Executive Development speakers

Why organisations work with Roger Delves Two decades inside one of Europe’s most established executive education faculties, teaching senior leaders in London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and across Europe. Co-author of The Top 50 Management Dilemmas (Pearson) and co-editor of Inspiring Leadership (Bloomsbury), so his content is tested against the everyday tensions managers actually face, not theoretical models. A practitioner background that runs through advertising board directorship and founding Ireland’s first international advertising agency. Leadership content built from operator experience, not academic distance. Multiple-time Hult Professor of the Year, voted by MBA and EMBA cohorts. He earns the trust of the audiences senior buyers want him in front of. Biography highlights Professor of Leadership Practice and Dean of Qualifications, Hult Ashridge Executive Education Director of the Ashridge MBA and Ashridge Masters in Management Co-author, The Top 50 Management Dilemmas (Pearson, 2013) with Sona Sherratt Co-editor, Inspiring Leadership: Becoming a Dynamic and Engaging Leader (Bloomsbury, 2017) with Dr Kerrie Fleming Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; MA, English, St Catherine’s College, Oxford Multiple-time Hult Professor of the Year, voted by MBA and EMBA students Biography Most leadership content tells senior leaders what good looks like. Very little of it survives contact with a fatigued team, a contested decision, or a quarter when the strategy is not landing. Delves’s teaching is built for that gap. His subject matter is the practical content of authenticity, emotional intelligence and integrity when leaders are under real pressure, not the language of values when conditions are calm. That perspective comes from a hybrid career. He spent his early years in advertising, reaching UK board director at DMB&B, then founded Ireland’s first international advertising agency, serving Mars Masterfoods and Procter & Gamble. He moved into executive education through Cranfield’s Centre for Customised Executive Education before joining Ashridge, where he is now Professor of Leadership Practice and Dean of Qualifications across the MBA and Masters in Management. The published work reflects the same orientation. The Top 50 Management Dilemmas, co-authored with Sona Sherratt for Pearson, takes the recurring tensions managers describe in the room and works through them as decisions rather than concepts. Inspiring Leadership, co-edited with Dr Kerrie Fleming for Bloomsbury, brings together faculty perspectives on what actually develops leaders rather than what merely describes them. He has been voted Hult Professor of the Year by MBA and EMBA students on multiple occasions, and teaches across London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Europe. What organisations get from him is a serious examination of how leaders make defensible decisions when the data is incomplete and the audience is watching. He treats authenticity as a discipline, not a slogan, and he is comfortable saying so in front of senior cohorts who have heard most of it before. Key speaking topics Authentic leadership Emotional intelligence in senior leadership Leadership decision-making under pressure Transformational leadership and change Values, ethics and integrity in management Team engagement and follower psychology Leadership in uncertain conditions Ideal for Senior leadership programmes for executive committees, divisional MDs, and high-potential cohorts Heads of leadership development and CLOs designing flagship leader interventions CHROs and CPOs commissioning content for engagement and culture programmes MBA, EMBA and partner cohorts within corporate universities Audience outcomes A sharper read on where their own leadership credibility comes from, and where it leaks Working language for emotional intelligence that is usable in a leadership team, not a workshop Specific tests for whether a decision is authentic or merely consistent A diagnostic for the everyday management dilemmas that erode trust if handled badly Confidence to lead through ambiguity without retreating into process

Why organisations work with Roger Federer He brings a counterintuitive statistical framework that reframes how leaders think about failure: in winning nearly 80% of career matches, he won only 54% of points – a figure that challenges any organisation confusing short-term setbacks with structural decline. His argument that “effortless is a myth” gives boards and executive teams a rigorous, credible case against talent mythology – and for the disciplines of preparation that happen before performance becomes visible. He is one of the few athlete speakers whose post-competition record strengthens rather than dilutes his authority: co-founding TEAM8, co-creating the Laver Cup as a sanctioned ATP property, and reaching Forbes billionaire status in 2025 gives him standing in commercial and entrepreneurial conversations that purely competitive athletes cannot match. The Roger Federer Foundation – reaching over 3.1 million children and more than 59,000 teachers across six African nations and Switzerland – demonstrates that his stated commitment to purpose and long-term impact is operational, not rhetorical. Five Laureus World Sportsman of the Year awards across 14 years, not clustered at a career peak, make the case for sustained excellence in a way a single extraordinary season cannot. Biography highlights 20 Grand Slam men’s singles titles; 310 weeks ranked ATP world No. 1, including 237 consecutive weeks – both Open Era records Eight-time Wimbledon singles champion – the Open Era record Five-time Laureus World Sportsman of the Year (2005–2008, 2018); also won the Laureus Comeback of the Year award in 2018 Co-founder of TEAM8 sports and entertainment agency (2013) and co-creator of the Laver Cup, now a sanctioned ATP Tour event Founder and President of the Roger Federer Foundation: over 3.1 million children and 59,000+ teachers reached across six African countries and Switzerland since 2003 Honorary doctorate and commencement speaker, Dartmouth College, 2024 Named to Forbes World Billionaires list (2025); one of a small number of athletes ever to reach that threshold Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year Award (2006 and 2013); UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Biography Roger Federer held the world No. 1 ATP ranking for 310 weeks, won 20 Grand Slam singles titles across 24 years of professional competition, and remains the most successful men’s singles player in Wimbledon’s Open Era. Those are the competitive facts. The more useful question for organisations