Growth Strategy

Why organisations work with Adolfo Fernandez Operator perspective from inside the two platforms reshaping global retail. He has led commercialisation strategy for Google Shopping’s mid-market segment and now Global Product Strategy and Operations for TikTok’s eCommerce advertising suite. A working framework for cross-border growth, drawn from running Google’s internationalization advisory practice for the mid-market. It addresses the question most growth-stage companies misjudge: when domestic plateau means it is time to enter a new market, and on what terms. Recognised by the World Economic Forum, which invited him into its Expert Network on Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle, and Digital Communications. That credential signals depth that bureau platforms alone cannot. Comfort across three buyer registers: regulators and policy bodies (UN, WTO), executive education audiences (IE Business School, MIT), and corporate boards. Leaders get a speaker who can move between policy frame and operating frame without losing either. Delivery in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, which makes him useful for European and Latin American leadership audiences that other Silicon Valley operators cannot reach without translation. Biography highlights Global Director of Product Strategy and Operations for eCommerce advertising at TikTok, based in San Francisco Former Google leader: Business Development Manager for Spain and Portugal, Global Program Manager for Internationalization advisory, and Google Shopping commercialisation strategy lead for the SMB segment World Economic Forum Expert Network member since 2019 in Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle, and Digital Communications Speaker at more than 200 international conferences, including United Nations and World Trade Organization platforms Guest lecturer at IE Business School and MIT MA in International Management, IE Business School; BA in Business Administration, University of Santiago de Compostela Biography Most companies still treat international expansion as a sequencing problem: which market next, in what order, on what timeline. The harder question is platform-shaped. Discovery, conversion and brand association now run through a small number of global commerce environments, and the rules of entry differ across them. That is the terrain Adolfo Fernandez works in. He is currently Global Director of Product Strategy and Operations for eCommerce advertising at TikTok, where he leads product strategy, product marketing and go-to-market for the platform’s commerce advertising suite. The role sits at the centre of one of the most consequential shifts in consumer attention of the last five years. Before TikTok, he spent close to a decade at Google. He started as Business Development Manager for Spain and Portugal in 2015, then took over Google’s Internationalization advisory services for the mid-market in 2018, before moving to San Francisco to lead Google Shopping commercialisation strategy for the SMB segment. The arc gave him an unusual vantage on how mid-sized firms actually win, and lose, in cross-border digital commerce. His public-facing work has reached the UN and the World Trade Organization, executive audiences at IE Business School and MIT, and the World Economic Forum, which invited him into its Expert Network on retail, consumer goods and digital communications in 2019. He works in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, which extends his reach into European and Latin American audiences that most Silicon Valley operators cannot serve directly. Key speaking topics Digital commerce and platform strategy International growth and market entry Retail technology and consumer behaviour Brand building in digital-first markets Innovation and product strategy Future of work in technology-led organisations Ideal for Boards and executive teams of mid-market and large companies planning international growth CMOs, commercial directors and digital leaders rethinking discovery, paid media and conversion economics Retail, consumer goods and lifestyle leadership teams reassessing platform dependency Executive education and leadership development audiences in Europe and Latin America Audience outcomes A clearer read on how Google and TikTok are changing the economics of consumer attention and commerce A practical lens for deciding when and how to enter new international markets A working distinction between innovation and creativity inside large organisations Specific examples of how digital-native brands have built relevance and speed without losing core values

Why organisations work with Allyson Stewart-Allen She has worked with more than 260 businesses across 27 countries, including named clients such as BAE Systems, HSBC, Lufthansa, NBCUniversal, Shell, Burberry and Chanel, which means her advice is calibrated against live transatlantic deal flow rather than secondary research. Working with Americans, now in its second edition with Routledge, is the most specific practitioner handbook on US business culture from a non-American authority, and it gives organisations a shared reference point before she walks into the room. She is the first two-time winner of the European Foundation for Management Development Excellence in Practice Award, for programmes delivered with Lufthansa at London Business School and BAE Systems at Oxford Saïd, which is rare independent recognition of how her work lands in executive development. Her teaching affiliations at Saïd Business School (Oxford) and the Møller Institute (Cambridge) place her inside the senior-executive programmes her audiences attend; she speaks to issues she also teaches on. Her media track record, including BBC, CNN, Sky News, Financial Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal, makes her a credible voice for high-profile internal events and externally facing client conferences. Biography highlights CEO and founder of International Marketing Partners Co-author of Working with Americans: How to Build Profitable Business Relationships (Routledge, second edition) First two-time winner of the European