Entrepreneurship speakers

Why organisations work with Ruth Hinks She is the first woman to win UK Chocolate Masters and produced the highest UK finish on record at the World Chocolate Masters final in Paris, a credential that lands in any room. She has built and run Cocoa Black since 2008 across retail, production, cafe, and a chocolate and pastry school, giving her a working operator’s view of a specialist food business rather than a theory of one. She brings hands-on culinary content to client hospitality and product launches, which most keynote speakers cannot offer. Her career has run from Head Pastry Chef at the Windsor Hotel in Melbourne and the Sheraton Grand Hotel Edinburgh to international competition and television, giving her credibility across hospitality, retail, and broadcast settings. Biography highlights First woman to win UK Chocolate Masters, 2012. Top-five finish at the World Chocolate Masters final in Paris, 2013, the highest UK result recorded at the time. Founder of Cocoa Black, Peebles, established 2008; chocolate and pastry school opened by HRH Prince Edward in 2016. Former Head Pastry Chef at the Windsor Hotel, Melbourne and the Sheraton Grand Hotel Edinburgh. Named Australian Pastry Chef of the Year early in her Melbourne career. Expert judge, BBC Two’s The Hairy Bikers’ Chocolate Challenge; featured in Netflix’s Extreme Chocolate Makers. Biography Cocoa Black opened in Peebles in 2008. From a single Scottish border town it has grown into a chocolate and patisserie business that runs retail, production, a cafe, and a school, with international competition credibility behind it. The founder has held every line in the operation. Ruth Hinks made her name in competition before the business expanded. In 2012 she became the first woman to win UK Chocolate Masters. A year later she finished in the top five at the World Chocolate Masters final in Paris, the strongest UK result on record at that time. The result put a small Peebles operation on the international map for the craft. Her hospitality grounding came earlier. She was named Australian Pastry Chef of the Year in Melbourne, where she ran the pastry kitchen at the 5-star Windsor Hotel, then moved to head the pastry section at the Sheraton Grand Hotel Edinburgh. She trained with Cacao Barry and studied under Albert Roux, technical roots that show up in Cocoa Black’s product range and in the school’s curriculum. The Pastry School in Peebles was opened by HRH Prince Edward in 2016. Hinks has appeared as expert judge on BBC Two’s The Hairy Bikers’ Chocolate Challenge and produced a chocolate showpiece for Chatsworth House in Netflix’s Extreme Chocolate Makers, work that has put a specialist craft business in front of a far larger audience than the trade alone. Key speaking topics Building a specialist food and drink brand Entrepreneurship in craft-led businesses Competition standards in chocolate and patisserie Hospitality leadership in 5-star kitchens Product innovation and chocolate development Skills development and culinary education Women in elite culinary competition Ideal for Food and beverage industry conferences and supplier events Hospitality leadership teams and luxury hotel groups Corporate client hospitality, gala dinners, and product launches that benefit from craft content alongside a keynote Founder and entrepreneur audiences in specialist consumer businesses Audience outcomes A close-range view of what international competition standards demand of a craft operator. A founder’s account of building a specialist food business across retail, production, and education from a small town base. Specific examples of how product, brand, and training can sit inside a single small business. Hospitality and kitchen leadership lessons drawn from 5-star pastry roles.

Why organisations work with Ryan Serhant He built a brokerage that uses its own studio as the primary lead source, giving sales and marketing leaders a working reference for how content-to-commerce actually operates at scale. He has closed close to ten billion dollars in personal real estate sales while running the firm, including the most expensive home ever sold in Florida, so the methodology comes from a practitioner still in the deal flow. His three books, Sell It Like Serhant, Big Money Energy, and Brand It Like Serhant, sequence a coherent commercial argument from individual sales technique to personal brand as a business asset. He is one of the few operators booked at this level whose audience already knows the work through Netflix’s Owning Manhattan and Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York, which compresses the credibility step at large commercial events. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of SERHANT., a brokerage with an in-house film studio used as its lead-generation engine. Star and executive producer of Netflix’s Owning Manhattan; star of Bravo’s two-time Emmy-nominated Million Dollar Listing New York. Author of Sell It Like Serhant (2018), Big Money Energy (2021), and Brand It Like Serhant (2024). The Serhant Team ranked top sales team in New York by The Wall Street Journal for three consecutive years and Top 5 nationwide. Closed close to ten billion dollars in personal sales, including record-setting transactions in New York and Florida. Founder of SERHANT. Studios and the SELL IT digital education platform. Biography Most brokerages still treat marketing as a cost centre and the salesforce as the engine. SERHANT., the firm Ryan Serhant founded in September 2020, inverts that. The studio is the engine. The agents convert the demand it generates. Owning Manhattan, the Netflix series Serhant produces and stars in, is part of the same flywheel. That model is the reason commercial leaders book him. Serhant has closed close to ten billion dollars in personal real estate sales, including the most expensive home ever sold in Florida, while running the firm. The point on stage is not the listings. It is what an operating model looks like when content production, personal brand, and sales pipeline are run as a single discipline rather than three departments. His three books trace the same argument at different altitudes. Sell It Like Serhant (2018) is a salesperson’s playbook. Big Money Energy (2021) reframes ambition as a discipline that can be coached. Brand It Like Serhant (2024) treats personal and corporate brand as a measurable commercial asset that produces inbound demand. Together they are the spine of his keynote work and the SELL IT education platform that grew out of the first book. The Serhant Team was ranked the top sales team in New York by The Wall Street Journal for three consecutive years before he launched the brokerage. Million Dollar Listing New York, the two-time Emmy-nominated Bravo series, gave the broader audience the character. Owning Manhattan, now in its second Netflix season, gives them the company. Key speaking topics Content-to-commerce business models Sales methodology and pipeline Personal brand as a commercial asset Entrepreneurship and scale-up Customer acquisition and lead generation Founder mindset and commercial ambition Ideal for Chief revenue officers and heads of sales rebuilding pipeline economics around content Chief marketing officers integrating brand, social, and demand generation into one operating function Founders and CEOs of scale-up businesses building category presence Sales conferences, kickoffs, and partner events for high-ticket and brokerage businesses Audience outcomes A working picture of how an in-house content engine can function as the primary acquisition channel A clearer line between personal brand investment and measurable revenue A sales operating logic drawn from a practitioner who is still closing deals at the top of the market Language and frameworks senior leaders can take back to their commercial teams the next morning

Why organisations work with Sahar Hashemi She has built three commercial ventures from a standing start. Coffee Republic (110 stores, £50 million market cap), Skinny Candy (acquired by Glisten Plc) and Buy Women Built (2,000+ businesses, £2.5 billion combined turnover) give her a working library of how entrepreneurial behaviour actually feels day to day. Her Start Up Forever framework breaks the entrepreneurial mindset down into a small set of repeatable daily behaviours, which is what lets it survive contact with corporate hierarchy. The book was named a Financial Times Business Book of the Month. She translates between two worlds that rarely speak the same language: founders running on instinct and customer obsession, and senior executives running on process and structure. Most speakers can describe one of those worlds; she has lived both. Her credibility on women-led growth is operating credibility, not advocacy. Buy Women Built is a commercial channel built with major retailers, and she co-chaired the UK government’s Scale Up Taskforce on growing SMEs. Biography highlights Co-founder, Coffee Republic; scaled to 110 stores and a £50 million market capitalisation Founder, Skinny Candy (50% acquired by Glisten Plc) and Buy Women Built Author, Anyone Can Do It (Wiley, 2003) and Start Up Forever (Troubador, 2019, Financial Times Business Book of the Month) OBE for services to the UK economy and to charity, 2012 Birthday Honours Co-chair, UK government Scale Up Taskforce; board member, Scale Up Institute Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum Biography Coffee Republic opened on South Molton Street in 1995, the first US-style coffee bar chain in the UK. Within five years it ran 110 stores at a £50 million market capitalisation. Sahar Hashemi co-founded the business with her brother Bobby after leaving a career in law, and the speed of the build became the basis of everything she has worked on since. The question that has occupied her for two decades is why large companies struggle to act on what they already know. Most have the people, the capital and the data to behave entrepreneurially. They rarely behave that way in practice. Her book Start Up Forever, named a Financial Times Business Book of the Month, breaks that gap into a set of daily habits that survive inside corporate structure rather than dying in workshop rooms. The work has weight because it is grounded in three operating businesses she actually built, not consulting case studies. Skinny Candy, the sugar-free confectionery brand, was acquired by Glisten Plc. Buy Women Built, launched in 2020, now represents more than 2,000 women-built businesses with combined turnover above £2.5 billion and has become a working channel inside major UK retailers. She co-chaired the UK government’s Scale Up Taskforce and sits on the board of the Scale Up Institute. Senior teams at Microsoft, L’Oreal, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble and Sky have brought her in for the same reason: she gives a leadership group a usable answer to the question of what entrepreneurial behaviour looks like on a Tuesday afternoon at a 50,000-person company. She was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to the UK economy and to charity, and named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurial mindset inside large organisations Innovation and creativity as everyday discipline Building start-up culture in established businesses Intrapreneurship and behaviour change at scale Women-led entrepreneurship and scale-up growth Customer obsession as a leadership behaviour Courage, action and the founder’s bias to start Ideal for Executive teams running innovation, transformation or culture-change programmes CHROs and learning leaders who want behaviour change, not awareness Strategy and growth leaders trying to build new businesses inside an existing one Sales, marketing and customer teams rebuilding around customer obsession Audience outcomes A practical model of entrepreneurial behaviour that translates into Monday-morning habits Specific examples of how founder instincts (customer obsession, bias to act, comfort with ambiguity) operate inside corporate structure A clearer view of why innovation programmes stall, and what to remove rather than add Renewed confidence in personal agency: what an individual contributor or senior leader can change without permission Frameworks from Start Up Forever that teams can apply to their own products, customers and decisions

