Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Why organisations work with June Sarpong She has run inclusion at scale inside one of the world’s largest media organisations. As the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity, she sat on the Executive Committee and oversaw a £100m commissioning commitment, which gives boards a credible peer voice rather than an outside consultant. Her three HarperCollins books (Diversify, The Power of Women, The Power of Privilege) build an economic argument for inclusion, drawing on Nuffield College, Oxford research that put the cost of UK discrimination at £127bn a year. Buyers get a speaker who can frame the case in commercial terms. Through Diversify International, she has worked with Burberry, Barclays, Nike, Google, Unilever, EY and the NHS, so the room can ask practical questions about what works in regulated, consumer-facing and public-sector contexts. She moves naturally between keynote and host or moderator, which makes her usable across formats: a leadership offsite opener, an internal town hall, an awards stage, or a chaired board conversation on diversity. Biography highlights First Director of Creative Diversity at the BBC and first Black woman on the BBC Executive Committee. Oversaw a £100m commitment to diverse and inclusive content commissioning at the BBC. Author of three HarperCollins titles on inclusion: Diversify, The Power of Women, The Power of Privilege. Founder of Diversify International, with corporate clients including Burberry, Barclays, Google, Nike, Unilever, EY, Facebook and the NHS. MBE (2007) and OBE (2020) for services to broadcasting and to broadcasting respectively. Non-Executive Trustee of Tate, appointed by the Prime Minister. Biography Inclusion is now a board-level question because the audiences, workforces and customer bases of most large organisations have changed faster than the people running them. June Sarpong’s work sits exactly in that gap. She argues, in commercial language, that closing it is an operating decision, not a values statement. She made that case from inside one of the world’s most scrutinised institutions. As the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity, she sat on the Executive Committee and oversaw a £100m commissioning commitment to diverse and inclusive content. It was the first time a UK public broadcaster of that scale tied inclusion to a budget line and reported against it. The argument is also published. Her three HarperCollins books, Diversify, The Power of Women and The Power of Privilege, draw on Nuffield College, Oxford research that put the annual cost of discrimination in the UK at £127bn. The books are used as a frame in her keynote work, which is how she became useful to companies trying to move beyond statements: Burberry, Barclays, Google, Nike, Unilever, EY and the NHS have all engaged Diversify International, the consultancy she founded after leaving the BBC. Her career began in broadcasting, and that range still matters commercially. She presented Channel 4’s T4 for nine years, interviewed Tony Blair for the strand, and is a regular panel and broadcast voice. The same craft that lets her host a leadership offsite or chair a board conversation also lets her bring difficult inclusion content into a room without it landing as a lecture. She is a Trustee of Tate, appointed by the Prime Minister, and holds an OBE for services to broadcasting. Key speaking topics Inclusion as an operating commitment Diverse audiences and consumer reach Workforce composition and talent The economic case for inclusion Allyship and privilege Women in leadership Culture change inside large organisations Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers and DEI leads under pressure to show measurable inclusion outcomes Boards and executive committees revisiting inclusion strategy after the post-2020 reset Marketing and brand leaders rethinking how products and content connect with diverse audiences Leadership offsites, internal town halls and conferences that need a credible host as well as a speaker Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what inclusion looks like as a budget and operating decision, drawn from a real public-sector example The commercial argument for inclusion in language a CFO or board chair will accept A practical reading of what worked and what failed across consumer, financial and public-sector deployments A sharper view of the difference between inclusion programmes and inclusion communications

Why organisations work with Ashlea Atigolo She has co-built a generative AI product, Finley AI, that has been recognised on the WealthTech100 2024 list, so the advice she offers boards is grounded in shipped technology rather than commentary. She brings a regulated-industry lens. Her work spans wealth management, private equity and fintech, where the question is not whether to deploy AI but how to do it without breaking trust, compliance, or customer relationships. She is a credible voice on women in AI without leaning on the topic alone. The named recognition (TechRound Top 64 Women in Tech, Great British Businesswoman finalist, Fintech Powerlist) sits alongside the technical and commercial credentials. She is equally fluent as a keynote speaker, panel host and workshop facilitator, which makes her a flexible fit for AI summits, leadership offsites and investor-facing events. Biography highlights Co-founder of INATIGO, a generative AI venture builder. Co-founder of Finley AI, listed on the WealthTech100 2024. Managing Partner at Consult Venture Partners, advising executives on generative and agentic AI adoption. Former Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of City Wharf Private Wealth, awarded Europe’s Most Innovative Wealth Management Model at the 2021 WealthBriefing European Awards. Listed on TechRound’s Top 64 Influential Women in UK Technology (2022) and named on the Fintech Powerlist. Speaker and host at Fintech Week London, Fintech Connect and Chatbot Africa AI Summit. Biography Most organisations have an AI strategy. A much smaller number have AI in production, talking to customers, sitting inside regulated workflows and answering to a compliance function. Ashlea Atigolo works at that second layer. As co-founder of INATIGO and its flagship product Finley AI, listed on the WealthTech100 2024, she has built generative AI systems for personal finance rather than written about them. Her route into AI was operational, not academic. Before INATIGO she co-founded City Wharf Private Wealth, where her co-leadership won Europe’s Most Innovative Wealth Management Model at the 2021 WealthBriefing European