Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Why organisations work with David Aguilar He holds a Guinness World Record for the first functional LEGO prosthetic arm and has built five iterations, MK-I through MK-V, giving any conversation on inclusion a concrete engineering artefact rather than a general narrative. He translates a congenital condition, Poland syndrome, into a design problem and a product line under the Hand Solo brand, which reframes accessibility as a market and a capability question for R&D, HR, and product teams. He is a UIC Barcelona bioengineering graduate and recipient of the university’s Bioengineering Innovation Prize, so the engineering credibility is not improvised around the story. He carries unusual cultural reach for an inventor: winner of LEGO Masters France, subject of the Filmax documentary Mr. Hand Solo (Boston Sci-Fi Festival, Best Documentary Feature), and a face of LEGO’s #RebuildTheWorld global campaign. He speaks in English and Spanish and pairs well with technology, healthcare, and culture audiences who want an innovation voice that is not another Silicon Valley founder. Biography highlights Guinness World Records title holder, first functional LEGO prosthetic arm (MK-I); Guinness Hall of Fame inductee. Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering from Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona); recipient of the UIC Bioengineering Innovation Prize, 2018. Author of Piece by Piece: How I Built My Life (No Instructions Required), with Ferran Aguilar; Amazon Crossing (English), Penguin Random House (Spanish). Subject of Mr. Hand Solo (Filmax, 2021), Best Documentary Feature, Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. Winner, LEGO Masters France. Featured by Great Big Story (CNN Worldwide), WIPO Magazine, and in LEGO’s #RebuildTheWorld global campaign. Biography Poland syndrome is a rare congenital condition that prevents the full development of muscles on one side of the body. David Aguilar was born with it, and built his first LEGO prosthesis at nine. By eighteen, working from a LEGO Technic Rescue Helicopter set, he had built MK-I, the first functional LEGO prosthetic arm that Guinness has recognised. The work has continued in versions, not anecdotes. MK-I to MK-V move from mechanical grabber to motorised five-finger hand controlled by residual-arm movement. He has since built an arm for an eight-year-old and launched Hand Solo as a brand aimed at accessible, affordable prosthetics. UIC Barcelona awarded him its Bioengineering Innovation Prize and a place to complete the degree. The story travels because it behaves like both engineering and culture. The documentary Mr. Hand Solo won Best Documentary Feature at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. His memoir Piece by Piece, co-written with his father Ferran, sits on both trade and children’s lists. LEGO cast him in the global #RebuildTheWorld campaign, and he won LEGO Masters France on primetime television. For serious organisations, the relevance is practical. He gives inclusion teams a product, gives R&D teams a user who is also a builder, and gives leadership audiences a single question to take back to their own operating model: who inside this company is quietly solving a problem we never designed around, and what would it take to give them the bricks? Key speaking topics Inclusive innovation and design Accessibility and assistive technology Bioengineering and prosthetics STEAM education and youth invention Resilience through engineering Purpose-driven entrepreneurship Ideal for CHROs and heads of DEI building an inclusion agenda that produces outputs, not statements. R&D, product, and healthcare leaders working on accessibility as a market rather than a compliance question. STEAM education programmes, universities, and youth-focused foundations. Corporate culture and internal-innovation audiences where the brief calls for a builder rather than a consultant. Audience outcomes A working example of how a constraint becomes a product, not a motivational metaphor. A sharper brief for what accessible design looks like when the user is the engineer. A named set of artefacts (MK-I to MK-V, Hand Solo) that teams can reference back in their own work. A reset on what inclusion programmes should produce, measured in things built rather than campaigns run. A concrete answer to what young engineers inside the organisation might do with permission and materials.

Why organisations work with Clarence Seedorf The only footballer to have won the UEFA Champions League with three different clubs (Ajax, Real Madrid, and AC Milan twice), meaning he has had to make elite performance work inside three very different institutional cultures. Senior leadership experience on both sides of the performance equation: former head coach of AC Milan, with subsequent head-coaching roles at Shenzhen FC, Deportivo La Coruña and the Cameroon national team. Commercial and institutional credibility beyond the pitch: Bocconi-educated in economics and management, builder of a business portfolio including On International and SK Sports Holding in Dubai (co-founded with Khabib Nurmagomedov), and Advisor to the UEFA President for Social Affairs. Cross-cultural bandwidth that is hard to match: played, led or coached on four continents, and works fluently in six languages (Dutch, English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Sranan Tongo). A substantive public record on inclusion and institutional impact as UEFA Global Ambassador for Diversity and Change, trustee of the UEFA Foundation for Children, founder of the Champions for Children Foundation and the Black Impact Foundation, and a Nelson Mandela Foundation Legacy Champion. Biography highlights Only player in football history to win the UEFA Champions League with three different clubs: Ajax (1995), Real Madrid (1998), AC Milan (2003 and 2007). Domestic league winner in the Netherlands, Spain and Italy; UEFA Club Midfielder of the Year 2006-07; included in the FIFA 100 list of greatest living players selected by Pelé. Former head coach of AC Milan, with additional head-coaching roles at Shenzhen FC, Deportivo La Coruña and the Cameroon national team. Studied economics and management at Bocconi University in Milan; speaks six languages (Dutch, English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Sranan Tongo). UEFA Global Ambassador for Diversity and Change, Advisor to the UEFA President for Social Affairs, trustee of the UEFA Foundation for Children, and a Nelson Mandela Foundation Legacy Champion. Founder of the Champions for Children Foundation (2004) and the Black Impact Foundation; FOX Sports studio analyst for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and lead soccer analyst for Amazon Prime in the UK and Italy. Biography Ajax beat AC Milan in the 1995 Champions League final. Clarence Seedorf, then 19, was in the Ajax midfield. Over the next twelve years, he lifted the trophy three more times, with Real Madrid in 1998 and AC Milan itself in 2003 and 2007. A four-time winner with three different clubs, a record no other footballer has matched. The record matters to organisations because of what it implies about sustained performance at the top. Ajax under Louis van Gaal, Real Madrid through its Galáctico years, and Milan under Carlo Ancelotti were three very different operating environments. Different tactical systems, different languages, different dressing-room cultures, different definitions of how an elite team should behave. Staying at the top of each, across more than a decade, required a specific discipline around what transfers between contexts and what has to