Future of Work

Why organisations work with Matt Havens He treats generational friction as a leadership design problem, not a personality clash, which gives HR and operations leaders something they can act on rather than another set of demographic slides. His Simplicity framework is built from inside a Fortune 50 operating environment, not from a consultancy deck, so the examples land with line managers who run contact centres, branches, and field teams. The “4 Human Truths” content reframes engagement around what employees of every age actually share, which is useful for organisations stuck rotating perks instead of fixing leadership behaviour. He carries a room. Comedy-club upbringing translates into a delivery style that holds attention through a full keynote, which matters for late-day conference slots and large internal kickoffs. Deployable across very different audience profiles, with named repeat clients including Cisco, State Farm, RE/MAX, Lockheed Martin, Allstate, Duke Energy, and Mondelez International. Biography highlights Fourteen years in Fortune 50 leadership across finance, sales, and customer service, with responsibility for contact centres in five US locations. Creator of the Simplicity framework for leading multigenerational teams and reducing organisational complexity. Author of the “Make Your Business Human: The 4 Human Truths” keynote on engagement and culture. Repeat keynote speaker for organisations including Cisco, State Farm, RE/MAX, Lockheed Martin, Allstate, Duke Energy, and Mondelez International. Grew up backstage in comedy clubs alongside a stand-up comedian father; uses that craft to deliver leadership content with sustained audience energy. Programmes are delivered in person and virtually, working across corporate, association, and franchise audiences. Biography Five generations now sit on the same org chart, and most leadership systems were not built for that reality. Engagement programmes default to perks. Generational training defaults to stereotypes. Leaders end up managing labels rather than people, and the friction shows up in attrition data long before anyone names it. Matt Havens works that problem from inside the operating side of an organisation. Fourteen years of Fortune 50 leadership across finance, sales, and customer service, including responsibility for contact centres in five US locations, gave him a working view of where complexity actually accumulates: in handovers, in jargon, in well-meaning processes that no one will defend if pressed. His Simplicity framework is the response. It asks leaders to strip away the layers that make modern work harder than it needs to be, and to manage multigenerational teams through what people share rather than how they differ. The companion “4 Human Truths” content reframes engagement around the few fundamentals that hold across age, tenure, and function. The delivery is the second half of the proposition. Havens grew up in comedy-club green rooms with a stand-up comedian father, and he uses that craft to keep a room with him through serious leadership content. Cisco, State Farm, RE/MAX, Lockheed Martin, Allstate, Duke Energy, and Mondelez International have brought him back for that reason: the message lands, and the audience remembers it on Monday. Key speaking topics Multigenerational workplace leadership Employee engagement and culture Simplicity in leadership and operations Talent attraction and retention Workplace humour and human connection Customer-facing team leadership Ideal for CHROs and heads of culture working on cross-generational engagement Operations and customer service leaders running large frontline teams Conference programmers needing a humour-led, high-energy main-stage keynote on people and culture Sales and franchise leadership audiences at annual kickoffs Audience outcomes A working definition of generational friction as a leadership design issue, with practical levers managers can pull The Simplicity framework as a checklist for stripping unnecessary complexity out of team operations The 4 Human Truths as a shared engagement vocabulary across a multigenerational workforce Renewed energy and a memorable shared reference point for the rest of the offsite or conference

Why organisations work with Miriam Meckel She runs the leadership academy that European boards turn to when they need their executive layer fluent in AI, quantum and adjacent technologies, which gives her a live read on where senior teams actually get stuck. Her 2024 book with Lea Steinacker, “Alles uberall auf einmal”, is one of the most cited German-language treatments of generative AI for business audiences, anchored in regulation, labour markets and governance rather than hype. She combines a serious academic chair at the University of St. Gallen with two decades inside business media, including the editorship of WirtschaftsWoche, so her framing is built for executive audiences rather than translated for them. Her work on brain-computer interfaces and cognitive enhancement gives her unusual range when the conversation moves from current AI deployment to the next horizon of human-machine integration. She holds the 2025 Rudolf-Diesel-Medaille for Best Media Communication, a recognition explicitly tied to making complex future technologies practical for executive audiences. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of ada Learning GmbH, the AI and transformation academy spun out of Handelsblatt Media Group with Lea Steinacker and Verena Pausder. Professor of Communication Management and Director of the Institute for Media and Communication Management, University of St. Gallen. Co-author of “Alles uberall auf einmal” (Rowohlt, 2024) on artificial intelligence; author of “Mein Kopf gehort mir” (Piper, 2018) on brain-computer interfaces. Former editor-in-chief and publisher of WirtschaftsWoche, the first woman to lead the title. Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society; board member of Swiss media group Tamedia. Recipient of the Rudolf-Diesel-Medaille (2025), Ernst Schneider Prize, Cicero Speaker’s Prize for Science, Eisenhower Fellowship and John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellowship. Biography Generative AI sits on most executive agendas and inside very few operating models. The space between those two facts is where European leadership teams currently lose months. Miriam Meckel works in that gap, professionally and intellectually. As co-founder and CEO of ada Learning, she runs the academy that puts senior managers from major European companies through structured programmes on AI, quantum and the technologies reshaping their industries. The work is concrete: how a CFO should think about model risk, how an HR leader should redesign roles around AI capability, how a CEO should commission and challenge an AI strategy. Her 2024 book with Lea Steinacker, “Alles uberall auf einmal”, argues that AI is best understood as a data-driven human amplifier, a framing that cuts through both utopian and apocalyptic readings of the technology. Her authority comes from holding two distinct positions at the same time. She is Professor of Communication Management at the University of St. Gallen and Director of its Institute for Media and Communication Management, with research credentials reaching back to Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center. She is also a working operator who edited WirtschaftsWoche, sits on the Tamedia board, and has built ada into a recognised institution in the German-speaking executive market. Her 2018 book “Mein Kopf gehort mir” took the same operator-academic approach to brain-computer interfaces, with first-person experiments inside the laboratories developing them. For boards confronting AI, she offers something the consultancy reports cannot: a researcher who teaches the technology to executives every week and reports back what they understand, what they resist, and what actually moves once they leave the room. Key speaking topics Generative AI in business strategy AI governance, regulation and ethics The future of work in an AI-enabled economy Brain-computer interfaces and human enhancement Quantum computing for executive audiences Digital transformation and leadership Media, communication and information overload Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning AI strategy and asking whether their AI position has any operational substance. CHROs and chief learning officers redesigning workforce capability around AI. CEOs and strategy leaders in regulated European industries balancing AI ambition with the EU AI Act and national supervision. Senior leadership programmes and executive offsites at the point of confronting AI seriously rather than in passing. Audience outcomes A working mental model of where generative AI is already operational, where it remains pilot, and where it is still speculative. A clear read on the EU, US and Chinese regulatory environments and what they mean for European firms. Sharper questions to ask vendors, internal AI teams and consultants, grounded in how the technology actually behaves. An honest sense of what AI will do to roles, teams and decision rights inside their own organisation over the next three to five years. A bridge between today’s deployment questions and the next horizon of human-machine integration, including neural interfaces and quantum.

Why organisations work with James Poulter Operator credibility. He built and sold a voice AI company (Vixen Labs to House 337, 2023) before becoming a speaker. The frameworks come from running the work, not commenting on it. A named implementation model. The AI Nervous System framework, published in AI @ Work (Bloomsbury, 2026), gives leadership teams a structure for embedding AI across functions rather than treating it as a tools procurement question. Inside view of how a global brand actually adopts emerging tech. As Head of Emerging Platforms at LEGO, he led LEGO Life and the GIPHY partnership at consumer scale, so the case material is concrete. Comfortable with the ethics conversation without losing the commercial argument. He has advised the Church of England Digital Board alongside corporate clients, which signals range when the AI question shifts from productivity to governance. Biography highlights Founder and former CEO of Vixen Labs, acquired by House 337 in December 2023. Founder of ThreePoint Labs; Head of AI at Dunham & Company, Dallas. Former Head of Emerging Platforms, The LEGO Group, leading LEGO Life and the LEGO GIPHY channel. Author of AI @ Work: Rewire your team and yourself for the AI Revolution (Bloomsbury, August 2026). Advisor to the Church of England Digital Board; board roles with Christian Aid and Raiser. Client and advisory work cited with Amazon, Verizon, Bosch and Universal Music. Biography The hard part of corporate AI is rarely the model. It is what happens once a leadership team agrees to use one. Procurement, legal, brand, product, and people functions each have a stake, and most organisations have no shared structure for resolving the trade-offs between them. This is the territory James Poulter has worked in for the past decade. At The LEGO Group, as Head of Emerging Platforms, he led LEGO Life and managed the brand’s GIPHY partnership, learning at consumer scale how a heritage business absorbs new technology without breaking its existing one. He then founded Vixen Labs, a UK voice and conversational AI consultancy, scaled it through the pandemic, and sold it to House 337 in December 2023. His current work sits inside that operator lineage. Through ThreePoint Labs and as Head of AI at Dallas-based Dunham & Company, he advises leadership teams on how to move from isolated AI pilots to a coherent operating capability. His forthcoming book, AI @ Work: Rewire your team and yourself for the AI Revolution (Bloomsbury, August 2026), sets out the AI Nervous System framework, a model for connecting model choice, team design, ethics, and decision rights across the business. The client list spans Amazon, Verizon, Bosch and Universal Music, alongside advisory work with