Awards. That background gives her advisory work a distinctive cast. She understands wealth, private equity and fintech as live operating environments, not case studies, and her current role as Managing Partner at Consult Venture Partners is built on that. Her independent recognition is dense and recent. She has been named on TechRound’s Top 64 Influential Women in UK Technology, included on the Fintech Powerlist, and shortlisted as a finalist for the Great British Businesswoman Awards in technology. She has advised Adobe directly and has been engaged through GLG, AlphaSense and GuidePoint by executives in fintech, private equity and financial services. On stage she is most useful to organisations that need a builder’s view of generative and agentic AI: what to deploy, what to delay, how to govern it, and where the human still has to sit inside the workflow. She hosts and keynotes at Fintech Week London, Fintech Connect and Chatbot Africa AI Summit, and is equally credible in a board workshop as on a main-stage panel. Key speaking topics Generative and agentic AI in financial services AI product strategy and deployment in regulated industries Conversational and empathetic AI design Responsible AI, trust and governance Fintech and wealth management innovation Women in AI and inclusive technology teams Leadership through technological disruption Ideal for Boards and executive committees in financial services, wealth management, private equity and fintech sizing up generative or agentic AI investments. CIO, CTO, CDO and Head of Innovation audiences moving from AI pilots into operating deployment. Fintech, AI and wealth-management conferences looking for an operator-speaker rather than a commentator. Internal AI summits, leadership offsites and women-in-tech programmes inside large enterprises. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of where generative and agentic AI is genuinely production-ready in regulated industries, and where it is not. A working vocabulary for governance conversations: agents, guardrails, oversight, human-in-the-loop. A view of how a builder, not a vendor, sequences AI adoption inside a regulated business. Named examples of fintech and wealth-management deployments that buyers can take into their own strategy conversations.

Why organisations work with Jenny Fleiss She has built a consumer business from a Harvard Business School idea to a publicly listed company, and a separate venture inside Walmart’s Store No. 8 incubator. That gives a board credible answers on both routes into a new market. She speaks from inside the operating cockpit of conversational commerce and AI-driven personalisation, not from a strategist’s deck. Jetblack used text and machine learning to handle real customer requests at scale. Her seat at Initialized Capital and prior investing work put her across hundreds of early-stage decks in e-commerce, consumer and AI. She can tell a corporate audience which startup behaviours are worth importing and which are noise. She brings board-level perspective from listed and private companies including The Lanvin Group, Shutterfly and Rent the Runway, which lets her translate founder language into governance language an audit and risk committee will understand. Biography highlights Co-founder and board member, Rent the Runway, the New York-listed designer rental company she started with Jennifer Hyman in 2008. Founder and former CEO of Jetblack, the conversational commerce startup launched inside Walmart’s Store No. 8 incubator in 2018. Former Partner at Initialized Capital, the seed-stage venture firm, where she led e-commerce, consumer and AI investing. Independent director, The Lanvin Group (since 2022); board member, Shutterfly (since 2019); board member, Arteza. MBA, Harvard Business School; BA in Political Science, Yale University, cum laude. Recognised on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 (2012), Inc. 30 Under 30 (2010), Forbes Disruptors 2013, and Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology. Biography Renting a designer dress through a website was not an obvious business in 2008. Jenny Fleiss and Jennifer Hyman started Rent the Runway from a Harvard Business School idea and turned it into a publicly listed consumer company. The work needed to be done in unglamorous places: dry cleaning logistics, returns flows, fit data, inventory forecasting. The brand sat on top of an operations problem. A decade later, Walmart asked her to build a startup inside its corporate body. Jetblack was a text-based, AI-assisted personal shopping service for high-spending New York households, incubated inside Store No. 8. The product taught Walmart what conversational commerce actually costs to run, what humans still have to do behind the model, and where machine learning genuinely earns its keep in retail. That double track, founder of a venture-backed unicorn and intrapreneur inside a Fortune 1 retailer, is what makes her useful in a corporate room. She has lived the trade-offs between speed and brand risk, between founder autonomy and parent-company governance, between AI promise and operating reality. Her investing work at Initialized Capital and as an angel adds a third lens: which early-stage signals are worth a corporate’s attention and which are theatre. Her board work at The Lanvin Group, Shutterfly, Rent the Runway and Arteza puts her in front of the same governance questions her audiences face. Boards want innovation, but they also want explanations. Key speaking topics Building and scaling consumer internet businesses Conversational commerce and AI in retail Corporate venture building and intrapreneurship Customer data and personalisation at scale Female founders and the funding gap Early-stage investing in consumer and AI Board governance for innovation programmes Ideal for CEOs and divisional presidents in retail, consumer goods and direct-to-consumer brands Heads of innovation, corporate venture and new ventures inside large incumbents Chief digital, chief data and chief AI officers responsible for customer-facing AI deployment Founder communities, accelerator cohorts and women-in-business leadership programmes Audience outcomes A clearer view of which startup behaviours translate into a corporate parent and which collapse on contact with it. A working vocabulary for what conversational commerce and AI personalisation actually require to run at scale. A board-level frame for sponsoring internal ventures: what to measure, what to protect, when to wind down. A grounded read on the current early-stage consumer and AI investment market from someone who has sat on both sides of the table.