be rebuilt from scratch. After retiring, Seedorf moved to the other side of the performance equation as head coach of AC Milan. He subsequently coached at Shenzhen FC, Deportivo La Coruña and the Cameroon national team, extending his professional experience across three more countries. He had already studied economics and management at Bocconi University in Milan during his playing years, which earned him the dressing-room nickname “Il Professore”. He now runs a commercial portfolio that includes the sport management firm On International, the Fingers restaurant group, and SK Sports Holding in Dubai, co-founded with UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. His public role extends into inclusion and institutional impact. He serves as UEFA Global Ambassador for Diversity and Change, Advisor to the UEFA President for Social Affairs, and trustee of the UEFA Foundation for Children. He founded the Champions for Children Foundation in 2004 and the Black Impact Foundation, and is a Nelson Mandela Foundation Legacy Champion chosen to carry Mandela’s message worldwide. Alongside the boardrooms, he has spoken at Oxford, Harvard and the Council of Europe, and in 2026 returns to FOX Sports as a studio analyst for the FIFA World Cup. Key speaking topics High-performance team culture in elite environments Sustained performance across changing organisations and cultures Leadership at the top of global, high-pressure institutions The transition from elite performer to senior leader Cross-cultural leadership across languages and geographies Diversity, inclusion and institutional legacy Ideal for Senior leadership teams working through major strategic or cultural transitions CHROs, talent directors and heads of L&D designing leadership development or high-performance culture programmes Sales organisations and performance-driven functions looking to push established teams to a new level Global and multinational organisations operating across languages and geographies Audience outcomes A sharper view of what actually transfers when a team or organisation moves into a new culture or a new operating structure A vocabulary for talking about elite performance as a repeatable discipline that organisations can teach Specific examples from dressing rooms at Ajax, Real Madrid and AC Milan of how elite teams respond to pressure and setback Renewed confidence that sustained excellence can be built and rebuilt, team after team

Why organisations work with Charles Hazlewood He founded the world’s first large-scale professional ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians, Paraorchestra, and can speak from direct experience about building a high-performing team by designing the assumptions out, not papering over them. His TED talk “Trusting the Ensemble” has been watched by more than half a million people and is used inside leadership programmes because it demonstrates, live on stage with a string ensemble, how trust is given, withheld and rebuilt in real time. He works regularly with the Royal Concertgebouw, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic and the BBC Concert Orchestra, so when he talks about getting sixty independent experts to act as one organism, he is describing his day job, not a metaphor. He converts conducting into a usable language for executives: how a leader holds the room without micromanaging it, how authority sits alongside vulnerability, how a single bad cue ripples through a group for the rest of the performance. He has been recognised by Making Music with the 2023 Sir Charles Groves Prize for outstanding contribution to UK musical life and holds an honorary doctorate in Social Inclusion from Bath Spa University, which locates him credibly at the intersection of artistic excellence and inclusive leadership. Biography highlights Founder and Artistic Director of Paraorchestra, the first large-scale integrated ensemble of professional musicians with and without disabilities. Won first prize at the European Broadcasting Union Conducting Competition, Lisbon, 1995. Conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic, the Swedish Radio Symphony and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Delivered the TED talk “Trusting the Ensemble” in 2011, viewed more than half a million times; one of three TED and TEDx appearances. Three Sony Radio Academy Awards for BBC Radio 2 music programming; Sky Arts Ambassador for Music since 2021. Awarded the Sir Charles Groves Prize by Making Music in 2023 and an Honorary Doctorate of Social Inclusion by Bath Spa University in 2025. Biography A good orchestra looks nothing like a command hierarchy once the baton comes down. Sixty independently brilliant specialists have to act as one living thing, at speed, with no time for committee. Charles Hazlewood has spent thirty years inside that problem, and has built a second career translating what he has learned back out to people running companies. He came up through the classical mainstream. An organ scholarship to Keble College, Oxford, first prize at the European Broadcasting Union conducting competition in Lisbon in 1995, and a conducting life that now runs through the Royal Concertgebouw, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Over 100 world premieres sit on the record. In 2011 he founded Paraorchestra with director Claire Whalley: the world’s first large-scale professional ensemble of disabled and non-disabled virtuosi. Its closing-ceremony debut at the London 2012 Paralympics, performed alongside Coldplay, reached a stated global audience of around a billion. In 2016 the ensemble became the first orchestral headliner at Glastonbury, with Philip Glass’s “Heroes” Symphony. His 2011 TED talk, “Trusting the Ensemble”, is the core of his work with organisations. He conducts a live ensemble on stage, withholds trust, restores it, and shows what each choice does to the sound. Making Music awarded him the Sir Charles Groves Prize in 2023 for outstanding contribution to UK musical life; Bath Spa University conferred an honorary doctorate in Social Inclusion in July 2025. The through-line is consistent: a room of experts does not become an ensemble by accident, and the leader’s job is to make the conditions in which it can. Key speaking topics Leadership and trust Ensemble performance Inclusive leadership and integrated teams Creativity under constraint Authenticity and vulnerability in leadership Culture change through the lens of a conductor Ideal for Executive teams and boards looking to operate as an ensemble rather than a collection of individual stars. CHROs and culture leads working on inclusive leadership, talent design, and what real integration looks like beyond policy. Leadership development programmes that want an embodied, live demonstration of trust and authority rather than a slide deck. Organisations navigating restructure or post-merger integration where the hard task is getting senior specialists to move as one. Audience outcomes A clear, tangible sense of what trust sounds like when it is present in a team, and what collapses when it is not. Language for talking about authority and vulnerability in leadership without defaulting to cliche. A reframe of inclusion grounded in a real example of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians performing at world-class level together. Specific cues for leading experts: how to hold the room without suffocating it, how to signal without scripting, how to recover from a missed entry. An unusually memorable session with a live conductor working with a live ensemble, not a talking-head keynote, that tends to be referenced back inside the business for months afterwards.

