Employee Engagement

Why organisations work with Mike Robbins He treats appreciation, vulnerability, and psychological safety as operational levers, not soft values, and gives leaders a vocabulary their teams can act on the next morning. He has spent twenty years inside the cultures of Google, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, eBay, Gap, Schwab, Airbnb, the NBA, and Pixar. The frame is tested against how high-stakes teams actually behave. His book Bring Your Whole Self to Work and the related TEDxBerkeley talk gave senior leaders a usable language for authenticity that does not collapse into oversharing or performance. He holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association, the top earned credential in his profession, and is one of fewer than ten percent of speakers worldwide to hold it. His perspective sits on an unusual seam: elite-level baseball at Stanford and in the Kansas City Royals system, then two decades of cultural work with serious operating companies. The room recognises the standard he is calling for. Biography highlights Author of five books published by Hay House, including Bring Your Whole Self to Work and We’re All in This Together, translated into fifteen languages. Speaker at TEDxBerkeley, with three TEDx talks that have reached close to 2.3 million views. Featured in the New York Times, on ABC News, and in Harvard Business Review; hosts the weekly We’re All in This Together podcast. Stanford graduate (American Studies, specialisation in race and ethnicity); pitched for Stanford in the College World Series. Drafted by the New York Yankees out of high school; played three professional seasons in the Kansas City Royals minor league system. Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), National Speakers Association. Biography Most teams underperform their talent. Not because the people are wrong, but because the cultural conditions around them, trust, candour, appreciation, the willingness to be honest under pressure, are weaker than the work demands. That gap is the territory Mike Robbins has worked in for twenty-five years, across more than 2,000 programmes in 17 countries. His five books, published by Hay House and translated into fifteen languages, build a coherent argument about how authenticity and appreciation operate as performance variables inside teams. Bring Your Whole Self to Work and We’re All in This Together are the most cited. Both have moved from leadership reading lists into the working language that companies like Google, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Airbnb, the NBA, and Pixar use to describe their own culture work. The intellectual frame is sharpened by an unusual background. Robbins pitched for Stanford in the College World Series and spent three seasons in the Kansas City Royals minor league system before injuries ended his playing career. He understands what high-performance teams demand of the people inside them, and he understands what fails. That perspective sits alongside a Stanford degree in American Studies with a specialisation in race and ethnicity, and the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association. His TEDxBerkeley talk on bringing your whole self to work has reached audiences far beyond corporate stages, and his Forbes column extends the same argument into how leaders practise appreciation, navigate change, and create psychological safety without slipping into performance. The throughline is consistent: culture is not climate, it is capability, and the leaders who treat it that way get more from their people. Key speaking topics Team culture and psychological safety Authenticity and vulnerability at work Appreciation as a performance practice Emotional intelligence for leaders Belonging and inclusion inside teams Leading through change and uncertainty Trust and high-performing teams Human connection in an AI-accelerating workplace Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers rebuilding engagement and team culture after restructure or hybrid transition Senior leadership teams who want a shared language for trust, candour, and appreciation Heads of talent and learning designing culture and leadership development programmes Sales, R&D, and operating leaders responsible for the performance of large, distributed teams Audience outcomes A practical model for psychological safety that leaders can apply inside their own teams the same week Specific behaviours that turn appreciation from a soft idea into a measurable team practice A clear distinction between authenticity that builds trust and disclosure that erodes it Tools for engaging conflict directly rather than routing around it A shared team vocabulary for the cultural conditions that high performance actually depends on

Why organisations work with David Marquet The framework comes from an operational turnaround inside a high-consequence command environment. The crew of a nuclear submarine cannot afford the kind of leadership failure a corporate team can absorb, and the system Marquet built was tested against that standard. Intent-Based Leadership replaces the request for permission with a statement of intent, which is a specific behavioural change a leadership team can implement on Monday morning. It is a working method, not a philosophy. “Turn the Ship Around!” became a reference text inside US Navy submarine command, technology firms, manufacturers and healthcare systems. Adoption across that range of industries is rare for a leadership book. “Leadership is Language” gives senior leaders specific verbal moves to dismantle the industrial-age meeting culture that still produces compliant teams and over-burdened decision-makers. Stephen R. Covey studied Santa Fe directly and called it the most empowering organisation he had encountered. The endorsement carries weight because Covey rarely attached his name to operational case studies of this kind. Biography highlights Commanded USS Santa Fe (SSN-763) from 1999 to 2001, taking it from the lowest-rated submarine in the fleet to the highest in retention and operational evaluations. 