Data Analytics

Why organisations work with Anne Hoyer She has built IoT and digital innovation functions inside SAP, CGI France and Danfoss. Boards get a practitioner’s view of why these programmes stall before ROI arrives. Her Copenhagen Goodwill Ambassador position gives her privileged access to one of the world’s most studied Smart City programmes, which she translates into concrete lessons for corporate and municipal leaders. She works natively in the partnership economics of modern technology: when to build capability in-house versus when to co-create with hyperscalers and scale-ups. Leadership teams leave with a sharper model of how their own tech ecosystem should be structured. A former radio and podcast host before moving into tech, she brings communications discipline to the stage that IoT speakers often lack. Complex material reaches commercial audiences cleanly. Biography highlights Head of Partnerships in Digital Services at Danfoss, leading partnership strategy as the group operates as a Microsoft-managed ISV. Previously headhunted to CGI Business Consulting France in 2018 to launch the firm’s SAP Advanced Technology practice. Began her technology career at SAP, reaching a global IoT role in Barcelona within the Leonardo IoT and Predictive Maintenance portfolio. Copenhagen Goodwill Ambassador since 2019 with Copenhagen Capacity, representing the city globally on technology and urban sustainability. Named one of the 30 Inspirational Women to Watch in Tech by Inc.com (2017), shortlisted as Future CIO of the Year by Information Age (2018), and selected as a Global Rising Star by SAP. Chairs the Advisory Board at Smart IoT London and founded Group Saint Honoré, a consultancy supporting tech scale-ups on commercial go-to-market. Biography IoT promised an operational revolution. The industry is still learning to deliver one. Most projects are orphaned between IT and the business, starved of the partner ecosystem that actually makes them scale. This is the terrain Anne Hoyer works in. Her career has tracked that problem from three different angles. At SAP, she progressed to a global IoT role in Barcelona covering Leonardo IoT and Predictive Maintenance Services. In 2018 she was headhunted to CGI Business Consulting in France to launch the firm’s SAP Advanced Technology practice. She now leads partnerships inside Danfoss’s Digital Services function, brokering alliances between big tech, system integrators and scale-ups while the group operates as a Microsoft-managed ISV. The Copenhagen connection runs deeper than geography. Since 2019 she has served as an official Copenhagen Goodwill Ambassador with Copenhagen Capacity, representing the city internationally on technology and urban sustainability. Copenhagen has been named among the world’s smartest cities, and she carries its case study material directly into her corporate keynotes. The stagecraft has history. Before joining SAP in 2015, Anne hosted a weekly show on Danish commercial radio and co-created Trendpodding, the first fashion podcast in Denmark. The communications discipline of those years still shows on stage. Board audiences hear the strategic case without getting lost in the architecture. Her external recognition tracks the work: Inc.com’s 30 Inspirational Women to Watch in Tech (2017), Information Age’s Future CIO of the Year shortlist (2018), and SAP’s Global Rising Star. She also chairs the Advisory Board at Smart IoT London and founded Group Saint Honoré, a consultancy supporting tech scale-ups on commercial go-to-market. Key speaking topics IoT and data-driven innovation Smart cities and urban sustainability Digital transformation in industrial sectors Partnership and ecosystem strategy Women in technology Innovation leadership Ideal for CDOs, CTOs and Chief Innovation Officers running IoT or digital transformation programmes Industrial, energy and manufacturing leadership teams moving from product to software and service models Smart city and municipal leadership teams responsible for urban technology strategy Women-in-tech networks and early-career technology talent programmes Audience outcomes A clearer read on why IoT and digital innovation programmes lose momentum inside large organisations, and where the interventions actually sit Working lessons from one of the world’s most studied Smart City programmes, with direct transfer value into corporate transformation agendas A sharper view of how a leadership team should structure partnerships with hyperscalers, scale-ups and research institutions Confidence that IoT and innovation investments can be sequenced for commercial return when the business case leads the technology choice For younger technology audiences, a credible path from non-technical backgrounds into senior IoT and innovation roles

Why organisations work with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger His research on data-sharing directly shaped the EU’s Digital Markets Act – when he talks about regulatory risk, he is describing a landscape he helped design. Big Data (co-authored with The Economist‘s Kenneth Cukier) sold over one million copies and set the terms of the enterprise data conversation for a decade; organisations benefit from the intellectual framework behind the book, not just its conclusions. As a member of Germany’s Digital Council, he advised Chancellor Merkel’s cabinet on digital policy (2018–2021) – giving him a rare dual perspective on both corporate strategy and governmental decision-making. His 2024 book Guardrails (with Urs Gasser, hailed in Science journal) offers the most current framework available for deciding which decisions to delegate to AI and which to retain – a live, unresolved question in most boardrooms. He holds the Oxford Chair as one of three statutory professors at the Oxford Internet Institute, combining research authority with over 250 keynote engagements across Fortune 500 companies and government bodies. Biography highlights Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute – one of three statutory chairs Ten years on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; continuing affiliate at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Member of Germany’s Digital Council; personal adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel on digital policy (2018–2021) Delete (Princeton University Press, 2009) won the 2010 Marshall McLuhan Award and the 2010 Don K. Price Award for Best Book in Science and Technology Politics Big Data (2013, with Kenneth Cukier) – NYT and WSJ bestseller; over one million copies sold; translated into more than 20 languages Research cited in, and proposals adopted by, the EU Digital Markets Act; covered by the New York Times, Financial Times, BBC, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and Nature Biography Data governance is not a compliance function. It is, as Viktor Mayer-Schönberger has spent three decades arguing, the central strategic question of the digital economy, and most organisations are still treating it as a footnote. Mayer-Schönberger holds the Chair of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, one of three statutory professorships at the OII. Before Oxford, he spent a decade at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and three years at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. That arc – from entrepreneurship to academic leadership across three continents – gives him a fluency in organisational, governmental, and market dynamics that few researchers in this space share. His books