Entrepreneurship speakers

Why organisations work with Sharmadean Reid She has built three businesses from scratch, WAH Nails, Beautystack and The Stack World, and raised venture capital as one of a small number of Black women globally to close a seven-figure seed round. Her work on the gender wealth gap is operational, not rhetorical: The Stack World is a paid community and financial education platform with over 20,000 members, not a campaign or content brand. Penguin Life published her first book, New Methods for Women, in June 2024, giving her a coherent and citable thesis on independence and economic agency that buyers can hand to their teams. She speaks from inside the founder experience that most corporate diversity programmes are trying to influence, with credibility on capital access, community building and brand creation that few other speakers in this category carry. UAL conferred an Honorary Fellowship at Central Saint Martins in 2024, recognising her contribution to creative entrepreneurship and community. Biography highlights Founder, The Stack World, a community and financial education platform with a global membership focused on women’s wealth building. Founder of Beautystack (2017), an image-based booking platform for beauty professionals that raised over £1m in seed funding in 2018. Founder of WAH Nails (2009), the Dalston-born salon that built a global cultural brand and a product line distributed through Boots. MBE for services to the nail and beauty industry, 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Author of New Methods for Women: A Manifesto for Independence, Penguin Life, 2024. Honorary Fellow, University of the Arts London, 2024; graduate of Central Saint Martins, BA Fashion Communication and Promotion. Biography Few women raise seven-figure seed rounds in the UK. Fewer Black women do. Sharmadean Reid did it in 2018 for Beautystack, the image-based booking platform she founded after a decade running WAH Nails, the Dalston salon that turned a youth-culture zine into a cult retail brand and a product line in Boots. That trajectory matters because it gives her something most speakers on women’s leadership do not have: lived experience of the operating constraints, from access to capital to brand building to customer acquisition, that determine whether women actually end up running and owning businesses at scale. Her work is rooted in commercial reality, not advocacy. The Stack World, which she founded in 2021, is the logical next step. It is a paid community and financial education platform with more than 20,000 members, designed to close the gender wealth gap through literacy, networks and collective investment rather than corporate sponsorship. The thesis is published: Penguin Life released her book, New Methods for Women: A Manifesto for Independence, in June 2024. Her credentials sit behind the argument, not in front of it. MBE in 2015 for services to the nail and beauty industry. Honorary Fellowship from University of the Arts London in 2024, conferred at her alma mater Central Saint Martins. For organisations serious about moving gender equity from policy into commercial outcome, she is the rare voice who can speak to founders, executives and policy audiences from the same body of work. Key speaking topics The gender wealth gap and women’s economic empowerment Entrepreneurship, founder journeys and raising venture capital Community as a commercial strategy Building and scaling consumer brands Closing the gender leadership gap Creative entrepreneurship and the creator economy Ideal for CHROs, DEI leads and chief sustainability officers translating gender commitments into measurable outcomes Founders, investors and venture teams focused on backing women-led businesses Marketing, brand and customer leaders building community-led growth models Boards and executive committees setting policy on women’s progression and supplier diversity Audience outcomes A clear-eyed account of what it takes to fund, build and scale a venture-backed business as a woman founder A working definition of the gender wealth gap, and the levers organisations can pull on it Concrete examples of community as a commercial mechanism, not a marketing layer A more honest internal language for discussing gender equity beyond pipeline metrics

Why organisations work with Shiza Shahid She has built a global non-profit alongside a Nobel laureate and a viral consumer brand from the ground up, which gives boards a credible voice on what purpose looks like inside a P&L rather than on a slide. Our Place put a specific commercial bet on multicultural cooking and on cookware made without PFAS, PTFE and PFOA. She can speak about how a values position becomes a product specification and a category position. Through NOW Ventures and her AngelList partnership, she has seen hundreds of early-stage decks from mission-led founders. She can tell a corporate audience which purpose-led strategies are creating real growth and which are positioning. Her arc from McKinsey analyst to non-profit CEO to consumer founder to seed investor gives her language that translates across the room, from a CFO to a brand lead to an innovation team. Biography highlights Co-founder and founding CEO of the Malala Fund, established in 2013 with Malala Yousafzai to advance girls’ education in Pakistan and across Africa. Co-founder and Co-CEO of Our Place, the direct-to-consumer kitchenware brand behind the Always Pan, launched in 2019. Founder of NOW Ventures, an early-stage fund launched in 2017 in partnership with AngelList, backing mission-driven technology startups. Author of Dinner at Our Place: Recipes for Gathering, published by HarperCollins in 2025 with eleven chefs and tastemakers. BA, Stanford University, graduated with University Distinction; former business analyst, McKinsey & Company, Dubai. Named to TIME’s 30 Under 30 People Changing the World and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs; honoured as a Tribeca Disruptive Innovator. Biography A teenage activist in Islamabad set up a summer camp for Malala Yousafzai and other Pakistani girls in 2009. Three years later, after Malala was shot, that camp became the foundation for the Malala Fund. Shiza Shahid was the founding CEO, working alongside Malala and her father Ziauddin to build a global organisation focused on girls’ education in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya and Sierra Leone. The Malala Fund was a lesson in scaling a mission. The Our Place chapter, which started in 2019 with husband Amir Tehrani and co-founder Zach Rosner, was a lesson in scaling a product. The brand bet that multicultural cooking and toxin-free cookware were a commercial proposition, not a niche, and the Always Pan answered that bet with a 30,000-person waitlist on release. NOW Ventures, launched in 2017 with AngelList, is the third lens. Shahid writes early cheques into mission-led founders in technology, with an explicit emphasis on women and diverse entrepreneurs. The fund gives her a constant view of which purpose-led businesses are converting into commercial substance, and which are still positioning. Her cookbook, Dinner at Our Place, published by HarperCollins in 2025, sits on top of that body of work. The recipes are written with eleven chefs and tastemakers, and the book is structured around hosting as a cultural act. It is the most concrete expression yet of the conviction that drives her companies: that culture, commerce and care are not separate categories. Key speaking topics Mission-driven entrepreneurship and scale Purpose as a commercial proposition Building a consumer brand from launch Women and diverse founders in early-stage tech Girls’ education and social impact Inclusive brand and product design Investing in technology for global challenges Ideal for CEOs and founders building purpose-led consumer brands and DTC businesses Chief marketing, chief brand and chief sustainability officers in consumer goods Corporate venture, innovation and ESG teams designing new mission-led ventures Women in leadership programmes, founder networks and philanthropy boards Audience outcomes A grounded view of how a mission becomes a product specification, a brand position and a category bet, not a marketing line. A clearer read on which purpose-led commercial strategies are creating growth and which are signalling. A working vocabulary for backing women and diverse founders in early-stage technology, from someone who writes cheques. A direct account of how a non-profit at global scale and a consumer brand at viral scale are built from the same founder discipline.

