Future of Work

Why organisations work with Steven Laureys He brings the working brain into board-level conversations on performance and wellbeing, grounded in clinical neurology rather than wellness orthodoxy. He runs one of the few research groups in the world studying consciousness across coma, anaesthesia, sleep, hypnosis, and meditation, which gives audiences a single coherent framework for thinking about attention and recovery. His Francqui Prize and Canada Excellence Research Chair give a buyer hard evidence of scientific standing in a field crowded with popularisers. He has translated his research into a bestselling popular book on meditation, so audiences get a scientist who can talk to non-scientists without losing accuracy. He works in English, French, and Dutch, which makes him directly usable across European leadership audiences without an interpreter. Biography highlights Founder and head of the Coma Science Group, GIGA Consciousness, University of Liège. Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neuroplasticity, Laval University and CERVO Brain Research Centre. Research Director at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS). Winner of the Francqui Prize 2017 and the Generet Prize 2019. Author of The No-Nonsense Meditation Book, an international bestseller published by Bloomsbury and translated into multiple languages. TEDx speaker at TEDxBrussels and TEDxLiège, with research featured across major international media. Biography Most of what is sold to organisations as “wellbeing” is built on intuition. The brain that is meant to be helping is the most expensive and least understood asset on the payroll. Steven Laureys studies the brain for a living, and his work has spent two decades pushing the boundary of what can be measured in coma, sleep, anaesthesia, hypnosis, and meditation. He founded the Coma Science Group within GIGA Consciousness at the University of Liège in 2014, and now also holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neuroplasticity at Laval University, based at the CERVO Brain Research Centre. He is a Research Director at Belgium’s FNRS and a clinical professor of neurology, board-certified in neurology and in palliative medicine. The Francqui Prize, Belgium’s highest scientific honour, was awarded to him in 2017 for his work on disorders of consciousness. His public reach is unusual for a clinician of this seniority. The No-Nonsense Meditation Book, published by Bloomsbury, became an international bestseller and made the case for meditation in the language of neuroimaging rather than spirituality. He has spoken at TEDxBrussels and TEDxLiège, and his research has been picked up across mainstream international media. For corporate audiences, he turns the same instruments he uses on coma patients and Buddhist monks toward the working brain: attention, stress, sleep, cognitive recovery, and the conditions under which people make good decisions. The argument he brings is simple. The science is now specific enough to act on, and most organisations are not yet using it. Key speaking topics Neuroscience of attention and focus Stress and cognitive recovery Sleep and performance Meditation and the brain Mental wellbeing in the workplace Human intelligence and artificial intelligence Consciousness, anaesthesia, and altered states Neuroplasticity and lifestyle interventions Ideal for CHROs and chief wellbeing officers are building credible mental health and performance programmes. Executive teams and boards are considering attention, sleep, and stress as performance variables. Leadership development audiences in healthcare, professional services, and high-stakes operating environments. Innovation and R&D leaders interested in the brain science behind creativity and cognitive load. Audience outcomes A clinician’s view of what neuroscience can and cannot yet say about attention, stress, sleep, and meditation. Specific, evidence-based practices that senior people can use on themselves and inside their teams. A clearer line between credible neuroscience and the wellness industry’s claims. Confidence to challenge wellbeing programmes that rest on intuition rather than evidence. A working mental model of the brain under load that maps onto real organisational decisions.