have not merely described the data economy; they have shaped it. Delete (Princeton, 2009) initiated the debate that produced the EU’s right to be forgotten. Access Rules (2022) and the earlier Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data proposed the data-sharing mandates that were subsequently enacted in the EU Digital Markets Act. His bestseller Big Data – co-authored with The Economist‘s Kenneth Cukier – sold over a million copies and remains the foundational text for enterprise data strategy. His most recent book, Guardrails (2024, with Urs Gasser), praised in Science journal, addresses the question now live in every boardroom: how to draw the line between AI delegation and human judgement. From 2018 to 2021 he served as a member of Germany’s Digital Council, advising Chancellor Merkel’s cabinet directly. He is a faculty affiliate at Harvard’s Belfer Center and has addressed senior audiences at IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Roche, as well as regulatory and governmental forums across the EU, UK, and US. His advisory boards have included Microsoft and the World Economic Forum. Key speaking topics AI governance and the limits of delegation Data access, competition, and digital market regulation The strategic economics of data Information privacy and the right to be forgotten Human decision-making in the age of AI Digital policy and corporate regulatory risk The data-driven transformation of capitalism Ideal for Boards and executive leadership teams navigating AI governance and regulatory exposure Chief Data, Digital, and AI Officers building organisational data strategy General counsel, compliance, and risk functions in regulated industries Public policy and regulatory affairs teams across the EU and UK Audience outcomes A structured framework for distinguishing decisions that should be delegated to AI from those that must remain with humans Clarity on the regulatory direction of travel in the EU and UK, and what it means for data strategy An understanding of how data access and sharing mandates will reshape competitive dynamics in their sector Practical grounding in the governance failures that produce both legal exposure and strategic underperformance A shared language for board-level conversations about AI risk that moves beyond the abstract

Why organisations work with Tim Harford Translates economic and statistical research into commercial decisions, drawing on a Financial Times column that has run for nearly two decades and a body of ten published books. Brings credibility on numbers that very few speakers can match: Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and OBE for services to economic understanding. Reframes innovation as an evidence-based discipline grounded in adaptation and failure, the central thesis of “Adapt” and “Messy”, rather than the usual creativity rhetoric. Equips senior audiences to interrogate their own data culture using the rules from “How To Make The World Add Up”, a practical antidote to misleading statistics inside organisations. Trusted as a host, moderator and after-dinner speaker by serious audiences because his radio craft on “More or Less” and “Cautionary Tales” carries directly into the room. Biography highlights Senior columnist, Financial Times, writing “The Undercover Economist”. Presenter, BBC Radio 4’s “More or Less”, the long-running statistics-in-the-news programme. Host of “Cautionary Tales”, a Pushkin Industries podcast, and creator of “Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy”. Author of ten books, including “The Undercover Economist”, “Adapt”, “Messy”, “How To Make The World Add Up” and “The Truth Detective”. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and of Brasenose College, Oxford; Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford. OBE for services to Improving Economic Understanding; winner of the Bastiat Prize (twice), the Wincott Journalist of the Year award, and the Royal Statistical Society award for journalistic excellence. Biography Most organisations claim to be evidence-led. Few are. Decisions are framed in numbers but driven by narrative, and innovation programmes routinely refuse to learn from the failures that contain the most useful information. Harford’s work, across the Financial Times column, ten books and two long-running BBC and Pushkin productions, has been built around exactly that gap. His books map the intellectual territory leaders care about. “The Undercover Economist” reframed everyday markets through the lens of price, scarcity and incentive, and has sold more than 1.5 million copies in thirty languages. “Adapt” and “Messy” argue that progress depends on disciplined trial, error and tolerance for disorder, a more honest account of innovation than most corporate playbooks allow. “How To Make The World Add Up” gives senior audiences a practical method for testing the numbers they are asked to act on. The credentials behind that work are unusual. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Associate Member of Nuffield College Oxford, an OBE for services to economic understanding, and a body of awards from the Bastiat Prize to the Wincott. As presenter of BBC Radio 4’s “More or Less”, Harford has spent years publicly stress-testing the statistics that shape policy and business commentary, which makes him one of the few speakers who can hold a senior room on data culture without resorting to platitudes. For boards and leadership teams, the value is concrete. Sharper questions about innovation portfolios, a working method for separating signal from noise, and a more honest model of how organisations actually learn. The recent “Cautionary Tales” series, which dissects high-profile organisational failures, has become a reference point for leaders thinking seriously about how decisions go wrong. Key speaking topics Behavioural economics in commercial decision-making Innovation, adaptation and learning from failure Statistical literacy and data culture in organisations Economic forces shaping business and policy Creativity, disorder and team productivity Cognitive bias and judgement under uncertainty Ideal for Boards and executive committees confronting decisions where the numbers are contested Strategy, innovation and R&D leaders building portfolios under uncertainty CFOs and finance functions reviewing how evidence is presented and challenged internally Senior leadership offsites where the brief calls for serious intellectual content with broad relevance Audience outcomes A working method for interrogating statistics and management dashboards before acting on them A clearer model of innovation as managed trial and error, with practical implications for portfolio choice Sharper recognition of the cognitive errors that recur in senior decision-making Concrete references from “Cautionary Tales” and “More or Less” that audiences can use to reframe their own debates