Why organisations work with Shontavia Johnson A working intellectual property lawyer who can speak plainly to founders, intrapreneurs, and content creators about what they actually own and how to defend it. Practical authority on inclusive entrepreneurship from inside a major US research university, not from a consultancy deck. She runs Clemson’s entrepreneurship and innovation function. A track record of turning an academic specialism (she was Drake Law School’s first Black woman to earn tenure and an endowed chair) into mainstream platforms: TIME, The Washington Post, NPR, SXSW, Smithsonian, TEDxAtlanta. An operator’s view of where inclusive innovation actually breaks down: access to capital, IP literacy, network sponsorship, and the gap between ideas and ownership. Aspen Institute Liberty Fellow and Fulbright Specialist to Uzbekistan, with experience translating IP and entrepreneurship frameworks across developed and emerging economies. Biography highlights Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Clemson University First African-American woman to receive full tenure and an endowed chair at Drake University Law School; former director of its Intellectual Property Law Center Liberty Fellow, Aspen Institute; member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network Fulbright Specialist to Uzbekistan Twice named one of the Top 40 Young Lawyers in the United States (American Bar Association and National Bar Association); Jackie Robinson Foundation 42 Under 40 Alumni Award Bylines and features in TIME, Fortune, Newsweek, The Washington Post, LA Times, U.S. News & World Report, CNN, NPR Biography Innovation conversations in large organisations tend to skip a step. They focus on culture and pipeline, then move to outputs and revenue, and rarely pause on the practical question in between: who owns the idea, and who is positioned to commercialise it. That is the gap Shontavia Johnson works in. She trained as an engineer, then as a lawyer, and holds a licence to practise patent law. At Drake University Law School she became the first African-American woman to receive full tenure and an endowed chair, and ran the Intellectual Property Law Center. She now serves as Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Clemson University, where she connects students, founders, corporates, and other universities into a working entrepreneurial system. Her public work argues that inclusive entrepreneurship is a commercial question before it is a values one. Through LVRG, a community for women of colour entrepreneurs, and earlier the Brand and Business Company, she has built education and ownership pathways for founders the venture system tends to underestimate. Her writing has appeared in TIME, Fortune, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report, and she has been interviewed across NPR, CNN, and the LA Times. The Aspen Institute named her a Liberty Fellow, placing her in its Global Leadership Network. The US State Department deployed her as a Fulbright Specialist to Uzbekistan to advise on intellectual property. Across both stages, the through-line is the same: original ideas only become advantage when the people generating them know how to protect and commercialise them. Key speaking topics Inclusive entrepreneurship and access to capital Intellectual property strategy for founders and creators Intrapreneurship and innovation inside large organisations Personal brand and idea ownership Entrepreneurship education and university-industry partnerships Diversity and innovation as a commercial argument Ideal for Innovation, R&D, and IP leadership teams Chief diversity and inclusion officers working on entrepreneurship, supplier diversity, and founder programmes University and corporate-venture leadership building entrepreneurial pipelines Conferences and audiences focused on inclusive growth, creator economies, and venture inclusion Audience outcomes A clearer view of where inclusive innovation breaks down operationally, not rhetorically Specific language for talking about intellectual property as a strategic asset for founders and intrapreneurs The commercial case for backing underestimated founders, with named programmes and mechanisms An applied framework for converting personal expertise and lived experience into ownable intellectual property and brand Permission and prompts to act on ideas already inside the organisation

Why organisations work with Simon Woodroffe He has founded and sold two category-defining hospitality brands, YO! Sushi, sold to Zensho Holdings for £494 million in 2023, and YOTEL, the compact airport hotel now operating internationally. The founder story is specific and verifiable: Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 1999, OBE in 2006, and a business built initially on extended supplier payment terms rather than venture capital. His appearance on the first series of Dragons’ Den gives him a recognisable profile with UK and Commonwealth audiences who grew up with the format. His career before entrepreneurship, stage design for major rock artists, extreme-sports TV production, gives his session a different register from the MBA-style founder speaker, more creative and more usable by brand and product audiences. His philanthropic work on prison rehabilitation with Make Justice Work adds a credible social-purpose thread for organisations running CSR or purpose-led events. Biography highlights Founder of YO! Sushi (1997), sold to Zensho Holdings for £494 million in 2023 Founder of YOTEL (2007); over 1,000 rooms across three countries by 2016 Appeared as an investor on the first series of BBC’s Dragons’ Den Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (1999); OBE (2006) for services to the hospitality industry Earlier career as theatre stagehand and stage designer for Rod Stewart, Jethro Tull and others Author of The Book of Yo! Biography YO! Sushi was the first conveyor-belt sushi brand in the UK, and for most of a generation it was the restaurant that taught British diners what the category was. Simon Woodroffe founded it in 1997 with extended supplier payment terms rather than investor capital, and spent the following decade turning it into a national brand before selling the controlling stake in 2003. In 2023 the business was sold to Zensho Holdings for £494 million. His second brand, YOTEL, launched in 2007, took the compact airline cabin as the template for airport hotel rooms at Gatwick and Heathrow and has since scaled internationally. The route into hospitality was unusual. Woodroffe left Marlborough College at sixteen with two O-levels and worked as a theatre stagehand before moving into stage design for rock artists, including Rod Stewart and Jethro Tull, and later into television work selling concert rights and producing extreme-sports programming. The creative and production experience shows up in how his hospitality brands are designed: the tableside call buttons and self-heating plates at YO! Sushi, the airline-cabin compression at YOTEL. Public recognition followed the commercial record. He was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 1999, appointed OBE in 2006 for services to the hospitality industry, and appeared as one of the original investors on the first series of Dragons’ Den. His book The Book of Yo! codified his operating philosophy for entrepreneurs. For founder, hospitality, retail and brand audiences, Woodroffe brings a relatively rare combination: two category-defining consumer brands, a creative-industries background that informs the product design, and a direct, unguarded speaking style shaped by years in front of audiences on and off camera. His continuing work on prison rehabilitation rounds out the profile for CSR-oriented events. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and building consumer brands from nothing Creativity and business-model innovation in hospitality Financing growth with limited capital Customer experience and brand design Reinvention across creative and commercial industries Purpose, rehabilitation and business as a force for good Ideal for Entrepreneur and founder-focused events, particularly in hospitality, retail and consumer brands Corporate innovation, marketing and customer-experience conferences Leadership and all-hands events needing a main-stage creative-business voice Awards dinners and after-dinner engagements looking for a recognisable UK entrepreneur with a Dragons’ Den profile Audience outcomes A founder’s operating account of how YO! Sushi and YOTEL were actually built and financed Reference points from two category-defining hospitality brands applicable to the audience’s own brand or innovation agenda A creative-industries view of customer experience and design that is different from a standard consulting frame Direct material for founder and leadership cohorts on risk, reinvention and brand longevity

Why organisations work with Steph McGovern Eight years as BBC Breakfast’s lead business presenter, with a reporting beat that covered more than 500 companies, gives her an interviewing range from FTSE chairs to first-time founders in the same morning. She co-hosts The Rest Is Money with Robert Peston, which means she is in weekly working contact with the macro and political stories shaping a CFO’s agenda, not reading them up the night before an event. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, with an apprenticeship background at Black and Decker, which lands credibly with industrial, manufacturing and skills-led audiences in a way most business presenters cannot match. Hosting record across Steph’s Packed Lunch, Have I Got News For You and Watchdog gives her the live-on-air composure to handle a room when a CEO goes off script or a Q and A turns combative. She is fluent in small business and consumer economics, useful when a client wants the keynote or the panel pitched at the supplier base, the franchisee network or the customer-facing workforce, not just the executive team. Biography highlights Lead business presenter, BBC Breakfast, 2011 to 2019. Host, Steph’s Packed Lunch, Channel 4, 2020 to 2023, more than 250 episodes. Co-host, The Rest Is Money podcast, with Robert Peston, Goalhanger Podcasts. Honorary Fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering, 2021. Honorary Doctorate, Teesside University, 2013. Debut crime novel Deadline, Pan Macmillan, 2025; judge, Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, since 2019. Recurring host, Have I Got News For You, BBC One, since 2017. Biography Most business communication fails at the same point. The numbers are correct, the strategy is sound, the slides are clean, and the audience that actually has to act on it has tuned out by slide three. Steph McGovern’s career has been built on the opposite move: taking a board-level commercial story and making it audible to the people whose buy-in determines whether it works. She spent eight years as BBC Breakfast’s lead business presenter, interviewing CEOs, regulators and small business owners on consecutive segments and treating them with the same scrutiny. After leaving the BBC in 2019, she launched Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4, a daily live programme that ran for more than 250 episodes between 2020 and 2023, with regular segments on the small business economy and the labour market. Her current platform is The Rest Is Money, the Goalhanger podcast she co-hosts with Robert Peston, which keeps her on the macro and political-economic beat week to week. Alongside that, she is a recurring host of Have I Got News For You and a sought-after conference moderator and awards host. Her debut crime novel, Deadline, was published by Pan Macmillan in 2025; she has judged Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year prize at Harrogate since 2019. The detail that buyers most often miss: she trained as an engineer. She was a young engineer for Britain at 19 on a Black and Decker apprenticeship, where she is credited with a six-figure annual saving on a single product line. The Royal Academy of Engineering elected her an Honorary Fellow in 2021 for her work championing vocational skills. That background is why industrial, manufacturing and skills-led clients book her for events that a generalist broadcaster could not credibly host. Key speaking topics Business and economic journalism Small businesses and the UK economy Consumer markets and personal finance Engineering, apprenticeships and vocational skills Conference hosting and panel moderation Awards hosting Media interview craft for executives Ideal for Annual conferences where the board wants the macro and commercial stories landed for a mixed-seniority audience. Industry awards, supplier conferences and franchisee events that need a host who can hold a live room and interview C-suite guests. Manufacturing, engineering and skills-sector audiences who respond to a presenter with a credible technical background. Internal leadership events where a CEO or CFO wants their strategy questioned in front of the room before it is rolled out. Audience outcomes A clearer read on the current macro and commercial backdrop, in language that connects to the audience’s day job rather than analyst notes. Sharper executive panels and Q&A sessions because the moderator is genuinely fluent in the subject matter. A renewed argument for investment in apprenticeships, vocational pathways and shop-floor capability, grounded in a presenter who lived it. A live event that holds energy through the unscripted moments, not just the keynote slot.

