Executive Development

Why organisations work with Andrew Bryant He authored the McGraw-Hill book that defined self-leadership for a generation of corporate practitioners, and his research has been cited in more than 200 academic papers and dissertations. His 2026 Wiley book Potential-ize introduces the IGNITE Framework, a six-element model for leaders who need to combine human judgement with AI capability rather than be displaced by it. He has coached senior leaders inside Singapore Airlines, Microsoft, SAP, Deutsche Bank, and Nokia, so the work is tested against real operating pressure, not a coaching practice that lives only in workshops. He carries the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the Professional Speakers Association of Australia and has chaired the speaker associations of both Singapore and Spain, which means executional reliability on stage is a known quantity. The President of Singapore has formally recognised his work twice, in 2018 and 2020, for self-leadership programmes that produced measurable outcomes with disadvantaged teenagers and women leaders. Biography highlights Founder of Self Leadership International, established 1999, with clients in over 40 countries. Co-author of Self-Leadership (McGraw-Hill, 2012) with Dr. Ana Lucia Kazan, a defining text in the field. Author of five books, including The New Leadership Playbook (2022) and Potential-ize: How Leaders Unlock Human Potential in the Age of AI (Wiley, 2026). Certified Speaking Professional, Professional Speakers Association of Australia, 2009. Past President of Asia Professional Speakers Singapore (2015 to 2016) and Professional Speakers Association Spain (2021 to 2023). Acknowledged twice by the President of Singapore, in 2018 and 2020, for community leadership programmes. Biography Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your own thinking, feeling and actions toward a defined objective. That definition, written by Andrew Bryant and Dr. Ana Lucia Kazan in their 2012 McGraw-Hill book, is now cited in more than 200 academic papers. It is also the operating idea behind a coaching and keynote practice that has run for more than twenty-five years. The argument is simple. Leaders who cannot regulate their own attention, energy and reactions cannot reliably lead anyone else through change. Bryant founded Self Leadership International in 1999 and built the methodology out of work with named global organisations, including Singapore Airlines, Microsoft, SAP, Deutsche Bank and Nokia. He came to the work as a physiotherapist to elite athletes, which is where the interest in performance under pressure began. The 2022 follow-up book, The New Leadership Playbook, translated the underlying research into twelve concrete leadership conversations that teams actually need to have. His 2026 Wiley book, Potential-ize: How Leaders Unlock Human Potential in the Age of AI, extends the work into the live boardroom question. The IGNITE Framework, six elements covering Inspire, Guide, Nurture, Integrate, Transform and Evaluate, is built for leaders who need to combine human judgement with AI capability without losing either. It is the same intellectual line, applied to the workforce conversation that buyers are having now. That upstream logic also anchors his work on workplace mental health: building the self-regulation that prevents burnout, rather than paying for wellness programmes after the damage is done. Bryant carries the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the Professional Speakers Association of Australia and has chaired the speaker associations of both Singapore and Spain. The President of Singapore acknowledged his community work formally in 2018 and again in 2020. The credentials are useful as proof of seriousness, but the more practical point for a buyer is that he is one of the very few speakers who can credibly claim to have shaped the leadership category he speaks on. Key speaking topics Self-leadership Leadership in the age of AI Executive presence and personal effectiveness Workplace mental health and resilience Psychological safety and high-performing teams Leading change and restructure Human potential and talent development Ideal for CEO, COO and senior leadership teams under pressure to deliver during restructure or AI adoption. CHROs and Heads of Leadership Development building self-leadership capability across mid and senior cohorts. Boards and executive committees commissioning offsites on resilience, composure and decision quality. Audience outcomes A working definition of self-leadership that leaders can apply to their own behaviour the next day, not just discuss in the abstract. The IGNITE Framework as a structured way to think about unlocking team potential alongside AI capability rather than against it. A direct view of how composure under pressure compounds into team performance and retention. Specific leadership conversations, drawn from the twelve plays in The New Leadership Playbook, that managers can run with their own teams. Named tools from Bryant’s Self-Leadership Resilience Stack, including the Evening Review and the View from Above, for regulating pressure before it compounds into burnout.

