Future Skills

Why organisations work with James Lyne He runs the world’s most respected cybersecurity training and research institution, so the material he brings into a boardroom reflects what SANS instructors and researchers are seeing in live incidents, not a curated deck of last year’s case studies. Twenty years of frontline work across red teaming, malware reverse engineering, incident response and intelligence support. He speaks to boards, regulators and technical teams in the same briefing and holds credibility with all three. Live demonstration is his signature. He hacks IoT devices, runs social engineering against willing volunteers and walks audiences through real ransomware. Leaders leave with a felt sense of the risk, not a slide on it. Founder of CyberStart, which put 400,000-plus students through hands-on cyber challenges before closing after nine years. That gives him a specific, tested view on the talent gap most organisations are trying to solve. TED main-stage, NBC Nightly News, BBC, CNN, Bill Maher, John Oliver. The booking converts into a communications asset as well as a keynote. Biography highlights Chief Executive Officer, SANS Institute, appointed from the Office of the CEO after years of strategic and operational leadership inside the organisation. Certified SANS Instructor specialising in offensive operations, with more than two decades in cybersecurity across offensive, defensive and forensic work. Former Global Head of Security Research at Sophos, where he led public threat research and commentary via the Naked Security platform. Founder of CyberStart, a gamified cyber skills programme that ran nine years and engaged over 400,000 students in more than 200 hands-on challenges. TED main-stage speaker on everyday cybercrime, plus TEDx talks including Hacking With Words and Smiles. Recipient of the SANS Difference Makers Award for contribution to the UK cybersecurity community. Media regular across NBC Nightly News, CNN, BBC News, Real Time with Bill Maher and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Biography Most cybersecurity briefings for senior audiences fail in the same way. They are either too abstract to act on, or too technical to follow. Lyne built his career working the gap between those two failure modes, first as Global Head of Security Research at Sophos, then as a long-standing Certified Instructor at SANS Institute, and now as its Chief Executive Officer. Twenty years on the frontline shapes the material. He has reverse engineered malware, red teamed high-security organisations, supported intelligence efforts against adversaries and sat inside the response to major breaches. That work is the reason his keynotes do not rely on slides. He demonstrates. Hacking an IoT device on stage, walking a room through a live phishing capture, pulling apart a ransomware sample in real time. The threat stops being theoretical. Lyne’s argument as CEO of SANS is that human expertise, curious and mission-driven, is the decisive advantage in cybersecurity, including against AI-enabled attackers. That belief sits behind CyberStart, the gamified cyber skills programme he founded, which ran for nine years and pulled over 400,000 students through hands-on challenges in cryptography, forensics and ethical hacking. It is also why leadership teams book him when they want their people to leave a session with a sharper instinct, not a longer reading list. The media footprint reinforces rather than replaces the substance. TED main-stage on everyday cybercrime, appearances on NBC Nightly News, CNN, BBC, Bill Maher and John Oliver, and a SANS Difference Makers Award for his contribution to the UK cyber community. Boards get a speaker who can hold a technical room and translate for a non-technical one in the same afternoon. Key speaking topics Cybersecurity as a board-level risk AI-enabled threats and the future of cyber defence Ransomware economics and incident response Social engineering and the human attack surface Internet of Things and connected device risk The cyber skills gap and building security talent Threat intelligence and the live threat landscape Ideal for Boards, CEOs and audit committees setting cyber risk appetite and oversight CISOs, CIOs and CTOs briefing executive teams on threat and resilience posture Financial services, critical infrastructure and regulated industries with concentrated cyber exposure Leadership summits, customer events and partner conferences where a live demonstration reframes the conversation Audience outcomes A concrete, demonstrated view of how modern attackers actually operate, from ransomware crews to social engineers A clearer sense of where AI is shifting the economics of both attack and defence Named examples of IoT, identity and supply chain vulnerabilities that map onto the audience’s own environment A shared language for boards and technical teams to talk about cyber risk without talking past each other A sharper read on where cyber talent and training investment actually move the needle

Why organisations work with Fredrik Haren His formula IDEA = P(K+I) – a person combining existing knowledge with new information – converts creativity from an abstract value into a model that managers can act on; this is the foundation of how he runs workshops, not just a rhetorical device The Idea Book has been deployed as an internal training tool by HP, Ericsson, Volvo, China Mobile, and GE – demonstrating that his framework translates from conference platform to in-organisation application His research base is genuinely cross-cultural: 25 years of field interviews across 75 countries, including fieldwork in North Korea and Mongolia, gives him material that no Western-campus-based creativity theorist can replicate He holds the Global Speaking Federation’s International Ambassador Award – given to fewer than 15 speakers globally since 2001 and, at the time of his award, never previously to a non-native English speaker based in Asia – a peer-verified credential, not a self-declared one His most recent book, The World of Creativity (Capstone/Wiley), entered for The Business Book Awards 2026, signals that his thinking continues to develop rather than recycle the same material Biography highlights Author of 10 books including The Idea Book, listed among the 100 Best Business Books of All Time Recipient of the International Ambassador Award from the Global Speakers Federation – awarded to fewer than 15 speakers globally since 2001 One of approximately 30 Global Speaking Fellows (CSPGlobal) worldwide Speaker of the Year, Sweden (2007); founder of interesting.org 2,000+ speeches delivered across 75 countries and 6 continents over a 25-year career Clients include KPMG, Grant Thornton International, HP, IKEA, BMW, Ericsson, GE, Volvo, and American Express Biography Fredrik Haren’s starting point is a question most organisations avoid asking directly: if you need a new idea tomorrow, where does it come from? His formula – IDEA = P(K+I), meaning a person combining existing knowledge with new information – strips creativity of its mystique and reframes it as something organisations can design for. The