Why organisations work with Brandon Farbstein He has driven actual state legislation, not just inspired audiences. Two Virginia laws exist because of his advocacy before age 18: one on bullying prevention, one requiring empathy and emotional intelligence education in every K-12 classroom in the state. That track record separates him from motivational speakers and positions him as a systemic change agent. Disability is the most consistently overlooked dimension of most DEI programs. Farbstein gives organisations a credible, lived-experience voice in exactly that space, not as a personal narrative alone, but through a framework (Elevate Empathy®) that translates into teachable, practical tools for teams. His vantage point is generational as well as personal. As a Gen Z voice on belonging, recognised by both LinkedIn and Instagram for his advocacy reach, he speaks directly to the expectations gap between younger employees and the organisations they work for: a gap that costs organisations in engagement and trust. He advises boards and senior teams, not just audiences. Farbstein regularly consults organisations on belonging and social impact strategy for the disability community, and publicly declines engagements where inclusion is performative. His presence signals genuine organisational commitment, not a checkbox. His ADL Hero Against Hate designation and UN partnership establish credibility at the highest institutional levels, making him a defensible choice for boards and leadership teams where speaker credibility is itself under scrutiny. Biography highlights Drove two pieces of Virginia state legislation before age 18: bullying prevention and mandatory empathy and emotional intelligence education across all K-12 public schools statewide Author of Ten Feet Tall: Step Into Your Truth and Change Your Freaking World and A Kids Book About Self-Love (Penguin) Delivered TEDx RVA at age 15; talk accumulated 85,000+ views LinkedIn Top Voice for disability advocacy (2022); named to TigerBeat/Instagram’s #19Under19 (2018); youngest-ever recipient of Style Weekly’s Top 40 Under 40 Anti-Defamation League Hero Against Hate award recipient Founding partner of Daniel Lubetzky’s Builders Movement; board member, Digital4Good Speaker for Meta, HP, Marriott, LVMH, and the Million Dollar Round Table; partnered with UNICEF and the United Nations on campaigns to end school violence Biography Brandon Farbstein gave his first TEDx talk at 15. By 18, he had driven two pieces of legislation through the Virginia state legislature; one on bullying prevention, the other mandating empathy and emotional intelligence education in every K-12 classroom in the state. That trajectory sets the frame for everything he brings to organisations. Farbstein was born with metatropic dysplasia, a rare form of dwarfism, and spent his high school years navigating severe cyberbullying that eventually drove him off campus. Rather than absorb that experience privately, he built a response: a registered framework, Elevate Empathy®, and a body of work spanning two books, hundreds of corporate stages, and legislative testimony. His book Ten Feet Tall and A Kids Book About Self-Love (Penguin) put the framework into accessible form for audiences ranging from Fortune 100 employees to elementary school students. Farbstein’s value for organisations sits where two problems intersect: DEI programs that systematically underweight disability, and employees with disabilities who know it. He advises boards and senior teams on belonging and social impact strategy, with a specific focus on the disability community: the largest minority group in the world. His credibility in that space is built on more than personal story: it includes legislative impact, a LinkedIn Top Voice designation for disability advocacy, and the Anti-Defamation League’s Hero Against Hate award. He has spoken for Meta, HP, Marriott, LVMH, and at the Million Dollar Round Table, and has partnered with UNICEF and the United Nations on campaigns addressing school violence. As a founding partner of Daniel Lubetzky’s Builders Movement and a board member of Digital4Good, his work operates across corporate, civic, and educational contexts – making him a distinctive voice on how empathy functions not just as a personal quality, but as an organisational practice. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and belonging Empathy as organisational practice Diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy Resilience and mindset Social-emotional learning and anti-bullying advocacy Gen Z perspectives on workplace culture Purpose-driven leadership and social impact Ideal for Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officers and People & Culture leads with disability inclusion gaps in their DEI programs CHROs and senior HR leadership teams working on belonging, employee experience, and psychological safety Senior leadership teams and boards evaluating the credibility and reach of their DEI commitments Education sector leaders, student-facing organisations, and youth advocacy platforms addressing bullying, empathy, and social-emotional learning Audience outcomes A clear understanding of why disability inclusion is the most consistently underaddressed dimension of DEI – and what the cost of that gap looks like in employee experience and retention Practical tools from the Elevate Empathy® framework for building environments where all employees feel genuinely seen and heard A reframe of lived adversity as a source of leadership strength and authentic influence, rather than a liability to manage Increased capacity to distinguish genuine inclusion from performative inclusion – and the organisational will to act on that distinction Exposure to the specific legislative, cultural, and institutional levers that have moved the dial on disability inclusion at a systemic level

Why organisations work with Ade Adepitan He has lived disability discrimination in three intersecting dimensions – Nigerian-born, Black, and physically disabled in working-class East London – giving organisations a perspective on inclusion that is personal, structural and political, not theoretical. His Paralympic bronze, World Championship gold and 20 years as one of the UK’s first visibly disabled television presenters mean he speaks from earned authority on both peak performance and public representation – not campaigning alone. His Channel 4 documentary on Nigeria’s polio eradication prompted Bill Gates to invite him to address the Global Vaccine Summit in 2020 – evidence that his work on disability and global health has real policy reach beyond the broadcasting world. The 2023 RTS Best Sports Presenter Award and BAFTA-winning Paralympic coverage give him peer recognition from the broadcast industry as a communicator of genuine authority, which directly validates his use as a platform for any inclusion message. As Chancellor of Birmingham City University since 2024, he brings current institutional standing – and a live stake – in questions of access, diversity and representation in education and public life. Biography highlights Bronze medallist, 2004 Athens Paralympic Games (wheelchair basketball, Great Britain); gold medallist, 2005 Paralympic World Cup, Manchester; silver medallist, European Championships MBE (2005) for services to disability sport; Honorary Doctorates from Loughborough University and the University of East London One of the first visibly disabled television presenters in the UK; over 20 years broadcasting for Channel 4 and the BBC Lead presenter, Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning coverage of the 2012 London Paralympic Games (alongside Clare Balding) RTS Award, Best Sports Presenter (2023), for