Why organisations work with Stephanie Akkaoui Hughes She brings the discipline of a long-term investor to the questions boards usually approach as innovation, strategy or M&A. The argument running through her work is that value compounds when capital, attention and design choices are aligned to long time horizons; few speakers can make that case from the operator, founder and investor seats at once. As Co-Founder and CEO of EdenMountain, she has built a marketplace around an entirely new asset class, Enterprise Non-Operating Rights, that lets companies monetise dormant intellectual property without taking on debt or diluting equity. This gives her examples of capital allocation that audiences have not heard from other speakers. Her thesis on innovation, set out in Architecting Interaction (BIS Publishers), translates directly into how she thinks about wealth and value: that lasting outcomes are produced by the contexts and structures you build around them, not by isolated brilliance. She works fluently across institutional and entrepreneurial audiences, from DHL, Guardian Glass, Saint Gobain, the European Commission and Dutch ministries on the corporate side, to the international value investing community at VALUEx and the World of Allocators. She speaks credibly to the behavioural side of long-term decisions: why patience, valuation discipline and time horizon are commercial advantages most organisations are structurally unable to use. Biography highlights Co-Founder and CEO of EdenMountain, the venture pioneering Enterprise Non-Operating Rights (ENORs) as a new asset class for monetising dormant intellectual property. Founder and CEO of AKKA Architects, the Amsterdam studio behind workplace and learning projects for DHL, Guardian Glass, Saint Gobain, the European Commission and several Dutch ministries. Author of Architecting Interaction: How to Innovate through Interactions (BIS Publishers, ISBN 9789463450478). Five years at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam under Rem Koolhaas before founding AKKA in 2012. Active speaker on the international value investing circuit, including VALUEx Switzerland, VALUEx Middle East and the World of Allocators community. Multiple TEDx talks, including TEDxBelfastWomen, TEDxYouth@HNLBilthoven and TEDxAmsterdamED. Biography Most organisations are structured to optimise the next twelve months. Most investors are structured to optimise the next quarter. The discipline of designing for value that compounds over decades, in capital, in organisations and in the contexts that produce both, is the territory Stephanie Akkaoui Hughes has been working in for over a decade. Her route to it is unusual. Trained at the American University of Beirut and then at Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, she spent five years inside one of the most intellectually demanding studios in global architecture before founding her own practice, AKKA Architects, in Amsterdam in 2012. AKKA designs workplaces, public buildings and learning spaces for clients including DHL, Guardian Glass, Saint Gobain, the European Commission and a range of Dutch ministries. Her book, Architecting Interaction: How to Innovate through Interactions, sets out the thesis that runs through everything she has built since. Lasting outcomes are produced by the contexts you design around them, not by isolated talent or one-off effort. The same instinct now drives her work as Co-Founder and CEO of EdenMountain, the venture she co-founded around Enterprise Non-Operating Rights, a new asset class that lets companies monetise dormant intellectual property without debt or dilution. That intersection of operator, founder and investor seats shapes how she speaks to senior audiences today: on long-term capital allocation, on decision-making under uncertainty, and on the behavioural and structural conditions that let value compound across cycles. She is an active voice in the international value investing community, including VALUEx Switzerland, VALUEx Middle East and the World of Allocators. Key speaking topics Long-term value investing and capital allocation Decision-making under uncertainty Building value that endures: designing organisations and portfolios for the long term New asset classes and the monetisation of dormant intellectual property Behaviour, bias and patience in long-term commercial decisions Architecting Interaction: innovation as a designable practice Entrepreneurial leadership across architecture, fintech and capital Ideal for CEOs, founders and boards wrestling with how to allocate capital and attention against decade-long time horizons rather than quarterly cycles. Heads of innovation, strategy and corporate development looking at dormant IP and underused assets as a potential source of growth without dilution. Investor and family office audiences interested in long-term, fundamentals-driven approaches to capital allocation and decision-making. CHROs and heads of workplace responsible for offices and ways of working that have to produce more than seat efficiency. Audience outcomes A direct account of how patience and valuation discipline operate as commercial advantages, drawn from her practice as a private investor and active member of the international value investing community. A working definition of innovation as a property of designed contexts and interactions, not a property of individual talent, with the four-stage method from her book to test against. A concrete example of capital structuring in practice, through EdenMountain and the ENOR asset class, that audiences will not have encountered elsewhere. A vocabulary that lets strategy, innovation, capital and workplace functions argue for the same long-term outcome in the same terms.