the Church of England Digital Board. The range matters: Poulter is comfortable when the conversation is about productivity gains, and equally comfortable when it shifts to governance, values, and what an organisation should refuse to automate. Key speaking topics AI implementation across the enterprise The AI Nervous System framework Conversational and voice AI in commercial strategy AI ethics and responsible deployment Innovation culture inside established organisations The future of work in an AI-native business Emerging platforms and consumer technology adoption Ideal for CEOs and executive teams sponsoring an enterprise AI agenda CTOs, CIOs and Chief AI Officers moving from pilots to operating capability CHROs and people leaders redesigning teams around AI capability Boards and advisory groups grappling with AI ethics and governance Audience outcomes A structured way to assess where their organisation actually is on AI adoption, rather than where the vendor deck claims it is A working vocabulary for the AI Nervous System framework and how its components map to real decisions Worked examples from LEGO, Vixen Labs and named enterprise clients, not generic case studies A clearer position on the ethics calls leadership has to own rather than delegate to a working group

Why organisations work with Jason Lauritsen He turns the manager-employee relationship into a working model, not a slogan, through The Check-In Method, a named and published approach leaders can install the week after the keynote. His research seat at Quantum Workplace gave him visibility across thousands of employers and millions of engagement responses, which grounds every claim in pattern data rather than anecdote. His book Unlocking High Performance reframes performance management as a relationship discipline, endorsed by Daniel H. Pink, and is used by HR leaders as a practical redesign guide. He speaks fluently to both the CHRO and the frontline manager, which is rare. The same session lands with executives rethinking policy and with line leaders rethinking their next one-to-one. He brings the credibility of an operator who has run the system from both sides: corporate HR leadership where he helped double revenue per employee and halve turnover, and now CEO of Connected Performance Group, advising executive teams on the same problem at the source. Biography highlights CEO of Connected Performance Group, advising CEOs and executive teams on the performance systems that turn strategy into execution. Creator of the Connected Performance System, a framework for leadership clarity, alignment, and performance enablement, with original research presented at Workhuman Live Orlando 2026. Author of Unlocking High Performance (Kogan Page, 2018), a performance-management redesign endorsed by Daniel H. Pink. Co-author with Joe Gerstandt of Social Gravity: Harnessing the Natural Laws of Relationships. As a corporate executive, helped double revenue per employee while cutting employee turnover in half. Former Director of Best Places to Work at Quantum Workplace, leading research across thousands of participating organisations. Biography Engagement has been one of the most measured aspects of corporate life for two decades, and it has barely moved. The data is rich, the pulse surveys run quarterly, and most managers still cannot describe what actually changes a disengaged employee’s trajectory. That gap between measurement and behaviour is the terrain Jason Lauritsen works in. Earlier in his career, as a corporate executive, he helped double revenue per employee while cutting turnover in half. He then led the research team for the Best Places to Work programme at Quantum Workplace, which gave him a cross-sectional view of engagement data across thousands of employers. The conclusion he draws from both sides is direct: employees do not experience work as a contract or a process, they experience it as a relationship, and they leave when the relationship fails. That thesis runs through two books. Unlocking High Performance (Kogan Page, 2018) argues that performance management collapses when it is built as a compliance process and works when it is built around conversation. Social Gravity, co-authored with Joe Gerstandt, maps the laws that govern how workplace relationships actually form. The Check-In Method, the framework he is best known for, translates the relationship argument into the specific moments managers can do differently on a Monday morning. As CEO of Connected Performance Group, his current work goes one layer up. The Connected Performance System treats connection as the operating mechanism through which strategy turns into execution, and locates the leadership, cultural, and operational conditions that strengthen or erode it. Cited across Forbes, Fast Company, HR Executive, Talent Management, and SHRM, his sessions give CHROs and executive teams a named system to install, not just an argument to agree with. Key speaking topics Employee engagement Connection as a performance driver Performance management redesign The manager-employee relationship Employee experience Talent retention Workplace culture Ideal for CHROs and VPs of People rethinking engagement or performance strategy HR and people-team leaders preparing a manager-effectiveness programme Executive teams whose engagement scores have plateaued and whose attrition is climbing Line manager audiences at leadership summits, where the goal is behaviour change, not theory Audience outcomes A clear model for treating the manager-employee bond as a relationship, with the specific manager behaviours that sustain it. The Check-In Method as an installable practice, including the questions managers can use in their next one-to-one. A diagnosis for why performance management processes fail, and what to redesign rather than patch. A sharper read of engagement data, so leaders stop optimising scores and start changing the experience behind them. Language HR and line leaders can share, which closes the gap between policy intent and what employees actually feel.