Why organisations work with Tim Henman The pressure he performed under was not generic high-stakes pressure. It was sustained, nationally televised, and deeply personal, with British tennis’s entire public narrative resting on each Wimbledon fortnight for nearly a decade. That specific form of high-visibility, high-expectation performance is directly legible to leaders who carry organisational reputation on their results. His record demonstrates competitive consistency rather than isolated peaks: six Grand Slam semi-finals across all four major surfaces, across two distinct periods of competitive form, while sustaining a top-10 ATP ranking across multiple seasons. The argument he makes about sustained performance is grounded in measurable, verifiable results. As an AELTC board member, he speaks from a position few sports speakers occupy; not only as a former competitor, but as an active participant in the governance of one of the world’s most scrutinised sporting institutions, with direct experience of its most consequential decisions. His 2020 captaincy of Great Britain at the inaugural ATP Cup provides specific, recent experience of leading a team of elite, independent individuals in a compressed, high-pressure competition: a format with obvious organisational parallels for senior leaders managing high-performing, high-ego teams. Two decades immersed in Wimbledon – as competitor, board member, and BBC commentator – means he speaks from the inside of a complex sporting and commercial operation across all its dimensions, not from match-day memory alone. Biography highlights Former ATP world No. 4 in men’s singles; British No. 1 continuously from 1999 to 2005 Six Grand Slam semi-finals: four at Wimbledon (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002), plus the French Open and US Open (both 2004) 11 ATP singles titles, including the 2003 Paris Masters (ATP Masters 1000); 4 ATP doubles titles (15 combined) Olympic silver medallist, men’s doubles, 1996 Atlanta Games (with Neil Broad) OBE, 2004 New Year Honours, for services to tennis Board member, All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), the governing body of Wimbledon BBC Wimbledon commentator and analyst since 2008 Great Britain captain, inaugural ATP Cup, Sydney, 2020 Founder, Tim Henman Foundation (education and health support for disadvantaged young people) Biography For a decade, every British summer began with the same question: would this be Tim Henman’s year? The weight of expectation he carried – sustained, public, and deeply personal – shaped him as a competitor in ways that resonate directly with leaders. As Britain’s world No. 4 and British No. 1 from 1999 to 2005, he performed year after year under conditions few professional athletes encounter and fewer corporate high-performers can imagine. His record spans six Grand Slam semi-finals across all four major surfaces: four at Wimbledon, and semi-final runs at both the French Open and US Open in 2004, the latter confirming a second competitive peak well into his career. His 2003 Paris Masters title, won with consecutive victories over three top-ten players, remains one of British tennis’s landmark single-tournament performances. That consistency, sustained across two distinct periods and multiple surfaces, is the foundation of what he brings to the platform. Since retiring in 2007, Henman has not stepped back from elite sport. He joined the board of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, contributing to institutional decisions, including the management of the 2020 cancellation and the transition to AI-assisted line-calling, from inside Wimbledon’s governance. He captained Great Britain at the inaugural ATP Cup in Sydney in 2020, leading a squad that included Andy Murray. He has been a BBC Wimbledon commentator since 2008, translating elite performance for broad audiences across more than fifteen competitive cycles. The Tim Henman Foundation, which he founded to support disadvantaged young people through education and health, reflects a commitment that stretches well beyond the results sheet. Key speaking topics Performing under pressure Competitive resilience and mental discipline Sustained high performance National representation and public expectation Team dynamics in high-stakes competition Athletic-to-leadership transition Preparation, focus, and decision-making under scrutiny Ideal for Senior leadership and executive conferences where competitive mindset, performance culture, and resilience under pressure are central themes Sales and commercial leadership events where the parallels between elite sport and high-stakes commercial performance are directly applicable Sports industry forums, Wimbledon-adjacent hospitality, and British-market events where his cultural profile adds immediate resonance HR and people leadership audiences exploring what sustained high performance looks like in practice, and how organisations can build environments that produce it Audience outcomes A first-person, evidence-grounded perspective on how elite performers maintain output under sustained, high-visibility pressure – not as a set of techniques, but as a practised, testable discipline Understanding of how competitive consistency is built over time: through preparation, surface adaptation, and the ability to perform across conditions rather than only in ideal circumstances Insight into the specific mental challenges of carrying high expectation: when it fuels performance, and when it becomes a liability Practical reflection on what the shift from individual competitor to team leader requires, drawing on experience as both a Davis Cup player and ATP Cup captain A perspective on elite sport that extends beyond the athlete’s experience into institutional governance, offering audiences a more complete picture of what world-class performance systems actually look like from the inside

Why organisations work with Léa Steinacker Her “Code Capital” framework, developed through her University of St. Gallen doctorate and published by Nomos Verlag, gives executive teams a structured way to analyse what is embedded in AI systems from design through deployment, something most AI governance conversations currently lack. Her peer-reviewed research covers specific, contested AI applications, including cross-national surveys of facial recognition acceptance published in Government Information Quarterly and Public Understanding of Science, which gives her arguments empirical grounding rather than assertion. Her 2024 book co-authored with Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel (Rowohlt Verlag) reached both the Spiegel and Manager Magazin bestseller rankings, evidence that her framing of AI’s organisational and societal consequences resonates with senior business audiences, not only specialist ones. As co-founder of ada Learning, which has equipped thousands of employees from DAX companies, SMEs, and governments with AI transformation skills, she has tested her frameworks inside major institutions at scale, not only described them from the outside. Board-level experience at Weleda AG and active leadership as CEO of GaiaLogic AG mean her perspective on AI governance comes from someone directly accountable for it, not only someone who analyses it. Biography highlights PhD from the University of St. Gallen; doctoral thesis “Code Capital” published as an academic monograph by Nomos Verlag (2022) Co-author with Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel of “Alles überall auf einmal” (Rowohlt Verlag, 2024), ranked on both the Spiegel and Manager Magazin bestseller lists; published in English as “Everything Everywhere All At Once: How Artificial Intelligence Impacts Our World” and in Korean CEO of GaiaLogic AG; co-founder and former Executive Chairwoman of ada Learning GmbH, which has equipped thousands of employees from DAX companies, SMEs, and governments with AI transformation skills Member of the Board of Directors of Weleda AG; former member of the AI Advisory Board of Ringier AG Lecturer at the University of St. Gallen, teaching “Social and Economic Impacts of Artificial