Digital Transformation

Why organisations work with Giuseppe Stigliano Co-author with Philip Kotler of three books on the future of retail and marketing, including Redefining Retail: 10 Guiding Principles for a Post-Digital World, giving boards a tested framework rather than a point of view. Sits on both sides of the table: Global CEO of Spring Studios, former CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy, and Adjunct Professor at UCL, so the same person who teaches the framework has run the P&L it applies to. Named to the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024, the bench of emerging thinkers the Thinkers50 community expects to shape management practice. Works directly with CMOs and retail leadership on the operating consequences of AI, omnichannel and changing consumer behaviour, not the headline trends. Delivers keynotes in English, Italian, Spanish and French, with a substantial and growing share now in Spanish for audiences across Spain and Latin America. Platform experience spans more than thirty countries and both B2B and B2C audiences. Biography highlights Co-author with Philip Kotler of Retail 4.0, Onlife Fashion and Redefining Retail (Wiley, 2024); books translated into eight languages. Global CEO of Spring Studios; former CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy; previously led a WPP EMEA team across FCA, J. Walter Thompson and Spring Studios. Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024. Adjunct Professor of Retail and Consumer Entrepreneurship at UCL School of Management, with prior teaching at Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and POLIMI Graduate School of Management. Ph.D. in Marketing and Economics; Forbes columnist and LinkedIn Top Voice. TEDx talk How To Become a Marketing Superhero with over one million views. Biography Retail used to be a question of channel. It is now a question of operating model. Consumer businesses run physical stores, e-commerce, marketplace, social commerce and emerging virtual touchpoints in parallel, often with separate leadership, separate metrics and separate technology stacks. The customer sees one brand. The organisation behaves like several. Redefining Retail, co-authored with Philip Kotler and published by Wiley in 2024, sets out ten principles for running the commercial model of a consumer business when the digital age is no longer the destination but the baseline. The argument behind the book is operational: sustainability, inclusion, working policy and AI are no longer brand topics, they are inputs into the value chain. The book sits alongside two earlier Kotler co-authorships, Retail 4.0 and Onlife Fashion, and together the three are translated into eight languages. The credibility on the operating side comes from three CEO tenures at international marketing agencies. As Global CEO of Spring Studios, Stigliano leads a creative platform with offices in London, New York, Los Angeles and Milan, serving fashion, beauty, luxury, hospitality and lifestyle clients. Before that he was CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy and led a WPP EMEA team across FCA, J. Walter Thompson and Spring Studios. The academic side is held at UCL School of Management, where he is Adjunct Professor of Retail and Consumer Entrepreneurship. Thinkers50 named him to its Radar Class of 2024. He writes a Forbes column, holds a LinkedIn Top Voice designation, and his TEDx talk on marketing has passed a million views. In a boardroom on retail or consumer strategy, the most useful thing he brings is the dual standing: the framework being discussed is one he wrote, and the operating problem in the room is one he has had to solve as CEO. Key speaking topics The future of retail and the post-digital consumer Marketing and brand transformation Customer experience and commerce across physical, digital and virtual channels The business implications of AI for consumer-facing organisations Post-digital leadership Innovation in fashion, beauty and luxury Scaling consumer businesses internationally Ideal for CMOs and Chief Customer Officers redesigning the marketing and commerce operating model Retail, fashion, beauty, luxury and hospitality executive teams and boards Heads of digital and e-commerce inside consumer businesses moving past pilot-stage AI Innovation, transformation and strategy leads in consumer industries Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the post-digital retail model and where it breaks current operating assumptions A framework, taken from Redefining Retail, for prioritising the ten shifts that matter most Sharper questions about where AI changes the customer-facing P&L and where it does not A clear read on how leading consumer brands are restructuring around omnichannel commerce Concrete examples drawn from his client work and CEO experience across luxury, fashion and beauty

Why organisations work with Sharon Gai She offers a working model for redesigning teams and reporting lines when agentic AI absorbs the work middle management was paid to do. Her book How to Do More with Less (Wiley, 2026) maps the shift from task-based to capability-based org structures, with named roles for what humans do once execution is automated. Most AI adoption speakers describe what is happening to organisations from the outside. As Head of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba’s Tmall, Sharon worked inside the operating core of one of the world’s most AI-integrated commercial platforms. The vantage gives her authority on AI’s organisational effects that advisers and analysts cannot manufacture. Her practitioner depth on China’s ecommerce ecosystem, built into Ecommerce Reimagined (World Scientific, 2022), gives commercial and transformation leaders a primary source on consumer-to-manufacturer models and AI-integrated logistics via Cainiao. For European boards looking five years ahead, this is the live case study Western markets are still catching up to. Her “Culture Fluid” framework gives leadership teams a way to address the human side of AI adoption without falling into change-management cliché. It explains why two organisations with the same technology stack will get different results. Her client list spans UBS, Deloitte, Nestlé, Walmart, LVMH, and Lenovo, with platform exposure on Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, TechCrunch, and Wired. Recognised as a LinkedIn Top AI Voice (2026) and a RETHINK Retail Top AI Leader. Biography highlights Author of How to Do More with Less: Future-Proofing Yourself in an AI-Driven Economy (Wiley, 2026) and Ecommerce Reimagined: Retail and Ecommerce in China (World Scientific, 2022) Former Head of Global Key Accounts at Tmall, Alibaba’s core commerce pillar, led omnichannel and ecommerce strategy for major international accounts including Adidas, P&G, H&M, and Xiaomi Selected for the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, the internal programme designed to globalise Alibaba’s business units MS in Information & Knowledge