Why organisations work with Dumi Senda He runs inclusion inside a 3,000-person operation at BBC England, so his method has been tested against the same scale and politics the audience is wrestling with, not built in a classroom. His LinkedIn Learning course “Make Belonging Real in the Workplace” gives organisations a shared curriculum to anchor manager conversations after the keynote, which most DEI speakers cannot offer. As President of the Oxford Black Alumni Network and ICF-accredited coach, he brings institutional credibility with senior audiences alongside coaching craft that works one-to-one with leaders. His lived arc from a decade of UK factory work to an Oxford MSc is the proof point that disarms the most sceptical rooms, including leadership teams that have sat through several DEI sessions already. He has delivered programmes inside the BBC, the UN, the House of Commons, the Bank of England, Google and Goldman Sachs, so references translate across public sector, finance and technology briefs. Biography highlights Diversity and Inclusion Portfolio Lead, BBC England (six regions, 3,000+ staff). Oxford University MSc graduate; sitting President of the Oxford Black Alumni Network (OxBAN). LinkedIn Learning instructor, “Make Belonging Real in the Workplace”; 2024 LinkedIn Top Voice, Teambuilding. International Coaching Federation (ICF) accredited coach. Founder of Titese, an EDI consultancy working with clients including the UN, House of Commons, Bank of England, Google and Goldman Sachs. Featured in “Everyday Ubuntu” (Mungi Ngomane, Penguin), foreworded by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Biography The gap in most inclusion programmes is not ambition, it is operational credibility. Statements of intent are easy to write. Changing how three thousand managers actually speak to each other on a Tuesday morning is harder, and that is the work Senda does every day inside BBC England, where he leads the Diversity and Inclusion portfolio across six regions. That operational grounding is the reason his keynotes do not sound like generic DEI content. He is running the same programme internally that he is recommending to the audience, with the same budget pressures and the same sceptical middle managers. His LinkedIn Learning course, “Make Belonging Real in the Workplace”, distils that method into a curriculum organisations can deploy after he has left the stage. The personal story is well known and deliberately useful. Ten years as a labourer in the UK, a Master’s from Oxford, and now President of the Oxford Black Alumni Network. Senda uses it not as inspiration, but as evidence: inclusion is decided by the everyday behaviour of people already inside the room, and that behaviour can change. Clients include BBC, the UN, House of Commons, Bank of England, Google and Goldman Sachs. What they book him for is rarely a talk on diversity as a topic. They book him to shift the conversation from what the organisation says about inclusion to what its managers actually do on Monday. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership and manager behaviour Belonging at work Bias and everyday conduct Culture change inside large organisations Authenticity and bringing your whole self to work Career development and professional identity Transformational change and taking the organisation with you Ideal for CHROs and heads of DEI designing the next phase of an inclusion programme that has stalled at policy level. Executive and senior leadership teams ahead of a culture change, restructure or “digital first” transformation. People managers across regionally dispersed organisations who carry the practical load of inclusion. Employee resource group leads and internal DEI networks looking for an external voice with operational authority. Audience outcomes A sharper read of where their own inclusion programme is losing traction between executive intent and manager behaviour. Specific language for describing belonging, bias and conduct that holds up in difficult day-to-day conversations. A framework for connecting personal values to professional contribution that coaches and managers can reuse. Practical prompts from Senda’s LinkedIn Learning curriculum that can be taken back into team sessions. Renewed confidence among sceptical managers that this work is a leadership skill, not a compliance task.

Why organisations work with Charlotte Richardson She works live on national radio and television every week, including TalkSport, BBC Final Score, Times Radio Breakfast and Charlton TV, which is the same craft that internal conferences and awards evenings need on stage. She is TalkSport’s first female commentator and the first woman to commentate for TalkSport at a Women’s World Cup, which gives a content keynote on inclusion in male-dominated industries genuine first-person material rather than a borrowed argument. She moves between formats inside a single booking: opening host, panel moderator, on-stage interviewer of a senior leader, awards announcer, after-dinner host. For organisations programming a women in sport or inclusion strand alongside an event, she can host the day and deliver the keynote, which removes a second booking and keeps tone consistent. Biography highlights TalkSport’s first female commentator, covering the men’s football pyramid, the Women’s Super League and the Women’s Championship across TalkSport and TalkSport 2. Reporter on BBC Final Score, the BBC’s prime-time Saturday afternoon football results programme. Sports analyst and contributor on Times Radio Breakfast. Co-host of In The Box, the England Football podcast produced with the FA’s grassroots football team. Pitch-side presenter and live broadcast host for Charlton Athletic’s Charlton TV at The Valley. Began her career on the operator side of the industry in sports marketing and communications before moving into broadcasting via BBC local radio. Biography Live football radio is unforgiving. The match does not pause for a missed cue, the crowd noise does not let a commentator catch a breath, and the audience can tell within thirty seconds whether the voice on air knows the game. Charlotte Richardson commentates on it weekly for TalkSport, the UK’s largest commercial sports network, and was the first woman the station put in that chair. Her broadcasting career started in BBC local radio and progressed to Final Score, the BBC’s Saturday afternoon football programme, before TalkSport. She now covers the full men’s pyramid, the Women’s Super League and the Women’s Championship across TalkSport and TalkSport 2, reports on Times Radio Breakfast, and hosts pitch-side and live coverage for Charlton Athletic’s Charlton TV. With Tom Lee she co-presents In The Box, the FA’s England Football podcast on grassroots football. That mix of live commentary, pitch-side presenting and studio analysis is the relevant credential for corporate work. Awards evenings, customer conferences and internal events run on the same skills: pace, recovery, the right question to a senior leader on stage, the ability to cover a gap in the running order without showing it. Richardson does that work in front of national audiences every week. She also has a content keynote that most hosts do not. Becoming the first woman to commentate for TalkSport at a Women’s World Cup, and on the men’s football pyramid more broadly, gives her a first-person account of inclusion in a male-dominated industry that an organisation programming a women’s network event, an International Women’s Day moment, or a sports-themed internal day can build a session around. Key speaking topics Conference and awards hosting Panel moderation and on-stage interviewing Women in sport Inclusion in male-dominated industries Sports broadcasting and live event craft Ideal for Internal women’s network events and International Women’s Day programmes Annual customer and partner conferences requiring a host and moderator Internal awards and recognition evenings Sponsor and hospitality events around football and major sporting fixtures Audience outcomes A live event that holds pace, recovers cleanly when something slips, and lands its recognition moments. Panels and senior leader interviews that produce direct answers rather than rehearsed lines. A first-person account of breaking into a male-dominated industry that an inclusion strand can be built around.