Channel 4’s 2022 Winter Paralympics coverage Named in the Powerlist 2020 – 100 most influential Black British people Chancellor of Birmingham City University (from 2024), succeeding Sir Lenny Henry Speaker, Global Vaccine Summit: We Changed History (2020), at the invitation of Bill Gates, following Channel 4 documentary on Nigeria’s polio eradication Biography Disability rarely gets equal airtime in inclusion conversations – and when it does, it tends toward legal compliance rather than lived experience. Ade Adepitan MBE has spent over two decades making that distinction impossible to ignore: as a Paralympic medallist, a BAFTA-winning broadcaster, and now as Chancellor of Birmingham City University. His credentials begin with sport. Contracting polio in Lagos at 15 months and growing up in East London, he reached the highest level of wheelchair basketball – winning bronze at the 2004 Athens Paralympics and gold at the 2005 Paralympic World Cup in Manchester. The disciplines of elite competition – preparation, decision-making under pressure, and recovery from setback – form the foundation of everything he brings to organisations on resilience and performance. He became one of the first visibly disabled presenters on British television and has been a lead voice for Channel 4 and the BBC for over 20 years. That includes the BAFTA-winning 2012 London Paralympic Games coverage, the four-part BBC Two documentary Africa with Ade Adepitan, Climate Change: Ade on the Frontline, and extensive coverage of Paralympic Games from Athens to Paris. The 2023 Royal Television Society Award for Best Sports Presenter – for his 2022 Winter Paralympics work – came with judges describing him as a broadcaster of genuine insight and charisma, not a ceremonial accolade. His reach extends into policy. His Channel 4 documentary investigating Nigeria’s polio eradication prompted Bill Gates to invite him to address the Global Vaccine Summit in 2020. He appears on the Powerlist of the 100 most influential Black British people. And in 2024 he became Chancellor of Birmingham City University, where his stated mission is to be a torchbearer for disability rights in education and public life. Organisations working with Ade Adepitan are engaging someone whose work has moved from screens into summits – and whose authority on inclusion is earned from all three directions at once. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and workplace accessibility Resilience and elite performance mindset Diversity, equity and representation in organisations Storytelling and the role of media in shaping social perception Global health advocacy and public responsibility Climate change and environmental impact Inclusion in education and leadership pipelines Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads developing or stress-testing disability inclusion strategies Leadership conferences addressing the gap between ESG commitments and workforce experience Organisations with social impact and public accountability mandates Education sector and public institutions focused on access, representation and opportunity Audience outcomes A sharper understanding of how disability inclusion differs from – and connects to – broader DEI programmes, grounded in direct lived experience An honest account of how resilience and elite performance are built over time, drawn from competitive Paralympic sport and a 20-year public career Insight into the role organisations and media play in either sustaining or dismantling the invisibility of disability Awareness of the strategic cost of treating disability as a compliance exercise rather than a cultural and commercial priority A credible, evidence-based challenge to the assumption that DEI commitments translate automatically into inclusion

Why organisations work with Baroness Grey-Thompson She chaired the government’s independent Duty of Care in Sport review (2017), producing recommendations on athlete welfare, safeguarding, and governing body accountability. Her authority on organisational responsibility comes from having produced the policy, not just commented on it. Her perspective on inclusion is grounded in decades of lived experience as a disabled person navigating institutions not designed for her – which gives her a precision and candour on the subject that no theoretical framework produces. As a sitting crossbench peer, she debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance in Parliament. Her understanding of how policy accountability functions – or fails to – is current, not retrospective. She has held board-level positions across sport, transport, broadcasting and the public sector. She speaks to senior decision-makers from a position of peer-level governance experience, not from outside it. Eleven Paralympic gold medals and six London Wheelchair Marathon victories represent one of the most demanding sustained performance records in British sporting history. Her insight into resilience and long-term excellence comes from a context that most performance speakers cannot match. Biography highlights 11 Paralympic gold medals across five Games (Seoul 1988 to Athens 2004); six London Wheelchair Marathon victories; over 30 world records Baroness Grey-Thompson DBE; crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2010; debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance Led the government-commissioned independent Duty of Care in Sport review, published April 2017 Chancellor of Northumbria University since 2015; honorary Doctor of Law, University of Cambridge (2016) Member of the Laureus World Sports Academy; BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award, 2019 Board experience includes Transport for London, London Legacy Development Corporation, ukactive (Chair), BBC and UK Athletics Biography The question of how organisations balance the drive for performance with the duty to protect the people inside them is one that Tanni Grey-Thompson has spent three decades navigating – first as an elite athlete competing in systems rarely designed with her in mind, then as a legislator and governance lead responsible for changing them. Her athletic record is the foundation of her credibility. Across five Paralympic Games between 1988 and 2004, she won 11 gold medals in wheelchair racing, set over 30 world records, and won the London Wheelchair Marathon six times. What that record represents, beyond the numbers, is sustained excellence under physical and institutional pressure. She competed with spina bifida in an era when structural support for disabled athletes was limited, and she won anyway – a fact that shapes everything she says about resilience and the conditions that enable long-term achievement. In 2017, the government commissioned her to lead an independent review into duty of care in sport. The resulting report set out recommendations on athlete welfare, safeguarding, mental wellbeing, and the accountability of governing bodies for the people in their systems. It remains the most authoritative published framework on institutional responsibility in British sport, and it gave her a body of work that no other speaker in the inclusion space can claim. She joined the House of Lords as a crossbench peer in 2010, where she debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance. Her board experience spans Transport for London, the London Legacy Development Corporation, ukactive, the BBC, and UK Athletics. She has been Chancellor of Northumbria University since 2015. What she brings to a senior audience is not a motivational narrative – it is a working knowledge of how accountability for people actually functions, or fails to, in large organisations. Key speaking topics Elite performance and