Digital Transformation

Why organisations work with Avinash Kaushik He built the intellectual vocabulary a generation of marketers now uses, including the See-Think-Do-Care framework that maps content, media and measurement to real customer intent. Sixteen years as Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist gave him a view of marketing performance across most of the world’s largest advertisers, not a single case study. He bridges analytics and brand in a room that usually forces leaders to pick one, advising both a measurement firm (Human Made Machine) and a global fashion group (Tapestry). His books sit on the desks of working practitioners in ten-plus languages; the argument has survived translation, platform change and the rise of generative AI. He is unusually direct about what does not work in marketing measurement, which is why senior buyers use him to sharpen internal debates rather than flatter them. Biography highlights Former Senior Director of Global Analytics and Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google, a sixteen-year tenure. Global Chief Strategy Officer at Human Made Machine; Brand Strategy and Marketing Transformation Consultant at Tapestry. Author of “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” and “Web Analytics 2.0” (Wiley), translated into more than ten languages. Originator of the See-Think-Do-Care framework for intent-based marketing strategy. Recipient of the American Statistical Association’s Statistical Advocate of the Year and the Web Analytics Association’s Most Influential Industry Contributor award. Writes “The Marketing Analytics Intersect” newsletter, read by approximately 55,000 marketing and analytics leaders. Biography Marketing leaders rarely struggle for data. They struggle to decide what any of it means for growth next quarter. That is the problem Avinash Kaushik has spent two decades making tractable, first inside Google as its Senior Director of Global Analytics and Digital Marketing Evangelist, and now as global Chief Strategy Officer at Human Made Machine and brand strategy consultant to Tapestry. His See-Think-Do-Care framework reframed digital marketing around customer intent rather than channel or demographic, and it is now embedded in the working language of marketing teams from consumer goods to financial services. It is a simple idea with a disciplined consequence: measurement and content have to follow the audience’s state of mind, not the agency’s media plan. Two books, “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” and “Web Analytics 2.0”, carried that argument into practice and have been translated into more than ten languages. The American Statistical Association named him Statistical Advocate of the Year; the Web Analytics Association recognised him as its Most Influential Industry Contributor. He has taught and advised at Stanford, USC Annenberg and the Rotman school at Toronto. What sets his current work apart is the refusal to treat AI as a separate topic. In rooms with CMOs and CFOs, he draws the line from intent-based customer understanding to incrementality-based measurement to where generative AI actually earns its keep. The recommendation is usually sharper and the vendor pitch usually weaker by the time he is done. Key speaking topics Intent-centric marketing strategy Incrementality-based marketing measurement AI and generative AI in marketing Digital analytics and data-driven decision making Customer-centric growth and retention Marketing transformation for senior leaders The See-Think-Do-Care framework in practice Ideal for CMOs and marketing leadership teams rebuilding measurement for an AI-first environment. Boards and executive teams stress-testing the commercial return from digital and marketing investment. Heads of analytics, data and performance marketing aligning with brand and commercial functions. CEO and CFO audiences who want a serious outside view on marketing’s contribution to growth. Audience outcomes A clearer line between customer intent, marketing activity and commercial outcome. A sharper test for whether a measurement approach is actually incremental or just reported. A working critique of how generative AI is being sold into marketing and where it earns real return. A shared vocabulary, grounded in See-Think-Do-Care, that senior teams can use to align content, media and measurement. A more confident internal argument about where to stop investing, not only where to invest more.

Why organisations work with Arnaud Bonzom He co-authored the INSEAD and 500 Startups study of the Forbes Global 500, which mapped how 262 of the world’s largest public companies actually engage startups. Few corporate-innovation speakers can point to an original dataset of that scale. He has advised more than 200 corporations on corporate-startup engagement, including Accenture, Airbus, Allianz, AWS, BMW, Shell, Standard Chartered and Volkswagen, as well as the European Commission and several national governments. He can distinguish, on the record, between a startup competition, a corporate accelerator, a corporate venture capital arm and a direct M&A play, and tell a board which one fits the problem they are actually trying to solve. His vantage point is Southeast Asia, built over a decade on the ground in Singapore at 500 Startups and INSEAD, which matters for Western corporates trying to understand Asian market entry and innovation sourcing. Biography highlights Co-author with INSEAD Professor Serguei Netessine of “How do the World’s Biggest Companies Deal with the Startup Revolution?”, the INSEAD and 500 Startups study covering the Forbes Global 500. Former Venture Partner at 500 Startups, focused on Southeast Asian founders. Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD; previously Assistant Director of Corporate Partnership Development at INSEAD. Founder and Managing Director of Black Mangroves; co-founder of Map of the Money, a platform mapping active investors across Southeast Asia. Research and commentary cited by Forbes, Bloomberg TV, Les Echos, Bain, SAP, BNP Paribas and Orange, with coverage in 28 countries. Speaker at Slush, Web Summit, DLD, Tech in Asia, Rise and SuperReturn. Biography Most large companies now run some form of startup engagement programme. The INSEAD and 500 Startups study of the Forbes Global 500, co-authored by Arnaud Bonzom with Professor Serguei Netessine, found that 262 of those 500 companies were already working with startups. The harder question, which the study set out to answer, is which models actually produce returns. That question sits at the centre of his work. As Director of Corporate Innovation at 500 Startups and later as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD, he spent years watching corporates set up accelerators, write cheques, sign partnerships and run competitions, often in parallel, often without a clear theory of what each one was meant to deliver. His argument to boards is that these are different instruments with different risk profiles, and treating them as interchangeable is how budgets get burned. He has put the argument to more than 200 corporations, including Accenture, Airbus, Allianz, AWS, BMW, Shell, Standard Chartered and Volkswagen, and to the European Commission and the governments of Estonia, Germany, Singapore and Taiwan. His work has been cited by Forbes, Bloomberg TV, Les Echos, Bain, SAP, BNP Paribas and Orange, with coverage across 28 countries. His current base is Singapore, where he founded Black Mangroves and co-founded Map of the Money, a data platform that maps active investors across Southeast Asia. That gives him a direct line into one of the more complex venture ecosystems in the world, which matters for any multinational trying to understand where Asian growth capital is actually moving. Key speaking topics Corporate-startup engagement models Corporate venture capital Startup ecosystems Southeast Asia innovation and venture capital Corporate innovation strategy Entrepreneurship and fundraising Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and heads of strategy reassessing corporate innovation and venture programmes Corporate venture capital leads, accelerator directors and M&A teams Boards and executive committees of multinationals expanding into or sourcing innovation from Southeast Asia Audience outcomes A clear read on which corporate-startup engagement model fits which strategic objective, with trade-offs named A grounded view of how the Forbes Global 500 are actually engaging startups, based on original research rather than anecdote A practical perspective on Southeast Asia’s venture and innovation landscape for corporates entering or scaling in the region Sharper questions to take back to internal innovation teams about what returns they are actually being asked to produce

Why organisations work with Anthony Thomson He is one of the very few operators in the world who has launched three licensed banks on three different models: a physical high-street challenger, a UK app-only bank, and an Australian smart bank. His Metro Bank launch ended a century-long drought of new UK high-street banks and set the reference point for what a customer-centred retail banking proposition looks like. He speaks from the chair’s seat, not the analyst’s gallery. Every argument he makes about challenger strategy, brand, and regulation has been tested against a real balance sheet and a real regulator. With Lucian Camp he wrote No Small Change (Wiley), a direct manifesto on why financial services marketing is broken and what has to replace it. He can brief a boardroom on what it actually takes to turn a strategy deck about “customer obsession” into a licensed, funded, operating business. Biography highlights Co-founder and founding chairman, Metro Bank, the first new UK high-street bank for over a century. Founder and former chairman, Atom Bank, the UK’s first app-only bank, licensed in 2015. Co-founder and former chairman, 86 400, Australia’s first smart bank, later acquired by NAB. Chair of Zip UK, the UK arm of the Australian buy-now-pay-later group. Co-author, No Small Change: Why Financial Services Needs A New Kind of Marketing, Wiley, 2018, with Lucian Camp. Co-founder and former chairman, The Financial Services Forum; Visiting Professor at London Metropolitan University and David Goldman Visiting Professor at Newcastle University Business School. Biography Metro Bank opened its first branch in Holborn in July 2010, the first new high-street bank to enter the UK market in more than a hundred years. Anthony Thomson co-founded the bank and served as its founding chairman, steering it from concept to licensed, trading retail institution. He did not stop there. A few years after leaving Metro, Thomson founded Atom Bank, the UK’s first app-only bank, which secured its banking licence in 2015. He then co-founded 86 400, Australia’s first smart bank, which was later acquired by National Australia Bank. Three licensed banks, three distinct models, one consistent thesis: the industry is overdue a redesign around the customer. That thesis is argued at length in No Small Change (Wiley, 2018), co-written with Lucian Camp, which treats financial services marketing as a discipline in need of serious reconstruction rather than a cosmetic refresh. Earlier in his career, Thomson co-founded City Financial Marketing, later acquired by Publicis, and The Financial Services Forum, giving him a practitioner’s view of brand and proposition design across the sector before he ever chaired a bank. Today he chairs Zip UK and speaks to boards, executive teams, and regulators about what it actually takes to launch and scale a new financial business. His work holds a precise answer to a question many incumbents struggle with: where does customer-led transformation stop being a slogan and start being a balance sheet. Key speaking topics Challenger banking and fintech strategy Customer-led retail banking models Launching regulated businesses from scratch Brand and marketing in financial services Digital and mobile-first banking Entrepreneurship inside regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive teams of banks, insurers, and asset managers reviewing customer strategy. CMOs and brand leaders in financial services rethinking proposition and marketing investment. Founders, investors, and transformation leads building or funding fintech and regulated ventures. Audience outcomes A clearer view of what separates a challenger proposition that scales from one that stalls at launch. A concrete account of how a licensed bank gets designed, funded, and brought to market. Sharper questions to take back to their own customer, brand, and distribution strategy. A realistic sense of where regulation helps and where it quietly kills good ideas.

