Future of Work speakers

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

Why organisations work with Sharon Gai She offers a working model for redesigning teams and reporting lines when agentic AI absorbs the work middle management was paid to do. Her book How to Do More with Less (Wiley, 2026) maps the shift from task-based to capability-based org structures, with named roles for what humans do once execution is automated. Most AI adoption speakers describe what is happening to organisations from the outside. As Head of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba’s Tmall, Sharon worked inside the operating core of one of the world’s most AI-integrated commercial platforms. The vantage gives her authority on AI’s organisational effects that advisers and analysts cannot manufacture. Her practitioner depth on China’s ecommerce ecosystem, built into Ecommerce Reimagined (World Scientific, 2022), gives commercial and transformation leaders a primary source on consumer-to-manufacturer models and AI-integrated logistics via Cainiao. For European boards looking five years ahead, this is the live case study Western markets are still catching up to. Her “Culture Fluid” framework gives leadership teams a way to address the human side of AI adoption without falling into change-management cliché. It explains why two organisations with the same technology stack will get different results. Her client list spans UBS, Deloitte, Nestlé, Walmart, LVMH, and Lenovo, with platform exposure on Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, TechCrunch, and Wired. Recognised as a LinkedIn Top AI Voice (2026) and a RETHINK Retail Top AI Leader. Biography highlights Author of How to Do More with Less: Future-Proofing Yourself in an AI-Driven Economy (Wiley, 2026) and Ecommerce Reimagined: Retail and Ecommerce in China (World Scientific, 2022) Former Head of Global Key Accounts at Tmall, Alibaba’s core commerce pillar, led omnichannel and ecommerce strategy for major international accounts including Adidas, P&G, H&M, and Xiaomi Selected for the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, the internal programme designed to globalise Alibaba’s business units MS in Information & Knowledge Strategy, Columbia University; Honours BA in International Development, McGill University Former Global Shaper, World Economic Forum Named in AAE’s Top Keynote Speakers 2023; recognised as a RETHINK Retail Top AI Leader, LinkedIn Top Voice (2024), and LinkedIn Top AI Voice (2026) Media appearances on Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, TechCrunch, Wired, CBC, and CCTV; keynote clients include UBS, Deloitte, Nestlé, Walmart, LVMH, and Lenovo Biography The work middle management was paid to do is moving into systems. Reporting, status tracking, summarisation, performance feedback, project oversight: agentic AI now performs each of these to the standard a competent manager would have delivered five years ago. The org chart that organisations grew up with is becoming structurally redundant, and most leadership teams do not yet have a working model for what replaces it. That question is the centre of Sharon Gai’s recent work. Her book How to Do More with Less (Wiley, 2026) maps the shift from task-based org structures to capability-based ones, naming what concentrates in humans once execution is automated: judgement, taste, theory of mind, original problem definition. The book sits within an active body of writing on what she calls the Org Chart of the Future, drawing on the live restructures already underway at Meta, Microsoft, and others. Her authority on these questions comes from operational experience few AI speakers can claim. As Head of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba’s Tmall, she worked inside one of the world’s most AI-integrated commercial platforms, leading omnichannel and ecommerce strategy for Adidas, P&G, H&M, and Xiaomi. Selection for the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, the internal programme tasked with globalising Alibaba’s business units, deepened that vantage. Her first book, Ecommerce Reimagined (World Scientific, 2022), remains the only practitioner account of China’s ecommerce ecosystem written from within Alibaba, examining how consumer-to-manufacturer models and AI-integrated logistics via Cainiao function inside the company. Her “Culture Fluid” framework addresses the parallel internal question: how to build the agility to compete across simultaneous cultural and technological shifts. The work connects the structural argument of the Org Chart of the Future to the human capability conditions that make any redesign executable. Without the second, the first remains an idea on a slide. Key speaking topics The Org Chart of the Future: AI-era team and role design AI adoption at organisational scale: from pilots to operating model The disappearing middle: agentic AI and management layers Future-proofing in an AI-driven economy China’s AI-integrated commerce ecosystem Culture Fluid: organisational agility across cultural and technological shifts Consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) models