is not what he achieved but how he maintained it – across generations of rivals, repeated major injuries, and a career long enough to have been written off and recovered from multiple times. At his 2024 Dartmouth commencement address – where he received an honorary doctorate – Federer offered a precise answer to that question. In winning nearly 80% of career matches, he won only 54% of the points played. The insight he draws from that data is direct: high performance is not about avoiding failure, it is about learning not to compound it. The mental discipline he calls “it’s only a point” is both a competitive practice and an organisational philosophy – one with clear application to how leadership teams manage quarterly reversals, strategic miscalculations, and the pressure of sustained expectation. His post-competition record extends that credibility into commercial and institutional territory. In 2013, Federer co-founded TEAM8 with agent Tony Godsick – a boutique sports and entertainment company that also created the Laver Cup, now a sanctioned ATP Tour event. His Roger Federer Foundation, which he founded in 2003 at the age of 22, has reached over 3.1 million children and trained more than 59,000 teachers across six African nations and Switzerland. In 2025, Forbes recognised him as a billionaire – one of the smallest group of athletes in history to reach that threshold. For senior leadership audiences, what Federer offers is structural rather than motivational: three documented frameworks, a statistical foundation for how he thought about failure, and a body of work – competitive, entrepreneurial, philanthropic – broad enough to make the argument that sustained excellence is a design choice, not an accident of talent. Key speaking topics Sustained high performance and career longevity Resilience and recovery under competitive pressure The psychology of preparation and deliberate practice Failure as a structural component of peak performance Purpose, legacy, and leadership beyond the primary mission Athlete-led entrepreneurship and institutional building Philanthropic strategy and long-term impact at scale Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite audiences seeking a substantive framework for sustained organisational performance, not motivational content CHROs and talent directors building high-performance cultures over extended time horizons Chief executives navigating competitive reversal, strategic reset, or the pressure of multi-year performance expectations Global corporate events requiring a speaker of rare international standing who can anchor a serious conversation about excellence, resilience, and purpose Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of resilience as designed-in preparation, not post-failure recovery The “54% of points” framework for separating short-term setbacks from long-term performance trajectory – applicable to individuals, teams, and organisations Specific, named principles for sustaining excellence across decades rather than individual seasons or peaks A credible case study in building purpose-driven institutions alongside – and after – a career at the highest competitive level Perspective on the transition from individual elite performance to entrepreneurial and institutional leadership

Why organisations work with Roger Steare His Ethicability framework was adopted by BP into its 2011 Code of Conduct after Deepwater Horizon, and the programme was later recognised by the US Department of Justice in BP’s US$20.8 billion Consent Agreement. Few decision frameworks have been stress-tested at that scale. The MoralDNA psychometric, co-designed with psychologist Pavlos Stamboulides, has profiled more than 200,000 people across 200 countries. It gives boards a measurable language for ethical culture rather than a values poster. He has built ethical leadership programmes for Barclays, BP, Citigroup, HSBC, and Nationwide, and advised the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Reporting Council, and the Serious Fraud Office. His client list is the regulator and the regulated, which is rare. He writes for the Financial Times and Director magazine, and reported for the Chartered Management Institute on the link between moral character and organisational performance. The argument is empirical, not aspirational. He brings the same ethical reasoning to AI governance that he applied to banking and energy. Boards confronting AI deployment get a method, not a moral panic. Biography highlights Designer of BP’s global ethical leadership programme for 4,000 leaders following Deepwater Horizon; framework cited in BP’s US Department of Justice Consent Agreement Co-designer of MoralDNA, the moral-values psychometric used by more than 200,000 people in over 200 countries Author of Ethicability, now in a new edition, and of The MoralDNA of Performance for the Chartered Management Institute Associate Professor of ethical decisions at Headspring, the Financial Times and IE Business School executive development venture in Madrid; formerly Corporate Philosopher in Residence at Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School, City, University of London Commissioner on the Institute of Directors Commission, “Business, a Force for Good?” Columnist for the Financial Times and Director magazine; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts Biography Most ethics work in large organisations is theatre. Codes of conduct sit on intranets, e-learning modules are completed quickly, and the actual decisions get made the same way they always were. The MoralDNA work, built with psychologist Pavlos Stamboulides and now profiling over 200,000 people across 200 countries, was designed to interrupt that pattern. It measures how people actually reason about right and wrong, not what they say they value. The Ethicability framework took the same logic into operational decision-making. After Deepwater Horizon, BP incorporated it into the 2011 Code of Conduct and rolled an associated programme out to 4,000 leaders. In 2016 the US Department of Justice cited that programme as part of BP’s US$20.8 billion Consent Agreement. It is one of very few ethical decision tools stress-tested under genuine regulatory and reputational fire. The wider client list spans Barclays, BP, Citigroup, HSBC, and Nationwide, and he has advised the regulators as well: the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Reporting Council, and the Serious Fraud Office. As Associate Professor of ethical decisions at Headspring, the Financial Times and IE Business School venture, he teaches the same material to senior leaders, and he sat as a Commissioner on the Institute of Directors inquiry into whether