Why organisations work with Rasmus Ankersen He has actually built the model he talks about. As chairman of FC Midtjylland, the club won three Danish Superliga titles using a data-led recruitment and set-piece method that was later studied across European football. His book The Gold Mine Effect is grounded in seven months of field research inside the world’s most productive talent ecosystems, from Brazilian football academies to Ethiopian distance running, not a desk study of secondary literature. Through Sport Republic, he runs a multi-club investment platform now controlling Southampton FC and Goztepe SK, so the lens on capital allocation, scouting markets and downside management is operational, not theoretical. He gives boards a vocabulary for the awkward conversation about success: how organisations stop learning the moment results turn positive, and what to do about it before the next cycle. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of Sport Republic, owner of Southampton FC and majority owner of Goztepe SK. Co-director of football at Brentford FC, 2015 to 2020, the platform that produced Premier League promotion in 2021. Chairman of FC Midtjylland during a period that included Danish Superliga titles in 2015, 2018 and 2020. Author of The Gold Mine Effect (Icon Books, 2012) and Hunger in Paradise (2016). TEDxManchester speaker on football analytics applied to organisational decision-making. Has delivered keynotes for LEGO, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group, Roche, AstraZeneca, Coca-Cola and Cisco. Biography Brentford were a mid-table Championship club when Matthew Benham, Rasmus Ankersen and a small analytics team set out to build a Premier League squad without Premier League money. The same logic was applied at FC Midtjylland in Denmark. Both clubs went on to win, repeatedly, against opponents with bigger budgets and longer histories. That track record is the foundation of Ankersen’s argument to corporate audiences. The bias to overvalue established names and undervalue evidence is not a football problem. It is a recruiting problem, a capital allocation problem, and a strategy problem. His book The Gold Mine Effect, published in 2012 after seven months living inside elite training environments from Kenya to Brazil, makes the case that performance hotbeds are produced, not discovered. His second book, Hunger in Paradise, takes the harder question. Why do successful organisations stop learning. He frames complacency as the silent failure mode of a winning strategy, and argues that the work of leadership is to keep the system honest after the results turn good. The thesis has resonated with senior teams at LEGO, Google, BCG, Roche and others who have brought him in. Today he runs Sport Republic, the investment vehicle that acquired Southampton FC in 2022 and now operates a multi-club model across England, Turkey and Belgium. The day job means his frameworks are tested in real time, against real capital, in one of the most ruthless performance markets there is. Key speaking topics High-performance culture Talent identification and development Data-driven decision-making Avoiding complacency in successful organisations Performance environments and ecosystems Lessons from elite sport for business Leadership and decision-making under pressure Ideal for CEOs and executive teams in scaled organisations entering a new performance cycle CHROs and talent leaders rebuilding recruitment and assessment models Strategy and corporate development leaders responsible for capital allocation and M&A Boards examining why a winning strategy is starting to plateau Audience outcomes A sharper view of where the organisation is overpaying for proven names and underinvesting in evidence. A working definition of complacency that can be diagnosed in the business, not just lamented. Concrete examples of how data and judgement combine in high-stakes decisions, drawn from Brentford, Midtjylland and Southampton. A reframing of what a “performance environment” is, and why most attempts to import one fail.

Why organisations work with Raffaello D’Andrea He has built two commercially-deployed autonomous systems from the ground up – Kiva Systems, now the architecture powering over a million Amazon Robotics units across 300+ facilities, and Verity, whose autonomous indoor drones operate at nearly 200 sites worldwide. Most technology speakers have observed others build at scale; D’Andrea has done it twice. His account of the gap between academic research and industrial deployment is not speculative. He moved from Cornell professor to co-founder to chief technical advisor to ETH faculty, and back to founder again – carrying hands-on engineering responsibility at every stage. That trajectory gives organisations a rare, inside view of what makes autonomous systems fail or succeed in practice. The Kiva story – a $775M acquisition that became the operational backbone of the world’s largest e-commerce company – is a fully documented, publicly available case study in redesigning an entire industry’s logistics model around autonomous systems. D’Andrea can speak to that case from the inside, as the architect of the core system. His ongoing research at ETH Zurich, through platforms like CyberRunner, Cubli and the Flying Machine Arena, sits at the frontier of autonomous learning and control. Audiences hear what is actually being solved in research today, not what is being forecast by analysts. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering, inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the Kiva system, and recognised by the Logistics Hall of Fame – D’Andrea holds formal peer recognition across engineering, invention and industry simultaneously, a combination that is rare among technology speakers. Biography highlights Professor of Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich; founder of ETH’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control Co-founder of Kiva Systems, acquired by Amazon in 2012 and now operating as Amazon Robotics, the autonomous fulfilment system at the core of Amazon’s global warehouse operations Founder and CEO of Verity, autonomous indoor drone company deployed at nearly 200 sites worldwide, with clients including IKEA, Maersk and UPS Elected member, National Academy of Engineering (2020); National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee (2022); Logistics Hall of Fame inductee (2024) IEEE Fellow; IEEE Robotics and Automation Award (2016); Engelberger Robotics Award (2015); Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2001); named on more than 40 US patents TED Global 2013 and TED 2016 speaker; TED and research videos with tens of millions of views New media artworks held in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada and France’s FRAC Centre; exhibited at the Venice Biennale Biography The systems running inside Amazon’s warehouses today – more than a million autonomous robots across over 300 facilities – trace their core architecture directly to Raffaello D’Andrea. As co-founder of Kiva Systems, D’Andrea designed the navigation logic, fleet coordination algorithms and adaptive control systems that made warehouse automation economically viable at commercial scale for the first time. When Amazon acquired Kiva in 2012, it rebranded the company as Amazon Robotics and made it the operational foundation of its global fulfilment network. That work was built on a research track record with real competitive stakes. Before Kiva, D’Andrea was at Cornell University, where he led the Robot Soccer Team to four consecutive RoboCup world championships – using autonomous multi-agent competition as a proving ground for the kinds of coordination and real-time decision-making that large-scale robotics deployments require. The move from academic research to commercial deployment, and back to academic research, is the defining pattern of his career. At ETH Zurich, where he founded the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, D’Andrea leads research through hands-on experimental platforms – CyberRunner, Cubli, the Flying Machine Arena, the Distributed Flight Array – that probe the real limits of autonomous learning, not its theoretical promise. In 2014, he co-founded Verity, whose autonomous indoor drone systems now operate at nearly 200 sites worldwide, automating inventory tracking and operational data collection for clients including IKEA, Maersk and UPS. The company raised a $43M Series B in 2023 with Qualcomm Ventures among the investors. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering and inducted into both the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the Logistics Hall of Fame, D’Andrea holds formal peer recognition across engineering, invention and industry – a combination that reflects a career built on closing the distance between what autonomous systems can do in a laboratory and what they can sustain across an industrial operation. Key speaking topics Autonomous systems design and commercial-scale deployment AI, machine learning and physical intelligence Warehouse automation and supply chain operations Deep-tech entrepreneurship and venture building Autonomous flight and drone systems The gap between robotics research and real-world application The future of human-machine collaboration in physical operations Ideal for COOs, heads of supply chain and logistics leaders evaluating or scaling autonomous operations CTOs and technology leadership teams making investment decisions in robotics and AI deployment Boards and executive committees setting autonomous systems strategy Innovation and transformation leadership forums focused on operational technology Audience outcomes A practitioner’s framework for distinguishing autonomous systems that create genuine operational value from those that stall between proof of concept and deployment Concrete understanding of the systems design conditions that make robotics reliable and economically viable at industrial scale An insider account of how Kiva Systems redesigned warehouse operations – and what that process reveals about the real requirements of large-scale autonomous deployment A more accurate picture of where AI and robotics are heading, grounded in what is already working at commercial scale rather than in market speculation Sharper criteria for evaluating autonomous technology partnerships, vendor claims and investment priorities

Why organisations work with Misiek Piskorski His proprietary multi-step framework reduces digital transformation to five or six sequenced decisions – giving leadership teams a replicable process to own and implement, not a theory to absorb and interpret. A Social Strategy (Princeton University Press, 2014) – the first book to use large-scale proprietary platform data to explain how companies build competitive advantage from social platforms – introduced three named diagnostic tests (social utility, social solution, and business value) that practitioners can apply to any platform investment decision. His transformation programmes are designed to span the full organisational hierarchy: CEO-level strategic advisory, top-team execution, middle-management education, and organisation-wide capability building – which means transformation logic does not stop at the boardroom door. As Co-Director of IMD’s AI Strategy and Implementation programme, he connects AI adoption directly to competitive strategy rather than treating it as a technology or operations question – giving executive teams a frame that boards can act on. Custom programmes delivered for organisations including Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, and the Asian Development Bank mean his frameworks have been stress-tested across industries and geographies, not built in one sector and applied to others by analogy. Biography highlights Professor of Digital Strategy, Analytics and Innovation and Dean of Executive Education, IMD Business School, Lausanne Previously Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit, Harvard Business School (ten years); prior faculty appointment at Stanford University Graduate School of Business Author of A Social Strategy: How We Profit from Social Media (Princeton University Press, 2014) – winner of the Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal, 2015 Research published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award 2019, Organisational Development category, for the Siam Commercial Bank digital transformation programme Co-Director, AI Strategy and Implementation programme, IMD; Programme Director, Developing Digital Transformation Strategies (IMD online) Associate Editor, Journal of Organization Design; editorial board member, Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, and Organization Science Biography Misiek Piskorski spent two decades studying why digital transformation succeeds or stalls – working first at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and then at Harvard Business School before joining IMD in Lausanne in 2014. The answer, he argues, is almost never about technology. It is about the sequence of strategic decisions that determines how digital capabilities translate into competitive advantage. His book A Social Strategy (Princeton University Press, 2014) was the first to draw on proprietary data from platforms including Facebook and LinkedIn to explain the commercial mechanism behind social platforms. The argument – that companies must first help users meet social needs that cannot be satisfied offline before asking for any commercial return – won the Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal in 2015. Three diagnostic tests introduced in the book (social utility, social solution, and business value) give executive teams a practical tool for evaluating any platform investment. At IMD, his work is deliberately structured to span the full organisation. Custom programmes for Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, and the Asian Development Bank move from CEO-level strategy through top-team transformation projects to executive education for middle managers and digital learning at scale. As Co-Director of IMD’s AI Strategy and Implementation programme, he applies the same sequenced-decision logic to AI adoption – connecting implementation directly to competitive strategy. His research has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He received the EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award in 2019 for his collaboration with Siam Commercial Bank on digital transformation, and serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Organization Design. Key speaking topics Platform strategy and competitive advantage Digital transformation decision frameworks AI strategy and enterprise-wide implementation Social platform economics and business value Data analytics and strategic decision-making Digital business model design Organisational digital capability building Ideal for CEOs and senior leadership teams navigating digital transformation at enterprise scale Chief Digital Officers and Chief Strategy Officers assessing platform and AI investment decisions Boards and executive committees evaluating digital readiness and competitive positioning CHROs and Learning & Development leaders designing organisation-wide digital capability programmes Audience outcomes A named, sequenced decision framework for planning and executing digital transformation across the organisation – not a conceptual model but a structured process Practical diagnostic tools (social utility, social solution, and business value tests) for evaluating whether a platform or digital investment is likely to create competitive advantage A clear model for distinguishing digital activity from digital strategy – and for identifying where current transformation efforts are likely to stall Understanding of how AI adoption decisions connect to competitive positioning rather than remaining isolated as technology or operations questions A working vocabulary for the five or six strategic decisions that determine whether transformation programmes deliver at scale