About Sabrina Faramarzi Sabrina Faramarzi is an international journalist, trend analyst and data storyteller. Her work explores patterns across sociocultural phenomena through a future-focused lens, with an interest in business, society and internet culture. Sabrina’s approach is informal but informative, and her humorous and witty style helps easily guide audiences through complex topics to find the devil in the details. She often leaves her audiences with new ways of thinking about things they already thought they knew all about. As a journalist, she has worked and written for publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Vogue Business, Wired and VICE, to name a few. In addition, she has helped brands such as Google, Meta, Airbnb, Lush, Tempur, Regus and GSK to create content for their audiences. As a trend analyst, she has worked with clients across design, travel, hospitality, non-profit, fashion, beauty and food, undertaking quantitative and qualitative research as well as regularly writing trend reports for future forecasting and insights agencies The Future Laboratory, Stylus and Canvas8. She is currently the Managing Director of Are We Europe, a non-profit media collective dedicated to innovation and diversity in the European media landscape, supporting emerging creative talent in Europe and promoting the creation of pan-European media initiatives. Additionally, she is the founder of Dust in Translation, a boutique creative data storytelling agency helping organisations to help them push forward their mission through innovative, data-driven content and communications; and one of the co-founders of the activist group Feminist Internet, a non-profit organisation advancing internet equality for womxn and other marginalised groups through critical, creative practice. She holds a First Class Bachelor Honours degree in Trend Prediction & Forecasting from the University of East London and a Master of Arts with Distinction in Journalism from the University of the Arts London. She lives between Berlin and London, exploring how media can stay relevant in more fragmented, digital global futures.

Why organisations work with Tim Ringo A practitioner thesis on productivity, not a survey of the field. Solving the Productivity Puzzle won the HR & Management category at the Business Book Awards because it sets out a specific operating model for connecting engagement, performance and learning, rather than describing the problem. Three decades inside the firms that built the modern HR function: Accenture, IBM and SAP SuccessFactors, including global leadership of IBM’s 1,500-strong Human Capital Management consulting practice and EMEA leadership at SAP SuccessFactors. A rare combination of HR strategy and workforce analytics credentials, evidenced by Calculating Success, his Harvard Business Review Press book on workforce analytics co-authored with Carl Hoffmann and Eric Lesser. Recognised peer authority: named to HR Magazine’s Most Influential HR Thinkers list in 2022, alongside the people the audience is reading. A working point of view on AI in the workplace from someone who has run global HR technology programmes, not a commentator new to the topic. Biography highlights Named to HR Magazine’s HR Most Influential Thinkers, 2022. Author, Solving the Productivity Puzzle (Kogan Page); Category Winner, HR & Management, Business Book Awards. Co-author, Calculating Success (Harvard Business Review Press), on workforce analytics. Former Vice President and Global Leader, IBM Human Capital Management consulting practice. Former Vice President for EMEA, SAP SuccessFactors. Chartered Fellow of the CIPD; BSc, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University. Biography Most large organisations now spend more on HR technology, engagement programmes and learning platforms than at any point in their history. Productivity has not followed. Tim Ringo’s work begins where that gap sits, and treats it as a design problem inside the people function rather than a cultural mood. His 2020 book Solving the Productivity Puzzle, published by Kogan Page, won the HR & Management category at the Business Book Awards. The argument is operational: engagement, performance management and learning have to be wired together, and supported by analytics, before any productivity number moves. His earlier book with Carl Hoffmann and Eric Lesser, Calculating Success, was published by Harvard Business Review Press and helped to define what serious workforce analytics looks like inside an enterprise. The credibility behind the work is built over three decades. Ringo led IBM’s global Human Capital Management consulting practice, with more than 1,500 consultants worldwide, ran SAP SuccessFactors HR advisory across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and spent sixteen years as an executive partner in Accenture’s Human Performance service line. He is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and was named to HR Magazine’s Most Influential HR Thinkers list in 2022. For senior HR audiences, that mix is unusual. Ringo can move from a board conversation about AI in the workforce to a working session on engagement metrics or HR technology investment, and bring the same operating language to both. His view on generative AI at work is a practitioner’s view, formed inside the systems that the rest of the function relies on. Key speaking topics Workforce productivity and engagement Digital HR transformation Workforce analytics Generative AI in the workplace Employee experience and retention Workforce wellbeing strategy HR technology investment Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and HR directors leading productivity, engagement or HR technology agendas Executive teams reviewing return on HR technology and workforce analytics investment HR leadership conferences, CHRO summits and people analytics events Boards considering the workforce implications of generative AI Audience outcomes A clearer view of where productivity is actually lost inside the organisation, and which HR levers move it. A working model for connecting engagement, performance and learning to business outcomes. A practical sense of what good workforce analytics looks like, and what most organisations are still missing. An informed perspective on how to introduce generative AI to the workforce without losing trust or governance.

