Entrepreneurship

Why organisations work with Jonathan Reynolds His research framework on omnichannel retail – built over four decades at Oxford through direct partnerships with Tesco, the British Retail Consortium, Eurocommerce, and retail associations in eight countries, gives leadership teams a structural diagnosis of competitive change, rather than a trend description. Navigating the New Retail Landscape (Oxford University Press, 3rd edition 2025) draws on over 40 international case studies to make a specific argument: the retailers that win redesign the enterprise, not just the channel mix. Audiences leave with a reference framework, not just a perspective. Reynolds leads OXIRM, the UK’s only dedicated university research institute for retail management, giving him an institutional vantage point that neither management consultants nor industry analysts can replicate. His research consistently interrogates the “death of the high street” narrative and offers a more rigorous counter-argument: physical retail is not dying, but its strategic logic has changed fundamentally. That distinction matters to boards making long-term investment decisions. As a regular contributor to the BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, and Wall Street Journal, he translates peer-reviewed research into language that executive teams and boards can act on directly. Biography highlights Associate Professor in Retail Marketing and Deputy Dean (External Relations), Saïd Business School, University of Oxford Founding member and Academic Director, Oxford Institute of Retail Management (OXIRM), since 1999 Co-author, Navigating the New Retail Landscape: A Guide for Business Leaders (Oxford University Press; 3rd edition, 2025) Deputy Director, ESRC Smart Data Research geographic data service (GeoDS) – joint initiative of Oxford, Liverpool, Edinburgh and UCL Vice-Principal and Governing Body Fellow, Green Templeton College, Oxford Keynote speaker, World Retail Congress Regular media contributor: BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal Visiting Professor, Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, Dartmouth College Biography In 1985, a research commission from Tesco brought Jonathan Reynolds to Oxford to examine how new technology would reshape retail operations. Four decades later, Reynolds is Associate Professor in Retail Marketing and Deputy Dean at Saïd Business School. The structural question that commission raised of how a retail enterprise stays competitive when its environment is being redrawn, has never been more pressing. Reynolds is the founding Academic Director of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management, a role he has held since 1999. OXIRM is the UK’s only dedicated university research centre for retail management. Reynolds uses it to run sustained research partnerships with practitioners and policymakers including the British Retail Consortium, Eurocommerce, and retail associations in Estonia, Finland, Greece, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK, giving his analysis a data foundation that industry commentary rarely achieves. His central argument, developed across three editions of Navigating the New Retail Landscape (OUP, 3rd edition 2025), is that the retailers who survive the current period of disruption are not those who add channels most quickly. Drawing on over 40 international case studies, Reynolds and co-author Alan Treadgold show that success requires redesigning the enterprise: its capabilities, its leadership model, and its understanding of what physical stores are strategically for. The book is now a standard reference for senior retail executives and strategy teams internationally. Reynolds is a keynote speaker at the World Retail Congress and a regular analytical voice for the BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal. His research sits inside peer-reviewed journals and inside boardroom conversations simultaneously: a combination that is less common than it should be, and that gives his arguments their particular authority. Key speaking topics Omnichannel and e-commerce strategy Retail business model innovation Technology adoption and digital transformation in retail The strategic role of physical stores Retail entrepreneurship and innovation Retail productivity and workforce capability Retail development, planning and location strategy Consumer data and retail intelligence Ideal for Chief Executive Officers and strategy directors of retail and consumer-facing enterprises Chief Commercial Officers and Chief Marketing Officers navigating channel complexity Real estate and property investors with significant retail exposure Policy teams and government bodies working on town centres, high streets, and retail planning Audience outcomes A clearer framework for distinguishing between channel complexity and genuine competitive strategy An evidence-based analysis of where physical retail creates value and where it no longer does, drawn from 40+ international case studies A more precise understanding of the organisational capabilities and leadership behaviours that separate retail winners from those adding digital layers without structural change Exposure to current Oxford research on consumer data, retail geography, and market evolution that does not typically reach practitioner audiences Language and reference points for board-level conversations about long-term retail investment and transformation

Why organisations work with Jonas Kjellberg He has lived the full venture cycle at the level most leadership teams only theorise about: founding member of Skype’s leadership group, head of Internet Investments at Kinnevik backing Zalando and HelloFresh, then founder again at NORNORM. The Gear Up framework, developed with Stanford’s Tom Kosnik and Lena Ramfelt and published by Wiley, gives executives a structured way to diagnose where a business model will break before they commit capital. He brings the operator’s view on how Skype actually generated revenue and scaled commercially, not the founding myth. That distinction is what makes his sessions useful for boards thinking about commercial models, not just product. His current work at NORNORM puts him inside a circular, subscription-based business model with IKEA as a co-founder investor, which gives him a current case study on how subscription and sustainability economics interact. Biography highlights Co-creator and former member of the leadership team at Skype, with operating responsibility on the commercial side. Co-author of Gear Up (Wiley/Capstone, 2014) and Business Creation, with Stanford’s Lena Ramfelt and Tom Kosnik. Lecturer on