Why organisations work with Mike Saunders His HumanCentric framework forces transformation teams to test technology decisions against the people who will or will not adopt them, which changes how budgets get allocated. He runs the agency he speaks from. Digitlab has delivered digital work for Vodafone, IBM, Toyota, KPMG and Bidvest, so the room hears practice from a live operator. He brings an emerging-market lens that most digital strategy speakers do not carry, drawn from running an agency in South Africa with delivery into the UK, Europe, US, Australia and Dubai. His Gear Analogy, developed for his TEDx Durban talk, gives leadership teams a working method for picking which ideas deserve real investment and which to drop. He pairs published frameworks with original sector research, including Digitlab’s annual Insight: State of Digital report on where customer behaviour, AI and martech are moving. Biography highlights CEO and Founder of Digitlab, a digital strategy agency with clients spanning South Africa, the UK, Europe, the US, Australia and Dubai. Author of HumanCentric: Technology Fails Unless It Means Something to Someone, which sets out a four-part model (explore, ideate, intersect, create) for human-centred digital transformation. TEDx Durban speaker on Gearing for Greatness: Your Ideas, Your Impact, introducing the Gear Analogy for idea evaluation and execution. Opening chapter author in Doers & Dreamers, a global business compendium also featuring Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss and Brian Chesky. Founder of the Digitlab Academy in partnership with Vega School of Branding, training over 1,000 marketers a year. Awarded Special Honours at the New Generation Awards for contribution to the digital industry; named among “Top Global Digital Marketing Experts & Influencers” (2019). Biography Most digital transformation programmes still get sold to boards as technology projects. The investment lands and the adoption that was supposed to follow does not. The gap is where commercial returns disappear. This is the gap that Saunders has spent more than fifteen years working in. As CEO of Digitlab, the South African agency he founded, he has run digital programmes for Vodafone, IBM, Toyota, KPMG and Bidvest. He argues that technology fails unless it means something to someone, and that digital is a people conversation that happens to run on technology. His book HumanCentric: Technology Fails Unless It Means Something to Someone sets out the four-part model he uses with clients: explore, ideate, intersect, create. Each phase forces a transformation team to test technology decisions against the human stakeholders who will or will not adopt them. It functions as a working framework, and it shows up in his keynote work as practical structure for leadership audiences. His TEDx Durban talk Gearing for Greatness introduced the Gear Analogy, a tool for evaluating which ideas to back and which to drop. He contributed the opening chapter of Doers & Dreamers, the global business book that also features Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss and Brian Chesky. Each year, Digitlab publishes its Insight: State of Digital report mapping where customer behaviour, AI, search and martech are actually moving. Key speaking topics Human-centred digital transformation Customer experience and digital strategy AI and data-driven marketing Marketing technology and innovation Digital consumer behaviour The Fourth Industrial Revolution in business Ideal for CMOs and digital marketing leaders running transformation or martech programmes CEOs and CDOs are accountable for digital strategy and adoption outcomes Boards and executive teams setting commercial AI and data direction Marketing, sales and IT leadership teams are trying to align around shared revenue outcomes Audience outcomes A working framework for testing digital decisions against the real people who will or will not adopt them A method for separating ideas worth backing from ideas worth abandoning, drawn from the Gear Analogy Specific signals on what is shifting in customer behaviour, AI, search and martech, drawn from Digitlab’s annual State of Digital research A view of how marketing, sales and IT teams should align around a single revenue model

Why organisations work with Jonathan Reichental He has run the work he now speaks about. As CIO of the City of Palo Alto and CIO of O’Reilly Media, he owned budgets, projects and consequences, which is a different proposition to commenting on them from a research desk. The Palo Alto tenure produced a first-place category ranking in the Digital Cities Survey, a verifiable outcome rather than a claim of impact. His book catalogue, led by Smart Cities For Dummies with multiple follow-on titles across data governance, analytics and cryptocurrency, gives audiences accessible reference material they can share inside their own teams after the session. His adjunct teaching positions at UC Berkeley and the University of San Francisco, combined with LinkedIn Learning courses and a Forbes column, mean his explanations of emerging technology are built for non-specialist audiences without losing technical accuracy. He covers the breadth of the current executive agenda, quantum, AI, blockchain, smart cities, data governance, with the same pragmatic framing, which suits leadership audiences that need one session to cover multiple priorities. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Human Future Former Chief Information Officer, City of Palo Alto, California; Palo Alto achieved first-place category ranking in the Digital Cities Survey during his tenure Former Chief Information Officer of O’Reilly Media; senior technology leadership at PricewaterhouseCoopers Adjunct professor at UC Berkeley and the University of San Francisco Author of Smart Cities For Dummies, Data Governance For Dummies, Data Analytics & Visualization All-in-One For Dummies and Cryptocurrency QuickStart Guide Forbes contributor; LinkedIn Learning course creator; recognised on CXOTalk’s 20 Influential CIOs list Biography Smart cities is one of the most hyped categories in public-sector technology and one of the hardest to deliver. Jonathan Reichental’s credibility starts with the fact that he did the delivery job. As Chief Information Officer of the City of Palo Alto, he led the technology work that produced a first-place category ranking in the Digital Cities Survey, on a public-sector budget and under the accountability that comes with it. The book that followed, Smart Cities For Dummies, is now one of the most widely used introductions to the field. His private-sector track record sits alongside. Earlier roles include CIO of O’Reilly Media and senior technology leadership at PricewaterhouseCoopers. The combination, public-sector, publishing-and-tech, and global consulting, is the reason his framing on digital transformation holds up in front of different audiences. He now runs Human Future, the advisory, investment and education firm he founded to focus on emerging technology strategy. The writing and teaching extend the same