Idea Book, first published in 2004, applied that thinking in a concrete format: 150 pages of frameworks combined with 150 blank pages for working. It became an internal training tool at HP, Ericsson, Volvo, China Mobile, and GE, and was listed among the 100 Best Business Books of All Time. His most recent book, The World of Creativity (Capstone/Wiley), draws on 25 years of field research – interviews with thousands of people across 75 countries including North Korea – to map how creativity is both universal and shaped by culture. That fieldwork is the differentiator. Where most speakers on innovation draw from research or theory, Haren’s material comes from direct observation across markets and contexts that Western organisations rarely access. It gives global conference audiences – whose reference points span multiple continents – a framework that holds across cultures rather than one that travels badly. His credentials within the professional speaking community are a useful proxy for depth: Certified Speaking Professional, one of approximately 30 Global Speaking Fellows worldwide, and recipient of the Global Speakers Federation’s International Ambassador Award – given to fewer than 15 speakers since 2001 and, at the time of his award, the first to a non-native English speaker based in Asia. Key speaking topics Business creativity and idea generation Innovation as a repeatable organisational process Cross-cultural creativity and global mindset Creativity in the age of AI Building creative capability in organisations Future skills and the innovation-ready workforce Ideal for Global conference audiences spanning multiple nationalities where a single Western-centric perspective will not land CHROs and Learning & Development leads seeking to build creative capability beyond individual talent acquisition Senior leadership teams of multinationals where innovation is a stated priority but no reliable process exists to support it Innovation and transformation executives accountable for sustaining competitive differentiation Audience outcomes A working model – IDEA = P(K+I) – for understanding how ideas are generated and how to apply it in their own context Practical techniques for stimulating idea generation individually and with teams, applicable on return to the office A cross-cultural perspective on how creative practice differs across markets – relevant for any organisation operating across geographies A reframe of creativity from personal talent to organisational skill, with direct implications for how teams are developed A clearer read on how AI changes – and does not change – the fundamentals of human creativity

Why organisations work with Digby Jones He has sat in both chairs that most business audiences only see from outside: head of the CBI and Minister of State for Trade. Very few speakers can tell a boardroom what the other side of the table is actually thinking. As Trade Minister he made 45 overseas visits to 31 countries in 15 months. That is a working map of how UK plc sells itself abroad, not a theory about it. His two Wiley books, Fixing Britain (2011) and Fixing Business (2017), set out a consistent argument about competitiveness, skills and responsible profit that still frames how he talks to boards today. He is a crossbencher by choice and a non-aligned voice in public life. For audiences tired of partisan framing, that independence is the point. The New Troubleshooter, his 2014 BBC Two series, put him inside three real British SMEs to diagnose and fix them on camera. It is a rare speaker credential: public evidence of how he actually thinks through a business problem. Biography highlights Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, 2000 to 2006. Minister of State for Trade and Investment, 2007 to 2008, jointly in BERR and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Life peer as Baron Jones of Birmingham, 2007; crossbencher in the House of Lords until retirement in 2020. Knight Bachelor, 2005 New Year Honours, for services to Business. Author of Fixing Britain (Wiley, 2011) and Fixing Business (Wiley, 2017); Fixing Britain shortlisted for the 2012 CMI Management Book of the Year. Presenter of BBC Two’s Digby Jones: The New Troubleshooter, 2014. Senior Partner at Edge & Ellison, Birmingham, 1995 to 1998, after two decades as a corporate lawyer in the West Midlands. Biography The CBI is where British business tells the government what it needs. The Department for Business is where the government tells British business what it is prepared to do. Digby Jones has run the first and served in the second. That combined vantage is what a boardroom is buying when it brings him in. He was Director General of the CBI from 2000 to 2006, then accepted an invitation from Gordon Brown to serve as Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2007 to 2008, joining the Lords as a crossbencher to take the post. In 15 months he made 45 overseas visits to 31 countries, pitching the UK as a place to invest and British firms as firms to buy from. He sat as a non-aligned peer until retiring from the Lords in 2020. The two books are where his argument lives. Fixing Britain (Wiley, 2011), shortlisted for the 2012 CMI Management Book of the Year, is a working plan for national competitiveness: skills, infrastructure, a functioning relationship between Whitehall and the wealth creators. Fixing Business (Wiley, 2017) extends the argument into how profitable companies can justify themselves to the societies they operate in. The thesis is consistent and it is his own. Before politics, he spent twenty years at Edge & Ellison in Birmingham, becoming senior partner, brokering deals for mid-market companies in a region that lives or dies by manufacturing. That is the register he still speaks in. On the BBC Two series The New Troubleshooter in 2014 he spent three episodes inside three British SMEs, arguing with owners and staff about pricing, exports and focus. A senior audience watching him work sees the same person they will meet on stage: direct, specific, unafraid to name the problem. Key speaking topics UK competitiveness and the business-government relationship Trade, exports and inward investment British economic policy and the view from Westminster Skills, productivity and the domestic labour market Responsible business and the case for profit Leadership from the employers’ side of the table Ideal for Board and executive committee offsites debating UK exposure, investment or political risk CEO and CFO audiences at trade associations, industry bodies and chambers of commerce Senior audiences at professional services and financial firms briefing clients on the UK economy After-dinner and conference keynotes where a non-partisan senior voice on British business is the draw Audience outcomes A candid read on where the UK economy and UK business policy actually stand, from someone who has worked both sides A clearer view of what government decisions mean for investment, exports and hiring A sharper argument for why skills and productivity remain the binding constraint on British growth A usable sense of how to talk about profit, responsibility and national interest in the same sentence Direct answers in Q&A: a working conversation with a senior practitioner, not a rehearsed set piece