About James Barrat Intelligence, Barrat contends, not strength or speed, is the superpower that enables humans to steer the future. Scientists around the world are developing machines whose intelligence grows exponentially, and will someday dwarf our own. Have we already plunged into an unwinnable intelligence race, with the future of humanity at stake? As an award-winning documentary filmmaker, Barrat has made a career from introducing audiences to complex ideas in engaging and provocative ways. His films have set ratings records for National Geographic, Discovery, PBS, and other broadcasters in the US and Europe. Notable titles include the National Geographic Specials The Gospel of Judas (2006), Inside Jerusalem’s Holiest (2008), Herod’s Lost Tomb (2010), and The Rise of the Black Pharaohs (2014). For PBS Barrat created Spillover: Zika, Ebola and Beyond (2016) and the 90-minute feature-doc Facing Suicide (2022). In September 2024, Facing Suicide’s companion book will be printed by Penguin Random House. Barrat is currently at work on The Intelligence Explosion, an expose that shows how generative AI takes us closer to human level intelligence with mysterious and unpredictable emergent powers.

Why organisations work with Brett StClair He has run the inside of both sides of the problem: a Google regional product portfolio and the digital stack of a 40,000-person bank across 32 markets. That is rare credibility on the operating reality of AI inside a regulated enterprise. He frames AI adoption as a leadership and workforce problem first, technology problem second, which is what most boards actually need before they spend the next budget cycle on tooling. Through Teraflow.ai he works with enterprise clients on the implementation, not only the strategy. The keynote content is grounded in current delivery, not retrospective case studies. The “Rebel Technologist” thesis gives senior leaders a usable language for identifying and protecting the internal disruptors who actually move transformation programmes. Biography highlights Co-Founder and Chief Connector, Teraflow.ai, an enterprise AI and cloud consultancy. Former Head of Digital Products, Barclays Africa, leading digital modernisation across 32 countries. Former Google executive across mobile, YouTube, AdMob and Cloud for the Africa region. Host of the “Rebel Technologist” podcast on AI adoption and digital leadership. Computer Science, University of Cape Town. MBA, University of South Africa. Featured in BBC, Financial Times, Forbes and regional business press including ITWeb and Business Day. Biography Most enterprise AI conversations stall at the same point. Leaders agree the technology is significant. They cannot agree what to do with it on Monday. The gap between a board’s appetite for AI and an operating model that can actually absorb it is now the central problem in digital transformation, and it is exactly where Brett StClair works. StClair spent his Google years inside the product engine for Africa, with responsibilities across mobile, AdMob, YouTube and Cloud. He left to take on a different kind of problem: rebuilding Barclays Africa as a digital bank, leading product across 32 countries and an organisation of around 40,000 people. That experience, working at the seam between a hyperscaler and a regulated bank, sits behind his current work. As Co-Founder and Chief Connector of Teraflow.ai, he leads enterprise engagements on AI and cloud adoption with banks, healthcare organisations and large corporates. His “Rebel Technologist” thesis, carried through his podcast and keynotes, names a recurring pattern inside large firms: the internal disruptors who actually move transformation forward, and the leadership choices that determine whether they survive long enough to ship. His keynote from Google to global banking has been delivered to audiences including Mastercard, Vodafone, Standard Bank, Nedbank, FNB, Deloitte and Accenture, and his work has been referenced in BBC, Financial Times and Forbes coverage of AI and digital change. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI adoption Generative AI in regulated industries Digital transformation at scale DevOps and agile inside large organisations Cloud strategy for enterprises Innovation culture and internal disruptors Leadership in technology change programmes Ideal for CIOs, CDOs and CTOs setting AI and cloud strategy Transformation, innovation and digital leads moving from pilot to production Boards and executive committees in banking, healthcare and large corporates Heads of operations and HR designing workforce capability around AI Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI investment converts into operating advantage and where it does not. A working language for governance, risk and capability around generative AI in regulated environments. Practical lessons from inside Google and Barclays Africa on what makes large-scale digital change actually land. A sharper sense of how to identify and protect the internal disruptors who carry transformation programmes through their hardest stages.