thesis. Alongside the smart cities titles, he has authored or co-authored Data Governance For Dummies, Data Analytics & Visualization All-in-One For Dummies, Cryptocurrency QuickStart Guide and The Apps Challenge Playbook, teaches as an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley and the University of San Francisco, contributes a column to Forbes and creates LinkedIn Learning courses. His recognition on CXOTalk’s 20 Influential CIOs list and Government Technology’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers places him inside the peer group his corporate and public-sector audiences consult anyway. For boards, city governments, utilities and enterprise CIOs trying to make real decisions about AI, quantum computing, blockchain and smart-infrastructure investment, Reichental brings the unusual combination of an operator’s record, a teacher’s clarity and a published author’s reference library. Key speaking topics Smart cities and digital government Emerging technology strategy (AI, quantum, blockchain) Data governance, analytics and the CIO agenda Public-sector technology leadership Digital transformation for enterprise and city organisations Ethics in technology leadership Ideal for CIOs, CDOs and chief transformation officers setting or refreshing digital strategy City governments, utilities and public-sector organisations running smart-city or digital-services programmes Executive committees and boards needing a single session to level-set on emerging technologies Technology conferences and industry summits requiring an author-led keynote with operator credentials Audience outcomes A structured view of which emerging technologies are production-ready, which are near-term, and which are further out Specific reference cases from Palo Alto and other smart-city programmes on what actually works in public-sector digital delivery A clearer executive framing of data governance, analytics and AI choices, grounded in the relevant For Dummies material Practical prompts for translating emerging-tech strategy into a 12- to 24-month roadmap A shareable reading list and follow-on LinkedIn Learning courses for leadership teams

Why organisations work with Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter His named frameworks – the “micromort” (a one-in-a-million unit of risk) and “microlife” – give non-technical leaders a usable vocabulary for discussing probability and relative risk. That vocabulary changes how organisations communicate uncertainty internally, not just in a keynote room. The Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, which he chaired at Cambridge, ran controlled experiments on how different ways of presenting uncertainty affect trust and decision quality. His approach is built on tested research into what actually changes how audiences respond to evidence. His two Pelican bestsellers, The Art of Statistics (2019) and The Art of Uncertainty (2024) – named Best Book of the Year by both Forbes and The Economist – demonstrate an unusually rare ability: making genuinely complex statistical argument accessible to any senior audience, not just specialists. He played a leading statistical role in several of the UK’s most consequential public inquiries, including the Shipman murders, the Bristol Royal Infirmary children’s heart surgery case, and the Infected Blood Inquiry. He understands firsthand what happens when statistical evidence is ignored, contested, or misread at institutional level. As a Non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority, he operates at the intersection of regulatory scrutiny, data quality, and public accountability – experience that is directly relevant to any board discussion about evidence governance or public reporting. Biography highlights Emeritus Professor of Statistics, University of Cambridge; former Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk (2007-2018) Knighted 2014 for services to medical statistics; OBE 2006; Fellow of the Royal Society (elected 2005) President, Royal Statistical Society, 2017-2018; Non-Executive Director, UK Statistics Authority Author of The Art of Statistics (Pelican, 2019), published in eleven languages, and The Art of Uncertainty (Pelican, 2024), named Best Book of the Year by Forbes and The Economist Presented BBC Four documentaries Tails You Win: The Science of Chance and the award-winning Climate Change by Numbers; appeared on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs (2022) Guest columnist for The Times, The Guardian, and New Scientist; host of podcast Risky Talk; leading statistical contributor to the Shipman, Bristol Royal Infirmary, and Infected Blood public inquiries Biography Statistical evidence routinely gets stripped of its uncertainty before it reaches the people who need to act on it. By the time a risk figure reaches a boardroom, its limitations have usually been smoothed over. David Spiegelhalter has spent his career examining why this happens, and what it costs. As Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge from 2007 to 2018, and then as Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, Spiegelhalter ran research programmes designed to test how different ways of presenting uncertainty affect trust and decision quality. His framework treats the communication of uncertainty not as a messaging problem but as an evidence question – one with measurable consequences for how organisations are perceived and trusted. His work has extended into the most consequential institutional settings. He played a leading statistical role in the public inquiries into Harold Shipman’s murders, the Bristol Royal Infirmary children’s heart surgery case, and the Infected Blood Inquiry. As a Non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority, he sits at the intersection of regulatory oversight, data quality, and public accountability. His two Pelican bestsellers – The Art of Statistics (2019) and The Art of Uncertainty (2024), named Best Book of the Year by Forbes and The Economist – show that serious statistical argument can reach a mainstream audience without dilution. The Art of Statistics has been published in eleven languages. Knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, Spiegelhalter brings a combination of research depth, regulatory experience, and communication skill that is genuinely rare. Key speaking topics Risk communication and statistical evidence Communicating uncertainty to non-technical audiences Data literacy and probabilistic thinking Trust in numbers and institutional credibility Statistical evidence in public policy Evidence-based decision-making Medical statistics and health data Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors with risk oversight responsibilities C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating complex evidence and forecasting Risk, compliance, and regulatory affairs functions Public sector leaders and policy teams that rely on statistical evidence Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how to read and challenge statistical claims in briefings and reports Practical frameworks for communicating uncertainty to boards, regulators, or the public without losing credibility Sharper awareness of the specific ways risk data gets misrepresented, and the capacity to detect it A reframing of uncertainty as a communicable, manageable fact rather than a weakness to conceal Better questions to bring to any high-stakes decision that rests on probabilistic or statistical evidence

