Entrepreneurship

Why organisations work with Kavita Oberoi A first-hand account of selling into the NHS and global pharma as an outsider, including the specific moves that turned a Pfizer pilot into a multi-client healthcare consultancy. An OBE-recognised entrepreneur who is candid about the parts of company building that most founders gloss over: pricing the first big contract, hiring before revenue, and surviving the move from founder-led sales to a delivery team. A public profile shaped by The Secret Millionaire and ongoing BBC, Sky and ITV business commentary, which translates into audience trust before she opens her mouth. Genuine credibility on the diversity-and-resilience angle without the usual abstractions, drawing on a documented path from a 15-year-old taking a Saturday job against family expectation to chairing the Global Girls’ Fund. Biography highlights OBE for services to entrepreneurship and start-up businesses, Queen’s 2014 Birthday Honours. Founder and Managing Director of Oberoi Consulting, healthcare IT and clinical audit firm working with the NHS and pharmaceutical industry since 2001. Founder of Oberoi Business Hub, Derby’s Pride Park, serviced and virtual office facility for start-ups, opened 2012. Named in the 2009 HBOS report on Britain’s 100 Most Entrepreneurial Women. Chair of the Global Girls’ Fund, the international fundraising arm of Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting. Honorary Doctorate, University of Huddersfield, 2013; BSc Applied Chemistry, First Class, University of Huddersfield, 1992. Television: Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire, BBC’s The Apprentice You’re Fired, ITV News Business Club panellist, BBC Breakfast, Sky News. Biography The clinical audit gap inside UK general practice was the opening Kavita Oberoi spotted in 2001. GP surgeries needed structured data work that pharmaceutical companies and the NHS both wanted, and almost nobody was packaging it as a service. From a standing start she won a contract with Pfizer, and Oberoi Consulting grew from there into a healthcare support business serving GP practices, primary care groups, private healthcare providers and global pharma. The route to that point matters because it shapes what she actually says on stage. A first-class chemistry degree from Huddersfield, then a stint as one of Bayer’s highest-performing medical representatives, gave her the technical credibility to sell into clinical buyers. Leaving a corporate salary at 30 to start a consultancy without a network or a war chest gave her the rest. In 2012 she opened Oberoi Business Hub on Derby’s Pride Park, a serviced and virtual office facility built specifically for start-ups and small companies that need infrastructure they cannot yet afford to own. The wider portfolio now spans healthcare consultancy, shared workspace, commercial property and media work, and earned her an OBE in 2014 for services to entrepreneurship and start-up businesses. She chairs the Global Girls’ Fund, the international fundraising body of Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting, set up the Derby Breakfast Club to feed children before school, and was named in the 2009 HBOS report on Britain’s 100 Most Entrepreneurial Women. Her Channel 4 Secret Millionaire episode put a lot of that work in front of a national audience and continues to drive board, charity and conference invitations across the UK. Key speaking topics Building a services business in a regulated sector Founder-led sales into NHS and pharmaceutical buyers Scaling beyond the first major contract Entrepreneurship and start-up infrastructure Women in business and overcoming cultural barriers Philanthropy and corporate giving Ideal for Founders, owner-managers and aspiring entrepreneurs inside accelerator, incubator or membership programmes Sales and growth leaders selling complex services into healthcare, pharma or public-sector buyers Diversity and women-in-leadership audiences inside FTSE and professional services firms Awards hosting and after-dinner addresses where the brief is credibility plus warmth, not theoretical content Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of how a single enterprise contract can be turned into a sustainable services company, with the operational moves named. The questions a founder should be answering before they leave a corporate salary, drawn from someone who actually made that jump. A practical sense of what selling into the NHS and global pharma looks like from the supplier side, and where most start-ups misread the buyer. Renewed confidence in personal agency for audiences whose backgrounds are not typically reflected on the founder stage.