Why organisations work with Andrew McAfee His Geek Way framework – four named cultural norms (science, ownership, speed, openness) derived from evolutionary biology and management research – gives leadership teams a specific, testable diagnostic for why their organisations underperform digitally, not another instruction to move faster or fail more His research at MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy produces evidence-based findings on how AI and automation are actually affecting productivity and competitive structure – drawn from organisations that have already made the transition, not from modelled projections He holds simultaneous positions as MIT Principal Research Scientist, inaugural Visiting Fellow at Google’s Technology and Society group, and co-founder of Workhelix, an AI workforce optimisation startup – a combination that grounds his analysis in research, platform-scale practice, and operating reality at once The Second Machine Age and Machine, Platform, Crowd – both New York Times bestsellers co-authored with Erik Brynjolfsson – established the intellectual framework through which most serious organisations now think about automation, labour displacement, and platform competition; many executives in the room will be updating assumptions formed by those books He and Brynjolfsson are the only individuals named to both the Thinkers50 ranking of the world’s top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics – a dual recognition that reflects the reach of his work into the policy questions, not just the business questions, that will define the digital economy’s next decade Biography highlights Principal Research Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management; co-founder and co-director, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Inaugural Visiting Fellow, Technology and Society, Google Co-founder, Workhelix (AI workforce optimisation startup) Six-time Thinkers50 honoree; Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award 2015 with Erik Brynjolfsson; one of only two individuals named to both the Thinkers50 and the Politico 50 Author of The Geek Way (Economist Best Books 2023; Forbes Top 10 Business Books 2023) and More from Less; co-author of The Second Machine Age and Machine, Platform, Crowd (New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers) Contributor to Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times; featured on CNN, 60 Minutes, TED, and the World Economic Forum Biography The gap between digital investment and digital performance is one of the most consequential – and least clearly explained – problems in business strategy. Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and co-founder of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, has spent three decades building the research base to explain it precisely. His 2023 book The Geek Way – named a best book of the year by both The Economist and Forbes – makes a specific argument: the companies consistently outperforming their sectors share four cultural norms (science, ownership, speed, openness), and those norms are not accidents of Silicon Valley geography but replicable patterns grounded in evolutionary science. Organisations that treat digital transformation as an infrastructure challenge, McAfee argues, are misidentifying the problem. The bottleneck is almost always managerial culture, not technology capability. That argument carries weight from multiple directions. McAfee is the inaugural Visiting Fellow at Google’s Technology and Society group and co-founder of Workhelix, an AI startup focused on workforce optimisation – positions that situate his MIT research in both platform-scale and operating practice. His earlier books with Erik Brynjolfsson – The Second Machine Age and Machine, Platform, Crowd, both New York Times bestsellers – established the frameworks that shaped how most serious organisations now think about automation, platform competition, and the economics of digital productivity. He and Brynjolfsson are the only individuals named to both the Thinkers50 ranking of the world’s top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics – a pairing that reflects how far McAfee’s work extends beyond corporate boardrooms into the policy questions about AI, labour, and economic growth that will define the decade ahead. Key speaking topics AI and digital business performance The Geek Way: cultural norms for the digital organisation Platform competition and digital business models Technology, productivity, and economic growth Machine intelligence and the future of work Dematerialisation and sustainable growth Organisational culture in the technology-driven enterprise Ideal for C-suite and board audiences evaluating digital strategy and competitive positioning against digital-native rivals Strategy and transformation leads in established industries under sustained digital disruption Innovation and R&D leaders benchmarking organisational culture against technology-sector performance models Executive education programmes on digital leadership, AI adoption, and future-of-work strategy Audience outcomes A clear account of why digital-native organisations outperform incumbents structurally – not through superior technology budgets but through specific, replicable management norms A practical diagnostic framework (The Geek Way: science, ownership, speed, openness) for identifying where organisational culture is constraining digital performance Evidence-based perspective on how AI and automation are actually affecting productivity and workforce structure, grounded in MIT research rather than market projections A more disciplined vocabulary for separating genuine digital transformation from technology investment that changes operating performance little Sharper thinking on platform competition and the long-term viability of traditional business models against digital-native challengers

Why organisations work with Andrew Grill He gives leadership teams a working vocabulary for AI, quantum, blockchain, and adjacent technologies, built on the 200+ concepts codified in “Digitally Curious” and tested on boards at Vodafone, Dell, Nestle, and the NHS. His engineering training and former IBM Global Managing Partner role mean technical claims hold up under scrutiny from a CTO, while the framing stays legible to a CFO or CHRO. Each session ends with the “Curious Five”, a concrete set of follow-up actions, so the room leaves with decisions to make rather than slides to forward. He has delivered five TEDx talks and advises at board level, so the same material scales from a 1,500-person keynote to a closed strategy session. Biography highlights Former Global Managing Partner, IBM Social Consulting Author, “Digitally Curious” (Wiley, 2024), international bestseller Host, the Digitally Curious Podcast, running since 2019 Named to the AI 100 UK List 2025 for responsible AI leadership Five TEDx talks delivered in London and Cardiff Non-Executive Director, Britain Australia Society Bachelor of Electronic Engineering plus two Master’s degrees (Engineering, MBA) Biography