entrepreneurship and sales culture at Stanford University and the Stockholm School of Economics. Former Head of Internet Investments at Kinnevik, leading roughly EUR 700m of investment into Zalando, Rocket Internet, Avito, Lamoda, Jabong, and HelloFresh. Founder and Chairman of NORNORM, a circular, subscription-based office furniture company co-founded with Inter IKEA, which raised EUR 110m in scale-up funding led by Verdane. Founder of Player:IO and former senior advisor at BCG Digital Ventures. Biography Skype was a small Stockholm team trying to work out whether voice-over-IP could ever be a real business. Jonas Kjellberg sat inside that team as part of the founding leadership group, focused on the commercial engine that turned a free product into a company eBay was prepared to pay for. That experience, of seeing exactly which business model decisions made the venture scalable and which nearly broke it, became the raw material for everything that followed. After Skype, he moved to the investor side as Head of Internet Investments at Kinnevik, deploying around EUR 700m into Zalando, Rocket Internet, Avito, Lamoda, Jabong, and HelloFresh. That seat gave him a comparative view across consumer internet bets that most operators never get. He saw which models survived contact with real markets and which collapsed under their own assumptions. Out of that operating and investing work came Gear Up, written with Stanford’s Tom Kosnik and Lena Ramfelt and published by Wiley in 2014. The book sets out a nine-component framework for testing whether a business model is actually viable before scaling it. It is now used in entrepreneurship classrooms at Stanford and the Stockholm School of Economics, where Kjellberg lectures on venture creation and sales culture. He is now back inside an operating business as founder and chairman of NORNORM, a circular, subscription-based office furniture company built with Inter IKEA as a co-founding investor and now backed by Verdane in a EUR 110m round. For executive audiences, this matters because it gives him a live case study on subscription economics and circular business models, drawn from a company he is currently running. Key speaking topics Business model innovation and venture design Scaling consumer technology businesses Sales culture and commercial growth Circular and subscription business models Corporate venturing and intrapreneurship Entrepreneurial decision-making under uncertainty Ideal for Boards and executive teams evaluating new ventures, spin-offs, or commercial model changes Chief Strategy Officers and Heads of Innovation responsible for new business creation Corporate venturing units and incubators inside large companies Founders and senior operators inside scale-up companies preparing for the next stage of growth Audience outcomes A clear way to stress-test a business model against the nine components of the Gear Up framework before committing capital A first-hand account of the commercial decisions that made Skype a scalable business, useful as a reference case for current bets A working view of how subscription and circular models change unit economics, drawn from NORNORM A sharper sense of which venture decisions are reversible and which lock the business in Direct comparison points from a portfolio that includes Zalando, HelloFresh, and Rocket Internet

Why organisations work with Jay Samit His framework for disruption is derived from operating on both sides of it: he led digital transformation at EMI and Sony when their core business models were collapsing, then went on to build and advise companies that were doing the disrupting. That dual vantage point is not common among innovation speakers. Disrupt You! provides a replicable method for identifying where value will migrate in a given industry, applicable at both the organisational and individual leadership level, giving teams a shared vocabulary and process, not just inspiration. His Deloitte advisory work means the framework has been stress-tested against the specific constraints of large, publicly accountable organisations, not just start-up environments. He translates exponential technology trends including AI, spatial computing, blockchain, automation into commercial and competitive decisions, rather than presenting technology as the end in itself. His Fortune column and WSJ documentary series give him a current, credible public presence that amplifies the authority he brings into a room; senior audiences have typically encountered his thinking before the engagement begins. Biography highlights Former Independent Vice Chairman, Deloitte Digital; led enterprise consulting across AI, robotics, IoT, and digital transformation Author of Disrupt You! (Flatiron Books, 2015), published in 12 languages, and Future Proofing You (2021) Global President of Digital Distribution, EMI / Capitol Records; led the label from negligible digital presence to industry benchmark for digital transition Creator and General Manager, Sony Connect; Executive Vice President, Sony Regular contributor to Fortune (bi-weekly column on exponential technologies), Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review Adjunct Professor, USC Viterbi School of Engineering; UCLA Presidential Fellowship graduate, magna cum laude Advised LinkedIn and eBay pre-IPO; CEO of NASDAQ-listed SeaChange International Biography Most organisations understand disruption as something that happens to them. The harder strategic question is whether an organisation can develop the internal capability to anticipate market shifts and capture value from them before competitors or new entrants do, and what that requires structurally, culturally, and at the leadership level. Jay Samit has occupied both sides of that problem. As Global President of Digital Distribution at EMI and as the executive brought in to lead Sony’s digital transformation, he operated inside institutions whose core revenue models were being destroyed by technologies they could see but could not commercialise fast enough. Those experiences inform Disrupt You!, his internationally published framework for applying disruptor logic inside established organisations, which argues that the methods used to build new markets are the same methods available to incumbents willing to challenge their own assumptions. His subsequent role as Independent Vice Chairman of Deloitte Digital extended that work across industries and at scale, applying AI, robotics, and data analytics to the operational and competitive challenges of major global enterprises. That trajectory – from operator to adviser to author to investor – gives his arguments about disruption an empirical