Digital Transformation speakers

Why organisations work with Mike Walsh He works on the leadership and operating-model question that AI keynotes usually skip: who decides, with what data, supported by which machine systems, and what that means for org design. His thesis is published, not improvised. The Algorithmic Leader (Page Two, 2019) sets out ten principles for leading in the algorithmic age and has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Polish and Russian. His next book, Abundant Intelligence, is being published by Harvard Business Review Press with Deloitte’s Global Head of AI Nitin Mittal, giving boards a current reference point on hybrid human and machine workforces. He brings in-the-room exposure to Fortune 500 reinvention programmes through Tomorrow, with named advisory work across the BBC, HSBC, Philips, Fujifilm, Richemont and Televisa. He writes for the audience he speaks to. As a regular Harvard Business Review columnist, his arguments are pressure-tested with the same readers buying him. Biography highlights CEO of Tomorrow, a global consultancy on designing companies for the 21st century. Author of The Algorithmic Leader (Page Two, 2019), translated into six languages. Forthcoming book Abundant Intelligence with Harvard Business Review Press, co-authored with Deloitte’s Global Head of AI, Nitin Mittal. Regular Harvard Business Review columnist; bylines in Inc., BusinessWeek, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. Host of the Between Worlds podcast and the YouTube series The Future is Elsewhere. Founder of Jupiter Research in Asia Pacific and former senior strategy executive at News Corporation in the region. Biography Boards now buy AI tools faster than they redesign the organisations using them. The Algorithmic Leader, published by Page Two in 2019, was an early attempt to put that mismatch into a framework senior leaders could use, with ten principles for working in an environment where machine systems share the decision load. The book has since been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Polish and Russian. The work sits inside a longer career arc. Tomorrow, the consultancy Walsh founded in Hong Kong, advises CEOs and executive teams of multinationals including the BBC, HSBC, Philips, Fujifilm, Richemont and Televisa on reinvention in the algorithmic age. Earlier roles include founding Jupiter Research in Asia Pacific, an early tracker of e-commerce and digital business adoption, and senior strategy positions at News Corporation in the region. Publishing has been the spine of the practice. Futuretainment, published by Phaidon in 2009, won an Art Directors Club design award in New York. The Dictionary of Dangerous Ideas followed in 2014. As a regular Harvard Business Review columnist, with bylines in Inc., BusinessWeek, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, Walsh writes for the same audience he advises and speaks to. The forthcoming work is where the operating-model question gets sharper. Abundant Intelligence, due from Harvard Business Review Press, is co-authored with Nitin Mittal, Deloitte’s Global Head of AI, and examines how organisations orchestrate hybrid human-and-machine workforces. The thread across the books, the consultancy and the keynotes is consistent: the leadership question, not the technology question, is the one boards keep underestimating. Key speaking topics Algorithmic leadership and decision-making AI agents and digital labour Designing organisations for the 21st century Disruptive innovation and new business models Digital ethics in machine-led decisions The future of work in an AI-driven economy Strategic foresight for senior leaders Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI strategy beyond pilots CEOs, COOs and Chief Strategy Officers redesigning operating models Chief AI Officers, Chief Digital Officers and transformation leads Leadership and learning programmes preparing senior cohorts for AI-era decision-making Audience outcomes A clearer language for the leadership question inside AI investment, not just the technology question A framework, drawn from The Algorithmic Leader, for ten shifts in how senior teams decide and operate Named cases of how multinationals are restructuring around hybrid human-and-machine work A sharper view of which executive habits, hiring patterns and decision rights age badly in an AI-driven business A working definition of digital labour and what it changes for org design, talent and accountability

Why organisations work with Miriam Meckel She runs the leadership academy that European boards turn to when they need their executive layer fluent in AI, quantum and adjacent technologies, which gives her a live read on where senior teams actually get stuck. Her 2024 book with Lea Steinacker, “Alles uberall auf einmal”, is one of the most cited German-language treatments of generative AI for business audiences, anchored in regulation, labour markets and governance rather than hype. She combines a serious academic chair at the University of St. Gallen with two decades inside business media, including the editorship of WirtschaftsWoche, so her framing is built for executive audiences rather than translated for them. Her work on brain-computer interfaces and cognitive enhancement gives her unusual range when the conversation moves from current AI deployment to the next horizon of human-machine integration. She holds the 2025 Rudolf-Diesel-Medaille for Best Media Communication, a recognition explicitly tied to making complex future technologies practical for executive audiences. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of ada Learning GmbH, the AI and transformation academy spun out of Handelsblatt Media Group with Lea Steinacker and Verena Pausder. Professor of Communication Management and Director of the Institute for Media and Communication Management, University of St. Gallen. Co-author of “Alles uberall auf einmal” (Rowohlt, 2024) on artificial intelligence; author of “Mein Kopf gehort mir” (Piper, 2018) on brain-computer interfaces. Former editor-in-chief and publisher of WirtschaftsWoche, the first woman to lead the title. Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society; board member of Swiss media group Tamedia. Recipient of the Rudolf-Diesel-Medaille (2025), Ernst Schneider Prize, Cicero Speaker’s Prize for Science, Eisenhower Fellowship and John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellowship. Biography Generative AI sits on most executive agendas and inside very few operating models. The space between those two facts is where European leadership teams currently lose months. Miriam Meckel works in that gap, professionally and intellectually. As co-founder and CEO of ada Learning, she runs the academy that puts senior managers from major European companies through structured programmes on AI, quantum and the technologies reshaping their industries. The work is concrete: how a CFO should think about model risk, how an HR leader should redesign roles around AI capability, how a CEO should commission and challenge an AI strategy. Her 2024 book with Lea Steinacker, “Alles uberall auf einmal”, argues that AI is best understood as a data-driven human amplifier, a framing that cuts through both utopian and apocalyptic readings of the technology. Her authority comes from holding two distinct positions at the same time. She is Professor of Communication Management at the University of St. Gallen and Director of its Institute for Media and Communication Management, with research credentials reaching back to Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center. She is also a working operator who edited WirtschaftsWoche, sits on the Tamedia board, and has built ada into a recognised institution in the German-speaking executive market. Her 2018 book “Mein Kopf gehort mir” took the same operator-academic approach to brain-computer interfaces, with first-person experiments inside the laboratories developing them. For boards confronting AI, she offers something the consultancy reports cannot: a researcher who teaches the technology to executives every week and reports back what they understand, what they resist, and what actually moves once they leave the room. Key speaking topics Generative AI in business strategy AI governance, regulation and ethics The future of work in an AI-enabled economy Brain-computer interfaces and human enhancement Quantum computing for executive audiences Digital transformation and leadership Media, communication and information overload Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning AI strategy and asking whether their AI position has any operational substance. CHROs and chief learning officers redesigning workforce capability around AI. CEOs and strategy leaders in regulated European industries balancing AI ambition with the EU AI Act and national supervision. Senior leadership programmes and executive offsites at the point of confronting AI seriously rather than in passing. Audience outcomes A working mental model of where generative AI is already operational, where it remains pilot, and where it is still speculative. A clear read on the EU, US and Chinese regulatory environments and what they mean for European firms. Sharper questions to ask vendors, internal AI teams and consultants, grounded in how the technology actually behaves. An honest sense of what AI will do to roles, teams and decision rights inside their own organisation over the next three to five years. A bridge between today’s deployment questions and the next horizon of human-machine integration, including neural interfaces and quantum.

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 Neil Sahota He was an operator inside the IBM Watson Group when cognitive computing first met enterprise budgets, which gives him a deployment vocabulary most AI speakers lack. As co-founder of the UN’s AI for Good Initiative, he has helped scope and govern AI projects across the Sustainable Development Goals, giving boards a credible reference point on responsible deployment. His book “Own the A.I. Revolution,” named a Soundview Best Business Book of 2019 and published by McGraw Hill, sets out a buyer-side framework for AI investment that holds up in front of a commercial executive committee. He sits at the intersection of enterprise AI and capital allocation through Tech Coast Angels and advisory roles with Miramar and CerraCap, so he reads AI strategy through an investor lens as well as an engineer’s. As Chief Innovation Officer at UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering, he keeps a continuous line into university research, which means his keynote content moves with the field, not behind it. Biography highlights IBM Master Inventor and former World Wide Business Development Leader, IBM Watson Group United Nations Artificial Intelligence Advisor and co-founder of the UN’s AI for Good Initiative Chief Innovation Officer, Samueli School of Engineering, UC Irvine Author of “Own the A.I. Revolution” (McGraw Hill), Soundview Best Business Book of 2019 Forbes contributor; featured in the Wall Street Journal, BBC, Wired, Fast Company and Business Insider CEO of ACSI Labs; member of Tech Coast Angels; advisor to Miramar Ventures and CerraCap Ventures Co-host of the “AI for All” podcast Biography Inside the IBM Watson Group, in the years between the Jeopardy! Grand Challenge and Watson’s first commercial healthcare deployments, a small group of business development leaders had to teach Fortune 500 buyers what cognitive