1981 graduate of the US Naval Academy, top of class; 28 years of service in the US submarine force. Author of “Turn the Ship Around!” (Penguin Portfolio, 2013), foreword by Stephen R. Covey, called by Fortune “the best how-to manual anywhere for managers on delegating, training, and driving flawless execution.” Author of “Leadership is Language” (Penguin Portfolio, 2020), setting out six leadership plays for dismantling industrial-age meeting culture. Founder of Intent-Based Leadership International, the consulting firm operationalising the framework inside corporate, healthcare and government organisations. Named to Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers. Biography The USS Santa Fe was the lowest-rated nuclear submarine in the US fleet when David Marquet took command in 1999. Within two years it had the highest retention and operational evaluations in the force. Over the following decade, a disproportionate number of its officers were selected for submarine command of their own. The shift began with a single moment. Marquet gave an order that could not be executed on his class of submarine, and the watch officer relayed it anyway. When asked why, the answer was: because you told me to. Marquet stopped giving orders. He built a system in which crew members stated intent (“I intend to surface the boat at 0300”) and the officer’s job was to certify competence and clarity, not to authorise the decision. He calls this Intent-Based Leadership. It is now used inside manufacturers, healthcare systems, technology companies, professional sports teams and government agencies that face the same structural problem: decision-makers too far from the information, and a workforce trained to wait for instruction. Stephen R. Covey spent time aboard Santa Fe and wrote about it in “The 8th Habit”, calling it the most empowering organisation he had observed. His second book, “Leadership is Language”, extends the framework into the meeting room. Marquet argues that industrial-age verbal habits (“Does anyone have any concerns?”, “Sounds good to me”) manufacture compliance and silence dissent at the moment leaders need it most. The six plays in the book give senior teams specific replacement language, tested in environments where the cost of an unchallenged bad decision is operational rather than theoretical. Key speaking topics Intent-Based Leadership Distributed decision-making in high-consequence environments Leadership language and meeting design Psychological safety and high-reliability teams Cultural transformation in command-and-control organisations Leader development and succession at scale Ideal for CEOs and senior operating leaders rebuilding decision rights after a period of centralisation COOs and operations leaders in regulated or high-consequence industries (energy, healthcare, defence, manufacturing) CHROs and chief learning officers designing leadership development programmes that change behaviour, not vocabulary Boards and executive teams reviewing why their organisation is slow to act on information the workforce already has Audience outcomes A working language for replacing requests for permission with statements of intent, usable inside the next leadership meeting. A diagnostic for where in the organisation control, competence and clarity are out of balance. The six plays from “Leadership is Language” as a structured alternative to industrial-age meeting habits. A clearer view of which decisions a senior leader should still own, and which have been hoarded by default. Evidence, drawn from a documented operational turnaround, that distributed authority improves performance under pressure rather than weakening it.

Why organisations work with Nadine Chammas A working background in theatre direction, stage performance and hypnotherapy, applied to the workplace behaviours that leadership programmes usually skip: voice, presence, composure on the floor. Creator of the trademarked TLD Method, delivered as a book, certified course and retreat, which gives clients a defined system rather than a one-off keynote. Two decades operating across the GCC, with audiences in Arabic and English, and a track record of running corporate sessions on emotional intelligence, conflict resolution and executive presence. Author of The Stage is Yours, an Amazon bestseller that frames professional and personal communication through a theatre-director lens. A profile that travels in regional media: weekly counselling sessions on Al Arabiya, and a music output that gives her unusual cultural reach for a corporate trainer. Biography highlights Founder of The Life Director consultancy and creator of the TLD Method, delivered through book, certification course and retreat. BA in Fine Arts and Theatre Studies, Lebanese University. Master Practitioner of NLP and Timeline Therapy; certified by the American Board of Hypnotherapy; certified stage hypnotist trained in Las Vegas. Founded Scenez Group Production Company (Dubai, 2000) and Scenez Drama and Arts Academy. Author of The Stage is Yours (Amazon bestseller); subsequent title The Life Director: Presence over Performance. Weekly counselling segments on Al Arabiya; 11 released songs, with two pandemic-era Arabic releases passing 1.2 million YouTube views combined. Biography Presence is a workplace skill, and most professionals are never taught it. Senior leaders are expected to hold a room, settle a difficult conversation, and stay composed under scrutiny, but the training they receive treats those behaviours as personality, not craft. Theatre treats them as craft, and that is where Nadine Chammas comes from. Trained at Lebanese University in Fine Arts and Theatre Studies, she built her early career in Dubai through Scenez Group Production Company and Scenez Drama and Arts Academy, running productions across the region and teaching performance to children and adults. Alongside the theatre work she trained as a Master Practitioner of NLP and Timeline Therapy, completed certification with the American Board of Hypnotherapy, and qualified as a stage hypnotist in Las Vegas. The combination is unusual: stagecraft and behavioural method, applied to how people show up at work. The Life Director is the consultancy that consolidates that work. Her TLD Method is delivered as a book, a certified practitioner course and a retreat, and is positioned for individuals, corporate audiences and educational institutions. The corporate framing is direct: communication and leadership, emotional intelligence and resilience, conflict resolution and team behaviour, executive presence, decision-making under pressure. The Stage is Yours, her Amazon bestseller, sets out the underlying argument that a working life can be approached the same way a director approaches a production. She operates across the GCC and the US, in Arabic and English, with regional media reach through weekly Al Arabiya counselling segments and a music career that runs in parallel to the corporate work. The composite makes her suited to audiences where personal credibility, communication and cultural fluency are part of the brief, not separate from it. Key speaking topics Executive presence and personal branding Communication and influence Emotional intelligence and resilience Conflict resolution and team behaviour Storytelling for leaders Women in leadership Workplace culture and engagement Ideal for HR and L&D leaders commissioning communication, presence and behavioural skills programmes. Corporate audiences across the GCC where Arabic-English fluency and regional cultural read are part of the brief. Women’s leadership networks and conferences. Professional services and client-facing teams whose work depends on how they show up in the room. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for executive presence drawn from theatre and behavioural method, not personality traits. Specific techniques for voice, composure and physical presence under pressure. A clearer sense of how to use storytelling to make a message land with a corporate audience. An honest read on the behaviours that cost senior professionals credibility, and what to do about them.