business is a force for good. His columns for the Financial Times and Director magazine, and his Chartered Management Institute report The MoralDNA of Performance, argue that moral character correlates with measurable organisational outcomes. That argument now extends to AI. The questions a board faces about model deployment, accountability, and bias are not new ethical questions, they are old ones in faster machinery. The work he brings to AI governance is the same reasoning he brought to banking after 2008 and to oil after 2010: a tested method for deciding what is right when commercial, legal, and moral answers diverge. Key speaking topics Values-based leadership and ethical decision-making AI ethics and responsible technology governance Organisational culture and integrity Trust and the social contract of business Moral reasoning at board level Ethics in financial services and regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing ethical or reputational exposure Chief Risk Officers, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officers shaping culture beyond compliance Senior leaders in regulated sectors: financial services, energy, healthcare, defence Heads of AI, Chief Data Officers and technology leaders setting deployment standards Audience outcomes A tested method (the Ethicability framework) for making decisions when commercial, legal, and ethical pressures conflict A common language for ethical culture grounded in the MoralDNA evidence base A clearer account of why values-based leadership is correlated with organisational performance A practical framing for AI governance questions that boards can act on

Why organisations work with Rohit Bassi Three decades of cross-cultural coaching across 21 countries, with named engagements at the World Bank, Oracle, Honeywell, PwC, Bank of America, Canon, and Emirates NBD. A named method, Speak Like A W.I.S.E. CEO, that maps four bearings to four disciplines: words with courage, intention with clarity, silence with conviction, and energy with compassion. It gives leaders a repeatable structure for the specific conversation in front of them. A Gulf-based perspective on executive presence that translates between Western corporate norms and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian leadership cultures, useful for organisations with distributed senior teams. A practitioner record spanning keynote speaking, sales communication coaching, and authorship of Living Through Self Compassion, which lets him work credibly with commercial leaders and people leaders in the same organisation. Biography highlights Founder of ROI Talks, the coaching and training practice he established in Dubai. Creator of the Speak Like A W.I.S.E. CEO framework for high-stakes communication. Author of five books including Beyond Words on mindful public speaking, Soul of Sales on ethical selling, and Living Through Self Compassion, plus contributing author of Success Mastery alongside Jack Canfield. TEDx speaker, “The Miracle of Compassion” (TEDxCCQ), hosted on the TED platform. Executive Contributor at Brainz Magazine, and member of the National Academy of Best-Selling Authors. Three decades of speaking, coaching, and training across more than 21 countries, with named engagements including the World Bank, Oracle, Honeywell, PwC, Bank of America, Canon, and Emirates NBD. Biography Most leaders are not promoted for how they communicate. They are promoted in spite of it, and only at senior level does the cost surface, in a board that loses patience or a deal that quietly stalls. ROI Talks, the practice Rohit Bassi founded in Dubai, was built for that gap. His method, Speak Like A W.I.S.E. CEO, rests on four bearings. Words carry courage, intention carries clarity, silence carries conviction, and energy carries compassion. Drawn from a long study of mindfulness, it applies to the situations leaders face: executive presence, persuasion under pressure, conflict that has turned organisational, and the daily habits that build or erode trust. He has worked across more than 21 countries with named clients including the World Bank, Oracle, Honeywell, PwC, Bank of America, Canon, and Emirates NBD. His writing runs along the same lines as the coaching. Beyond Words sets out his approach to mindful public speaking, Soul of Sales makes the case for trust-based selling, and Living Through Self Compassion tells the personal story behind the method, a return from depression and self-sabotage. He is also a contributing author of Success Mastery alongside Jack Canfield, and his TEDx talk, The Miracle of Compassion, sits on the TED platform. Known to clients as The Communication Wizard, he coaches senior leaders across Western, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian cultures, and writes as an Executive Contributor for Brainz Magazine. For organisations with leadership teams spread across those regions, that cross-cultural read on executive presence is rare in the category. Key speaking topics Leadership communication and executive presence Persuasion and influence in high-stakes conversations Mindful communication and emotional intelligence Sales communication for senior leaders Conflict, difficult conversations, and trust repair Resilience and self-leadership under pressure Public speaking for executives Ideal for CEOs and business unit heads preparing for board, investor, or all-hands communication, including investor pitch coaching Sales leadership and commercial teams running high-stakes, value-based B2B conversations Heads of L&D, talent, and executive development commissioning leadership communication programmes Senior leadership teams in multinational and Gulf-based organisations with cross-cultural workforces Audience outcomes The four bearings of the W.I.S.E. compass in language they can use in the next difficult conversation Specific handling for high-stakes moments: persuasion, conflict, trust repair, and assertive listening A read on what each high-stakes conversation puts at stake: financial value, time, risk exposure, and the authority carried into the next room A working approach to composure under pressure that applies the next working day