Why organisations work with David Goodhart His Anywheres-Somewheres framework – originated in The Road to Somewhere and now widely cited in policy and board-level discourse – gives leadership teams a precise vocabulary for the value divide driving political volatility, workforce disengagement, and brand risk, and a basis for strategic response that goes beyond reactive communication. His Head, Hand, Heart typology reframes the talent and automation debate: it argues that cognitive work has been systematically over-valued at the expense of manual and care-based vocations, giving organisations a rigorous basis for rethinking workforce design, skills investment, and the distribution of dignity and status at work. His trilogy – The Road to Somewhere, Head, Hand, Heart, and The Care Dilemma – maps three decades of social disruption as a connected analytical story, giving boards a through-line from the Brexit-era value fracture to current debates on care, fertility, and workforce sustainability. He draws on live research at Policy Exchange’s Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit rather than a fixed single-book thesis – his analysis tracks current demographic, policy, and political data and adjusts accordingly. His range is structurally unusual: 12 years as a Financial Times correspondent, founder and editor of Prospect magazine, Director of Demos, and current Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission – he holds the argument across journalism, think tank research, and regulatory governance in a combination that very few analysts in this space can match. Biography highlights Head of Policy Exchange’s Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit and Director of the Integration Hub Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission Founder and former editor of Prospect magazine (established 1995); Financial Times correspondent for 12 years, including a posting in Germany during reunification Former Director of the think tank Demos Author of The Road to Somewhere (Sunday Times bestseller; longlisted for the Orwell Prize 2018), Head, Hand, Heart (Financial Times and Telegraph Book of the Year 2020), The Care Dilemma (Financial Times and Spectator Book of the Year 2024), and The British Dream (shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2014) Contributor to the Guardian, the Times, the Independent, and the Financial Times; presenter of BBC Radio 4 Analysis programmes Biography David Goodhart founded Prospect magazine in 1995 and spent 12 years as a Financial Times correspondent – including a posting in Germany during reunification. The Road to Somewhere (2017) named the divide between mobile Anywheres and rooted Somewheres: a framework now standard in policy and board-level analysis of political risk. That book launched a trilogy. Head, Hand, Heart (2020) extended the argument to work and status, making the case that cognitive elites had systematically captured the labour market at the expense of manual and care-based vocations. A Financial Times and Telegraph Book of the Year, it identified the dignity deficit that now drives workforce disengagement and vocational underinvestment. The Care Dilemma (2024), also a Financial Times Book of the Year, completed the arc – examining how rapid social change has produced structural deficits in care, family stability, and demographic renewal. His institutional base spans journalism, policy, and governance. He served as Director of Demos before heading Policy Exchange’s Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit. He sits as a Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission – a combination that allows him to hold the argument across research, regulatory practice, and public media with unusual coherence. The frameworks Goodhart has built are reference points for boards and leadership teams trying to understand why workforces, consumer bases, and political environments are pulling in different directions. His contribution is analytical rigour applied to the forces most organisations feel but struggle to name. Key speaking topics The Anywheres-Somewheres divide and political risk Immigration, integration, and social cohesion Populism, value-based political fractures, and elite distrust Status, dignity, and the cognitive-skills divide in modern economies Demography, fertility, and the care deficit The future of vocational work and skills systems National identity and the politics of belonging Ideal for C-suite and board audiences mapping the political and social risks shaping the operating environment Government, public sector, and policy leadership teams working on immigration, integration, demographic change, or social cohesion HR, talent, and workforce strategy leaders reassessing skills frameworks, vocational pathways, and workforce dignity in the context of automation Public affairs, corporate affairs, and ESG functions managing social licence, institutional trust, and stakeholder relations Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the Anywheres-Somewheres divide and its concrete implications for workforce, consumer, and political behaviour A structural account of why political volatility is a durable feature of the operating environment, not a temporary disruption A framework for auditing how organisations distribute status, dignity, and investment across cognitive, manual, and care-based roles – and the strategic consequences of imbalance Clearer analytical thinking about demographic change – falling birthrates, ageing populations, and the emerging care deficit – as strategic planning factors rather than background noise A more grounded, evidence-based framing of immigration and integration as policy and social licence issues, accessible across the political spectrum

Why organisations work with Bernard Marr His frameworks for data strategy and AI adoption are grounded in peer-reviewed academic research from Cambridge and Cranfield – which means they hold up to internal scrutiny in ways that practitioner opinion rarely does. Business Trends in Practice, winner of the 2022 Business Book of the Year Award, gives executive audiences a shared, structured vocabulary for decisions that are otherwise made in fragmented, jargon-heavy conversations. His Forbes column reaches approximately one million readers a month – meaning his conceptual framing is often already in the room before he arrives, which accelerates rather than starts the conversation. He advises organisations across the full spectrum of sectors – from Google and Microsoft to the Bank of England, NATO and the NHS – which gives him a pattern-recognition advantage that single-sector specialists cannot replicate. Where most AI speakers address technology adoption as an IT problem, Marr consistently frames it as a governance and leadership problem – which is what boards and C-suites are actually wrestling with. Biography highlights Research Fellow, Cambridge Judge Business School; subsequently at Cranfield School of