory work. At BT Group, as the first Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, she ran a Group-wide programme that simplified a complex IT estate, scaled digital channels, and put AI into production across customer operations. Earlier CIO roles at BBVA, HSBC, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch gave her grounding in regulated environments, where governance, cyber risk, and resilience are not afterthoughts. That perspective now feeds her board work at Lloyds Banking Group, where she sits on the IT and Cyber Advisory Forum, and at TM Forum, where she is Vice-Chair and chairs the Appointments and Governance Committee. In April 2025 she joined Equinix as Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, reporting to CEO Adaire Fox-Martin. The 2018 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award and the TM Forum Global CIO of the Year recognise the same thing the boards she serves on do: she is judged on what she ships, not what she proposes. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and operational deployment Digital transformation in complex incumbents Cybersecurity and technology risk at board level Data strategy and the commercial value of data Cloud, platforms, and modern engineering operating models Women in technology and senior STEM leadership Building new digital businesses inside large groups Ideal for Boards and audit, risk, and technology committees commissioning conversations on AI governance and cyber resilience. CEOs, CIOs, CDOs, and transformation leads moving AI from pilot to production. Telecoms, financial services, and digital infrastructure leadership teams confronting legacy estate and platform redesign. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI investment converts to commercial value and where it stalls. An operator’s perspective on what good AI governance looks like inside a regulated, board-supervised business. A practical read on how digital channels and platforms produce revenue, not only cost reduction. Sharper questions to ask the executive team about AI, cyber, and data risk.

Why organisations work with Cassie Kozyrkov She built the Decision Intelligence function inside Google from scratch and ran it for five years, which means leaders get advice from someone who has already solved, at scale, the problem they are trying to solve. She named and codified the field itself. When a CEO asks what Decision Intelligence is and why their AI investment should sit inside it, she is the primary source, not an interpreter of someone else’s framework. She personally trained more than 20,000 Googlers across every function in data-driven decision-making and AI, so she knows how to make the material land with non-technical executives as well as engineers. She translates AI and statistics into decision-language that boards and operators can use. Her Making Friends with Machine Learning course, originally built only for Google, is now the reference explainer for thousands of leaders outside the company. She advises at the level the material requires. Her Federal Reserve Bank of New York Innovation Advisory Council seat and her work with Forbes on AI signal that her analysis is taken seriously by policy and media institutions, not only by corporate buyers. Biography highlights Google’s first Chief Decision Scientist (2018 to 2023), leading the firm’s decision intelligence practice inside Research and Machine Intelligence. Founder and CEO of Kozyr, an AI advisory and education business serving senior leaders and their teams. Personally trained more than 20,000 Googlers in data-driven decision-making and AI, and guided over 500 decision intelligence projects inside Google. Creator of Making Friends with Machine Learning, originally an internal Google course, now a free public course on YouTube. Author of the Decision Intelligence Substack and LinkedIn Top Voice for six consecutive years; writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Fast Company, WIRED, and The Wall Street Journal. Member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Innovation Advisory Council (2023 to 2024); Duke University Few-Glasson Distinguished Alumna. Biography Most companies do not have a data problem, they have a decision problem. The dashboards, pipelines, and models are in place, and yet senior leaders still cannot say which decisions are demonstrably better because of any of it. That gap is the subject Cassie Kozyrkov has been working on for a decade, first inside Google and now with leaders across industries. At Google, she became the company’s first Chief Decision Scientist in 2018 and held the role until 2023. She built a new function that sat between Research and Machine Intelligence on one side and the operating business on the other, and used it to run AI and data through a discipline she calls Decision Intelligence. By the time she left, she had personally trained more than 20,000 Googlers and influenced over 500 projects against that framework. The reason her work travels beyond Google is that she made the material legible. Her course Making Friends with Machine Learning, built inside Google and later released in full on YouTube, is one of the few genuinely plain-English explainers of how machine learning actually fits into business decisions. Her writing in Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Fast Company, WIRED, and The Wall Street Journal has done the same for non-technical executives, and her Decision Intelligence Substack has become a working reference for practitioners. Today she runs Kozyr, advising leadership teams on AI strategy and decision design, and sits on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Innovation Advisory Council on AI and financial markets. The through-line is consistent. She is the rare AI voice who starts with the decision the organisation is trying to get right, and works backwards to the technology, rather than the other way round. Key speaking topics Decision Intelligence AI strategy and adoption Data-driven decision-making Machine learning for business leaders Responsible and effective use of AI AI literacy for executives Bias and judgement in AI systems Ideal for CEOs, boards, and executive teams setting AI strategy and capital allocation against it Chief Data, Analytics, and AI Officers building a decision-intelligence operating model Transformation and strategy leaders responsible for turning AI pilots into business results Leadership programmes and offsites that need genuine AI literacy, not a vendor pitch Audience outcomes A working definition of Decision Intelligence and where it sits relative to data science, analytics, and AI investment. A sharper diagnostic for why AI projects stall: wrong decision scoped, wrong owner, or wrong question asked of the model. Shared language across technical and non-technical leaders for debating AI initiatives without defaulting to buzzwords. Specific techniques for pressure-testing decisions against common biases, including outcome bias and confirmation bias. A realistic read on what current AI systems can and cannot be trusted to decide without human judgement in the loop.

