Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Why organisations work with Lizzy Burden She anchors Bloomberg’s Daybreak Europe across television and radio, which means she walks into a room already briefed on the morning’s market-moving stories rather than the previous week’s headlines. She has interviewed the UK Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Shadow Chancellor, FTSE 100 chief executives, Nobel laureate economists and Bank of England policymakers, so she is comfortable pressing senior figures without losing the room. She has hosted at the CBI annual conference, Chatham House, Founders Forum, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, and the Conservative and Labour Party conferences, which is the working ground of corporate and policy audiences. As a non-executive director of Creative Access, she brings genuine governance experience on diversity in the creative industries, not a topic talk borrowed for the occasion. She also writes the Readout newsletter and hosts the Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast, so the same voice clients book on stage is already in their feed. Biography highlights UK Correspondent, Bloomberg TV; anchor of Daybreak Europe on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio. Host of the daily Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast and author of the Readout newsletter. Named one of MHP’s 30 Journalists to Watch. Non-executive director, Creative Access, appointed November 2023. Previously economics writer at The Telegraph and Bloomberg News; earlier graduate trainee at The Times. History graduate, University of Cambridge. Biography Bloomberg’s Daybreak Europe goes on air before most of the City has reached its desk, and the job of the anchor is to set the day’s agenda for European investors in the hour the markets need it most. That is the platform Lizzy Burden runs. She is Bloomberg TV’s UK Correspondent, the host of the television and radio editions of Daybreak Europe, the host of the daily Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast, and the writer of the Readout newsletter. The reporting record is what gives her the authority to host senior corporate and political audiences. She has interviewed the UK Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Shadow Chancellor, FTSE 100 chief executives, Nobel laureate economists and Bank of England policymakers, and has filed from Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, the Bank of England and the Elysee Palace on monetary policy decisions, multiple prime ministerial transitions, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Brexit, the US-China trade war and the war in Ukraine. Her event work sits squarely inside that beat. She has hosted at the CBI annual conference, Chatham House, Founders Forum, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum and the Conservative and Labour Party conferences, the venues where senior business and policy audiences gather. She came to Bloomberg via The Times graduate scheme and economics writing roles at The Telegraph and Bloomberg News, after reading history at the University of Cambridge. Outside the studio, she serves as a non-executive director at Creative Access, the organisation that works to widen representation in the creative industries. MHP has named her one of its 30 Journalists to Watch. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster Monetary policy and the Bank of England Global economic outlook Geopolitics and political risk Conference hosting and on-stage interviews Diversity in the creative industries Media and journalism Ideal for Corporate conferences and AGMs that need a credible host across politics, markets and macro-economics. Boards, leadership offsites and investor events that want a Bloomberg-grade interviewer for sessions with senior policymakers or chief executives. Industry summits and policy forums seeking a moderator who can run plenary panels and one-to-one stage interviews. DEI-focused convenings looking for a working journalist with board-level governance experience on representation. Audience outcomes A clear read of the UK political and economic stories most likely to shape the next twelve months, drawn from Bloomberg’s daily output. Sharper sessions on stage, because she briefs hard and presses guests on the questions the audience came to hear answered. A working sense of how monetary policy, Westminster decisions and global political risk connect to corporate strategy. A rare combination of macro-economic fluency and lived experience of widening representation in a creative industry.