Intelligence” Peer-reviewed publications in Government Information Quarterly, Electronic Markets, Public Understanding of Science, and Data and Policy (Cambridge Core) Degrees from Princeton University (A.B.), Harvard Kennedy School of Government (MPP), and the University of St. Gallen (PhD) Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe; Medium Magazine Top 30 Under 30 Journalists; BCG Thought Leader; Atlantik-Brücke Young Leader; Munich Young Leader (Munich Security Conference and Körber Stiftung); Henry Richardson Labouisse Prize, Princeton University Biography Organisations moving quickly on AI adoption are finding that their governance structures are not keeping pace. Boards are increasingly accountable for what AI systems do to their decisions and their people, yet most lack the analytical frameworks to evaluate it. Léa Steinacker has spent a decade building exactly those frameworks. Her doctoral research at the University of St. Gallen produced Code Capital, a sociotechnical framework for analysing AI systems from design through deployment. Published by Nomos Verlag in 2022, it gives leaders a structured way to identify what AI systems actually contain, from design assumptions to deployment risks. Her peer-reviewed work, covering facial recognition adoption across four countries and published in journals including Government Information Quarterly and Public Understanding of Science, brings empirical grounding to arguments that too often stay at the level of principle. Her 2024 book with Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel (Rowohlt Verlag) became an immediate Spiegel and Manager Magazin bestseller and was subsequently translated into English and Korean. It moved the question of what AI means for people, organisations, and societies from ethical debate into practical leadership conversation. She now carries that perspective directly into practice as CEO of GaiaLogic AG and as a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen. As a member of the Board of Directors of Weleda AG, her perspective on AI governance is shaped by institutional accountability, not only academic analysis. She co-founded ada Learning, which has equipped thousands of employees from DAX companies, governments, and civil society organisations with AI transformation skills. She holds degrees from Princeton University, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the University of St. Gallen. Key speaking topics AI governance and responsible deployment The societal and organisational implications of AI Code Capital and sociotechnical analysis of AI systems AI regulation and the European policy framework Workforce transformation and AI readiness Human-AI collaboration and decision-making AI and the future of knowledge work Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives evaluating AI governance and accountability structures Chief Technology Officers, Chief Digital Officers, and transformation leads navigating AI adoption Policy, legal, and compliance teams working on AI regulation and enterprise risk Senior HR and people leaders managing workforce readiness and AI-driven organisational change Audience outcomes A framework, grounded in the Code Capital model, for evaluating what AI systems do to organisations beyond their stated technical capabilities Clearer understanding of where AI governance risk accumulates before it becomes visible at board level Practical grounding in European AI regulation and what it means for organisational decision-making and liability A more precise vocabulary for asking the right questions about AI in leadership and governance contexts Greater clarity on how to structure workforce readiness initiatives that treat AI transformation as an organisational challenge, not only a skills one

Why organisations work with Philip Keil He brings the operating discipline of Crew Resource Management, the framework airlines use to prevent crew failure under pressure, into language a leadership team can actually apply on Monday morning. He has been the captain in command during a genuine in-flight emergency with nearly 200 passengers on board, so his content on composure and decision-making is grounded in a specific event, not a hypothetical. His books You are the pilot! and The inner compass give him a published position on intuition and self-leadership, which extends a keynote into a longer programme for executive development. He delivers in English and German at a senior corporate level across more than 20 countries, which suits multinational audiences without an interpreter compromise. He is an active TV aviation expert in Germany, which means he is fluent at explaining technical environments to non-technical audiences without losing the senior register. Biography highlights Qualified as a Lufthansa-trained airline pilot at 22, one of the youngest in Germany. Over 9,000 hours of commercial flying across four continents. Author of You are the pilot! (2019) and The inner compass (2022). Listed in Europe’s TOP 100 Excellent Keynote Speakers since 2017. Two-time nominee for the Red Fox Award, Germany’s Keynote Speaker of the Year (2019, 2020). Recurring aviation expert across ZDF, RTL, Pro 7, Sat.1, WELT, and ntv. Biography The aviation industry has spent four decades engineering away a single problem: capable people, working together, still making fatal decisions. The framework that emerged is called Crew Resource Management, and it is the operating discipline behind the modern cockpit. It assumes that a senior captain can be wrong, that a junior co-pilot must be heard, and that error must surface before it compounds. Philip Keil works inside that framework professionally. He qualified as an airline pilot at 22 after training at Lufthansa in Bremen, and has since logged more than 9,000 flying hours over four continents. On 24 February 2009 he was the captain in command when a routine flight with around 200 passengers became an emergency landing, an event he has used as the empirical anchor for his work on composure and decision-making ever since. His books extend the cockpit material into something more useful for a senior leader. You are the pilot! (2019) is a study in self-leadership and confidence under load. The inner compass (2022) addresses the role of intuition in high-stakes decisions, the part of judgement that does not appear on a spreadsheet. Both have given him a published intellectual position rather than a single-incident speaker hook. That position has been recognised commercially. Keil has been listed in Europe’s TOP 100 Excellent Keynote Speakers since 2017, was nominated as Germany’s Keynote Speaker of the Year in 2019 and 2020, and is the recurring aviation voice across the major German broadcasters. He works in English and German, which is what a multinational leadership audience actually needs. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Crew Resource Management for executive teams Error culture and accountability Self-leadership and composure Crisis communication and command Team coordination across hierarchy Ideal for Executive committees and boards facing high-consequence decisions under time pressure COOs, CHROs, and operational leaders rebuilding accountability and error reporting culture Leadership development programmes for newly appointed senior managers Safety-critical, regulated, or operationally complex industries (aviation, energy, manufacturing, healthcare, financial services) Audience outcomes A working vocabulary from Crew Resource Management that they can apply to their own leadership meetings A specific model for how to surface bad news up a hierarchy before it becomes a crisis A clearer view of what composure looks like as an operational skill, not a personality trait A repeatable approach to making the next decision when the information is incomplete