Every board now has AI on its agenda. Far fewer have a clear view of which decisions inside the business actually change because of it. Andrew Grill built his career in the gap between those two positions, first as a telecoms engineer at Optus and Telstra in Australia, then as Global Managing Partner in IBM’s Social Consulting practice, working with some of the largest enterprises in the world on how technology reshapes the way they operate. “Digitally Curious”, published by Wiley in 2024, is the distilled version of that experience. It walks executives through more than 200 technology concepts, from generative AI and quantum to blockchain and 5G, and ends every chapter with the Curious Five, a short set of concrete actions. The book reached international bestseller status and has become the spine of his keynote and advisory work. The podcast of the same name, running since 2019 with more than 60 interviews, gives him a working library of case material. That shows up in the room. Boards at Vodafone, Dell, Nestle, DHL, Sanofi, Bupa, and the NHS have brought him in for sessions that move from technology explanation to specific organisational choices, usually in the same hour. He has delivered five TEDx talks across London and Cardiff, appears regularly on BBC, Sky News, Channel 4, and in The Economist and Financial Times, and was named to the AI 100 UK List in 2025 for his work on responsible AI. The throughline is consistent: make the technology legible to the people who actually have to decide what to do about it. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and generative AI for business Digital transformation at board level Responsible AI and AI governance The future of work Emerging technology: quantum, blockchain, Web3 Customer experience in an AI-mediated economy Digital fluency for senior leaders Ideal for Boards and executive committees sequencing their AI strategy CIOs, CDOs, and transformation leads building internal buy-in for technology roadmaps CHROs and people leaders reshaping roles around AI-augmented work Industry conferences addressing senior commercial and technology audiences Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary across the executive team for AI, generative AI, and adjacent technologies A concrete short list of next actions, drawn from the Curious Five framework, tailored to the brief Sharper judgement on which vendor claims and use cases deserve investment and which do not A clearer view of where AI changes roles, processes, and customer experience inside their own organisation

Why organisations work with Alex Hunter He ran Virgin Group’s global digital strategy and Sir Richard Branson’s personal digital presence. That is rare operator experience at the intersection of corporate brand and personal brand at global scale. As a founding-team member at Virgin America, he built the marketing campaign that won the airline public support during its certification process. His work was covered by Time, CNN and CNBC. His travel series Attaché has been named Travel Vlogger of the Year at the Travel Media Awards four separate times. He has had to build and keep a digital audience himself, which sharpens how he thinks about customer loyalty for the brands he advises. His client work spans Volkswagen, IKEA, Adobe, Shell, Salesforce, L’Oréal, Pepsi and McDonald’s. The pattern recognition he brings to a brand question comes from operating across categories where customer expectations look nothing alike. Biography highlights Former Global Head of Online for the Virgin Group, including oversight of Sir Richard Branson’s personal digital strategy. Founding-team member at Virgin America as Manager of Interactive Marketing. Work honoured with ad:tech and Webby Award recognition and covered by Time, CNN and CNBC. Creator and host of Attaché. Named Travel Vlogger of the Year at the Travel Media Awards in 2016, 2017, 2023 and 2024. Co-host of Layovers, an air travel and aviation podcast that has charted at number one in more than fifty countries. Venture Partner at Ignite Accelerator. Former trustee of UK alcohol education charity Drinkaware and advisor to the Prince of Wales’ Rainforest Trust on social media engagement. Speaker and advisor to organisations including Volkswagen, IKEA, Adobe, Shell, Salesforce, Twitter, L’Oréal, Pepsi, McDonald’s and the BBC. Biography Virgin runs across airlines, telecoms, music, trains, space travel and wellness, and the brand reads as a single personality in each. Getting that kind of consistency out of a global portfolio is a specific operational discipline. Alex Hunter spent years running it. As Global Head of Online for the Virgin Group, Hunter oversaw digital strategy across the entire brand portfolio and ran Sir Richard Branson’s personal digital presence. Before that he was a founding-team member at Virgin America, where his marketing campaign won the airline public support during certification and was covered by Time, CNN and CNBC. He has also worked the other side of the table, as a creator. His travel series Attaché has been named Travel Vlogger of the Year at the Travel Media Awards four times since 2016. His aviation podcast Layovers has charted at number one in over fifty countries. Both have required him to build and hold an audience himself, which is what the brands he advises are trying to do at scale. His client list runs through Volkswagen, IKEA, Adobe, Shell, Salesforce, L’Oréal, Pepsi and McDonald’s. What he gives each is a view shaped by running Virgin’s digital brand at portfolio scale and then earning his own audiences from zero. The first taught him that brand consistency is a daily editorial discipline. The second taught him that customer loyalty is won episode by episode and can be lost in one. Key speaking topics Brand strategy in a digital-first market Customer experience and loyalty Digital marketing and audience engagement Content, storytelling and brand voice Building brands at corporate scale and startup pace Customer expectations across industries Ideal for Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Brand Officers and Chief Customer Officers setting brand and loyalty agendas Digital, e-commerce and customer experience leadership teams Agency leadership and in-house creative teams briefing against enterprise clients Board and executive forums where brand reputation sits alongside revenue and risk Audience outcomes A sharper view of where their brand actually lives in a customer’s day, and where it does not The specific places digital investment earns loyalty and the specific places it wastes it A working definition of customer experience that separates noise from the decisions that move repeat business Examples from inside Virgin, Virgin America and his own Attaché audience of what consistency costs and what it earns