base that distinguishes them from frameworks developed in academic or consultancy settings alone. His writing appears regularly in Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review, and he teaches innovation at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering. Senior leadership teams engaging with his work gain not only a model for reading competitive environments, but a practical method for building the internal conditions that allow large organisations to act on what they see. Key speaking topics Disruption strategy for established enterprises Business model innovation and value migration Entrepreneurial thinking inside large organisations Exponential technologies and commercial strategy AI, automation, and competitive positioning Data analytics as competitive advantage Future-proofing careers and leadership capability Ideal for CEOs and executive leadership teams navigating competitive disruption or industry transition Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Innovation Officers building internal innovation capability Boards and senior leadership in media, financial services, retail, and technology sectors facing structural change Transformation leads and digital strategy functions tasked with operationalising change at enterprise scale Audience outcomes A structured way of thinking about where value will migrate in their industry, and how to position ahead of it rather than responding after the fact Practical methods drawn from Samit’s Disrupt You! framework for identifying market gaps and turning internal constraints into innovation triggers Clearer understanding of how exponential technologies (AI, automation, spatial computing) translate into specific commercial and competitive decisions A reframe of disruption as a strategic tool available to incumbents, not just start-ups – with examples from Samit’s own operational experience Greater confidence in communicating a growth and innovation agenda internally, using a common language and set of principles

Why organisations work with Javier Goyeneche He built a profitable circular fashion brand from waste streams that most of the industry still treats as someone else’s problem: discarded fishing nets, post-consumer PET, used tyres, and post-industrial cotton. He runs Upcycling the Oceans, a working supply chain of almost 5,000 fishermen across 83 Mediterranean ports that has recovered around 2,000 tonnes of marine waste since 2015. It is a named operational system, not a campaign. ECOALF became the first Spanish fashion company to certify as a B Corp in 2018 and sits in the top 5% globally in the environment category. Boards questioning the credibility of their own ESG claims recognise the standard. He gives leaders a direct account of the commercial trade-offs of circularity: why ECOALF refuses Black Friday, why 74% of its latest collection is single-material, and how the business still reached profitability. Thinkers50 Radar listing (2019) and the Schwab Foundation Social Innovator of the Year award (2020) place him in the small group of sustainability founders whose work has been independently examined, including in a published IMD case study. Biography highlights Founder and President of ECOALF, launched in Madrid in 2009. Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2019. Schwab Foundation Social Innovator of the Year, 2020. Leads the ECOALF Foundation and its Upcycling the Oceans programme, operating across 83 Mediterranean ports. Previously founded Fun and Basics in 1995, growing it to 350 points of sale and 70 branded stores before exiting. Subject of the IMD case study “ECOALF: Because there is no Planet B” by Benoit Leleux and Thomas Brochier. Biography Most fashion brands describe sustainability as a value. ECOALF treats it as an input constraint. The brand that Javier Goyeneche founded in Madrid in 2009 was built around a single operating question: can a fashion business be assembled entirely from recovered waste and still make money. It is now stocked in more than 1,500 stores worldwide and has been profitable since 2021. The raw materials tell most of the story. ECOALF manufactures from post-consumer PET bottles, discarded fishing nets, used tyres, coffee grounds, and post-industrial cotton and wool. The Upcycling the Oceans programme, run through the ECOALF Foundation, works with close to 5,000 fishermen across 83 Mediterranean ports and has recovered around 2,000 tonnes of marine waste since 2015. The supply chain is physical, named, and audited. The commercial discipline is the part boards tend to notice. ECOALF does not run seasonal sales, does not participate in Black Friday, and has pushed 74% of its latest collection into single-material garments so that items can be recycled at end of life. In 2018 it became the first Spanish fashion brand to certify as a B Corp, and in 2022 was named “Best for the World” in the environment category, placing it in the top 5% of the 5,000 B Corps globally. The recognition follows the work rather than leading it. Thinkers50 put Goyeneche on its Radar in 2019, the Schwab Foundation named him Social Innovator of the Year in 2020, and IMD has published a business-school case study on the model. For leadership teams trying to close the distance between their ESG commitments and their operating decisions, his value is specific. He has already made those trade-offs and can show where the numbers broke and where they held. Key speaking topics Circular business models in practice Sustainable and regenerative supply chains B Corp certification and corporate accountability Ocean plastic and waste recovery at scale Sustainable fashion and textile innovation Purpose-led entrepreneurship ESG credibility and greenwashing Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting sustainability strategy who need an operator’s view of what circularity costs and delivers. Consumer, retail, and industrial leadership teams under pressure to translate ESG commitments into supply-chain decisions. Founders and commercial leaders building purpose-led businesses who want the honest commercial arithmetic behind a Thinkers50-recognised model. Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how a circular business model functions end to end, from waste sourcing to single-material garment design to retail policy. A sharper test for their own sustainability claims against B Corp-grade standards. Language for the trade-offs involved in refusing discount-driven growth channels while remaining commercially viable. An operator’s account of how a multi-stakeholder supply chain, in this case with fishing communities across 83 Mediterranean ports, actually gets built.