Foundation for Management Development Excellence in Practice Award, for programmes with Lufthansa (London Business School, 2009) and BAE Systems (Saïd Business School, Oxford, 2012) MBA from the Drucker School, Claremont Graduate University, where she studied under Peter Drucker; BSc International Business, University of Southern California Teaching affiliations with Saïd Business School (Oxford) and the Møller Institute (Cambridge) Regular commentator for BBC, CNN, Sky News, Financial Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal Biography US market entry is one of the most consistently over-promised and under-delivered strategic moves a European or Asian company can make. Allyson Stewart-Allen has spent her career working on the other side of that problem. As CEO and founder of International Marketing Partners, she has advised more than 260 organisations in 27 countries on how to internationalise their brand, their sales approach and their leadership style without losing what made them work at home. Her grounding is unusual. An MBA from the Drucker School under Peter Drucker himself, a BSc in International Business from USC, and a London-based practice that has worked with Accenture, BAE Systems, Burberry, Chanel, HSBC, Lufthansa, NBCUniversal, SABMiller and Shell. The resulting point of view is specific rather than diplomatic: most companies fail internationally for reasons that were visible at the approval stage and deferred by the people in the room. Her book Working with Americans, co-authored with Lanie Denslow and published by Routledge in a second edition, is the practitioner text in its category. It remains the reference most widely used by European and Asian professionals trying to build durable commercial relationships with US counterparts. The programme work is comparable in scale: she is the first two-time winner of the EFMD Excellence in Practice Award, for leadership programmes with Lufthansa at London Business School and BAE Systems at Oxford Saïd. The teaching continues at Saïd Business School and the Møller Institute at Cambridge, alongside non-executive and advisory roles at the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the British Business Excellence Awards and the Chief of Staff Association. For organisations planning significant international moves, that combination is unusual: an operator with an academic footprint, a published author in the room, and a commentator whose voice their leadership team has already seen on the BBC or FT. Key speaking topics International growth strategy and market entry US market entry and transatlantic commercial culture Global brand building and brand internationalisation Corporate diplomacy and cross-cultural leadership Reputation strategy for globally facing organisations Building and running international teams Ideal for CEOs, CCOs and CMOs committing to US or multi-market expansion Boards and executive committees pressure-testing an international growth plan before approval Heads of international, regional presidents and business unit leaders operating across US, UK, EU and Asia Leadership development and talent functions designing programmes for globally mobile executives Audience outcomes A practical diagnostic of where a planned international expansion is most likely to fail, based on patterns from 260-plus client engagements Specific frameworks for US market entry and working across US-international commercial relationships, drawn from Working with Americans A sharper view of how global brand decisions translate into local commercial outcomes Reference points from named client programmes recognised by the EFMD, applicable to the audience’s own sector

Why organisations work with Ana Andjelic Her “aspirational economy” thesis that brand value is now built through social, cultural, and environmental capital rather than product features or advertising reach gives leadership teams a conceptually rigorous basis for repositioning brands in fragmented consumer markets, not just a set of tactics. She has delivered verified results at scale: the Banana Republic rebrand under her leadership produced a 27% year-on-year comparable sales increase, which means boards are not being asked to take a theory on faith. Her two Routledge-published books, combined with The Sociology of Business newsletter (ranked among Substack’s top 15 business publications), mean her framework is publicly available, continuously tested, and already in use by the marketing leaders her audiences need to influence. She brings C-suite brand experience across three distinct commercial contexts – global mass retail (Banana Republic, Esprit), contemporary luxury (Mansur Gavriel), and independent fashion (Rebecca Minkoff), making her diagnostic toolkit applicable beyond any single category or brand tier. A Columbia sociology doctorate and a senior career at agencies including Droga5 and Havas means she can diagnose what has broken in a brand’s relationship with culture and explain why, not just describe the symptoms. Biography highlights Chief Brand Officer at Banana Republic, rebrand delivered a 27% year-on-year comparable sales increase Former Global Chief Brand Officer at Esprit, led brand repositioning across Europe and market re-entry in North America and Asia-Pacific Author of two books published by Routledge: The Business of Aspiration and Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture Recognised three times by Forbes for CMO work, including Forbes CMO Next Publishes The Sociology of Business, ranked among the top 15 business publications on Substack Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, Fast Company, The Guardian, Adweek, and Vogue PhD in Sociology and MA in Media Studies; senior agency experience at Droga5, Havas Media, and Spring Studios Biography Ana Andjelic spent two decades in C-suite brand roles, at Banana Republic, Esprit, Mansur Gavriel, and Rebecca Minkoff, while simultaneously building a body of intellectual work that explains why most brand strategy fails. The result is a perspective with unusual commercial credibility: she has made the argument at board level and then delivered the numbers. Her central