Management – before founding Bernard Marr & Co in 2006 Author of more than 20 books on AI, data strategy and digital transformation, published in over 20 languages Business Trends in Practice named Business Book of the Year 2022; additional awards include the CMI Management Book of the Year, Axiom Book Award and WHSmith Best Business Book Award Ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world Regular contributor to Forbes and the World Economic Forum; media presence includes BBC News, Sky News, the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and HBR Advisory clients include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, the Bank of England, NATO, the NHS, Shell and the United Nations Biography Bernard Marr spent his early career as a research fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School and then at Cranfield School of Management, where his published work – cited more than 5,400 times – focused on business performance, intellectual capital and strategic measurement. In 2006 he left academia to found Bernard Marr & Co, taking that analytical infrastructure into advisory work with some of the world’s most complex organisations. His books – more than twenty of them, translated into over twenty languages – are not airport business books. Data Strategy, AI Strategy, Generative AI in Practice and Future Skills each address a specific executive decision: how to treat data as a governed asset, how to build an AI adoption roadmap, how to prepare a workforce for automation. Business Trends in Practice won the 2022 Business Book of the Year Award. His writing for Forbes, published at a rate of around three articles per week, gives those frameworks sustained reach into executive audiences between engagements. What makes Marr useful to a board is not that he explains technology well – many speakers do that. It is that he consistently reframes technology questions as governance questions: who owns the data strategy, how do we assess AI risk, what does leadership fluency in this area actually require? These are the questions that stall transformation programmes, and they sit above the pay grade of a CTO. His advisory work spans Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the Bank of England, NATO, the NHS, Shell and the United Nations – a range that gives him cross-sector pattern recognition that sector-specific specialists cannot replicate. The organisations that benefit most from his work are those where the executive team is technically literate enough to know they don’t know enough, and needs a structured way to close that gap. Key speaking topics AI strategy and adoption for executive leadership Data strategy and data governance Generative AI and its organisational implications Digital transformation and business performance Future of work and future skills Emerging technology trends and business impact Strategic performance management Ideal for C-suite and board-level audiences navigating AI and data investment decisions Chief Digital Officers, Chief Data Officers and technology transformation leads Senior leadership teams ahead of major digital transformation programmes Corporate and enterprise conference audiences requiring clarity on technology without technical fluency as a prerequisite Audience outcomes A working framework for evaluating AI and data investments – not just a description of what they are Clearer language for discussing technology strategy at board level, with less dependence on specialist intermediaries Understanding of which emerging technology trends carry genuine near-term organisational implications versus which are still speculative A more structured approach to data governance and the conditions under which data generates strategic advantage Insight into the skills and capabilities organisations will need to build – and which to acquire versus develop internally

Why organisations work with Duncan Wardle His Theory of Creativity™ is a named, commercially tested framework – not a philosophy but a practical toolkit developed and stress-tested across Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks before being applied with post-Disney clients including Apple, the NBA, Coca-Cola, and NBCUniversal. He treats creativity as a repeatable operational habit rather than a talent or a culture programme – giving leadership teams a concrete, tool-based answer to the question of how to make innovation everyone’s job, not a department’s. Specific tools within the framework – the “What If” method and the “Rivers of Thinking” model – address the cognitive and structural barriers that prevent established organisations from generating genuinely new ideas. These are actionable instruments audiences can use immediately, not post-event reading lists. He is one of the few speakers in this space who built an innovation function from the inside of a major global brand, rather than studying one from outside – a distinction that matters to senior audiences who have heard the Disney case study told at second hand. Author of The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation (2024), a practitioner resource designed to be used independently by organisations after an engagement, extending the shelf life of the session beyond the room. Biography highlights VP of Innovation and Creativity at The Walt Disney Company; previous VP roles include VP Global Public Relations and VP International Marketing and Sales, with postings across London, Paris, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Shanghai Founded Disney’s Creative Catalyst Team, responsible for embedding innovation across Imagineering, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks Founder and CEO of iD8 & innov8, a design thinking consultancy; clients include Apple, Coca-Cola, NBA, PepsiCo, IBM, NBCUniversal, and Spotify Author of The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation (Benbella Books, 2024) Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company; member of the Fast Company Executive Board Multiple TEDx speaker, including “The Theory of Creativity” (TEDxAUK) and “Creating Relationship Magic” (TEDxBocaRaton) Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration, Edinburgh Napier University (2014); White House American Citizen Award (2008); Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award; 2022 Nordic Business Forum Speaker Contest Winner Teaches Innovation Masterclasses at Yale and Harvard Biography Duncan Wardle joined The Walt Disney Company as an intern in the London office in 1987. Over the following 30 years he progressed through VP roles in global public relations, international marketing and sales, and ultimately VP of Innovation and Creativity – the function he built from scratch, founding Disney’s Creative Catalyst Team and deploying it across Imagineering, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Disney Parks. His central argument is that creativity is not a talent distributed unevenly across the workforce. It is a capability that corporate structures systematically suppress – and one that can be restored with the right tools. The framework he developed inside