Why organisations work with Salim Ismail He authored the reference text on exponential organisational design. Exponential Organizations and its 2023 sequel are the most widely cited corporate playbooks for moving from linear operating models to ones built on AI, data, and external leverage. The ExO Sprint, codified in Exponential Transformation, gives boards a 10-week structured method for testing exponential business models inside an existing P&L. It is a managed process, not a keynote concept. He brings the founding-era credibility of Singularity University, where he built the curriculum and faculty alongside Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil, then carried that thesis into operating practice through ExO Works and OpenExO. He sits on the XPRIZE Foundation board, giving him direct line of sight on which technology categories are about to compress in cost and capability, and what that means for incumbents in adjacent industries. He speaks to boards and CEOs in the language of organisational structure, not innovation theatre. The takeaway is a diagnostic on where the company will be outpaced and what to redesign first. Biography highlights Lead author, Exponential Organizations (Diversion Books, 2014); Frost & Sullivan Growth, Innovation, and Leadership Book of the Year. Lead author, Exponential Organizations 2.0 (2023), with Peter Diamandis, Michael Malone, and a foreword by Ray Kurzweil. Co-author, Exponential Transformation (Wiley, 2018), the ExO Sprint implementation handbook. Founding Executive Director of Singularity University, with Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. Founder of ExO Works (2016) and Co-founder and Chairman of OpenExO. Board member, XPRIZE Foundation (since March 2017); previously Vice President and Head of Brickhouse, Yahoo’s internal incubator. Biography Most large companies are not slow because their leaders are slow. They are slow because their structure was designed for a linear world, where capability, headcount, and asset base scaled in step with revenue. The book that named this problem and offered an alternative model is Exponential Organizations, published in 2014 and updated in 2023. Its lead author is Salim Ismail. The framework came out of the founding years of Singularity University, where Ismail served as Executive Director alongside Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. The question on the table was practical: if computing, sensing, biotech, and energy are all on cost curves that drop by orders of magnitude per decade, what does an organisation built to ride those curves actually look like. The answer became the 10 ExO attributes, including a Massive Transformative Purpose, staff on demand, community and crowd, algorithms, and leveraged assets. It is the reason the book has been picked up as a corporate operating reference rather than a futurist commentary. Through ExO Works and OpenExO, Ismail turned the framework into a transformation method. The ExO Sprint, documented in Exponential Transformation with Francisco Palao and Michelle Lapierre, is a 10-week board-level process for stress-testing existing business models against exponential disruption and building parallel ventures inside the company. He sits on the XPRIZE Foundation board, which keeps the diagnostic anchored to where technology cost curves are actually moving. His operating credentials sit underneath the writing. He led Brickhouse, Yahoo’s internal incubator, evaluating thousands of disruptive ideas and shipping four products. He co-founded PubSub Concepts and Angstro, the latter acquired by Google in 2010. He holds an honours degree in theoretical physics and computing from the University of Waterloo. The biography matters because the framework is not abstract; it is the synthesis of someone who built inside large companies, founded outside of them, and then taught both groups how to think about the next decade. Key speaking topics Exponential organisational design Disruptive convergence of AI, biotech, and energy Business model innovation under exponential cost curves Corporate venturing and the ExO Sprint Future of entrepreneurship and scale-up leverage Strategic foresight for boards Technology-driven workforce redesign Ideal for Boards and CEOs are evaluating whether the current operating model can survive the next decade of technology compression Chief strategy officers and corporate development leads are designing exponential ventures alongside the core business Innovation and digital transformation leaders are moving past pilots into operating-model change Industry forums in financial services, energy, life sciences, and industrials, where incumbents face exponential challengers Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the 10 ExO attributes and a way to score the audience’s own organisation against them A clearer view of which technology cost curves are about to bend in their industry and on what timeline Specific examples of incumbents that have applied the ExO Sprint and what changed in the P&L A diagnostic on where structural drag, not technology, is the actual constraint on exponential growth A point of view on what to centralise, what to distribute, and what to externalise as AI capability deepens

Why organisations work with Sallie Krawcheck She has run wealth management at the largest scale in the industry, leading Smith Barney, Citi Private Bank, US Trust and Merrill Lynch, then built a venture-backed fintech from scratch around a gap she watched the incumbents miss. Her thesis on the gender wealth gap is quantified, not rhetorical. Ellevest’s portfolio construction takes gender-specific salary curves, career breaks and longevity into account, which gives her a concrete answer to the “what would you actually change” question that most diversity speakers cannot give. Fortune called her “The Last Honest Analyst” for refusing to soften research calls and for reimbursing retail clients during a downturn. That reputation is what makes her credible to senior boards on questions of conflict of interest and product integrity. Her book “Own It: The Power of Women at Work” (Crown Currency, 2017) is a Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller, and her LinkedIn writing has built one of the largest executive followings on the platform. She arrives with a real audience and a real argument, not a stock keynote. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women. Former president of Global Wealth and Investment Management, Bank of America, overseeing Merrill Lynch and US Trust. Former CEO of Citi Global Wealth Management and former chairman and CEO of Sanford C. Bernstein and Co. Author of “Own It: The Power of Women at Work” (Crown Currency, 2017), Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller. Called “The Last Honest Analyst” by Fortune; multiple appearances on the Forbes “100 Most Powerful Women” list; named to Time “Global Influentials”. BA summa cum laude, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; MBA with honors, Columbia Business School. Biography The gender wealth gap is wider than the gender pay gap, and for many cohorts, it is still moving in the wrong direction. Closing it is not a marketing problem for financial services. It is a product, advice and capital allocation problem, and the people best placed to solve it are the people who have run the businesses on the other side of the gap. Krawcheck spent two decades doing exactly that. She rose from equity analyst to chairman and CEO of Sanford C. Bernstein and Co, then ran Smith Barney and Citi Global Wealth Management, then led Bank of America’s combined Merrill Lynch and US Trust wealth business. Fortune called her “The Last Honest Analyst” for protecting research independence and reimbursing retail clients during a downturn, which remains the cleanest single line on her professional integrity. In 2016 she co-founded Ellevest, a digital investment platform built around the financial reality of women’s careers and lifespans. The investing algorithm factors in salary curves that peak earlier, more frequent career breaks and longer retirement horizons. Ellevest is the only modern fintech that uses gender as an input to portfolio construction rather than a marketing layer on top of a generic product. Her book “Own It: The Power of Women at Work” (Crown Currency, 2017) became a Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller. Her LinkedIn following puts her among the most-read business writers on the platform, and Inc. has named her a Top Female Founder. She speaks to financial services boards, leadership teams and consumer brands on what it actually takes to design products and careers around a customer base the industry has historically underserved. Key speaking topics Closing the gender wealth gap Designing financial products for underserved customer segments Women, leadership and career capital Building a fintech inside a regulated industry Trust, conflict of interest and integrity in financial advice Entrepreneurship after a corporate career Capital, investing behaviour and the future of advice Ideal for Financial services CEOs, CMOs and heads of wealth and private banking are rethinking their women-client strategy. Boards and ExCos of consumer-facing businesses where female customer segments are under-monetised. Founders, investors and leadership teams in fintech and consumer finance. Senior women’s leadership programmes, CHRO sponsors and ERG executive sponsors at large enterprises. Audience outcomes A specific read on where the gender wealth gap actually sits in product design, pricing and advice, not in HR policy. A Wall Street insider’s honest account of how integrity, advice quality and conflicts of interest play out at the top of the industry. A practical view of what it takes to build a regulated fintech around an underserved segment, told by an operator who has done it. A direct, unhedged set of arguments on women, money and career capital that senior audiences can act on.

Why organisations work with Samuel Kasumu He led the cross-government vaccine confidence programme during COVID-19. As Special Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, he worked with vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi to take uptake in some communities from under 30% to around 75%. A working understanding of how board composition actually changes. Through Inclusive Boards, the executive search firm he co-founded, he has placed non-executive directors across more than 150 sports governing bodies and led culture change work with organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society and the Rugby Football League. A serious editorial thesis on the strategic value of outsider perspective, set out in The Power of the Outsider (Hodder & Stoughton, 2023). The book gives boards a usable frame for treating difference as a commercial asset, drawn from his own experience inside Downing Street. Direct exposure to the political and reputational risks senior leaders face when public trust fractures. Few speakers have served at the centre of UK government during a comparable period of institutional pressure. Biography highlights Special Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson with the Civil Society and Communities brief, 2019 to 2021. The most senior Black adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office during this period. Co-founder of Inclusive Boards, an executive search firm specialising in non-executive and board appointments. Named Third Sector and Public Sector Recruiter of the Year at the 2023 National Recruiter Awards. Author of The Power of the Outsider: A Journey of Discovery (Hodder & Stoughton, 2023), with cover endorsement from ITV political editor Robert Peston, and Winning the Race (RoperPenberthy, 2012). Member of the Race Disparity Audit Advisory Board under Prime Minister Theresa May, chaired by Lord Simon Woolley. Recognised on the MIPAD Top 100 list (Most Influential People of African Descent), a UN-aligned global initiative. Regular UK political commentator on programmes including Question Time and Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Publishes Future-proof Politics on Substack. Biography In early 2021, vaccine uptake in some UK communities sat below 30 per cent. By the time Samuel Kasumu left Downing Street in May that year, it had climbed to around 75 per cent. The cross-government confidence programme he led, working alongside vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi, had reached audiences the rest of government could not. That campaign captures the practical question Samuel works on. As Special Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson with the Civil Society and Communities brief, he was the most senior Black adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office. The role required both political instinct and credibility with communities Whitehall does not naturally reach. His commercial work runs in parallel. Inclusive Boards, the executive search firm he co-founded, has placed non-executive directors across more than 150 sports governing bodies. The firm has worked with organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society and the Rugby Football League on culture change. It was named Third Sector and Public Sector Recruiter of the Year at the 2023 National Recruiter Awards. His 2023 book The Power of the Outsider (Hodder & Stoughton) makes the case underpinning the rest of his work. Outsiders, he argues, see what insiders miss, and organisations that learn to value that perspective gain a strategic edge. The book carries a cover endorsement from ITV political editor Robert Peston. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership and board diversity Trust between institutions and communities Civil society and government relations Outsider perspective as a strategic asset Cultural intelligence in policy and corporate communication Race and identity in the modern workplace Crisis communication with hard-to-reach audiences Ideal for Chief People Officers and DEI leads responsible for board composition and culture change at scale Chairs and CEOs working through institutional trust challenges with employees and external stakeholders Public sector and government audiences engaged in community engagement and behaviour change Corporate leadership teams seeking a sharper frame on how to treat difference as a strategic asset Audience outcomes A clearer view of why institutional trust collapses with specific communities, and what kinds of leadership and engagement actually rebuild it Inside lessons on how government and large organisations make decisions when public confidence is fragile A sharper editorial frame for treating difference as a commercial asset across boards and executive teams Direct insight into what changes board composition in practice, drawn from work with hundreds of organisations through Inclusive Boards

Why organisations work with Sarah Willingham She has run the full arc of a hospitality business: founding The London Cocktail Club, taking Nightcap to AIM as its founder-CEO, acquiring four bar groups under it, and steering the group back into private ownership. That gives audiences a working perspective on growth, M&A and capital markets in one voice. Her acquisition record is concrete: London Cocktail Club, Adventure Bar Group, Barrio Familia and The Piano Works rolled into Nightcap inside two years. Buyers booking on M&A integration get a CEO who has done it on a public balance sheet. She brings an operator’s view of consumer demand, not a consultant’s. Bombay Bicycle Club went from six sites to seventeen under her, Cocktail Club from one site to ten, before either was sold or absorbed. She speaks with credibility on building through downturns. Nightcap was floated and grown through pandemic trading and the cost-of-living squeeze, then taken private when the public-market route stopped working. Few founder speakers have lived that decision in real time. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Nightcap PLC, the bar group behind The Cocktail Club, Adventure Bar Group, Barrio Familia and The Piano Works. Co-founder of The London Cocktail Club (2010), grown to ten sites before acquisition by Nightcap in January 2021. Acquired The Bombay Bicycle Club through The Clapham House Group in 2004, expanded it to seventeen sites, exited in 2007. Investor on BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den, Series 13 and 14, from 2015. Previously a judge on Raymond Blanc’s BBC Two series The Restaurant. MBA, Cranfield School of Management. Honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University, Cranfield University and Oxford Brookes University. Business Leader of the Year, Publican Awards 2023. Biography The London Cocktail Club opened a single site on Goodge Street in 2011. A decade later it sat at the centre of a listed bar group that had also bought Adventure Bar Group, Barrio Familia and The Piano Works. Sarah Willingham co-founded the original chain and, with her husband Michael, founded Nightcap PLC to roll it up. That arc is unusual. Most founders in hospitality build one concept and stop. Willingham has built, sold, listed and acquired across consumer brands for two decades, starting with the purchase of Bombay Bicycle Club through The Clapham House Group in 2004 and a profitable exit three years later. The Cranfield MBA and the honorary doctorates from Staffordshire, Cranfield and Oxford Brookes followed the operating record, not the other way round. Her public profile is anchored in BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den, where she invested through Series 13 and 14, and earlier in The Restaurant alongside Raymond Blanc. Inside the industry the credibility comes from running Nightcap as a listed CEO through pandemic trading, a cost-of-living squeeze, and the eventual decision to take the group private when the AIM listing stopped paying for itself. For audiences in growth, scale-up and consumer strategy, that record translates into specifics: how to evaluate an acquisition target, when to integrate and when to leave a brand alone, what listed life actually demands of a founder, and when to walk a company out of the public market. The 2023 Publican Awards Business Leader of the Year reflects the industry view of how she has handled it. Key speaking topics Founder-led scale-up Mergers, acquisitions and brand integration Hospitality and consumer growth strategy Listing, operating and delisting on AIM Investor decision-making and dealflow Building consumer brands through downturns Female founder leadership in consumer markets Ideal for Founder and CEO audiences in consumer, hospitality, retail and lifestyle Corporate M&A, integration and post-acquisition leadership teams Investor and private-equity events, family-office gatherings, scale-up programmes Women-in-business and female-founder networks at senior level Audience outcomes A working view of how a consumer business moves from one site, to a chain, to a listed group. Specific lessons from four hospitality acquisitions executed inside two years on a public balance sheet. A grounded perspective on what listing changes for a founder, and when to undo it. A direct read on investor decision-making, drawn from years on Dragons’ Den and on her own deals.