Why organisations work with Liz Earle A 30-year track record as a trusted public voice on women’s health, built through ITV’s This Morning, more than 30 books, and the Liz Earle Wellbeing magazine and podcast Authorship of The Good Menopause Guide and the Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller A Better Second Half, giving her a defined body of work that women’s networks and ERGs already recognise Co-founder credibility from Liz Earle Beauty Co., a brand she built with Kim Buckland from 1995 and sold to Avon in 2010, is useful for entrepreneurship and women-led business audiences An MBE for services to business and ambassador roles with The Menopause Charity and The Soil Association, evidence that she is taken seriously beyond the consumer brand Hosting fluency that lets her chair panels, lead Q&A, and run on-stage conversations on health and sustainability, not only delivers a fixed keynote Biography highlights Co-founder, Liz Earle Beauty Co. (1995, sold to Avon in 2010) Founder, Liz Earle Wellbeing (magazine, podcast, digital platform) Author of more than 30 books, including The Good Menopause Guide and A Better Second Half (Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller) MBE for services to business; Honorary Doctorate of Laws, Portsmouth University and Staffordshire University Long-running broadcaster on ITV’s This Morning since the late 1980s; podcast host of the Liz Earle Wellbeing Show Ambassador, The Menopause Charity; founder of the LiveTwice charity Biography Most large employers now agree that menopause is a workplace issue. Far fewer have a credible voice that women in their forties and fifties will actually listen to. That is the gap Liz Earle has spent three decades filling on national television and in print, and increasingly inside corporate audiences. Earle co-founded Liz Earle Beauty Co. with Kim Buckland in 1995 and sold the business to Avon in 2010, by which point the brand had become a benchmark for botanical, ethically sourced skincare. She left the company in 2017 and built Liz Earle Wellbeing into a magazine, podcast and publishing platform focused on midlife women’s health. Her writing extends the same authority. The Good Menopause Guide became a defining popular reference on the subject, and A Better Second Half reached No. 1 on the Sunday Times bestseller list, with more than 30 books behind it on nutrition, beauty and women’s health. She holds an MBE for services to business and Honorary Doctorates of Law from Portsmouth and Staffordshire. For an audience of senior HR leaders, women’s network sponsors or wellbeing buyers, what Earle offers is rare in the speaker market: a public figure with the longevity, broadcast skill and named body of work to make a women’s health agenda land inside an organisation, rather than another clinical talk that the people most affected will not show up to. Key speaking topics Menopause and midlife women’s health Wellbeing and healthy ageing Women in business and entrepreneurship Nutrition and gut health Sustainable and ethical sourcing Building a consumer brand and a trusted public profile Ideal for CHROs, heads of DEI, and women’s network sponsors are building menopause and midlife policies Employee wellbeing leads and benefits buyers commissioning credible women’s health programming Female-leadership conferences, ERG summits, International Women’s Day platforms Consumer brands and retailers seeking a trusted host or panel chair on health, beauty or sustainability Audience outcomes A clearer view of menopause as a workplace and leadership issue, not only a personal health one Practical, evidence-grounded reference points on midlife health that audiences can act on without clinical jargon Confidence that women’s health content has been delivered by a voice their workforce already trusts A more honest conversation about ageing, energy, and performance for women in senior roles

Why organisations work with Kirstie Allsopp Twenty-five years of unbroken primetime presence on Channel 4 means audiences arrive already familiar with her, which shortens the warm-up phase of any event and lifts the room from the first minute. She runs her own production company, Raise the Roof, and her own product range, so she briefs as a working businesswoman rather than as talent reading lines, and questions on retail, brand and property land with substance. Property, home and consumer behaviour are the core subjects she has covered on screen since 2000, which makes her a natural fit for property, housebuilding, retail, lifestyle, charity and DIY brand audiences without needing a forced bridge. A direct, unscripted on-stage style. She is comfortable with live Q and A, off-the-cuff interviewing of executives, and the kind of room where a guarded host would stall. Sustained ambassadorship of Home-Start UK gives her credibility with charity galas and corporate-foundation audiences where a frivolous host would jar. Biography highlights Co-presenter of Channel 4’s Location, Location, Location with Phil Spencer since the show’s launch in 2000. Co-founder of Raise the Roof Productions, the Glasgow-based independent television company behind Location, Location, Location, Love It or List It UK and the Kirstie’s craft series. Founder in 1996 of Kirmir, a high-end home search agency operating in central and west London. Author of Kirstie’s Homemade Home, Kirstie’s Vintage Home, Kirstie Allsopp Craft and Kirstie’s Christmas Crafts, all published by Hachette. Creator and presenter of the Kirstie’s craft franchise on Channel 4, including Handmade Britain, Vintage Home, Celebrity Craft Masters and House of Craft. Long-standing ambassador for Home-Start UK. Biography Location, Location, Location launched on Channel 4 in 2000. More than two decades and forty series later, it is still on air, still presented by the same two people, and still one of the most reliable property formats in British television. Kirstie Allsopp has been one half of that pairing since the first episode. The career around it is broader than the show. She founded Kirmir, a central and west London home search agency, in 1996, four years before the cameras arrived. She co-founded Raise the Roof Productions, the independent company behind Location, Location, Location, Love It or List It UK and the Kirstie’s craft series, and sits inside the business as co-owner rather than as on-screen talent. Her published work with Hachette covers homes, vintage interiors and craft, and her Channel 4 craft franchise has run alongside the property work for more than a decade. For corporate audiences, the relevance is practical. She has spent twenty-five years interviewing buyers, sellers, retailers and small producers in front of a national audience, and she has run her own businesses across property, production and product. That gives her a working vocabulary for retail, property, brand and consumer behaviour that most television hosts do not carry. On stage she is direct, fluent without a script, and at ease with live audiences, which is the qualification that matters most when an organisation hands a host the room for an evening. She is also a sustained ambassador for Home-Start UK, the family-support charity, and her fundraising work there gives her credibility in charity-led and corporate-foundation settings where a purely entertainment host would feel mismatched. Key speaking topics Awards hosting and corporate compering After-dinner presence Property and the UK housing market Consumer behaviour in home and lifestyle British craft and small-producer retail Building a brand alongside a broadcasting career Charity event hosting Ideal for Property, housebuilding, mortgage and estate agency conferences booking a recognisable host with subject fluency Retail, lifestyle, DIY and home-furnishing brand events and awards Charity galas and corporate-foundation evenings, particularly those with a family, home or community focus After-dinner slots and awards ceremonies for senior corporate audiences who want a familiar Channel 4 face Audience outcomes A confidently paced evening where transitions, awards reads and guest interviews land cleanly Authentic engagement with property, retail and consumer-brand themes when the brief calls for them Live, unscripted interviewing of executives, winners and panellists that adds energy rather than filler Warmth and access for charity audiences where a sincere host materially affects giving and mood