Why organisations work with Ade McCormack His Intelligent Organisation framework gives leadership teams a concrete diagnostic model for identifying the gap between their current design and one capable of sustained adaptiveness in volatile conditions. He draws on evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and anthropology rather than management theory alone, making his arguments for organisational change more durable and harder to dismiss as trend-following or consultancy-derived. His intellectual trajectory, from astrophysics and the European Space Agency to a decade as a Financial Times columnist on digital leadership, gives him credibility at both the technical and executive levels that most leadership speakers do not carry. He authored the E-Skills Manifesto for the European Commission and has advised at policy level on digital workforce readiness, meaning his perspective on talent and transformation extends beyond corporate practice into systemic consequence. His involvement in executive education at the Moller Institute, University of Cambridge and at MIT Sloan means his frameworks have been stress-tested against academic scrutiny and refined for senior leadership audiences, not just configured for conference delivery. Biography highlights Former columnist for the Financial Times on digital leadership for approximately a decade Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management on digital leadership Executive leadership development at the Moller Institute, Churchill College, University of Cambridge Founder of The Intelligent Organisation, a think tank focused on how organisations must evolve to remain viable under permanent disruption Author of six books including Biz 4.0, The E-Skills Manifesto (commissioned by the European Commission), and Beyond Nine to Five Advisor to the European Commission on digital skills and e-skills policy Astrophysics graduate; early career includes software engineering at the European Space Agency Biography When organisations describe their transformation programmes, they usually mean technology deployment: new platforms, new tools, upgraded infrastructure. What they less often examine is whether the management model operating underneath those tools was designed for conditions that no longer apply. This is the central tension in Ade McCormack’s work. Most organisations are optimised for industrial-era stability but the environment they now operate in rewards adaptation. McCormack began his career as a software engineer. Trained in astrophysics, with early work at the European Space Agency, his background shaped his ability to think in systems and across disciplines. His trajectory took him eventually to the Financial Times, where he wrote on digital leadership for close to a decade. He has since worked with senior executives at MIT Sloan and at the Moller Institute, University of Cambridge, bringing the same argument into formal leadership education. His Intelligent Organisation framework sets out a model for the shift from process-driven, efficiency-optimised organisations to what he describes as living organisms; adaptive, distributed, and built to sense and respond rather than plan and execute. He draws on evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and anthropology to build this case, developing concepts such as super-resilience, synthetic certainty, and the cognitive gymnasium. These are not rhetorical devices. They map specific structural and cultural moves that organisations can make to function in conditions where certainty is the exception. As founder of The Intelligent Organisation and author of six books, including the E-Skills Manifesto commissioned by the European Commission, McCormack’s work spans individual performance, organisational design, and policy. For executive audiences, the diagnosis he offers is one most are reluctant to reach on their own: that the management model they have inherited is not underperforming, it was simply never built for the era they are operating in. Key speaking topics Adaptive leadership and post-industrial organisation design The Intelligent Organisation model and super-resilience Digital transformation and the limits of technology deployment Future of work and the human-centric organisation Talent, cognitive performance, and the workforce of tomorrow Leadership in conditions of sustained volatility Organisational agility and living-systems thinking Governance in an increasingly volatile world Ideal for C-suite executives and boards leading large-scale transformation programmes in established organisations CHROs and people leaders rethinking workforce design, talent strategy, and culture in the context of accelerating disruption Transformation programme directors and change leads where incumbent operating models are under structural pressure Senior leadership development cohorts at business schools and executive education programmes Audience outcomes A working vocabulary; super-resilience, cognitive athletes, synthetic certainty, to reframe internal conversations about organisational change and leadership capability A concrete framework (the Intelligent Organisation model) for diagnosing the structural gap between a current operating model and one capable of sustained adaptiveness A reorientation of technology investment decisions: from efficiency gains to adaptiveness enablement Clarity on why conventional strategic planning is inadequate under conditions of permanent volatility, and what a more adaptive posture requires in practice An argument, grounded in biology and human performance science, for why putting people, not process, at the centre of organisational design is a competitive necessity, not a cultural preference

Why organisations work with Patrick Kramer Few European voices speak from inside the technology they describe. Kramer carries multiple working implants and has implanted chips publicly on stage, which gives boards a concrete reference point for a debate that usually stays theoretical. Founder and CEO of Digiwell, one of Europe’s most visible commercial biohacking platforms, and founding member of VivoKey Technologies alongside Amal Graafstra. That puts him at the operating end of subdermal identity, not on the commentary side. Twenty years in IT and consulting, including IBM, gives him fluency in enterprise digital transformation language. The cyborg material lands in vocabulary boards already use. Sustained press presence in WIRED, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and PCWorld on under-the-skin technology, which signals he can carry a serious conversation with both technical and general audiences. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Digiwell – Upgrading Humans, founded 2014, Hamburg. Founding member, VivoKey Technologies, a subdermal identity and authentication platform. Twenty-plus years in international IT and consulting, including IBM. TEDxBucharest speaker, “Super-humans: interconnected cyborgs.” Featured in WIRED, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Computerworld, PCWorld, and Red Bull Media. Professional member of the German Speakers Association and the Global Speakers Federation. Biography Most enterprise debates about human augmentation never leave the slide deck. Patrick Kramer carries the technology under his skin and runs a company that fits it to other people. Through Digiwell, the Hamburg-based platform he founded in 2014, he has built one of Europe’s most visible commercial operations in subdermal NFC and RFID implants used for access, payment, identity, and medical data. The work sits at the edge of mainstream digital transformation, but it grew out of it. Twenty years in international IT and consulting, including a long period at IBM, gave him the enterprise vocabulary that most biohacking voices lack. As a founding member of VivoKey Technologies, the cryptographic identity platform launched with Amal Graafstra, he is also embedded in the engineering side of the field rather than only its public-facing narrative. His TEDxBucharest talk, “Super-humans: interconnected cyborgs,” set out the argument that has since been picked up by WIRED, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and PCWorld. Technology that started on the desk, then on the wrist, is now moving under the skin, and the implications for security, HR, healthcare, and product design are practical rather than speculative. For senior audiences, the value is in the translation. Kramer takes a category that boards tend to dismiss as fringe and connects it back to questions they already own: identity, authentication, employee health data, and the long arc of digital transformation as it stops being external to the human body. Key speaking topics Human augmentation and biohacking Subdermal identity and authentication Digital transformation and the Internet of Things Future of human-machine integration Longevity and performance enhancement Smart cities and connected environments Ethics of under-the-skin technology Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting digital identity, security, and authentication strategy CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs running enterprise digital transformation programmes HR and benefits leaders evaluating health, wellbeing, and workforce technology Innovation, R&D, and product teams in healthcare, financial services, and consumer technology Audience outcomes A working mental model for where biohacking and human augmentation fit inside an enterprise digital transformation roadmap A concrete view of subdermal identity and what it changes for authentication, payments, and access control Sharper vocabulary for the ethical, legal, and HR questions that arise when technology moves from the device to the body Specific examples from Digiwell and VivoKey of what is already operational, separated from what is still speculative

Why organisations work with Huang Yiping He sits on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, which puts him inside the conversation that shapes Chinese interest rate, credit, and currency decisions, not commenting on it from the outside. He runs the National School of Development at Peking University, the institution that has educated a generation of Chinese policy economists and whose research directly feeds government thinking. His digital finance research programme is the reference point for how platforms like Ant Group, WeChat Pay, and the state-run digital yuan system are reshaping Chinese banking and credit allocation. He built a career that bridges Wall Street and Beijing, with nearly a decade as Chief Asia Economist at Citigroup and a further stint at Barclays, so he reads Chinese policy with a market operator’s instinct. He is willing, as Bloomberg documented in 2024, to publicly challenge official economic strategy, which makes his private read on policy direction far more useful than the standard think tank commentary. Biography highlights Dean of the National School of Development, Peking University, and Boya Distinguished Professor. Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, reappointed in March 2024 after serving 2015 to 2018. Director of the Institute of Digital Finance at Peking University. Former Managing Director and Chief Asia Economist, Citigroup; later Chief Economist for Emerging Asia, Barclays. Co-editor, with David Dollar, of The Digital Financial Revolution in China (Brookings Press, 2022). Columnist at Project Syndicate; contributor to East Asia Forum; PhD in Economics, Australian National University. Biography China’s economic team spent the decade after the global financial crisis building a credit-driven growth model that worked until it didn’t. Huang Yiping has spent that same decade arguing, from inside the system, that the model had to change. His seat on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China gives that argument unusual weight. As Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, Huang leads the country’s most influential economic policy school. The NSD trains senior officials and publishes much of the research that informs Chinese financial and macroeconomic decisions. Before Peking University, he spent nearly a decade as Chief Asia Economist at Citigroup and Chief Economist for Emerging Asia at Barclays, which is why his reading of policy still tracks to what markets actually need to know. His research focus has shifted with the economy. The Digital Financial Revolution in China, co-edited with Brookings’s David Dollar in 2022, set the frame for how platforms, mobile payments, and the digital yuan are rewiring Chinese credit. His Project Syndicate columns through 2024 pushed Beijing to rein in local government debt and to rebalance away from investment toward household consumption. In August 2024, Bloomberg singled out his critique of official policy as one of the sharpest to come from inside the PBOC advisory structure in years. For international leaders, the value is specific. Huang can tell a board what Beijing is actually weighing on interest rates, on the property sector, on capital controls, and on the structural rebalancing that will shape Chinese demand for the next decade. He does it with the vocabulary of someone who has worked in a trading room, not only in a seminar room. Key speaking topics Chinese macroeconomic policy and PBOC decision-making Financial system reform and capital market liberalisation in China Digital finance, platform regulation, and the digital yuan Rebalancing the Chinese economy from investment to consumption Local government debt and fiscal reform in China China’s role in global trade and emerging market capital flows Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material China exposure CFOs, treasurers, and CIOs at financial institutions allocating capital across Asia Strategy and policy leads in technology and payments businesses operating in or alongside Chinese platforms Senior government, regulatory, and multilateral audiences tracking PBOC direction Audience outcomes A clearer view of how Chinese policymakers are likely to weigh monetary, fiscal, and structural choices in the next twelve to twenty-four months. An informed read on where Chinese financial reform and platform regulation are heading, from someone inside that work. A sense of the real disagreements inside the Chinese policy community, rather than the official line. Sharper questions to bring to their own China strategy, credit exposure, and supply chain decisions.