Strategy, Columbia University; Honours BA in International Development, McGill University Former Global Shaper, World Economic Forum Named in AAE’s Top Keynote Speakers 2023; recognised as a RETHINK Retail Top AI Leader, LinkedIn Top Voice (2024), and LinkedIn Top AI Voice (2026) Media appearances on Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, TechCrunch, Wired, CBC, and CCTV; keynote clients include UBS, Deloitte, Nestlé, Walmart, LVMH, and Lenovo Biography The work middle management was paid to do is moving into systems. Reporting, status tracking, summarisation, performance feedback, project oversight: agentic AI now performs each of these to the standard a competent manager would have delivered five years ago. The org chart that organisations grew up with is becoming structurally redundant, and most leadership teams do not yet have a working model for what replaces it. That question is the centre of Sharon Gai’s recent work. Her book How to Do More with Less (Wiley, 2026) maps the shift from task-based org structures to capability-based ones, naming what concentrates in humans once execution is automated: judgement, taste, theory of mind, original problem definition. The book sits within an active body of writing on what she calls the Org Chart of the Future, drawing on the live restructures already underway at Meta, Microsoft, and others. Her authority on these questions comes from operational experience few AI speakers can claim. As Head of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba’s Tmall, she worked inside one of the world’s most AI-integrated commercial platforms, leading omnichannel and ecommerce strategy for Adidas, P&G, H&M, and Xiaomi. Selection for the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, the internal programme tasked with globalising Alibaba’s business units, deepened that vantage. Her first book, Ecommerce Reimagined (World Scientific, 2022), remains the only practitioner account of China’s ecommerce ecosystem written from within Alibaba, examining how consumer-to-manufacturer models and AI-integrated logistics via Cainiao function inside the company. Her “Culture Fluid” framework addresses the parallel internal question: how to build the agility to compete across simultaneous cultural and technological shifts. The work connects the structural argument of the Org Chart of the Future to the human capability conditions that make any redesign executable. Without the second, the first remains an idea on a slide. Key speaking topics The Org Chart of the Future: AI-era team and role design AI adoption at organisational scale: from pilots to operating model The disappearing middle: agentic AI and management layers Future-proofing in an AI-driven economy China’s AI-integrated commerce ecosystem Culture Fluid: organisational agility across cultural and technological shifts Consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) models and AI-integrated supply chains Ideal for CHROs, COOs, and transformation leads designing the operating model and workforce for an AI-augmented organisation Boards and executive committees confronting the structural implications of AI on management layers, headcount, and capability planning Chief Commercial Officers and heads of digital in retail, FMCG, luxury, and consumer brands looking at AI’s effect on platform commerce Leadership development programmes where AI adoption needs the perspective of someone who has worked inside an organisation operating at AI saturation Audience outcomes A structural model for redesigning teams and reporting lines when agentic AI absorbs the work middle management was paid to do Operating clarity on which AI use cases produce advantage and which produce vendor revenue A view of how China’s AI-integrated commerce platforms actually function, drawn from inside Alibaba, and what is genuinely replicable in Western markets A direct answer to the question of where human capability concentrates in an AI-driven organisation: judgement, taste, theory of mind, original problem definition A shared language, through the Culture Fluid model, for the human side of AI adoption

Why organisations work with Huy Nguyen Trieu Two decades inside tier-one banks (Citi, Royal Bank of Scotland, Société Générale) paired with co-founding CFTE, a capability platform that has reached more than 200,000 professionals across 130 countries, gives him a view neither pure bankers nor pure technologists can offer. His work names the specific mechanisms by which AI is reshaping institutions, drawing on frameworks developed at CFTE including the AI Capability Engine, the Performance Hexagon, the CDE Innovation Prism and the SHIME skills model. Boards and policymakers use him to pressure-test AI strategy against what is actually deployable, including a strategy briefing for the senior leadership of a top-five global financial institution and a full-day executive programme for a major central bank with over 100 senior leaders. Author of “The AI-fication of Jobs” (2024) and co-author of “The Fintech Job Report” (2022), both of which set out workforce impact in numbers executives can use for planning. Council Member of the ADI Foundation, Industry Fellow at Imperial College Business School, and former member of the World Economic Forum’s Fintech Advisory Board, so his work holds up in front of regulators and sovereign actors as well as operators. Biography highlights Co-founder, Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), reaching more than 200,000 professionals across 130 countries. Council Member, ADI Foundation, contributing to sovereign blockchain infrastructure including national stablecoins and digital public infrastructure. Former Managing Director at Citi, with earlier roles at Royal Bank of Scotland and Société Générale; founding partner of Supercharger, one of Asia’s largest fintech accelerators; former CEO of Ukibi, a venture-backed US technology start-up. Graduate of MIT and École Polytechnique; first Fintech Resident at Oxford Saïd Business School; Industry Fellow at Imperial College Business School; former member of the World Economic Forum’s Fintech Advisory Board. Author of “The AI-fication of Jobs” (2024); co-author of “The Fintech Job Report: Technology is eating Finance” (2022). Commentary on AI in financial services featured in international business media including the Financial Times, Bloomberg and CNBC. Biography Most banks have been running digital transformation programmes for a decade. The harder question now reaches further than banking. Governments, central banks and financial institutions all face the same problem: translating AI from pilots into operating capability that holds up under regulation and talent constraints. That is the terrain Huy Nguyen Trieu has worked on from both sides. He spent years at Citi, finishing as a Managing Director, with earlier roles at Royal Bank of Scotland and Société Générale. Before banking he was CEO of Ukibi, a venture-backed US technology start-up, and was later a founding