Why organisations work with Madison Butler She works inside the people function as a practitioner, not as an outside commentator. Her perspective comes from running employee experience as Chief Experience Officer at GRAV and as a fractional people ops consultant. She has built a structural intervention into her own industry. The Black Speakers Collection was created to close the speaker pay gap for Black speakers, and is now a working directory used by meeting planners. Her book “Let Them See You” (Wiley, 2025) gives buyers a published thesis on authenticity at work that they can hand to a leadership team before the keynote. She speaks credibly on mental health, trauma and psychological safety in workplace settings without softening the operational implications for managers. Named a LinkedIn Top Black Voice and a DivInc Austin Rising Star, with sustained media presence in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and Rolling Stone. Biography highlights Author, “Let Them See You: Empowering Change Through Authenticity” (Wiley, 2025) Founder, Black Speakers Collection, a directory created to address pay equity for Black speakers Founder, Blue Haired Unicorn, an HR and DEI consultancy advising on psychological safety and culture design Chief Experience Officer at GRAV, based in Austin, Texas Named a LinkedIn Top Black Voice; named DivInc Austin Rising Star, 2021 Featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Yahoo and Rolling Stone Biography The employee experience is the part of the company most leaders do not own. HR runs onboarding, operations runs the systems, leadership sets the tone, and the actual lived experience falls between them. Butler works in that gap. As Chief Experience Officer at GRAV and through her consultancy Blue Haired Unicorn, she designs how a workforce actually moves through the organisation, from joining to leaving. Her published thesis sits in “Let Them See You: Empowering Change Through Authenticity”, released by Wiley in 2025. The argument is that performative culture work fails because it asks people to keep their full selves out of the building. Butler treats authenticity as an operating condition for trust, engagement and retention, not as a value statement. The Black Speakers Collection is her clearest demonstration of how she thinks. Faced with persistent pay inequity for Black speakers in the bureau industry, she built a directory rather than writing a position piece. It is now used by meeting planners as a working resource, profiled by PCMA and Prevue Meetings. Her media presence reflects the breadth of her audience. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Yahoo and Rolling Stone have carried her commentary on workplace culture, mental health and inclusion. LinkedIn named her a Top Black Voice; DivInc named her Austin Rising Star in 2021. Key speaking topics Psychological safety and workplace culture Authenticity and human-centred leadership Employee experience design Inclusion as operating practice Mental health and trauma at work Future of work and the people function Personal branding and self-presentation at work Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers designing employee experience end to end Heads of DEI and inclusion leads looking for operating substance over signalling Founders and CEOs of scaling companies under cultural strain Internal leadership programmes for managers responsible for psychological safety Audience outcomes A clearer view of where the employee experience is breaking inside their own organisation A sharper distinction between performative culture work and operating culture work Language for managers to discuss mental health, trauma and authenticity at work without flinching Practical reference points from a practitioner running these problems day to day A published thesis (“Let Them See You”) to extend the conversation after the room

Why organisations work with Mark Levy He built Employee Experience as a discipline inside Airbnb during the years it was named Glassdoor’s #1 Place to Work, so the playbook he teaches is one he has actually shipped. He treats culture as something designed, instrumented, and operated, not as a values poster or a wellness programme, which gives CHROs and CEOs a concrete way to talk about it with the board. He has done the same work twice at very different scales, at Airbnb in hypergrowth and at Allbirds through global expansion, so the frameworks travel beyond one company’s circumstances. He is co-authoring the Wiley method that is becoming the reference text for EX practitioners, alongside Dean Carter of Patagonia and Samantha Gadd, which gives his sessions a body of work rather than a personal anecdote set. He speaks fluently to the alignment between CMO and CHRO, where most internal-brand efforts break down, because he has run the function that sits between them. Biography highlights Pioneered the Employee Experience function at Airbnb, replacing the traditional HR model with an end-to-end employee journey approach. Led the people and culture work during the year Airbnb was named Glassdoor’s #1 Place to Work. Most recently led Employee Experience at Allbirds during its global expansion. Co-author of Employee Experience Design (Wiley, 2026) with Dean Carter and Samantha Gadd. Earlier corporate roles at Best Buy, Levi Strauss & Company, Gap Inc., and Thomson/Technicolor in Paris. Board director at First Graduate; former Gap Foundation board member; advisor to Backstage Capital and MixR. JD/MBA from the University of Colorado. Biography Airbnb hit Glassdoor’s #1 Place to Work ranking in 2016 with a people function that did not look like a people function. It had been rebuilt as Employee Experience, with culture, workplace, and social impact reporting alongside traditional HR. The person who designed that structure was Mark Levy. He came to it from a long retail and consumer career: Best Buy, Levi Strauss & Company, Gap Inc., and two years at Thomson/Technicolor in Paris. The pattern across those roles was practical, not academic. How does a company actually live its brand internally, in the systems and rituals employees experience every day, rather than in the language printed on the wall? At Airbnb he turned that question into an operating model. The result, codified now in the Wiley book he co-authored with Dean Carter of Patagonia and Samantha Gadd, treats employee experience as something you design with employees rather than for them, and instrument the way a product team would. Most recently he led the same work at Allbirds as the company scaled internationally. What organisations get from him is the rare combination of a builder who has actually run the function and a teacher with a published method. The audience he is sharpest with is the CHRO who needs to translate culture into board-readable substance, and the CEO and CMO who want the company their customers experience to match the company their employees work in. Key speaking topics Employee Experience design Belonging and the internal brand Culture during hypergrowth and global expansion The shift from HR to end-to-end employee journey CMO and CHRO alignment on brand Hybrid and distributed work Ideal for CHROs and Chief People Officers redesigning the HR operating model. CEOs and founder-led companies in scale-up where culture is starting to fragment. CMOs and brand leaders working with people teams on internal brand and employer brand. Boards and executive committees treating culture as a governance topic, not an HR topic. Audience outcomes A clear distinction between Employee Experience as a discipline and HR as a function, with the structural implications of each. A practical model for designing employee journeys the way product teams design customer journeys. A working language for the CMO and CHRO to align internal and external brand. Specific examples from Airbnb and Allbirds of what design-led culture looks like when it is built and instrumented. A reference point in the Wiley method, including how Patagonia, Airbnb, and other companies have made it operational.