Meet Paul Johnson Paul is Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the UK’s leading economic research institute. He writes a weekly column for The Times and is an Honorary Professor at the UCL Policy Lab. In addition, Paul is a board member of the Climate Change Committee. The IFS has won ‘Economic and Financial Think Tank of the Year’ four years in succession and hosts two major research centres combining its leading role in public policy with world leading academic economic research. As well as working at the IFS, Paul has also worked at the FSA, was chief economist at the department for education, and director of public spending at HM Treasury as well as deputy head of the Government Economic Service. Paul’s book Follow the Money: How Much Does Britain Cost? was published in early 2023, illustrating how well – or not – the government raises and spends £1 trillion every year. It has already been a Sunday Times top 10 bestseller and aims to hold the government to account. Robert Peston described it as ‘an important book by the economist who has set the terms of so much political debate over the past decade.’ “Gripping and horrifying…witty and brilliant. Buy it.’ The Times. He is a frequent contributor to written and broadcast media and his radio recordings include the acclaimed ‘Austerity Audit’ for Radio 4. He has published extensively on the economics of public policy including tax, welfare, housing, pensions, education, climate change and public finances. In 2018 Paul was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list for services to the social sciences and economics.

Why organisations work with Alex Depledge She has built, scaled and exited a venture-backed UK consumer marketplace, and is currently advising the Chancellor of the Exchequer on entrepreneurship policy. Few speakers can hold both a founder’s lens and a policy lens at once. She speaks to boards from inside the boardroom. Her FTSE-100 seat at Persimmon and NED role at Goodlord mean her advice on innovation, governance and growth is grounded in current PLC reality, not consultancy abstraction. She frames the gender funding gap and the women-in-tech question with hard numbers and self-implicating honesty rather than the standard talk-track, which is why programme committees book her for conversations they want to feel more honest than usual. She has a working view, formed through Hassle.com and Resi, on why corporates struggle to copy start-up behaviour, and what they can realistically take from it. She talks about regulation, sharing economy policy and UK scale-up barriers as a current operator and current government advisor, which gives those sessions weight that retrospective speakers rarely match. Biography highlights First ever Entrepreneurship Advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed by Rachel Reeves in June 2025. Independent Non-Executive Director, Persimmon PLC (FTSE 100), since May 2023; sits on remuneration and nomination committees. Founder of Resi.co.uk, the UK’s largest residential architectural practice, with over 10,000 home projects delivered. Stepped down as CEO in December 2025 and moved to the board. Co-founder and former CEO of Hassle.com, sold to Helpling in 2015 after Accel Partners-led funding. MBE for services to the Sharing Economy, 2016. Named in Computer Weekly’s 50 Most Influential Women in UK Tech and Debrett’s 500 Most Influential People; FT 30 Female Founders to Watch. Biography Most established companies want to behave more like start-ups and very few succeed. The reason is rarely a shortage of ambition. It is that the operating habits, the speed of decision and the comfort with risk that actually produce scale-up growth get filtered out by the systems large organisations use to govern themselves. Alex Depledge has lived on both sides of that gap and now advises across it. She co-founded Hassle.com in 2012 with Jules Coleman, took Accel Partners funding, expanded across Europe and exited to Helpling in 2015. The next year the same partnership launched Resi.co.uk, now the UK’s largest residential architectural practice with more than ten thousand projects delivered. She led Resi as CEO for nearly a decade before stepping back to the board in late 2025. Her current portfolio is what makes her unusual on a stage. She is the first Entrepreneurship Advisor to HM Treasury, appointed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in June 2025 to work directly on the barriers UK companies hit when they try to scale. At the same time she sits as an independent non-executive director of Persimmon PLC, the FTSE-100 housebuilder, and joined Goodlord’s board in December 2025. That mix gives her audiences a rare combination of inputs: a founder who has banked an exit, a board member inside a UK plc, and a named voice in active conversation with the Treasury about why British scale-ups stall. She was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to the sharing economy and writes and broadcasts regularly on entrepreneurship, technology policy and the gender funding gap. Key speaking topics Scale-up leadership and the founder operating mindset What large organisations can and cannot learn from start-ups UK entrepreneurship policy and barriers to scale Women, funding and structural bias in venture capital Innovation