sustained achievement Inclusion and disability in organisational life Duty of care and institutional accountability Leadership under pressure Governance and board responsibility Disability rights and welfare policy Sport governance and athlete welfare Ideal for Senior leadership and board teams where performance expectations and inclusion commitments are in tension HR, people and DEI leaders responsible for disability inclusion and employee wellbeing strategy Public sector, sport and charitable sector boards with governance and accountability responsibilities Corporate audiences undergoing culture change where the gap between stated values and daily practice is a live concern Audience outcomes A sharper understanding of where performance culture and duty of care come into structural conflict – and what resolving that actually requires First-hand perspective on what inclusion looks like beyond policy, drawn from lived experience in systems not designed for disability Grounded insight into board-level accountability for the wellbeing of people inside an organisation An honest account of sustained high performance – what enabled it, what threatened it, and what the institutions around her got right and wrong Practical framing for the gap between an organisation’s stated commitments and the culture leaders actually sustain

Why organisations work with Vivienne Ming Her «Tax on Being Different» framework quantifies – in economic and productivity terms – the cost organisations pay when marginalised workers must expend extra effort just to be assessed as equivalent. This is a measurement argument with commercial implications, not a values one. As Chief Scientist at Gild, she built machine learning models trained on 122 million professionals, making her one of the few people who has directly operationalised predictive AI for talent assessment at scale, outside a purely academic context. She reframes diversity from a compliance question into an optimisation problem: one that can be modelled, measured, and corrected using the same tools organisations already apply to operational decisions. Her research spans workforce, education, and health, giving her an unusually broad evidence base for what actually predicts long-term human capability, and what doesn’t. Published in Nature and Neural Information Processing Systems, and holding academic appointments at UC Berkeley and UCL, her arguments carry institutional credibility that applied consultants and conference speakers typically cannot match. Biography highlights Author of Robot-Proof: When Machines Have All the Answers, Build Better People (Wiley, 2026), which argues that human capital – not AI capability – determines the outcome of human-machine collaboration PhD in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University; joint postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University and UC Berkeley’s Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience Former Chief Scientist at Gild, where she built ML models trained on 122 million professionals to assess human capability beyond conventional credentials Founder and Executive Chair of Socos Labs, an independent research institute applying AI and neuroscience to workforce, education, and health challenges Research published in Nature, Neural Information Processing Systems, and Neural Computation Ranked #5 on the Financial Times / OUTstanding list of the world’s top LGBT executives (2017); named BBC 100 Women (2017) and Inc. Magazine’s «10 Women to Watch in Tech» Chair, UC Berkeley Neurotech Collider Hub; Honorary Professor, UCL Global Business School for Health; board member, RFK Human Rights Biography Vivienne Ming built her career on a discomforting empirical observation: the hiring signals organisations treat as reliable – degrees, interview performance, institutional pedigree – do not predict what they claim to predict. She tested this at scale. As Chief Scientist at Gild, she developed machine learning models trained on data from 122 million professionals, looking for what actually distinguishes high performers from credentialled ones. The gap was substantial. Most organisations were optimising for proxies, not capability. That finding runs through everything she has done since. At Socos Labs, the research institute she co-founded with her wife Dr. Norma Ming, she has extended the question into education and health, examining what psychological constructs genuinely predict long-term life outcomes, and publishing that research in Nature and Neural Information Processing Systems. The argument is consistent: measurement systems in organisations are systematically broken, and the cost is borne most heavily by those who don’t fit the template. Her book Robot-Proof: When Machines Have All the Answers, Build Better People (Wiley, 2026) extends that argument into AI, making the case that human capital – not model benchmarks – determines whether human-machine collaboration produces anything beyond substitution. Her «Tax on Being Different» framework gives that cost a number. Drawing on large-scale HR data, it quantifies the additional credential burden that women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ individuals absorb to be evaluated on equivalent terms. This is not a cultural argument. It is a productivity and innovation argument: one that has been delivered to boards and leadership teams at Google, Deloitte, and Salesforce, and presented at the Royal Society. She holds a PhD in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University, with joint postdoctoral appointments at Stanford and UC Berkeley. She chairs the UC Berkeley Neurotech Collider Hub, holds an honorary professorship at UCL’s Global Business School for Health, and serves on the board of RFK Human Rights. In 2017, she was ranked #5 on the Financial Times / OUTstanding list of the world’s top LGBT executives. Her research and commentary have been featured in the Financial Times, Business Insider, Fast Company, and CNBC. Key speaking topics AI and predictive modelling of human capability The economics of talent assessment and bias Neuroscience of decision-making in organisations Diversity, inclusion, and the productivity cost of difference Human-machine collective intelligence AI applications in education, health, and workforce development Innovation methodology: solving ill-posed problems Ideal for CHROs and talent acquisition leaders reviewing whether their hiring signals are predictive CEOs and boards integrating AI into people decisions and workforce strategy DEI leaders seeking evidence-based, commercially framed arguments for systemic change Technology and innovation functions examining the limits and applications of AI in human contexts Audience outcomes A quantified, data-grounded understanding of what broken talent systems cost organisations in productivity and innovation A concrete reframe of diversity: not a moral obligation but a measurement and optimisation problem Practical questions to apply to their own hiring, promotion, and development processes Clarity on where AI reliably improves human assessment – and where it perpetuates the biases already embedded in the data A new vocabulary for capability that moves beyond credentials and credentials-adjacent signals