Why organisations work with Miloš Maričić He gives investment boards a working diagnostic for distinguishing real machine learning from AI marketing, anchored in his SPEC framework and his CFA Institute Enterprising Investor work on weak quant models. He chairs Executive AI, the network of CEOs of major European institutional investment organisations, and represented that industry in the EU Artificial Intelligence Act standardisation process. Few speakers can describe AI regulation from inside the room where the rules were written. He has co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence and Philanthropy with the University of Geneva, the standard reference for AI in the social sector. That gives foundations and philanthropic boards a credible voice on the same subject. He has built and exited two AI companies and ranks in the top five per cent of the Numerai global leaderboard for market prediction models, so the technical claim is matched by personal track record. He is an OECD AI Expert and a World Economic Forum contributor, which means his framing is already calibrated for senior policy and regulatory audiences. Biography highlights Founder of the Altruist League, Geneva, a philanthropy consultancy whose network reports AUM above USD 10 billion. Chair of Executive AI, a network of CEOs of major European institutional investment organisations. AI Expert at the OECD and contributor at the World Economic Forum. Co-editor, The Routledge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence and Philanthropy, Routledge, 2024. Co-author, Fixing Philanthropy: Six Principles for Actually Improving the World When Giving Away Money, 2021. Educated at the London School of Economics, New York University and Harvard Business School. Biography Most institutional investors now have AI somewhere in their portfolio, their managers, or their operations. Very few have a working method for telling genuine machine learning from a factor model dressed up for a board meeting. That is the gap Maričić has spent his career filling, first inside his own AI ventures, now as Chair of Executive AI, the network of CEOs of major European institutional investment organisations. His SPEC framework, developed for capital allocators and published through CFA Institute’s Enterprising Investor, gives investment committees a short diagnostic for evaluating quantitative managers who claim AI capability. It is the kind of practical tool a CIO can take into a manager meeting on Monday morning. He represented the institutional investor industry in the EU Artificial Intelligence Act standardisation process, and serves as an AI Expert at the OECD and a contributor at the World Economic Forum. Maričić founded the Altruist League, a Geneva-based philanthropy consultancy that pioneered the use of AI in sourcing investments, distributing funds and managing portfolios, and whose network now reports AUM above USD 10 billion. With Giuseppe Ugazio at the University of Geneva, he co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence and Philanthropy, the 2024 reference work for foundations and social sector boards thinking about AI governance. He is educated at the London School of Economics, NYU and Harvard Business School, ranks in the top five per cent of the Numerai global leaderboard for market prediction models, and writes The Specification, a newsletter that translates frontier AI research into practical tools for institutional allocators. Key speaking topics AI governance for investment boards and fiduciary committees Due diligence on machine learning in quantitative investment strategies AI regulation, the EU AI Act and institutional capital allocation AI in philanthropy and the social sector Causal inference and the limits of factor investing Geopolitics of AI for sovereign wealth funds and central banks Trust-based giving and systemic-change philanthropy Ideal for Chief Investment Officers, investment committees and manager-selection teams at pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, central banks and endowments Boards of foundations and philanthropic organisations setting AI strategy and governance Risk, audit and fiduciary committees taking responsibility for AI-driven strategies they did not build Senior policy and regulatory audiences working on AI in financial services Audience outcomes A clear diagnostic for distinguishing real machine learning from AI marketing inside quantitative managers Specific questions a board or investment committee can put to managers and internal teams about AI claims A current read on the EU AI Act and what it means for institutional allocators in practice A grounded view of where AI is genuinely changing philanthropy and where it is hype A working vocabulary for fiduciary AI oversight that does not require a technical background