and AI-integrated supply chains Ideal for CHROs, COOs, and transformation leads designing the operating model and workforce for an AI-augmented organisation Boards and executive committees confronting the structural implications of AI on management layers, headcount, and capability planning Chief Commercial Officers and heads of digital in retail, FMCG, luxury, and consumer brands looking at AI’s effect on platform commerce Leadership development programmes where AI adoption needs the perspective of someone who has worked inside an organisation operating at AI saturation Audience outcomes A structural model for redesigning teams and reporting lines when agentic AI absorbs the work middle management was paid to do Operating clarity on which AI use cases produce advantage and which produce vendor revenue A view of how China’s AI-integrated commerce platforms actually function, drawn from inside Alibaba, and what is genuinely replicable in Western markets A direct answer to the question of where human capability concentrates in an AI-driven organisation: judgement, taste, theory of mind, original problem definition A shared language, through the Culture Fluid model, for the human side of AI adoption

Why organisations work with Shivvy Jervis A forecaster who has worked through Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division, briefing each on where digital, AI and neuroscience advances are heading next. A second specialism in applied neuroscience, covering drive, stress and persuasion, which gives her sessions a behavioural dimension most technology speakers cannot offer. A broadcaster’s craft built across CNN, Reuters and a Discovery Channel documentary, so she can hold a leadership audience for a keynote and run the full event around it. Recognition from Forbes (Trailblazer), Management Today (Champion of Change) and Britain’s Women of the Year, anchoring her credibility outside the speaker circuit. Sustained focus on human-centred technology rather than tool demos, which lands with audiences asking how to deploy AI without losing the workforce in the process. Biography highlights Founder of FutureScape 248, a social innovation and forecasting consultancy launched in 2017. Former CNN broadcast journalist; presenter of a two-part Discovery Channel documentary on the future of cities. Forecasting work conducted for Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division. Named a Trailblazer by Forbes, one of Britain’s Women of the Year, and a Champion of Change by Management Today. Two long-running streaming video series on technology and innovation with a reported audience of 14 million. Recognised by the World Economic Forum and cited by CNN as one of the most trusted voices on technology. Biography Most boards now sit between two pressures on technology. There is a brief to “do something with AI” arriving from above, and a workforce asking what any of it means for their job. The reading they need is editorial, not vendor-led. That is the gap Shivvy Jervis works in. As founder of FutureScape 248, the forecasting consultancy she launched in 2017, she has briefed Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division on what is plausible, what is hype, and what is close enough to commit capital to. The frame is consistently human-centred: not what the technology does, but what it changes about how people work, decide and buy. A second strand of her practice draws on applied neuroscience, covering drive, stress and persuasion at work. That gives her keynote a behavioural dimension that most technology speakers cannot match, and it lands with audiences who are wary of pure futurism. The output is editorial in tone, built from years as a broadcast journalist with CNN, Reuters and Discovery Channel. Her recognitions sit outside the bureau circuit, including Forbes Trailblazer, Britain’s Women of the Year, and Champion of Change from Management Today. The reason senior buyers commission her is more specific than awards. She translates the noise around AI and emerging tech into the small number of shifts a leadership team needs to act on. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and human-centred deployment Forecasting and emerging technology Digital transformation and the future of work Applied neuroscience for performance and decision-making Cybersecurity, privacy and data ethics Innovation strategy in regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI and digital strategy CHROs and transformation leads handling workforce response to AI Innovation, digital and customer experience leadership Industry conferences seeking a forecaster who can also host Audience outcomes A clear read on which AI and emerging-tech shifts will affect the audience’s industry on a near-term horizon. A behavioural lens on adoption, covering how people respond to AI in their work and what that means for change plans. Specific examples from her work with Microsoft, the UN, Salesforce, Lenovo and UK Government, used as reference points rather than case studies. A vocabulary leaders can use internally to separate hype from substance in vendor and pilot decisions.