Why organisations work with Anj Handa She brings governance-level credibility into inclusion conversations that usually stop at HR, holding positions as Independent Governor of Leeds Arts University, Chair of Freedom Studios, and Fellow of the RSA. Her campaign craft is verifiable, not rhetorical. She built the legal team, petition, and media strategy on the Afusat Saliu FGM-asylum case, gathering 126,500 signatures and pushing FGM higher on the UK political agenda. She names the parts of inclusive leadership most speakers avoid: emotional correctness, healthy boundaries, psychological safety, and what allyship has to do that employee networks cannot. She offers a working alternative to the glass ceiling, the labyrinth, which describes the actual sequence of barriers women, and particularly Black and brown women, encounter inside large organisations. Forbes named her in its 10 Diversity & Inclusion Trailblazers list, and Grant Thornton UK featured her among its 100 Faces of a Vibrant Economy. The recognition tracks substantive work, not commentary. Biography highlights Founder of Inspiring Women Changemakers, an inclusive community and consultancy advising on equity, governance, and systems change. Independent Governor of Leeds Arts University and Chair of the Board of Freedom Studios. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Named in Forbes “10 Diversity & Inclusion Trailblazers” and Grant Thornton UK’s 100 Faces of a Vibrant Economy (2018). Featured in Charity Times 2023 International Women’s Day list. Contributor to “Generation Share”, “Eradicating FGM in the UK” (Hilary Burrage), and “Refugee Tales” (Comma Press). Biography Most organisations have a diversity statement. Far fewer have governance and leadership practices that match it. The gap is where talent gets lost, complaints get managed, and senior leaders quietly accept attrition that the policy was meant to prevent. Closing that gap requires someone fluent in both the structural and the human side of the work. Anj Handa has spent more than two decades operating in that space. She is Founder of Inspiring Women Changemakers, an inclusive community and consultancy that advises senior leaders on inclusive governance, equity, and systems change. She is an Independent Governor of Leeds Arts University, Chair of Freedom Studios, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; positions she has often noted are held by fewer than one percent of Black and brown women in the UK. Her authority is not theoretical. In 2014 she led the high-profile asylum campaign for Afusat Saliu and her daughters, assembling the legal team, running a Change.org petition that drew 126,500 signatures, and bringing MPs and national media into the story. The work was later included in Hilary Burrage’s “Eradicating FGM in the UK” and the Comma Press anthology “Refugee Tales”. Forbes named her in its 10 Diversity & Inclusion Trailblazers list; Grant Thornton featured her among its 100 Faces of a Vibrant Economy. What separates her work for senior teams is the territory she is willing to name. Psychological safety, emotional correctness, healthy boundaries, allyship that is more than a network. She challenges the glass ceiling as a useful frame and offers the labyrinth in its place, a more accurate description of the sequence of barriers women encounter inside complex organisations. That precision is what boards and executive teams hire her for. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership and governance Equity, diversity, and structural change The labyrinth: rethinking the glass ceiling Allyship beyond employee networks Psychological safety and emotional correctness Self-care and resilience for changemakers Campaign craft and policy influence Ideal for Boards, governance committees, and executive teams setting inclusion strategy CHROs, Heads of DEI, and senior people leaders rebuilding programmes under scrutiny Public sector, charity, and arts leaders working on equity and safeguarding Women’s leadership and changemaker networks inside large organisations Audience outcomes A sharper vocabulary for the structural barriers women face beyond the glass ceiling A clear distinction between allyship as practice and employee networks as forum Specific governance-level questions to put to their own inclusion programmes Permission and language to address emotional correctness and boundaries in senior teams A view of inclusion that connects policy, governance, and lived experience without losing rigour

Why organisations work with Ashley Rhodes-Courter A clinical credential behind the personal story. She is an LCSW running a mental health agency, the Foundation for Sustainable Families, which means her work on resilience and wellbeing is grounded in clinical practice, not motivational framing. A specific account of what trauma-informed care looks like in real institutions. Nine years across 14 foster placements gives her a rare credibility on systems that fail vulnerable people, and on what it takes to redesign them. Authority on schools, social services, and helping professions. Her talks for educators and frontline workers address abuse identification, burnout, and self-care with the precision of a practitioner, not a guest speaker. A New York Times bestselling memoir used in college curricula nationally, plus a published children’s book on a transgender sibling listed on the 2022 ALA Rainbow Book List. The body of work is taught, not just sold. Biography highlights New York Times bestselling author of Three Little Words (Simon & Schuster, 2008), with sequel Three More Words and the picture book Sam Is My Sister (Albert Whitman & Company, 2021). Licensed Clinical Social Worker. MSW from the University of Southern California; undergraduate degree from Eckerd College. Founder of the Foundation for Sustainable Families, a non-profit mental health agency providing trauma-informed care. Featured on CNN, Good Morning America, Today, The New York Times, USA Today, and Glamour, including selection as one of Glamour’s Top Ten College Women and to USA Today’s All-USA Academic Team. Profiled on NBC’s Women of Worth (December 2021). Sam Is My Sister included on the American Library Association’s 2022 Rainbow Book List. Biography Most public conversations about resilience treat it as a personal trait. In organisations that depend on people doing emotionally demanding work, teachers, social workers, healthcare staff, HR leaders, that framing breaks down. Resilience is built or eroded by systems, supervision, and the quality of care that workers themselves receive. Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s work begins from that point. She is unusual among speakers on this subject in holding the credential that matches the content. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Master’s from the University of Southern California, she runs the Foundation for Sustainable Families, a mental health agency providing trauma-informed care. The clinical work informs the talks, and the talks track current practice rather than stories from a decade ago. Her authority on the subject is also biographical. Three Little Words, published by Simon & Schuster in 2008, traces nine years across 14 foster placements in Florida. The book began as an essay in The New York Times Magazine, became a New York Times bestseller, and is now used in collegiate social work and education programs. Three More Words extends the account into adulthood and adoptive parenting. Sam Is My Sister, her 2021 picture book with Albert Whitman, was placed on the American Library Association’s 2022 Rainbow Book List. The combination matters for serious buyers. A leadership team that wants a substantive session on burnout, on what schools and social services actually need from staff, or on inclusion as a duty of care, gets a speaker who has lived inside failing systems and now treats people inside the current ones. The argument is not that adversity creates strength. It is that institutions decide whether the people inside them recover or break. Key speaking topics Trauma-informed leadership and organisational practice Burnout and self-care in helping professions Resilience after adverse experience Foster care, child welfare, and adoption Mental health in the workplace Inclusion and family diversity Educator and frontline-worker wellbeing Ideal for CHROs, heads of wellbeing, and people leaders designing trauma-informed support Education sector leaders, district superintendents, and school principals Healthcare, social care, and non-profit boards DEI and inclusion leads working on family diversity and lived-experience inclusion Audience outcomes A clearer working definition of trauma-informed practice and what it asks of managers Specific signals of burnout and abuse that frontline staff and leaders can act on A frame for resilience that holds institutions, not only individuals, accountable A more confident vocabulary for inclusion conversations involving family identity and lived experience

Why organisations work with Joe Gerstandt He reframes inclusion as organisational design work, with named practices leaders can actually run, rather than a values campaign that depends on goodwill. His “From Anti to Ally” narrative gives sceptical audiences a credible personal entry point, useful in rooms where DEI language has lost its purchase. Co-author of Social Gravity, a published thesis on how relationship dynamics shape collective performance, which gives the work an intellectual spine beyond bureau talking points. Sits on Twitter’s Intersectional Culture and Diversity Advisory Council and the ISO US Technical Advisory Group on Diversity and Inclusion, meaning his frameworks have been tested inside platform governance and global standards. Marine Corps veteran turned culture practitioner, with a delivery register that lands credibly in industrial, defence, and engineering-led organisations where conventional DEI speakers often do not. Biography highlights Co-author, Social Gravity: Harnessing the Natural Laws of Relationships. Intersectional Culture and Diversity Advisory Council, Twitter. US Technical Advisory Group’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, International Organization for Standardization. Board director, Tri-Faith Initiative, Nebraska. Featured contributor, Workforce Diversity Network Expert Forum. Clients include Boeing, Toyota, Nestle, Target, Eli Lilly, Marathon Oil, Cornell University, University of Michigan, the CIA and the FAA. Biography Inclusion work has hit a credibility ceiling inside many large organisations. Twenty years of programmes, statements and training have not translated into the operating changes leaders were promised, and the political pressure on DEI has stripped away the cover that older approaches relied on. The result is a leadership population that knows the work matters but no longer trusts the standard playbook. Joe Gerstandt has spent the past two decades rebuilding the work on different ground. His starting point is that inclusion is a design problem, not a sentiment problem. Behaviour, norms, decision rights, conflict practices and conversational habits are the actual machinery. His sessions teach leaders to operate that machinery, with concrete practices around brave conversations, authenticity, and team design. Two strands give the work its weight. Social Gravity, which he co-authored, sets out the relational dynamics that determine whether collective performance compounds or decays. His “From Anti to Ally” narrative draws on his own move from rural Iowa and the Marine Corps into culture work, giving sceptical audiences a credible bridge into the material without asking them to start from agreement. The institutional record matters. He sits on Twitter’s Intersectional Culture and Diversity Advisory Council and on the ISO US Technical Advisory Group’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, advises Fortune 100 employers and federal agencies including the CIA and FAA, and has published in Diversity Best Practices, Diversity Executive and HR Executive. That positions him as a practitioner whose frameworks have been pressure-tested against platform governance, global standards and operating reality. Key speaking topics Inclusion as organisational design Inclusive leadership practice Authenticity and psychological safety at work Team performance and relational dynamics Behaviour change and culture change Allyship and personal transformation Bias, identity and decision-making Ideal for CHROs, Chief Diversity Officers and culture leads rebuilding inclusion programmes that have lost internal credibility. Executive teams running culture change inside engineering, defence, industrial and regulated environments where conventional DEI delivery falls flat. Boards and leadership cohorts treating inclusion as a leadership capability rather than a compliance line. Employee resource group leaders and allies seeking practical practice, not slogans. Audience outcomes A working definition of inclusion as a designed practice, separable from political language. Named behaviours and conversational practices leaders can use the next working day. A clearer read on where their organisation’s inclusion work has stalled and why. Language for engaging sceptics and ambivalent middle managers without forcing ideological agreement. A frame for treating relational dynamics as a performance variable, drawn from Social Gravity.