Why organisations work with Kanika Chadda Gupta A live interviewer who can carry a senior-leader fireside, a customer panel and an all-hands Q&A inside the same event, with the journalistic preparation of a network anchor rather than a generalist host. A working-parent and caregiver lens grounded in years of conversations with the audience itself, through the That’s Total Mom Sense podcast and its named guests including Chelsea Clinton, Kelly Rowland and America Ferrera. AAPI and South Asian heritage programming led by someone with cultural authority, not a borrowed brief, useful for Heritage Month moments where credibility is what makes the session land. Recognised by JPMorgan Chase, Industrious and KNOW Women as a 2023 100 Women to KNOW Across America honouree, which travels well with internal sponsors who want a credentialled external voice on women’s progression. A second business as founder of Kronologie Agency, so brand, storytelling and marketing-to-mothers content is delivered with operator credibility, not theory. Biography highlights Former television journalist and anchor, with CNN India reporting credits including coverage of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Host of That’s Total Mom Sense, featured in Forbes and on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and Cheddar. 2023 honouree, 100 Women to KNOW Across America, presented by JPMorgan Chase, Industrious and KNOW Women. Director for Women in Media at HeyMama; Official Podcast Partner of Mom 2.0 with Everyday Health and BabyCenter. Founder and CEO of Kronologie Agency, a New York digital marketing and branding firm. Trained Kuchipudi classical dancer and Hindustani vocalist; former Miss India Maryland and Miss India East Coast. Biography Working parents are the silent majority inside most large employers, yet leave, benefits and culture programmes still treat them as a special case. That mismatch is where Kanika Chadda Gupta does her most useful work. Her years interviewing CEOs, founders and public figures on That’s Total Mom Sense gave her a clear view of what working parents actually need from their employer, and what they quietly resent. The journalism credential is not decoration. She trained as a broadcast journalist and anchored at CNN, including coverage of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, before moving into long-form interviewing. On stage that shows up as preparation: she reads in, asks the question the audience wanted asked, and does not let a panel drift. Forbes, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and Cheddar have all featured the podcast and her guest list runs from Chelsea Clinton to Kelly Rowland to America Ferrera. Her topical authority sits on three tracks. Working-parent and caregiver policy, anchored in interview evidence and her role as Director for Women in Media at HeyMama. Women’s progression, recognised by JPMorgan Chase, Industrious and KNOW Women in their 2023 100 Women to KNOW Across America cohort. And AAPI and South Asian heritage, delivered with the cultural authority of someone trained in Kuchipudi classical dance and Hindustani vocal music since childhood. She also runs Kronologie Agency, a New York branding and digital marketing firm, which gives her a second register: marketing-to-mothers content delivered by an operator who has built campaigns, not just talked about them. Employers booking her for a Heritage Month moment, a working-parent ERG event or a customer fireside get a host who has done the reading and a topical voice who has done the work. Key speaking topics Working parents and caregivers in corporate culture Women’s progression and leadership development AAPI and South Asian heritage programming Marketing and brand storytelling for mother-led households Interview craft and on-stage moderation Storytelling for television, podcast and new media Ideal for CHROs, DEI leads and ERG sponsors designing working-parent, women’s and AAPI heritage programming CMOs and brand teams targeting mother-led household decision-making Internal communications and event leads booking a fireside, customer panel or all-hands moderator Heads of talent and culture running employee summits where journalistic interview craft matters more than a keynote Audience outcomes A clearer read on where current working-parent policy is failing in practice and which fixes employees actually value Specific language for sponsoring women’s progression and AAPI heritage moments without slipping into compliance theatre A marketing perspective on mother-led households that goes beyond demographic data A session moderated or hosted with network-journalist preparation, not generalist host energy Direct exposure to interview-based insight from named senior figures the audience would recognise