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

Why organisations work with Silvia Leal She advises the OECD’s Global Forum on Technology on immersive reality, which gives boards direct line of sight to how international policy thinking on emerging tech is being shaped. The IV Premio Nacional de Management 2024 places her among Spain’s most recognised authorities on technology-led management, not on technology in the abstract. She has run innovation and technology programmes at IE Business School and held commercial roles at SAP and Banco Santander, so she speaks to senior teams as someone who has had to operationalise the technology, not only describe it. Her broadcast work on RTVE’s “La Cuarta Revolucion” trained her to make AI, automation and the future of work intelligible to non-specialist audiences, which translates directly into mixed-seniority rooms. She works fluently in Spanish and English, with published books and a regular podcast that give clients a body of public material to brief from. Biography highlights PhD in Sociology; expert member of the OECD Global Forum on Technology. IV Premio Nacional de Management 2024, presented at DLA Piper Spain. Former Director of Innovation and Technology Programs, IE Business School. Prior commercial experience at SAP and in Banco Santander’s technology division. Creator and presenter of “La Cuarta Revolucion” on RTVE La 2, produced with Onza. Author of “Ingenio y pasion” (IE Business Publishing), “Y de repente llego el Metaverso” and “Tendencias: Claves para entender el futuro y construir el presente”. Inspire Award 2021 from the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Association for AI popularisation. Biography Most senior teams now have an AI strategy on paper. Far fewer have a shared language for what the technology can already do well, what it cannot, and which calls have to be made this year. That translation problem sits at the centre of Silvia Leal’s work. She holds a PhD in Sociology and sits on the OECD’s Global Forum on Technology, where she contributes to the working group on immersive reality. Before that she ran the Innovation and Technology Programs at IE Business School, after commercial roles at SAP and in Banco Santander’s technology division. The combination gives her a clear view of both the policy thinking and the operational reality. In Spain her authority is recognised formally. In 2024 she received the IV Premio Nacional de Management at a ceremony hosted by DLA Piper, and in 2021 she was given the Inspire Award by the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Association for her work on AI popularisation. Her public-facing record includes “La Cuarta Revolucion”, the seven-part RTVE series she created and presented on La 2, and the podcast “Tendencias con Silvia Leal”. Her books, including “Ingenio y pasion” in the IE Business Publishing collection and “Y de repente llego el Metaverso”, read as practical management texts rather than tech commentary. For boards and executive teams trying to make AI, the metaverse and digital transformation legible to their own organisation, that practical register is the point. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence in the enterprise Digital transformation and innovation leadership The metaverse and immersive technology Future of work and workforce transformation Emerging technology policy and governance Cybersecurity as a leadership issue Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI and digital priorities. Chief Technology, Innovation and Transformation Officers translating strategy into operating decisions. CHROs and HR leaders preparing the workforce for AI-shaped roles. Industry associations and policy-facing events that need a credible bridge between European institutions and operating businesses. Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and immersive-tech capabilities are real today and which remain promise. Sharper questions for vendors, partners and internal teams when commissioning AI work. A practical framing of the metaverse and immersive reality as a business question, not a consumer trend. A more honest view of how AI is reshaping roles, skills and recruiting inside their own organisation.

Why organisations work with Simon Walker Operational leadership credibility, not metaphor. Walker took Toshiba Wave Warrior to second place in the BT Global Challenge as the fleet’s youngest skipper, then ran the company that organised the race. Boards hear leadership lessons drawn from a record, not an anecdote. Twenty years of practice inside corporate leadership development through his own firms, talentsmoothie and my360plus, including 360-degree feedback systems used inside live executive programmes. Academic anchoring at Henley Business School and Southampton Business School as a Visiting Executive Development Fellow, which gives the work a research spine that withstands scrutiny from heads of L&D and CHROs. A coherent point of view on generational dynamics, grounded in his co-authored “Generation Y: what they want from work” research, that helps leadership teams stop treating generational friction as an HR irritation and start treating it as a leadership question. Range across formats. Walker is commissioned for keynote, masterclass, mentoring and senior-team facilitation, which suits buyers who need the same voice across a multi-touch leadership programme rather than a one-off platform speech. Biography highlights Skipper of Toshiba Wave Warrior, BT Global Challenge 1996/97, second place, youngest skipper in the fleet. Former CEO of Challenge Business, organiser of the 2000/01 and 2004/05 Global Challenge round-the-world yacht races. Co-founder of talentsmoothie, a leadership and people development consultancy. Co-founder of my360plus, an online 360-degree feedback and executive coaching platform. Visiting Executive Development Fellow, Henley Business School and Southampton Business School. Co-author, “Generation Y: what they want from work.” Featured in Fast Company’s “Who’s Fast 2001” leadership profile. Biography Most leadership lessons come from books. A smaller number come from a documented record under conditions that punish poor judgement. The 1996/97 BT Global Challenge sent fourteen identical yachts the wrong way around the world against the prevailing winds, and a 28-year-old skipper named Simon Walker brought Toshiba Wave Warrior home in second place, the youngest in the fleet. Fast Company later profiled him under the line, “I can only compete through my crew.” That insight, that a leader competes through other people, has shaped the rest of his career. After the race he ran Challenge Business, organising the 2000/01 and 2004/05 Global Challenges, then turned full-time to corporate leadership development. He co-founded talentsmoothie, a research-based consultancy, and my360plus, an online 360-degree feedback and coaching platform now used inside executive programmes. His academic anchoring sits at Henley Business School and Southampton Business School, where he is a Visiting Executive Development Fellow. The work covers leadership behaviour under pressure, the practical mechanics of executive development, and the generational shifts reshaping how teams form and commit, ground he covered first in the co-authored report “Generation Y: what they want from work.” What buyers tend to remember after a session is the specificity. The detail of how a crew breaks down on the seventh gale of a Southern Ocean leg maps closely onto how a leadership team breaks down in the third quarter of a difficult restructure. The diagnostic is the same. Walker’s value to a senior audience is that he has run both kinds of crew and can talk about each in the language of the other. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Executive development and 360-degree feedback Future of work and the changing employment contract Generational diversity in senior teams Team dynamics and crew leadership Technology and the behavioural shift inside organisations Talent attraction and retention Ideal for CEOs, CHROs and heads of leadership development designing senior leadership programmes Boards and executive teams entering or recovering from a sustained period of change Talent and L&D leaders rethinking executive development for a multigenerational workforce Senior leadership offsites where the brief is composure, judgement and crew dynamics rather than a single topic Audience outcomes A clearer read on how leadership behaviour shifts when pressure becomes sustained rather than episodic A sharper diagnostic for where a senior team is likely to break down before it does A practical view of how 360-degree feedback and structured executive development translate into changed behaviour A more grounded conversation about generational expectations inside the leadership pipeline Reference points and language that senior leaders can use back at work, drawn from a documented offshore command record rather than abstraction

Why organisations work with Sina Kahen He has shipped a regulated, complex technology product into a sceptical market. Commercialising Celito, named publicly as the UK’s first orthopaedic robot, gives him operator credibility that very few AI speakers carry. He runs a generative AI company today. VAICE, where he is co-founder and CEO, builds workplace productivity software, which means his views on enterprise AI come from active build decisions, not commentary. His book “The Promised Land of AI” gives leaders a usable strategic playbook for AI adoption, structured around use-case discovery, data readiness, and the build, buy or partner question that most boards stall on. He teaches AI strategy at Imperial College Business School, so the material is tested against MBA cohorts and senior executives every term, not assembled for the stage. He brings a working language for ethics, philosophy and human judgement in AI, drawing on his published philosophical work, without drifting into abstraction that leaves an operating team with nothing to do on Monday. Biography highlights MBA, Imperial College Business School; degree in Biomedical Sciences Guest Lecturer in AI, healthcare and corporate innovation, Imperial College Business School Co-founder and CEO, VAICE, building generative AI software for workplace productivity Former Innovation Business Manager at DeSoutter Medical; led commercialisation of Celito, publicly described as the UK’s first orthopaedic robot Author of “The Promised Land of AI: A Practical Guide to AI for Business” and “Brief Insights on Medical Robotics” Engagements and clients include Google, Amazon, BBC, O2, Shell, Imperial College, InterSystems, Juniper Networks, Ipsen Pharma and Novateur Ventures Biography Celito was the UK’s first orthopaedic robot. Sina Kahen, then Innovation Business Manager at DeSoutter Medical, was the person responsible for bringing it through commercialisation into operating theatres. That work, taking a regulated, high-stakes technology from concept into the hands of surgeons, is the experience he now applies to a different problem: enterprise adoption of generative AI. The current vehicle for that work is VAICE, a company he co-founded and runs as CEO, building generative AI software for workplace productivity. Around it sits his book “The Promised Land of AI: A Practical Guide to AI for Business”, a Guest Lectureship at Imperial College Business School, and engagements with organisations including Google, Amazon, BBC, O2, Shell, InterSystems and Ipsen Pharma. The argument running through all of it is operational. Most companies have proved AI can do something useful. The harder questions, which buyers are now ready to confront, are about strategy: which use cases actually compound, whether to build, buy or partner, how to make data and people ready, and how to govern decisions that cannot be fully explained. Kahen has trained as a Biomedical Scientist and holds an MBA from Imperial, which is one reason his framing of these questions feels closer to medicine than marketing: rigorous