Why organisations work with Bernie Collins She ran race strategy at Aston Martin F1, a role that required committing several hundred engineers to a single decision in under thirty seconds, with the result televised live. Very few speakers have carried that kind of accountability. Her book with Maurice Hamilton, How to Win a Grand Prix, translates the mechanics of F1 decision making into a framework leaders can apply to their own operating rhythm. She brings a working broadcaster’s clarity. As Sky Sports F1’s strategy analyst, she explains complex trade-offs to a lay audience every race weekend, which transfers directly to boardroom and all-hands contexts. Her perspective on diversity in engineering is grounded in her own path through a male-dominated paddock, not in consultancy talking points. She is Irish, plain-spoken, and unafraid to be specific about what went wrong on a given decision. That honesty is rare in sports-adjacent keynotes. Biography highlights Former Head of Race Strategy, Aston Martin F1, 2020 to 2022. Performance and strategy engineer at Force India, Racing Point, and Aston Martin from 2015, working with Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg. Began her F1 career at McLaren in 2009 as a graduate trainee, becoming performance engineer to Jenson Button. Formula 1 strategy analyst for Sky Sports F1 and F1TV. Author of How to Win a Grand Prix: From Pit Lane to Podium with Maurice Hamilton, Quercus, 2024. Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe, Manufacturing and Industry, 2016. Honorary degree from Queen’s University Belfast, 2023. Biography An F1 race strategist has around thirty seconds to recommend a tyre change that commits the team for the rest of the Grand Prix. Bernie Collins spent more than a decade in that seat, ending as Head of Race Strategy at Aston Martin F1, where she called the race at Sergio Perez’s maiden victory at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix. Her route there ran through McLaren, where she arrived as a graduate from Queen’s University Belfast in 2009 and eventually worked trackside with Jenson Button, and then Force India, where she moved into strategy alongside Nico Hulkenberg and Perez. The team rebranded twice while she stayed in the same chair, which gave her an unusual view of how a technical organisation holds its culture together through ownership changes. What makes Collins useful to senior audiences is the structure of the F1 strategy job itself. A pit-wall call blends incomplete telemetry, weather models, competitor behaviour, and driver feedback into a single recommendation, made under time pressure, with the outcome visible on live television within minutes. In How to Win a Grand Prix, her 2024 book with journalist Maurice Hamilton, she sets out how that decision is actually made, and what organisations elsewhere tend to get wrong about it. She now works as Sky Sports F1’s strategy analyst, explaining those decisions in real time to a mass audience. The broadcaster’s discipline, saying what matters in plain language without hedging, carries into her speaking. Queen’s University Belfast awarded her an honorary degree in 2023. Key speaking topics Decision making under time pressure High-performance team culture Strategy in complex, data-rich environments Leadership in distributed technical organisations Women in engineering and motorsport Risk and safety in regulated, high-stakes settings Ideal for Executive leadership teams in fast-moving competitive markets Engineering, technology, and operations organisations Strategy, risk, and transformation functions Conferences on performance, decision making, and team culture Audience outcomes A clearer model of how high-performing teams decide when evidence is incomplete A frank look at what accountability actually feels like when your call is public Specific examples of how F1 teams align hundreds of people on a single decision in seconds A useful perspective on women in technical roles from someone who sat at the top of one

About Helen Clark Helen Clark is a global leader on sustainable development, gender equality and international cooperation. She was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999-2008 and served as the Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) from 2009-2017. She is an active member of several global organizations, including the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), where she serves as Chair of the Board, and Chatham House, where she serves as President. Helen Clark became the Administrator of the United Nations Development Program in April 2009 and the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments working on development issues. She was the first woman to assume these positions, which she held for a full two terms and eight years before standing down in April 2017. Helen Clark’s tenure coincided with a period of increased worldwide volatility, which included the aftermath of the financial crisis, uprisings in the Arab States’ region, increasing extreme weather events and disasters, and a growth in the number of deadly conflicts and the associated forced displacement crises. Helen Clark refocused and reformed UNDP into a more transparent, efficient, and accountable organization which could better respond to the new environment while also ensuring that it kept its long term focus on human and sustainable development. Helen Clark is a champion of inclusive and sustainable development. She has ensured that UNDP’s work on poverty eradication is closely linked with its governance and environmental portfolios. She has advocated for the full inclusion and empowerment of women in development – and within UNDP itself where during her tenure the ratio of women to men reached fifty percent. Helen Clark advocates for sexual reproductive health and rights, an end to violence against women and for LGBTQIA+ rights. She has long advocated for those living with HIV and AIDS, and for effective prevention and treatment. At UNDP Helen Clark became known as an early adopter of social media platforms, speaking directly to the public and being ranked as the UN’s most influential leader on social media. Prior to her appointment with UNDP, Helen Clark was the first woman elected as Prime Minister of New Zealand, serving three successive terms from 1999 to 2008. Throughout her tenure as Prime