Why organisations work with Howard Schultz He is one of the only major executives to have led a full crisis turnaround at the same global company twice. That longitudinal experience produces a very different quality of insight than a single transformation story. His 2011 number-one New York Times bestseller “Onward” presents a specific and testable argument: recovering a business means restoring what people came for, not restructuring around it. Within three years of his 2008 return to Starbucks, the stock had risen more than five times from its crisis low. His case for employee investment is built on commercial evidence, not values rhetoric. Starbucks under Schultz was among the first U.S. companies to extend healthcare to part-time workers and to offer equity participation to hourly employees. He presents attrition, service quality, and customer loyalty as the direct outputs. Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011 and included in Time’s “Time 200” most influential people, he holds ethics recognition from Columbia Business School, Notre Dame’s Mendoza College, and UCLA Anderson – providing academic validation of a practical executive record. As co-founder of Maveron, a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management, he brings pattern recognition on consumer brand durability well beyond the Starbucks story. Biography highlights Chairman and CEO of Starbucks across three leadership periods (1986-2000, 2008-2017, 2022-2023), growing the company from 11 stores to 28,000 locations across 77 countries Took Starbucks public in 1992; oversaw nearly $100 billion added to the company’s market capitalisation between 2008 and 2017 Author of four books including “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” (2011), a number-one New York Times bestseller Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011; included in Time magazine’s “Time 200” most influential people Ethics and leadership awards from Columbia Business School (Botwinick Prize), Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business (Hesburgh Award), and UCLA Anderson (John Wooden Global Leadership Award) Co-founder of Maveron (1998), a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management and early investments including eBay and Zulily Biography The most destructive leadership decisions at scale are rarely made during crises. They accumulate during the growth years, when speed and efficiency gradually crowd out the cultural foundations that made a business worth building. Howard Schultz experienced this from the inside, as the architect of Starbucks’ global expansion and the executive who had to reverse the damage when it became visible. His 2008 return as CEO is documented in “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul,” a number-one New York Times bestseller. The argument at the centre of the book is precise: the path back to financial health ran directly through culture, not around it. Employee retraining, the restoration of the in-store experience, and a deliberate recalibration of what Starbucks stood for came before the financial metrics recovered. Within three years of his return, the stock had risen more than five times from its crisis low. His approach to employees follows the same logic. Starbucks under his leadership was among the first U.S. companies to extend healthcare benefits to part-time workers, and it offered equity participation to hourly employees through a programme called Bean Stock. Schultz presented these not as social obligations but as commercial decisions: loyalty, retention, and service quality are measurable outputs of how people are treated, not side effects of good intentions. Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011 and included in Time magazine’s “Time 200,” Schultz holds ethics recognition from Columbia Business School, Notre Dame’s Mendoza College, and UCLA Anderson. As co-founder of Maveron, a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management, he has extended this analysis of brand durability well beyond the Starbucks story. His perspective reaches audiences navigating growth, crisis recovery, and the sustained tension between operational efficiency and cultural health. Key speaking topics Values-based leadership at scale Crisis leadership and organisational recovery Brand culture and long-term commercial performance Global consumer brand strategy Employee investment as competitive strategy Entrepreneurship and growth Corporate responsibility and business ethics Ideal for CEOs and executive leadership teams navigating rapid scaling decisions or organisational turnaround Chief People Officers and HR leadership examining employee value proposition at scale Brand, marketing, and commercial leadership in consumer-facing organisations Boards and senior leaders weighing cultural priorities against short-term commercial pressure Audience outcomes A tested framework for treating culture and commercial performance as mutually reinforcing, not competing priorities Concrete, sequenced lessons from a live turnaround at global scale – what decisions were made, in what order, and why A reframe of employee investment from a cost line to a commercial variable with traceable outcomes Perspective on how a brand’s identity is preserved or eroded through the decisions made at pace and scale Practical insight into leading across multiple organisational phases, including growth, institutional crisis, and recovery

Why organisations work with Henry Chesbrough He is the named author of the framework that most corporate innovation functions claim to use. When a board wants the original argument rather than a consultant’s summary, they bring him in. Two decades of field research inside Procter & Gamble, Intel, IBM, GE, Bayer, and Huawei give him specific evidence on where open innovation pays off and where it quietly fails. His work extends beyond R&D into business models and services, which is where most open innovation programmes stall once the easy wins run out. He sits at the centre of the academic and practitioner networks that define the field, including the Garwood Center at Berkeley Haas and the Open Innovation Community he founded. Recognition from Thinkers50 (ranked four times), the Industrial Research Institute’s Medal of Achievement, and the Academy of Management’s Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award establishes standing with both academic and corporate audiences. Biography highlights Faculty Director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Maire Tecnimont Professor of Open Innovation at Luiss University, Rome. Author of “Open Innovation” (HBS Press, 2003), “Open Business Models” (2006), “Open Services Innovation” (2011), and “Open Innovation Results” (Oxford University Press, 2020). Named to the Thinkers50 ranking four times and shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award in 2011. Recipient of the Industrial Research Institute’s Medal of Achievement (2017), the Herbert Simon Award (2020), and the Academy of Management Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award (2022). Honorary doctorates from Hasselt University, the University of Vic, and Eindhoven University of Technology. Biography “Open innovation” is the most widely adopted idea in corporate R&D of the last twenty years, and Henry Chesbrough is the person who named it. His 2003 book set out a simple claim that changed how firms think about invention: no organisation, however well resourced, can rely only on its own labs. The better question is how to combine internal and external ideas, and how to build a business model that captures value from both. That argument has held up through two decades of field research. Chesbrough’s work inside Procter & Gamble, Intel, IBM, GE, Bayer, and Huawei is the evidence base behind “Open Innovation Results” (Oxford University Press, 2020), which examines why many open innovation programmes stall and what separates the firms that generate measurable returns from the ones that merely adopt the vocabulary. His institutional base is the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he is Faculty Director. He is also Maire Tecnimont Professor of Open Innovation at Luiss University in Rome, and previously held a chair at ESADE in Barcelona. Before academia he spent over a decade in Silicon Valley’s disk drive industry, finishing as Vice President of Marketing at Quantum’s Plus Development subsidiary. Recognition has followed the field’s maturity. Thinkers50 has named him to its ranking four times, the Industrial Research Institute awarded him its Medal of Achievement in 2017, and the Academy of Management gave him its Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award in 2022. For senior leaders rebuilding an innovation function, Chesbrough brings both the original thesis and the accumulated evidence of what happens when it meets a real P&L. Key speaking topics Open innovation Business model innovation Corporate R&D strategy Ecosystems and external partnerships for innovation Services innovation Technology commercialisation Intellectual property strategy Ideal for CEOs and CTOs responsible for corporate R&D and innovation portfolios Chief Strategy Officers rebuilding the firm’s approach to external partnerships and ecosystems Heads of corporate venturing, open innovation, and new business building Boards and executive teams reviewing the economics of internal versus external innovation sourcing Audience outcomes A clear grasp of what open innovation actually requires beyond the label, from the person who defined it. Named examples of where the model has produced measurable results and where large firms have wasted effort. A sharper view of how business models, not just technology pipelines, determine returns on innovation spend. Language and frameworks that help executive teams align on what “open” means for their specific sector.