computing was actually for. Neil Sahota was one of them. That experience, building enterprise AI cases when the category did not yet exist, is the foundation of everything he now offers a senior audience. He carried that operator perspective into the United Nations as an AI Advisor and co-founder of the AI for Good Initiative, where the work shifted from selling AI capability to governing it. The Initiative now coordinates AI projects against the Sustainable Development Goals, and Sahota’s role gives him a working view of how AI behaves at scale, across jurisdictions, and under public scrutiny. Few keynote speakers in the AI category hold both an enterprise deployment credential and a multilateral governance seat. His book “Own the A.I. Revolution,” published by McGraw Hill and named a Soundview Best Business Book of 2019, sets out an investment logic for AI that a commercial executive committee can actually use: where to play, how to assemble the team, how to evaluate vendors and partners. As Chief Innovation Officer at UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering, and as a contributor to Forbes and a regular voice in the Wall Street Journal, BBC and Wired, he keeps that argument current as the technology and the regulatory perimeter both move. The buyer test is simple. A leadership team that wants a serious conversation about turning AI ambition into operating advantage, with someone who has built it, governed it, and written the framework, gets one in the room. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and deployment Responsible AI and governance Generative AI and the future of business AI for social impact and the UN Sustainable Development Goals Innovation, entrepreneurship and emerging technology The future of work in the age of AI Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI investment priorities CIOs, CTOs and Chief AI Officers moving from pilot to production Heads of innovation and corporate venture leads scoping AI partnerships Public sector and multilateral audiences working on AI governance and public-good applications Audience outcomes A clearer read on where AI investment produces commercial advantage and where it produces sunk cost A practical view of AI governance from someone who has helped shape it at the United Nations Specific reference cases drawn from IBM Watson-era enterprise deployments and current UN AI for Good projects A sharper internal language for AI strategy that a board, a finance committee and an engineering function can all use

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

Why organisations work with Nicholas Jeffery Four ISP CEO and COO seats across Hostmark, Worldport, PSINet Europe and Uniserve Communications, giving him a working view of what actually happens inside a telecoms or managed service business when the model shifts. A second career on the investor side as Head of Investment Planning and Strategy for the TMT Group at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, where capital allocation decisions in technology and media were made across EMEA. Direct operating experience of digital transformation as a SaaS COO at VIMtrek and Vizerra, in Building Information Management and 3D virtualisation, and as the executive behind Digital Realty’s EMEA sales and marketing strategy. Co-creator of Buzzmetrics, the social media intelligence business acquired by Reed, with a forty-year line of sight across branding from 1980s corporate identity work to the current AI reset. A geopolitical voice on Central Europe through his “Danube Dispatches” column at WBN News, which gives boards with Hungary, EU or CEE exposure a senior commercial reader of the political terrain. Biography highlights CEO of Uniserve Communications Corporation from March 2017; led the listed share price from CND$0.04 to CND$0.67 within nine months of joining. European MD/COO and CEO of internet service providers including Hostmark, Worldport, PSINet Europe and Uniserve. Head of Investment Planning and Strategy, TMT Group, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). COO of VIMtrek and Vizerra, SaaS firms in architectural 3D virtualisation and Building Information Management software. Co-creator of Buzzmetrics, the social media measurement business acquired by Reed. Founding and Managing Partner of Impresario Partners International; Chairman of Ventree Innovations Inc.; author of the Danube Dispatches column at WBN News. Biography PSINet Europe was in administration when its European operations had to be rebuilt as a managed services business. Nicholas Jeffery was one of the executives who ran that kind of work across four internet service providers, including Hostmark, Worldport and, later, Uniserve Communications, where as CEO from March 2017 the listed share price moved from CND$0.04 to CND$0.67 within nine months. The unusual part of his career is that the operating CEO work sits alongside an investor seat. As Head of Investment Planning and Strategy for the TMT Group at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, he was inside the capital allocation conversations on telecoms, media and technology investments across EMEA. Boards rarely meet a single adviser who has been both buyer and operator on the same kinds of assets. The second strand of his work is brand and customer. He co-created Buzzmetrics, the social media intelligence business later acquired by Reed, ran sales and marketing strategy for Digital Realty across EMEA, and has now turned his forty-year branding line into a commentary on how AI is reshaping the discipline. The talk “Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: A 40-Year Branding Veteran Embraces AI,” delivered at WINK 2025, sits in this strand. He works between Vancouver, Budapest, London