Why organisations work with Stephen Attenborough He built the commercial foundation of an entirely new industry. Joining Virgin Galactic as employee number one in 2004, he created the customer journey, pricing, brand and trust architecture for a product that did not yet fly. He has held a customer base for almost two decades through delay, accident and regulatory scrutiny. Roughly 700 to 800 future astronauts from more than 50 countries committed deposits before commercial flights began. That retention pattern is unusual outside luxury and is rare in deep tech. His financial-services background, more than 15 years at Gartmore Investment Management working with sophisticated and high-net-worth clients, sits underneath the customer model at Virgin Galactic. He understands how serious buyers commit to long-horizon decisions. He saw the company through its NYSE listing in 2019, the first public commercial human spaceflight company, and through Richard Branson’s flight on Unity 22 in 2021. He can speak credibly about scaling a frontier brand inside public-market scrutiny. He now sits inside the next wave of the industry, as Strategic Advisor and European Lead at Space Perspective and Trustee of Virgin Unite US. His perspective on the commercial second space age is current, not archival. Biography highlights First full-time employee of Virgin Galactic, recruited personally by Sir Richard Branson in 2004 Commercial Director and later Chief Customer Officer, Virgin Galactic, 2004 to 2022 Built and led the team responsible for sales, marketing, customer care, PR and communications for the company’s future astronaut programme Oversaw the commercial side of Virgin Galactic’s 2019 NYSE listing, the first public commercial human spaceflight company Strategic Advisor and European Lead, Space Perspective, from October 2023 Board Member and Trustee, Virgin Unite US; Advisory Board member, Space for Humanity Earlier career: more than 15 years in investment management at Gartmore Investment Management, London, in roles serving institutional and high-net-worth clients Biography The commercial foundation of a new industry rarely gets written down. When Sir Richard Branson recruited Stephen Attenborough as the first full-time employee of Virgin Galactic in 2004, there was no product, no flight history, no regulatory category and no customer base. There was a proposition: that private individuals would one day pay to leave the atmosphere. Eighteen years later, when he left the company in 2022, Virgin Galactic was a NYSE-listed business with a deposit-paying customer base across more than fifty countries, and its founder had flown. That arc is the heart of his speaking work. As Commercial Director and then Chief Customer Officer, he led sales, marketing, customer care and communications for the future astronaut programme. The customer task was unusual. Buyers were committing significant sums for an experience that had never been delivered, would arrive years later than expected, and would be examined in detail by media and regulators every step of the way. Holding a customer base through that pattern, without losing trust, is the commercial discipline he can speak to in detail. His earlier career sits underneath that work. More than fifteen years at Gartmore Investment Management in London gave him a long apprenticeship in how sophisticated clients commit capital and what they expect from the relationship. The skill set translated cleanly: long-horizon decisions, high information asymmetry, and the need for the seller to behave as a long-term partner rather than a transactional one. He remains active in the sector. As Strategic Advisor and European Lead at Space Perspective from October 2023, and as a Trustee of Virgin Unite US and Advisory Board member of Space for Humanity, he sits inside the commercial conversation about what the second space age becomes once the novelty fades and the operating questions begin. Key speaking topics The commercial second space age Building a customer base for a category that does not yet exist Brand and trust at the frontier of technology Customer experience for high-net-worth and long-horizon buyers Sustaining entrepreneurial culture through public listing and public scrutiny Frontier innovation as a commercial discipline The Virgin Galactic story, from employee one to NYSE Ideal for CMOs, CCOs and customer experience leaders in luxury, financial services and frontier technology categories Boards and executive teams building or scaling brand-led businesses in deep tech, climate tech and space Founders and commercial leaders selling long-horizon, high-trust products to demanding customers Innovation and strategy audiences working at the edge of a new market category Audience outcomes A practical view of how to build a customer base for a product that does not yet exist A frame for keeping customers committed through delay, setback and public scrutiny Specific lessons from the commercialisation of Virgin Galactic, including the move into public markets An informed view of where the commercial second space age is heading and what it means for adjacent industries A way of thinking about brand and trust as load-bearing commercial assets in frontier categories

Why organisations work with Steve Blank Co-creator of the Lean Startup methodology, the operating logic most corporate innovation programmes are now built on, taught by the person who designed it. His Lean LaunchPad curriculum became the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps, now the standard for commercialising research at the NSF, NIH and U.S. Department of Energy. Co-founder of Stanford’s Hacking for Defense programme and the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, with direct experience deploying innovation methodology inside the U.S. defence and intelligence community. Twenty-one years inside eight Silicon Valley startups, with four IPOs including E.piphany. He built what he teaches before he taught it. Named one of 12 Masters of Innovation by Harvard Business Review and listed on the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers. Biography highlights Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University. Author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, The Startup Owner’s Manual, and Hacking for Defense: Innovation Doctrine. May 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story, “Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything,” defined the field. Co-founder of Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation; served on the Defense Business Board and the U.S. Navy’s Science and Technology Advisory Board. Lean LaunchPad class taught at 75+ universities globally; Hacking for Defense at 70+, with more than 70 dual-use startups and over $350 million in follow-on funding. Eight Silicon Valley startups across 21 years, four IPOs, including E.piphany, Zilog, MIPS and SuperMac. Biography Startups search for a business model. Large companies execute one. Conflating the two is what makes most corporate innovation programmes underperform: they apply planning, forecasting and accountability tools designed for known businesses to activities that are inherently exploratory. Steve Blank’s argument, developed across two foundational books and a 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story, is that innovation has to be run as a managed discipline with its own operating logic. The Lean Startup methodology he co-created treats new ventures as a search process, where customer development, hypothesis testing and minimum viable products replace the business plan as the primary instrument of decision-making. His credibility on this is built from doing the work, not just teaching it. He spent 21 years inside eight Silicon Valley startups, four of which went public, including E.piphany. He then took the same methodology into the U.S. federal system: his Lean LaunchPad curriculum was adopted by the National Science Foundation as I-Corps, now the standard for commercialising research at the NSF, NIH and Department of Energy. His Hacking for Defense programme, co-founded at Stanford with Joe Felter and Peter Newell, has produced more than 70 dual-use startups and over $350 million in funding. He teaches at Stanford, Columbia and Berkeley, advises the Department of Defense, and co-founded Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Harvard Business Review has named him one of 12 Masters of Innovation; Thinkers50 ranked him among the global top 50. The reason corporate audiences book him is straightforward: he is one of very few people who has built innovation processes that work inside the most rigid bureaucracies in existence, and he can show a senior team how to do the same. Key speaking topics Lean Startup methodology Corporate innovation at scale Customer development and business model search Entrepreneurship Disruption and incumbent response Innovation inside government and defence Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and corporate venture leaders Boards and executive teams designing or resetting innovation programmes Government and defence leaders responsible for technology adoption and commercialisation Founders, scale-up CEOs and corporate accelerator leadership Audience outcomes A working distinction between executing a known business model and searching for a new one, with the implications for how each should be resourced, measured and led. The operating logic behind customer development, hypothesis testing and minimum viable products as decision-making instruments inside large organisations. Examples from the Lean LaunchPad, NSF I-Corps and Hacking for Defense programmes showing how the methodology has been deployed at federal scale. A diagnostic for why most corporate innovation programmes produce pilots and proofs-of-concept without commercial outcomes.