Why organisations work with Sally Penni She founded and chairs Women in the Law UK, the largest professional development network for women in the legal profession in the country, giving her firsthand evidence of what fair progression looks like when it is built as an institution rather than announced as a policy. Her authority on fair progression is grounded in active legal practice at Kenworthy’s Chambers, a Bencher position at Gray’s Inn, and appointment to the International Criminal Court list of counsel. The argument carries weight because the practitioner is real. Through the Talking Law podcast she has interviewed Lord Pannick KC, Jolyon Maugham KC, the Treasury Solicitor, and other figures at the top of the UK legal system, building a body of recorded conversation about leadership, culture, and reform inside one of the most conservative professions. Her board portfolio spans the Royal Exchange Theatre, Arawak Walton Housing Association, the Access to Justice Foundation, and a part-time judicial role at the Valuation Tribunal, so the perspective is informed by governance experience across cultural, housing, legal, and judicial settings. She was awarded an MBE specifically for diversity, social mobility, and law, a recognition of practical contribution rather than profile, and one that signals to senior buyers that the work has stood up to external scrutiny. Biography highlights Practising barrister at Kenworthy’s Chambers, Manchester, specialising in criminal, employment, public, and data protection law. Founder and chair of Women in the Law UK, the professional development organisation she established in 2012. MBE for services to diversity, social mobility, and law, Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020. Two honorary doctorates in law, from Manchester Metropolitan University (2022) and the University of Salford (2023). Bencher of Gray’s Inn. Appointed to the list of counsel for the International Criminal Court. Companion of the Chartered Management Institute (CCMI) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA); author of the Talking Law book series; TEDx speaker. Host of two podcasts, Talking Law and The Law and Guidance Podcast. Talking Law features senior UK legal figures including Lord Pannick KC and the Treasury Solicitor. Non-Executive Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre and Arawak Walton Housing Association; Trustee, Access to Justice Foundation; part-time judge, Valuation Tribunal for England. Biography The legal profession is one of the most credentialled and slowest-moving institutions in British public life. It is also one of the places where the gap between stated values and lived experience is most visible. Sally Penni MBE has spent her career working that gap from the inside, as a practising barrister, an institution-builder, and a public voice on what it takes to widen access to a closed profession. She practises at Kenworthy’s Chambers in Manchester across criminal, employment, public, and data protection law, and sits as a part-time judge on the Valuation Tribunal for England. She is a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and on the International Criminal Court list of counsel. The institutional standing matters because it is the basis on which the rest of the work is taken seriously inside the profession. In 2012 she founded Women in the Law UK, now the country’s largest professional network for women in legal practice. Her Talking Law podcast, and a second show, The Law and Guidance Podcast, have built a record of conversation with senior figures of the bar, including Lord Pannick KC and the Treasury Solicitor. Through the same network she has built a substantial body of work on women’s health at work, including menopause, and the legal duties employers carry. Outside the law she sits on boards across theatre, housing, and access to justice, including the Royal Exchange Theatre, Arawak Walton Housing Association, and the Access to Justice Foundation. That work has been recognised on its own terms. An MBE in 2020 for diversity, social mobility, and law, honorary doctorates in law from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2022 and the University of Salford in 2023, and appointment as a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute. The recognition points at one thing: a body of work that has changed institutions rather than commented on them, recorded in the Talking Law books drawn from the same conversations that built the podcast. Key speaking topics Values-based leadership Women in leadership and the legal profession Social mobility and access to the professions Mentorship and talent development Governance and board-level standards Wellbeing and resilience in professional careers Law, regulation, and the future of the legal profession Women’s health, menopause, and the law at work Ideal for General Counsel, Chief Legal Officers, and senior in-house legal teams setting standards on culture and how the firm develops its people Chief People Officers, CHROs, and heads of talent designing culture and progression strategy for professional and regulated workforces Boards, NEDs, and chairs reviewing governance standards on culture, social mobility, and access Senior partners and managing partners at law firms, chambers, and professional services firms Employers and people teams developing menopause and women’s-health policy under employment-law obligations Audience outcomes A clearer view of what values-based leadership requires when the organisation is regulated, conservative, and resistant to change Direct reference points from inside the legal profession on building durable institutions for under-represented talent A sharper standard for telling genuine culture change apart from communications Practical perspective on mentoring, sponsorship, and progression at senior levels A grounded view of employers’ legal duties around menopause and women’s health at work, from a practising barrister rather than a consultant

Why organisations work with Chris Hirst He has actually run a 10,000-person global P&L. The leadership argument comes from a CEO seat, not a research role. He took Grey London from underperformer to a business that tripled in size and quadrupled profit in five years, then took Havas from also-ran to second in Campaign Magazine’s global rankings in three. That is the exact operating story most boards are asking for. No Bullsh*t Leadership won UK Business Book of the Year, an independently awarded credential rather than self-published positioning. The argument now runs across three books, on leadership, change, and career, together selling more than 100,000 copies in seven languages. His content travels into operating environments because it was built for one. Recent clients include Google, PepsiCo, PwC, Deloitte, Nissan, and Warner Music Group. He gives leadership teams a shared language for the small, repeatable behaviours that determine whether change actually happens, not another model to put on a slide. Biography highlights Former Global CEO, Havas Creative Group, leading more than 10,000 people across more than 100 countries. Took Havas from also-ran to second in Campaign Magazine’s global network rankings in three years; shortlisted by Campaign as Global CEO of the Year, 2022. Former UK CEO of Grey London (WPP); the agency tripled in size and quadrupled profit during his tenure. Author of three books, No Bullsht Leadership (UK Business Book of the Year 2020), No Bullsht Change, and Indispensable (Pan Macmillan), together selling more than 100,000 copies in seven languages. Host of the No Bullsht Leadership podcast (with Intelligence Squared), more than 500,000 downloads, and founder of the No Bullsht Leadership Academy. Now a Fractional Chair and Non-Executive Director to scaling companies; graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford (Engineering Science) and Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. Biography Grey London was a struggling agency inside WPP when Chris Hirst took over as UK CEO. Five years later it had tripled in size and quadrupled profit. He then ran Havas Creative Group globally, more than 10,000 people across more than 100 countries, taking the network from also-ran to second in Campaign Magazine’s global rankings in three years. Campaign shortlisted him as Global CEO of the Year in 2022. That operating record is the foundation