about evidence, blunt about what is not yet known. He is also the author of several books on Jewish philosophy, and that interest shows up in the AI work as a refusal to let the human and ethical questions float free of operating practice. Boards do not need another AI ethics policy. They need a way to make defensible AI decisions inside their existing governance, and to take their workforce with them. That is the territory Kahen occupies. Key speaking topics Generative AI strategy for enterprise AI adoption and operating performance AI in healthcare and life sciences Responsible AI and AI governance Build, buy or partner decisions in AI sourcing Innovation and intrapreneurship inside large organisations Philosophy, ethics and the human side of AI Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning enterprise-wide AI strategy CIOs, CTOs, Chief Data Officers and Chief AI Officers translating pilots into operating systems Healthcare and life sciences leadership confronting AI, robotics and regulated innovation Heads of Innovation and transformation leads structuring AI portfolios across business units Audience outcomes A working framework for moving AI from pilot into measurable operating performance A clearer view on when to build, buy or partner for AI capability Sharper questions to ask of internal teams and external vendors on data readiness, governance and use-case selection A practical position on AI ethics that holds up inside real operating decisions, not slide decks Language and reference points senior leaders can use to bring the rest of the organisation with them

Why organisations work with Sol Rashidi She has personally led AI and data deployments inside Estee Lauder, Merck, Sony Music, Royal Caribbean, and Amazon Web Services, so the advice is field-tested rather than theoretical. She wrote Your AI Survival Guide (Wiley, 2024), the practical deployment playbook that boards and CIOs have started to use as a reference text for moving past pilots. As Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center, she is shaping AI policy thinking at the level boards now have to engage with. She talks credibly to two audiences in the same room: technical leaders who need the architecture to be right, and executive teams who need the commercial and workforce implications spelled out. Her current role as Chief Strategy Officer for Data and AI at Cyera keeps her live inside the AI security and governance conversation that boards are being asked to own. Biography highlights Chief Strategy Officer for Data and AI at Cyera since April 2025. Senior Fellow 2025 to 2026 at Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. Author of Your AI Survival Guide (Wiley, 2024), a Top 100 AI book of 2024. Former four-time Fortune 100 C-suite executive: Estee Lauder, Merck, Sony Music, Royal Caribbean. Division Head of Technology, Startups, North America at Amazon Web Services. Holds 10 patents in data and AI; named Forbes “AI Maverick of the 21st Century” and to multiple Top 100 AI Leaders and Top 50 Women in Tech lists. Biography Most enterprise AI programmes look identical from the outside and fail in different ways on the inside. The strategy decks are confident. The pilots run. Then the operating model, the data foundation, or the workforce conversation breaks the deployment before it scales. Sol Rashidi has spent a career on the operator side of that problem, and now advises the boards and executive teams who own it. She helped launch IBM Watson in 2011, then became the first Chief Data and AI Officer in a Fortune 500 company. Across the next decade she ran data, analytics, and AI organisations as a four-time C-suite executive at Estee Lauder, Merck, Sony Music, and Royal Caribbean, and led the Startups technology division for Amazon Web Services in North America. The result is a practitioner record measured in 30 to 200+ AI deployments inside large enterprises, not in conference panels. That record is now packaged in two formats. Your AI Survival Guide (Wiley, 2024) is the playbook for non-technical leaders running real deployments, structured around strategy, use case selection, design, implementation, and long-term operations. As Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, she is developing an ontological framework for AI policy aimed at aligning government and business on what the technology actually is and how it should be governed. Her current operating role as Chief Strategy Officer for Data and AI at Cyera keeps her inside the AI security and governance debate that boards are now expected to lead. She holds 10 patents, has been named Forbes “AI Maverick of the 21st Century,” and has been recognised across multiple Top 100 AI and Top 50 Women in Tech rankings. The reason senior buyers keep coming back is simpler than the credentials: she has shipped this work, and she will tell a room what actually happens when you try. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI deployment and operating model AI governance, security, and responsible deployment Workforce redesign in the age of AI Data strategy and enterprise data readiness AI for boards and executive teams Post-AI organisational design Innovation discipline inside large enterprises Ideal for Boards and executive committees deciding how to own AI strategy and risk CDOs, CIOs, CTOs, and Chief AI Officers moving from pilots to enterprise deployment CHROs and transformation leads redesigning the workforce around AI capability CISOs and risk leaders building AI governance and security frameworks Audience outcomes A clearer view of where their AI programme actually sits on the path from pilot to enterprise deployment. A workable mental model for AI governance and security at board level, not a compliance checklist. A direct read on what the workforce conversation looks like once AI starts to land in operations. Specific deployment lessons drawn from named Fortune 100 environments, not abstract case studies. Confidence in deciding what to build, what to buy, and what to leave alone.