Why organisations work with Farrah Storr She has repositioned three major consumer media brands through structural decline in print and can speak with evidence about what actually protects audience, authority, and commercial performance when the category is shrinking. She launched Women’s Health UK from a three-person team with minimal budget into what industry records call the most successful women’s magazine launch of the century, a concrete case of building inside a constraint. She crossed from legacy publishing to Substack and now runs its international writer business, so she has operator experience on both sides of the media disruption that most leaders only read about. Her book The Discomfort Zone and the BMD method give her a published leadership argument on how individuals and teams perform in conditions most organisations try to engineer away. Her MBE for services to Media and Diversity, her Social Mobility Commissioner role and her National Theatre board seat give her a public record on social mobility and diversity in creative industries that goes beyond corporate talking points. Biography highlights Head of Substack International, previously Head of Writer Partnerships at Substack UK. Editor-in-Chief, ELLE UK, 2019 to 2021. Editor-in-Chief, Cosmopolitan UK, 2015 to 2019, where the title became the UK’s number-one women’s glossy. Launch Editor-in-Chief, Women’s Health UK, from 2012. MBE, 2024 King’s Birthday Honours, for services to Media and Diversity. Commissioner, Social Mobility Commission, from 2018; Board Member, National Theatre, from 2021. Author, The Discomfort Zone: How to Get What You Want by Living Fearlessly, Piatkus, 2018. BSME Editor of the Year 2012, 2018, 2020; PPA Editor of the Year 2018, 2019. TEDxExeter speaker, 2018, “The Discomfort Zone”. Biography Women’s Health UK was a three-person team with almost no budget when Farrah Storr launched it in 2012. By industry count it became the most successful women’s magazine launch of the century, and the pattern repeated at the titles that followed. Cosmopolitan UK, where she was Editor-in-Chief from 2015, became the country’s number-one women’s glossy inside her tenure. In 2019 she moved to ELLE UK to do a similar job on the luxury end of the same portfolio. Her argument as an operator is that consumer brands hold their authority through hard editorial judgement under constraint, not through more budget. That case is easier to make now because she has left the category she was running. In 2021 she joined Substack as the first Head of Writer Partnerships in the UK, building the writer base that anchors the platform in this market, and has since stepped up to lead Substack International. That arc, from print consumer titles into the paid newsletter platform that is reshaping them, is unusually clean. It gives her a credible view on what moves with a writer, what stays with a brand, and what the economics of direct subscription actually demand from a team. Her book The Discomfort Zone, published by Piatkus in 2018, sets out the BMD method, her shorthand for Brief Moments of Discomfort as a training discipline for individuals and teams. It is read alongside the public work: her 2018 appointment as a Commissioner on the Social Mobility Commission, her 2021 appointment to the board of the National Theatre, and the 2024 MBE for services to Media and Diversity. Key speaking topics Brand reinvention in consumer media Leading through structural change and category decline Platform economics and the paid newsletter shift The Discomfort Zone and the BMD method Social mobility and diversity in creative industries Women in leadership Editorial judgement as commercial discipline Ideal for CMOs, editorial leaders and heads of content in consumer brands, publishing, and media CEOs and executive teams running heritage brands through audience and format change CHROs and leadership programmes focused on leading in constrained, shrinking or contested categories Networks and conferences on women’s leadership, social mobility and diversity in creative industries Audience outcomes A named operator’s read on what actually protects brand authority when a category is contracting. A working view of the paid newsletter shift from the inside of the platform now reshaping consumer media. A concrete account of launching and repositioning brands on small teams and tight budgets. A usable leadership argument from the Discomfort Zone on how people and teams perform in uncomfortable conditions. A credible perspective on social mobility and diversity in the creative industries, grounded in public roles and personal record.

Why organisations work with Amar Latif He has spent twenty years running an inclusion business that makes commercial sense. Traveleyes pairs blind and sighted travellers worldwide and has twice been voted Best Accessible Holiday Company at the British Travel Awards, in 2019 and 2020. His corporate CV gives him credibility with a board. Before founding Traveleyes he was Head of Commercial Finance at BT, and he makes the commercial case for inclusion in the language a board expects to hear it in. The lived experience is specific and substantial. Amar has retinitis pigmentosa and lost 95% of his sight by 18, and has spent his career building and running an organisation inside that constraint. Mainstream media recognition earns audience attention before he speaks. Regular BBC presenter, first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK, and appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship. Biography highlights Founder and Chief Executive of Traveleyes, the world’s first commercial tour operator pairing blind and sighted travellers on group holidays worldwide; established 2004. Appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship. President of The Ramblers, Britain’s largest walking charity, since April 2023; patron of SeeAbility and of the Rafiki Thabo Foundation. Inaugural recipient of the Stelios Disabled Entrepreneur Award (2007), presented by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in partnership with Leonard Cheshire Disability. Presenter across BBC and Channel 4, including Beyond Boundaries, River Walks (Royal Television Society Yorkshire Best Single Documentary, 2019), Travelling Blind, Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul, How to Get Fit Fast; first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK (2020). BSc (Hons) Mathematics, Statistics and Finance, University of Strathclyde; former Head of Commercial Finance at BT. Biography Traveleyes was founded in 2004 on a single commercial insight: that blind and sighted travellers could be paired on the same group holiday, with sighted guests receiving discounted travel in exchange for describing what they see. Twenty years later, the company has twice been voted Best Accessible Holiday Company at the British Travel Awards, and the insight has held up. Amar Latif built the business after leaving a role as Head of Commercial Finance at BT. The route from commercial finance into inclusive travel is unusual, and it gives him the language to make the commercial case for inclusion to a board. The authority on resilience comes from a specific set of circumstances. Amar has retinitis pigmentosa and had lost 95% of his sight by 18. After a BSc in Mathematics, Statistics and Finance at the University of Strathclyde, he trained as an accountant and worked his way up to Head of Commercial Finance at BT before founding Traveleyes. A parallel broadcasting career runs across BBC One, BBC Two and Channel 4, including Beyond Boundaries, Travelling Blind, Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul, How to Get Fit Fast, and his appearance as the first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK. He was appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship, and serves as President of The Ramblers, Britain’s largest walking charity. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership Disability inclusion as commercial strategy Entrepreneurial resilience Risk and decision-making under constraint Customer experience in underserved markets Purpose-driven organisations Ideal for Chief People Officers, CHROs and heads of diversity, equity and inclusion Boards and executive teams building the commercial case for inclusion Entrepreneurship and innovation forums Customer experience and service design leaders Audience outcomes A commercial case for inclusion built to hold up in a board or CFO conversation Specific examples of how inclusion shapes service design and customer experience in underserved markets A reset on how to think about risk when there is no stable precedent A narrative that changes how senior audiences talk about inclusion back in the business