Why organisations work with Gunter Pauli He has run the experiment himself. As CEO of Ecover he built the first fully ecological factory in Malle, Belgium in 1992, and grew the business into a category-defining consumer brand before turning to systems work. The Blue Economy is a named, published framework, not a talk. The 2010 report to the Club of Rome catalogues 100 nature-inspired innovations with business cases attached, and has been translated into more than 30 languages. He sits inside the conversation that shapes long-range policy. Elected member of the Club of Rome and former executive committee member, with advisory roles for governments in Spain, Argentina, Italy and Bhutan. He converts sustainability from a cost line into a portfolio of revenue opportunities. The argument boards respond to: waste streams and local resources are unbooked revenue if you redesign around them. He founded and still leads ZERI, a working network of scientists and entrepreneurs testing zero-emissions business models in the field, which keeps the content grounded in what has actually been built. Biography highlights Founder of ZERI (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives), established in 1994 at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Former Chairman and CEO of Ecover, Belgium; led the design and launch of the Malle ecological factory in 1992. Author of The Blue Economy: 10 Years, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs, commissioned as a report to the Club of Rome. Elected member of the Club of Rome; served on its executive committee. Recipient of the 2022 Goi Peace Award; honorary doctorate from the University of Pecs, Hungary. MBA, INSEAD Fontainebleau; economics, University of Antwerp. Biography Ecover was a detergent company when Gunter Pauli took it over in 1991. Four years later it was a global reference point for sustainable manufacturing, operating out of a wooden factory with a planted roof in Malle, Belgium, the first of its kind. The experience also taught him that a clean product built on palm oil was still destroying rainforest, and that the green movement of the early 1990s had not yet confronted the problem. That recognition is what produced the Blue Economy. Working from the United Nations University in Tokyo, Pauli founded ZERI in 1994 to test a different premise: that natural systems already solve most of the problems industry struggles with, and that redesigning around local resources and cascading waste streams produces better economics, not worse. The 2010 report to the Club of Rome set out 100 worked examples, from coffee-to-mushroom cultivation to stone paper, each with a business case. The framework has travelled. The Blue Economy has been translated into more than 30 languages, taught on MBA and policy programmes, and picked up by governments in Europe, Latin America and Asia as a basis for regional development strategy. Pauli was elected to the Club of Rome and served on its executive committee from 2017, and received the Goi Peace Award in 2022. What he brings to a senior audience is a practitioner’s account of how environmental and financial returns can be made to move together, with a portfolio of cases that have been built, sold and scaled. The argument is not that sustainability is a duty. It is that most industrial processes are inefficient on their own terms, and the companies that notice first will take the margin. Key speaking topics The Blue Economy Nature-inspired business model design Zero emissions manufacturing and circular supply chains Sustainable entrepreneurship Regional development and resource strategy ESG strategy and corporate sustainability Systems thinking for leaders Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors setting sustainability and capital allocation strategy Heads of innovation, R&D and operations rethinking product and factory design Government and public-sector leaders shaping regional development and industrial policy Investor audiences evaluating circular and regenerative business models Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Blue Economy framework and how it differs from recycling, offsetting and conventional CSR Named examples of companies and regions that have used nature-inspired design to cut cost and emissions at the same time A sharper lens for spotting waste streams and local resources that can be turned into revenue Language to use with boards and investors when sustainability investments have to compete for capital A reading of where sustainability policy and markets are heading over the next decade, drawn from Club of Rome and government advisory work

Why organisations work with Gerald Ratner His name is embedded in the business lexicon. “Doing a Ratner” is not a metaphor; it is a documented event with a verified cost of £500m, which organisations reference every time a leader’s words threaten to become the story. He provides the only first-person account of what happens inside a catastrophic, self-inflicted reputational collapse; not from a crisis consultancy, but from the person who caused it, survived it, and rebuilt from it. His growth story stands independently of the fall. Taking Ratners Group from 130 stores and £13m in sales to 2,500 stores and over £1.2bn in turnover is a concrete case study in scaling a mass-market brand in a staid, elitist industry. He demonstrates that commercial credibility can be rebuilt without institutional support. The health club sold for £3.9m and GeraldOnline’s subsequent emergence as the UK’s largest online jewellery business were both built after banks had refused to back him. His 2007 autobiography “The Rise and Fall…and Rise Again,” reviewed in the Financial Times and serialised in the Sunday Times, gives audiences a structured, honest account rather than the selective narrative most comeback stories rely on. Biography highlights CEO and Chairman of Ratners Group, built into the world’s largest jewellery retailer, with 2,500 stores and annual sales exceeding £1.2bn by 1990 April 1991 speech at the Institute of Directors conference, Royal Albert Hall: a single remark wiped approximately £500m from the company’s market value The phrase “doing a Ratner” entered the English business vocabulary as a term for self-inflicted reputational damage; referenced in media, business schools, and boardroom conversations worldwide Author of “The Rise and Fall…and Rise Again” (Capstone/Wiley, 2007), serialised in the Sunday Times and reviewed in the Financial Times and Management Today Founded GeraldOnline in 2003, which became the UK’s largest online jewellery business Ranked first in The Sun’s published list of the 50 biggest business mistakes of all time Biography Most leaders know that reputation is fragile. Few have experienced, in precisely documented financial terms, exactly how fast it can go. In April 1991, a single off-the-cuff remark at the Institute of Directors annual conference at the Royal Albert Hall wiped £500m from Ratners Group within days. Gerald Ratner had built that company. He joined the family jewellery business in 1966 and, within two decades, grew