Why organisations work with Miranda Brawn She brings the perspective of a sitting non-executive director across an NHS Foundation Trust, FTSE 100 sustainability funds and AI start-ups, so her recommendations land as practitioner advice rather than commentary from outside the boardroom. The Brawn Review, launched at the House of Lords in October 2025, gives clients access to a named, evidenced governance framework with 50 specific recommendations, not a general lecture on why diversity matters. She is a barrister called to the Bar of England and Wales with an MBA and academic appointments at Roehampton and previously Oxford, which gives her credibility with general counsel, audit committees and regulators in equal measure. Her foundation has run the UK’s first diversity leadership lecture and scholarship programme since 2016, giving her a decade of evidence on what actually shifts representation, useful for clients tired of pledges that do not move numbers. She covers ESG, AI ethics and inclusive leadership from the same vantage point, which suits boards that no longer want three different speakers for three governance topics that have collapsed into one. Biography highlights Author of The Brawn Review: Boardroom Sustainability, Inclusion and Corporate Governance, launched at the UK House of Lords in October 2025. Honorary Professor in Business and Law, University of Roehampton; former Senior Visiting Fellow, University of Oxford. Barrister, Bar of England and Wales; MBA; Honorary Doctor of Letters (Brighton); Honorary Doctor of Laws (University of Law). Non-executive director, chair, trustee and advisor across an NHS Foundation Trust, FTSE 100 sustainability funds with over GBP 2 billion AUM, VC funds and AI start-ups including X0PA AI. Former Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan; founder and CEO of The Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Foundation (2016). Financial Times Top 30 Ethnic Minority Leaders; Prime Minister’s Point of Light; Woman of the Year, Women in Finance Awards. Biography The Brawn Review landed at the House of Lords in October 2025 with 50 recommendations on boardroom sustainability, inclusion and governance, drawn from contributions by 1,000 global board members and endorsed by Lord Davies of the 2011 Davies Review. It is the work of an author who sits on the boards she is writing about, not a researcher describing them from outside. Miranda Brawn is a barrister, MBA, honorary professor at the University of Roehampton and former Senior Visiting Fellow at Oxford, where the review began. Her board portfolio runs across the UK’s largest NHS Foundation Trust, FTSE 100 sustainability funds with more than GBP 2 billion in assets under management, venture capital funds and AI start-ups. Before the boardroom she traded for Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. Most inclusion speakers offer advocacy. Her contribution is governance design: what a sustainability committee should actually do, how directors should oversee AI deployment, how inclusion outcomes should be measured against legal and fiduciary tests. The Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Foundation, which she founded in 2016, has run a decade of scholarship and mentoring programmes that give her a longitudinal view of what shifts representation in finance, law and technology. Her recognition reflects the breadth of that practice rather than a single domain: Financial Times Top 30 Ethnic Minority Leaders, Prime Minister’s Point of Light, Woman of the Year at the Women in Finance Awards, and Top 50 Afro-Caribbean Leadership Award presented at the House of Lords. Key speaking topics Boardroom governance of sustainability, inclusion and AI Inclusive and values-based leadership ESG strategy and board oversight AI ethics and responsible technology Non-executive director practice Diversity, equity and inclusion in regulated industries The Brawn Review recommendations Ideal for Boards, chairs and non-executive directors reviewing committee structure on ESG, AI and inclusion General counsel, company secretaries and heads of governance preparing for investor and regulator scrutiny CHROs and chief sustainability officers translating board commitments into operating practice Financial services, healthcare and professional services firms with concentrated DEI and governance exposure Audience outcomes A named governance framework, The Brawn Review, with specific recommendations on board composition, committee remits and oversight of AI and sustainability. A clearer view of where DEI commitments sit in fiduciary and regulatory terms, not only reputational ones. A practitioner reading of what NEDs are actually being asked to evidence on inclusion and ESG by investors and regulators. Evidence from a decade of scholarship and mentoring programmes on which interventions move representation in finance, law and technology.