Why organisations work with Jack Shaw Operator experience across successive AI waves, from expert systems and eCommerce through Knowledge-Based Expert Systems to today’s generative AI. That span of hands-on work is rare, and it is what lets him tell a board which shifts are durable and which are noise. Author of The AI Imperative Series, a planned multi-volume set examining AI transformation industry by industry. The first volume, Manufacturing’s AI Imperative, was published in April 2026; subsequent volumes covering healthcare, finance, distribution, and government are in preparation. Track record advising senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, GE, Caterpillar, Rockwell Automation, Coca-Cola, 3M, IBM, Oracle, and Bosch. The client mix skews industrial and regulated, which is directly relevant when the audience is not a technology company. A working framework that separates tactical AI initiatives, which can pay back inside twelve months, from strategic programmes that reshape the operating model over three to five years. The framework is built for executive teams running both tracks simultaneously without one starving the other. Presents in 26 countries and all 50 U.S. states, with material that adapts to manufacturing, distribution, financial services, and public sector audiences rather than a single vertical. Biography highlights Author of The AI Imperative Series; first volume, Manufacturing’s AI Imperative, published April 2026 Graduate of Yale University; MBA, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University Enterprise AI experience spanning commercial expert systems and machine learning through to today’s generative AI Former Vice President of Commercial Systems, Applied Systems Intelligence; previously led an AI software company in Knowledge-Based Expert Systems Advisor to senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, GE, Caterpillar, Rockwell Automation, Coca-Cola, 3M, IBM, Oracle, and Bosch Keynote presentations in 26 countries and all 50 U.S. states, across manufacturing, distribution, financial services, and public sector audiences Biography Knowledge-Based Expert Systems were running in defence and industrial settings long before ChatGPT gave AI a consumer face. Shaw was writing commercial software in that space in the 2000s as Vice President of Commercial Systems at Applied Systems Intelligence, after leading an AI software company through the previous wave. He has been inside enterprise AI since before most organisations were asking the question, which is why he can tell a board which shifts are durable and which are noise. Drawing on more than four decades in AI and enterprise technology, Shaw has delivered over 1,000 keynote presentations across 26 countries. As an AI transformation advisor, he works with senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, Bosch, GE, Caterpillar, IBM, Coca-Cola, and Oracle. His focus is where AI changes the economics of the business, not just its tooling. His work turns on a dual-path distinction between Tactical AI and Strategic AI. Tactical AI covers the applications that pay back inside twelve months; Strategic AI is the operating-model change that reshapes competitive position over three to five years. He frames the destination as the Autonomic Enterprise, where routine sensing and response run at machine speed and human judgement is reserved for the decisions that cannot be delegated. That thinking is now published. Manufacturing’s AI Imperative: An Executive Mandate is the first volume in The AI Imperative Series, an industry-by-industry set applying the framework to the AI decisions facing the C-suite, with volumes on distribution, government, healthcare, and finance in preparation. A Yale graduate with a Kellogg MBA, Shaw advises internationally on executive AI strategy, AI governance, and workforce transformation. He speaks directly to what boards are asking now: how to get out of pilot purgatory, how to cut the decision latency that stalls AI programmes, and how the gap between AI leaders and laggards compounds faster than in any previous technology shift. Key speaking topics Tactical AI and Strategic AI: the dual-path framework Enterprise AI from pilot to operating-model change The Autonomic Enterprise and the emerging Autonomic Economy AI governance, risk, and executive accountability Workforce transformation in the age of AI Industry-specific AI strategy for manufacturing, distribution, and regulated sectors Decision latency and compounding advantage in enterprise AI Ideal for Boards and C-suites setting enterprise AI and digital strategy CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs sequencing AI investment across competing priorities: infrastructure, workforce capability, data readiness, and vendor selection Manufacturing, automotive, distribution, and financial services leadership teams Industry associations and regulated-sector conferences asking where the technology actually lands in operations Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI capabilities matter for their specific industry and time horizon Concrete examples from Fortune 500 deployments rather than generic case studies Vocabulary to challenge vendor pitches and internal proposals with sharper questions A dual-path framework for separating the AI initiatives that pay back inside twelve months from the strategic programmes that reshape the operating model over three to five years, with a method for running both tracks simultaneously without one starving the other