Why organisations work with Steve Faktor He works from a proprietary, named methodology, the 4C’s of Innovation™, developed inside Fortune 100 innovation programmes at American Express, Citi and MasterCard, not adapted from case studies of others’ work. His operating record is concrete. As head of the $50M Chairman’s Innovation Fund at American Express, he launched commercial products including Zync, LoyaltyEdge, and the Private Sales joint venture with Vente Privée. His 9 Corporate Personality Types™, the viral Forbes piece picked up by NPR, gives audiences a working tool for diagnosing why innovation initiatives die inside specific corporate cultures. He carries a 750,000-strong LinkedIn following from his status as one of the platform’s original 160 Influencers, alongside figures like Richard Branson. Buyers hiring him get a futurist whose calls are public and dated. The voice in Econovation, sharp and satirical, is the same voice on stage. Senior leaders get an honest read on innovation work without the consultant gloss. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of IdeaFaktory, the innovation incubator behind multiple $100M+ businesses for Fortune 100 brands, built on its proprietary 4C’s of Innovation™ process. Former Vice President of Growth and Innovation and Head of the $50M Chairman’s Innovation Fund at American Express, where he launched Zync, LoyaltyEdge and the Private Sales joint venture with Vente Privée. Former SVP of Innovation and Growth Ventures at Citigroup; senior strategy and innovation executive at MasterCard; former management consultant at Arthur Andersen. Author of Econovation: The Red, White, and Blue Pill for Arousing Innovation (Wiley, 2011). Forbes and Harvard Business Review contributor; one of LinkedIn’s original 160 Influencers, with a 750,000-strong executive following. Host of The Trendaddy show; media credits include The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Bloomberg Radio and MSNBC. Graduate of NYU Stern School of Business. Biography At American Express, the Chairman’s Innovation Fund came with a $50M budget and a brief to launch new businesses inside the company. Steve Faktor ran it. Out of that role came Zync, LoyaltyEdge and a Private Sales joint venture with Vente Privée. The same period produced the methodology he has since codified as the 4C’s of Innovation™: context, creativity, capabilities and culture. That methodology is the operating logic he now applies through IdeaFaktory, the innovation firm he founded after leaving AmEx. IdeaFaktory has helped Fortune 100 clients launch multiple $100M+ businesses by partnering with vetted startups and rebuilding their internal innovation programmes from the culture out. The ‘culture out’ part matters. His viral Forbes piece on the 9 Corporate Personality Types, picked up by NPR, came from watching innovation initiatives die at the hands of identifiable, predictable internal characters. Faktor’s second strand of work is futurist. Econovation (Wiley, 2011) argued that consumerism was ending and producerism was emerging, with economic value shifting to those who make rather than those who consume. As one of LinkedIn’s original 160 Influencers, with a 750,000-strong executive following and Forbes and Harvard Business Review columns, he has built more than a decade of dated, public predictions clients can audit. In a boardroom, both strands earn their seat. Senior teams get a working framework rooted in real product P&Ls, the AmEx ones with his name on them, not someone else’s case studies. They also get a voice that has been right enough, often enough, in public, that buyers can audit the work before they commission it. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and methodology Corporate-startup partnerships and commercialisation Growth strategy in financial services and consumer goods Futurism and trend forecasting Innovation culture and corporate change Business model innovation Digital commerce, payments and loyalty Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and Heads of Strategy in Fortune 500 firms whose innovation programmes have plateaued at pilot stage. Growth and commercial leadership teams in financial services, payments and consumer goods evaluating where to commit capital next. Boards and executive committees commissioning a candid, externally validated read on internal innovation capability. Founders and corporate venture teams looking for an operator’s view of how large enterprises actually make buying decisions. Audience outcomes A specific diagnostic for why their innovation programmes are stalling, anchored to the 4C’s of Innovation™. A working vocabulary for the cultural archetypes that block or enable change inside large organisations, drawn from the 9 Corporate Personality Types. A view of which trends in technology, economics and consumer behaviour are most likely to disrupt their P&L over the next five to ten years. A short list of the highest-leverage moves a senior team can make to convert innovation budget into commercial product launches.