Why organisations work with Kelly Hoppen She has run a creatively-led business across forty years of cycles, from private residential commissions to hotels, yachts, cruise ships and a direct-to-consumer product line, and can speak to the commercial trade-offs at each stage. Her Dragons’ Den seat on BBC Two gave her direct, public investor experience evaluating early-stage consumer brands, including portfolio names such as Skinny Tan and Reviveaphone. The “East meets West” design philosophy is a defined intellectual signature that has carried through books, product ranges and international commissions, demonstrating how a creative point of view translates into a brand asset. As chair of the GREAT Ambassadors’ group, she has represented British creative industries to overseas markets at a level few founders are asked to operate at. A CBE for services to the GREAT campaign and an MBE for services to interior design provide independent validation of contribution beyond the studio. Biography highlights CBE awarded in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to the GREAT campaign; MBE awarded in the 2009 New Year Honours for services to interior design. Founder of Kelly Hoppen Interiors, with international projects including One Park Taipei, the Celebrity Edge cruise ship for Celebrity Cruises and LUX* Grand Gaube in Mauritius. Investor “Dragon” on BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den, series 11 and 12 (2013 to 2015). Author of multiple interior design books, beginning with “East Meets West: Global Design for Contemporary Interiors”. Winner of the Andrew Martin International Interior Designer of the Year Award (1996) and the European Woman of Achievement Award (2007). Chair of the GREAT Ambassadors’ group and ambassador for The Prince’s Trust. Biography A single kitchen, designed for a family friend, was the first commission. Kelly Hoppen had left school at sixteen. The business that grew from that job now spans private residences, yachts, jets, hotels, cruise ships and a direct-to-consumer product range, and trades on a name that has become its own design vocabulary. The creative argument is “East meets West”, set out in her first book and carried through more than a dozen titles since. It gave the studio a recognisable signature long before personal brands were a formal commercial category. The same instinct shaped the move into product, retail and licensing, where the discipline is no longer a single client but a coherent offer at scale. Public-market judgement followed. Hoppen sat as an investor on BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den across series 11 and 12, backing early-stage consumer companies including Skinny Tan and Reviveaphone, and speaking openly afterwards about which bets were working and which were not. That experience sits alongside four decades of running her own balance sheet. Recognition has come from outside the design world as well as inside it. An MBE for services to interior design in 2009, a CBE for services to the GREAT campaign in 2020, and the chair of the GREAT Ambassadors’ group, where she represents British creative industries to overseas markets and government counterparts. Key speaking topics Creative entrepreneurship and building a personal brand Design-led business and the commercial value of a distinctive aesthetic Women in business and founder resilience Investor judgement on early-stage consumer brands British creative industries and global market positioning Career reinvention across forty years of cycles Ideal for Founders and CEOs of design-led, consumer or lifestyle businesses considering brand expansion or licensing Senior marketing and brand leaders working on a defined creative signature Women’s leadership and founder networks across consumer industries Trade and government audiences focused on UK creative-industry exports Audience outcomes A working view of how a creative signature becomes a defensible brand asset, and the commercial decisions that protect or dilute it. Investor-side perspective on what makes an early-stage consumer brand fundable, drawn from public Dragons’ Den deals. Honest reflection on what forty years of running a name-led business teaches about cycles, partners and product extensions. A confident position on how British design and creative industries compete in international markets.

Why organisations work with Karren Brady She has actually done the job leaders are usually only asked to talk about: turning round a loss-making business, taking it public, and selling it for a reported 82 million pounds. Few speakers can talk credibly about boardroom decision-making, parliamentary scrutiny and front-page media pressure in the same session. She has lived all three at West Ham, in the House of Lords, and through a televised public role. She brings hard-edged commercial honesty to topics that often get softened, including women in leadership, where her position is built on a CBE for services to entrepreneurship and women in business, not slogan. Her profile, sustained through 16 years on The Apprentice and weekly columns in The Sun and Women & Home, makes her one of the few UK business voices a non-business audience already trusts. Biography highlights Appointed Managing Director of Birmingham City Football Club at 23; oversaw the 1997 London Stock Exchange flotation, the youngest MD of a UK plc at the time. Vice-Chair of West Ham United from 2010 to 2026; led the negotiation behind the move to the London Stadium. Conservative life peer; took her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Brady in November 2014. CBE in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to entrepreneurship and women in business. Lord Sugar’s aide on BBC’s The Apprentice since 2009. Author of Strong Woman: The Truth About Getting to the Top and Playing to Win: 10 Steps to Achieving Your Goals; columnist for The Sun and Women & Home. Biography Birmingham City Football Club was loss-making and barely solvent when Karren Brady was made Managing Director in 1993. She was 23. Four years later, the club was listed on the London Stock Exchange, and she had become the youngest managing director of a UK plc. It was sold in 2009 for a reported 82 million pounds. That trajectory is the foundation of how she talks about leadership. The commercial discipline came first; the public profile came second. By the time she joined West Ham United as Vice-Chair in 2010, she was operating in one of the most politically exposed boardrooms in British sport. She negotiated and defended the club’s move from the Boleyn Ground to the London Stadium, a decision that drew sustained criticism from supporters, parliamentarians and the press, and held the role for 16 years. In 2014 she was made a CBE for services to entrepreneurship and women in business and took her seat in the House of Lords as a Conservative life peer. She had already served as the UK government’s Small Business Ambassador, sat as a non-executive director on the board of Channel 4, and would later chair Taveta Investments, the parent company of the Arcadia Group, before resigning in 2019 over governance concerns. Few UK business voices have operated across that range of corporate, political and public pressure. Her broadcast and editorial presence sharpens the commercial offer rather than dilutes it. She has been Lord Sugar’s aide on The Apprentice since 2009 and writes weekly for The Sun and Women & Home, with two business books behind her, Strong Woman and Playing to Win. Senior teams book her because she has run real organisations through real scrutiny, and she will say what she actually thinks in front of a room. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under public scrutiny Boardroom governance and accountability Women in business and routes to senior leadership Building and selling a business Commercial strategy in highly visible sectors Resilience and reputation in regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive committees navigating high-visibility decisions or external scrutiny. CEO and senior leadership offsites where the agenda is commercial discipline rather than inspirational content. Conferences on women in leadership, entrepreneurship and governance that want a speaker with named operating credentials. After-dinner, awards and panel formats where a recognised business name with broadcast presence is the brief. Audience outcomes A clearer view of what board-level decision-making actually looks like when stakeholders, media and politics are all in the room. A practical sense of how senior leaders defend commercial decisions publicly without backing away from them. A grounded read on women in senior leadership from someone who has been the only woman on the board, not the panel discussion about it. A sharper instinct for separating reputation management from substance when an organisation is under pressure.