Why organisations work with Spriha Srivastava She holds a senior editorial role at one of the largest international business news brands, which gives her direct fluency in how leaders are being asked questions in public, not just how they want to answer them. She has moderated on inclusion, AI and workforce equity at the World Economic Forum, VivaTech, the Milken Institute and the Global Women Leaders Summit, with the discipline of someone who interviews CEOs for a living. Her career covers the full arc of recent business stories that audiences remember: the financial crisis aftermath, Brexit, U.S. elections, the Trump presidency and the pandemic economy. She brings a recognised platform on women in leadership, with the Women Economic Forum “Iconic Women” award and an Asian Women of Achievement shortlist behind her. She is one of the few moderators who can sit on a panel about generative AI and a panel about inclusion in the same week, and not flatten either conversation. Biography highlights Vice President and Executive Editor, Digital, CNBC International (appointed February 2025), with editorial responsibility across Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Former London Bureau Chief and International Executive Editor at Insider, leading UK and Singapore newsrooms. Former Deputy Digital News Editor at CNBC International London, with prior roles at Financial Times Money Management and Thomson Reuters Global Markets Forum. Winner, Women Economic Forum “Iconic Women Creating A Better Tomorrow” (2020); shortlisted, Asian Women of Achievement Award, media (2020); runner-up, Santander Media Awards newcomer (2015). Speaker and moderator at the Milken Institute, Global Women Leaders Summit, and inclusion-focused programmes at World Economic Forum and VivaTech. Over 15 years in international business journalism, with field reporting and coverage across more than 40 countries. Biography The credibility problem in public conversations about inclusion is not a shortage of advocates. It is a shortage of people who can hold a senior business audience in a real conversation about workforce equity without losing the room to either platitudes or defensiveness. That is editorial work as much as it is advocacy. That is the role Spriha Srivastava plays. As Vice President and Executive Editor, Digital at CNBC International, appointed in February 2025, she leads digital news teams across Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Before CNBC she was London Bureau Chief and International Executive Editor at Insider, running newsrooms in the UK and Singapore. Her reporting career has tracked the stories that have set the operating context for most of today’s senior leaders: the aftermath of the financial crisis, Brexit, two U.S. election cycles, the Trump presidency, and the pandemic economy. That range, plus prior posts at Financial Times Money Management and Thomson Reuters, is what gives her moderation work a different texture from a topical advocate’s. She comes at inclusion and future-of-work questions through the same lens she uses on a CEO interview. The Women Economic Forum “Iconic Women” award and her Asian Women of Achievement shortlisting are the public markers, but the practical value is more specific. Audiences get a moderator who can move from generative AI strategy to workforce equity to global markets within a single programme, with the journalistic instinct for when a panellist has not actually answered the question. Key speaking topics Women in leadership Diversity, equity and inclusion in practice Future of work and future skills Inclusive innovation and AI Global markets and the macro context for business decisions Panel moderation and event hosting on business and policy themes Ideal for CHROs and Chief People Officers commissioning serious conversations on inclusion and workforce equity Boards and ExCos hosting external moderators for global summits, inclusion forums and leadership offsites Conference programme owners needing a moderator who can carry both AI and inclusion strands Internal women-in-leadership networks and ERGs running senior-level programmes Audience outcomes A clearer view of how senior international media is currently framing inclusion, AI and the future of work, and what that means for corporate messaging. A more candid panel conversation than the typical inclusion stage allows, with follow-up questions that surface the practical decisions, not the slogans. A working sense of how global market coverage and people-and-culture stories are converging in the financial press. An understanding of where inclusion claims are being tested in public, and where they are still being accepted at face value.

Why organisations work with Stefan Hyttfors He translates AI, climate and geopolitical signals into the specific operating choices a board actually has to make, rather than leaving leaders with a trend deck. His thesis in Yoga for Leaders connects disruptive technology to human behaviour, which gives the room a usable language for the cultural side of transformation, not just the technology side. Two-time Swedish Speaker of the Year, with more than 1,000 engagements across 40+ countries, including IKEA, Microsoft, H&M, Spotify, Deloitte and AstraZeneca. A journalist’s instinct for narrative means complex foresight content lands with senior, mixed-discipline audiences without being diluted. Nordic register, low on hype, high on argument, which suits boards that have already heard the standard Silicon Valley futurism pitch and want something sharper. Biography highlights Author of Yoga for Leaders: How to manage self-disruption in a world of self-destruction, LID Publishing, 2016. Twice named Swedish Speaker of the Year by Talarforum. TEDx speaker, including “We don’t need jobs” (TEDxArendal) and “Can we really trust human intelligence?” (TEDxStockholm). Former photo journalist at Expressen and Photo Editor-in-Chief at a Swedish daily; trained economist. Co-founder of Swedish PR agency Wenderfalck. Client roster includes IKEA, Microsoft, Klarna, Spotify, H&M, Deloitte, AstraZeneca, Gartner, Ericsson, BMW, Toyota, Unilever, Nike, Skanska and E.ON. Biography Most organisations still treat foresight as a forecasting exercise. The default question is what is going to happen, and the default output is a slide of trends. The harder question, what kind of organisation can keep deciding well when the trend lines stop being reliable, is the one Stefan Hyttfors works on with leadership teams across Europe. His thesis is that disruption is misread when it is treated as a purely technological event. In Yoga for Leaders: How to manage self-disruption in a world of self-destruction, published by LID in 2016, he sets technology alongside human behaviour and argues that the binding constraint on adaptation is rarely the tool, it is the mind of the leader using it. That argument has carried into his current work on AI, climate, and geopolitical instability, where he frames the leadership task as composure under accelerating change rather than mastery of any single trend. The credibility sits on volume and range. More than a thousand keynotes across forty-plus countries, twice named Swedish Speaker of the Year by Talarforum, TEDx talks at Arendal and Stockholm, and a client list that runs from IKEA, H&M and Spotify to Microsoft, Deloitte and AstraZeneca. His training as a journalist and economist shows in how the material is built: trend data on one side, behavioural and cultural argument on the other, no filler in between. What buyers tend to single out is the tone. Hyttfors is sceptical of futurism that sells inevitability, and equally sceptical of leadership content that ignores the technology shift underneath. The talk lands as a working brief for the next twelve months, not a prediction about 2035. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight under accelerating change Artificial intelligence and the future of work Digital transformation and behavioural change Leadership in unstable conditions Sustainability and climate as strategic variables Disruptive technology and business model change Trust as a commercial differentiator Ideal for Board and ExCo offsites setting direction under AI, climate and geopolitical uncertainty CHRO and CPO audiences re-scoping workforce strategy around AI capability CSO and strategy leadership teams refreshing planning assumptions for the next cycle Industry conferences in financial services, technology, industrials and consumer where future-of-business framing anchors the programme Audience outcomes A working language for distinguishing signal from noise across AI, climate and geopolitical shifts A clearer view of where their own organisation is over-indexed on predictability and under-indexed on adaptive capacity A behavioural read on why transformation programmes stall, beyond the usual technology or governance explanations Specific prompts for the conversations the leadership team should be having internally in the next two quarters

Why organisations work with Stefan Löfven Direct head-of-government experience of running a minority coalition through migration shock, terror response, the pandemic, and a vote of no confidence, useful for boards weighing political risk in their own operating geographies. Chair of SIPRI, the institute whose annual data on military expenditure, arms transfers and conflict is the reference set used by foreign ministries and defence analysts globally. Co-Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, which produced the 2023 report A Breakthrough for People and Planet on reforming global governance. Co-led, with Cyril Ramaphosa, the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, the body whose 2019 report shaped the ILO Centenary Declaration on labour standards and social protection. Career rooted on the factory floor as a welder and union leader, which gives a credibility on labour, industrial policy and the social contract that very few former heads of state can claim. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Sweden, 2014 to 2021, across two coalition governments. Chair of the Governing Board, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), since 2022. Co-Chair, UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, 2022 to 2023. Co-Chair, ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, with President Cyril Ramaphosa. President, Party of European Socialists, elected 2022. Resident Fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School, Fall 2022. Biography The seven years of Löfven’s premiership covered the European migration crisis, a fatal terror attack on central Stockholm, a vote of no confidence that briefly removed him from office, and the COVID-19 response in a country that diverged from most of its neighbours on lockdown policy. Few European leaders held office continuously across that span. Fewer still did so while running minority governments dependent on votes from across the political spectrum. That experience is the foundation of the international roles he now holds. As Chair of SIPRI’s Governing Board since 2022, he sits over the institute that produces the data foreign ministries rely on for arms transfers, military spending, and conflict trends. As Co-Chair, with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, of the UN High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, he led the 2023 report A Breakthrough for People and Planet, which set out concrete reforms to the global financial architecture and the UN system itself. The labour and industrial dimension of his work is harder to fake. Trained as a welder at Hagglunds and active in the Swedish Metalworkers’ Union from his twenties, he became the first president of IF Metall in 2006 before entering elected politics. That background is why the ILO chose him, with Cyril Ramaphosa, to co-chair its Global Commission on the Future of Work, and why the Global Deal he launched in 2016 with the OECD and ILO is built around social dialogue rather than purely fiscal levers. For audiences, what travels is the practical weight of having held the line on multilateral cooperation when the politics moved against it, and the clarity that comes from briefing other heads of state, not from observing them. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the rules-based order Multilateral cooperation and UN reform Crisis leadership in coalition government Future of work and the social contract European political alignment and the rise of the populist right Industrial policy and the labour market Peace, security and disarmament Ideal for Boards and executive teams scoping geopolitical exposure, sanctions risk, and operating decisions in a fracturing global order. CHRO and policy leaders working on the social contract, labour standards, and the future of work agenda. Government affairs, sustainability, and ESG functions tracking multilateral reform and UN-level policy direction. Senior leadership audiences at financial institutions, defence and dual-use industries with direct exposure to peace, security and arms-control data. Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a head of government weighs political risk, security, and economic exposure inside the same decision. A clearer reading of where multilateral institutions are likely to bend, break, or reform over the next cycle. A grounded view of the European political map, including the rise of the populist right and its operating consequences. An informed perspective on labour, social dialogue and the future of work from a leader who has lived both sides of the table. Confidence that the briefing reflects current institutional reality, not commentary from the outside.