Why organisations work with Scott Dikkers A published method for generating creative output at volume, codified in the “How to Write Funny” series and tested over three decades of running The Onion newsroom. The founder’s view of how a $16,000 college newspaper became a national satirical brand worth multiples of that, with a defined argument about mission, culture and creative discipline drawn from “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Built and runs the “Writing with The Onion” programme at The Second City in Chicago, training comedy writers who have gone on to Emmy-winning television rooms, so the keynote sits on top of a working teaching practice. A practitioner’s perspective on creativity in the age of generative AI, framed around how human writers and editors keep brand voice intact when first drafts are cheap and originality is not. Biography highlights Founder of The Onion and TheOnion.com, the world’s first humour website. Longest-serving editor-in-chief of The Onion across two tenures (1988-1999 and 2005-2008) and former General Manager and VP of Creative Development. Number one New York Times bestselling author of “Our Dumb Century,” winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Author of more than 30 books, including the “How to Write Funny” series, “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Creator of the “Writing with The Onion” programme at The Second City training centre in Chicago. Syndicated cartoonist of “Jim’s Journal,” distributed to college newspapers across the United States from 1987 to 1997. Biography A satirical college newspaper bought for $16,000 in 1989 became one of the most recognisable brands in American media. The route from there to a national audience, a Peabody-winning news network and a publishing list that has sold millions of copies was not luck. It was a writers’ room run with unusual discipline, and Scott Dikkers ran it for most of its formative years. As editor-in-chief of The Onion across two tenures, and later as General Manager and VP of Creative Development, Dikkers built the editorial process that produced the headlines most readers can still quote. He launched TheOnion.com in 1996, the first humour website on the internet, and went on to edit “Our Dumb Century,” a number one New York Times bestseller that won the Thurber Prize for American Humor and has sold more than half a million copies. The argument behind his commercial work is set out in “How to Write Funny,” “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Comedy is not magic. It is a method, and brand voice is the operational output of that method. Dikkers codified the process at The Onion, then transferred it into the “Writing with The Onion” programme he created at The Second City training centre in Chicago, where his students have been hired into Emmy-winning television rooms. For corporate audiences, the relevance is direct. Generative AI has made first drafts trivial and originality scarce. Dikkers’ keynote takes the writers’ room discipline that built The Onion and applies it to creative output, brand voice and the question every marketing and product team is now asking: how do you keep what makes your work yours when the cost of imitation has collapsed. Key speaking topics Creativity as an operating discipline Brand voice and editorial culture Humour and storytelling in business communication Building a media brand from a standing start Creative leadership in the age of generative AI Media literacy and the reading of satire Mission-led culture in creative organisations Ideal for CMOs, brand and content leaders managing creative output at scale Innovation, R&D and product leadership teams working alongside generative AI tools Communications, internal comms and L&D leaders rebuilding storytelling capability Entrepreneurship programmes and founder audiences at universities and conferences Audience outcomes A working method for generating original creative material, drawn from the writers’ room that built The Onion A clearer language for what brand voice is and how it survives contact with AI-generated content A founder’s view of how a small editorial team scaled into a national media business without losing its identity A sharper test for distinguishing satire and credible information in a feed-driven media environment A reference set of named examples from three decades of Onion headlines that a team can take back into its own creative reviews

Why organisations work with Scott Galloway A working framework for how platform economics, network effects, and data accumulation concentrate value, drawn from a tenured marketing academic who has also built and sold technology companies inside the same system he analyses. Annual, falsifiable predictions on consumer, technology, and business trends that boards can stress-test against their own capital allocation, rather than abstract futurism. Direct reads on the AI cycle, including where investment is overpriced relative to operating value and where it is not, from a faculty member teaching brand and digital strategy at MBA level. A founder track record across nine companies, including the sale of L2 to Gartner, that grounds the strategic argument in commercial reality rather than commentary. Reach across The Prof G Pod, Pivot with Kara Swisher, and the No Mercy / No Malice newsletter that signals a leader who already shapes how senior audiences think about Big Tech. Biography highlights Professor of Marketing, NYU Stern School of Business; teaches Brand Strategy and Digital Marketing to second-year MBAs. Founder of nine companies including Prophet, RedEnvelope, L2 (sold to Gartner), and Section. New York Times bestselling author of The Four, The Algebra of Happiness, Post Corona, Adrift, and The Algebra of Wealth; books translated into 28 languages. Host of The Prof G Pod and co-host of Pivot with Kara Swisher; publisher of the No Mercy / No Malice newsletter. Board service: The New York Times Company, Urban Outfitters, Panera Bread, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Ledger. Named one of the world’s best business school professors by Poets & Quants; multiple Webby Award winner. Biography A small number of companies now capture a disproportionate share of consumer attention, transaction data, and equity value. The Four set out the mechanics of how Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Google did it, and the argument has only sharpened as AI consolidates around the same incumbents. Galloway treats this as a question of structural economics, not corporate behaviour, and that is the lens he brings to a boardroom. At NYU Stern, he holds a chair in marketing and teaches Brand Strategy and Digital Marketing to second-year MBAs. Poets & Quants has ranked him among the world’s best business professors. The academic position matters because it disciplines the work, but the operating experience is what makes the analysis useful to executives: nine companies founded, including Prophet, RedEnvelope, and L2, the digital intelligence firm acquired by Gartner in 2017. The published record runs from platform economics in The Four to capital and career frameworks in The Algebra of Wealth, with Post Corona and Adrift sitting between as reads on the post-2020 economy and the structural condition of the United States. Across The Prof G Pod, Pivot with Kara Swisher, and No Mercy / No Malice, he makes annual, data-led predictions on consumer, tech, and macro trends that leadership teams can test against their own planning. What distinguishes him in a room of senior buyers is the combination of categories he occupies at once: faculty member, founder, board director at The New York Times Company and Panera, and a public commentator with reach. That stack means the argument is not theoretical, not detached from operating reality, and not delivered with the hedging that usually accompanies academic input. Key speaking topics Big Tech and platform economics Artificial intelligence and the next concentration of value Brand strategy in a digital, winner-take-most economy Consumer and technology trend forecasting Entrepreneurship and company building Higher education and the future of work Capital, careers, and personal financial strategy Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting strategy in sectors exposed to platform incumbents CMOs, CSOs, and digital leaders rebuilding commercial models for a data-concentrated market Investor and capital allocation audiences seeking a structural read on tech and AI cycles Annual leadership offsites looking for a falsifiable trend forecast rather than generic futurism Audience outcomes A clearer view of where platform economics concentrate value and where they do not, applied to the audience’s own sector. Specific reads on the AI cycle, including which categories are overpriced and which are operationally credible. A set of annual predictions that can be stress-tested against the organisation’s planning assumptions. A sharper sense of what brand and customer strategy now have to do to remain defensible.