Why organisations work with Kamal Ahmed Senior insider perspective on how a national broadcaster makes editorial decisions under political and commercial pressure, drawn from running the BBC News Board. First-hand operating experience building a Gen Z newsroom from zero, with concrete views on where younger audiences actually go for information and what they reject. Practical authority on misinformation as an organisational risk, not an abstract policy debate, grounded in the founding thesis of The News Movement. A working broadcaster’s craft as a moderator and on-stage interviewer, including current podcast hosting at The Telegraph, useful when the brief is high-stakes panel or fireside rather than keynote. A named voice on race, identity and belonging in British public life, supported by his Bloomsbury memoir, when the audience and brief warrant it. Biography highlights Editorial Director, BBC News (2018 to 2021); member of the BBC News Board and BBC Sounds Board. BBC Business Editor (2014 to 2016) and BBC Economics Editor (2016 to 2018). Co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief, The News Movement. Former Director of Audio, The Telegraph; co-host of The Daily T podcast. Author, The Life and Times of a Very British Man (Bloomsbury, 2018). Vice-President, Society of Editors; Trustee, Media Trust. Biography Most boards still plan their external communications as if a national newspaper front page or a BBC Six O’Clock News bulletin is where the audience meets them. Younger employees, customers and investors mostly do not. They meet brands inside short-form video, group chats and platforms whose editorial logic looks nothing like a newsroom’s. Closing that gap is the work Kamal Ahmed has spent the last five years on. He came to it from inside the institution it is reshaping. As Editorial Director of BBC News between 2018 and 2021, sitting on both the BBC News Board and the BBC Sounds Board, he was responsible for editorial standards across the largest English-language news operation in the world. Before that he was BBC Economics Editor and BBC Business Editor, and before that Business Editor at The Daily Telegraph and Political Editor at The Observer. In 2021 he co-founded The News Movement with former Dow Jones chief executive Will Lewis, building a social-first newsroom designed for audiences under thirty rather than retro-fitting an existing brand to them. The thesis was direct: misinformation is not solved by quality journalism in the wrong format. He served as Editor-in-Chief through the launch phase in London and New York. Alongside the operating work, he is a Bloomsbury-published author on race, identity and Britishness, an inaugural winner of the CFA Society’s Ethical and Professional Standards Award, Vice-President of the Society of Editors and a Trustee of Media Trust. The combination matters: he can speak to the leadership room about trust and media as a senior editor who has run them, and as a builder who has tried to construct what comes next. Key speaking topics Trust in media and institutions Gen Z audiences and the future of information Misinformation as organisational risk Editorial leadership under pressure The economy and business after the BBC Race, identity and belonging in British public life Ideal for Communications, brand and corporate affairs leaders rebuilding external narrative CHROs and internal communications leads facing engagement gaps with under-thirty employees Boards reviewing reputational and information-environment risk Conference and summit organisers needing a moderator with broadcast craft and editorial authority Audience outcomes A clear read on where trust now sits across generations, and what that costs organisations that ignore it A concrete picture of how Gen Z audiences receive, interrogate and share information A sharper view of misinformation as a board-level operating risk rather than a policy abstraction A practitioner’s account of how a national newsroom makes decisions, useful for leaders who are interviewed, scrutinised or covered

Why organisations work with Eddie Obeng He has spent thirty years on a single, consequential argument: that the management playbook built for a slower world now actively harms organisations trying to move at current speed. Boards get a framework, not a pep talk. His project typology (Painting by Numbers, Quest, Film, Foggy Project) gives leadership teams a language for matching management style to the kind of uncertainty a project actually contains, instead of defaulting to one method for every initiative. He built and runs QUBE, one of the earliest avatar-based virtual campuses, used to teach and coach distributed executive teams. He is speaking about distributed leadership from inside a working example, not from theory. The 2011 Sir Monty Finniston Award from the Association for Project Management recognises a lifetime contribution to how organisations deliver complex work, which is the substance underneath his keynotes. He is genuinely provocative in a room. The Financial Times called him “an agent provocateur” for a reason; he is comfortable telling a senior audience that what they are doing will not work. Biography highlights Founder and Executive Director of Pentacle (The Virtual Business School), established 1994. Professor at Henley Business School’s School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation; previously Executive Director at Ashridge Business School. 