Why organisations work with Julia Streets Twenty-five years inside financial services, from senior roles at NYSE Euronext and Instinet to founding Streets Consulting, gives her unusual fluency across the language of trading floors, regulators, fintechs and boards. DiverCity Podcast, which she launched in 2017 as the first DE&I podcast in financial services, has run 16 seasons with listeners in more than 50 countries and gives her a documented track record of holding industry leaders to specific commitments, not slogans. An MBE in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours, awarded for services to diversity and inclusion in entrepreneurship in financial services and technology, is a credential almost no other speaker in her topic area carries. Her host and moderator craft, sharpened by years on the stand-up circuit, makes her a credible choice for conferences where the chair has to keep senior bankers, regulators and founders in the same conversation without flattening any of them. She advises fintech founders and global institutions on the same set of growth and communication problems, which means she can speak to both sides of the buyer-vendor relationship in the room. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Streets Consulting, advising fintech startups, scaleups and global financial institutions on growth, marketing and communications. MBE, 2025 King’s Birthday Honours, for services to diversity and inclusion in entrepreneurship in financial services and technology. Host and executive producer of DiverCity Podcast, the first DE&I podcast in financial services, with 16 seasons and listeners across 50 countries. Author of The Lingua Franca of the Corporate Banker, published by Searching Finance. Former senior executive at NYSE Euronext (global head of communications, technology division) and Instinet (European marketing and sales development). Twice named a Global Diversity Champion in the Global Diversity List; three-time Brummell Magazine listee for women on boards, women entrepreneurs and women of influence in the City. Trustee of Street Child; regular broadcast contributor on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio Kent and City AM. Biography The first DE&I podcast in financial services launched in 2017 with no obvious commercial reason to exist. Sixteen seasons later, DiverCity Podcast has listeners in more than fifty countries and a back catalogue of named industry figures committing on the record to specific changes. The host and executive producer is Julia Streets, and the show is one piece of a wider body of work on how financial services actually changes, rather than how it announces it does. Streets Consulting, which she founded after senior roles at NYSE Euronext and Instinet, advises fintechs and global institutions on growth, positioning and communications. The brief is the same on both sides: how does a firm explain what it does to people who are paid to be sceptical of it. Two decades inside trading-floor culture, and a 2012 satirical book on corporate jargon, The Lingua Franca of the Corporate Banker, give her a low tolerance for the kind of language that lets executives avoid saying anything specific. The 2025 MBE, awarded in the King’s Birthday Honours for services to diversity and inclusion in entrepreneurship in financial services and technology, sits alongside two listings as a Global Diversity Champion and three appearances on Brummell Magazine’s lists of women on boards, women entrepreneurs and women of influence in the City. The recognitions track a single argument across her work: that diversity in finance is a commercial question, not a compliance one, and that it should be measured by who gets hired, promoted and listened to. For an audience, the practical effect is a speaker and host who can move between fintech innovation, capital markets technology and DE&I without losing the room, because she has actually built a business in each. She is also a former stand-up comedian, which is why bankers tend to talk back to her on stage rather than at her. Key speaking topics Fintech innovation and capital markets technology Diversity, equity and inclusion in financial services Entrepreneurship in regulated industries Communication and influence for senior leaders AI and the future of financial services Conference chairing and panel moderation Women in fintech and technology Ideal for Boards and executive teams in banking, capital markets and fintech navigating technology adoption and regulatory change. CHROs and DE&I leads in financial services who need a credible external voice on inclusion that holds up to commercial scrutiny. Founders and investors at fintech scaleups working on positioning, growth and institutional credibility. Conference organisers in financial services who need a chair or moderator with subject fluency across innovation, regulation and culture. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where fintech innovation is genuinely changing financial services and where it is being oversold. Specific, named examples of how DE&I commitments translate into hiring, promotion and product decisions, drawn from sixteen seasons of recorded interviews. Direct, jargon-stripped language for talking about technology change inside regulated organisations. A working sense of how fintech founders and incumbents see each other, useful for anyone building or buying across that line.