and Kampala as Founding and Managing Partner of Impresario Partners International and Chairman of Ventree Innovations Inc. From Budapest he writes the Danube Dispatches column at WBN News, a serious commercial reader’s account of Hungarian politics and Central European risk in the run-up to the 2026 Hungarian election. He was nominated for the Global Business and Authors’ Award UK 2024. Key speaking topics Digital transformation in telecoms, media and technology businesses Branding strategy under AI Scaling, restructuring and turning around technology companies Investment strategy in TMT Building Information Management and SaaS commercialisation Central European political and commercial risk Ideal for TMT, telecoms and media company boards and executive teams running through transformation or restructuring Private equity, venture and infrastructure investors with TMT or CEE exposure CMOs and brand leaders rethinking marketing operations under generative AI Boards with Hungary, EU accession state or wider Central European commercial exposure Audience outcomes A working operator’s account of what changes inside a telecoms or SaaS business when a transformation plan meets the P&L An investor-side perspective on how TMT capital allocation decisions get made and where they fail A practical view on how the branding discipline is being reorganised by AI, drawn from four decades inside the function A senior commercial reading of Central European political risk for boards exposed to Hungary and the wider region

Why organisations work with Nick Brackenbury A working answer to the visibility problem in physical retail. NearSt connects to point-of-sale systems and surfaces live in-store stock inside the platforms where shoppers already search, including Google and Facebook. Operating scale to back the argument. NearSt’s technology integrates with over 130 stock management systems and reaches over 800,000 retail locations globally, with Google as a named platform partner. Investor and partner credibility from inside retail and tech. Backers include Grosvenor Group, YYX Capital, Will Hobhouse of Heal’s and Jack Wills, and senior engineers from DeepMind and Google Research. A concrete view on where the high street competes and where it loses. Useful for retailers, landlords, and brands deciding how much to spend on stores versus marketplaces. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of NearSt, founded 2015, headquartered in London. Named platform partnership with Google connecting in-store inventory into Search and Maps. Total funding of approximately five million pounds across two rounds, led by YYX Capital and joined by Grosvenor Group, True Global, and Moscar Capital. Former Account Director at Ogilvy, working on Jaguar Land Rover, Nestle, and BP’s London 2012 Olympic sponsorship. Speaking platforms include RetailWeek Live, Wired Retail, eCommerce Expo, the British Retail Consortium, and Accenture events. Awards include RetailEXPO Innovation Award 2019, Get in the Ring Western Europe, RetailWeek Startup of the Week, and a London Book Fair Innovation Award. Biography A shopper looking for a specific product in 2026 starts in the same place: a search bar. The shop five minutes away has the item on the shelf. The shopper does not know that, so the order goes to a warehouse. NearSt was built to close that gap, by piping live in-store inventory directly into Google Search, Google Maps, and other consumer platforms. The company was co-founded in 2015 by Nick Brackenbury and Max Kreijn, both former Ogilvy account leads. Brackenbury was one of the agency’s youngest account directors, working across digital programmes for Jaguar Land Rover, Nestle, and BP’s London 2012 Olympic Games sponsorship. NearSt began as a same-hour delivery platform for London high street shops and pivoted into the infrastructure layer beneath the search engines themselves. That pivot is the substance of the speaking material. NearSt’s technology now plugs into more than 130 stock management systems and reaches over 800,000 retail locations globally. Investors include Grosvenor Group, YYX Capital, True Global, and Moscar Capital, alongside angels from Heal’s, Jack Wills, DeepMind, and Google Research. Awards from RetailEXPO, RetailWeek, Get in the Ring, and the London Book Fair sit on top of that operating record. For senior retail and brand audiences, the value is a working commercial argument. Physical stores hold inventory that online retailers cannot match for speed of fulfilment or sustainability of footprint. The constraint has been discoverability, not stock. Brackenbury talks about that constraint from inside the system that is removing it. Key speaking topics The future of high street retail Local commerce and in-store inventory visibility Customer experience in physical retail Retail technology and platform partnerships Entrepreneurship and scale-up leadership Pivoting a business model under pressure Ideal for Retail leadership audiences: CEOs, CMOs, and heads of stores at multi-site retailers and brands. Property and landlord audiences with high street and shopping centre exposure. Marketing and customer experience leaders weighing physical store investment against marketplace spend. Entrepreneurship and scale-up audiences interested in pivoting from B2C to platform infrastructure. Audience outcomes A clearer view of why local stock is the most under-used competitive asset in physical retail. Specific examples of how integrating store inventory with Google and Facebook changes footfall and conversion. A founder’s account of pivoting from a consumer-facing app to an infrastructure business, with the commercial reasoning. A working framework for evaluating retail technology investments against measurable in-store outcomes.