Disney, the Theory of Creativity™, includes specific instruments: the “What If” method, used by Walt Disney himself to pivot the company from an animation studio to an entertainment and theme park pioneer, and the “Rivers of Thinking” model, which identifies the expertise-driven habits that stop large organisations from generating genuinely new ideas. Since founding iD8 & innov8, Wardle has applied these methods with clients including Apple, Coca-Cola, the NBA, PepsiCo, and NBCUniversal – demonstrating that a toolkit built for an entertainment brand translates across sectors where creative problem-solving is structurally harder. His 2024 book, The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation, packages the methodology as a practical resource organisations can use independently. He also contributes to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company, and teaches Innovation Masterclasses at Yale and Harvard. His formal recognition includes a White House American Citizen Award (2008), an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Edinburgh Napier University (2014), a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award, and the 2022 Nordic Business Forum Speaker Contest. He is a multiple TEDx speaker, with talks including “The Theory of Creativity” and “Creating Relationship Magic.” Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and the Theory of Creativity™ Design thinking and creative problem-solving Organisational barriers to creative thinking Customer experience innovation Human creativity and competitive advantage in the age of AI Building innovation culture at scale Creative leadership and entrepreneurial thinking Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams responsible for growth and competitive strategy Chief Innovation Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, and transformation leads Large organisations seeking to embed innovation beyond a dedicated function Conference audiences in technology, consumer, media, and professional services sectors Audience outcomes A named set of practical innovation tools – including the “What If” method and the “Rivers of Thinking” model – that teams can apply immediately A framework for identifying and removing the cognitive and structural barriers that block creative thinking in established organisations Clarity on how to separate the creative process from the operational process, and why the two must be managed differently An understanding of why human creativity is not threatened by AI – and how to build it as a source of commercial competitive advantage Concrete methods for making innovation a daily habit rather than a quarterly initiative

Why organisations work with Mark Williams He brings the evidence base that most performance and leadership content lacks. His research on perceptual-cognitive skill, decision-making and expertise is among the most cited in the field worldwide. He has translated that science into practice at the highest level of sport, advising FIFA, UEFA, the IOC, The FA, and teams across the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. The lessons travel directly into how executives think about talent and pressure. His book with Tim Wigmore, “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made”, gives leaders a shared language for what separates the very best from the merely good, built on interviews with athletes like Steph Curry, Pete Sampras and Marcus Rashford. He is Editor-in-Chief of three of the discipline’s leading journals, including the Journal of Sports Sciences. When he tells a board what the research says, it is not a summary of someone else’s work. He is unusually direct for an academic of his standing. The science is rigorous, the delivery is plain. Biography highlights Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC); formerly Professor and Chair, Department of Health, Kinesiology and Recreation, University of Utah. Co-author of “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made” (2020), with Telegraph and New York Times sports writer Tim Wigmore. Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sports Sciences, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, and Human Movement Science. Distinguished Scholar Awards from the International Society of Sport Psychology and the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity. Consultant to FIFA, UEFA, the IOC, The FA, and professional teams in the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the National Academy of Kinesiology, and the European College of Sport Science. Biography The reason one team performs under pressure and another collapses is rarely the talent on the pitch. It is what was built into the players, the coaching staff and the decisions long before kick-off. Mark Williams has spent more than three decades studying that question, and turning the answers into something coaches, federations and executives can use. His research focuses on the neural and psychological mechanisms behind expertise: how perception, decision-making and motor skill develop, and what separates a world-class performer from a very good one. The work has shaped programmes at FIFA, UEFA, the IOC and The FA, and inside teams across the Premier League, NBA, NFL and MLB. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sports Sciences, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, and Human Movement Science. His book with Tim Wigmore, “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made”, brought that body of research to a wider audience through interviews with figures including Steph Curry, Pete Sampras, Kurt Warner and Marcus Rashford. The argument is built on evidence rather than anecdote: the conditions that produce sustained excellence can be described, designed and reproduced. For senior leaders, the value is the translation. The science of how people learn complex skills, hold their nerve in unfamiliar conditions and make better decisions under time pressure does not stop at the touchline. It is the same problem a board faces when it asks why a strategy works for one team and not for the next. Key speaking topics The science of expertise and skill acquisition Talent identification and development Decision-making under pressure Building high-performing teams The psychology of excellence Coaching, learning environments and instructional design Ideal for Executive teams and CHROs designing leadership and talent pipelines Learning and development leaders rebuilding how the organisation teaches complex skills Board and senior conferences focused on performance, culture and decision-making Sports federations, performance directors and coaching staff Audience outcomes A clearer view of what the evidence actually says about how expertise is built, and where most talent programmes go wrong. Specific cues for spotting the perceptual and decision-making skills that distinguish top performers from the rest. Practical principles for designing learning environments that produce skill, not just activity. A shared vocabulary for talking about pressure, decision-making and team performance that holds up under scrutiny.