inside regulated and traditional sectors The future of work and platform-economy business models Proptech and the digitisation of legacy industries Ideal for CEOs, COOs and strategy leaders in incumbent businesses trying to behave more entrepreneurially Boards and Chairs commissioning sessions on innovation governance and growth CHROs and inclusion leads addressing gender, funding and pipeline questions in tech Industry conferences in property, financial services, professional services and government Audience outcomes A clearer read on which start-up behaviours scale into a corporate environment and which do not A current operator’s view of UK entrepreneurship policy and the live Treasury debate on scale-up barriers An honest framing of the gender funding gap that names structural causes rather than rehearsing the symptoms A board-level perspective on innovation as a governance discipline, drawn from FTSE-100 practice A real example of building, scaling and exiting a venture-backed UK consumer marketplace

Why organisations work with Paul Redmond He brings a five-generation diagnostic, not a Millennials-versus-Boomers cliche, that gives HR and commercial leaders a working language for friction they can already feel. His employability research, built across senior roles at the University of Liverpool, lets him speak credibly to graduate-recruitment, early-careers, and talent-pipeline audiences other generational speakers cannot. His Zombie Jobs thesis, anchored in his 2019 TED Talk and 2024 Trotman book on the AI age, gives leadership audiences a sharp, named frame for which roles AI hollows out and which it does not. He moves comfortably between commercial keynotes and broadcast work, including BBC and ITV current affairs, which translates into a polished platform presence for high-stakes events. Biography highlights Director of Student Experience and Enhancement, University of Liverpool, with continuing lecturing responsibilities. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (2010), awarded for writing and research. Author of The Graduate Jobs Formula, Talking about my Generation, A Parent’s Guide to Graduate Jobs, and The Graduate’s Guide to Future-Proofing Your Career (Trotman, 2024). TED speaker: Zombie Careers: Will You Lose Your Job to AI? (2019). Regular contributor to BBC and ITV current affairs; collaborator on the BBC and Tiger Aspect documentary Who Gets the Best Jobs? Speaks across financial services, technology, healthcare, and travel, with named clients including Google, Hargreaves Lansdown, Janus Henderson, Royal London, the NHS, and ABTA. Biography Five working generations now sit inside the same organisation. Each one learned to work under a different economy, a different communication norm, and a different settlement with the employer. The friction this produces shows up in engagement scores, retention numbers, and customer outcomes. Redmond’s work names that friction and gives leaders a way to act on it. His vantage is unusual. As Director of Student Experience and Enhancement at the University of Liverpool, he has spent years inside the machinery that produces the next generation of the workforce, and in continuous research conversation with the employers buying that talent. That has made his commentary on Gen Z and the post-Covid graduate market a regular fixture on BBC and ITV current affairs, and a reference point for HR and early-careers teams across UK plc. The future-of-work strand runs alongside it. His TED Talk Zombie Careers, published in 2019, set out the roles most exposed to AI and robotics, and the cognitive and human skills that survive automation. The Graduate’s Guide to Future-Proofing Your Career, published by Trotman in 2024, extends that argument into a working guide for the AI age. The thesis lands because it is grounded in named research, not in tech-keynote futurism. His books include The Graduate Jobs Formula, Talking about my Generation, A Parent’s Guide to Graduate Jobs, and Making it Happen. In 2010 he was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts for his writing and research. Key speaking topics The multigenerational workplace Gen Z and the post-Covid workforce The future of work and AI exposure Graduate recruitment and early-careers strategy Selling and marketing across generations Wellbeing and the staff-customer link Employability and career resilience Ideal for CHROs, heads of talent, and early-careers leads designing pipelines around Gen Z and a five-generation workforce. Commercial and marketing leaders building proposition and channel strategy across generational customer segments. Executive teams stress-testing which roles AI will hollow out and which human capabilities to invest in. Boards and leadership conferences in financial services, technology, healthcare, and professional services. Audience outcomes A working language for the five generations now in the workforce and the specific friction points each pair produces. A named view of which roles are most exposed to AI and robotics, and which capabilities buyers and employers should be investing in. Practical engagement and retention moves calibrated to Gen Z and post-Covid graduate expectations. A sharper read on how generational difference shows up on the customer side, in buying behaviour and channel preference.