Why organisations work with Stephen Shapiro He treats innovation as a portfolio of small, structured bets rather than a culture programme, which is why his work lands with CFOs and operating leaders, not just innovation teams. His 25 Lenses framework, set out in Invisible Solutions, gives leadership teams a working tool for reframing the questions behind a stalled initiative, rather than another model to admire and shelve. He built and ran Accenture’s 20,000-person process and innovation practice, so the advice is grounded in operating a function at scale, not in observing one. Senior corporate audiences trust him with active programmes: 3M, P&G, Nike, Marriott, NASA, Microsoft, Capital One, and Johnson and Johnson are among the organisations that have brought him in to work on real innovation problems. The 2015 Speaker Hall of Fame induction and Senior Fellow appointment at The Conference Board signal that the speaking craft and the underlying research both meet a serious institutional bar. Biography highlights Senior Fellow, The Conference Board. 15-year career at Accenture, where he built the firm’s 20,000-person process and innovation practice. Inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE) by the National Speakers Association in 2015. Author of seven books, including Best Practices Are Stupid, named 800-CEO-READ’s best innovation and creativity book of the year, and Invisible Solutions, an INDIE Award winner. Industrial Engineering, Cornell University; Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation; six-year term on the NSA Board of Directors. Has worked with leadership teams in over 50 countries, including 3M, P&G, Marriott, Nike, NASA, Microsoft, Capital One, Honda, and Johnson and Johnson. Biography Most corporate innovation programmes fail in the same place. They generate ideas faster than the operating model can absorb them, and the executive committee eventually quietens down because the cost is visible and the return is not. The problem is rarely a shortage of creativity. It is a missing discipline for choosing which questions to spend money on. That is the problem Stephen Shapiro has spent twenty-five years working on. At Accenture he co-led the business process reengineering practice, then built the firm’s 20,000-person process and innovation practice. The shift from efficiency work to growth work shaped the argument that runs through his books: innovation is an operating capability, not a culture, and it can be managed with the same rigour as any other portfolio. His seven books trace that argument. Best Practices Are Stupid, named 800-CEO-READ’s best innovation and creativity book of the year, makes the case for small structured bets over large transformational programmes. Invisible Solutions sets out 25 Lenses for reframing the questions behind a stalled initiative. Pivotal, published in 2024, takes the same discipline into how organisations create stability while continuing to change. The recurring thesis is that better questions are cheaper and more useful than more answers. The institutional credentials reinforce the work. He is a Senior Fellow at The Conference Board, was inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE) in 2015, and holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation. Clients including 3M, P&G, Nike, Marriott, NASA, and Microsoft have brought him in for active innovation programmes rather than thought-leadership set pieces, which is the more useful test of where his work actually lands. Key speaking topics Innovation as a managed corporate discipline Question reframing and problem definition Portfolio approaches to innovation investment Culture and team composition for innovation Stability and adaptability in uncertain markets Growth strategy beyond best-practice benchmarking Ideal for CINOs, heads of innovation, and R&D leaders running enterprise programmes CEOs and strategy leaders trying to convert innovation activity into commercial results Transformation sponsors and operating committees rebuilding the innovation function after a stalled programme Large industrials, financial services, consumer goods, and healthcare organisations with complex internal innovation portfolios Audience outcomes A working method for reframing the strategic question behind a stalled initiative, drawn from the 25 Lenses framework A clear case for replacing large transformational bets with structured small ones, and the financial logic to defend it internally A diagnostic for which innovation activities are producing learning and which are producing motion Specific examples of how named Fortune 500 clients have restructured innovation portfolios, with the trade-offs made visible Language a senior leader can use the next morning to challenge their own innovation roadmap