Why organisations work with Jo Fairley She built the first Fairtrade-marked product in the UK, in 1994, when ethical sourcing was a fringe argument rather than a procurement requirement. Few founders can speak to that arc with first-hand authority. She has run the full lifecycle most founders never see: kitchen-table launch, category creation, sale to a FTSE confectioner, and a continued ambassadorial role inside the acquirer. That makes her credible on what survives an acquisition and what does not. Beyond Green & Black’s she has built and exited multiple businesses, including Judges Bakery, The Wellington Centre wellbeing facility, and The Perfume Society. The portfolio breadth gives her a useful pattern view across categories. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from Kingston University and the Shackleton Medal from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for leadership and citizenship. Recognition from a serious geographical body, not a marketing prize. Biography highlights Co-founder of Green & Black’s organic chocolate, 1991, with Craig Sams. Created Maya Gold, the first product to carry the UK Fairtrade Mark, in March 1994. Sold Green & Black’s to Cadbury in 2005; retained the role of Chocolate Ambassador. UK’s youngest-ever magazine editor at 23, editing Look Now and then Honey. Founder of Judges Bakery, The Wellington Centre, and The Perfume Society. Honorary Doctorate in Business Studies, Kingston University; Shackleton Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Co-author of the Beauty Bible series and The Perfume Bible; long-running contributor to The Times, YOU Magazine and the Telegraph. Biography The first product in the UK ever to carry the Fairtrade Mark was a chocolate bar called Maya Gold. It launched in 1994, three years after Jo Fairley and Craig Sams started Green & Black’s at their kitchen table. At that point, ethical sourcing was a niche conviction. Today it is a procurement standard in most large grocers. Fairley sat at the start of that shift and helped force it. Green & Black’s grew into a category-defining brand and was acquired by Cadbury in 2005. Fairley stayed on as Chocolate Ambassador, which gave her an unusual vantage point: a founder watching her values-led business absorbed into a confectionery giant, and learning in real time which parts of the brand promise survived contact with corporate scale. Few founders speak with that experience attached. Her career started in publishing, where she became the UK’s youngest-ever magazine editor at 23, editing Look Now and then Honey. The journalist’s instinct is still visible in the work: a focus on what consumers actually want to be told, and a refusal to let mission language do the work that products and pricing have to do. Subsequent ventures, including Judges Bakery, The Wellington Centre wellbeing facility in Hastings, and The Perfume Society, all follow the same pattern of category authorship rather than category entry. Recognition has come from serious bodies, not marketing prizes. An Honorary Doctorate in Business Studies from Kingston University. The Shackleton Medal from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for leadership and citizenship. WorldAware and Soil Association awards across her businesses. The track record is not one of a single early hit; it is a thirty-year argument that values-led brands can be built, scaled, and sold without losing their reason to exist. Key speaking topics Ethical brand building Entrepreneurship and category creation Sustainability and Fairtrade in consumer business Founder experience through acquisition and post-acquisition life Women in entrepreneurship Brand consumer insight Portfolio entrepreneurship Ideal for CEOs and founders of consumer businesses navigating purpose, pricing and scale. Marketing and brand directors building ethical or values-led product lines. Sustainability and procurement leads working on Fairtrade, organic and ethical sourcing. Women’s leadership networks and entrepreneurship audiences. Audience outcomes A practical view of how a values-led brand survives an acquisition by a multinational. A first-hand account of how the UK’s first Fairtrade product reached supermarket shelves and what it took to keep it there. A clearer read on the difference between purpose as marketing language and purpose as supply chain decision. Specific lessons on category creation and the founder mindset across multiple businesses.