Why organisations work with Nikki Greenberg Her Five Step Future Ready Framework gives leadership teams a structured, replicable methodology for taking AI and technology adoption from boardroom conversation to approved initiative: developed directly from leading digital transformation across a major institutional real estate portfolio, not from consulting at a remove. She reads the built environment, business strategy, and technology fluently and simultaneously: enabling her to assess AI’s implications for physical assets, long capital cycles, and operational infrastructure in ways that technology-only futurists cannot. As founder of Women in PropTech and three-term co-chair of the ULI New York Technology & Innovation Council, she has shaped industry consensus on built-world innovation rather than simply reported on it, which means audiences get a perspective that is ahead of the published analysis, not derived from it. Her client roster spans real estate, financial services, retail, hospitality, and the public sector, giving organisations outside property access to cross-industry pattern recognition on how physical-digital convergence is being handled at scale elsewhere. She translates demographic shifts, emerging technology, and long-range scenarios into specific decisions leaders can take today; not horizon-scanning for its own sake, but a structured pathway from trend to action. Biography highlights Former Head of Technology Strategy (Real Estate) at QIC, where she led the digital transformation of a $22 billion real estate portfolio within a global investment manager with $70 billion AUM Founder and Global Ambassador of Women in PropTech Former three-term co-chair, Urban Land Institute New York Technology & Innovation Council Speaker of the Year, Trends & Technologies category (2025); ULI Global Luminary (2022); MIPIM Global PropTech Awards Finalist (2019); CIO View’s 5 Most Influential Women in Real Estate to Watch Career spanning architecture, development, and technology strategy across Lendlease, Koichi Takada Architects, Greenland Australia, and Brown Harris Stevens Bachelor of Architecture (Hons), Master of Architecture, Master of International Business – all from UNSW, Sydney Conference and event engagements include Harvard Business School, Bank of America, Brookfield, UN-Habitat, Smart City Expo World Congress, MIPIM, and the National Association of Realtors Biography Nikki Greenberg began her career as an architect working on master-planned communities and mixed-use developments across Sydney, New York, and China. That background – designing places intended to serve the next generation of occupants – became the foundation for a career built around a single organising question: what do today’s decisions look like from twenty years out? At QIC, one of Australia’s largest investment managers, she led the digital transformation of a $22 billion real estate portfolio, translating technology strategy into decisions about operations, assets, and customer experience at institutional scale. It is this combination that makes her unusual: she has delivered the physical and the digital, not merely theorised about their convergence. Her Five Step Future Ready Framework, developed from that experience, gives leadership teams a structured methodology for moving from technology awareness to committed action; addressing the specific friction points of incentive misalignment, budget pressure, and multi-generational workforces that stall most transformation programmes. It is the practical core of her keynote work across industries as varied as financial services, retail, and urban planning. She is the founder of Women in PropTech and served three terms as co-chair of the Urban Land Institute’s New York Technology & Innovation Council; roles that positioned her at the centre of where policy, capital, and technology strategy converge in the built environment. Recognised as Speaker of the Year (Trends & Technologies, 2025) and a ULI Global Luminary, she holds a Master of Architecture, Master of International Business, and Bachelor of Architecture with honours from UNSW, Sydney, and is based in New York City. Key speaking topics AI and digital transformation in the built environment Future-readiness strategy and technology adoption frameworks The future of cities, real estate, and physical infrastructure AI and the future of work Technology strategy for asset-intensive industries Demographic change and long-range scenario planning PropTech, ConTech, and innovation in the property sector Ideal for C-suite and board-level leaders in real estate, construction, and asset management navigating technology strategy and digital transformation CIOs, CTOs, and Chief Transformation Officers in industries with significant physical infrastructure; financial services, retail, hospitality, public works Industry associations and sector conferences where audiences need technology insight grounded in commercial and operational reality, not pure speculation Leadership development programmes seeking a cross-industry perspective on AI adoption, future-of-work strategy, and long-range planning Audience outcomes A named, structured framework (Five Step Future Ready Framework) for moving technology and AI initiatives from aspiration to organisational buy-in and implementation Clearer understanding of how demographic shifts, AI, robotics, and automation will affect demand for physical space, workforce design, and capital allocation: framed in sector-specific terms Practical starting points for a digital transformation roadmap: including how to sequence early initiatives while building toward a long-term AI integration plan Greater confidence in communicating technology strategy across functions and seniority levels, including to boards and investors unfamiliar with the underlying technology A recalibrated sense of timeline: which technology trends require decisions now, and which can be monitored without near-term commitment