Minister, she engaged widely in policy development and advocacy across the international, economic, social, environmental, and cultural spheres. Under her leadership, New Zealand achieved significant economic growth, low levels of unemployment, and high levels of investment in education, health, and the well-being of families and older citizens. She and her government prioritized reconciliation and the settlement of historical grievances with indigenous people, and the development of an inclusive multicultural and multi-faith society. She advocated strongly for New Zealand’s comprehensive programme on sustainability, including on addressing climate change. Helen Clark held ministerial responsibility during her nine years as Prime Minister for the portfolios of arts, culture and heritage, human and signals intelligence, and ministerial services. She was a strong promoter of the role of arts, culture and heritage in expressing the unique identity of New Zealand. Helen Clark came to the role of Prime Minister after an extensive parliamentary and ministerial career. First elected to Parliament in 1981, Clark was re-elected to her multicultural, inner city Auckland constituency for the tenth time in November 2008. Between 1987 and 1990, she was a Minister responsible for first, the portfolios of Conservation and Housing, and then Health and Labour. She was Deputy Prime Minister between 1989 and 1990, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and of the New Zealand Labour Party from 1990 to 1993, and then Leader of the Opposition and of the Labour Party until becoming Prime Minister after the 1999 General Election. Prior to entering the New Zealand Parliament, Helen Clark taught in the Political Studies Department of the University of Auckland. She graduated from the University of Auckland with a BA in 1971, and an MA with First Class Honours in 1974. Helen Clark has been an OGP Ambassador since October 2017. In 2019 Helen Clark became patron of The Helen Clark Foundation. She is an active member of various international organisations.

Why organisations work with Toni Kent She makes social mobility a concrete operating question rather than a values statement, drawing on a decade running major UK partner relationships at Microsoft and a personal history that maps directly onto the barriers her audience is trying to remove. She is one of a small number of UK speakers who can carry both the hosting craft of a large awards night and the substantive keynote inside it, evidenced by twice hosting the UK Social Mobility Awards. Audiences get an unusual combination of stand-up comic timing and corporate fluency, which makes uncomfortable conversations about class, education and access land without defensiveness. The Common Good Network gives her keynote a follow-through mechanism: a directory of UK organisations that the audience can actually route their employee resource groups, CSR teams and emerging-talent programmes towards. Biography highlights Ten years at Microsoft UK, managing several of the company’s largest partner relationships. Founder of The Common Good Network, an interactive directory of UK social mobility organisations. Twice host of the UK Social Mobility Awards (2021, 2023). Author of four books, including Reasons to be Cheerful, Part One. Host of the Challenging University podcast; co-host of KAYBE Talks and The Partnership Path Podcast. Keynote and hosting clients include AWS, KPMG, PwC, Direct Line Group, Baker Hughes, ForHousing, Smart Works Reading and the University of East London. Biography Most large UK employers now have a social mobility position. Far fewer can show what it has changed inside their recruitment funnel, their early-careers programme, or their promotion patterns. The work of turning a stated commitment into an operating change is where Toni Kent has spent the last decade. She came to the question through a decade at Microsoft UK, where she ran several of the company’s largest partner relationships. Before that, a council-estate upbringing in Basingstoke, a father who died when she was fourteen, a family on state benefits, no university route. The combination matters commercially because she can speak with equal fluency to the chief people officer and to the apprentice in the second row. The Common Good Network is the operating layer underneath the keynote: an interactive directory of UK organisations working on socioeconomic barriers, designed to give corporate audiences a route from intention to partnership. Her hosting of the UK Social Mobility Awards in 2021 and 2023 sits in the same body of work, as do her four published books and her podcasts Challenging University, KAYBE Talks and The Partnership Path. The reason organisations book her for the room and not only for the content is that she is also a working stand-up comedian. The craft shows in how she handles a difficult brief: she can name class, access and education without making the audience flinch, and she can host an awards night for two thousand people without losing the thread of why it matters. Key speaking topics Social mobility in the workplace Inclusive hiring and early-careers access Storytelling and authentic personal narrative Imposter syndrome and confidence in corporate environments Mindset and decision-making under change Event hosting and panel moderation Women in technology Ideal for CHROs, heads of DEI and emerging-talent leads who need a credible voice on social mobility as an operating discipline. Employee resource group chairs and ERG sponsors briefing senior leadership on socioeconomic inclusion. Awards programmes, internal recognition events and large all-hands meetings requiring a confident, comic-timed host. Technology, professional services and financial services audiences engaging with inclusion content for the first time. Audience outcomes A working definition of social mobility that distinguishes class-based access from broader DEI categories. A clear sense of where the typical corporate social mobility commitment breaks down between policy and practice. Specific organisational entry points: ERG design, early careers, mentoring, supplier diversity and procurement. A directory of UK partner organisations, via The Common Good Network, to route follow-through activity through. Permission to discuss class openly inside the organisation without defensiveness.