Why organisations work with Jo Malone She has built, sold, and rebuilt a luxury consumer brand from scratch. Few founders speaking on entrepreneurship can claim that arc twice. Her creative process is concrete: how a scent becomes a product, how a product becomes a counter, how a counter becomes a category. Useful for marketing, retail, and innovation teams who deal in intangibles. She speaks honestly about selling a business that carries your name, the non-compete years that follow, and the discipline of starting again. Rare territory for founder talks. Her story converts personal adversity into commercial argument without sentimentality. Dyslexia, leaving school at 13, and a cancer diagnosis at 40 are framed as inputs to how she built, not as motivational set pieces. She brings the credibility of a brand that defined a category, alongside the operator’s view of what it took to do it. Biography highlights Founded Jo Malone London in 1994; opened the first store in Walton Street, London; sold the company to The Estee Lauder Companies in 1999. Served as Creative Director of Jo Malone London after the sale, departing in 2006. Founded Jo Loves in 2011, building a second fragrance house from her kitchen table in London. Author of Jo Malone: My Story, published by Simon and Schuster UK in 2016. Co-presented BBC One’s High Street Dreams (2010) with Nick Leslau, mentoring small product entrepreneurs. Awarded MBE in 2008 and CBE in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the British economy and the GREAT campaign. Biography Jo Malone London opened on Walton Street in 1994 with a handful of scents and almost no marketing budget. By 1999 it had been acquired by The Estee Lauder Companies and built into one of the defining luxury fragrance houses of the next two decades. The founder stayed on as Creative Director until 2006, then left the brand that carried her name. Five years of non-compete agreement followed. In 2011 she launched Jo Loves, again from a kitchen, this time with the experience of having scaled a category leader and the constraint of building a fragrance brand without trading on her own name in the way she had before. Two distinct businesses, both rooted in the same craft of scent as a commercial proposition. The personal arc behind the businesses is unusually direct. Severely dyslexic, she left school at 13 and trained as a facial therapist. In 2003, two years after the sale to Estee Lauder, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer and treated in New York. Both episodes appear in the 2016 memoir Jo Malone: My Story, and in her speaking work, as material rather than backdrop. For senior audiences the value is concrete. She has run the founder’s job at two different stages, knows what acquisition does to a brand and to its founder, and can describe the specific decisions, pricing, packaging, retail design, distribution, that translated an idea into a category. Her CBE in 2018 was awarded for services to the British economy and the GREAT campaign, recognising the export weight of what she built. Key speaking topics Founder craft and consumer brand building Scaling luxury from kitchen table to global counter Selling a business that carries your name Reinvention after acquisition and non-compete Creativity as commercial discipline Resilience under personal and commercial pressure British creative industries on the international stage Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and boards of consumer, retail, and luxury businesses Marketing, brand, and product leaders building or repositioning premium propositions Innovation and creative teams translating intangible craft into commercial outcomes Leadership audiences working through acquisition, integration, or post-exit founder questions Audience outcomes A founder’s account of how a category-leading brand is actually built, priced, and merchandised, told from inside the decisions A direct view of what selling and integration do to a business and its founder, useful to anyone preparing for or living through that transition A working example of creative discipline: how a scent, a candle, a counter become a coherent commercial proposition A grounded perspective on resilience, drawn from severe dyslexia, a cancer diagnosis, and starting twice from nothing Renewed conviction that craft and commercial scale are not opposites in consumer business

Why organisations work with Jessica Ennis-Hill Her experience of performing as the public face of a home Olympics – carrying national expectation while managing injury recovery and a multi-discipline competition – gives leaders a concrete, pressure-tested model of composure under scrutiny that no training programme replicates. As founder of Jennis, she has applied elite athletic methodology to a commercial problem – closing the gender data gap in sport and exercise science – giving her credibility in conversations about evidence-based decision-making and innovation, not just personal achievement. Her perspective on women’s health and female performance, backed by clinical collaboration with physiologist Dr Emma Ross and a funded femtech business, adds substance to DEI and wellbeing conversations that goes well beyond lived experience. She has maintained a high-profile public platform post-retirement – BBC lead analyst across four Olympic cycles, Times columnist, podcast host – which means audiences arrive with recognition and trust already established. Her career narrative – career-threatening injury before Beijing 2008, gold in London 2012, return from maternity leave to World Championship gold in 2015 – gives her a specific, sequenced story about recovery and reinvention that senior leaders find directly applicable to organisational context. Biography highlights Olympic heptathlon gold medallist, London 2012; silver medallist, Rio 2016; three-time World Heptathlon Champion; European Champion; World Indoor Pentathlon Champion Appointed DBE in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to athletics BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award, 2017 – second woman and first British woman to receive the award Founder of Jennis, a femtech platform using CycleMapping technology developed with women’s health physiologist Dr Emma Ross; raised £1M in pre-seed funding, 2021 Regular BBC athletics analyst: Olympic Games 2020 and 2024, World Athletics Championships 2019, 2022 and 2023, Commonwealth Games 2018 and 2022 Columnist for The Times; host of Gold Minds podcast (High Performance network); author of autobiography Unbelievable Psychology graduate, University of Sheffield Named in Forbes 30 Most Influential Under 30s in Europe, 2016 Biography Jessica Ennis-Hill won Olympic heptathlon gold at London 2012 as the publicly designated face of the Games – carrying a level of expectation that few athletes at any level have been asked to manage. That she delivered one of the most complete performances in the event’s history, having missed the Beijing Games entirely through injury four years earlier, is the foundation of everything she brings to a business audience. The comeback from a career-threatening stress fracture, the return from maternity leave to win the World Championship in Beijing in 2015, and the silver medal in Rio in 2016 give her career a specific structure – repeated reinvention under constraint – that organisations find more useful than