Why organisations work with Joanne Lockwood A rare combination of lived experience as a transgender woman and the formal speaker credentials of a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association UK&I, which gives leaders both authenticity and confidence in how the message will land in a corporate room. A timely reading of what AI means for people and culture, drawn from two decades running IT businesses and her inclusion practice: how automated hiring, AI-assisted grievances, and an emerging “AI readiness divide” quietly decide who belongs at work and who gets left behind. Practical experience translating inclusion into operational HR practice through SEE Change Happen, the consultancy she founded after exiting a £3m IT services business she had run for two decades. A track record at scale with employers including Levi Strauss, lululemon EMEA, HarperCollins UK, Unilever, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Ogilvy, Molson Coors and Wates Group, across retail, professional services, housing and the NHS. A delivery style summarised by her own mantra, Smile, Engage, Educate, that lowers the temperature of difficult conversations and lets senior teams engage with trans and LGBTQ+ inclusion without defensiveness. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, SEE Change Happen, a diversity, inclusion and belonging consultancy specialising in transgender awareness and workplace inclusion. Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association UK&I. Fellow of the Institute of Equality and Diversity Professionals. First openly transgender National President of Round Table Great Britain and Ireland. Host of the Inclusion Bites podcast and featured subject of the Channel 4 / RDF documentary The Making of Me. Former Trustee of akt, the LGBT+ youth homelessness charity, and volunteer with Beyond Reflections. Biography Most organisations have an inclusion statement. Far fewer have a workforce that knows how to act on it. The gap between published intent and daily behaviour is where culture either compounds or quietly erodes, and it is the space Joanne Lockwood has built her practice around. SEE Change Happen, the consultancy she founded after a career that ran from the Royal Air Force to a £3m IT services business of 25 staff, works with employers to translate DEI policy into the language and habits of line managers. The work is grounded in trans and LGBTQ+ inclusion, where she has personal authority as a transgender woman, and extends into belonging and inclusive recruitment. Clients include Levi Strauss, lululemon EMEA, HarperCollins UK, Unilever, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Ogilvy, and Wates Group. Her newest work takes the same lens to artificial intelligence. Drawing on her years running IT businesses, she treats AI as a culture and belonging question rather than a technical one: how automated hiring, AI-assisted grievances, and the gap she calls the “AI readiness divide” decide who gets designed in and who gets left behind. Her framing is blunt. AI does not create culture; it amplifies the culture it enters. Recognition from her own profession reinforces the work. She is a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association UK&I and a Fellow of the Institute of Equality and Diversity Professionals, and her published thinking runs through the Inclusion Bites podcast and contributions to HRZone, The HRD, and Training Zone. She was the first openly transgender National President of Round Table Great Britain and Ireland, and the subject of Channel 4 and RDF’s documentary The Making of Me. Key speaking topics AI, belonging and the human future of work Inclusive culture and belonging Trans and LGBTQ+ inclusion Inclusive leadership and engagement Workplace allyship Inclusive recruitment and hiring practice Culture change and DEI strategy Ideal for CHROs, heads of DEI and employee experience leaders rebuilding inclusion practice beyond statements and training modules. Executive teams and boards preparing for substantive conversations on trans and LGBTQ+ inclusion in a contested public climate. Leadership and HR teams working out what AI means for their people, their hiring, and their culture. Talent acquisition and people-team leaders working on inclusive recruitment, onboarding and line-manager capability. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where inclusion policy is and is not shaping daily workplace behaviour, and the specific points at which it breaks down. Direct, practical language for trans and LGBTQ+ inclusion that leaders and line managers can use without fear of getting it wrong. A practical way to treat AI as a culture and inclusion issue, including where human judgement has to stay in hiring and employee-relations decisions. A working definition of allyship that goes beyond visible support and into the everyday decisions managers make about hiring, promotion and team culture. Renewed confidence to engage with DEI as a leadership responsibility rather than an HR programme.