Why organisations work with Victoria Humphries A lived account of decision-making in life-threatening conditions, including falling through Arctic ice, that translates directly to how senior teams behave when the stakes are real and the recovery margin is thin. An executive track record across teaching, governance, consulting and running an EdTech business, so the resilience material lands as commercial advice, not adventure storytelling. A specific focus on the leadership behaviours that hold workforces together through repeated restructure: small steps, visible composure, recovery from setback. Co-author of Frigid Women, the published account of the 1997 first all-female North Pole expedition, which gives the keynote a documentary anchor rather than a retold anecdote. Repeat use by leadership-development and change programmes at AkzoNobel, Tarmac, Coventry Building Society, COBIS, Pfizer and ServiceNow. Biography highlights Member of the first all-female relay expedition to the North Pole, 1997. Co-author of Frigid Women, published by Eye Books, written with her mother, Sue Riches. Three-time Guinness World Record holder, as cited on her speaker profiles. 25-plus years across education, governance and commercial leadership, including managing director of an EdTech company. Keynote and workshop client list including AkzoNobel, Coventry Building Society, British Telecom, AQA Education, Tarmac Springboard, Pfizer, ServiceNow and COBIS. Biography The 1997 expedition to the North Pole was twenty women in a relay across shifting Arctic ice, in temperatures around minus 40, with rescue dependent on aircraft that could only land in a narrow weather window. Victoria Humphries was one of them. She and her mother Sue went through the ice into the Arctic Ocean at one point and got themselves out. That story sits underneath the rest of her work as a leadership speaker. The expedition is documented in Frigid Women, the book she co-wrote with her mother and published through Eye Books. It is not a motivational text. It is an account of how a non-professional team prepared for, survived and recovered from a sustained ordeal, and what each person had to manage in their own head to keep going. That makes it useful source material for organisations dealing with fatigue and repeated change, rather than a one-off shock. The commercial track record is what allows the polar story to do useful work in a corporate room. Twenty-five years of teaching, governance, consultancy and running an EdTech business gives her the language of leadership development, restructure and team performance. Programmes she has delivered for AkzoNobel, Coventry Building Society, Tarmac, Pfizer, COBIS and ServiceNow are positioned as resilience and change content, not adventure speeches. Her signature talks, Managing Change in a Changing World, One Step at a Time and Be Bold, Be Brave, Be You, take the same idea into different audiences. The argument is consistent: when conditions stay hard for a long time, what holds a team together are small, visible acts of composure from the people leading it. Key speaking topics Resilience and stress management Leading through sustained change Self-leadership under pressure Team leadership in difficult conditions Women in business and leadership Motivation and self-belief Diversity, equity and inclusion Ideal for Leadership development programmes for newly senior managers, including high-potential and emerging-leader cohorts. HR, talent and learning teams are designing resilience or change-readiness content into a wider curriculum. Conferences and town halls during or after a restructure, integration, or sustained period of operational pressure. Women’s leadership networks and inclusion programmes that want a speaker with a substantive professional record alongside the personal story. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how composure under pressure shows up as a leadership behaviour, not a personality trait. A method for breaking long, uncertain change into the next single step a team can act on. A frame for recovering from a setback at work without losing the team’s commitment to the next phase. A more honest read on personal capability, particularly for people who have under-rated their own resilience.

Why organisations work with Candice Brathwaite Two Sunday Times bestsellers built on different theses. I Am Not Your Baby Mother (2020) reshaped national conversations on Black British motherhood. Manifest(o) (2024) became an instant bestseller on intention and self-belief, and took her on a sold-out international tour across the UK, US and Canada. Lived authority on inclusion and representation in a moment when most DEI speakers have either lost the room or become politically performative. Her debut was the first book by a Black British woman about Black British motherhood to enter the British Library. A speaker who can hold uncomfortable conversations and keep audiences listening. Liberty London described her keynote as “the best we have ever put on in 150 years of the store.” Cross-sector keynote track record across financial services, professional services, retail and tech: NatWest, Barclays, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Ralph Lauren, Sainsbury’s, Deliveroo, Liberty London and the Cambridge Union. The timing and craft of a working broadcaster, drawn from regular appearances on ITV’s Lorraine and Steph’s Packed Lunch, her role as Contributing Editor at Grazia, and writing across the Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar and Stylist. Biography highlights Two-time Sunday Times bestselling author: I Am Not Your Baby Mother (Quercus, 2020) and Manifest(o) (Quercus, 2024) First book by a Black British woman about Black British motherhood to enter the British Library Founder of Make Motherhood Diverse, the campaign challenging stereotyped representations of parenthood in British media Contributing Editor at Grazia and regular UK television presenter on ITV’s Lorraine and Steph’s Packed Lunch Host of Conversations with Candice (Acast, 2026), following the multi-million-download Closet Confessions Keynote clients include NatWest, Barclays, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Ralph Lauren, Sainsbury’s, Deliveroo, Liberty London, the Royal College of Midwives and the Cambridge Union Biography Most corporate conversations about inclusion have stopped landing. The language is familiar, the speakers cautious, and the audiences switched off. The substance still matters; the form has stopped working. In 2016 a blog post asked where the Black mothers were in British parenting media, and started building an