Why organisations work with Mayara Magri A first-hand account of operating at the top of one of the most ranked, publicly scrutinised performance institutions in the world, where every promotion is earned in front of an audience and a critical press. A decade-plus inside a single company, from corps to Principal, gives her unusual authority on what sustained high performance actually requires of an individual inside a team that does not change around them. Career story carries credentials that buyers recognise without explanation: Youth America Grand Prix Senior Gold, Prix de Lausanne, Principal at The Royal Ballet. The proof points do the work of the bio for her. Brings the Brazilian-trained, London-based performer perspective on adapting to a different culture, language, and working method without losing identity, useful for global mobility, integration, and inclusion conversations. Biography highlights Principal Dancer, The Royal Ballet, since 2021 Trained at The Royal Ballet School after early scholarship training in Rio de Janeiro Senior Age Division Gold Medal, Youth America Grand Prix Prix de Lausanne Scholarship and Audience Prize, 2011 Created the role of Rosaura in Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate Ambassador for The Fonteyn 2025 Brazil, Royal Academy of Dance Biography The Royal Ballet promotes from inside its own ranks. A dancer who joins the Company at seventeen and reaches Principal a decade later has done so while performing publicly several nights a week, in front of the same critics, alongside the same colleagues, with no role hidden from view. Mayara Magri made that journey between 2012 and 2021. She arrived in London from Rio de Janeiro on the back of two of the strongest results in the international ballet competition circuit: the Senior Age Division at the Youth America Grand Prix and the Prix de Lausanne Scholarship and Audience Prize in 2011. The Royal Ballet School then a Company contract followed. Promotions to First Artist, Soloist, First Soloist and Principal came in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2021. Her repertoire covers most of the senior classical canon, from Odette/Odile and Juliet to Aurora, Kitri and Cinderella, with created roles including Rosaura in Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate. Outside the company she has taken on ambassador work, including for the Royal Academy of Dance’s Fonteyn 2025 Brazil. For organisations, the relevant material is the working life behind the credits. Sustained performance inside a ranked institution, the discipline of preparing roles that will be judged the same night they are danced, and the long arc of building a career inside a single company rather than across many. Key speaking topics Sustained performance inside elite institutions Composure and preparation under public scrutiny Long-career discipline and reinvention Cross-cultural adaptation in global organisations Inclusion and representation in high-performance environments Resilience as a working practice Ideal for Leadership offsites and senior team gatherings looking for a credible high-performance voice outside the standard sport-speaker pool HR, talent and L&D programmes on resilience, sustained performance and career-long development Diversity and inclusion programmes seeking authentic perspectives on representation inside elite, traditional institutions Brand, marketing and CSR audiences working with arts, culture or sustainability narratives Audience outcomes A working performer’s view of what sustained high performance asks of an individual over a decade, not a single peak moment A concrete picture of how elite institutions absorb new talent, and what that demands of the person joining A reference point for resilience that is grounded in a working career, not a recovery story A perspective on representation and adaptation drawn from a Brazilian dancer’s path into one of Britain’s oldest cultural institutions

Why organisations work with Sasha De Sola Two decades of live, unedited high-stakes performance at one of the world’s top ballet companies, with the recovery patterns and pre-performance discipline that go with it. A perspective on creative work as a managed practice, not an inspiration: rehearsal, mentorship and craft repetition as the actual mechanism behind so-called artistry. Credibility on resilience earned through specific recoveries, including injury and the prolonged shutdown of live performance during the pandemic, not abstract theory. An inaugural fellow of San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders programme, currently being developed as a future arts leader through executive coaching and an international placement at the Royal Swedish Ballet. A bilingual Venezuelan American voice on belonging, mentorship and the long arc from selective mutism in childhood to lead casting on a global stage. Biography highlights Principal Dancer, San Francisco Ballet (2017 to present); named Diane B. Wilsey Principal Dancer in 2020. Trained at the Kirov Academy of Ballet, Washington D.C., on full merit scholarship, and at the Paris Opera Ballet School. BA in Performing Arts, Summa Cum Laude, Saint Mary’s College of California; completed Harvard Business School’s Crossover Into Business programme. Inaugural fellow, San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders artist-development programme (2024 to 2026), with a placement at the Royal Swedish Ballet under Nicolas Le Riche. Medallist at Varna, World and USA International Ballet Competitions. Co-founder of The Ascendant, a charitable initiative supporting Dancin Power and San Francisco Ballet; board member, Dancin Power; advisory board, Pointe Magazine. Biography A dancer who has carried lead roles in Swan Lake, Giselle and The Sleeping Beauty does not get there on talent. She gets there on the discipline of repeating small corrections until the body holds them under stage lights, with an audience watching, on a night when the knee is not quite right. That is the territory Sasha De Sola speaks from. She was named an apprentice at San Francisco Ballet in 2006, joined the corps in 2007, was promoted to soloist in 2012 and to Principal Dancer in 2017. In 2020 she was appointed the Diane B. Wilsey Principal Dancer, one of the company’s named principal positions. Her training is classical: the Kirov Academy in Washington D.C. on full merit scholarship, with a 2004 scholarship to the Paris Opera Ballet School and medals at Varna, World and USA International Ballet Competitions. The intellectual frame she brings to leadership audiences was built deliberately. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Saint Mary’s College of California with a BA in Performing Arts and completed Harvard Business School’s Crossover Into Business programme in 2022. In 2024 she was named one of two inaugural fellows of San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders programme, a two-year curriculum that pairs executive coaching with an international placement shadowing Nicolas Le Riche at the Royal Swedish Ballet. What she gives a room is the practical content of staying composed when the conditions move. Recovery from injury. Performing through the prolonged closure of live theatre. The long mentorship work that, away from the stage, sits behind every confident debut. A Venezuelan American who was diagnosed with selective mutism as a child, she also speaks credibly on belonging and on the slow craft of building a voice in a setting that initially feels foreign. Key speaking topics Composure and recovery under sustained performance pressure Creative discipline as a managed practice Mentorship and craft development across long careers Resilience after injury and prolonged disruption Cross-cultural identity and belonging in high-performance settings Leadership lessons from elite artistic environments Ideal for Leadership offsites and senior-team retreats focused on performance under pressure CHRO and people-leader conferences on talent development, mentorship and craft Women’s leadership programmes and ERG events on resilience and belonging Cultural, arts and philanthropic audiences seeking a credible artist-leader voice Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what composure looks like in practice, not as a trait Specific examples of how recovery from setback is structured, not improvised A more honest read on what mentorship costs and what it produces in elite environments A counterweight to the language of “talent” with the language of repeated craft

Why organisations work with Vicky Piria She is the first woman to have raced in the GP3 Series and the only Italian woman in the W Series, two facts that make her a credible voice on what it actually takes to enter and survive a closed industry at the top level. She speaks from a current operating reality, not a retired career. She is racing in the 2025 Italian GT Sprint Championship in a Ferrari 296 Challenge while presenting Sky Sport Italia’s Formula 1 coverage. Her perspective on team performance is grounded in the specific mechanics of a motorsport team, where pit-crew coordination, driver feedback, and engineering decisions all run on tight feedback loops under time pressure. She works in two languages and across two cultures (Italian and British), useful for European audiences who want a speaker who reads the room beyond an Anglophone default. For automotive, motorsport, broadcasting, and brand-sponsorship audiences, she brings credibility from inside the sport rather than commentary from outside it. Biography highlights First female driver in the GP3 Series, debuting with Trident Racing in 2012. Only Italian driver in the inaugural 2019 W Series, the Formula 1 feeder championship for women. Sky Sport Italia Formula 1 presenter from 2024, succeeding Federica Masolin. Italian GT Championship competitor; second in GT Cup in 2023 and three pole-to-win victories in the 2024 Endurance GT Cup Pro-Am Division 2. Confirmed driver for the 2025 Italian GT Sprint Championship with Scuderia Ghermandi by Zanasi Racing in a Ferrari 296 Challenge. Former Formula E commentator for Mediaset and presenter on Italia 1’s Drive Up automotive programme. Biography Motorsport is one of the most closed industries in professional sport. The cost of entry is high, the technical knowledge required is unforgiving, and for most of its history the cockpits and the commentary boxes have been occupied by men. Vicky Piria moved through both. She arrived in the GP3 Series in 2012 as the first female driver in its history, racing for Trident. Seven years later she became the only Italian driver in the inaugural W Series, the Formula 1 feeder championship created to give female drivers a serious competitive pathway. Those two facts position her uniquely in European motorsport. The current chapter is what makes her useful to organisations now. She races in the Italian GT Championship, taking three pole-to-win results in the 2024 Endurance GT Cup Pro-Am Division 2 and stepping into a Ferrari 296 Challenge with Scuderia Ghermandi by Zanasi Racing for the 2025 Sprint season. At the same time she fronts Formula 1 coverage on Sky Sport Italia, having replaced Federica Masolin in 2024. She works comfortably in Italian and English, in front of a camera and inside a race team. For audiences in automotive, broadcasting, brand sponsorship, and any sector trying to widen its talent pipeline beyond the obvious candidates, that combination of operating credibility and broadcast craft is genuinely uncommon. Key speaking topics Women in motorsport and male-dominated industries High-performance teamwork under time pressure Resilience in elite competitive environments Brand and sponsorship in motorsport Broadcasting, hosting, and panel moderation Career reinvention from athlete to broadcaster Ideal for Automotive, motorsport, and mobility sector audiences (manufacturers, sponsors, dealer networks). Brand and marketing leadership at organisations sponsoring sport or building presence around motorsport. Diversity, inclusion, and talent leads in technical or engineering-led organisations. Event hosts seeking a bilingual (Italian and English) moderator with motorsport authority. Audience outcomes A first-person account of what it took to enter and compete in the most male-dominated tier of professional sport. A working view of team performance inside a motorsport operation, from driver and crew dynamics to engineering feedback loops. A perspective on the W Series experiment, why it mattered, what it achieved, and what its absence now means for the pipeline. A motorsport-literate voice for sponsorship, brand activation, and event audiences who want substance behind the storytelling.