Why organisations work with Christian Howes He reads social and behavioural data the way a broadcaster reads a room, which means boards and marketing teams leave with a view of their customers that feels observed rather than modelled. He has been trusted on live television, from Big Brother’s Bit on the Side with Emma Willis to BT Sport and Channel 4’s alternative election night, to make data intelligible to audiences who are not data people. His corporate work spans PlayStation, Diageo, HSBC, Lloyds, ASOS and Barclays, so he arrives already fluent in the commercial contexts most clients are operating in. He doubles as a host, MC and panel moderator, which makes him a practical choice for events that want one credible voice across keynote, stage linking and awards. Biography highlights Regular social-data contributor on Big Brother’s Bit on the Side (Channel 5), 2011-2012, alongside Emma Willis. Television appearances on BT Sport (The Clare Balding Show, BT Sport Panel, BT Sport Live), ITV’s This Morning, BBC1 National Lottery, Good Morning Britain, and Channel 4’s alternative election night coverage. Co-founder of Mr Bridger, a content business developing formats for production companies and broadcasters. Corporate and keynote work with Sony PlayStation, Diageo, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, ASOS, UMG, Channel 4, GoCompare, Skoda, Microsoft, Teradata and Cornerstone. Works as keynote speaker, conference host, awards presenter and panel moderator across UK and international business audiences. Biography Social data arrived in most boardrooms as a dashboard before it arrived as a story. Christian Howes built a career out of closing that gap. His route in was unusual: he started by modelling Twitter traffic around the Big Brother house to predict weekly evictions, which led to a weekly sofa spot on Big Brother’s Bit on the Side with Emma Willis, translating audience sentiment back to a live TV audience. That pattern, turning raw social signal into something a non-specialist can act on, became the core of his commercial work. He has gone on to appear as a data and digital contributor across BT Sport, ITV’s This Morning, BBC1’s National Lottery show, Good Morning Britain, and Channel 4’s alternative election night coverage. The broadcast craft is not decoration; it is the reason his corporate sessions land with marketing, CX and customer-service teams who have sat through too many unreadable analytics decks. His corporate roster reflects where social and behavioural data actually matters in large consumer businesses. He has worked with Sony PlayStation, Diageo, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds, Barclays, ASOS, UMG, Skoda, GoCompare, Microsoft and Teradata on what audiences are doing, what they are signalling, and how customer-service and merchandising operations should respond. In 2015 he co-founded Mr Bridger, a content business developing formats for production companies, which keeps his feet in the studio as well as the boardroom. The second half of his offer, and often the reason he is booked, is hosting. He anchors conferences, moderates panels and presents awards, and clients buy the combination: one voice that can deliver a substantive keynote on digital and data, then carry the rest of the room for the day. Key speaking topics Social media analytics and audience sentiment Big data and consumer behaviour Digital marketing and branding Customer experience and customer service transformation Conference hosting, awards presenting and panel moderation Media, broadcast and the attention economy Ideal for CMOs, brand and marketing directors in consumer-facing businesses Customer experience, customer service and digital transformation leads Conference and awards organisers needing one host across keynote and stage Retail, financial services and entertainment audiences working with large consumer datasets Audience outcomes A clearer read on what their customers are signalling on social and digital channels, with examples they recognise from their own category. A practical sense of where social and behavioural data should connect to operational decisions in marketing, CX and service. Concrete case references from consumer brands, financial services and broadcast, rather than generic digital theory. For hosted events, a single credible voice across keynote, interview and awards that keeps the room with you.

Why organisations work with Brian Cox His work on the ATLAS experiment at CERN places him inside the research that underlies quantum computing, particle detection, and the most advanced engineering challenges of our time – not adjacent to it. The Quantum Universe, Why Does E=mc2?, and Universal have collectively sold over a million copies: evidence that he can make abstract, rigorous science genuinely comprehensible to non-specialist audiences at scale. His Horizons tour set two Guinness World Records for science communication, reaching over 400,000 people across three continents – a proof of audience engagement no management consultant or futurist can match. As UN Champion for Space (appointed October 2025), he connects scientific frontier thinking directly to global governance, sustainability, and long-term civilisational risk – giving boards a frame that goes well beyond conventional technology briefings. He has presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos and in China, and headlined Infosecurity Europe 2025, demonstrating that his material holds up to scrutiny from the most demanding professional audiences. Biography highlights Professor of Particle Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester; Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science Member, ATLAS collaboration, CERN Large Hadron Collider; formerly co-spokesperson, FP420 R&D project at CERN (2004–2009) Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS); CBE for services to the promotion of science Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize (2012); Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and Prize (2010); Royal Television Society Best Presenter (2011) Author of six popular science books with collective sales exceeding one million copies, including The Quantum Universe and Why Does E=mc2? Guinness World Records holder for live science touring; Horizons: A 21st Century Space Odyssey reached over 400,000 people across three continents Appointed UN Champion for Space by UNOOSA, October 2025 Presenter of multiple Peabody and BAFTA-recognised BBC series including Wonders of the Solar System, Wonders of the Universe, and The Planets Biography Brian Cox holds a chair in particle physics at the University of Manchester and works on the ATLAS experiment at CERN – the collaboration responsible for some of the most significant experimental results in the history of physics. That grounding in active research is what separates him from science communicators who translate the work of others. He is doing the work himself. His books – Why Does E=mc2?, The Quantum Universe, Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos – have collectively sold over a million copies. Each one takes a genuine problem in physics, works through it without condescension, and arrives at implications that reward careful attention. The Royal Society awarded him the Michael Faraday Prize for exactly this quality: rigorous science made genuinely accessible. Live, Cox operates at a scale no other scientist in the world matches. His Horizons tour set two Guinness World Records, reaching over 400,000 people across the UK, North America, Australia, and