answer. The blog became Make Motherhood Diverse. The platform became a book. I Am Not Your Baby Mother (2020) was a Sunday Times bestseller and the first book written by a Black British woman about Black British motherhood to enter the British Library. A second Sunday Times bestseller followed in Manifest(o) (2024), with a sold-out international tour across the UK, US and Canada. Alongside the books came regular presenting work on ITV’s Lorraine and Steph’s Packed Lunch, a Contributing Editor role at Grazia, and two podcasts. The corporate keynote diary expanded with it: NatWest, Barclays, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Ralph Lauren, Sainsbury’s, Deliveroo, Liberty London and the Cambridge Union. Buyers tend to book her for the same reason. Inclusion, ambition and the lived reality of working parents are subjects where most speakers either over-perform or under-deliver. Liberty London described her keynote as “the best we have ever put on in 150 years of the store.” That is the response organisations come back for. Key speaking topics Diversity, equity and inclusion Personal brand building and visibility Modern motherhood and the working parent Motivation and self-belief Manifestation and intentional living Storytelling and cultural commentary Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and DEI leads designing inclusion programming that audiences will actually engage with rather than tolerate Internal communications, ERG sponsors and culture teams running events on representation, belonging and the experience of working parents Leadership development and event teams looking for a closing keynote that drives genuine post-event conversation Brand, marketing and creative leadership teams thinking about voice, visibility and cultural authenticity Audience outcomes A direct, honest perspective on inclusion that audiences will repeat back to their colleagues A sharper sense of what genuine representation looks like in the everyday operation of a business, beyond statements and campaigns Language and permission to talk about visibility, ambition and working parenthood as serious organisational concerns The energy and confidence to act on something they have been postponing in their own careers

Why organisations work with Rebecca Minkoff Two decades of operating the same brand through three retail eras: department store, direct-to-consumer digital, and the post-pandemic rebuild. Few founder speakers have run their own brand long enough to talk credibly about all three. A working playbook for founder reinvention. After losing 70% of revenue in 2020, Minkoff repositioned the business; she can speak to the operational decisions that recovery actually required. Convening power with other women founders. Through the Female Founder Collective and the Superwomen podcast, she has interviewed and worked alongside operators like Katie Couric, Bozoma St. John and Jessica Alba, and brings that network into the room. A published thesis on founder behaviour. “Fearless” (HarperCollins Leadership, 2021) sets out the specific rules she used to build and rebuild the brand, giving audiences a single argument to react to rather than a career retrospective. Biography highlights Founder and Co-Creative Director of Rebecca Minkoff, established 2005, distributed across 900+ stores worldwide and own retail in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Korea. Founder of the Female Founder Collective (2018), a network of 9,000+ women-led businesses providing education, mentorship and strategic resources. Author of “Fearless: The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success” (HarperCollins Leadership, 2021). Host of the “Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff” podcast, with guests including Katie Couric, Bozoma St. John and Jessica Alba. Recipient of the Accessories Council Breakthrough Designer Award (2011). Active member of the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America). Biography The Morning After Bag was designed in 2005 by a 24-year-old who had moved to New York at 18 to work in fashion. Twenty years later, that handbag is still in production, the brand carries Rebecca Minkoff’s name across 900 stores, and the founder has had to rebuild her own company more than once to keep it there. That second part is where she becomes useful to organisations. Minkoff has run the Rebecca Minkoff brand through the collapse of department store retail, the rise of direct-to-consumer digital, and a pandemic that erased 70% of her business in a single year. The business she now operates is structurally different from the one she founded, and she has had to make every one of those changes herself. In 2018, she founded the Female Founder Collective, now a 9,000-member network for women-led businesses, and launched the Superwomen podcast, where she has interviewed founders and operators including Katie Couric, Bozoma St. John and Jessica Alba. In 2021 she published “Fearless” with HarperCollins Leadership, a book that sets out the specific operating rules she used to build the brand and stay in business. The Accessories Council named her Breakthrough Designer in 2011. She is an active CFDA member. The more interesting credential, for a senior buyer, is that she has run the same name-on-the-door consumer brand for two decades, which is not a position many founders reach. Key speaking topics Founder reinvention after market shock Building and scaling a consumer brand Direct-to-consumer and digital retail Women in entrepreneurship and access to capital Brand longevity over multiple retail eras Networks and mentorship for women founders Risk-taking and rule-breaking in brand building Ideal for Founders, CEOs and senior commercial leaders at consumer brands navigating channel disruption or category decline. Heads of DTC, brand and customer for retail and consumer-goods companies rebuilding after demand shocks. Corporate networks and ERGs for women in leadership, particularly those focused on entrepreneurship and progression to founder roles. Investor, accelerator and venture-platform audiences working with women-led portfolios. Audience outcomes A specific operator account of how a consumer brand survives twenty years of retail change, told by the person whose name is on the building. A concrete view of what founders actually do after a 70% revenue loss, beyond the post-mortem narrative. A picture of how networks like the Female Founder Collective change the funding and mentorship arithmetic for women-led businesses. The argument from “Fearless” in the founder’s own words, including which of the rules held under pressure and which did not.