Why organisations work with Ronan Harrington He has built and tested the Resilient Performance Method directly with Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG, so the model arrives in the room already pressure-tested by the firms that advise on the same problems. His foresight background at the UK Foreign Office gives leaders a credible reading of why the operating environment has changed, before he gets to what to do about it personally and as a team. He is a guest teacher on the KPMG C-Suite Leadership Programme, which makes him a familiar choice for executive development teams looking for a speaker who works alongside their existing leadership curriculum. His chronic illness and political burnout story is verifiable and used as evidence, not as theatre, which lets the resilience argument land with senior audiences who are usually allergic to motivational content. Buyers report a practical takeaway: leaders leave with a small set of decisions about how they spend energy, attention and team time, rather than a generic call to look after themselves. Biography highlights Former Futurist to the UK Foreign Office, authoring a long-range outlook on the world of 2030 and advising senior officials on geopolitical risk. Creator of the Resilient Performance Method, developed with Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG. Guest teacher on the KPMG C-Suite Leadership Programme and at Oxford University. Founder of Alter Ego, a global network of progressive leaders. Former strategic lead at RethinkX, leading narrative work on the “Rethinking Humanity” report. LinkedIn Top Voice on Public Speaking and Top 5 Best Storyteller at the 2023 Speaker Awards. Biography Most resilience content sounds the same once a senior audience has heard it twice. Harrington is interesting because his track record is in foresight, not in sport psychology, and the model he teaches was built with the firms that advise the same boards he now speaks to. He worked as a Futurist at the UK Foreign Office, advising on geopolitical risk and authoring a long-range outlook on the world of 2030. The brief gave him a structural view of why the operating environment has shifted from cyclical pressure to permanent volatility, which is the frame he now brings to executive audiences. The Resilient Performance Method was developed with Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG, and Harrington is a guest teacher on the KPMG C-Suite Leadership Programme. The method covers how senior leaders allocate energy, attention and team capacity through restructure, AI rollouts and prolonged uncertainty. It is taught as practice, not as inspiration. The personal story is load-bearing rather than decorative. After a period operating at national political level he was diagnosed with a lifetime chronic pain condition, and seven years of managing that condition is what gives his content on energy, recovery and pace its specificity. Clients including L’Oreal, Siemens Energy, Sky, Aviva, IHG, TUI, Sage, Kimberly-Clark, A&O Shearman, DLA Piper, the UK Treasury and Oxford University use him as the speaker who makes the resilience conversation operational at executive level. Key speaking topics Resilient high performance under sustained pressure Leadership through restructuring and prolonged uncertainty Burnout prevention in senior teams Human-first leadership in the AI transition Psychological safety and candour at executive level Energy and attention management for leaders Mental health and recovery for senior professionals Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership offsites where the agenda is performance, not wellbeing as a side topic. Partner and director audiences in professional services facing prolonged client and restructuring pressure. Heads of executive development and leadership programmes building resilience modules into senior curricula. Transformation and change leads running multi-year AI or restructuring programmes that are fatiguing leadership populations. Audience outcomes A working definition of resilient performance that goes beyond personal wellbeing into team-level decisions. A specific read on which signals of burnout to act on early in a senior population. Practical decisions about how leaders allocate energy, attention and team time during sustained pressure. A reframe of human capability under AI-driven change, focused on judgement, candour and recovery rather than tooling. A vocabulary leadership teams can carry into their own meetings about pace, candour and what they will stop doing.

Why organisations work with Rose Cartolari Operator-grade credibility with senior leaders: she co-founded and ran the operations of Scharper Pharmaceuticals through to a 2011 sale, then turned that experience into a coaching practice. She has sat in the chair the room is talking about. A board-level lens on inclusion as leadership capability, built through her Executive Committee role at European Women on Boards and the Board Readiness Programme she launched there. Cross-cultural fluency that holds up in genuinely complex settings, drawn from senior roles at American Express and UNICEF and on-the-ground postings in India, Indonesia and Somalia. A coaching toolkit grounded in neuroleadership, emotional intelligence and social styles, applied to specific senior problems: influence across the C-suite, executive presence, succession readiness. Teaches the material as well as practises it, through executive programmes at Columbia Business School, SDA Bocconi and the University of Milan-Bicocca. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Director, RC Consulting, advising C-suite leaders and their teams on leadership, influence and inclusion. Executive Committee member, European Women on Boards; launched the EWOB Board Readiness Programme. Co-founder and former COO, Scharper Pharmaceuticals SpA, exited in 2011. Senior corporate roles at American Express and UNICEF, with field postings across India, Indonesia and Somalia. Executive education faculty at Columbia Business School, SDA Bocconi and the University of Milan-Bicocca. MBA, Columbia Business School. BA, Brown University. Forbes Coaches Council member. TEDx speaker (TEDxArona). Co-author, Winning Mindset: Elite Strategies for Peak Performance (Erik Seversen, ed., 2021). Biography Senior leadership rarely fails on technical knowledge. It fails on composure, influence and the ability to hold a team together when conditions stop being stable. That is the territory Rose Cartolari works in, and she works in it from the position of someone who has held an operating role at scale and then chosen to coach the people who hold those roles now. Cartolari is Founder and Managing Director of RC Consulting, a leadership advisory and executive coaching practice for the C-suite and their teams. Before founding RC, she co-founded and served as COO of Scharper Pharmaceuticals SpA, a European pharmaceuticals business sold in 2011, after senior roles at American Express and UNICEF, including field assignments in India, Indonesia and Somalia. That operator history is the reason her conversations with senior leaders sound like conversations between peers, not between a leader and an outside expert. Her work sits at the point where leadership behaviour meets inclusion practice. On the European Women on Boards Executive Committee she launched the Board Readiness Programme, which prepares senior women for credible non-executive roles. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Brown, sits on the Forbes Coaches Council, and teaches executive programmes at Columbia Business School, SDA Bocconi and the University of Milan-Bicocca. She is co-author of Winning Mindset: Elite Strategies for Peak Performance and a TEDx speaker (TEDxArona). The throughline of the work is practical: senior leaders, under pressure, learning to influence other senior people, hold their own counsel under ambiguity and turn inclusion from a value statement into a leadership behaviour. Key speaking topics Executive presence and influence across the C-suite Inclusive leadership as a senior capability Leading senior teams through change and ambiguity Board readiness and the path to non-executive roles Personal leadership and self-awareness for senior roles Cross-cultural leadership in multinational organisations Emotional intelligence applied to executive performance Ideal for C-suite executives and their direct reports working through ambiguity, restructure or succession Senior women preparing for non-executive director or board positions Heads of executive development, talent and inclusion building senior leadership pipelines Multinational leadership teams operating across multiple cultures and geographies Audience outcomes A sharper read on how senior influence works and where their own influence is leaking Language and practices for inclusive leadership that hold up in front of other senior leaders A specific view of board readiness, what selectors actually look for and how to close the gap Tools from neuroleadership, emotional intelligence and social styles applied to live senior dilemmas A working definition of executive presence that is behavioural, not stylistic

Why organisations work with Ruth Gotian Her research base is unusual in the leadership field: in-person interviews with named peak performers including Anthony Fauci, Nobel laureate Mike Brown, former NASA Chief Astronaut Peggy Whitson, and Steve Kerr, not aggregated case studies pulled from secondary sources. Thinkers50 named her the #1 emerging management thinker in the world in 2021, placed her on the Coaches50 list in 2024, and shortlisted her in 2025 for the Coaching and Mentoring Award, one of eight thought leaders globally. Few executive development voices hold all three. For 29 years inside Weill Cornell Medicine, most recently as Chief Learning Officer, she built and ran the mentoring infrastructure her frameworks describe. The work is operational, not theoretical. Her four-attribute model from The Success Factor (intrinsic motivation, perseverance, strong foundation, constant informal learning) gives leadership teams a shared, testable language for what they are actually selecting and promoting for. Her mentoring work is structural, including how to recognise toxic mentorship and where to find mentors outside the obvious channels, which is what large organisations actually struggle with when formal programmes stall. Biography highlights Faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University, teaching graduate-level courses on high achievement based on her research. Previously Chief Learning Officer and Associate Professor of Education in Anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, over a 29-year career. Author of The Success Factor (Kogan Page, 2022), co-author of The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring with Andy Lopata (Pearson/FT, 2024), and co-author of Mentoring in Healthcare with Vineet Chopra and Sanjay Saint (2025). Thinkers50 Radar Award, 2021 (#1 emerging management thinker); Coaches50, 2024; shortlisted for the Coaching and Mentoring Award, 2025 (top eight globally). Cited as a leadership expert by The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and NBC News; named a top mentor by Nature, The Wall Street Journal, and Columbia University. Contributing author at Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Psychology Today, and Fast Company; LinkedIn Top Voice in Mentoring, 2023. Semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. Biography The four attributes that distinguish Nobel laureates, astronauts, Olympic champions, and world-class CEOs are not the ones senior leaders typically optimise for. Intrinsic motivation, perseverance, a strong foundation, and constant informal learning, all running at once. That is the central finding behind The Success Factor, the book that put Ruth Gotian on the Thinkers50 Radar in 2021 as the world’s #1 emerging management thinker. The research is what gives the work its weight. The book is built on direct interviews with named figures, including Anthony Fauci, Nobel laureate Mike Brown, former NASA Chief Astronaut Peggy Whitson, Build-A-Bear founder Maxine Clark, and Steve Kerr. The conclusions are not extrapolated from secondary case studies, which is the standard pattern in the success and performance category. For 29 years inside Weill Cornell Medicine, most recently as Chief Learning Officer and Associate Professor of Education in Anesthesiology, she built and ran the institution’s mentoring infrastructure. That operational base is what separates her advice on building mentoring capability from the lighter material in the field. The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring, co-authored with Andy Lopata, is the practical companion volume; Mentoring in Healthcare, co-authored with Vineet Chopra and Sanjay Saint, extends the work into the sector that taught her the discipline. She now sits on the faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she earned her doctorate in adult learning and leadership, teaching graduate-level courses on high achievement built on the same research. She writes regularly for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Psychology Today, and Fast Company, and was named a LinkedIn Top Voice in Mentoring in 2023. Nature, The Wall Street Journal, and Columbia University have each named her among the top mentors in the world; The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and NBC News have called on her as a leadership expert. The 2025 Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award shortlist placed her among eight thought leaders globally on the discipline she has spent her career inside. Key speaking topics High performance and the science of extreme success Mentorship as a leadership discipline Executive coaching and senior talent development Authentic professional networks Leadership behaviours of Nobel laureates, astronauts, and Olympic champions Retention of high performers Organisational learning and chief learning officer practice Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers building leadership and mentoring capability Boards and executive committees thinking through succession and senior talent retention Partner-track and director-level cohorts inside professional services and healthcare Women’s leadership and executive development programmes inside large enterprises Audience outcomes A defined model for what high performance actually consists of, usable inside promotion and selection conversations A practical method for spotting and avoiding toxic mentorship inside formal programmes Concrete language for how senior leaders can develop people, not just deliver results A clearer view of how peak performers maintain momentum after early success Specific examples drawn from named Nobel laureates, astronauts, and CEOs that audiences can cite the next day