partner of Supercharger, one of Asia’s largest fintech accelerators. The mix means he reads an institution’s P&L the way an operator does and reads a technology bet the way an investor does. He co-founded CFTE, the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship. It now reaches more than 200,000 professionals across 130 countries and works with governments, central banks and financial institutions on AI capability at scale. CFTE’s frameworks, including the AI Capability Engine, the Performance Hexagon, the CDE Innovation Prism and the SHIME skills model, are the spine of that work. He was the first Fintech Resident at Oxford Saïd Business School and is an Industry Fellow at Imperial College Business School. He also serves as a Council Member of the ADI Foundation, contributing to sovereign blockchain infrastructure for emerging markets. Recent engagements illustrate the scope. He delivered a keynote on the third wave of AI in the presence of H.E. the President of the Republic of Cyprus. Other engagements include a strategy briefing for a top-five global financial institution and a full-day executive programme for a major central bank with more than 100 senior leaders. His book “The AI-fication of Jobs” (2024) explains why AI breaks the historical assumption that new technology creates more jobs than it destroys. Key speaking topics Fintech and the future of financial services AI in banking and capital markets Digital business models in regulated industries Platform economics and hyperscalable finance Future of work in financial services Digital assets and tokenisation Venture capital and fintech investment trends Ideal for Governments and central banks building AI capability across regulated sectors Bank and insurer boards setting AI and fintech strategy CEOs, COOs and CIOs of financial institutions running transformation agendas Heads of innovation, strategy and HR grappling with workforce impact of AI Audience outcomes A clearer read on which fintech and AI shifts are structural and which are overstated. Specific examples of business-model change from inside banks, fintechs and big tech, not generic case studies. A workforce view: which roles in finance shrink, which expand, and what skills leaders should build now. A sharper frame for board-level conversations on AI risk, digital assets and platform strategy.

Why organisations work with Andrew Lloyd Gordon He brings a working academic’s grasp of behavioural science into the room where pricing, positioning and campaign calls actually get made, rather than leaving it at theory. His Google Digital Academy and “We Are Squared” training work gives him a current, practitioner-grade read on how digital marketing is actually taught and executed inside the platforms buyers depend on. His Warwick teaching post on the business MSc at WMG means his material is tested on senior post-graduate students, not only conference audiences, which sharpens the frameworks before they reach a client room. He has delivered to commercial, public-sector and charitable buyers at the same level of specificity – Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, the NHS, University of Cambridge – so the behavioural-science argument holds up outside the usual marketing-conference audience. Biography highlights Assistant Professor, WMG, University of Warwick, teaching on the post-graduate business MSc. MSc Business Psychology (Distinction), Coventry University; BA (Hons) Psychology, University of Liverpool; Organisation Studies, Warwick Business School. Trainer on Google’s “We Are Squared” digital marketing programme and member of Google’s Digital Academy training team. Client work with the UK Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, Hitachi, Hearst Magazines, the NHS, Universal Music, Kings College London, UCAS and the University of Cambridge. Signature keynote topics include customer psychology, the psychology of pricing, marketing-led growth and innovation adoption. Speaks internationally across the UK, USA, Middle East, Europe and the West Indies, to audiences ranging from 30 to 3,000. Biography Buying decisions are not made on the spreadsheet side of the brain. Price sensitivity, brand preference, the decision to try something new, the decision to stay with a supplier – these sit in territory that behavioural science has spent four decades mapping. Most commercial functions have not caught up. That gap is the working material of Andrew Lloyd Gordon’s career. He is a business psychologist with an MSc from Coventry, undergraduate psychology from Liverpool and organisation studies from Warwick Business School, and he holds an Assistant Professor post at WMG, University of Warwick, teaching on the post-graduate business MSc. The academic grounding is real; the output is commercial. His practitioner credentials sit next to the academic ones. He is a trainer on Google’s “We Are Squared” digital marketing programme and a member of Google’s Digital Academy training team, which keeps his material close to how digital acquisition is actually executed inside the platforms most organisations rely on. Client work spans the UK Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, Hitachi, Hearst, the NHS, Universal Music, Kings College London, UCAS and the University of Cambridge. The argument he makes to senior commercial audiences is narrow and useful. Pricing, persuasion, innovation adoption and customer retention are psychological problems before they are channel problems, and teams built around funnels and attribution models routinely miss this. His keynotes walk leaders through the specific behavioural mechanisms – how price is perceived, how influence actually works, why new products stall on launch – and translate them into decisions marketing and product teams can take the next morning. Key speaking topics Customer psychology and the science of influence Behavioural pricing Marketing-led business growth Innovation adoption inside organisations Digital marketing strategy Applied behavioural science for commercial teams Ideal for CMOs, marketing directors and commercial leaders rebuilding how their teams think about customer decision-making. Pricing, revenue and product leaders who need a behavioural-science lens on pricing architecture and positioning. Innovation and transformation leads launching new propositions into sceptical internal and external audiences. Senior leadership teams in regulated or public-sector contexts where persuasion and adoption matter as much as the policy itself. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the behavioural mechanisms that drive customer choice, with named principles rather than anecdotes. Specific questions to take back to pricing, marketing and product teams about where psychology is being ignored in current practice. A sharper read on why well-resourced campaigns and launches underperform, and what to change first. Practical examples drawn from Google training and FTSE-scale client work, not laboratory studies alone.