2011 Sir Monty Finniston Award for lifetime achievement, Association for Project Management. Author of All Change! The Project Leader’s Secret Handbook (Financial Times Pearson), Perfect Projects, Making Re-Engineering Happen and New Rules for the New World. TED Global 2012 speaker, “Smart failure for a fast-changing world”. Creator of QUBE, a virtual learning and collaboration environment covered by The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. Biography The gap between how quickly the world changes and how quickly organisations learn has been widening for three decades. Eddie Obeng has built a career arguing that this gap, more than any single technology or disruption, is the defining problem of modern management. He calls the condition the “New World After Midnight”. Pentacle, the business school he founded in 1994, was an early attempt to answer the problem practically. Its teaching is built around immediate application rather than case-study reflection, and it runs on QUBE, an avatar-based virtual campus Pentacle developed in 2010 that The Wall Street Journal described in its coverage of virtual workplaces and The Economist flagged as a future digital place to work. Running it means he has been leading distributed teams for longer than most of the organisations he advises. The intellectual spine of his work sits in project management, where he is credited with the four-type model (Painting by Numbers, Quest, Film, Foggy Project) that reframes delivery around how much is known at the start rather than how big the budget is. The Association for Project Management gave him its Sir Monty Finniston Award for lifetime achievement in 2011. His books, beginning with All Change! The Project Leader’s Secret Handbook in 1995, translate that model for practising leaders. He also holds a chair at Henley Business School’s School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and has sat on the UK Design Council board. In front of an audience he is sharp and direct; the Financial Times has used the words “leading revolutionary” and “agent provocateur”, which is closer to the experience of being in the room than the usual speaker billing. Key speaking topics Leading organisations in a fast-changing environment Project leadership and delivery under uncertainty Distributed and virtual team leadership Innovation and smart failure Organisational change and transformation The future of work and digital collaboration Ideal for Boards and executive committees confronting a change agenda that their current operating model cannot support Transformation, strategy and innovation leaders responsible for delivery across distributed teams Project and programme leadership communities inside large, complex organisations Partner meetings and leadership offsites where the brief is to unsettle assumptions, not confirm them Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for the types of change a leadership team is actually managing, rather than treating every initiative as the same problem A sharper view of why current planning and governance rituals slow organisations down in fast-moving conditions Permission and structure for “smart failure” as a deliberate mechanism for learning, not a slogan A working sense of what leading a distributed team looks like when it is built from scratch, not retrofitted onto office norms A harder question to take back into the next executive meeting

Why organisations work with Sandra Navidi She wrote the book on how the financial elite actually operates. SuperHubs maps the people, institutions and personal networks that move capital and policy, and gives a board a working model of where systemic risk concentrates rather than a list of headlines. She is a member of Columbia University’s Center on Capitalism and Society, founded by Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps, which gives her line of sight to academic research on capitalism, innovation and inequality alongside her practitioner work. Her second book, Future IQ, treats AI as a workforce and strategy question, not a technology demo. That makes her unusually well placed to take a board through the macro and the AI conversation in a single session. Bilingual delivery in English and German, paired with two decades of n-tv commentary, gives DACH and transatlantic audiences a speaker who works natively in both regulatory and cultural contexts. A licensed attorney in New York and Germany with prior roles in investment banking, fund counsel work and macro advisory at Roubini Global Economics. The credential stack maps directly to the rooms she is asked to speak in. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of BeyondGlobal, a New York-based strategic advisory firm. Author of SuperHubs, a Bloomberg Best Book of the Year and 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal winner. Author of Future IQ: Your Success Strategies in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Die DNA der USA: Wie tickt Amerika. Member of the Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University. LinkedIn Top Voice (Executive Blue Badge) and long-standing n-tv (RTL) expert commentator on business and politics. Co-host of the Biz and Beyond podcast with Ulrich Reitz, interviewing senior decision-makers and international experts. Biography The 2008 financial crisis exposed something most risk frameworks had missed. The shocks did not travel through markets in the abstract; they travelled through a small, interlocking network of bankers, regulators, central bankers and policy figures who knew each other personally. SuperHubs, written with a foreword by Nouriel Roubini, is the book that mapped that network and named it. It was selected as a Bloomberg Best Book of the Year and won a Silver Medal in the 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards. Sandra Navidi spent the years before that book inside the rooms she went on to describe. She worked as an investment banker, as general counsel at Muzinich and Co., as a Deloitte consultant, and then as a director of research strategies at Roubini Global Economics, where she briefed clients on macroeconomic and geopolitical risk. She is admitted to the bar in New York and Germany, holds an LL.M. in banking, corporate and finance law from Fordham, and is a member of Columbia University’s Center on Capitalism and Society, founded by Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps. Her second book, Future IQ, takes the same network thinking into the AI conversation. It treats AI as a workforce and capital-allocation problem, not a technology demonstration, and asks how individuals, organisations and economies stay relevant when machine intelligence absorbs more of the cognitive work. It is the bridge between her macro authority and the questions boards are now being asked by their own people. Through BeyondGlobal she advises corporates, financial institutions and ultra-high-net-worth clients; through n-tv (RTL) and the Biz and Beyond podcast she keeps a working line into German and European business audiences. The result is a speaker who can move between Washington-style macro analysis, frankfurt-style risk culture and a Silicon Valley AI brief inside the same keynote, in either English or German. Key speaking topics Systemic risk and the architecture of global finance Geopolitics, sanctions and transatlantic exposure AI as a strategy and workforce question Macroeconomic volatility and capital allocation Future-proofing leadership and human capital US political and economic intelligence for European boards Ideal for Boards and executive committees of banks, asset managers and insurers CEOs, CFOs and CROs in globally exposed corporates Family offices and private wealth platforms with cross-border allocation decisions DACH and transatlantic leadership audiences requiring bilingual delivery Audience outcomes A working mental model of where systemic risk concentrates in the global financial system, named by institution and actor. A clearer read on how geopolitical fracture, sanctions and US policy shifts reach their own balance sheet. A practitioner view of AI as a capital and workforce question, not a tooling debate. A briefing on what US business and political dynamics mean for European strategy in the next cycle.

Why organisations work with Oliver Leisse A live trend-research operation behind every keynote. SEE MORE runs ethnographic fieldwork across more than 50 global cities, so the material is observed evidence, not desk-research speculation. A specific point of view on the AI agent shift. His 2024 book “The Age of Agents” with Tim Cortinovis sets out what changes when software stops waiting for prompts and starts acting on goals. A named framework leadership teams can use after the room empties. The Four Metatrends (Commitment, Convenience, Creativity, Connection) and the Consumer Trend Circle give clients a reusable structure for trend triage. Two decades of strategy work for brands including Deutsche Bank, TUI, Henkel, Microsoft, Google, REWE and Deutsche Post. The frame of reference is commercial planning, not academic forecasting. Bilingual delivery in English and German for European audiences who want substance in either language. Biography highlights Founder of SEE MORE, Future Research and Development, Hamburg (2008). Founder of EARSandEYES GmbH (1997), an early online market and trend research institute. Former strategy consultant at DDB, TBWA, BBDO and Springer & Jacoby. Author of “Be prepared” (Haufe Verlag, 2012; 2nd ed. 2014), “So geht Zukunft” (Edel, 2020), “The Age of Agents” (2024), and “Die Zukunft der Gastro” (Deutscher Fachverlag, 2024). Named clients include Deutsche Bank, TUI, Henkel, Microsoft, Google, Deutsche Post, REWE, Burda and AON. SEE MORE conducts qualitative ethnographic research across more than 50 global metropolitan markets. Biography Most futurist content arrives at boards as desk research dressed up in graphics. The signal-to-noise ratio is poor, and the planning horizon is rarely operational. SEE MORE was built to produce something different: ethnographic field observation across more than 50 global cities, fed back into commercial strategy work for organisations that need a defensible view of the next three to five years. The institute’s founder spent the first part of his career as a strategy consultant inside DDB, TBWA, BBDO and Springer & Jacoby. In 1997 he set up EARSandEYES, one of the early online market and trend research firms. SEE MORE followed in 2008. Clients have included Deutsche Bank, TUI, Henkel, Microsoft, Google, Deutsche Post, REWE and Burda. The current centre of gravity is AI agents and what they mean for operating models. The 2024 book “The Age of Agents”, co-written with Tim Cortinovis, argues that the shift from prompted assistants to goal-directed agents changes how work is structured, not just how it is automated. That argument runs through his current keynote material on automation, customer evolution and the future of work. What separates this work from the broader futurist field is the discipline of the underlying method. The Four Metatrends framework (Commitment, Convenience, Creativity, Connection) and the Consumer Trend Circle give leadership teams a reusable structure for triaging weak signals. Both are anchored to observed behaviour in named markets, which is what makes them usable in a planning conversation. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and AI agents Future of work and leadership Customer evolution and consumer behaviour Automation and the operating model Trend research and strategic foresight Generation Z and changing workforce expectations Retail and customer experience disruption Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting three-to-five year strategy under AI and automation pressure CMOs and customer experience leads tracking consumer behaviour shifts across European and global markets HR and transformation leads redesigning work around AI-agent capability Innovation and strategy teams looking for a structured trend-triage method Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and consumer-behaviour signals matter for the next planning cycle, and which can be deprioritised. A working understanding of the Four Metatrends framework and how to apply it to a specific business unit. A specific point of view on AI agents as an operating model question, not a tooling question. Named examples from observed consumer behaviour in global metropolitan markets, drawn from SEE MORE field research.

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 Scott Amyx Active deep tech investor with personal capital in D-Orbit (space logistics), Brightseed (plant bioactives), Bloom Diagnostics, Omnitron Sensors and Lunar Station Corp. His read on which technologies matter is filtered through real investment decisions. Range that few speakers credibly hold: climate adaptation, longevity science, the space economy, quantum computing and autonomy. The breadth lets him connect technologies most boards still see as separate silos. Forbes innovation columnist for nearly four years and a Harvard Business Review Advisory Council member. His frameworks have been published and stress-tested in serious commercial venues. Active judge at SXSW Pitch and a Singularity University Smart City Accelerator mentor. He sees the next wave of deep tech startups well before the press cycle catches up. Biography highlights Chair and Managing Partner at Astor Perkins, a New York based deep tech and sustainability venture capital firm. Founder and CEO of Uplifty AI. Author of Strive (Wiley, 2018), endorsed by Tony Robbins; co-author of academic publications with John Wiley & Sons and IGI Global on the Internet of Things and wearable technology security. Forbes innovation columnist, 2019 to 2022; Harvard Business Review Advisory Council member. TEDxRutgers speaker on Strive; co-organiser of TEDxWallStreet; SXSW Pitch judge; Tribeca Disruptor Foundation Fellow; Singularity University Smart City Accelerator mentor. Featured in The New York Times, TIME, Forbes, The Washington Post, WIRED, TechCrunch and Inc. Biography Most boardroom conversations about innovation traffic in the same handful of headline technologies. The deep tech that will actually reshape the next decade is being funded quietly by a much smaller group of investors. Most executive teams have no real view of what they are betting on. Scott Amyx is one of those investors. As Chair and Managing Partner at Astor Perkins, he runs a New York based deep tech and sustainability venture firm. The portfolio backs companies in space logistics, longevity science, climate adaptation and the space economy, including D-Orbit, Brightseed, Bloom Diagnostics, Omnitron Sensors and Lunar Station Corp. Beyond the fund, he writes prolifically. He spent nearly four years as a Forbes innovation columnist and now sits on the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council. His Wiley book Strive, endorsed by Tony Robbins, argues that consistent achievement comes from deliberately seeking discomfort. The thesis traces his own move from impoverished Korean immigrant to deep tech investor. For corporate audiences, the value is specific. Boards routinely struggle to discriminate between technologies that are loud and technologies that are commercially serious. Amyx makes that call on his own balance sheet, with active positions in space logistics, climate technology, longevity science and the broader space economy. Key speaking topics Deep tech and exponential technologies The space economy and frontier markets Climate adaptation and sustainability technology Artificial intelligence and the future of work Innovation strategy for large organisations Longevity and human health technology Venture capital and the next industrial revolution Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership setting five to ten year strategy under technological uncertainty Chief Innovation Officers, CTOs and Chief Strategy Officers evaluating emerging technology bets Corporate venture capital and M&A teams scoping deep tech partnership or acquisition targets Government agencies and sovereign innovation programmes shaping national technology priorities Audience outcomes A working view of which exponential technologies are commercially serious and which are still speculative A current map of where venture capital is actually placing bets in deep tech A more rigorous lens for board level decisions on technology and capital allocation Specific examples from Astor Perkins portfolio companies that ground abstract trends in real businesses