Why organisations work with Baroness Ruth Hunt She ran the organisation that most large UK employers used as their inclusion benchmark, which means her advice to a C-suite team carries direct operational memory, not theory. She has spent the years since Stonewall inside the House of Lords as a Crossbench peer, watching how legislation, regulation and public mood shape the room a CEO walks into. Her consultancy Deeds and Words is built around collective leadership and humble inquiry as practical methods, giving executive teams a way to make inclusion an operating discipline rather than a statement. She edited The Book of Queer Prophets for William Collins, which gives her a public intellectual register useful when boards want a serious conversation, not a training module. She is comfortable on contested ground. Boards facing trans policy, religious freedom or campaign-group pressure get an adviser who has lived inside the argument from the inside of a national institution. Biography highlights Chief Executive, Stonewall, 2014 to 2019; led campaigns including Rainbow Laces with the Premier League and the No Bystanders schools programme. Crossbench peer, House of Lords, since October 2019, as Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green. Member, UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, focusing on democracy and youth participation. Co-founder and Director, Deeds and Words, advising C-suite teams on collective and inclusive leadership. Visiting Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge, elected 2023. Editor, The Book of Queer Prophets: 24 Writers on Sexuality and Religion, William Collins, 2020. Named No. 1 on the Independent Pride Power List, 2019; speaker platforms include the Oxford Union, the NHS and Talks At Google. Biography Stonewall under Ruth Hunt’s leadership became the standard against which large UK employers measured their own inclusion work. The Workplace Equality Index moved inclusion from charity advocacy into employer practice, which is why her audience for serious leadership conversations is now the C-suite, not the diversity function. Since leaving Stonewall in 2019 she has taken a Crossbench seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green, the youngest Crossbench peer at the time of her appointment. She also sits on the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. That work keeps her read on the operating environment current, particularly on the contested edges of equality policy. Through Deeds and Words, the consultancy she co-founded with Caroline Ellis, she works with senior teams on collective leadership and humble inquiry as practical methods. The argument is that inclusive leadership is a way of running an organisation, not an HR position, and that the leaders who treat it as the latter tend to lose ground when the politics gets harder. Her published work runs alongside the advisory practice. She edited The Book of Queer Prophets for William Collins in 2020, a collection of 24 essays on sexuality and religion that signalled an interest in difficult ground rather than safe ground. In 2023 she was elected a Visiting Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, where she has spoken on faith, identity and public leadership. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership in a contested political environment Collective leadership and humble inquiry as executive practice Building credible culture change in large organisations LGBTQ+ rights, politics and the new culture wars Allyship as a workplace discipline Faith, identity and public life Ideal for CEOs and executive committees who need to take a credible position on inclusion under public and political pressure Chief People Officers and Chief Diversity Officers moving from advocacy framing to operating discipline Board directors handling reputational risk on equality, faith or values-based policy Public sector and uniformed service leaders managing inclusion in hierarchical, mission-led organisations Audience outcomes A sharper read on why the inclusion consensus of the 2010s has fractured and what that means for leadership decisions A working definition of collective and inclusive leadership that a senior team can actually use the following week A clearer view of where allyship adds operating value and where it becomes performance A more confident position on how to hold contested ground without retreating into corporate neutrality

Why organisations work with Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton Her Decision Control Process derived from helmet-camera research on real operational commands, not simulation, is the only evidence-based framework of its kind adopted nationally, now embedded in UK National Operational Guidance and JESIP doctrine governing all blue-light services at major incidents. Her central research finding – that 80% of decisions made by experienced commanders are instinctive, and that goal-oriented training can increase situational awareness up to five times – gives leadership teams a specific, measurable basis for redesigning how they develop judgement under pressure. She is both a serving Chief Fire Officer and an active researcher at Cardiff University, meaning her framework is continuously stress-tested against real operational consequences – not archived after publication. Her second book, The Gender Bias (2023), extends the same empirical approach to the structural barriers holding women back at work – giving CHROs and boards a research-grounded contribution to progression strategy rather than advocacy. Her awards span operational command and academic research: the King’s Fire Service Medal, the APA Early Career Award, the APA Raymond Nickerson Best Paper Award, and