Why organisations work with Tim Cortinovis He treats AI in sales as an operating model question, not a tooling question. The conversation shifts from “which platform” to “what does revenue generation look like when the work itself is automated” His “single-handed unicorn” thesis names a specific argument that lands with founders, scale-up CEOs and corporate innovators: the unit economics of building large companies with very small teams have changed, and the strategic implication is concrete He is one of a small number of speakers genuinely fluent in agentic AI for revenue, recognised by Thinkers360 in both the AI and Sales categories, not one or the other He delivers in English, German and Spanish, which makes him commercially useful across European corporate audiences without translation overhead The frame is business-first and pragmatic. Forbes called him a tech visionary, but the room gets actionable economics, not a tour of model capabilities Biography highlights Top 10 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Top 10 Thought Leader in Sales, Thinkers360 Author of several books on AI in sales and revenue, including Agentic Revenue Systems and The Single-Handed Unicorn Named clients include Siemens, E.ON, ING, MSC Cruises, Edelman and YPO Master of Arts in Spanish and German Linguistics, University of Hamburg Member, Global Speakers Federation and German Speakers Association Keynote languages: English, German, Spanish Biography Most “AI in sales” content is still tooling content. It explains what platforms exist, how a model can draft an email, where automation removes a click. The harder argument, the one buyers are starting to ask for, is what the commercial organisation looks like when an autonomous agent owns the workflow end to end. Tim Cortinovis works in that argument. His ‘single-handed unicorn’ thesis names something specific: the unit economics of building a large business have changed, because agentic systems now do work that once required headcount. For corporate leaders, the implication is a redesign of how revenue and customer operations are staffed. His most recent book, Agentic Revenue Systems, carries that argument into the enterprise. It frames a three-layer model for revenue teams: human judgment, agentic execution, and governance. Thinkers360 places him in the top ten globally for both Agentic AI and Sales. The credentials sit on top of fifteen years of operating experience in international B2B sales and marketing, primarily in IT and automation. That history shows in the room. Named clients include Siemens, E.ON, ING, MSC Cruises and Edelman, and the work is delivered across English, German and Spanish for European audiences who want practical economics rather than a tour of model capabilities. In Forbes, Michael Ashley described him as a ‘tech visionary’. The more useful description is that he gives a sales leadership team a defensible answer to what AI is actually for in their organisation. Key speaking topics The Agentic Revenue Architecture Agentic AI in sales and revenue operations The single-handed unicorn thesis Sales and marketing automation AI-driven business model redesign Future of work in commercial functions Digital transformation in B2B sales Ideal for Chief Revenue Officers and Chief Commercial Officers running AI transformation in sales Founders and scale-up CEOs rethinking headcount under agentic AI Boards and ExCos asking what AI actually changes about commercial operating models Sales leadership offsites and B2B revenue conferences across Europe and the Americas Audience outcomes A clear position on what agentic AI changes about the structure of a revenue organisation, not just its tools A working vocabulary for the single-handed unicorn argument and where it does and does not apply Specific examples of AI-driven commercial models from companies already operating this way A sharper view of where their own sales function is automatable now versus 18 months out

Why organisations work with Alessandro Lanteri The CLEVER Framework and the Innovation Pyramid are named, peer-reviewed tools – not proprietary consulting models – giving leadership teams a shared analytical language for strategy in technology-disrupted markets that can be used well beyond the event itself. His PhD in Philosophy and Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam brings disciplinary rigour to AI ethics and strategic decision-making that management-trained advisors rarely provide; his arguments sit at the intersection of decision theory, ethics, and competitive strategy – a combination that is demonstrably scarce in this speaker category. Two commercially published books – CLEVER (Amazon #1 bestseller in Italy and the UK) and Innovating with Impact (The Economist Books, 2023) – confirm that his frameworks have been validated by mainstream leadership audiences, not just academic peer reviewers. Teaching engagements at Saïd Business School (Oxford), London Business School, and ESCP mean his content has been stress-tested against senior executive cohorts in multiple institutional contexts before it reaches the conference stage. His TEDx talk “Why Driverless Cars Need Philosophers” – over 200,000 views – demonstrates an ability to make the ethics and competitive logic of emerging technology land with audiences who are not technical specialists, which is precisely the audience most organisations need to bring along. Biography highlights Full Professor of Strategy and Innovation, ESCP Business School (Turin campus) Author of the CLEVER Framework (CLEVER: The Six Strategic Drivers for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Amazon #1 bestseller in Italy and the UK) and the Innovation Pyramid (Innovating with Impact, The Economist Books, 2023, with Ted Ladd) Contributing writer to Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review, World Economic Forum Agenda, and Forbes TEDx speaker – “Why Driverless Cars Need Philosophers” (TEDxHultAshridge), over 200,000 views Executive education faculty, Saïd Business School (University of Oxford) and London Business School PhD in Philosophy and Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam; MSc in Economics, Bocconi University Biography The gap between technology adoption and competitive strategy is one of the most consistent failure points in corporate innovation – organisations make significant investments in AI, digital platforms, and emerging technologies without the strategic architecture to turn those investments into competitive position. Alessandro Lanteri’s body of work is a direct response to that problem. Lanteri is Full Professor of Strategy and Innovation at ESCP Business School, where his research and teaching focus on how organisations compete in environments shaped by technological disruption. He also contributes to