a single triumph. The discipline behind those performances: meticulous preparation, managing uncertainty, performing at the moment that matters, is the substance of her speaking work. Post-retirement, she has built a second career with genuine intellectual weight. As founder of Jennis, she identified a specific commercial and scientific gap – most sport and exercise research is conducted on male subjects, leaving women without evidence-based training guidance – and built a femtech business to address it, in clinical partnership with physiologist Dr Emma Ross and backed by institutional investment. That work sits inside a broader argument about female performance and health that she has developed as a BBC analyst, Times columnist, and podcast host. For organisations, she represents something specific: a high-performer who has tested the connection between preparation, recovery, and execution across multiple high-stakes moments, and who has since applied that understanding to build a credible entrepreneurial venture. That combination – elite athletic credential plus founder experience plus sustained media presence – is what separates her from the broader field of sports motivational speakers. Key speaking topics Peak performance under pressure Resilience and recovery from setback Leading through reinvention and uncertainty Women’s health and the gender data gap in performance science Preparation, process, and high-stakes execution Entrepreneurship and building from elite expertise Mindset and mental performance Ideal for Senior leadership teams and executive conferences seeking a performance mindset frame grounded in real-world pressure CHROs and people leadership forums addressing female talent, wellbeing, and the conditions that enable sustained high performance Organisations navigating periods of change or recovery who need a credible, non-generic narrative around reinvention Boards and C-suite audiences where public recognition and media credibility matter alongside substantive content Audience outcomes A concrete, sequenced model of how elite performers build resilience – not as a trait but as a practiced discipline – that teams can apply to their own context Greater clarity on the specific role preparation and process play in sustaining performance under public scrutiny, with direct organisational parallels An evidence-based perspective on women’s health and performance science that gives HR and people leaders new language and framing for wellbeing conversations Sharper thinking on what recovery from setback actually requires, drawn from a career defined by structured comebacks rather than uninterrupted success A founder’s account of translating elite expertise into commercial impact – relevant to innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth conversations

Why organisations work with Holly Tucker She built a marketplace that gave more than 5,000 independent businesses a commercial route they could not otherwise access, and can speak directly to what scaled that community and what broke it. Her second act, Holly and Co, is a certified B Corp built around purpose-led small business advice, giving her a live view of what founders are wrestling with now, not a decade ago. As host of Conversations of Inspiration, she has interviewed several hundred founders in long form, which makes her one of the few speakers in the UK with a continuously refreshed sense of what early-stage builders are learning. Her MBE and appointment as a UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador give her credibility on the policy side of small business, not only the operator side. She translates founder thinking into language corporate audiences can use: retail teams, marketing teams and transformation teams leave with a sharper sense of what independent brands do that scale players do not. Biography highlights Co-founder of notonthehighstreet.com (2006), the UK marketplace for independent makers. Founder of Holly and Co (2017), a certified B Corporation supporting small businesses. MBE, 2013, for services to small businesses. UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador for creative small businesses, 2015. Author of Do What You Love, Love What You Do (Virgin Books, 2021), a Sunday Times bestseller; earlier titles with Simon and Schuster. Presenter of ITV’s Be Your Own Boss and host of the Conversations of Inspiration podcast. Biography Notonthehighstreet.com began as a frustration with nowhere to sell handmade Christmas wreaths. Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish turned that frustration into the UK’s defining marketplace for independent brands, and over thirteen years it gave more than five thousand small businesses a route to customers they would not otherwise have reached. That is the operator credential Tucker brings into a room. Holly and Co, founded in 2017 and a certified B Corporation since 2022, is where the second chapter sits. It is a platform, a shop and an advice engine for independent founders, and it is the evidence base for most of what Tucker says publicly about small business. The weekly Conversations of Inspiration podcast now runs into the hundreds of episodes, which gives her a continuously updated read on what founders are actually doing, not what commentators think they are doing. Her public role has extended beyond business. An MBE in 2013 for services to small businesses, and appointment as a UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador in 2015, placed her inside the conversation about how policy shapes independent enterprise. Three books, including Sunday Times bestseller Do What You Love, Love What You Do, turned that experience into written form for founders at earlier stages. Where Tucker is most useful to a corporate audience is on the question larger companies rarely answer well: what exactly do independent brands do that scale players find hard to replicate, and how should a big business think about that when it partners with them, buys from them, or tries to build its own version. She speaks to that from both sides of the relationship. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and the founder mindset Building and scaling marketplaces Independent retail and the creative economy Purpose-led business and B Corp practice Small business advocacy and policy Female founders and enterprise Brand, storytelling and community for consumer businesses Ideal for Retail, consumer and marketplace leadership teams thinking about independent brand partnerships. Marketing and brand leaders who want a grounded view of what small and founder-led brands do that larger ones cannot. Conferences and internal events focused on entrepreneurship, purpose-led growth or the creative economy. Female founder communities and enterprise networks within larger organisations. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what independent founders actually do differently, drawn from a marketplace of more than five thousand small businesses. A practical read on what purpose-led and B Corp businesses look like in operation, not in theory. Fresh founder stories from a podcast library that now spans several hundred interviews. Language for corporate teams to use when they talk about supporting, partnering with or learning from small businesses. A sharper sense of how policy, platform and community interact in the creative economy.