Why organisations work with Padma Lakshmi Her seven-year documentary project across immigrant and Indigenous communities in America (the foundation of both Taste the Nation and the 2025 Knopf cookbook Padma’s All American) gives her argument about diversity and belonging an evidential weight that most cultural voices cannot offer. Her DEI perspective is not theoretical: she co-founded an organisation that passed state legislation and helped establish the first interdisciplinary gynepathology research centre in the US, at MIT, demonstrating what sustained, policy-level advocacy actually produces. As UNDP Goodwill Ambassador and ACLU Artist Ambassador, she operates at a level of formal institutional credibility that separates her from celebrity advocates; she has testified, lobbied, and built coalitions, not just spoken. She offers one of the few genuinely non-confrontational pathways into difficult conversations about immigration, identity, and women’s health – using food as the entry point makes these subjects accessible in rooms where they are otherwise contested. Named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People and recipient of the UNCA Advocate of the Year Award, she brings independent, multi-sector validation that extends well beyond the entertainment industry. Biography highlights Host and executive producer of Bravo’s Top Chef for 19 seasons; four-time Emmy nominee as Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program Creator, host, and executive producer of Hulu’s Taste the Nation; James Beard Foundation Award winner, Visual Media – Long Form (2022) Author of Padma’s All American (Knopf, 2025), named a Best Cookbook of 2025 by the Washington Post and Boston Globe; New York Times bestselling author of memoir Love, Loss, and What We Ate and children’s book Tomatoes for Neela Co-founder, EndoFound; instrumental in establishing the first US interdisciplinary gynepathology research facility (Harvard Medical School and MIT joint project) and passing New York State Senate legislation on teen health education Visiting scholar, MIT Center for Gynepathology research UNDP Goodwill Ambassador; ACLU Artist Ambassador; TIME 100 Most Influential People (2023); UNCA Advocate of the Year (2021) Biography When organisations talk about inclusion, the conversation often stalls at the data. Padma Lakshmi has spent two decades building a different kind of argument; one that begins at the dinner table. As creator and host of Hulu’s Taste the Nation, she spent seven years embedded in immigrant and Indigenous communities across America, documenting how culinary traditions carry identity, history, and a sense of belonging that policy language rarely captures. The 2025 Knopf cookbook Padma’s All American, named a Best Cookbook of the year by the Washington Post and Boston Globe, extends that fieldwork into a mainstream cultural and business conversation: that diversity is not a management challenge to be solved but a generative force that shapes every aspect of how people live and work. Her advocacy has produced verifiable institutional outcomes. In 2009 she co-founded EndoFound, which helped establish the first interdisciplinary gynepathology research facility in the US – a joint Harvard Medical School and MIT project – and successfully drove legislation through the New York State Senate on teenage health education. She holds a visiting scholar appointment at MIT’s Center for Gynepathology Research. As UNDP Goodwill Ambassador and ACLU Artist Ambassador, she operates at the intersection of cultural influence and formal policy rather than occupying the softer territory of celebrity activism. For leadership teams where DEI initiatives have plateaued, or where women’s health and workplace wellbeing require a more credible and personal voice, Lakshmi’s combination of documentary rigour, scientific partnership, policy track record, and media reach offers something genuinely difficult to replicate. Key speaking topics Cultural identity and immigrant experience in America Diversity, equity, and inclusion through lived narrative Women’s health advocacy and public health policy Food, storytelling, and cross-cultural connection Using platform and media for social and civic impact Representation and belonging in public life Ideal for CHROs and people leaders seeking a non-confrontational, narrative-led entry into DEI at company-wide events Boards and executive teams navigating the political and cultural dimensions of workforce diversity Consumer, hospitality, or media brands whose audiences span diverse cultural communities Organisations with active women’s health or workplace wellbeing commitments seeking credible, policy-informed voices Audience outcomes A reframing of diversity from institutional obligation to cultural asset – grounded in specific, documented community experience rather than theory Deeper understanding of how immigrant and Indigenous communities shape the cultural contexts organisations operate in Practical perspective on what sustained advocacy – from grassroots education to legislative success – actually requires Greater awareness of women’s health as a workplace issue with measurable productivity and retention implications A model for using storytelling and platform to make complex social arguments land with mainstream audiences

Why organisations work with Shiza Shahid She has built a global non-profit alongside a Nobel laureate and a viral consumer brand from the ground up, which gives boards a credible voice on what purpose looks like inside a P&L rather than on a slide. Our Place put a specific commercial bet on multicultural cooking and on cookware made without PFAS, PTFE and PFOA. She can speak about how a values position becomes a product specification and a category position. Through NOW Ventures and her AngelList partnership, she has seen hundreds of early-stage decks from mission-led founders. She can tell a corporate audience which purpose-led strategies are creating real growth and which are positioning. Her arc from McKinsey analyst to non-profit CEO to consumer founder to seed investor gives her language that translates across the room, from a CFO to a brand lead to an innovation team. Biography highlights Co-founder and founding CEO of the Malala Fund, established in 2013 with Malala Yousafzai to advance girls’ education in Pakistan and across Africa. Co-founder and Co-CEO of Our Place, the direct-to-consumer kitchenware brand behind the Always Pan, launched in 2019. Founder of NOW Ventures, an early-stage fund launched in 2017 in partnership with AngelList, backing mission-driven technology startups. Author of Dinner at Our Place: Recipes for Gathering, published by HarperCollins in 2025 with eleven chefs and tastemakers. BA, Stanford University, graduated with University Distinction; former business analyst, McKinsey & Company, Dubai. Named to TIME’s 30 Under 30 People Changing the World and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs; honoured as a Tribeca Disruptive Innovator. Biography A teenage activist in Islamabad set up a summer camp for Malala Yousafzai and other Pakistani girls in 2009. Three years later, after Malala was shot, that camp became the foundation for the Malala Fund. Shiza Shahid was the founding CEO, working