Why organisations work with Kian Gohar Brings primary research, not commentary. The Ferrazzi-Gohar study of 2,000 leaders during the pandemic and his Stanford-partnered four-company experiment on AI-assisted brainstorming give boards an evidence base for decisions, not anecdote. Co-author of a Wall Street Journal bestseller, “Competing in the New World of Work” (Harvard Business Review Press, translated into seven languages), with a working framework for high-return team practices that leaders can apply directly. Operational track record from inside XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University, where he ran innovation programmes for Fortune 500s and helped design corporate moonshot work, so the advice connects to how large organisations actually execute. Published in Harvard Business Review on the failure modes of generative AI in team creativity, with specific guidance on how to redesign ideation workflows so AI raises output rather than flattening it. Speaks five languages and has built innovation programmes across the US, Europe, and China, which translates into sharper sessions for global leadership teams than a US-only perspective offers. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Geolab, a research lab on Human-AI collaboration, future of work, and innovation. Co-author with Keith Ferrazzi of “Competing in the New World of Work” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), a Wall Street Journal bestseller in seven languages. Co-author of “Don’t Let Gen AI Limit Your Team’s Creativity,” Harvard Business Review, March-April 2024, with Jeremy Utley of Stanford. Former Executive Director, XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University. Member, Council on Foreign Relations; Henry Luce Scholar in Shanghai; alumnus of Northwestern, London School of Economics, and Harvard Business School. Research and commentary featured in the Financial Times, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal. Biography Most teams adopted hybrid work and generative AI inside the same eighteen months, and most leaders are still guessing at what good looks like. Kian Gohar’s research sits in that gap. With Keith Ferrazzi he interviewed more than 2,000 leaders during the pandemic; the resulting book, “Competing in the New World of Work” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), became a Wall Street Journal bestseller and was translated into seven languages. His more recent work moves the same lens onto AI. With Jeremy Utley of Stanford, he ran a four-company experiment on AI-assisted brainstorming and published the findings in Harvard Business Review in 2024. The headline is uncomfortable for vendors: teams using generative AI produced only modestly more ideas, and several underperformed. The article gives leaders a specific diagnosis of why and what to change in the ideation workflow. Before Geolab, Gohar was Executive Director of the XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University, where he built corporate moonshot and innovation programmes for Fortune 500 leadership teams. That operational background is why his keynotes carry weight in boardrooms; the advice is grounded in running real programmes, not modelling them. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Henry Luce Scholar, and a graduate of Northwestern, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Business School. For a senior team trying to work out how to make hybrid actually productive and how to introduce AI without quietly degrading creativity, Gohar offers a rare combination of evidence and operating instinct. Key speaking topics Radical adaptability and high-return team practices Human-AI collaboration in knowledge work Generative AI and team creativity Hybrid and remote workplace design Innovation strategy and corporate moonshots Future of work and workforce transformation Leadership through structural change Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers redesigning hybrid operating models Chief strategy and chief innovation officers integrating generative AI into team workflows Executive teams running enterprise-wide transformation programmes Boards and senior leadership groups setting an AI and future-of-work agenda Audience outcomes A clear read on what 2,000 leaders learned about hybrid work that actually raises team performance. Specific reasons teams underperform with generative AI and the workflow changes that reverse it. A working vocabulary for radical adaptability that senior teams can use to evaluate their own practices. Concrete examples from XPRIZE moonshot work showing how ambitious goals get organised inside large companies. A sharper sense of which AI and future-of-work investments will compound, and which will not.