Europe. These are not public lectures; they are full arena productions using state-of-the-art visual technology, exploring quantum theory, black holes, the origin of life, and the nature of time. In October 2025, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs designated him UN Champion for Space – recognising his ability to connect frontier physics to the practical challenges of global governance and sustainability. For boards and senior leadership teams, Cox offers something specific: a working physicist’s account of where the science actually is, what it makes possible, and what it rules out. At the World Economic Forum, at Infosecurity Europe, at TED – the audiences are demanding, and the material holds. The value is not inspiration in the abstract; it is the kind of rigorous, first-principles framing that improves the quality of strategic decisions. Key speaking topics Particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider Quantum mechanics and its practical implications Space technology and global infrastructure The origin and structure of the universe Scientific reasoning and evidence-based decision-making The future of space exploration and governance Science communication and public understanding of technology Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams seeking first-principles scientific context for technology strategy CTOs, CIOs, and transformation leads navigating quantum computing and advanced physics-derived technologies Global leadership summits and flagship corporate conferences requiring authoritative, high-profile keynote presence Organisations in aerospace, defence, energy, financial services, or cybersecurity where physical science is directly relevant to competitive strategy Audience outcomes A clearer mental model of what quantum mechanics, particle physics, and space science actually mean for the technologies being built now Confidence in reasoning about scientific uncertainty and frontier research – rather than deferring entirely to technical specialists A broader frame for long-term strategic thinking, grounded in the timescales and constraints of physical reality rather than market cycles Greater appreciation of evidence-based reasoning as a decision-making discipline, not just a scientific one Understanding of how space-based infrastructure and emerging physics-derived technologies intersect with sustainability, governance, and geopolitical risk

Why organisations work with Bernard Marr His frameworks for data strategy and AI adoption are grounded in peer-reviewed academic research from Cambridge and Cranfield – which means they hold up to internal scrutiny in ways that practitioner opinion rarely does. Business Trends in Practice, winner of the 2022 Business Book of the Year Award, gives executive audiences a shared, structured vocabulary for decisions that are otherwise made in fragmented, jargon-heavy conversations. His Forbes column reaches approximately one million readers a month – meaning his conceptual framing is often already in the room before he arrives, which accelerates rather than starts the conversation. He advises organisations across the full spectrum of sectors – from Google and Microsoft to the Bank of England, NATO and the NHS – which gives him a pattern-recognition advantage that single-sector specialists cannot replicate. Where most AI speakers address technology adoption as an IT problem, Marr consistently frames it as a governance and leadership problem – which is what boards and C-suites are actually wrestling with. Biography highlights Research Fellow, Cambridge Judge Business School; subsequently at Cranfield School of Management – before founding Bernard Marr & Co in 2006 Author of more than 20 books on AI, data strategy and digital transformation, published in over 20 languages Business Trends in Practice named Business Book of the Year 2022; additional awards include the CMI Management Book of the Year, Axiom Book Award and WHSmith Best Business Book Award Ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world Regular contributor to Forbes and the World Economic Forum; media presence includes BBC News, Sky News, the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and HBR Advisory clients include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, the Bank of England, NATO, the NHS, Shell and the United Nations Biography Bernard Marr spent his early career as a research fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School and then at Cranfield School of Management, where his published work – cited more than 5,400 times – focused on business performance, intellectual capital and strategic measurement. In 2006 he left academia to found Bernard Marr & Co, taking that analytical infrastructure into advisory work with some of the world’s most complex organisations. His books – more than twenty of them, translated into over twenty languages – are not airport business books. Data Strategy, AI Strategy, Generative AI in Practice and Future Skills each address a specific executive decision: how to treat data as a governed asset, how to build an AI adoption roadmap, how to prepare a workforce for automation. Business Trends in Practice won the 2022 Business Book of the Year Award. His writing for Forbes, published at a rate of around three articles per week, gives those frameworks sustained reach into executive audiences between engagements. What makes Marr useful to a board is not that he explains technology well – many speakers do that. It is that he consistently reframes technology questions as governance questions: who owns the data strategy, how do we assess AI risk, what does leadership fluency in this area actually require? These are the questions that stall transformation programmes, and they sit above the pay grade of a CTO. His advisory work spans Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the Bank of England, NATO, the NHS, Shell and the United Nations – a range that gives him cross-sector pattern recognition that sector-specific specialists cannot replicate. The organisations that benefit most from his work are those where the executive team is technically literate enough to know they don’t know enough, and needs a structured way to close that gap. Key speaking topics AI strategy and adoption for executive leadership Data strategy and data governance Generative AI and its organisational implications Digital transformation and business performance Future of work and future skills Emerging technology trends and business impact Strategic performance management Ideal for C-suite and board-level audiences navigating AI and data investment decisions Chief Digital Officers, Chief Data Officers and technology transformation leads Senior leadership teams ahead of major digital transformation programmes Corporate and enterprise conference audiences requiring clarity on technology without technical fluency as a prerequisite Audience outcomes A working framework for evaluating AI and data investments – not just a description of what they are Clearer language for discussing technology strategy at board level, with less dependence on specialist intermediaries Understanding of which emerging technology trends carry genuine near-term organisational implications versus which are still speculative A more structured approach to data governance and the conditions under which data generates strategic advantage Insight into the skills and capabilities organisations will need to build – and which to acquire versus develop internally