Why organisations work with Lisa Nichols She speaks to the part of a workforce that engagement surveys cannot reach: the private doubt, fatigue, and self-protection that quietly drains performance during change. Her credibility is lived, not theoretical. She built a multi-million dollar enterprise from public assistance, and she uses that arc to make resilience feel concrete to senior teams who have heard every framework. She has been trusted by Google, Amazon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and NBC for workforce and leadership development sessions, which is a useful signal for enterprise buyers vetting cultural fit. She is one of the most recognised motivational voices of her generation, with reach through The Secret, Oprah, The Today Show, and a Broadway debut at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. That recognition fills rooms and earns attention before she opens her mouth. Her work translates well into multi-format engagements: keynote, executive coaching circles, and emerging-leader programmes through Motivating the Masses, so a single booking can extend into a programme. Biography highlights New York Times bestselling author of No Matter What! and author of Abundance Now (HarperCollins, 2016). Featured teacher in The Secret (2006), the global self-help film that introduced her to a mass audience. Founder and CEO of Motivating the Masses, Inc., a personal and business development training company. Founder of the Motivating the Teen Spirit Foundation, focused on teen mental health, self-esteem, and dropout prevention. Broadway debut in December 2024 with the one-woman show When My Soul Speaks at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, directed by Emmy winner Nick Nanton. Recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the country of South Africa, The Ambassador Award, and the LEGO Foundation’s Heart of Learning Award. Biography Public assistance and a baby wrapped in towels because the diapers had run out. That is where Lisa Nichols started in 1994. The arc from that night in a small apartment to a CEO’s chair, a New York Times bestseller list, and a Broadway stage is the source material she draws on when she speaks to leadership teams about resilience. She came to a global audience through The Secret, the 2006 film that sold tens of millions of copies and put a small group of teachers in front of a mass readership. Her own book, No Matter What!, followed and reached the New York Times bestseller list. Abundance Now, published by HarperCollins in 2016, took the same lived material into a more practical framework for personal and professional change. The corporate work sits underneath that public profile. Through Motivating the Masses, the training company she founded and runs, Nichols has delivered leadership and engagement programmes for Google, Amazon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and NBC. The brief is usually the same: a workforce facing change, a culture that needs reigniting, or a leadership cohort that has the strategy but not the conviction. In December 2024, Nichols took the same material to Broadway, performing When My Soul Speaks for one night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater under Emmy winner Nick Nanton. Eleven vignettes covered abusive relationships, poverty, single motherhood, and the late-arriving private wins. It is the same story she tells corporate audiences, told in the form most people only see on television, and it is part of why her name still draws a room. Key speaking topics Resilience and personal conviction Employee engagement through change Inclusive and values-based leadership Self-leadership for emerging leaders Storytelling for organisational influence Women’s leadership and advancement Ideal for CHROs and culture leads designing engagement, wellbeing, or DEI programmes that need a credible lived voice rather than a frameworks-only speaker. Senior leadership offsites where conviction, accountability, and personal resilience are the agenda, not the warm-up. Emerging-leader and high-potential cohorts inside large enterprises. Women’s leadership networks and ERG flagship events looking for a recognised voice with a corporate track record. Audience outcomes Leaders leave with a sharper sense of how their own conviction shows up to their teams in periods of change. Cohorts leave with practical language for resilience and self-trust they can use in difficult conversations the next week. Engagement and wellbeing programmes gain a vocabulary that lands across seniority levels, not only at the top. Audiences leave with a story arc they remember, which is what makes the rest of the programme stick.

Why organisations work with Deeyah Khan She has spent years in rooms with jihadis, neo-Nazis, and honour-killing perpetrators and come out with a practical method for dialogue under hostility, which transfers directly to how senior leaders handle conflict inside their own organisations. Her authority on polarisation is earned, not theorised. The films (Jihad, White Right: Meeting the Enemy, America’s War on Abortion) are the primary source, and they sit behind two Emmys, two Peabodys, a BAFTA, and an RTS. She was appointed the first UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Artistic Freedom and Creativity, a signal that her work is taken seriously at the level of global institutions, not just media. She gives leadership teams something rare in DEI and culture content: a repeatable approach to listening across difference that holds up when the stakes are real and the room is hostile. Biography highlights Two Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards for documentary filmmaking. BAFTA winner (America’s War on Abortion) and BAFTA nominee (Jihad: A Story of the Others; White Right: Meeting the Enemy). First UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Artistic Freedom and Creativity, appointed 2016. Founder of Fuuse, a media and arts company centring women, minorities, and third-culture voices; founder of sister-hood, a platform for women of Muslim heritage. Recipient of the Ossietzky Prize (Norwegian PEN), the University of Oslo Human Rights Award, and the Peer Gynt Prize awarded by the Parliament of Norway. TED speaker on the radicalisation of young Muslims in Europe. Biography Most organisations treat polarisation as a communications problem. Deeyah Khan treats it as a listening problem, and she has the footage to prove the distinction matters. Her documentary work has put her across the table from neo-Nazis, jihadis, and the families of honour-killing victims, and the method she built in those rooms is what senior leaders now ask her to bring into theirs. The body of work is specific. Banaz: A Love Story won her a first Emmy and Peabody for documenting the honour killing of Banaz Mahmod. Jihad: A Story of the Others was BAFTA-nominated and drew on two years of interviews with convicted extremists and former jihadis. White Right: Meeting the Enemy, shot inside the American far right and at the Charlottesville rally, won a second Emmy. America’s War on Abortion won a BAFTA. Muslim in Trump’s America