Why organisations work with Fiona Passantino Her AI Integration Roadmap gives organisations a structured, sequential process for embedding AI across teams, not a list of tools, but a governance-aware framework that accounts for readiness, culture and communication at each stage She addresses the segment most AI programming leaves behind: the competent, non-technical professional who is capable of meaningful AI adoption but has no entry point designed for them Her 15 years inside major European multinationals – including Philips, NN-Group and Danone – means she understands the internal resistance, governance gaps and anxiety that follow AI announcements from the inside AI-Powered Leader (2026) and AI-Powered Professional (2025), part of her award-winning Comic Books for Executives series, are practical, illustrated resources audiences leave with, extending a session’s impact beyond the room She connects AI adoption directly to the disciplines organisations already invest in: internal communications, employee engagement and culture; making the case for AI readiness in language leadership teams already use Biography highlights Creator of the AI Integration Roadmap, a structured framework for practical, organisation-wide AI adoption Author of AI-Powered Leader (2026) and AI-Powered Professional (2025), the latest titles in the Comic Books for Executives series; the series’ Handbook for Post-Covid Engagement won the 2023 UK Business Book Awards and a Goody Award for Thought Leadership MBA in Management with an AI concentration from the University of Amsterdam 15 years in corporate HR and internal communications at Danone, Philips, NN-Group, PostNL and Achmea TEDx speaker; has addressed audiences at events for the European Commission, Business Insider and Vodafone Host of the Working Humans podcast; founder of Executive Storylines Delivers sessions in English, Dutch and Italian Biography Most AI adoption programmes are built for the technically literate. Fiona Passantino built her practice around everyone else – the HR director, the communications lead, the team managers – the non-technical majority on whom successful AI integration actually depends. After fifteen years in corporate HR and internal communications at companies including Philips, NN-Group and Danone, Passantino understands what AI announcements look like from inside an organisation: the anxiety, the governance gaps, the employees who wait to be told what to do. Her MBA from the University of Amsterdam, with a concentration in AI, gave her the technical vocabulary. Her career gave her the people knowledge. The AI Integration Roadmap, her signature framework, brings both together in a structured, staged process that organisations can apply without a technical team leading it. Her books make the argument in concrete form. The Comic Books for Executives series won at the 2023 UK Business Book Awards; AI-Powered Professional (2025) is a practical, illustrated guide for the professional who has no technical background and limited tolerance for abstraction. AI-Powered Leader (2026) takes the same approach to the leadership team driving adoption across an organisation, built around her AI Integration Roadmap. As host of the Working Humans podcast and a speaker at events including the European Commission and TEDxLuxembourgCity, she consistently speaks to the audience most AI commentary bypasses. Her sessions cover AI adoption, communication, employee engagement and organisational culture, connecting AI readiness to the disciplines serious organisations already understand. She delivers in English, Dutch and Italian. Key speaking topics AI integration for non-technical professionals Human-AI collaboration and co-creation AI literacy and organisational readiness Employee engagement and culture in the age of AI AI and internal communications Workforce upskilling and future skills Professional communication and storytelling Ideal for HR directors and people teams leading AI adoption or workforce readiness initiatives Internal communications and employee engagement leads managing AI change programmes L&D professionals designing AI upskilling curricula for non-technical workforces Senior leadership teams navigating the cultural and communications challenges of organisation-wide AI integration Audience outcomes A clear mental model of how AI applies to non-technical roles and everyday workflows, reducing anxiety and increasing practical confidence Working familiarity with the AI Integration Roadmap and how to begin applying it within their own team or organisation Practical strategies for managing employee resistance and uneven adoption across a workforce Sharper understanding of how to communicate AI initiatives in ways that land with non-technical colleagues and teams Two concrete resources, AI-Powered Leader and AI-Powered Professional, that extend the value of the session beyond the event itself

Why organisations work with Allister Frost A named, proprietary framework, the ReadyAlready Growth Cycle, that gives audiences a shared language for working through change fatigue, rather than a generic motivational message. Operator credibility from inside Microsoft’s first digital marketing strategy function, including the “I’M A PC” campaign and global Windows and Office launches, applied directly to the human side of technology adoption. Two decades of brand and transformation work at Kimberly-Clark and Microsoft, recognised by a Cannes Silver Direct Lion and twice by the Lester Wunderman Award for Outstanding Creative Work. A track record of large all-hands and culture-led audiences at BBC, Vodafone, 3M, Cisco, Pfizer, Hyundai, GE HealthCare and Reckitt, where the brief is energy and adoption, not abstract futurism. Recognition by his own profession: Chartered Marketer, Elected Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, twice UK Digital Marketing Personality of the Year, and Winner at The Speaker Awards 2023. Biography highlights Microsoft’s first Head of Digital Marketing Strategy, responsible for global Windows and Office launch campaigns, including “I’M A PC”. Former Kimberly-Clark marketing leader for Andrex, Kleenex and Huggies. Author of ReadyAlready: The Future-Ready Mindset to Keep Up, Stand Out, and Shape What’s Next. Cannes Silver Direct Lion winner; twice winner of the Lester Wunderman Award for Outstanding Creative Work. Chartered Marketer and Elected Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. UK Digital Marketing Personality of the Year, 2013 and 2019; Winner, The Speaker Awards 2023. Biography Most large organisations have not run out of change programmes. They have run out of people willing to engage with the next one. Years of restructure, platform migration and now AI rollout have left workforces more fatigued than resistant, and that is the harder problem to solve. Frost spent two decades inside that problem before he started speaking about it. At Kimberly-Clark he led marketing for Andrex, Kleenex and Huggies. He then moved to Microsoft as the company’s first Head of Digital Marketing Strategy, where he ran global launch campaigns for Windows and Office and the “I’M A PC” work. The work