Why organisations work with Steve Wozniak He is the only living engineer who designed both the Apple I and Apple II from scratch – making him the sole speaker who can give an unmediated, first-hand account of the technical and creative decisions that launched the personal computer industry, not a retelling of someone else’s story. His account of innovation is engineering-first, not strategy-first: the Apple II preceded the business plan, not the other way round. That distinction gives organisations a direct counterpoint to the assumption that great products are the output of structured innovation programmes. The National Medal of Technology (1985) and the Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment (2000) – awarded specifically for “single-handedly designing the first personal computer” – are among the most rigorously assessed technology honours in the United States, and are publicly verifiable by any due-diligence process. His three decades of direct involvement in technology education – from adopting a school district to co-founding Woz U in 2017 – extend his argument about curiosity-driven invention into how organisations build and develop technical talent, not just how they manage innovation strategy. His signature format is a moderated conversation, not a fixed keynote: organisations set the agenda, and Wozniak engages directly with the specific challenges the audience brings. The result is different from – and harder to replicate than – a pre-packaged talk. Biography highlights Sole engineer on the Apple I (1976) and Apple II (1977); listed as sole inventor on four Apple patents National Medal of Technology, 1985 – awarded by President Ronald Reagan, jointly with Steve Jobs, for the development and introduction of the personal computer ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, 1979; Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment, 2000; National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee, 2000 Computer History Museum Fellow, 1998 Author of iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon (W.W. Norton, 2006) – a New York Times bestselling autobiography BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley; co-founded Woz U in 2017, a postsecondary software engineering and technology training platform Founding sponsor of the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose and The Tech Interactive, Silicon Valley’s technology museum Biography The Apple II was built by one engineer, on his own time, because the problem interested him. Steve Wozniak had no brief, no product committee, and no market research – just an engineering puzzle he found compelling. That creative condition is what produced the personal computer industry, and it is what Wozniak has spent decades trying to explain and, through his education work, replicate. That engineering-first perspective sets his account apart from those who discuss innovation as a strategic discipline. The Apple II preceded the business, not the other way round. Its colour graphics, integrated keyboard, and floppy disk drive were engineering decisions, not market-research conclusions. The product that launched a global industry was a technical artefact made by a person who loved making things. That distinction matters to any organisation asking why its own innovation efforts consistently underperform. The recognition that followed has been rigorous and specific. Wozniak received the National Medal of Technology in 1985 – jointly with Steve Jobs, for the development and introduction of the personal computer – the highest honour for technological achievement awarded by the United States government. The ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award recognised his contributions in 1979. In 2000, the Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment cited him explicitly for designing the first personal computer and redirecting his work toward education. He holds four Apple patents and is a Fellow of the Computer History Museum. His commitment to education has been sustained and direct. He adopted the Los Gatos School District, co-founded Woz U in 2017 to expand access to software engineering training, and has taught computer literacy in classrooms. His autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon (W.W. Norton, 2006), was a New York Times bestseller. His BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley was completed years after Apple had already become a global company – a fact that says something about what he values and why. Key speaking topics Engineering-led innovation and market creation The founding of Apple Computer Entrepreneurial thinking inside large organisations The origins of the personal computer industry Robotics, AI, and automation Technology education and technical talent development Creative freedom and engineering culture Ideal for CEOs and board-level audiences examining why large-organisation innovation consistently underperforms relative to investment CTOs, Chief Innovation Officers, and engineering leadership teams seeking a primary-source perspective on invention rather than innovation methodology Corporate innovation programmes and R&D functions looking to ground strategy in engineering-first thinking Technology and digital transformation conferences requiring a speaker whose credibility is structural, not positional Audience outcomes A first-hand account of the technical decisions and working conditions that produced the Apple I and Apple II – the machines that defined personal computing A clearer understanding of why genuine invention tends to emerge from curiosity and freedom rather than process and planning cycles Practical perspective on what organisations can do – and stop doing – to allow engineering talent and technical curiosity to produce commercially significant results Insight into the relationship between education, hands-on technical skill, and the kind of innovation that creates new industries rather than improves existing ones Exposure to a model of entrepreneurship that began with engineering before it had a business – and what that sequence reveals about how lasting technology companies are actually built

Why organisations work with Susan HayesCulleton She holds the CFA charter and runs a financial-training practice with clients across Europe and the United States, so the economic read is grounded in capital-markets discipline, not punditry. She wrote the textbook that Irish students learn economics from twice. That same instinct for sequencing complex material into something a room can act on is what she brings to executive audiences. She presents “Taking Stock” on Newstalk, interviewing experts on the issues moving the world economy each week. The implication for buyers is current material, sourced from named guests, refreshed continuously. She sits on the boards of the Irish International Business Network and the Ireland Hong Kong Business Forum, which gives her a working view of cross-border trade flows that few keynote economists hold. She built #SavvyTeenAcademy and Active Peers AI alongside the speaking practice, which means the economic argument lands with someone who has actually run payroll, raised invoices and made a hire. Biography highlights CFA charterholder; MSc Executive Leadership; BSc Financial Maths and Economics; Diploma in Taxation. Co-author of “Positive Economics”, a market-leading Leaving Certificate economics textbook in Ireland. Author of “The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Financial Freedom” and “The Savvy Guide to Making More Money” (Penguin Ireland). Author of “Money Matters”, a financial literacy textbook sponsored by CFA Society Ireland and distributed to Irish secondary schools. Presenter of “Taking Stock” on Newstalk; host of Fantastic Female Fridays and the ESG and Tech Show. Managing Director, Hayes Culleton Group; Associate Lecturer, Ulster University; board roles with the Irish International Business Network and the Ireland Hong Kong Business Forum. Biography Most boardrooms do not have an economist in the room. They have a CFO with a P&L, a strategy lead with a deck, and a set of macro headlines none of them can confidently translate into a hiring decision or a hedge. Susan HayesCulleton works in that gap. The credentialing matters here. The CFA charter, the MSc Executive Leadership and the BSc Financial Maths and Economics are not decoration; they are the reason the read on rates, currency and capital flows hold up under questioning. The Hayes Culleton Group serves clients across Europe and the United States out of that same training discipline. The public work is what makes the material legible. “Positive Economics”, co-authored twice, is the textbook generations of Irish students sat the Leaving Certificate with. “Money Matters”, sponsored by CFA Society Ireland, went into every secondary school in the country. On Newstalk, “Taking Stock” runs each week with named guests on the issues moving the world economy. The instinct for sequencing technical content into something a non-specialist room can use is the through-line. She also runs businesses. #SavvyTeenAcademy places teenagers into corporate work experience programmes; Active Peers AI captures and diffuses tacit knowledge inside networks. Board seats with the Irish International Business Network and the Ireland Hong Kong Business Forum keep her close to the cross-border trade flows that most economists discuss only in the abstract. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook and macro forecasting Capital markets and investing for non-specialist audiences Cross-border trade, Ireland, UK and Asia-Pacific exposure ESG and sustainability in commercial decision-making Financial literacy and women in finance Entrepreneurship and scale-up economics Ideal for Boards, executive committees and CFOs are preparing capital allocation, hedging or pricing decisions against an uncertain macro backdrop. Banking, financial services and professional services audiences who want a working economist on the platform rather than a generalist commentator. Conferences hosting international trade, ESG, or financial literacy themes. Corporate audiences seeking a credible Irish or European economic voice for European, UK or US-facing programmes. Audience outcomes A clearer read on what the current macro signals mean for the specific decisions in front of the leadership team. Working vocabulary for capital-markets concepts (rates, currency, equity flows) that previously sat with the CFO alone. A view on cross-border exposure for organisations trading into Ireland, the UK, the EU or Asia-Pacific. Confidence to ask the next-level question of internal finance and risk teams. An economic argument paced for a mixed-seniority audience, not a specialist one.

Why organisations work with T. Harv Eker His core material is built from his own operating experience, including a retail fitness chain scaled to ten locations, a subsequent financial collapse, and a methodical rebuild; this is not theory cribbed from other authors. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind put his argument into mainstream circulation, a New York Times bestseller and number one on the Wall Street Journal business-book list, which gives audiences a common reference point before the session starts. His Money Blueprint framework translates abstract wealth mindset material into a concrete diagnostic that individuals can apply to their own decisions and habits. Peak Potentials Training, the company he founded, has run entrepreneurial and wealth-mindset programmes at scale for more than two decades, so the material has been refined in front of large, mixed audiences rather than a single executive room. He speaks directly to founders, owner-operators and ambitious individuals, which is a different audience to the corporate keynote circuit and a better fit for entrepreneurial and franchise events. Biography highlights Canadian-American entrepreneur, businessman and motivational speaker Author of the New York Times bestseller Secrets of the Millionaire Mind (HarperCollins, 2005), number one on the Wall Street Journal business-book list Founder of Peak Potentials Training, acquired by Success Resources in 2011 Developer of the Money Blueprint framework for understanding individual wealth behaviour Creator of the Millionaire Mind Intensive and related programmes delivered internationally Biography The practical question behind most wealth advice is why the same information produces very different outcomes for very different people. T. Harv Eker’s working answer is the Money Blueprint: a set of internalised beliefs, set early, that governs how someone earns, saves, invests and loses money. His career has been an extended test of that argument, first on himself and then in front of large rooms of entrepreneurs. He is Canadian-American, born in Toronto in 1954, and started working at thirteen. After more than a dozen unsuccessful businesses, he opened one of North America’s early retail fitness stores and scaled it to ten locations, selling part of the company to a Fortune 500 buyer. He then lost most of the proceeds within two years. The rebuild is the source of the framework: a deliberate study of the psychological patterns that separate people who make money from people who keep it. That work became Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, a New York Times bestseller and number one on the Wall Street Journal business-book list, and Peak Potentials Training, the seminar company he founded and later sold to Success Resources in 2011. The Millionaire Mind Intensive remains the flagship programme. Eker’s natural audience is entrepreneurs, business owners and individuals building financial independence, rather than corporate boards. For growth conferences, founder communities, franchise events and wealth-focused audiences, his draw is the combination of a directly applicable framework, a mainstream bestseller and an operator’s willingness to talk about the failures as well as the results. Key speaking topics Wealth psychology and the Money Blueprint Entrepreneurial mindset and personal finance Building and rebuilding businesses Habits of high-earning individuals Motivation, action and execution Ideal for Entrepreneurs, founders and owner-operators scaling or restarting a business Franchise networks, sales organisations and business-opportunity communities Growth-focused conferences and private wealth events After-dinner and headline slots where a direct, plain-spoken commercial voice is required Audience outcomes A working diagnostic of the beliefs driving their current earning and spending behaviour A concrete view of the habits shared by high-earning entrepreneurs, drawn from Eker’s own research and teaching Specific prompts for changing patterns that have previously capped income or business growth A direct, action-oriented call to implement, consistent with his operating style