the BBSRC Innovator of the Year honour represent recognition from named bodies across both domains. Biography highlights Chief Fire Officer, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (first woman to hold this post); formerly CFO, West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service; Deputy Assistant Commissioner, London Fire Brigade PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience, Cardiff University; Honorary Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience, Cardiff University; Chartered Psychologist, British Psychological Society; Chartered Companion, Chartered Management Institute Developed the Decision Control Process – adopted by every UK fire and rescue service, embedded in National Operational Guidance for incident command and in JESIP doctrine King’s Fire Service Medal (King’s Birthday Honours); APA Early Career Award (2016); APA Raymond Nickerson Best Paper Award (2018); BBSRC Innovator of the Year (2018) Author: The Heat of the Moment (Penguin Books, 2019) and The Gender Bias (2023) Featured on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs; named among Marie Claire’s Future Shapers; Cosmopolitan Millennial Power List; Big Issue Top 100 Changemakers Biography When researchers at Cardiff University fitted helmet cameras to experienced incident commanders during live operational responses, the footage was unambiguous: eight in ten decisions were made on instinct, with structured analytical frameworks bypassed entirely. That finding became the foundation of the Decision Control Process: a rapid mental checklist developed by Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton and subsequently adopted by every UK fire and rescue service. The research reshaped National Operational Guidance for incident command and is embedded in JESIP doctrine, the framework governing decision-making across all blue-light services at major incidents. It is a rare case of behavioural science research moving directly from peer-reviewed publication to national policy. Dr Cohen-Hatton holds a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience from Cardiff University, where she is an Honorary Professor, and is currently Chief Fire Officer of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service: the first woman to lead that service. Her operational career spans South Wales, Surrey, London, and West Sussex, and includes command roles during the Westminster Bridge and Finsbury Park terror attacks and in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. She is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and a Chartered Companion of the Chartered Management Institute. Her second book, The Gender Bias (2023), applies the same empirical lens to structural barriers in organisational progression: a data-led analysis of why women are judged differently at work and what organisations can do to address it. Alongside the King’s Fire Service Medal, the APA Early Career Award, the APA Raymond Nickerson Best Paper Award, and the BBSRC Innovator of the Year honour, her profile extends well beyond emergency services audiences: Desert Island Discs, Marie Claire, and Cosmopolitan have all featured her work. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Behavioural neuroscience and leadership judgement Incident command and human factors Organisational learning from high-stakes incidents Crisis command and situational awareness Gender bias and structural barriers to progression Social mobility and leadership resilience Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership teams in regulated, risk-critical, or high-consequence sectors CHROs and senior talent leads focused on women’s progression at executive level Risk, safety, resilience, and business continuity officers Senior leadership development programmes addressing performance and judgement under pressure Audience outcomes A concrete understanding of how instinct and intuition dominate decision-making under pressure, and where that creates measurable organisational risk Familiarity with the Decision Control Process and its evidence base, with direct implications for how leadership development programmes should be designed A research-grounded framework for diagnosing and addressing structural barriers to women’s progression in senior roles Greater awareness of how human factors – not just technical failure – contribute to adverse outcomes in complex, high-stakes environments A perspective on leadership judgement formed from decades of active operational command at the most senior level in UK emergency services

Why organisations work with Sally Hogshead She brings a diagnosis, not a theory. The Fascination Advantage assessment gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for what each person and each brand actually does best, drawn from data on more than a million respondents. Her commercial credibility is built on practice, not commentary. She wrote campaigns at Crispin Porter and Bogusky and her own agencies for MINI Cooper, Nike, Godiva and Harley-Davidson before turning that craft into a research-based system. Two New York Times bestsellers, Fascinate and How the World Sees You, give her arguments a published spine that internal teams can return to after the keynote. She translates the science of attention into work an executive can act on: how a sales team positions itself in nine seconds, how a leader is perceived in the first meeting, how a brand earns memory in a crowded category. Hall of Fame induction by the National Speakers Association places her in the top tier of professional speakers, measured by sustained client demand, not single-event reception. Biography highlights New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of How the World Sees You and Fascinate, the latter translated into more than twelve languages. Creator of the Fascination Advantage assessment, used by over a million professionals to identify communication and brand differentiation traits. Inducted into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame by the National Speakers Association. Former managing and creative director who opened the Crispin Porter and Bogusky Venice office in 2001 and previously co-founded Robaire and Hogshead. Built campaigns for MINI Cooper, Nike, Godiva, Coca-Cola and Harley-Davidson; advertising work held in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Frequently featured by Fortune 500 teams and C-suite leadership groups to apply Fascinate research directly to brand and team positioning. Biography Most markets are not short of communication. They are short of memorable communication. The discipline of identifying what makes one brand, one team, or one senior leader stand out