earned a Cannes Silver Direct Lion and two Lester Wunderman Awards for Outstanding Creative Work. Since 2012 he has built a speaking practice around a single framework, the ReadyAlready Growth Cycle, set out in his book ReadyAlready: The Future-Ready Mindset to Keep Up, Stand Out, and Shape What’s Next. The argument is that the gap holding back most transformation programmes is not strategy or technology, it is the human appetite to engage. The framework gives audiences a working language for that gap. His audiences reflect the brief. He has worked with BBC, Vodafone, 3M, Cisco, Pfizer, Hyundai, GE HealthCare, Reckitt, Bloomberg and Network Rail, typically at all-hands events, culture forums and senior leadership retreats. The Chartered Institute of Marketing has elected him a Fellow, and the UK industry named him Digital Marketing Personality of the Year in 2013 and again in 2019. He won at The Speaker Awards 2023. Key speaking topics Future-Ready Mindset Change fatigue and workforce adoption The human side of AI and digital transformation Employee engagement at scale Culture in technology-led change Leadership communication during transformation Marketing and brand reinvention Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers, and internal communications leads planning all-hands and culture moments Transformation and change leaders preparing workforces for AI and digital adoption C-suite and senior leadership teams running annual kickoffs, town halls, and strategy retreats CMOs and brand leaders rebuilding marketing function capability in an AI-shaped market Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for naming and working through change fatigue inside a team The ReadyAlready Growth Cycle as a usable framework, not just a model on a slide A clearer view of which human capabilities still matter as AI absorbs more of the work Practical prompts to turn passive consumers of change into active contributors Re-energised commitment to the next phase of transformation, anchored to specific personal habits

Why organisations work with Roger Delves Two decades inside one of Europe’s most established executive education faculties, teaching senior leaders in London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and across Europe. Co-author of The Top 50 Management Dilemmas (Pearson) and co-editor of Inspiring Leadership (Bloomsbury), so his content is tested against the everyday tensions managers actually face, not theoretical models. A practitioner background that runs through advertising board directorship and founding Ireland’s first international advertising agency. Leadership content built from operator experience, not academic distance. Multiple-time Hult Professor of the Year, voted by MBA and EMBA cohorts. He earns the trust of the audiences senior buyers want him in front of. Biography highlights Professor of Leadership Practice and Dean of Qualifications, Hult Ashridge Executive Education Director of the Ashridge MBA and Ashridge Masters in Management Co-author, The Top 50 Management Dilemmas (Pearson, 2013) with Sona Sherratt Co-editor, Inspiring Leadership: Becoming a Dynamic and Engaging Leader (Bloomsbury, 2017) with Dr Kerrie Fleming Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; MA, English, St Catherine’s College, Oxford Multiple-time Hult Professor of the Year, voted by MBA and EMBA students Biography Most leadership content tells senior leaders what good looks like. Very little of it survives contact with a fatigued team, a contested decision, or a quarter when the strategy is not landing. Delves’s teaching is built for that gap. His subject matter is the practical content of authenticity, emotional intelligence and integrity when leaders are under real pressure, not the language of values when conditions are calm. That perspective comes from a hybrid career. He spent his early years in advertising, reaching UK board director at DMB&B, then founded Ireland’s first international advertising agency, serving Mars Masterfoods and Procter & Gamble. He moved into executive education through Cranfield’s Centre for Customised Executive Education before joining Ashridge, where he is now Professor of Leadership Practice and Dean of Qualifications across the MBA and Masters in Management. The published work reflects the same orientation. The Top 50 Management Dilemmas, co-authored with Sona Sherratt for Pearson, takes the recurring tensions managers describe in the room and works through them as decisions rather than concepts. Inspiring Leadership, co-edited with Dr Kerrie Fleming for Bloomsbury, brings together faculty perspectives on what actually develops leaders rather than what merely describes them. He has been voted Hult Professor of the Year by MBA and EMBA students on multiple occasions, and teaches across London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Europe. What organisations get from him is a serious examination of how leaders make defensible decisions when the data is incomplete and the audience is watching. He treats authenticity as a discipline, not a slogan, and he is comfortable saying so in front of senior cohorts who have heard most of it before. Key speaking topics Authentic leadership Emotional intelligence in senior leadership Leadership decision-making under pressure Transformational leadership and change Values, ethics and integrity in management Team engagement and follower psychology Leadership in uncertain conditions Ideal for Senior leadership programmes for executive committees, divisional MDs, and high-potential cohorts Heads of leadership development and CLOs designing flagship leader interventions CHROs and CPOs commissioning content for engagement and culture programmes MBA, EMBA and partner cohorts within corporate universities Audience outcomes A sharper read on where their own leadership credibility comes from, and where it leaks Working language for emotional intelligence that is usable in a leadership team, not a workshop Specific tests for whether a decision is authentic or merely consistent A diagnostic for the everyday management dilemmas that erode trust if handled badly Confidence to lead through ambiguity without retreating into process