Why organisations work with David McCandless He built the language of modern editorial data visualisation through Information is Beautiful, the blog and three books that defined the form for a generation of journalists and designers. He co-founded the Information is Beautiful Awards in 2012 with Kantar’s Aziz Cami, the global benchmark prize for data visualisation, giving him a panoramic view of what works across thousands of submissions. His work has been published by The Guardian, Wired, and Die Zeit and exhibited at MoMA, Tate Britain, and the Wellcome Trust gallery, evidence that the craft holds up to both editorial and curatorial scrutiny. His TEDGlobal 2010 talk, “The beauty of data visualization”, remains one of the most-watched introductions to the field and shapes how senior audiences think about visual storytelling. Biography highlights Author of Information is Beautiful (2009), Knowledge is Beautiful (2014), and Beautiful News (2023), published by HarperCollins. Founder of the Information is Beautiful blog and co-founder of the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards (2012). TEDGlobal 2010 speaker: “The beauty of data visualization”. Information design featured in The Guardian, Wired, and Die Zeit. Work exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Britain, and the Wellcome Trust gallery (London). Began his career as a journalist writing for The Guardian and Wired before building Information is Beautiful into a publishing platform. Biography The hardest problem in modern communication is not gathering data. It is making the data mean something to a reader who has eight seconds and a phone. That is the territory David McCandless has worked for nearly two decades, first as a journalist at The Guardian and Wired, then as the founder of Information is Beautiful. The blog became a publishing programme. Information is Beautiful (2009), Knowledge is Beautiful (2014), and Beautiful News (2023) collect more than 1,500 graphics that take subjects ranging from drug deaths to global wealth and turn them into images a non-specialist can read. The craft sits in the choices: what to compare, what to leave out, what visual metaphor lets a number argue with itself. In 2012 he co-founded what became the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards with Aziz Cami, then Creative Director at Kantar. Through that platform McCandless has spent more than a decade looking at the best data visualisation work in the world, which gives him an unusually wide reference set when advising teams on what separates a chart that lands from one that does not. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Britain, and the Wellcome Trust gallery, and his TEDGlobal 2010 talk on the beauty of data visualisation introduced the field to a mainstream audience. For organisations sitting on data they cannot translate into action, he offers the rarer skill: editorial judgement on what is worth showing, and how. Key speaking topics Data visualisation Information design Data storytelling Data journalism Visual communication Creativity and pattern recognition Infographics in business communication Ideal for CMOs, brand and marketing leaders rethinking how data shapes customer narratives Communications, internal comms, and corporate affairs leads briefing senior audiences Heads of data, analytics, and insight whose dashboards are not changing decisions Innovation and design leaders building visual literacy across the organisation Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what makes a data visualisation land with a non-specialist audience Sharper editorial judgement on which numbers in a dataset are worth showing and which are noise Concrete examples from across journalism, design, and the IIB Awards archive of what good looks like A clearer view of how to brief designers, agencies, and internal teams on data-led communication

Inma Martinez’s Background Progressing her previous careers in investment banking and telecommunications towards technology entrepreneurship, she is recognised worldwide as one of the leading entrepreneurs who pioneered the creating and emergence of digital technologies like the mobile internet, music and video streaming, the connected car and smart living. Her unique experience has allowed her to become one of the most sought-after experts in forecasting digital disruptions and revealing the potentiality of A.I. and other transformative technologies. Since 2001 Inma has provided expert testimonies across various technology boards at the European Union. She has combined her career in innovation with prestigious government appointments in the United Kingdom (at the Trade & Investment agency and at the Innovation Fund of the Department of Sport, Media and Culture) and Spain (State Secretariat for Artificial Intelligence at the Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation). She has also advised the Malaysian government’s Sarawak Centre of Performance Excellence on digital transformation strategies for both civil society and government-owned businesses. In March 2021 she was appointed to the GPAI’s Innovation and Commercialisation of A.I. Task Group. For over ten years she has committed her time to education at various business schools (Imperial College London, University College London, and the University of Loyola Spain) and to the mentorship of innovation at venture-focused acceleration programmes. She has written two books: “The Future of the Automotive Industry” (June 2021) and “The Fifth Industrial Revolution: How Space Commercialisation will derive the Biggest Industrial Expansion of the 21st Century”. Both books focus on digital transformation and radical business models that are paving the way to a new concept of progress, competitive attributes and stakeholders’ values. FORTUNE and TIME have described her as one of Europe’s top talents in social engagement through technology and FastCompany labelled her a “firestarter”. She was voted the “Best contributor to the formation of strategy” in the section “Driving the Future of Europe’s Digital Economy” at Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s European Leadership Forum: Charting the Economic Future of Europe, a conference for CEOs and government officials.