of his leadership work. No Bullsht Leadership, published by Profile Books in 2019, was named UK Business Book of the Year 2020. It argues that leadership is a small set of repeatable behaviours, not a personality type, and is written for people running things rather than studying them. The argument now runs across three books, No Bullsht Leadership, No Bullsht Change, and Indispensable, together selling more than 100,000 copies in seven languages. It also reaches a podcast made with Intelligence Squared, a monthly Management Today column, and the No Bullsht Leadership Academy. Organisations that have worked with him include Google, PepsiCo, PwC, Nissan, and Warner Music Group. He still runs businesses too, now as a Fractional Chair and Non-Executive Director to scaling companies. What he gives a serious audience is rare on the leadership circuit: a former Global CEO who reduces leadership to behaviours a team can use the same week. His own equation, Impact equals Clarity times Action, is the spine of it, tested across more than a decade of running businesses and a billion-dollar global P&L. Key speaking topics Practical leadership and decision-making Leading transformational change Building high-performing cultures Turnaround and growth leadership Leading teams through AI-driven change Executive presence and credibility The behaviours of effective CEOs Ideal for CEOs, CHROs and executive teams running through restructure or growth Senior leadership populations inside large organisations rebuilding culture High-potential leadership programmes and talent cohorts Boards and partner groups in professional services and agencies Audience outcomes A working definition of leadership stripped of jargon and slogans His core equation for impact, Clarity times Action, and what it means when either side falls to zero A way to read culture as the behaviour of leadership, not a values poster, and to spot a culture problem before it becomes a performance one The 40/70 rule for making decisions without waiting for complete information A direct, occasionally uncomfortable challenge to current leadership habits

Why organisations work with Nadira Tudor She moderates at the level of the World Economic Forum at Davos, IBC Amsterdam, GITEX Global Dubai and the Future Investment Initiative, which means clients commissioning her are buying the same on-stage standard those programmes demand. She runs Euronews’ Baku Bureau, anchoring and producing the network’s news output from the region, so her interviewing instincts are tested daily on live international news, not refreshed once a year on the speaker circuit. Her on-camera presenting for branded content is recognised at industry award level, including a Silver Telly Award for the Shell “Decarbonisation: From What to How” interview series with ReutersPlus and a Bronze Award for IDA Ireland’s film on the country’s semiconductors cluster, with regular further work for the Financial Times, ITN Business and Business Reporter. She trains military and government communicators, including NATO, UK MOD and the Royal Navy, which sharpens her judgement on stage when conversations turn to security, geopolitics or regulated industries. Her academic seat at Cardiff JOMEC and her master’s in intercultural communication from Birkbeck give her a working theory of cross-cultural audience response, which matters for global summits where the audience is not a single market. Biography highlights Bureau Chief, Baku, for Euronews, running the bureau and its sponsored programmes hub with editorial responsibility for the full news output. Broadcast career across BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra, BBC 5 Live, BBC News, BBC Wales and BBC Asian Network, with a further spell at BBC News and Programmes (2023 to 2025), launch-team roles at News UK across Times Radio and TalkTV (2020 to 2023), and international experience at ITN, Channel 5 and Al Arabiya English. Award-winning ReutersPlus branded-content presenter: Silver Telly Award (Shell “Decarbonisation: From What to How” interview series) and Bronze Award (IDA Ireland semiconductors film). Regular further branded-content work for the Financial Times, ITN Business and Business Reporter. Visiting Lecturer at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC); master’s in Intercultural Communication for Business and Professions, Birkbeck, University of London. Moderation credits include the World Economic Forum (Davos 2023 and 2024), GITEX Global Dubai, GITEX Africa, IBC Amsterdam, Future Investment Initiative, GMIS and T20. Communications training for NATO, UK MOD, the Royal Navy and the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps; 2015 Asian Professional Award for Media and BBC Innovation Award. Biography Most leadership content fails on stage long before the strategy fails in the market. The interview misfires, the panel drifts, the senior voice in the room sounds defensive, and the audience remembers the discomfort, not the message. The person holding the microphone decides whether that happens. Her current post is Bureau Chief in Baku for Euronews, where she runs the bureau and its sponsored programmes hub, anchors and produces key programmes for the region, and is responsible for the full news output. She came up through the BBC across Radio 4, Radio 1 and 1Xtra, 5 Live, News, Wales and the Asian Network, with a further spell at BBC News and Programmes from 2023 to 2025, and was part of the launch teams for both Times Radio and TalkTV at News UK between 2020 and 2023. International newsroom experience runs through ITN, Channel 5 and Al Arabiya English. She moderates at the most senior end of the global conference circuit, including the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2023 and 2024, IBC Amsterdam, GITEX Global, the Future Investment Initiative, the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit and the T20. The same craft underpins her communications training for NATO, the UK MOD, the Royal Navy and the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, where leadership communication is a security issue, not a presentation skill. The intellectual underpinning is her master’s in Intercultural Communication for Business and Professions from Birkbeck, University of London, and a Visiting Lecturer seat at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture. She also fronts award-winning branded content for ReutersPlus, the Financial Times, ITN Business and Business Reporter, with a Silver Telly Award for the Shell “Decarbonisation: From What to How” interview series and a Bronze Award for IDA Ireland’s film on the country’s semiconductors cluster. The 2015 Asian Professional Award for Media and an earlier BBC Innovation Award round out a record that rests on disciplined interviewing more than on stage presence. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and on-stage interviewing Executive communication for senior leaders Crisis and reputation communication Media and on-camera training Intercultural communication in global organisations Awards and gala hosting Panel and debate facilitation Ideal for Chief Communications Officers and Heads of Corporate Affairs commissioning a senior moderator for global summits, leadership offsites or investor days. Heads of Internal Communications running CEO town halls, all-hands and quarterly leadership broadcasts. Event directors at industry conferences who need an interviewer who can carry a multi-track programme across sectors in a single day. Public sector and defence communications leads briefing senior teams on media engagement under scrutiny. Audience outcomes A live demonstration of how a sharp interviewer turns a panel from a sequence of statements into a substantive conversation. Practical handles for senior leaders on how to answer hard questions on stage without retreating into corporate language. A clearer view of how cultural and audience context changes what counts as a strong answer, drawn from her global moderation work. For internal communications teams, a working sense of what good looks like when the CEO is in front of the room.