executive education at Saïd Business School (University of Oxford) and London Business School. His PhD in Philosophy and Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam gives his strategic frameworks an analytical foundation that is uncommon in management education – his thinking on AI ethics, decision-making under uncertainty, and competitive logic draws on disciplines that sit well outside the standard strategy canon. His two books give organisations structured tools for navigating this terrain. CLEVER: The Six Strategic Drivers for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an Amazon #1 bestseller in Italy and the UK, identifies the deep forces reshaping competitive advantage in technology-driven markets and provides a diagnostic framework for leadership response. Innovating with Impact – co-authored with Ted Ladd and published in the Economist Edge series – introduces the Innovation Pyramid, a model that sequences the cultural foundations, methods, and strategic themes organisations need to move from isolated innovation experiments to systematic, measurable impact. His practitioner writing appears in Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review, the World Economic Forum Agenda, and Forbes. A TEDx talk on the ethics and strategic implications of autonomous AI decision-making has been viewed over 200,000 times – evidence of an unusual capacity to make complex arguments about technology and strategy accessible to the leadership audiences that most need to hear them. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and competitive advantage The CLEVER Framework and the Fourth Industrial Revolution Artificial intelligence and business strategy The Innovation Pyramid: from innovation experiments to strategic impact Digital transformation and emerging technologies AI ethics and responsible technology adoption in organisations Strategic foresight and scenario planning in uncertain markets Ideal for Strategy directors and C-suite leaders defining competitive positioning in technology-disrupted markets Corporate innovation and digital transformation leads Executive education cohorts at business schools and senior leadership development programmes Boards reviewing innovation governance and technology investment strategy Audience outcomes A named, structured framework (CLEVER) for diagnosing how AI, digital platforms, and emerging technologies affect their specific competitive environment A step-by-step model (the Innovation Pyramid) for building the organisational cultures, processes, and strategic themes needed for consistent, high-impact innovation Clarity on which technology investments are likely to yield strategic advantage – and the diagnostic tools to distinguish those from investments that produce activity without impact A framework for approaching AI and digital transformation through a competitive strategy lens, rather than a purely technical one Practical methods for aligning innovation activity with long-term strategic positioning

Why organisations work with Lucy Hitchcock She has done the thing she talks about. Partner in Wine went from a lockdown side project to stockists at Selfridges, Liberty London, Oliver Bonas and Urban Outfitters, with a TikTok video that drove a single-day sales lift of 1,700%. She runs the agency, Sassy Digital, that supports the playbook. Marketing teams get a practitioner view of Shopify, e-commerce design and short-form video, not a keynote abstraction of them. Her recognition is concrete and named: Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch, plus inclusion in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021 list. She is one of the few UK speakers who can explain how a viral moment converts into a buyer meeting at Selfridges, and what the operations behind that conversion actually look like. Biography highlights Founder of Sassy Digital, a Shopify and Squarespace digital marketing and e-commerce agency. Founder of Partner in Wine, stocked at Selfridges, Liberty London, Oliver Bonas and Urban Outfitters. Named to the Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch list. Featured in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021 following a viral product launch video. Host of The Winging It Podcast, a business and entrepreneurship show produced by Sassy Digital. Featured by BBC News, Business Insider, Mail Online and The Sun on her business growth story. Biography A warm glass of wine in a London park during lockdown is an unlikely starting point for a consumer brand that ends up on the shelves at Selfridges and Liberty London. Partner in Wine, the insulated wine bottle business Lucy Hitchcock launched in 2020, took that path inside eighteen months. A single TikTok video in March 2021 drove half a million views in twelve hours and a 1,700% spike in same-day sales. The reason this matters to a commercial audience is not the virality. It is the conversion. Most brands that go viral do not end up with a buyer meeting at a flagship retailer; Hitchcock did, and then repeated it with Oliver Bonas, Urban Outfitters and Liberty. The growth was bootstrapped, run from her parents’ house in the early months, and underwritten by the agency she had already built. That agency is Sassy Digital, which she founded at 23 to help small consumer businesses with branding, Shopify builds and e-commerce design. Working both sides of the table, founder and agency operator, gives her an unusual view of where short-form social actually breaks down for product brands and where the operations have to catch up. Recognition followed the work. Hitchcock was named to the Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch list, and Partner in Wine was featured in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021. She hosts The Winging It Podcast, where she interviews other founders on what they actually did, not what they wish they had. Key speaking topics Direct-to-consumer brand building Short-form social and TikTok for product growth Bootstrapped e-commerce scaling Retail distribution and buyer conversion Female founder journey Digital marketing for small business Ideal for Founders and CMOs of consumer and DTC brands Marketing leaders responsible for organic social and content Retail buyer and merchandising audiences exploring emerging brands Entrepreneurship programmes and female founder networks Audience outcomes A practitioner view of how a single piece of organic content converts into retail distribution. Specific operational lessons from scaling a bootstrapped consumer brand from kitchen-table launch to Selfridges shelf. A clearer read on what actually drives short-form social performance for product, versus what looks good on a deck. A founder’s account of the unglamorous mechanics behind a viral moment: stock, fulfilment, cash, buyer outreach.