alongside Malala and her father Ziauddin to build a global organisation focused on girls’ education in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya and Sierra Leone. The Malala Fund was a lesson in scaling a mission. The Our Place chapter, which started in 2019 with husband Amir Tehrani and co-founder Zach Rosner, was a lesson in scaling a product. The brand bet that multicultural cooking and toxin-free cookware were a commercial proposition, not a niche, and the Always Pan answered that bet with a 30,000-person waitlist on release. NOW Ventures, launched in 2017 with AngelList, is the third lens. Shahid writes early cheques into mission-led founders in technology, with an explicit emphasis on women and diverse entrepreneurs. The fund gives her a constant view of which purpose-led businesses are converting into commercial substance, and which are still positioning. Her cookbook, Dinner at Our Place, published by HarperCollins in 2025, sits on top of that body of work. The recipes are written with eleven chefs and tastemakers, and the book is structured around hosting as a cultural act. It is the most concrete expression yet of the conviction that drives her companies: that culture, commerce and care are not separate categories. Key speaking topics Mission-driven entrepreneurship and scale Purpose as a commercial proposition Building a consumer brand from launch Women and diverse founders in early-stage tech Girls’ education and social impact Inclusive brand and product design Investing in technology for global challenges Ideal for CEOs and founders building purpose-led consumer brands and DTC businesses Chief marketing, chief brand and chief sustainability officers in consumer goods Corporate venture, innovation and ESG teams designing new mission-led ventures Women in leadership programmes, founder networks and philanthropy boards Audience outcomes A grounded view of how a mission becomes a product specification, a brand position and a category bet, not a marketing line. A clearer read on which purpose-led commercial strategies are creating growth and which are signalling. A working vocabulary for backing women and diverse founders in early-stage technology, from someone who writes cheques. A direct account of how a non-profit at global scale and a consumer brand at viral scale are built from the same founder discipline.

Why organisations work with Leland Melvin He has lived two career-ending events and returned from both. A hamstring injury ended his NFL prospects; a training accident left him partially deaf and medically grounded before he was cleared to fly. Leaders running fatigued teams listen to him because the material is earned. He is the only person drafted into the NFL who has flown in space, and he uses that arc as a working case study on reinvention, not as a curiosity. The narrative carries weight in rooms that have heard most astronaut and athlete talks before. He ran NASA Education as Associate Administrator and co-chaired the White House STEM Task Force. He speaks credibly to boards and CHROs on future skills and pipeline strategy, not only on inspiration. His STS-122 mission delivered Europe’s Columbus laboratory to the ISS. The crew was American, French, German, and led a delicate international handover. He draws on that for executives managing multinational teams under public scrutiny. Author of Chasing Space with HarperCollins, with a Young Readers edition still in active use across US school systems. The book is a working reference for the keynote, not a souvenir. Biography highlights Retired NASA astronaut, mission specialist on STS-122 and STS-129 aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, with over 565 hours in space. NASA Associate Administrator for Education and head of NASA’s education portfolio at the Senior Executive Service level. Co-chair of the White House Federal Coordination in STEM Education Task Force and chair of the International Space Education Board. Drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1986; the only person drafted into the NFL to have flown in space. BSc Chemistry, University of Richmond; MSc Materials Science Engineering, University of Virginia. Specialist in optical fibre sensors at NASA Langley before astronaut selection. Author of Chasing Space: An Astronaut’s Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2017). Biography A training tank at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston ended Leland Melvin’s astronaut career before it started. A water-pressure incident during EVA training left him partially deaf and medically disqualified from flight. NASA assigned him to its education office. Three years later, a flight surgeon cleared him on a waiver, and he flew to the International Space Station on STS-122 to deliver the Columbus laboratory module. The path to that flight ran through two earlier identities. Chemistry at the University of Richmond on a football scholarship. A masters in Materials Science Engineering at the University of Virginia. A research career at NASA Langley working on optical fibre sensors for composite structures, while training camps with the Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys, and Toronto Argonauts closed one by one through hamstring injuries. Selection as a NASA astronaut came in 1998. Two missions followed, STS-122 in 2008 and STS-129 in 2009, totalling more than 565 hours in orbit. What gives the speaking work its weight is what came after the flights. As NASA Associate Administrator for Education from 2010 to 2014, Melvin oversaw the agency’s national education portfolio and co-chaired the White House Federal Coordination in STEM Education Task Force. He sat at the senior level on US STEM policy. Chasing Space, published by HarperCollins in 2017, took the personal account into wider circulation and remains in use as a school text in its Young Readers edition. He works now with executive audiences on the operating content of resilience: how a leader keeps a fatigued team functioning when the people in it are quietly carrying serious setbacks, and how to design a pipeline that pulls talent from places most organisations do not yet look. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after career-altering setbacks High-performing teams in high-consequence operating environments Inclusive leadership and multinational crew dynamics STEM education, future skills, and pipeline strategy Lessons from human spaceflight for executive teams Personal reinvention and second-act careers Ideal for CHROs, chief people officers, and learning leaders building resilience and inclusion programmes with substance Senior teams emerging from restructure, redundancy, or burnout cycles Education, public sector, and STEM-focused organisations setting talent pipeline strategy Conferences seeking a credentialed plenary voice on inspiration that withstands scrutiny Audience outcomes A working sense of what resilience looks like as a leadership behaviour, not a personal trait A specific account of how international crew performance is built and maintained under pressure A clearer view of the pipeline question: where future technical talent is found and what blocks it A vivid Earth-observation perspective that lifts the room without softening the argument