Why organisations work with Phillippa Mole She brings the practical content of executive presence into the room: how leaders hold themselves in a pitch, a board meeting, or a difficult conversation, taught as craft rather than as personality. Her coaching combines elite-sport performance psychology with certified executive coaching credentials, including Association for Coaching Master Executive Coach and ICF PCC accreditation, giving the work a defensible technical base. She is the first UK qualified practitioner of Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories techniques for post-traumatic stress, which gives her unusual range when working with leaders carrying real career or personal load. Her broadcast background, including BBC and GMTV presenting, sharpens the work on how senior people communicate when the stakes and the camera are both live. Clients have included Deloitte, Dell, Sandtoft and Wienerberger, with applications spanning bid pitches, capital raises and senior team development. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Fresh Air Coaching, established 2007. Master Executive Coach (Association for Coaching) and ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC). NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer; first UK practitioner certified in Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories for PTSS. MSc Sport Science and Performance Psychology, Loughborough University. Former lecturer in Performance Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University. Former BBC and GMTV network broadcaster and Sunday Telegraph columnist. Biography Composure is rarely the line item in a leadership development plan, but it is what senior people are actually judged on when the room turns difficult. Phillippa Mole’s coaching practice is built around that observation. Fresh Air Coaching, the firm she founded in 2007, works with senior leaders and teams on the behavioural mechanics of presence, influence and decision-making under pressure. The technical base is unusual. She holds an MSc in Sport Science and Performance Psychology from Loughborough and lectured in performance psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University before moving into executive coaching full time. Her certifications run from Association for Coaching Master Executive Coach to ICF PCC, with NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer status alongside. She is named as the first UK practitioner certified in Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories techniques for post-traumatic stress, which extends her range into work that touches genuine personal load. Before coaching, she competed in sprint hurdles for the South of England and represented Great Britain in bobsleigh, then spent years in front of a camera as a network broadcaster for the BBC and GMTV, including coverage of the Commonwealth Games, and as a Sunday Telegraph columnist. That background informs the way she teaches presence: the work is granular and physical, closer to a directing note than a leadership homily. Named clients include Deloitte, Dell, Sandtoft and Wienerberger, with engagements on bid pitches, capital raising and senior team performance. Buyers describe her as a “secret weapon” in those high-stakes settings, language that reflects what the work actually does, which is to make a small set of senior people materially better at the moments their reputation rests on. Key speaking topics Executive presence and influence Self-leadership under pressure Emotional intelligence in senior teams Performance psychology applied to business Communication and persuasion craft Resilience and recovery for senior leaders Ideal for CEOs, managing partners and board members preparing for high-stakes pitches, capital raises or contested set-pieces Senior leadership teams investing in presence, influence and team performance ahead of restructure or growth Newly promoted executives stepping into roles where credibility is judged in moments rather than over months HR directors and L&D leads commissioning behavioural development for the top layer rather than generic wellbeing content Audience outcomes A clearer, behaviourally specific picture of what executive presence is and how to build it Practical methods for holding composure in pitches, boardrooms and difficult conversations A working model for using emotional intelligence to read a room and shift a dynamic in real time Language for naming and addressing the pressure points that quietly reduce senior performance Renewed personal confidence in the moments where reputation is actually decided

Why organisations work with George Nagle He built his innovation method inside oil and gas water chemistry, one of the most conservative industrial sectors there is, and used it to launch 19 products in 14 months across a portfolio worth more than $352 million. His Breakthrough Thinking series gives leadership teams a named, codified methodology to use after the keynote, not a set of slogans to remember. He is a certified FORTH method instructor with black and green belt credentials in Innovation and Growth Systems, Green Belt for Growth, and Value Innovations. The toolset is academically accredited, not invented for the stage. He has applied the same approach across more than 24 industries, which makes him a credible voice for boards and executive teams that want innovation discipline transferred into their context, not borrowed from a single sector. Biography highlights Former global executive and strategy lead at a multi-billion-dollar industrial services company, with portfolio responsibility above $352 million. Launched 19 products in 14 months in the oil and gas water chemistry sector. Founder of The Ideation Emporium of Creativity, LLC, and author of the Breakthrough Thinking series. MS in Biology and MBA in Marketing and Management from Duquesne University; BS in Biology with honours from the University of Pittsburgh. Certified online instructor in the FORTH method; black belt and multiple green belt certifications in academically accredited innovation systems. Published interviews with Authority Magazine on communication, attention, and creative habits. Biography Innovation in heavy industry is hard for a reason. The cultures are engineered for safety, repeatability, and risk avoidance, which are exactly the traits that make new ideas die quietly in a meeting. George Nagle spent his executive career inside that environment, in oil and gas water chemistry, and built a method to move past it. As a global executive, he carried a portfolio of more than $352 million and led the launch of 19 products in 14 months in a sector where most launches take years. That operating record sits behind everything else he does. He went on to found The Ideation Emporium of Creativity, codifying the approach into the Breakthrough Thinking series, including “The Five Letter F Word”, “Miserable At Work? Why? You Don’t Have To Be”, and “How Are Kids Innovating Faster Than You?”