Why organisations work with Whitney Johnson A field-tested model, the S Curve of Learning, that gives executives a shared language for placing every team member on a developmental trajectory rather than an annual performance grid. A track record of applying disruptive innovation theory to capital allocation, including co-founding the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Clayton Christensen and leading the seed investment in Coupang. A No. 8 Thinkers50 ranking in 2021 and consecutive listings since 2015, signalling sustained credibility with the same boards her audiences sit on. Direct relevance to succession planning, post-merger integration, and the talent risk inside transformation programmes, drawn from Fortune 500 advisory work with Kraft Heinz, Intermountain Health, Morgan Stanley, and Amazon. A Wall Street equity-analyst background that lets her speak to commercial leaders in their own language about return on people, not just culture. Biography highlights CEO and co-founder of Disruption Advisors, advising Fortune 500 companies, private equity portfolios, and scale-ups on leadership and team development. Co-founder with Clayton Christensen of the Disruptive Innovation Fund at Rose Park Advisors; led the seed round in Coupang. Ranked No. 8 on Thinkers50 in 2021, with continuous listings since 2015. Author of Smart Growth (Harvard Business Press, 2022), a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller and a Thinkers50 Best New Management Book. Author of Disrupt Yourself, Build an A-Team, and Dare, Dream, Do. LinkedIn Top Voice and host of the Disrupt Yourself podcast, with guests including Brene Brown, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Stanley McChrystal. Biography Most companies treat leadership development as a calendar of programmes. The harder question is where each senior leader sits on a learning curve, and what the organisation does when too many of them are stalled at the top of the same one. That is the question Whitney Johnson built a career around. Before founding Disruption Advisors, Johnson spent eight consecutive years as an Institutional Investor-ranked equity analyst on Wall Street. She then partnered with Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen to co-found the Disruptive Innovation Fund at Rose Park Advisors, where she served as President from 2007 to 2012 and led the seed round in what is now Coupang. Her shift from capital allocation to people allocation is the through line of her work. The S Curve of Learning, adapted from Everett Rogers and applied through her January-February 2022 Harvard Business Review article and the book Smart Growth, gives executives a way to manage their organisations as a portfolio of learning curves. It reframes engagement, retention, and succession as the same problem looked at from three angles. That argument has earned her a No. 8 Thinkers50 ranking in 2021 and a consistent place on the list since 2015. Her client roster includes Kraft Heinz, Intermountain Health, Morgan Stanley, and Amazon, and her Disrupt Yourself podcast features sustained conversations with figures including Brene Brown, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Stanley McChrystal. Key speaking topics Disruptive innovation applied to people and teams The S Curve of Learning as a development framework Succession planning and talent portfolio management Building and leading high-performing teams Personal disruption and reinvention for senior leaders Smart growth and organisational scaling Coaching cultures inside Fortune 500 companies Ideal for CEOs and executive committees rebuilding the bench beneath them CHROs and chief talent officers redesigning succession and development Private equity operating partners pressure-testing portfolio leadership Boards reviewing CEO succession and senior team capability Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for placing every senior leader on a learning curve, with implications for retention and succession A clearer view of when high performers are about to plateau and what to move them toward A practical link between team composition and commercial performance, drawn from her investment-fund experience Specific moves to disrupt their own roles before circumstances disrupt them Examples from named Fortune 500 engagements they can stress-test against their own organisation

Why organisations work with Steph McGovern Eight years as BBC Breakfast’s lead business presenter, with a reporting beat that covered more than 500 companies, gives her an interviewing range from FTSE chairs to first-time founders in the same morning. She co-hosts The Rest Is Money with Robert Peston, which means she is in weekly working contact with the macro and political stories shaping a CFO’s agenda, not reading them up the night before an event. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, with an apprenticeship background at Black and Decker, which lands credibly with industrial, manufacturing and skills-led audiences in a way most business presenters cannot match. Hosting record across Steph’s Packed Lunch, Have I Got News For You and Watchdog gives her the live-on-air composure to handle a room when a CEO goes off script or a Q and A turns combative. She is fluent in small business and consumer economics, useful when a client wants the keynote or the panel pitched at the supplier base, the franchisee network or the customer-facing workforce, not just the executive team. Biography highlights Lead business presenter, BBC Breakfast, 2011 to 2019. Host, Steph’s Packed Lunch, Channel 4, 2020 to 2023, more than 250 episodes. Co-host, The Rest Is Money podcast, with Robert Peston, Goalhanger Podcasts. Honorary Fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering, 2021. Honorary Doctorate, Teesside University, 2013. Debut crime novel Deadline, Pan Macmillan, 2025; judge, Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, since 2019. Recurring host, Have I Got News For You, BBC One, since 2017. Biography Most business communication fails at the same point. The numbers are correct, the strategy is sound, the slides are clean, and the audience that actually has to act on it has tuned out by slide three. Steph McGovern’s career has been built on the opposite move: taking a board-level commercial story and making it audible to the people whose buy-in determines whether it works. She spent eight years as BBC Breakfast’s lead business presenter, interviewing CEOs, regulators and small business owners on consecutive segments and treating them with the same scrutiny. After leaving the BBC in 2019, she launched Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4, a daily live programme that ran for more than 250 episodes between 2020 and 2023, with regular segments on the small business economy and the labour market. Her current platform is The Rest Is Money, the Goalhanger podcast she co-hosts with Robert Peston, which keeps her on the macro and political-economic beat week to week. Alongside that, she is a recurring host of Have I Got News For You and a sought-after conference moderator and awards host. Her debut crime novel, Deadline, was published by Pan Macmillan in 2025; she has judged Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year prize at Harrogate since 2019. The detail that buyers most often miss: she trained as an engineer. She was a young engineer for Britain at 19 on a Black and Decker apprenticeship, where she is credited with a six-figure annual saving on a single product line. The Royal Academy of Engineering elected her an Honorary Fellow in 2021 for her work championing vocational skills. That background is why industrial, manufacturing and skills-led clients book her for events that a generalist broadcaster could not credibly host. Key speaking topics Business and economic journalism Small businesses and the UK economy Consumer markets and personal finance Engineering, apprenticeships and vocational skills Conference hosting and panel moderation Awards hosting Media interview craft for executives Ideal for Annual conferences where the board wants the macro and commercial stories landed for a mixed-seniority audience. Industry awards, supplier conferences and franchisee events that need a host who can hold a live room and interview C-suite guests. Manufacturing, engineering and skills-sector audiences who respond to a presenter with a credible technical background. Internal leadership events where a CEO or CFO wants their strategy questioned in front of the room before it is rolled out. Audience outcomes A clearer read on the current macro and commercial backdrop, in language that connects to the audience’s day job rather than analyst notes. Sharper executive panels and Q&A sessions because the moderator is genuinely fluent in the subject matter. A renewed argument for investment in apprenticeships, vocational pathways and shop-floor capability, grounded in a presenter who lived it. A live event that holds energy through the unscripted moments, not just the keynote slot.