in a category where everyone sounds competent is where Sally Hogshead has spent twenty years of practice and research. Hogshead came up through the advertising industry as a copywriter at Fallon, Wieden and Kennedy, and The Martin Agency, then co-founded Robaire and Hogshead in 1998 before opening the Venice, California office of Crispin Porter and Bogusky in 2001 as managing and creative director. The campaigns she wrote for MINI Cooper, Nike, Godiva, Coca-Cola and Harley-Davidson hang in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. By the end of that decade, she had won close to every major international advertising award on record. The work since then has been about turning that craft into a system. Her two New York Times bestsellers, Fascinate and How the World Sees You, set out the research behind the Fascination Advantage assessment, a tool used by more than a million professionals and Fortune 500 teams to map how they are actually perceived rather than how they intend to be perceived. The distinction matters in commercial settings, where positioning is decided by the audience, not the speaker. Her induction into the National Speakers Association CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame placed her among fewer than 200 inductees since 1977. Senior teams hire her when they need to move from generic differentiation language to a specific account of why their organisation, product, or leadership team is the one a customer chooses to remember. Key speaking topics Brand differentiation and positioning Persuasion and attention in saturated markets Personal brand and executive presence Customer experience and marketing Sales communication and pitch effectiveness Team communication and perception Storytelling and business communication Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams Sales leaders and customer-facing organisations are rebuilding pitch and positioning CHROs and executive development leads are working on senior leader presence Founders and partners in professional services firms competing on differentiation Audience outcomes A specific, named view of where their brand or leadership team is currently differentiated, and where it is interchangeable A working vocabulary from the Fascination Advantage framework that teams can apply to pitches, profiles and internal communication Concrete examples drawn from MINI Cooper, Nike and other brands of how differentiation is constructed, not asserted A sharper assessment of what their customers and colleagues actually find memorable about them Editorial discipline on cutting filler messaging that is competent but forgettable

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 Sam McAlister She is the negotiator who landed the 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew on the Epstein scandal, after almost a year of patient access work with Buckingham Palace. Few speakers can teach reputational negotiation from inside a case at that altitude. She teaches negotiation as a Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice at the LSE Law School, which gives the methodology academic structure, not just war stories. Her book Scoops, published by Oneworld in 2022, was adapted as the Netflix film Scoop in 2024 with Billie Piper. The material has been stress-tested by film, television and law school audiences. Two careers, criminal defence at 25 Bedford Row and a decade as a Newsnight booker, mean her toolkit covers cross-examination, hostile interview preparation, and the negotiation tactics that actually work when the counterparty has every reason to walk away. Biography highlights Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice, London School of Economics Law School, teaching negotiation. Former BBC Newsnight interviews producer for approximately ten years; left in 2021 after voluntary redundancy. Trained criminal defence barrister, 25 Bedford Row chambers, London. Author of Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews (Oneworld Publications, 2022). Subject of the 2024 Netflix film Scoop, portrayed by Billie Piper. Secured the 2019 BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew on the Epstein scandal; the programme received a 2020 BAFTA Television Award nomination for News Coverage. Biography The BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew aired in November 2019 and ended his public life. The booker who spent close to a year negotiating that access was Sam McAlister, then a producer on the programme and previously a criminal defence barrister at 25 Bedford Row. That career sequence matters. Cross-examination teaches a particular discipline: prepare the question for the answer you actually want, do not flinch when the room shifts, do not concede the frame. Booker work at a national news programme adds a second discipline, the patient, repeated conversation with a reluctant counterparty who can leave the table at any moment. McAlister now teaches that craft formally. She is a Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice at the LSE Law School, where her remit is negotiation. Her 2022 memoir Scoops, published by Oneworld, became the source material for the 2024 Netflix film Scoop, with Billie Piper in the lead. The Newsnight programme that anchors both was nominated at the 2020 BAFTA Television Awards in the News Coverage category. What this gives a corporate audience is rare: a working method for the conversations leaders most often delegate or duck. How to keep a reluctant counterparty in dialogue. How to prepare for an interview where every answer is reputationally live. How a calm, prepared, well-briefed presence wins access that money and seniority cannot. Key speaking topics High-stakes negotiation Crisis communication and reputational risk Persuasion and influence Media interviews and executive preparation Composure under public scrutiny Access and relationship-building with reluctant counterparties Ideal for CEOs, board chairs and general counsel facing reputational scrutiny or media exposure Heads of corporate affairs, communications and investor relations Senior leaders preparing for hostile interviews, regulatory hearings or contested negotiations Women’s leadership programmes and executive development cohorts focused on persuasion under pressure Audience outcomes A working frame for negotiating access and agreement when the counterparty has every reason to refuse. A practical method for preparing executives for high-pressure interviews, including the questions they hope no one asks. A read on what reputational risk looks like from the journalist’s side of the table, before it lands on yours. Tools for staying composed and on-message when the room turns adversarial.