. His credentials are unusual for an innovation speaker. He holds an MS in Biology and an MBA from Duquesne University, a BS in Biology with honours from the University of Pittsburgh, and academically accredited certifications in Innovation and Growth Systems, Green Belt for Growth, and Value Innovations. He is also a certified FORTH method instructor. The toolkit is borrowed, tested, and labelled, not improvised. What distinguishes him is the breadth of application: more than 24 industries have used the same set of ideation tools, from industrial chemistry to consumer-facing services. For leadership teams that want innovation treated as a managed discipline rather than a creative-culture initiative, that record makes him a practical voice. Key speaking topics Innovation as a managed discipline Creative ideation and the FORTH method Commercial product launch under operating constraint Strategy communication across organisational levels Breakthrough Thinking methodology Workplace engagement and creative culture Ideal for Chief innovation officers, R&D leaders, and product portfolio executives looking to convert pilots into shipped revenue CEOs and executive teams in mature, process-heavy industries trying to install repeatable ideation Strategy and transformation leads responsible for cross-functional innovation programmes Senior HR and culture leaders pairing innovation capability with employee engagement work Audience outcomes A named, repeatable ideation method audiences can put into a project the next week A clearer view of why innovation efforts stall in conservative organisations and which mechanisms unblock them Specific tools for separating real strategic priorities from organisational noise Practical examples of how a structured innovation cadence produced 19 product launches in 14 months Language for connecting creativity, engagement, and commercial outcomes in a single business case

Why organisations work with Jacqueline Carter Four named books from Harvard Business Review Press and Palgrave (One Second Ahead, The Mind of the Leader, Compassionate Leadership, More Human) that give a board or executive team a shared language for the human side of leadership. One of the few people answering “how do I lead people in the age of AI?” from a leadership-science lens rather than a technology one. Her 2025 book More Human treats people and AI as complementary forces, and shows leaders where to deploy the technology and where the decision has to stay human. A research base built from interviews with more than a hundred CEOs and 360-degree surveys of leaders worldwide, conducted through Potential Project. Her arguments come with evidence, not anecdote. A framework, “wise compassion”, that gives leaders a usable answer to the empathy-versus-results tension most senior teams are stuck on. Twenty years of consulting at Deloitte and Potential Project with named clients including Cisco, Disney, Accenture, IKEA, and Royal Bank of Canada, so she speaks to executives in the language of operational reality, not theory. Biography highlights Senior Partner and North America Director, Potential Project. Co-author, More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025). Co-author, Compassionate Leadership (HBR Press, 2022) and The Mind of the Leader (HBR Press, 2018). Co-author, One Second Ahead (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). MSc in Organizational Behaviour; former leader in Deloitte Consulting’s Change Leadership practice. Regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company, and Business Insider. Biography The most senior leaders in large organisations are being asked to do contradictory things at once: cut hard, care visibly, deploy AI fast, and keep the workforce engaged through the disruption it causes. Most leadership advice picks one side of that tension and ignores the other. Jacqueline Carter’s work, built over two decades at Potential Project and Deloitte before that, is about holding both. Her four books with Harvard Business Review Press and Palgrave map the same argument across different terrain. The Mind of the Leader (2018) sets out the foundation: mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion as practical leadership disciplines. Compassionate Leadership (2022) names the operating problem most senior leaders run into when they try to lead with empathy, namely that empathy alone makes them indecisive, and proposes “wise compassion” as the working alternative. More Human (2025) turns the same lens on AI, arguing that the technology amplifies whichever leadership instinct is already there. The research base is unusual for a leadership speaker. Potential Project’s work draws on interviews with more than a hundred CEOs and 360-degree surveys of leaders and employees across industries. That gives Carter the evidence to make specific claims about what produces trust, candour, and performance in senior teams, rather than the generic motivational frame most leadership keynotes default to. She writes regularly for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company, and Business Insider, and has worked with executive teams at Cisco, Disney, Accenture, IKEA, Kimberly-Clark, and Royal Bank of Canada. The thread running through all of it is a single argument senior buyers will recognise immediately: the human qualities most leaders treat as soft are the ones that actually scale under pressure. Key speaking topics Compassionate leadership and the empathy-versus-results tension Human leadership in the age of AI Leading through change, restructure, and uncertainty Self-leadership and resilience for senior executives Hybrid and virtual team leadership Difficult conversations and leadership candour Mindfulness and attention as leadership disciplines Ideal for CEOs and executive committees rebuilding leadership culture after restructure or rapid growth. CHROs and CLOs designing senior leadership development programmes. Boards and senior teams working out how to deploy AI without losing the workforce. Partner groups and senior leaders in professional services managing client and team pressure simultaneously. Audience outcomes A working definition of “wise compassion” that senior leaders can use the next day in difficult conversations. A clearer view of where their own leadership defaults toward avoidance, false toughness, or performative care. A practical frame for using AI to extend leadership capacity rather than substitute for it. Specific language for the trade-offs between speed, candour, and care that most executive teams struggle to name. A research-backed counter to the assumption that human-centred leadership is incompatible with hard performance.