Why organisations work with Sebastian Thrun He has shipped autonomous AI at production scale. The Stanford team he led won the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005, and the Google self-driving project he co-founded became Waymo. He built the playbook that boards now ask about. Google X, founded under his leadership, codified moonshot methodology for capital-intensive technology bets. He has direct experience reskilling enterprise workforces in AI, data and cloud through Udacity, including programmes for IBM, Mercedes-Benz and Google before the 2024 acquisition by Accenture. He explains AI without dumbing it down. Senior audiences leave with a working sense of what current systems can and cannot do, and where the real operational risk sits. Biography highlights Co-founder of Google X and the Google self-driving car project that became Waymo Led the Stanford Racing Team whose vehicle Stanley won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge; Stanley now sits in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History Co-founder and chairman of Udacity, acquired by Accenture in 2024 to power the LearnVantage reskilling platform Co-founder and former CEO of Kitty Hawk, the eVTOL “flying car” company backed by Larry Page Member of the National Academy of Engineering and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina; Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award (Education, 2012) Co-author of Probabilistic Robotics (MIT Press), the standard graduate text on the mathematics behind autonomous systems Biography Stanley crossed the finish line of the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge after 132 miles of desert, the first autonomous vehicle to do so. The Stanford Racing Team that built it was led by Sebastian Thrun, then director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Stanley now sits in the Smithsonian. The technology grew into Waymo and the modern autonomous vehicle industry. That arc, from research lab to production AI, is what makes his perspective valuable to senior teams. He gave up tenure at Stanford to become a Google Fellow, co-founded Google X, and built the moonshot model that boards now reference when they talk about long-horizon technology bets. Probabilistic Robotics, the textbook he co-authored with Wolfram Burgard and Dieter Fox, remains the standard graduate reference in the field. The second half of his career addresses the constraint that most boards now feel acutely. Talent. Udacity, which he co-founded in 2012, built the Nanodegree model with employers including IBM, Mercedes-Benz and Google, then sold to Accenture in 2024 to anchor the LearnVantage reskilling platform. He also co-founded Kitty Hawk with Larry Page to commercialise eVTOL aircraft. Audiences get something specific from him. A clear read on what current AI systems do well, where they fail, what production deployment actually requires, and how to build a workforce that can operate the technology rather than admire it. Key speaking topics Production AI and autonomous systems Moonshot methodology and long-horizon technology bets AI workforce reskilling and the talent constraint The future of mobility and self-driving vehicles AI for the board and the executive committee Online learning and the economics of education Ideal for Boards and executive committees moving from AI strategy to operating deployment CHROs and CLOs commissioning enterprise reskilling at scale Automotive, mobility and industrial leadership teams facing autonomy CTOs and chief AI officers benchmarking moonshot and R&D portfolios Audience outcomes A working mental model of where current AI systems succeed and where they fail in production A concrete view of the workforce capability required to run AI inside a large organisation A read on how moonshot bets are structured, governed and shut down inside a serious technology company A clearer sense of where autonomy is heading in mobility, logistics and adjacent sectors

Why organisations work with SeenThroughGlass He brings a working creator’s audience instinct into the room. Brands get a host who has spent a decade testing what holds attention on a phone screen, not a presenter reading a script. Direct access to the supercar and motorsport world. His interview series Behind The Glass has put him opposite Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Max Chilton, which translates into credible panel chemistry with senior automotive guests. Proven commercial partnerships with Shell, Pirelli and Harman Kardon. He has worked inside major brand activations, not just commented on them. Recognised reach. Named in The Sunday Times Top 50 UK Influencers list, with cumulative video views in the tens of millions across an audience that car, lifestyle and luxury marketers spend heavily to reach. A founder’s view of the creator economy. He has built, monetised and scaled the channel himself, which lands well with marketing leadership trying to make sense of where their influencer spend actually goes. Biography highlights Founder of Seen Through Glass, an automotive YouTube channel launched in 2014 that reached 100,000 subscribers in its first year and has accumulated tens of millions of views. Named in The Sunday Times Top 50 UK Influencers. Host of Behind The Glass, a weekly automotive podcast and interview series featuring senior figures from motorsport and the supercar community. Brand collaborations with Shell, Pirelli and Harman Kardon. On-camera work with Formula 1 drivers including Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Max Chilton. Creator of Drive The World, a 2019 six-continent road trip series documenting global car culture. Biography Most car brands are still organised around the assumption that the buyer walks into a showroom. The buying decision now happens on a phone, mediated by a small group of creators whose audiences spend hours a week watching them drive, review and argue about cars. Sam Fane is one of them. He founded Seen Through Glass in 2014, after a stint in PR in Mayfair and early experiments shooting point-of-view footage on Google Glass. The channel reached 100,000 subscribers in its first year. A decade on, it has accumulated tens of millions of views across road trips, ownership videos, motorsport coverage and long-form interviews. His interview platform, Behind The Glass, has hosted Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Max Chilton, alongside dealers, designers and other figures inside the supercar economy. Brand work with Shell, Pirelli and Harman Kardon has put him on the commercial side of automotive content as well as the editorial side. The Sunday Times named him in its Top 50 UK Influencers list. For events, that combination matters in a practical way. Automotive, luxury and lifestyle brands often need a host who can interview a Formula 1 driver, moderate a panel of marketing leaders and hold an audience that has spent the day on its phones. Fane has done all three for a living for ten years. Key speaking topics Automotive content and the creator economy The supercar and luxury car market Building a media brand on YouTube Brand partnerships and influencer commerce Motorsport and Formula 1 culture Awards hosting and on-stage interviewing Ideal for Automotive OEMs, dealerships and aftermarket brands running customer or trade events Luxury, lifestyle and watch brand marketing leadership Motorsport and motoring industry awards CMOs and brand directors reviewing influencer and content strategy Audience outcomes A clearer view of how automotive buying attention has shifted from showroom to screen. A working sense of what makes a brand partnership land with a creator audience and what makes it fail. Direct, on-stage insight from a creator who has built a business on the platform marketers most often misunderstand. A confident, well-paced event with a host who is comfortable opposite senior automotive and motorsport figures.