Why organisations work with Dex Hunter-Torricke He has been inside the rooms where the current AI systems were built and launched. He led global communications for Google DeepMind and the go-to-market for Gemini, which gives him a working view of what frontier model deployment actually looks like, not a commentator’s view. He sits on the board of HM Treasury, appointed by the Chancellor in 2025. This is a working policymaker’s seat, not an honorific, and gives him a sovereign-level read on how governments are now thinking about AI, capital and competition. His communications track record is rare in scope: speechwriter to Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Ban Ki-moon, and head of communications at SpaceX through a hypergrowth period. Few advisors have written the words a board’s CEO now wants to write. He has publicly broken from the position he was paid to promote, founding the Center for Tomorrow in 2026 to argue for AI taxation, displacement support and tighter controls. That credibility is hard to manufacture and audiences notice it. Biography highlights Head of Global Communications and Marketing, Google DeepMind, 2023 to 2025; led go-to-market for Gemini. Non-Executive Board Member, HM Treasury, appointed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, October 2025. Former Head of Communications, Oversight Board for Meta. Former Head of Communications, SpaceX; Head of Executive Communications, Facebook, 2012 to 2016, as personal speechwriter to Mark Zuckerberg. Google’s first executive speechwriter, supporting Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. Speechwriter and spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, from 2008. Founder, Center for Tomorrow, a non-profit on AI governance and societal resilience, launched February 2026. BA Politics, University College London; MPhil Russian and East European Studies, University of Oxford. Biography The people who built the current generation of AI systems are now the ones publicly warning about them. That shift, from inside-the-tent advocacy to public reform argument, is one of the most consequential repositioning moves in the technology industry. Hunter-Torricke is one of its more visible practitioners. He led global communications and marketing at Google DeepMind from 2023 to 2025, including the go-to-market for Gemini. Before that he ran communications at SpaceX, led executive communications at Facebook through its mid-2010s expansion as Mark Zuckerberg’s speechwriter, and was Google’s first executive speechwriter to Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. His career began at the United Nations, writing for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In October 2025 he was appointed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to the board of HM Treasury, giving him an active seat at the centre of British economic and AI policy. In February 2026 he launched the Center for Tomorrow, a non-profit pushing for AI taxation, displacement support and stronger international coordination as compute concentrates in a small number of firms. For boards, the value is unusual. Most AI commentators have either operated frontier systems or shaped policy. Hunter-Torricke has done both, in named institutions, and is now arguing publicly that the trajectory needs correcting. That gives senior audiences a working view of how the AI race actually looks from the inside, and what the institutional response is starting to demand. Key speaking topics Frontier AI deployment and competitive strategy AI governance, regulation and the post-2025 policy environment Communications and narrative strategy for senior leaders Workforce displacement and the social contract under AI Big Tech concentration and the future of digital power Reputation and public trust in technology firms Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI strategy and risk appetite CEOs, chief communications officers and chief strategy officers exposed to AI public-trust risk Policy leaders, regulators and sovereign investors assessing AI exposure Senior leadership offsites where AI competitive pressure and governance need to be discussed in the same conversation Audience outcomes A working read on how frontier AI labs actually make deployment decisions, from someone who was in those decisions. A clearer picture of where AI governance is heading in the UK, EU and US, and what that means for corporate exposure. A sharper view of the AI workforce question: which displacement effects matter, on what timeline, and which corporate responses are credible. A stronger framework for senior communications when public trust in technology is contested.

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