it to 2,500 stores and over £1.2bn in annual sales, including H. Samuel, Ernest Jones, Watches of Switzerland, and more than a thousand stores in the United States. It was the world’s largest jewellery retailer. He was dismissed as CEO in November 1992. The company renamed itself Signet Group and expunged his name. What followed is the more instructive half of the account. After bankruptcy and a period of professional isolation, Ratner financed a health club in Henley-on-Thames against his home, sold it for £3.9m, and used the proceeds to launch GeraldOnline, a name forced on him because his former company blocked him from trading under his own. It became the UK’s largest online jewellery business. His 2007 autobiography, “The Rise and Fall…and Rise Again,” published by Capstone/Wiley and serialised in the Sunday Times, set out the full arc without omission. The phrase “doing a Ratner” now circulates in business schools and boardrooms internationally. It captures what happens when a leader’s offhand candour meets public trust at scale. Ratner is the only person who can speak to it from inside all three moments: the building, the collapse, and the recovery. Key speaking topics Reputational risk and crisis leadership Resilience and recovery after catastrophic failure Brand trust and the consequences of leadership communication Retail growth and mass-market brand building Entrepreneurship after failure Organisational crisis and business survival Ideal for Executive and senior leadership conferences where reputational risk, crisis management, or communication under pressure are on the agenda CHRO and L&D audiences focused on building genuine resilience culture, rather than frameworks without lived experience behind them Business award dinners, gala events, and after-dinner occasions where a high-recognition, self-deprecating narrative sets the tone Entrepreneurship and business growth forums where the full cycle of building, losing, and rebuilding a commercial enterprise is directly relevant Audience outcomes A concrete, real-world illustration of how quickly a leader’s words can overtake the reputation of an organisation they have spent years building An honest account of what recovery from professional catastrophe looks like in practice – including the financial, psychological, and strategic dimensions A sharper instinct for the gap between what leaders say internally and how public statements land with customers and markets Practical perspective on rebuilding commercial credibility without institutional backing, drawn from two separate comebacks in the same industry A reference story they will use – the “Ratner effect” framework is already in common use; hearing it directly sharpens how teams apply it

Why organisations work with Dirk Ahlborn He has operated, not theorised, one of the largest crowd-powered equity companies ever built, with hundreds of contributors working for future equity on a single transport moonshot. He took an open concept posted publicly by Elon Musk and turned it into an incorporated global venture with government-level feasibility partnerships, giving leaders a concrete template for converting ideas into companies. His JumpStartFund platform is studied as a Harvard Business School case on crowd-powered innovation ecosystems, which gives the argument institutional weight beyond bureau bios. He brings a specific point of view on how to structure incentives, intellectual property and contribution when the workforce is distributed, part-time and equity-aligned rather than payrolled. He speaks from direct operator experience in alternative energy, manufacturing and transport, not from consulting on innovation as an abstract discipline. Biography highlights Co-founder and Chairman of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, a company incubated on a crowd-powered equity model. Founder and CEO of JumpStarter Inc., operator of the JumpStartFund crowdsourcing platform. Subject of a Harvard Business School case study on crowd-powered innovation ecosystems. Keynote speaker at SXSW, the World Economic Forum, CES and the Smart Mobility World Congress. Featured in Forbes, Wired, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe. Contributor to the Bosch Global thought leadership platform. Biography Hyperloop Transportation Technologies was set up in 2013 using a method almost no serious company had tried at that scale: hundreds of contributors working ten hours a week in exchange for stock options, coordinated through an online platform. The company that emerged went on to sign feasibility agreements with multiple governments. The interesting argument is not the train. It is the operating model. That model came out of JumpStartFund, the crowdsourcing platform Ahlborn launched the same year in El Segundo. The platform was designed to solve a specific problem, which is that most ideas never become companies because the capital, talent and coordination to build them sit in separate silos. JumpStartFund compressed those into one process. Harvard Business School has published a case study on how that works. Ahlborn’s background is unusually operational for someone running a moonshot. He started in Berlin banking in 1993, moved to Italy and built alternative energy and interior design businesses through the 1990s, and joined the Girvan Institute of Technology in Southern California in 2009 to help commercialise early-stage tech linked to NASA’s Ames Research Center. That sequence matters because his argument is not theoretical. He has built, sold and scaled businesses across sectors that rarely share a playbook. What he offers serious organisations is a working thesis on how to mobilise contribution at scale without hiring at scale, tested against one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the last decade. The thesis is portable. The specifics, stock-for-time structures, advisory-point commissions, crowd-led IP generation, translate into any organisation trying to attempt something its existing headcount and budget were not designed to deliver. Key speaking topics Crowd-powered venture building New business models for the post-industrial economy Entrepreneurship and distributed equity The future of transportation Innovation ecosystems and platform design Leading moonshot projects inside and outside the corporation Ideal for CEOs and founders designing new venture models outside conventional VC structures. Innovation, strategy and corporate venture leads running moonshot or skunkworks programmes. Transport, infrastructure and mobility leaders tracking what comes after road and rail. Boards weighing how to structure equity, IP and contribution in distributed organisations. Audience outcomes A concrete framework for running a crowd-powered venture, drawn from an operating example rather than a theoretical model. A clearer view of when equity-for-time structures work, and when they break. Specific language for pitching non-standard venture models to boards and institutional partners. A sharper read on what the next decade of transport, mobility and infrastructure investment is likely to reward.