added a second Peabody. That record is why institutions treat her as more than a filmmaker. In 2016 UNESCO appointed her its first Goodwill Ambassador for Artistic Freedom and Creativity. Norwegian PEN awarded her the Ossietzky Prize. The Parliament of Norway awarded her the Peer Gynt Prize. Through Fuuse and sister-hood she has also built platforms for women of Muslim heritage and third-culture voices to tell their own stories rather than be described by others. What she brings to a corporate audience is the translation of that practice into leadership. How do you hold a conversation with someone whose values you reject, long enough to understand what is actually driving them? How do you stay in the room when it would be easier to escalate? How does a senior team model that behaviour downward without looking weak? Khan turns her interview method into a working discipline for leaders who need to hold their organisations together across real difference. Key speaking topics Dialogue across ideological and cultural divides Leadership in polarised environments Empathy as an operating discipline Difficult conversations at senior levels Storytelling and communication under pressure Culture, belonging, and inclusion Countering extremism and radicalisation Ideal for CHROs and heads of culture navigating internal polarisation, identity tension, and DEI backlash. CEOs and executive teams preparing for public-facing crises where values, reputation, and employee trust collide. Leadership development programmes focused on inclusive leadership, difficult conversations, and psychological safety. Public-sector, NGO, and education leaders working on social cohesion, integration, and countering extremism. Audience outcomes A concrete method for staying in conversation with people whose views they find difficult, without performing agreement. Sharper language for naming the tensions inside their own teams and a cleaner read on where polarisation is actually coming from. A more honest standard for what empathy looks like at senior level, distinct from niceness or avoidance. Renewed confidence that leaders can address values-based conflict directly without fracturing the organisation.

Why organisations work with Dame Heather Rabbatts She co-founded TIME’S UP UK in 2018 and played a founding role in establishing CIISA, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority – a track record of translating accountability advocacy into operational governance infrastructure rather than policy recommendations. As the first woman on The Football Association board in its more than 150-year history, she has direct experience of governance cultures structurally resistant to inclusion – and of the specific mechanisms through which that resistance operates and where it can be broken. Non-executive experience across Associated British Foods, M&C Saatchi, and Bloomsbury Publishing, alongside earlier roles at the Bank of England, the BBC, and Crossrail, gives her a governance perspective formed across very different ownership structures and operating environments. Her legal training as a barrister and her track record as a public-sector CEO who led the turnaround of the London Borough of Lambeth give her a precise understanding of what accountability looks like when it is working – and when it is not. Her experience stepping up from non-executive to executive chair of a listed company during a period of CEO succession and commercial pressure is a live credential on what active board oversight requires in practice. Biography highlights Barrister qualified in 1981; educated at the London School of Economics Chief Executive of the London Borough of Lambeth; youngest local authority chief executive in the UK at time of appointment First woman appointed to the board of The Football Association in its history (2011); resigned from FIFA’s anti-discrimination taskforce on principle following Sepp Blatter’s re-election (2015) BBC Governor (1999-2001); Managing Director of 4Learning, Channel 4’s education arm; former Chair of Shed Media, overseeing its sale to Time Warner Executive Chair, M&C Saatchi; Senior Independent Director, Associated British Foods; Non-Executive Director, Bloomsbury Publishing; former non-executive roles include the Bank of England, Crossrail, and the Royal Opera House Co-founder and Chair, TIME’S UP UK (since 2018); founding Chair, Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA); Chair, Soho Theatre; DBE awarded in 2016 New Year Honours for services to football and equality Biography Boards rarely lack formal structures – what they frequently lack is the culture, diversity, and accountability practice to make those structures function as designed. Dame Heather Rabbatts has spent three decades working at exactly that intersection. Her career spans barrister practice, the CEO role at the London Borough of Lambeth, and non-executive directorships across sport, media, and listed companies. Her 2011 appointment as the first woman on The Football Association board placed her inside one of the most structurally resistant governance environments in British sport. She used the role publicly – criticising the composition of the FA’s commission on diversity, and resigning from FIFA’s anti-discrimination taskforce in 2015 following Sepp Blatter’s re-election. Her broader media career included serving as BBC Governor and Managing Director of Channel 4’s education business, 4Learning, and subsequently chairing Shed Media through its sale to Time Warner. She serves as Executive Chair of M&C Saatchi, Senior Independent Director at Associated British Foods, and Non-Executive Director at Bloomsbury Publishing. She co-founded TIME’S UP UK in 2018 alongside Barbara Broccoli. Together they played a founding role in establishing CIISA, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority, which provides an operational framework for handling misconduct across film and television. The unifying thread across her career – council chambers, listed company boards, football administration, and film production – is a single practical question. What does genuine accountability at board level actually require? Her answer is grounded in experience of governance under real pressure, not governance in theory. Key speaking topics Board governance and accountability Inclusion in corporate leadership Governance in sport and football administration Culture change in creative industries Ethical oversight and organisational standards Non-executive leadership and board composition Public sector leadership and institutional reform Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors navigating governance reform, composition review, or accountability challenges CHROs and Chief People Officers building the case for inclusion at board and senior leadership level Sport governing bodies and rights holders managing governance and inclusion reform Senior leadership teams in media, creative, or public institutions undergoing culture change Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of where formal governance structures typically fail to produce actual accountability – and what intervention at board level usually requires Insight into inclusion as a governance discipline, drawn from direct experience of institutional resistance and cultural change in high-profile organisations Practical perspective on how organisations can move from policy-level commitments on DEI to embedded board-level practice Clearer framing of the non-executive role in holding executive teams to account on culture, ethics, and standards An understanding of how industry standards bodies can translate advocacy into operational governance infrastructure, illustrated by the development of CIISA