Why organisations work with Rashim Mogha Two decades inside the rooms where women’s leadership advancement is decided. Senior roles at Oracle, Amazon Web Services, VMware, Automation Anywhere, and Skillsoft, building teams that supported over $2 billion in business. Few speakers on this topic carry that operational depth. Her work is built on a published, repeatable framework. The #1 Amazon bestseller Fast-Track Your Leadership Career gives HR teams and emerging leaders a specific template covering sponsorship, brand-building, and the unwritten rules of internal promotion. She treats women’s leadership development as a pipeline and retention question, which lands with executives who are accountable for the actual numbers. That framing avoids the trap of positioning DEI as a values exercise sitting outside business outcomes. Her LinkedIn Learning courses have reached over 250,000 professionals globally. That scale gives her a working understanding of which leadership content actually shifts behaviour across geographies and seniority levels. The credentials are named and external. Woman of the Year at the Women in IT Awards Silicon Valley, Top 20 Thought Leader by Thinkers360, Top 100 DEI Leader by Mogul, and induction into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of eWOW (empowered Women of the World), launched in November 2018; podcast audiences in more than 50 countries Author of the #1 Amazon bestseller Fast-Track Your Leadership Career and its companion Guided Journal; reached #1 on Amazon within eleven hours of release LinkedIn Learning instructor with courses including Succeeding as a First-Time Tech Manager, Women Transforming Tech: Finding Sponsors, and Cloud Concepts: Determining Your Cloud Strategy; over 250,000 learners globally Senior leadership roles at Oracle, Amazon Web Services, VMware, Automation Anywhere, and Skillsoft, building teams supporting over $2 billion in business Forbes Business Council member; contributor to Forbes, Association for Talent Development (ATD), and Thrive Global Recognitions include Woman of the Year (Women in IT Awards Silicon Valley), Silicon Valley Woman of Influence, Top 20 Thought Leader (Thinkers360), Top 100 DEI Leader (Mogul), and induction into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame Biography American women hold 52 percent of professional-level jobs. They hold roughly 20 percent of executive leadership positions in US high-tech industries. The gap between those numbers is what Rashim Mogha has worked inside for two decades, first at Oracle, AWS, and VMware, then as founder of eWOW. Her #1 Amazon bestseller Fast-Track Your Leadership Career codified what she learned inside those companies. It treats career advancement as an integrated strategy. Sponsorship and personal brand are framed as concrete corporate moves, drawn from her own promotion path. The book hit number one on Amazon within eleven hours of release. eWOW, which she founded in November 2018, scaled the method beyond a single book. Its podcast reaches audiences in more than fifty countries. Her LinkedIn Learning courses, including Succeeding as a First-Time Tech Manager and Women Transforming Tech: Finding Sponsors, have been taken by more than 250,000 professionals globally. Few speakers on women’s tech leadership combine that operational depth with that audience reach. Her credibility with executive audiences sits in the specifics. Woman of the Year at the Women in IT Awards Silicon Valley. Top 20 Thought Leader by Thinkers360. Forbes Business Council member. Inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame. For organisations focused on the leadership pipeline rather than the talking points, that combination of operational record and external recognition is rare. Key speaking topics Women’s leadership advancement in technology Sponsorship and career advancement strategy Diversity as a talent pipeline question Leadership development for technical professionals Mindful leadership Cloud strategy and digital transformation for business leaders Future of work and corporate learning at scale Ideal for CHROs and Chief People Officers responsible for stronger leadership pipelines for women in technology Heads of DEI and Talent looking to move beyond awareness toward measurable promotion outcomes Women’s networks and ERGs inside technology, financial services, and professional services organisations L&D and learning leaders designing executive development programmes for emerging women leaders Audience outcomes The distinction between mentorship and sponsorship, and the specific moves required to convert one into the other Practical language for asking for promotion and stretch assignments A diagnostic for what is actually stalling a woman’s advancement at her current level Two operational levers HR and senior leaders can pull to shift promotion outcomes inside the next twelve months

Why organisations work with Maggie Aderin-Pocock She has built optical instruments that flew on ESA satellites and sit inside major ground-based telescopes, so her authority on STEM careers comes from doing the work, not commenting on it. She is one of a small group of scientists who can hold a prime-time television audience, which is why The Sky at Night has kept her on air since 2014. Internal communications teams use her to make technical strategy land with the rest of the business. The Institute of Physics awarded her the 2020 Kelvin Medal for public engagement, the first time a Black woman has received a gold medal from the IoP. That credential gives diversity and inclusion programmes a credible scientific anchor. Through Science Innovation Ltd she has run STEM outreach for more than 350,000 students, giving her practical evidence about what actually moves under-represented young people into technical careers, not just theory. She speaks openly about being diagnosed with dyslexia at eight and the assumptions teachers made about her, which lets leadership audiences hear an inclusion argument grounded in lived experience rather than policy language. Biography highlights BSc in Physics and PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London. Honorary research associate, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London. Chancellor of the University of Leicester. Co-presenter of BBC’s The Sky at Night, the world’s longest-running television science programme. Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), 2024, for services to science education and diversity. 