Why organisations work with Dan Sobovitz Five years inside the cabinet of a European Commission Vice-President, writing speeches and running digital for the institution that regulates much of Europe’s technology agenda. That is a view of how policy communication actually works that external consultants rarely have. Runs spreadable.io, the agency behind interactive programmes for the European Commission, European Parliament, UNESCO, Michelin, Groupe RATP, and Viva Tech. Clients hire him when a standard panel format will not hold the room. Chief communications role at the European Startup Prize for Mobility, Europe’s largest acceleration programme for clean mobility startups, gives him a working feed of what is actually happening in European mobility and climate tech rather than a reading of it. Hosts and moderates in English and French across tech, mobility, and sustainability events including Viva Tech, ChangeNow, and Michelin’s Movin’On Challenge, with a hosting style built around live audience interaction rather than scripted Q and A. Civil society work through DemoCrisis and Fondation Ceci n’est pas une crise gives him a serious, non-promotional voice on how digital platforms are changing democratic participation. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, spreadable.io, Brussels Chief Communications Officer, European Startup Prize for Mobility Senior Adviser, Digital Communications, BCW Former speechwriter and digital communications strategist, cabinet of European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic TEDx speaker, “Can technology make democracy great again?” (TEDxAUEB) MA, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs; MPP, Hertie School of Governance Biography Inside the European Commission, the problem was not a shortage of policy. It was that the policy was not reaching anyone outside Brussels. Dan Sobovitz spent five years in the cabinet of Vice-President Maros Sefcovic working on exactly that, writing speeches and running digital channels that tried to turn technical EU work into something recognisable to citizens, journalists, and founders. The methods were unusual for an institution. Live interactive interviews from a self-driving car. VR footage of EU satellites going into orbit. Crowdsourcing policy input from youth and climate activists through digital platforms. Live audience voting at EU startup pitches. Most of it came out of a single idea: the Commission had interesting things to say and was burying them under procedural language. He now runs spreadable.io, the interactive-events agency he founded after leaving the Commission, with clients including the European Parliament, UNESCO, Michelin, Groupe RATP, and Viva Tech. Alongside this he is Chief Communications Officer at the European Startup Prize for Mobility, the EU’s largest acceleration programme for clean mobility startups, and a Senior Adviser on Digital Communications at BCW. His civic work through DemoCrisis and Fondation Ceci n’est pas une crise addresses a narrower question that runs under everything else he does: what happens to democratic participation when the public conversation moves onto platforms none of the participants control. He writes and speaks on that question in English and French, and has given a TEDx talk, “Can technology make democracy great again?” Key speaking topics Digital communications and institutional storytelling Technology, democracy, and civic participation Sustainable mobility and clean transport innovation European startup ecosystems and innovation policy Interactive conference formats and audience engagement Public policy communication in the age of platforms Ideal for Corporate and institutional communications leaders rethinking how they talk about technology and regulation Innovation, mobility, and sustainability programmes looking for a bilingual host who can run a serious technical room Public affairs and policy teams operating at the EU level CEO and C-suite audiences planning flagship innovation or transformation events Audience outcomes A sharper read on how European institutions and corporates are actually communicating technology and policy, and where that is breaking down Concrete examples of formats that move an audience out of passive listening, drawn from live EU and corporate programmes A working understanding of how the European clean mobility and startup landscape fits together across Commission, Parliament, and industry A more honest view of what digital platforms are doing to public debate and what institutions can do about it

Why organisations work with Shivvy Jervis A forecaster who has worked through Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division, briefing each on where digital, AI and neuroscience advances are heading next. A second specialism in applied neuroscience, covering drive, stress and persuasion, which gives her sessions a behavioural dimension most technology speakers cannot offer. A broadcaster’s craft built across CNN, Reuters and a Discovery Channel documentary, so she can hold a leadership audience for a keynote and run the full event around it. Recognition from Forbes (Trailblazer), Management Today (Champion of Change) and Britain’s Women of the Year, anchoring her credibility outside the speaker circuit. Sustained focus on human-centred technology rather than tool demos, which lands with audiences asking how to deploy AI without losing the workforce in the process. Biography highlights Founder of FutureScape 248, a social innovation and forecasting consultancy launched in 2017. Former CNN broadcast journalist; presenter of a two-part Discovery Channel documentary on the future of cities. Forecasting work conducted for Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division. Named a Trailblazer by Forbes, one of Britain’s Women of the Year, and a Champion of Change by Management Today. Two long-running streaming video series on technology and innovation with a reported audience of 14 million. Recognised by the World Economic Forum and cited by CNN as one of the most trusted voices on technology. Biography Most boards now sit between two pressures on technology. There is a brief to “do something with AI” arriving from above, and a workforce asking what any of it means for their job. The reading they need is editorial, not vendor-led. That is the gap Shivvy Jervis works in. As founder of FutureScape 248, the forecasting consultancy she launched in 2017, she has briefed Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division on what is plausible, what is hype, and what is close enough to commit capital to. The frame is consistently human-centred: not what the technology does, but what it changes about how people work, decide and buy. A second strand of her practice draws on applied neuroscience, covering drive, stress and persuasion at work. That gives her keynote a behavioural dimension that most technology speakers cannot match, and it lands with audiences who are wary of pure futurism. The output is editorial in tone, built from years as a broadcast journalist with CNN, Reuters and Discovery Channel. Her recognitions sit outside the bureau circuit, including Forbes Trailblazer, Britain’s Women of the Year, and Champion of Change from Management Today. The reason senior buyers commission her is more specific than awards. She translates the noise around AI and emerging tech into the small number of shifts a leadership team needs to act on. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and human-centred deployment Forecasting and emerging technology Digital transformation and the future of work Applied neuroscience for performance and decision-making Cybersecurity, privacy and data ethics Innovation strategy in regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI and digital strategy CHROs and transformation leads handling workforce response to AI Innovation, digital and customer experience leadership Industry conferences seeking a forecaster who can also host Audience outcomes A clear read on which AI and emerging-tech shifts will affect the audience’s industry on a near-term horizon. A behavioural lens on adoption, covering how people respond to AI in their work and what that means for change plans. Specific examples from her work with Microsoft, the UN, Salesforce, Lenovo and UK Government, used as reference points rather than case studies. A vocabulary leaders can use internally to separate hype from substance in vendor and pilot decisions.