Why organisations work with David Selves He runs corporate events, awards ceremonies and fundraising dinners as the figure at the front of the room, with a 50-year track record across broadcasting, business and hospitality to draw on. As a charity auctioneer, he has raised over £1 million for good causes, a tangible commercial outcome rather than a stage credit. His business background, including roles as Regional Chairman and National Board Member of the Small Business Bureau, gives him a credible footing on panels with founders, investors and small-business audiences. As Deputy Chairman of the London Press Club and a working broadcaster, he interviews with journalistic instinct, which makes him useful for on-stage Q&A with senior or politically sensitive guests. Biography highlights Founder of The Selves Group (1978), with interests across property, media, finance and leisure. Former Regional Chairman and National Board Member of the Small Business Bureau. Deputy Chairman of the London Press Club; founder of the London Grill Club. Charity auctioneer credited with raising over £1 million for charitable causes. Broadcaster on Radio Faversham, with a long-running interviewing practice. Author of four fictional thrillers, including “Quentin – A Spy” and “The Noble Challenge”. Biography A long evening of speeches, an awards running order or a fundraising auction lives or dies on the person holding the room. The technical name for this is hosting craft, and it is a different discipline from keynote speaking. David Selves has built his career around it. The career sits across banking, broadcasting, hospitality and small-business advocacy. He started as a management trainee at Midland Bank in 1969, founded The Selves Group in 1978, and has held senior positions at the Small Business Bureau as Regional Chairman and National Board Member. The London Press Club, where he is Deputy Chairman, and the London Grill Club, which he founded, anchor him in the working media community. The auctioneering record is the clearest commercial proof point. Over £1 million raised for charitable causes places him among a small group of British fundraising auctioneers who can move a room and a paddle in equal measure. His broadcasting on Radio Faversham, and a long interviewing practice across business and political subjects, give him the ear and pacing that live hosting demands. He also writes fiction, with four published thrillers including “Quentin – A Spy” and “The Noble Challenge”, a reminder that the working tools of the trade are language and timing. Key speaking topics After-dinner speaking Awards hosting Charity auctioneering and fundraising Panel moderation and on-stage interviewing Entrepreneurship and small business Media and broadcasting Ideal for Corporate event organisers booking a host or master of ceremonies for awards nights, gala dinners or conference plenaries. Charity development directors and fundraising leads are commissioning an auctioneer for a high-stakes appeal evening. Communications and marketing leads needing a panel moderator for journalist-style on-stage interviews. Small-business and entrepreneur networks are looking for an after-dinner speaker with operating credibility. Audience outcomes A running order that holds energy from welcome to close, rather than losing the room mid-evening. A fundraising auction run with pacing and judgement, designed to lift the final total. On-stage interviews with senior or politically sensitive guests are handled with journalistic instinct. An after-dinner address that mixes humour with substantive commentary on business, media, or current affairs.

Why organisations work with David Roberts His Exponential Leadership framework draws a hard diagnostic line between revolutionary and truly disruptive technology – giving senior teams a structured method for a decision most organisations currently make by instinct. He holds an MIT degree in Artificial Intelligence alongside a Harvard MBA, and built ventures backed by Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla, and In-Q-Tel – his understanding of technology disruption is operational, not theoretical. As Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program, he has stress-tested these frameworks with senior leaders across sectors and geographies at scale. His background spans classified U.S. government programs – satellite systems, drone development, intelligence fusion centers – giving him credibility on high-stakes technological complexity that most innovation speakers cannot claim. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley Business Schools have written and taught case studies on his leadership and decision-making – a level of academic scrutiny that validates the substance of the framework, not just its presentation. Biography highlights MIT B.S. Computer Science and Engineering, Distinguished Graduate, majored in Artificial Intelligence and Bio-Computer Engineering Harvard MBA Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program; Distinguished Faculty member Coined the term Exponential Leadership in 2010; founder of Exponential Leadership organisation Co-founder and President of FireDrop and Zaplet, acquired by MetricStream; ventures backed by Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla, Cisco, Oracle, Accenture, and In-Q-Tel Chairman of 1QBit, one of the world’s first quantum computing software companies Career U.S. government officer: Air Force officer, decorated Special Agent; led development of satellite programs and the U.S. Drone Program; received personal citation from the Director of the FBI Media coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, USA Today, The New York Times, and CNN Biography Roberts studied AI at MIT before the term had reached the boardroom – under the guidance of Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of ELIZA and one of the discipline’s founding figures. That technical grounding was followed by a Goldman Sachs M&A posting and then a career in the U.S. government, where he led the development of satellite systems and the U.S. Drone Program across multiple national agencies. By the time he entered Silicon Valley, he had spent years building the technologies that other people were still learning to name. His venture career – FireDrop and Zaplet, backed by Kleiner Perkins and In-Q-Tel and ultimately acquired by MetricStream – gave him a second operational lens: what it takes to build and fund companies around genuinely disruptive technology, not merely competitive ones. That distinction became the foundation of his intellectual contribution. In 2010, working in a government context, he coined the term Exponential Leadership – a framework built on a single, testable claim: that the leadership models most organisations rely on were engineered for incremental change, and that they structurally fail when technologies start compressing competitive timelines from decades to years. Roberts went on to serve as Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program, reaching senior leaders across sectors with that framework. His talks do not stop at diagnosing the gap between technology speed and leadership capability – they give organisations a structured method for distinguishing truly disruptive technologies from merely revolutionary ones, and a leadership model calibrated to act on that distinction. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley Business Schools have used his leadership and decision-making as the basis for case studies. His technology ventures have been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and CNN. Key speaking topics Exponential Leadership Technology disruption and disruptive innovation theory Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies Quantum computing and advanced technology platforms Entrepreneurship and high-growth venture strategy Strategic decision-making in exponential environments Leadership development for technology-driven organisations Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating technology-driven transformation Strategy and innovation leaders in sectors facing accelerating competitive disruption Corporate leadership development programmes seeking a framework for exponential change Boards and executive committees assessing long-term technology risk and strategic positioning Audience outcomes A working distinction between revolutionary and genuinely disruptive technology, with a framework for applying it to current strategic decisions Understanding of why traditional leadership models underperform in exponentially changing environments, and what a more effective model looks like in practice Clearer organisational language for discussing exponential change – moving beyond general awareness to specific, actionable diagnostic categories Exposure to emerging technologies – including AI, quantum computing, synthetic biology, and autonomous systems – framed through their leadership and strategic implications A practical foundation for aligning leadership behaviour and decision-making with the actual pace of technology change

Why organisations work with David Coulthard He brings direct operational experience from three distinct Formula One team environments – Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull – across 15 seasons and 247 races. Most high-performance speakers have one team’s frame of reference. Coulthard has three, including a championship-contending team and an ambitious start-up that became the sport’s dominant force. The Winning Formula (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) is not a memoir retooled as a business book. It is a structured framework – drawing on F1 systems from pit-stop execution to real-time data decision-making – that gives corporate audiences a model to work with, not just a story to enjoy. His post-career record as co-founder of Whisper Films (Channel 4’s F1 production partner) and Velocity Experience means he has built commercial organisations and navigated partnership and governance structures. His leadership perspective is active, not historical. As President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club – the body that owns and governs Silverstone Circuit – he holds a current institutional role at the centre of elite motorsport. He is engaged with the governance and structural challenges of the sport today, not frozen at the moment he retired. His co-founding of More than Equal, a data-led programme to accelerate elite female racing drivers toward Formula One, gives him a credible and specific point of view on inclusive performance cultures – not as a topic layered on, but as something he is actively building. Biography highlights 13 Formula One Grand Prix victories across 15 seasons with Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull Racing (1994-2008); 62 podium finishes and 247 race starts Runner-up in the 2001 F1 World Drivers’ Championship; five top-three championship finishes in total, including a key role in McLaren’s 1998 Constructors’ Championship Delivered Red Bull Racing’s first Formula One podium at the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, elected 2019 (the BRDC owns and operates Silverstone Circuit) Author of The Winning Formula: Leadership, Strategy and Motivation the F1 Way (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) and autobiography It Is What It Is (2007) Co-founder of Whisper Films (Channel 4’s F1 production partner) and Velocity Experience; co-founder of More than Equal (2022), a data-led driver development programme for elite female racing drivers Channel 4 F1 commentator and analyst since 2016; previously BBC F1 pundit (2009-2016) Inaugural recipient of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award (1989); MBE (2010) Biography Formula One is the closest thing in sport to a working model of organisational performance under pressure. Every function – engineering, strategy, risk management, execution – must be aligned in real time, with the cost of misalignment immediate and public. David Coulthard spent 15 seasons inside that system, winning 13 Grands Prix across Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull. At McLaren through the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was part of one of the sport’s most technically and strategically demanding environments. He finished runner-up in the 2001 World Drivers’ Championship and played a central role in McLaren’s 1998 Constructors’ Championship. He later helped establish Red Bull Racing on the F1 podium in 2006 – the early foundation of what became the sport’s most dominant team. Those two environments give his perspective on performance culture an unusual range: what elite execution looks like when every resource is already optimised, and what it takes to build performance discipline in an organisation that is still finding its feet. His book The Winning Formula (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) sets out a structured framework for applying F1’s operational principles to business leadership. From pit-stop execution as a model for team accountability, to decision-making under real-time pressure with incomplete information, the book draws direct lines between elite motorsport practice and the challenges leadership teams actually face. As President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club – which owns and operates Silverstone Circuit – he holds an active governance role at the centre of the sport. Coulthard has built organisations as well as addressed them. He co-founded Whisper Films, which produces Channel 4’s Formula One coverage in the UK. He also co-founded More than Equal in 2022 – a data-led programme designed to create a pathway for the first woman to race in Formula One in the modern era. That combination of elite sporting record, published intellectual framework, and active commercial and institutional roles makes his leadership perspective harder to replicate than it might first appear. Key speaking topics High-performance decision-making under pressure Leadership accountability in elite team environments Strategy and execution alignment Performance culture and team cohesion Risk management in competitive conditions Entrepreneurship and commercial venture-building in elite sport Ideal for Senior leadership and C-suite teams in high-stakes or performance-driven industries CHROs and people leaders building or benchmarking high-performance team cultures Strategy and transformation leads examining how decision-making disciplines are built and sustained under pressure Executive development programmes at major corporate, professional services, or financial institutions Audience outcomes A transferable model for decision-making under pressure, drawn directly from F1 operational practice and articulated in The Winning Formula Concrete examples of how world-class teams structure accountability when execution cannot be approximate A sharper understanding of where the gap between strategic intent and operational delivery opens up – and how elite environments close it Reference points for building cultures where performance expectations hold under stress, not just in planning conditions Practical insight into what team composition, role clarity, and real-time feedback look like when they are working at the highest level