Why organisations work with Wema Hoover She ran global DEI inside four of the most scrutinised employers in the world: Google, Pfizer, Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb. The advice is shaped by what survives in regulated, multinational environments. She separates the politics of DEI from the operating substance, which lets boards keep the practice going without the labels that now invite litigation and activist pressure. Her work covers the full stack: hiring, promotion, belonging, manager capability, and how leadership teams behave under public scrutiny. Not awareness training. She writes for Fast Company on the structural questions, gender investment, leadership double standards, beyond the DEI backlash, which means buyers get a thinker, not a workshop facilitator. Coqual Hidden Brain Drain Task Force membership signals she works alongside the most serious researchers in this field, not adjacent to them. Biography highlights Former Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Google Former Chief Diversity Officer / Global Head of DEI at Pfizer, Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb Published contributor at Fast Company, Inc. and Diversity Magazine Member, Coqual Hidden Brain Drain Task Force Board member, Ten By Three MSc Human Resource Management and Master’s Certificate in Organizational Change Management, The New School; BA Psychology, Rutgers; GPHR certified Biography The DEI conversation has fractured. Court rulings, shareholder activism and political pressure have made the language toxic in some markets, while the underlying organisational questions, who gets hired, who gets promoted, who feels they belong, are now more commercially material than they have been in a decade. Wema Hoover spent the last fifteen years running that practice inside large, regulated, global employers. As Global Head of DEI at Google, and in equivalent senior roles at Pfizer, Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb, she designed and operated inclusion programmes in the kinds of environments where the work has to clear legal, board, regulator and workforce scrutiny. That operator background is what makes her useful now. She is not arguing for DEI as a value; she is showing leadership teams how to keep the operating substance, hiring discipline, manager capability, advancement pipelines, belonging metrics, without the rhetorical scaffolding that has become a liability. Her Fast Company writing and her “Beyond the DEI Backlash” work track the same argument in public. She holds an MSc in Human Resource Management and a Master’s-level Certificate in Organizational Change Management from The New School, a BA in Psychology from Rutgers, and a Global Professional in Human Resources certification. She sits on Coqual’s Hidden Brain Drain Task Force, the working group most senior corporate DEI heads consult on talent equity research. Key speaking topics Inclusion strategy after the DEI backlash Belonging and culture inside global, regulated employers Women’s advancement, sponsorship and the leadership double standard Manager capability for inclusive teams Cross-cultural leadership in multinational workforces Executive coaching for senior leaders navigating cultural change Ideal for CHROs and Chief People Officers managing inclusion programmes through political and legal headwinds Boards and ExCos that need to reset their position on DEI without abandoning the substance Global employers with regulated workforces (pharma, tech, financial services) where inclusion is tied to talent risk Senior leadership development programmes for newly promoted women and underrepresented executives Audience outcomes A clear read on what has changed in the DEI landscape, in the US and globally, and what that means for their own programme design A working distinction between inclusion as compliance theatre and inclusion as operating capability Practical decisions on which existing initiatives to keep, which to retire and which to rename Confidence in how to brief their board on DEI in the current environment without overpromising or retreating A sharper view of where sponsorship and advocacy, not training, actually move the dial on women’s advancement

Why organisations work with Stephanie Davies A working method that gets cynical adult audiences to engage with behaviour change without the eye-rolling that usually accompanies culture training. A track record on hard conversations, with a programme at HSBC training more than 500 leaders to handle performance and feedback without flinching. A point of view on engagement grounded in published psychology, set out in her book Laughology: Improve Your Life with the Science of Laughter (Crown House). Two decades inside corporate culture work across HSBC, Nespresso, Nando’s, and government, so the content lands as practitioner advice rather than commentary. A delivery style that holds the room. The comedy training is a tool for retention and recall, not a gimmick layered on top of the content. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Laughology, founded 2006. Author of Laughology: Improve Your Life with the Science of Laughter, Crown House Publishing. Master’s-level training in psychology, focused on humour and organisational performance. Designed and delivered performance-conversation training at HSBC for 500+ leaders. Culture and behaviour programmes with Nespresso, Nando’s, Virgin, O2, and UK government departments. Regular columnist for Training Journal; previously an award-winning stand-up comedian. Biography Most culture programmes lose the room in the first ten minutes. Adults arrive sceptical, the language is corporate, and the behaviours being asked of them feel performative. Laughology was built to solve that delivery problem. Stephanie Davies founded it in 2006 to pair applied psychology with the craft of stand-up, and uses humour as a mechanism for behaviour change rather than as decoration. The substance sits behind the style. Her book, Laughology: Improve Your Life with the Science of Laughter, sets out humour as a thinking skill, drawing on positive psychology and the cognitive research on how laughter shifts perspective and learning retention. Her master’s-level work in psychology runs through the firm’s programmes on engagement, leadership behaviour, and feedback. The client list reflects the practical bias. HSBC commissioned performance-conversation training for more than 500 leaders. Nespresso brought her in to strengthen retail leadership. Nando’s, Virgin, O2, and government departments have used Laughology for culture and behaviour work. Across these, the brief is consistent: get people to commit to a change in how they behave, not just understand why it matters. That practitioner record is what distinguishes her in a crowded happiness-at-work category. Most speakers in the space arrive from coaching, HR, or pop-psychology. Davies arrives from a working comedy career and a psychology specialism in humour, with twenty years of corporate delivery behind her. Key speaking topics Workplace engagement and culture change Psychology of humour at work Performance and feedback conversations Behaviour change in large organisations Leadership development and team culture Mental health and wellbeing in the workplace Resilience and positive psychology Ideal for CHROs and people directors running engagement or culture change agendas. L&D and OD leads commissioning leadership, feedback, or behaviour-change programmes. Boards and executive teams looking for a substantive culture session that an internal audience will actually engage with. Conference organisers programming a keynote that has to do real work on a wellbeing or culture theme. Audience outcomes A working model of humour as a behaviour-change tool, not as entertainment. Language and techniques for running performance and feedback conversations without avoidance. A clearer view of what drives engagement at the level of daily behaviour. Practical positive-psychology techniques for resilience and team morale. A session people actually remember, which is the precondition for any of the above changing behaviour.