Why organisations work with Marc Mekki He has built the kind of products he teaches about. Botsmith, his innovation lab, ships experimental tools using AI, AR/VR and cloud, so the method comes from practice, not theory. He teaches design thinking to consulting and corporate audiences at PwC Academy, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership and LEORON, where the bar for substance is set by professional services standards. He works fluently across China, Europe and the Middle East after twenty years of operating in those markets, which is rare for an innovation speaker. His MIT Sloan certified design thinking grounding gives senior teams confidence that the frameworks have an institutional pedigree, not a TED-talk one. He frames AI as a human-centred product problem rather than a model selection problem, which is the conversation most boards now need. Biography highlights Co-founder of Botsmith, an innovation lab building experimental software using AI, AR/VR and cloud. MIT Sloan Certified Design Thinking practitioner. Associate Faculty in Innovation, Design Thinking and Leadership Thinking at LEORON Institute. Speaker and trainer for PwC, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership, Adobe, Bombardier, Amadeus, NEOM, Procter & Gamble and Dubai Association Conference. Contributor to Boardroom Magazine, Arabian Business and Association Meetings International. Twenty years of entrepreneurial work across China, Europe and the Middle East, currently based in the UAE. Biography Most enterprises have stopped debating whether AI matters. The harder question is whether their organisation can actually turn it into a product, a service or a customer experience that works. That is the territory Marc Mekki has been operating in for two decades, first as an entrepreneur in Southern China, then as the co-founder of Botsmith, an innovation lab building experimental tools using AI, AR/VR and cloud. Botsmith is the practitioner half of his work. The teaching half runs through PwC Academy, McKinsey, Center for Creative Leadership and LEORON Institute, where he holds an Associate Faculty role in Innovation, Design Thinking and Leadership Thinking. He is MIT Sloan certified in design thinking, and he uses the same methods he ships products with when he runs sessions for senior teams. The reason this matters to a buyer is straightforward. Innovation speakers tend to come from one of two places: consultancy decks or academic research. Marc comes from a builder’s seat. He has shipped, failed, iterated and shipped again, and he has done it across China, Europe and the GCC, where he is now based. The work he writes about in Boardroom Magazine, Arabian Business and Association Meetings International is the work he does week to week. His keynotes, including The Art of a Thousand Mistakes and Something Out of Nothing, sit on the same operating thesis: iterative product practice, lean experimentation and design discipline are how organisations move emerging technology from pilot to production. Clients booking him include Adobe, Bombardier, Amadeus, NEOM, Procter & Gamble and Dubai Association Conference. Key speaking topics Applied artificial intelligence in the enterprise Design thinking and human-centred product practice Lean innovation and experimentation Digital transformation Emerging technology, including AR/VR and cloud Agile leadership Future of technology Ideal for CIOs, CTOs and Chief Digital Officers moving AI from pilot to operating use Heads of Innovation, transformation leads and product directors building portfolio discipline Customer experience and design leaders embedding human-centred methods at scale Senior teams in financial services, hospitality, energy and consulting operating in EMEA and the GCC Audience outcomes A working definition of what design thinking actually requires inside an enterprise A clearer view of why AI pilots stall and what an operating-model fix looks like Concrete patterns from Botsmith and other build environments for moving from concept to shipped product A sharper sense of how to evaluate emerging technology bets without falling for hype Practical lean experimentation language usable by non-technical executives

Why organisations work with Elin Hauge She translates AI from a vendor pitch into a leadership decision, naming the mathematics, the data risks and the regulatory exposure in language a board can act on. Her “artificial intelligence and natural stupidity” argument shifts accountability where it belongs, onto the humans designing, training and deploying the systems, which is exactly the framing regulators and litigators are moving to. A working combination of engineering, operational research and ongoing law studies lets her speak credibly across the EU AI Act, model risk and commercial strategy in a single conversation. She sits on non-executive boards, mostly as chair, so she speaks to other board members from inside the same governance problem rather than from a stage. She is rigorous about the limits of AI, including its environmental and human costs, which gives risk and sustainability committees a voice they trust rather than another adoption pitch. Biography highlights MEng in Biophysics and Medical Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. MSc in Management Science and Operational Research, Warwick Business School. Non-executive board director, chair on the majority of her current board positions. Currently in law studies focused on responsible business practice and AI regulation. Featured by Elle Canada on responsible AI development; interviewed by London Speaker Bureau as a futurist and AI strategist. Keynote speaker at international summits including LIMITL3SS 2024 in Romania and PostNord Strålfors Smarter Communication Summit 2024. Biography Boards now sign off on AI commitments without a clear view of where the technology actually adds value, where it introduces risk, and which decisions the EU AI Act will hold them to. Elin Hauge works inside that gap. Her contribution is to convert AI from a procurement conversation into a governance and strategy decision that senior leaders can defend. Her background is unusually wide for the field. An engineering degree in biophysics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, an operational research masters from Warwick Business School, more than two decades connecting data-driven technology to commercial value, and current law studies aimed at the regulatory layer. That span lets her move between model behaviour, business case and legal accountability without losing precision in any of them. The argument she returns to is that the dangerous variable in AI is not the algorithm. It is the human assumptions baked into the data and into the decision to deploy. Her framing of “natural stupidity” puts the accountability question back where regulators are putting it, on the people designing and approving the systems. For leadership teams trying to write defensible AI policy, that reframe is the work. She speaks from inside the governance problem, not from outside it. She sits on several non-executive boards, chair on most of them, and has been featured by Elle Canada and the London Speaker Bureau as a voice against irresponsible AI development. Clients including Embriq, HPE Ireland and The Future Work Forum point to the same quality: she cuts through vendor noise and tells executives what is actually decision-relevant. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and business strategy AI governance and the EU AI Act Responsible and accountable AI adoption Algorithmic bias and human accountability Digital transformation and leadership decisions Environmental cost of AI and digital infrastructure Data strategy for boards and executive teams Ideal for Boards and CEOs setting AI policy and accountability lines Chief Risk, Compliance and Legal Officers preparing for AI Act enforcement CIO, CDO and CTO leadership teams moving AI from pilots to operating decisions Sustainability and ESG committees assessing the digital footprint of AI deployment Audience outcomes A working mental model of what AI can and cannot do, stripped of vendor language. A clearer view of where accountability sits when an AI system causes harm, and what that means for governance design. Specific reference points for aligning AI deployment with the EU AI Act and adjacent regulation. A sharper read on the trade-offs between digital expansion and environmental and social cost. Confidence to challenge AI proposals at board level using the right questions, not the loudest ones.

Why organisations work with Ting Li A sitting professor at a top European business school whose work appears in Management Science, MIS Quarterly, and Information Systems Research, which means the frameworks she brings to a leadership room have already been tested against the strongest academic standards. Director of Digital Business Practice at the Erasmus Centre for Data Analytics, where research is run alongside large corporates and the Dutch government, so the recommendations are grounded in operating reality rather than slideware. One of the few academic voices working across digital pricing, online advertising, social and mobile analytics, and immersive technology, which lets her connect AI investment decisions to concrete commercial levers. Named to the Poets and Quants Top 40 Under 40 ranking of business school professors, an external signal that the teaching translates for senior executive audiences, not only doctoral students. Bilingual in English and Mandarin, with research and teaching ties across Europe, North America, and China, useful for boards working through digital strategy with operations on both sides of the rules-based order. Biography highlights Professor of Digital Business and head of the Information Systems group at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Founding member and Academic Director of Digital Business Practice at the Erasmus Centre for Data Analytics, and head of the Immersive Tech and AI Lab. Visiting Professor positions at Wharton, MIT, Tsinghua, Temple, Arizona State, and City University of Hong Kong. Published in Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Nature Communications, Production and Operations Management, and Harvard Business Review. Named by Poets and Quants as one of the Top 40 Best Business School Professors Under 40 Worldwide. Research funded by the Dutch National Science Foundation and by industry partners including VIVAT, AllSafe, and the Dutch Police. Biography Most digital strategy advice on AI and platforms is opinion dressed as evidence. Ting Li works the other way around. Her research at Rotterdam School of Management uses econometrics, field experiments, and machine learning to test what digital technologies actually do to consumer behaviour, pricing, and competitive position, then translates the result for the people making the investment call. At RSM she holds the chair in Digital Business and runs the Information Systems group. She is also Academic Director of Digital Business Practice at the Erasmus Centre for Data Analytics, where she works with corporates and Dutch public bodies on live problems in digital advertising, platform design, and AI deployment. The Immersive Tech and AI Lab she leads gives her a working view of where AR, VR, and generative tools are starting to change customer experience rather than only marketing decks. Her academic record sits at the top of the field. Papers in Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and Nature Communications, alongside articles in Harvard Business Review, mean a board hearing her on digital pricing or online advertising is hearing the underlying evidence, not a secondhand reading of it. Visiting positions at Wharton, MIT, and Tsinghua give her a working network across the leading research centres on the digital economy. The Poets and Quants Top 40 Under 40 ranking captured what executive education clients already report: she is a researcher who can hold a senior room. That is what makes her useful when the question on the table is whether a specific AI or platform bet will move the business. Key speaking topics Digital strategy and the digital economy AI and decision-making in the enterprise Digital platforms and online advertising Pricing and revenue management Social and mobile analytics Digital privacy and algorithmic accountability Generative AI, AR, VR, and immersive technology Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting digital and AI investment priorities. Chief Digital, Data, and AI Officers moving from pilots to operating deployment. Chief Marketing Officers and revenue leaders working on pricing, platform, and advertising decisions. Strategy and innovation leads in retail, financial services, and consumer-facing platforms. Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and digital investments have evidence behind them and which do not. A sharper view of how digital pricing, advertising, and platform mechanics affect customer behaviour at scale. Practical reference points for governing AI use in commercial decisions. A working sense of how immersive and generative technologies are starting to reshape customer experience.