Why organisations work with Amna Al Qubaisi A first-of-kind credential that is current, not historical. Active seat in F1 Academy with MP Motorsport, Red Bull Academy Programme driver representing Visa Cash App RB, and the first Arab female driver inside the Porsche AG Talent Pool Asia. A concrete Gulf-region story for DEI programmes that usually default to Western examples. Useful for EMEA, Asia-Pacific and global HQs with Middle East operations. Insider experience of two manufacturer-backed talent systems, Red Bull and Porsche, which gives her specific material on how elite performance cultures identify, develop and retain outliers. Works in English and Arabic, which makes her directly usable for Gulf corporate, public-sector and sponsor-activation programming around regional race weekends. Biography highlights First Emirati woman to compete in international single-seater racing. Italian F4 Championship with Prema Powerteam, 2018. First Arab woman to win a Formula 4 race. F4 UAE Trophy Round, Yas Marina Circuit, 2019. Two seasons in F1 Academy with MP Motorsport. Sixth overall in 2023 with race wins at Spielberg and Barcelona. Red Bull Academy Programme driver from 2024, representing Visa Cash App RB. First Arab and first Arab female driver in the Porsche AG Talent Pool Asia. Pro class seat with Team Jebsen, Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, 2026. Rookie test with Envision Virgin Racing in Formula E at Diriyah. Biography Single-seater racing is one of the most closed performance cultures in professional sport. Entry depends on manufacturer backing, sponsor networks and a family record, and the pathway has historically routed through a small set of European karting circuits. The Italian F4 grid at Prema Powerteam in 2018 included the first Emirati woman ever to compete internationally in the format, Amna Al Qubaisi. What followed has not been a career of ceremonial firsts. Two seasons in F1 Academy with MP Motorsport. Sixth overall in the inaugural 2023 season with wins at Spielberg and Barcelona. Selection in 2024 by the Red Bull Academy Programme, representing Visa Cash App RB, with access to the team’s UK simulator and performance staff. A Formula E rookie test at Diriyah with Envision Virgin Racing. The 2026 seat in the Pro class of Porsche Carrera Cup Asia with Team Jebsen, as the first Arab female driver inside the Porsche AG Talent Pool Asia, puts her inside a factory development structure with defined routes into GT and prototype racing. That is the point worth noticing for a corporate audience. Her record is a sequence of places earned inside working manufacturer systems, on the criteria applied to every other driver in the pool. For organisations working on representation in performance-led functions, trading, engineering, surgery, investment, the useful content is not that she made it. It is what the system around her did, and did not do, to let her compete on equal terms. Key speaking topics Women in elite motorsport Representation inside closed performance cultures High-pressure execution and race-weekend preparation Manufacturer and team development pathways Gulf-region leadership and role-model narratives Careers for young women in STEM and engineering Ideal for DEI, talent and employee resource group programmes looking for a non-Western role-model case study Leadership offsites in performance-led functions: trading, engineering, medicine, investment Corporate partner and sponsor events in automotive, sports and luxury brand portfolios Women-in-STEM summits and graduate programmes across EMEA and Asia-Pacific Audience outcomes A direct account of how a closed talent system admits an outsider, and what the outsider has to do to stay admitted A Gulf-region reference point for representation conversations that usually default to Europe or North America An inside view of how Red Bull and Porsche identify and develop young performers A sense of what role-modelling looks like when the person doing it is still competing, not looking back