Why organisations work with Farah Nanji A working framework for high-pressure performance built from a decade inside Formula 1 culture and a decade as the touring artist NINJA, two domains where small lapses are publicly visible. A founder’s view of building a private leadership community, Regents Racing, that uses motorsport psychology as a development tool for executives and members. A rare first-person account of rewiring cognitive function around dyspraxia, delivered as a TEDx keynote at the Luxembourg Philharmonie and translated into practical lessons on neurodivergence at work. A reference network drawn from Mission Makers, the podcast she founded at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which has hosted leaders across music, motorsport and business. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Regents Racing, a private leadership community using motorsport psychology, with roots at Regent’s University London. CEO of The Formula Mind, Regents Racing’s executive-facing subsidiary exploring Formula 1 as a lens for leadership and peak performance. TEDx speaker at TEDxLuxembourgCity, 2019, delivered at the Luxembourg Philharmonie. Producer and host of Mission Makers, a podcast launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Lecturer at Regent’s University London and Point Blank Music School. Performing artist as NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, Goodwood Festival of Speed, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Biography Formula 1 teams treat composure as an engineered system. Sleep, nutrition, debrief routines and pre-race protocols are sequenced so that the driver can make sound decisions when the cost of a wrong one is highest. Regents Racing was built to translate that discipline into a leadership setting, taking senior executives and members through experiences that pressure-test how they prepare, recover and decide. The organisation began in 2011 at Regent’s University London as a community of competitive drivers and has grown into a private network with programming around Formula 1 weekends in Monaco, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the Goodwood Festival of Speed and factory tours. Its executive-facing subsidiary, The Formula Mind, sits closer to senior leadership development. A second strand of the work comes from a personal record. Diagnosed with dyspraxia at 15, Nanji built a parallel career as the touring artist NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Her TEDx talk at the Luxembourg Philharmonie in 2019 set out how she rewired cognitive function around the condition, and that account is now a core part of her keynote work on neurodivergence and resilience. The third strand is Mission Makers, the podcast she launched during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020. The show has interviewed leaders across music, motorsport and business, and it doubles as her research engine: the conversations feed the frameworks she brings into the room when she speaks. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under pressure Formula 1 psychology and peak performance Resilience and self-leadership Neurodivergence and dyspraxia at work High-performance teams Entrepreneurship and founding a community-based business Music, creativity and performance discipline Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes focused on composure and decision-making under pressure Boards and ExCo audiences exploring high-performance culture DEI, talent and HR audiences working on neurodivergence and inclusive performance Conferences seeking a hybrid keynote and live performance from a single artist Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what high-performance preparation, recovery and debrief actually look like in Formula 1, and where the parallels to executive work hold A first-person account of building cognitive routines around dyspraxia, with direct application for neurodivergent talent in the workforce A clearer sense of how leaders sustain composure when the margin for error is thin A founder’s perspective on building a private community business that crosses motorsport, music and leadership

Why organisations work with Dr Elsa Sotiriadis She speaks about digital biology from inside the field, with a working PhD in synthetic biology from Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong, not as a commentator translating other people’s research. Her early-stage VC years at SOSV, where she helped build 25 deep tech and biotech start-ups, give her a founder-level view of which frontier-science claims hold up when money and product cycles are attached. She frames biotech alongside AI, computation and materials, which matches how corporate strategy teams actually have to evaluate these shifts rather than through isolated technology silos. Her science-fiction work, including the Writers of the Future honourable-mention novella Replicon, gives her a distinct capability for painting concrete, specific future scenarios rather than generic trend talks. She is comfortable with board-level audiences and Fortune 500 innovation teams, and has advised on innovation strategy across sustainability, energy and digital biology. Biography highlights International PhD in synthetic biology, Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong. Master of Research in Synthetic and Systems Biology, Imperial College London. Former early-stage venture capitalist at SOSV, where she helped build 25 deep tech start-ups. PhD research on programmable DNA aptamers as anti-cancer agents, recognised with awards including from MIT and the Swiss Academy of Sciences. Contributor to Singularity Hub; featured by Silicon Republic among 15 women to follow in biotech. Science-fiction author (pen name Elsa Solaris / EA Solaris); debut novella Replicon received an honourable mention at the Writers of the Future competition. TEDx speaker on digital biology at TEDx University of Nicosia. Biography Digital biology is quietly turning life itself into a design space. DNA can now be read, written and programmed; cells can be engineered to produce materials, medicines and food; and computation is folding biology into a development stack that looks increasingly like software. For most boards, this is still an unfamiliar language. Dr Elsa Sotiriadis works at the centre of that language. Her international PhD in synthetic biology, taken jointly at Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong, focused on programmable DNA aptamers as anti-cancer agents, a line of research recognised by MIT and the Swiss Academy of Sciences. She then moved from the lab into venture capital at SOSV, one of the most active early-stage deep tech investors, where she helped build 25 start-ups across biotech and frontier science. That combination shapes how she speaks. She is not a generalist trend-spotter. She can read a scientific claim, weigh it against a business model, and tell a corporate audience what is worth taking seriously in the next five to ten years. She has advised governments and Fortune 500 companies on innovation strategy across sustainability, energy and digital biology, and reaches wider audiences through Singularity Hub, TEDx and her science fiction, written under the pen name Elsa Solaris. Her debut novella Replicon received an honourable mention at the Writers of the Future competition. Senior teams bring her in when the questions get specific. Where is synthetic biology likely to hit our supply chain. What does it mean for our R and D portfolio when biology starts to behave like software. Which parts of the convergence story between AI, biotech and materials should our strategy actually plan for. Key speaking topics Digital biology and synthetic biology Frontier and deep technology convergence Biotech and healthcare innovation Climate, materials and industrial biotech Strategic foresight and long-range scenario thinking Deep tech venture building and start-up ecosystems Ideal for Board and executive strategy sessions evaluating exposure to biotech and frontier-science shifts. R and D, innovation and venture leaders in pharma, materials, food, chemicals and energy. Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Scientific Officers shaping long-range technology bets. Corporate foresight and futures teams working on scenarios beyond the next planning cycle. Audience outcomes A working mental model of what “digital biology” actually means and where it is already commercial. A clearer view of which biotech, AI and deep tech claims are credible versus speculative on current evidence. Specific examples of deep tech start-ups reshaping health, materials, food and energy. Concrete scenarios of how biology-as-technology could reshape their own sector in the next decade. A sharper question set to take back into their own strategy and R and D conversations.