Why organisations work with Rasmus Hougaard He runs one of the largest applied research programmes on senior leadership behaviour, with data on more than 75,000 leaders in over 100 countries through Potential Project, which gives his content a defensibility most leadership speakers cannot match. Three Harvard Business Review Press books form a single argument, mindfulness, compassion, and AI-augmented leadership, which means a client can build a multi-year leadership curriculum around one coherent thesis rather than a single talk. His “compassionate leadership” framework gives executives a usable language for difficult conversations, restructures, and performance decisions, which is exactly the territory where senior people most often damage their credibility. Potential Project has long-running operating relationships with Microsoft, Accenture, IKEA, Cisco, Nike, Roche, and others, so the content has been pressure-tested inside large complex organisations, not just on the conference circuit. Thinkers50 shortlisting for the Leadership Award places him in the small set of leadership thinkers whose work is taken seriously by senior HR and people-development functions globally. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Director of Potential Project, a global leadership development and research firm working with Microsoft, Accenture, IKEA, Cisco, Nike, Roche, Google, and Sony among others. Co-author of three Harvard Business Review Press books: “The Mind of the Leader”, “Compassionate Leadership”, and “More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead”. Shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Leadership Award and named by Thinkers50 among the most important emerging leadership thinkers. Regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune, and Business Insider. Research base of more than 75,000 leaders across 100+ countries underpins his frameworks and talks. Has delivered more than 1,500 keynotes and workshops to senior leadership audiences globally. Biography Most leadership development goes wrong at the same point. It treats the hard part of leadership, the decision that will upset someone, the conversation the leader has been avoiding, the moment of public pressure, as a communications problem. Potential Project, the firm Rasmus Hougaard founded and runs as Managing Director, has spent more than a decade arguing that it is an inner-discipline problem, and producing the research to show it. The argument runs through three Harvard Business Review Press books written with Jacqueline Carter. “The Mind of the Leader” drew on data from around 35,000 senior leaders to identify the mental qualities that distinguish those whose organisations actually follow them. “Compassionate Leadership” reframed the executive’s most uncomfortable moments, performance conversations, redundancies, restructure announcements, as a question of how to be honest without becoming cold. “More Human”, published by HBR Press in 2025, takes the same lens to AI and asks what leaders should do more of, not less, as machines take on more of the work. Potential Project’s client list, Microsoft, Accenture, IKEA, Cisco, Nike, Roche, Google, Sony, and others, gives the work an operating substance that pure-academic leadership thinkers rarely match. The firm’s research spans more than 75,000 leaders across 100 countries. Thinkers50 has shortlisted him for its Leadership Award and listed him among the most important emerging leadership thinkers globally, and he contributes regularly to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune, and Business Insider. For a senior people function under pressure to make leadership development do real work in a fatigued organisation, the value is in the through-line. One firm, one body of evidence, one argument about what serious leadership requires in 2026, and a deep enough catalogue to anchor a multi-year programme rather than a single keynote. Key speaking topics Compassionate leadership and difficult conversations AI-augmented leadership Mindful leadership and executive composure Senior leadership development at scale Leading hybrid and distributed teams Culture and trust inside large organisations Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers redesigning senior leadership programmes Executive committees facing restructure, redundancy, or post-acquisition integration Boards and CEOs sponsoring AI rollouts where leadership behaviour, not technology, is the bottleneck Heads of leadership development and learning at global enterprises Audience outcomes A defensible model for handling the conversations leaders most often avoid Concrete practices for sustaining composure and judgement under sustained pressure A clearer view of where AI should and should not replace human leadership work Language to describe what “good leadership” actually looks like in their organisation, grounded in research rather than slogans Reference points from a peer set of global enterprises that have implemented the work

Why organisations work with Marissa Afton She brings a published, board-ready framework for compassion paired with difficult action, set out in Compassionate Leadership (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), not a generic wellbeing message. She works at the inside edge of what leaders actually face right now: how to communicate restructure, layoff and AI-driven role change in a way that retains the people who stay. Her client base spans Apple, Bloomberg, Cisco, Google, Eli Lilly and Amgen, so her examples are drawn from leadership teams operating at the same scale and pressure as the buyer’s. She is one of the few voices on this topic with 25 years of mindfulness practice behind the management argument, which gives the material a depth of practice that pure consulting frameworks lack. Her recent HBR work on AI and compassionate leadership puts her ahead of most leadership speakers on the question of what changes when machines do more of the cognitive work. Biography highlights Partner and Head of Global Accounts, Potential Project. Co-author, Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022). Contributing author, The Mind of the Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, 2018). Recurring contributor to Harvard Business Review, including “Connect with Empathy, But Lead with Compassion” and “Using AI to Make You a More Compassionate Leader.” Client engagements at Apple, Bloomberg, Cisco, Eli Lilly, Google and Amgen. Twenty-five years of formal mindfulness practice, applied to executive development at scale. Biography Hard decisions are arriving faster, and the audience for them has changed. Boards are being asked to restructure, redeploy and let people go in the same year they ask for innovation, retention and engagement. The leaders inside that contradiction need a way to act decisively without becoming the problem they were hired to solve. That is the territory Marissa Afton works in. As Partner and Head of Global Accounts at Potential Project, she runs leadership engagements with companies including Apple, Bloomberg, Cisco, Google, Eli Lilly and Amgen, and the brief is consistently the same: how do senior people deliver difficult news, drive hard change and still hold the room. Her co-authored book Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022) is the published frame for that work. The argument, also developed in her HBR pieces with Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, is that empathy on its own makes leaders worse at hard decisions, and that the discipline organisations need is wise compassion, the willingness to act on hard truth while keeping the human in view. She brings a quarter century of mindfulness practice to the management argument, which gives her work a depth of attention that consulting frameworks typically lack. Her more recent HBR writing on AI and compassionate leadership pushes the same discipline into the next phase of corporate change, where the question is what kind of human presence still matters when more of the cognitive work runs through machines. Key speaking topics Compassionate leadership and hard decisions Leading through restructure, layoffs and change The mind of the leader and mental agility Mindful leadership and self-leadership at senior levels Resilience and burnout prevention for executives Women in senior leadership Leading in the age of AI Building human connection in hybrid work Ideal for CEOs, CHROs and senior HR leaders running restructure, redeployment or layoff programmes Executive leadership teams working on culture and trust through periods of significant change Boards and ELT offsites where the brief is to combine commercial honesty with humane delivery Women’s leadership programmes and senior leadership development cohorts Audience outcomes A working language for combining hard decisions with humane delivery, drawn from a published HBR Press framework A clearer view of where empathy helps leaders and where it begins to undermine them Specific practices for self-leadership under pressure, grounded in mental training rather than motivation A perspective on AI-era leadership that treats human attention as a scarce, trainable resource