Why organisations work with Karen Blackett She ran WPP in the UK during the COVID turnaround, responsible for around US$2 billion of revenue and 13,000 people, which gives her authority on what cultural change at FTSE scale actually requires. During her five years as CEO of MediaCom UK, ethnic diversity moved from 11% to 19% and women in senior management reached 44%, the kind of attributable shift most leadership talks cannot reference. As the UK government’s Race Equality Business Champion under the Race at Work Charter, she has worked across sectors on the specific mechanics of progression, not the rhetoric of inclusion. Her current Diageo board seat and her co-founder role at the Black Equity Organisation give her a live view of how the same questions land in a FTSE 10 boardroom and in national civil society. Biography highlights Former UK President, WPP, with responsibility for around US$2 billion of revenue and 13,000 people. Former CEO of MediaCom UK and CEO of GroupM UK; MediaCom named Campaign Agency of the Year in 2013 and 2014 under her leadership. Non-Executive Director, Diageo plc, since June 2022; member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committees. Non-Executive Director, Cabinet Office Board; previously UK Race Equality Business Champion under the Race at Work Charter. Co-founder, Black Equity Organisation (2021), alongside David Lammy, David Olusoga, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Ric Lewis and Dame Vivian Hunt. Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, the first alumna to hold the position. Awarded CBE (2025) for services to Advertising and the Creative Industries; OBE (2014); first businesswoman to top the Powerlist. Biography Running a marketing services group of 13,000 people through a pandemic exposes whether a leader’s cultural language is operational or decorative. WPP UK was Karen Blackett’s brief for four years, with around US$2 billion of revenue under her remit and a workforce that needed to be both held together and pushed forward. She came to the role after running MediaCom UK as CEO, where the agency was named Campaign Agency of the Year in 2013 and 2014. The MediaCom record is the one she is most often asked about. Across her five years as CEO, ethnic diversity in the business moved from 11% to 19% and women in senior management reached 44%. Those numbers are unusual because they exist at all. Most senior leaders speaking on culture cannot point to a specific business they changed by a specific amount. That track record is why government and boards now use her. She was appointed UK Race Equality Business Champion in 2018 by Prime Minister Theresa May, working through the Race at Work Charter with Business in the Community. She sits on the Cabinet Office Board as a Non-Executive Director, and on the Diageo board as a Non-Executive Director, where she is a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committees. In 2021 she co-founded the Black Equity Organisation with David Lammy, David Olusoga, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Ric Lewis and Dame Vivian Hunt, an independent national civil rights body for Black Britons. She was awarded an OBE in 2014 and a CBE in the 2025 King’s New Year Honours. She was the first businesswoman to top the Powerlist of Britain’s 100 most influential Black people, in 2015. Key speaking topics Leadership at scale through periods of disruption Culture as an operating system, not a statement Inclusion as a measurable business outcome Board-level race equity and the Race at Work agenda Future of work in marketing and creative industries Brand, growth and consumer change Ideal for CEO and board audiences considering how to make culture or inclusion commitments measurable CHROs, CPOs and group HR directors responsible for senior progression data Marketing and communications leadership teams in FTSE-scale businesses Networks and councils focused on Black leadership progression in UK corporates Audience outcomes A board-level frame for treating culture as part of operating performance rather than a separate workstream. A specific worked example of how senior leadership composition changes when progression mechanics are redesigned. A clearer view of where Race at Work Charter commitments most often fail and what holds them in place. Sharper language for talking about inclusion in a contested external environment without retreating to compliance speak.