Why organisations work with Norbert Csizmadia He brings the operating perspective of someone who has sat inside national economic planning, as State Secretary at Hungary’s Ministry for National Economy and Executive Director at the country’s central bank. His Geofusion framework gives leadership teams a map-based vocabulary for connectivity, complexity and long-term sustainability, drawn from a published body of work that includes Geofusion, GeoFuture and GeoVision. He sits inside the institutions that shape Eurasian strategy, including the Fudan Institute of Belt and Road and Global Governance in Shanghai and the Board of Bank of China CEE, which gives clients a perspective on the East that few European speakers can match. He treats geography as a strategic asset, not background context, which is useful for boards trying to make sense of supply chain reconfiguration, energy corridors and shifting trade blocs. In 2025 the World Complexity Science Academy awarded him its Medal for Sustainability for the Geofusion research, a signal that the work is taken seriously beyond bureau circuits. He delivers through cartography, not slideware. Two decades of building visual maps means a keynote reads as a guided journey across regions and time horizons, which holds large executive and conference audiences on complex material. Biography highlights Former State Secretary at Hungary’s Ministry for National Economy and former Executive Director at the Central Bank of Hungary, responsible for economic strategy and planning. Author of the Geofusion series (LID Publishing / World Scientific), published in English and Chinese, including Geofusion, GeoFusion 2.0, GeoFuture and GeoVision. 2025 recipient of the World Complexity Science Academy Medal for Sustainability for the Geofusion research. Member of the International Advisory Board, Fudan Institute of Belt and Road and Global Governance, Shanghai, and Independent Director, Bank of China CEE. Goodwill Ambassador of the Association of Universities of Asia and the Pacific (AUAP). Founder of the Turquoise Zones concept, presented across higher-education and city forums in Central Asia and Southeast Asia through 2025 and 2026, including keynotes covered by The Astana Times. Biography Geography is making a return to the strategy room. Trade corridors, energy routes, semiconductor chokepoints and sanctions maps are once again decisive variables for capital allocation. Norbert Csizmadia’s work, gathered under the Geofusion banner across four published volumes with LID Publishing and World Scientific, treats this return as the central organising fact of twenty-first century strategy. The argument is built from inside the machinery, not from a desk. As State Secretary for Planning Coordination at Hungary’s Ministry for National Economy, and later as Executive Director at the Central Bank of Hungary, he helped design national economic strategy at the level where geopolitics, infrastructure and capital allocation meet. That experience is rare in the geopolitics speaker pool, where commentary often dominates over operating perspective. His institutional footprint runs East as well as West. He sits on the International Advisory Board of the Fudan Institute of Belt and Road and Global Governance in Shanghai, is an Independent Director at Bank of China CEE, and chairs the Boards of Trustees at John von Neumann University Foundation and the Pallas Athene Domus Meriti Foundation. For European audiences, this gives him an unusually direct line of sight into Chinese strategic thinking on Eurasian connectivity. In 2025 the World Complexity Science Academy recognised the Geofusion body of work with its Medal for Sustainability, citing the research’s ability to map the interconnections between places, disciplines and long-term sustainability questions. That recognition matters because his proposition rests on it: that a map-based, cross-disciplinary reading of the world produces sharper strategic decisions than topic-by-topic analysis. Key speaking topics Geoeconomics and global strategy Eurasian connectivity and the Belt and Road Long-term sustainability and complexity The geography of trade, capital and supply chains Hungarian and Central European economic policy The role of maps in twenty-first century strategy Digitalisation and AI in a geopolitical frame The geography of livable and sustainable places (Turquoise Zones) Ideal for Boards and executive committees stress-testing geopolitical exposure across Europe and Asia Strategy, corporate development and policy leads in industries exposed to Eurasian trade corridors and energy flows Family offices, sovereign investors and asset allocators with capital deployed across East-West blocs Universities, foundations and policy bodies running long-horizon scenario work on connectivity and sustainability Audience outcomes A map-based reading of how Eurasian connectivity, energy and trade corridors are reshaping commercial and capital decisions A clearer view of how Chinese strategic thinking on Belt and Road frames European exposure A working vocabulary from the Geofusion framework for talking about complexity, connectivity and sustainability inside the same conversation A perspective on long-term sustainability that is grounded in geography and capital allocation rather than ESG narrative Strategic questions a leadership team can take into its own scenario planning