Why organisations work with Ayesha Khanna Her named “pilot purgatory” diagnostic (the finding that over 88% of AI pilots never scale) gives leadership teams a precise frame for why their programmes stall, and a structured path to production. This is a field-tested argument with a clear strategic implication. She brings board-level fiduciary exposure most AI advisors do not hold: Johnson Controls (smart buildings), NEOM Tonomus (national smart city infrastructure in Saudi Arabia), Mercy Healthcare (US), and L’Oréal’s Scientific Advisory Board. She has governed AI strategy, not only advised on it. Her advisory work spans both national AI strategy: she helped shape Singapore’s SkillsFuture programme and served on the IMDA board. Organisations get a strategist who has worked both sides. Her previous board position on AVEVA and her current role at Johnson Controls give her direct insight into how AI and digital transformation are reshaping critical infrastructure, highly relevant to sectors where technology adoption has long tail consequences. As the author of the forthcoming Gamechanger, a practical business strategy guide to generative AI, she is building the intellectual framework for the current adoption challenge while it is happening, not retrospectively. Biography highlights Co-Founder and CEO, Addo AI; a global AI solutions firm whose clients have included Singtel, SMRT, Pfizer, Sompo Holdings, Habib Bank, and Smart Dubai Board director: Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI); NEOM Tonomus, Saudi Arabia; previously AVEVA (FTSE100, prior to Schneider Electric acquisition) Scientific Advisory Board, L’Oréal; Consumer Committee, Mercy Healthcare; Singapore HTX (homeland security technology) Member, World Economic Forum Global Future Councils; formerly on Singapore IMDA board and Ministry of Education SkillsFuture steering committee Named one of Southeast Asia’s groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes; Edelman Top 50 AI Creators (2025); Salesforce 16 AI Influencers to Know (2024) Author of Straight Through Processing (2008) and co-author of Hybrid Reality (TED Books, 2012); forthcoming Gamechanger on generative AI business strategy Published and quoted in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, TIME, Foreign Policy, and Strategy+Business PhD, Information Systems (digital innovation in smart cities), London School of Economics; MS, Columbia University; BA (Honours), Harvard University Biography Ayesha Khanna has spent two decades at the point where AI strategy meets the decisions boards have to make. Her argument is specific: most organisations do not fail at AI because they lack ambition or budget. They fail because they build pilots without the business-outcome architecture to scale them, what she calls “pilot purgatory,” a state that traps over 88% of enterprise AI programmes. Ayesha works with large corporations and governments on the full adoption journey, from strategy through deployment, with clients that have included Singtel, SMRT, Pfizer, Sompo Holdings, Habib Bank, and Smart Dubai. Khanna has spent more than a decade on Wall Street developing large-scale trading, risk management, and data analytics systems. Her PhD from the London School of Economics focused on digital innovation in smart cities, grounding her practical work in a rigorous analytical framework. What sets Khanna apart from most AI strategists is the nature of her board exposure. She currently holds directorships at Johnson Controls (smart building technology, NYSE: JCI), NEOM Tonomus (the technology infrastructure body for Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion NEOM smart city project), and Mercy Healthcare, and sits on L’Oréal’s Scientific Advisory Board. She previously sat on the board of AVEVA when it was an FTSE100 company. These are not advisory relationships, they are governance roles in which she has been responsible for technology strategy at fiduciary level, across healthcare, infrastructure, and consumer science simultaneously. Her forthcoming book, Gamechanger, extends this practitioner perspective into a structured business playbook for generative AI. Her two earlier books, Straight Through Processing (2008) and the TED book Hybrid Reality (2012), co-authored with Parag Khanna, established her early argument that the human-technology relationship was shifting from coexistence to co-evolution. That argument has aged well. Khanna has been recognised by Forbes as one of Southeast Asia’s groundbreaking female entrepreneurs, named to Edelman’s Top 50 AI Creators in 2025, and quoted across The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Policy. Key speaking topics Generative AI strategy and enterprise adoption AI governance and risk frameworks Smart cities and urban technology infrastructure AI in financial services and healthcare Future of work in an AI-driven economy National AI strategy and public-private collaboration The Hybrid Age: human-technology co-evolution Ideal for CEOs and C-suite leadership teams building or scaling enterprise AI programmes Board directors and non-executive directors responsible for technology governance and digital risk oversight Government and public sector leaders developing national AI strategies or smart city initiatives Financial services, healthcare, and infrastructure sector organisations at advanced stages of AI deployment Audience outcomes A named diagnostic for why AI pilots stall before scaling, and a framework for building the business-outcome architecture needed to move from experimentation to production Practical understanding of what AI governance looks like at board level: what boards need to own, what they need to delegate, and what risks require a formal framework Sector-specific examples of organisations generating measurable revenue and operational impact through AI, drawn from a client base across telecoms, finance, healthcare, and infrastructure A structured perspective on the “Hybrid Age” – the shift in how humans and AI systems operate together – and what it means for workforce strategy and organisational design Criteria for prioritising AI investment by business outcome rather than technology capability, applicable across industries at different stages of digital maturity

Why organisations work with Stéphane J.G. Girod Co-author of Resetting Management (Kogan Page, 2021), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022 in Change & Sustainability, with diagnostic tools tested against the agility journeys of LEGO, General Electric, LVMH and ING. Co-edited the Summer 2023 California Management Review special issue on business agility with Julian Birkinshaw of London Business School and Christiane Prange, placing him at the academic centre of how agility is studied and taught. Directs IMD’s Luxury 2050 initiative and the Reinventing Luxury Lab, with named C-suite client work at Richemont, La Prairie, Cartier, PUIG, Mazda and Telenor. His Harvard Business Review article “Restructure or Reconfigure?” (with Samina Karim of Northeastern) gives executives the working distinction that one in three reorganisations get wrong: when to change the underlying structure and when only to recombine units within it. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Organizational Innovation at IMD Business School, Lausanne. Co-author, Resetting Management: Thrive with Agility in the Age of Uncertainty (Kogan Page, 2021); shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022 in Change & Sustainability. Co-editor of the Summer 2023 California Management Review special issue on business agility, with Julian Birkinshaw and Christiane Prange. Forbes columnist on innovation and transformation in luxury industries. Research published in Harvard Business Review, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal and Long Range Planning. DPhil in Strategic Management, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; MBA, Aalto University; speaks seven languages. Forthcoming with Wiley: Purposeful Luxury, on positive-impact sustainability strategies in luxury industries. Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Entertainment and Lifestyle Economy, 2025 to 2026. Biography Most large organisations are not built for the speed at which their markets now change. Strategy cycles run on multi-year horizons. Org charts assume stable competitive advantage. Both premises are under sustained strain in consumer goods, banking, retail and luxury. Stéphane Girod has spent his academic career on the diagnostic question this raises: when planning fails, what replaces it? His book Resetting Management, co-authored with Martin Králik and shortlisted for the 2022 Business Book Awards in Change & Sustainability, sets out a framework for business agility tested against case studies of LEGO, General Electric, LVMH and ING. Agility, in his account, lives at three distinct levels: strategic, organisational, and leadership. Most companies confuse one for another. His base is IMD, where he is Professor of Strategy and Organizational Innovation, leads the Luxury 2050 initiative, and directs the Reinventing Luxury Lab. He works directly with executive teams at Richemont, La Prairie, Cartier, PUIG, Mazda and Telenor on strategy and transformation. His sectoral focus on luxury, retail and consumer goods places him close to the industries where the agility question has become most urgent, where consumer behaviour, digital channels and sustainability pressure are now moving faster than strategic planning can absorb. His research has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal and Long Range Planning. With Samina Karim of Northeastern University, his 2017 HBR article “Restructure or Reconfigure?” gave executives a working distinction between two organisational change strategies that produce very different financial results. He co-edited the Summer 2023 California Management Review special issue on business agility with Julian Birkinshaw of London Business School and Christiane Prange. Girod holds a DPhil from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and speaks seven languages. He writes a Forbes column on innovation and transformation in luxury industries. His forthcoming book with Wiley, Purposeful Luxury, addresses how luxury houses move sustainability from brand narrative into operating substance. Key speaking topics Business agility in established organisations Strategy under uncertainty Organisational design and reconfiguration Digital execution in large companies Innovation and disruption in the luxury sector Sustainability strategy in luxury and consumer goods Leading large-scale transformation Ideal for Executive teams in luxury, consumer goods, retail and banking facing structural disruption Chief strategy officers and transformation leads designing the next planning cycle Boards of luxury and premium brands navigating polarisation, sustainability pressure and shifts in the Chinese market C-suites running a major reorganisation who need to choose between restructuring and reconfiguring Audience outcomes A working distinction between strategic, organisational and leadership agility, with a diagnostic for which one their company needs first A test for whether the next reorganisation should be a restructure or a reconfiguration, and what each implies financially Specific examples of how LEGO, ING, LVMH and General Electric have succeeded and failed at agility, with the lessons that travel across sectors A sector-specific read on how luxury and consumer-goods incumbents are responding to digital channels, sustainability pressure and shifts in the Chinese market

Why organisations work with Maher Mezher He holds a patent on the Innovators Process, a four-phase method filed across multiple jurisdictions, and uses it as the operating system inside the workshops he runs. His credibility is built on shipped products, not models on paper. The Fertility Loan he created in retail banking is a teaching case in Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing. He works in the languages and industries where innovation is hardest to land: regulated banking, telecom and pharma across the Middle East and Europe. He brings a tool stack, not just a talk. The Innovators Tool app, Innovators Habits and Become an INNOVATOR methodology give teams something to use the day after the keynote. He sits inside the regional innovation infrastructure, including Georgetown University in Qatar’s executive education and Qatar Foundation’s Stars of Science programme. Biography highlights Founder of Innovators League, a consulting and training firm focused on installing innovation capability inside large organisations. Inventor of the Innovators Process, a four-phase innovation method protected by patent filings. Creator of the Innovators Tool, an app for guiding teams from idea to commercial concept. Faculty for Leading Change through Innovation at Georgetown University in Qatar Executive Education. Mentor at Stars of Science, the Qatar Foundation pan-Arab innovation programme. Originator of the Fertility Loan, a retail banking product cited as a case study in Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing. Biography Most innovation programmes fail at the same point. Ideas are generated, pilots are funded, and then the work stalls between the lab and the line. Maher Mezher built his career on closing that gap, first as a banker shipping products, then as the operator of a method designed to make innovation behave like a managed process. His starting move was the Fertility Loan, a retail banking product he created that ran into a real customer need rather than a marketing brief. It later appeared as a case in Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing, which is the kind of citation that signals practitioner credibility rather than academic positioning. From that base he built Innovators League, the consulting firm through which he now works with banks, telcos, pharma companies and government bodies. The intellectual core is the Innovators Process, a patented four-phase method, supported by the Innovators Tool app and the Become an INNOVATOR methodology used inside client workshops. He sits inside the region’s innovation infrastructure as much as he speaks at it: faculty for Georgetown University in Qatar’s executive education on leading change through innovation, and a mentor on Stars of Science, the Qatar Foundation programme that backs Arab inventors. That mix of patent holder, product builder and teacher is what large organisations book him for. Key speaking topics Structured innovation process Innovation capability inside regulated industries Digital leadership and AI for non-technical leaders Creative leadership under uncertainty Innovator habits and behaviour change Product and business model innovation Innovation in financial services Ideal for CEOs and innovation leads in banks, telcos and pharma planning a multi-year innovation programme Heads of product and transformation responsible for moving concepts to launch Executive education and leadership academies in the Middle East and Europe Government and sovereign innovation bodies building national capability Audience outcomes A working understanding of the four phases of the Innovators Process and where their organisation breaks them A vocabulary for separating ideas, concepts and innovations, so teams stop conflating activity with progress Concrete examples of innovations that shipped in regulated industries, with the trade-offs named A method and tool set leaders can put into rotation the week after the session A sharper read on which innovation behaviours to hire for and which to coach