2020 William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics. Author of The Sky at Night: Book of the Moon, A Guide to Our Closest Neighbour (Penguin / BBC Books). Biography The instruments that measure wind from space, or split starlight into its component frequencies on a Chilean mountaintop, are built by small teams of engineers most people will never hear of. Maggie Aderin-Pocock has spent her career inside those teams. She managed the observation instruments for the European Space Agency’s Aeolus satellite at Astrium, and led a group of seventeen engineers building a high-resolution spectrograph for the Gemini telescope in Chile. That hands-on instrumentation career sits underneath everything else she does. It is why a BBC commissioner trusted her with The Sky at Night, the longest-running television science programme in the world, and why universities and government bodies treat her science communication as substantive rather than decorative. Imperial College trained her as a physicist and mechanical engineer; University College London hosts her as an honorary research associate; the University of Leicester appointed her Chancellor in 2023. Public engagement is the second strand of the work, and it has been institutionally recognised. The Institute of Physics awarded her its 2020 Kelvin Medal for exceptional services to science education and physics communication. She was the first Black woman to receive a gold medal from the IoP. Through her social enterprise Science Innovation Ltd she has run hands-on STEM outreach for more than 350,000 students, much of it in inner-city schools that conventional pipelines do not reach. She talks publicly about being diagnosed with dyslexia at eight and being assumed to be heading for a career other than science. That is not autobiography for its own sake, it is the evidence base for how she argues about inclusion: leaders who want a wider technical pipeline have to look at where the system filters people out, not only where it lets them in. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2024 for services to science education and diversity. Key speaking topics Diversity and inclusion in STEM Science communication for non-specialist audiences Space science, satellites, and astronomy The future of space exploration STEM education and the technical talent pipeline Curiosity and creativity in technical organisations Ideal for CHROs and heads of talent building technical and STEM pipelines Heads of internal communications translating engineering or science strategy to general audiences DEI leads working on retention and progression of under-represented technical staff Leaders running large customer or employee events that need a credible science voice Audience outcomes A clearer view of where standard recruiting and education pipelines filter out under-represented technical talent, and what actually changes that. Practical language for explaining complex technical work to non-technical colleagues, customers, or boards. A current picture of where space science and satellite technology are heading and what that means for adjacent industries. Renewed conviction among technical staff that their work matters beyond the lab, told through someone who has built instruments that flew.

Why organisations work with Liz Wiseman She runs two distinct, primary-research-backed frameworks, Multipliers and Impact Players, that name behaviours leaders can change on Monday morning, not abstractions they have to translate. Her Accidental Diminisher diagnostic gives senior leaders a mirror most are not expecting: the well-intentioned habits, rescuing, idea-spraying, pacesetting, that quietly shrink their teams. The Impact Players research, drawn from 170 executives across ten countries, isolates the behaviours of the contributors managers actually depend on, which CHROs use to recalibrate performance criteria and promotion decisions. Seventeen years inside Oracle, including VP of Oracle University, mean she frames leadership in operating terms a senior corporate audience recognises immediately. Named the top-ranked leadership thinker by Thinkers50 in 2019 and recipient of the Thinkers50 Talent Award in 2023, with continued presence on the ranking. Biography highlights CEO of The Wiseman Group, Silicon Valley leadership research and executive development firm. Author of Multipliers (New York Times bestseller), Rookie Smarts (Wall Street Journal bestseller), and Impact Players (Wall Street Journal bestseller). Thinkers50 Leadership Award winner (2019); Thinkers50 Talent Award winner (2023). Former Vice President of Oracle University and global leader for Human Resource Development across a 17-year Oracle career. Contributor to Harvard Business Review and Fortune; guest lecturer at Brigham Young University and Stanford University. Advises and speaks for clients including Apple, Disney, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Salesforce, and Tesla. Biography The leader who is the smartest person in the room is often the reason no one else in the room is contributing. Liz Wiseman’s research into what she calls Multipliers and Diminishers, published in Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, isolates the specific habits that determine which one a manager becomes, often without realising. The Accidental Diminisher diagnostic that accompanies the work is now used by leadership teams across global corporations. Before The Wiseman Group, she spent seventeen years inside Oracle, latterly as Vice President of Oracle University and global head of Human Resource Development. That operating background runs through the work. Her frameworks are written for executives who have to act on them, not academics describing them. Impact Players, drawn from interviews with 170 executives across ten countries and surveys of 350 managers, asks a different question: what distinguishes the individual contributors that senior leaders actually rely on in high-stakes moments? The findings reshape how CHROs think about promotion, performance criteria, and the behaviours organisations should be selecting for. She was named the top-ranked leadership thinker on the Thinkers50 list in 2019 and received the Thinkers50 Talent Award in 2023. She contributes to Harvard Business Review and Fortune, and lectures at Brigham Young University and Stanford. Her client roster, Apple, Disney, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Salesforce, Tesla, reflects an unusual fact: organisations with deep internal leadership capability still bring her in. Key speaking topics Multiplier leadership and the Diminisher effect Accidental Diminisher behaviours in senior leaders Impact Players and high-contribution mindsets Leveraging collective intelligence inside teams Rookie Smarts and learning agility under uncertainty Talent identification, promotion, and performance criteria Executive development and leadership capability building Ideal for CHROs redesigning leadership development, promotion criteria, or performance frameworks CEOs and senior leadership teams reviewing how they get more from existing talent Heads of talent and L&D building enterprise leadership programmes Leadership offsites for executive committees and senior management cohorts Audience outcomes Recognition of the specific Diminisher behaviours senior leaders default to under pressure A working vocabulary for the team behaviours that drive disproportionate impact Diagnostic tools, including the Accidental Diminisher profile, that leaders can apply to their own management style Criteria for identifying and developing high-contribution individual contributors A revised view of where untapped capacity sits inside the existing workforce