Why organisations work with Ola Ahlvarsson He has built, scaled, and exited businesses across two decades of European internet history, from Boxman in the late 1990s through Star Stable Entertainment and Epicenter, so his counsel on scale-up decisions is operating advice rather than commentary. He runs SIME, the Stockholm summit that has gathered C-level executives, founders, and investors annually since 1996, which gives boards a direct line into where Nordic and global tech is moving next. He co-founded Epicenter, a Nordic innovation hub now spanning Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki, with industry clusters in AI, longevity, food systems, and real estate, providing a current view of how corporates are partnering with startups. His advisory client list includes Google, Microsoft, Samsung, IBM, Ericsson, Telenor, and Schibsted, which signals comfort sitting with senior teams in regulated, large-cap environments. He works equally well as a keynote and as a moderator, which is rare; for boards designing high-stakes innovation summits, that dual capability is genuinely useful. Biography highlights Co-founder and former CEO of Result, the Stockholm-based business builder behind Spray, Spraydate, Sellbranch, and Keynote Media Group. Co-founder of Star Stable Entertainment, the Stockholm-based MMO studio behind one of Europe’s most successful children’s online games. Co-founder of Epicenter, the Nordic innovation hub operating across Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki. Curator and host of SIME, running since 1996 in Stockholm. Named «Top Ten Leading European Internet Entrepreneurs» by The Wall Street Journal in 1999 and a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow. Author of Mission Possible (Midas, 2005), Silicon Valhalla (2016), Happy Business (Aniara), and Mindchange (Fritanke, 2024). Biography European internet history runs through a small group of operators who built it from the inside. Ola Ahlvarsson is one of them. From Boxman in the late 1990s to Star Stable Entertainment in 2010, he has co-founded more than twenty companies and watched several through to acquisition, including Spray to Snowfall and Spraydate to Match.com. Result, the Stockholm builder he co-founded in 1999 and led as CEO until 2008, was the engine behind much of that portfolio. Through it, and later through Keynote Media Group, he assembled a working knowledge of what scale, exit timing, and corporate partnership actually require. The Wall Street Journal named him among Europe’s top ten internet entrepreneurs the year Result launched. In 2014 he co-founded Epicenter, now a Nordic innovation hub with sites in Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki and clusters in AI, longevity, sustainable food systems, and real estate. He also curates and hosts SIME, the digital business summit he has run in Stockholm since 1996, which gives him a continuous view of how the industry’s centre of gravity moves. His written work brings a softer edge to the operator profile. Mindchange (2024) draws on his career and his parallel life as a karate and kickboxing competitor to argue that emotional control is a strategic asset for senior leaders. He has presented at the World Economic Forum, DLD Munich, World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, and Le Web in Paris, and advised Google, Microsoft, Samsung, IBM, Ericsson, Telenor, and Schibsted. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and scale-up leadership Digital transformation Innovation and corporate venturing Future of technology Business model innovation Self-leadership and performance under pressure Nordic and European tech ecosystems Ideal for Boards and CEOs designing innovation strategy or new venture units Chief Innovation, Chief Strategy, and Chief Digital Officers leading scale-up partnerships with startups Executive teams running annual summits or leadership offsites that need a substantive moderator as well as a keynote Audience outcomes A working understanding of how serial founders judge timing, capital, and exit, drawn from twenty-plus years of operating decisions. A current read on the Nordic and European tech landscape, including how innovation hubs and corporates are partnering today. Practical handles for installing founder-style decision-making inside a corporate operating model. A perspective on emotional control and self-leadership that connects athletic discipline to executive performance.

Why organisations work with Omar Christidis He has spent a decade mapping the MENA digital economy at a depth no global consultancy replicates: 30+ Arabnet conferences, 15+ original research reports and direct visibility into more than 650 regional startups. He sits inside the deal flow as Partner and Board Member at Flat6Labs Beirut, so his read on what is actually getting funded in the region is operational, not commentary. His advisory work with the Middle East Institute’s Strategic Foresights Program and the Aspen Institute UK gives him a policy-grade frame on technology that translates well to boards weighing geopolitical exposure alongside digital strategy. He is one of the few speakers who can hold a serious technology conversation in both English and Arabic for a regional C-suite audience, with the Yale and Booz analytical pedigree to back it up. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Arabnet, the MENA-focused digital events, media and research company, founded in Beirut in 2009. Partner and Board Member, Flat6Labs Beirut, a $20m accelerator with 33 investments in Lebanese startups. Advisory Board Member, Strategic Foresights Program, Middle East Institute, Washington DC. Faculty Member and Moderator, Aspen Institute UK. BA and MBA, Yale University; former consultant at Booz & Co. MENA. Named Global Finance Magazine Top Innovator for the Middle East (2018); featured in Forbes, CNN, CNBC Arabia and Sky News Arabia. Biography The MENA digital economy is no longer an emerging-market footnote. Over the past decade it has produced unicorns, regulatory frameworks for fintech and e-commerce, and a regional venture industry that now writes cheques large enough to keep founders at home. Few people have shaped that shift more practically than the founder of Arabnet. Arabnet was launched in Beirut in 2009, after Omar Christidis left a role in private wealth management in New York during the financial crisis and a stint at Booz & Co. in the MENA. The company has since organised more than thirty regional tech conferences, published over fifteen original research reports on the Arab digital ecosystem, and supported 650+ startups, becoming the standing forum where founders, corporates and investors meet. His credibility is built on access, not opinion. As Partner and Board Member at Flat6Labs Beirut, a $20m accelerator with 33 Lebanese