Why organisations work with Seth Godin The permission marketing framework, first articulated in 1999, anticipated the mechanics now encoded in GDPR, email consent law, and the inbound marketing movement. Organisations working with Godin are drawing on the original source, not a derivative Purple Cow provides a genuinely testable argument: remarkability must be designed into the product or service from the outset, not applied as a marketing layer afterwards: a direct challenge to most organisations’ R&D and go-to-market sequencing His body of work spans 21 bestsellers over three decades with a consistent intellectual thread; buyers are not engaging with a single-thesis speaker, but with someone whose thinking has proved durable across multiple market cycles Inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame (2018), the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame (2013), and the Guerrilla Marketing Hall of Fame – the only person known to hold all three – giving him third-party validation across the full spectrum of marketing practice His daily blog, running for over 25 years without interruption, is itself a proof point for the compounding value of consistent, permission-based communication: a lived demonstration of the principle he teaches Biography highlights Author of 21 international bestsellers translated into 38+ languages, including Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, Tribes, Linchpin, This Is Marketing, and This Is Strategy (2024 National Bestseller) Originator of the «permission marketing» and «interruption marketing» frameworks (1999), now foundational to digital marketing, CRM practice, and consent regulation worldwide Founder of Yoyodyne, a pioneering permission-marketing company sold to Yahoo! in 1998; served as Yahoo!’s VP of Direct Marketing post-acquisition Inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame (AMA New York, 2018), the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame (2013), and the Guerrilla Marketing Hall of Fame MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business; BA in computer science and philosophy, Tufts University Founder of the altMBA, an intensive online leadership and decision-making workshop Five TED Talks; author of one of the most-read daily business blogs in the world Biography Seth Godin sold his first company, Yoyodyne, to Yahoo! in 1998 for $29.6 million. It was a permission marketing business: built around the then-contrarian argument that reaching people who had consented to hear from you was worth more than reaching vastly more people who had not. That argument is now the structural basis of email marketing, CRM, and data consent regulation across most markets. His 1999 book Permission Marketing named the framework and introduced its counterpart: interruption marketing, the logic of buying attention from people who did not want to give it. The book’s central claim – that anticipated, personal, relevant communication outperforms volume-based reach at every commercial stage – has proved more durable than most marketing theory of its era. HubSpot built a software category around a version of it. GDPR made it legally mandatory. The same structural argument runs through his subsequent work. Purple Cow made the case that a product worth noticing is the precondition for marketing worth running. Tribes reframed leadership as community-building rather than hierarchy. This Is Strategy, published in 2024 and a US National Bestseller, gives organisations a practical framework for distinguishing between long-term systems thinking and reactive planning. Each book refines the same underlying question: what does it actually take to earn the attention and trust of people who have a choice? He holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a degree in computer science and philosophy from Tufts University. Inducted into three marketing halls of fame and the author of 21 international bestsellers, Godin writes a daily blog that has run without interruption for over 25 years; a compounding body of public intellectual work that few business writers at any level have matched. Key speaking topics Permission-based marketing and opt-in engagement Market differentiation and the logic of remarkability Strategy, systems thinking, and long-term planning Tribe leadership and community-driven growth Creative practice and the discipline of shipping work The economics of attention in overcrowded markets Climate communication and collaborative action Ideal for CMOs and brand leadership teams rethinking acquisition and retention strategy CEOs and senior strategy leads pressure-testing their differentiation logic Founders and growth-stage leaders building category identity Boards and executive teams resetting planning frameworks in volatile conditions Audience outcomes A working understanding of the permission marketing framework and how it applies to current customer acquisition and retention strategy A testable argument for why remarkability must precede marketing investment, not follow it Practical framing for the difference between short-term attention tactics and long-term trust-building Exposure to the systems-thinking approach in This Is Strategy, useful for teams that confuse tactics with strategy A challenge to default assumptions about reach, volume, and interruption as commercial levers