investments, he sees what is being funded. As an Advisory Board Member of the Middle East Institute’s Strategic Foresights Program in Washington and a Faculty Member at Aspen Institute UK, he sees how regional technology decisions are being read in policy circles. The result is a speaker who can tell a Gulf board what the next wave of digital challengers actually looks like, where capital is moving, and which corporate innovation playbooks travel and which do not. Global Finance Magazine named him Top Innovator for the Middle East in 2018; the World Economic Forum named Arabnet a Top 100 Arab World Startup the year before. Key speaking topics MENA digital economy and startup ecosystem Corporate innovation strategy Digital disruption and emerging business models Tech investment and venture capital in the Arab world Future of media and advertising Fourth industrial revolution Banking and fintech in the Middle East Ideal for Boards and C-suites of regional incumbents in banking, telco, media and retail facing digital challengers Global corporates entering or scaling in MENA who need a regional read on customer behaviour and competitive risk Investors, family offices and sovereign funds allocating to MENA technology and venture Government and policy audiences shaping digital, fintech and innovation regulation in the region Audience outcomes A current, named view of where MENA digital capital is flowing and which sub-sectors are concentrating A working frame for distinguishing genuine regional disruptors from imported business models that will not survive local conditions Specific examples of how incumbents in banking, retail and media have responded to digital challengers in MENA, and what worked A sharper read on how Gulf and Levant regulators are shaping the operating environment for technology businesses

Why organisations work with Ömer Atiker Three decades of running digital agencies, not advising on them. He has founded, scaled, and sold internet ventures since 1996, which gives his keynote content the texture of an operator rather than a commentator. Author of four German-language reference books on digital transformation, including titles with Wiley and Campus, used inside companies as practical handbooks rather than thought-leadership accessories. Works in German, English, and Dutch at conference register, which makes him a credible booking for DACH-headquartered firms with international leadership audiences. Client list spans regulated industrials (BASF, Bayer, Merck, Fresenius), platform technology (Amazon, Google, Adobe), and consumer-facing operators (Singapore Airlines, Mitsubishi), so the examples on stage match the room. Sits at the intersection of digital marketing, AI deployment, and change leadership, which is the precise zone where most enterprise transformation programmes get stuck. Biography highlights Industrial engineer from the University of Karlsruhe (now KIT), with a master’s thesis on human-machine interaction. Founded ArtWork, one of the first internet agencies in the Netherlands, in 1996. Founder and CEO of Click Effect, a Freiburg-based digital marketing and transformation consultancy, since 2006. Author of four books on digital transformation, published by Wiley, Campus, and GABAL between 2017 and 2020. Worked alongside Frithjof Bergmann, the originator of the New Work concept, during a sabbatical period. Keynote clients include BASF, Bayer, Merck, Fresenius, Amazon, Google, Adobe, Singapore Airlines, Mitsubishi, and John Deere. Biography Digital transformation has never been short of strategy. The bottleneck sits further down the operating stack, in the daily handover between leadership intent, technology choices, and the people who have to do the work differently on Monday. Atiker has spent thirty years inside that handover. He studied industrial engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and wrote his master’s thesis on human-machine interaction. In 1996 he founded ArtWork, one of the first internet agencies in the Netherlands, and sold it after the dotcom cycle. In 2006 he founded Click Effect in Freiburg, the digital marketing and transformation consultancy he still runs. Between agencies he took a sabbatical and worked with Frithjof Bergmann, the philosopher who originated the New Work concept. That period sits behind the leadership and culture material in his keynotes, which treats digital change as a problem of human adoption first and technology second. His four books, published by Wiley, Campus, and GABAL between 2017 and 2020, function as practical playbooks for German-speaking enterprises rather than airport thought-leadership. The client list reads as a cross-section of the European industrial and platform economy: BASF, Bayer, Merck, Fresenius, Singapore Airlines, Amazon, Google, Adobe, John Deere, Mitsubishi. He works in German, English, and Dutch, which makes him a natural fit for DACH-headquartered companies running international leadership programmes around AI and digital execution. Key speaking topics Digital transformation execution AI in the enterprise Digital and remote leadership Customer centricity and digital marketing Corporate culture and digital adoption Innovation under operating constraints Personal development in the digital age Ideal for DACH-headquartered enterprises running multi-year digital and AI transformation programmes CDOs, CMOs, and transformation leads responsible for moving from pilot to operational deployment Industrial and life-sciences boards translating digital strategy into customer-facing change Senior leadership offsites where the audience needs an operator’s view, not a consultant’s frame Audience outcomes A practitioner’s reading of where their own transformation programme is most likely to stall Concrete examples of digital and AI deployment from regulated industrials and platform companies A clearer separation between technology decisions and the leadership behaviour those decisions require Language and reference points senior leaders can use with their own organisations after the session