thesis, developed in The Business of Aspiration (Routledge), is that modern consumers no longer signal status through wealth or possessions but through taste, curation, and values – what she calls social, cultural, and environmental capital. The organisations that understand this are not running better advertising. They are restructuring brand strategy around cultural influence: collaborations, creative communities, content, and what she identifies in her second book, Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture, as the systematic production of cultural hits. At Banana Republic, she translated this framework into a full brand repositioning that delivered a 27% year-on-year comparable sales increase. At Esprit, she oversaw the brand’s repositioning across Europe and its re-entry into North American and Asia-Pacific markets. Both assignments required her to make cultural arguments in commercial terms and to redesign the marketing function to deliver them. Andjelic holds a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University and a Masters in Media Studies. Her Sociology of Business newsletter is among Substack’s top 15 business publications. She contributes to Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, Fast Company, and Vogue, and is a frequent expert source for the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Key speaking topics Brand strategy and repositioning Cultural influence and the aspirational economy Consumer aspiration and shifting status symbols Cultural hitmaking as commercial strategy The Creative Class and cultural audience segmentation Brand storytelling and narrative architecture Retail innovation and brand-driven growth Ideal for Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Brand Officers leading brand repositioning or category entry C-suite leaders in fashion, luxury, and retail responsible for connecting brand investment to commercial outcomes Strategy and brand teams in consumer-facing businesses seeking a model for cultural relevance that scales Boards and leadership teams reviewing brand value architecture, growth planning, or market re-entry Audience outcomes A working framework for understanding how social, cultural, and environmental capital now drive brand value and purchase decisions, and what that means for brand investment A practical model for redefining brand strategy as cultural influence, with organisational and operational implications Clarity on the role of cultural products, collaborations, content, entertainment, community, in building sustainable brand growth beyond advertising A method for segmenting audiences by their relationship to culture, including how the Creative Class functions as an amplification layer Tested examples of how cultural strategy translates into commercial results, including the conditions that made the Banana Republic repositioning work

Why organisations work with Andrew Lloyd Gordon He brings a working academic’s grasp of behavioural science into the room where pricing, positioning and campaign calls actually get made, rather than leaving it at theory. His Google Digital Academy and “We Are Squared” training work gives him a current, practitioner-grade read on how digital marketing is actually taught and executed inside the platforms buyers depend on. His Warwick teaching post on the business MSc at WMG means his material is tested on senior post-graduate students, not only conference audiences, which sharpens the frameworks before they reach a client room. He has delivered to commercial, public-sector and charitable buyers at the same level of specificity – Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, the NHS, University of Cambridge – so the behavioural-science argument holds up outside the usual marketing-conference audience. Biography highlights Assistant Professor, WMG, University of Warwick, teaching on the post-graduate business MSc. MSc Business Psychology (Distinction), Coventry University; BA (Hons) Psychology, University of Liverpool; Organisation Studies, Warwick Business School. Trainer on Google’s “We Are Squared” digital marketing programme and member of Google’s Digital Academy training team. Client work with the UK Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, Hitachi, Hearst Magazines, the NHS, Universal Music, Kings College London, UCAS and the University of Cambridge. Signature keynote topics include customer psychology, the psychology of pricing, marketing-led growth and innovation adoption. Speaks internationally across the UK, USA, Middle East, Europe and the West Indies, to audiences ranging from 30 to 3,000. Biography Buying decisions are not made on the spreadsheet side of the brain. Price sensitivity, brand preference, the decision to try something new, the decision to stay with a supplier – these sit in territory that behavioural science has spent four decades mapping. Most commercial functions have not caught up. That gap is the working material of Andrew Lloyd Gordon’s career. He is a business psychologist with an MSc from Coventry, undergraduate psychology from Liverpool and organisation studies from Warwick Business School, and he holds an Assistant Professor post at WMG, University of Warwick, teaching on the post-graduate business MSc. The academic grounding is real; the output is commercial. His practitioner credentials sit next to the academic ones. He is a trainer on Google’s “We Are Squared” digital marketing programme and a member of Google’s Digital Academy training team, which keeps his material close to how digital acquisition is actually executed inside the platforms most organisations rely on. Client work spans the UK Cabinet Office, Vodafone, Lloyds, Dyson, Hitachi, Hearst, the NHS, Universal Music, Kings College London, UCAS and the University of Cambridge. The argument he makes to senior commercial audiences is narrow and useful. Pricing, persuasion, innovation adoption and customer retention are psychological problems before they are channel problems, and teams built around funnels and attribution models routinely miss this. His keynotes walk leaders through the specific behavioural mechanisms – how price is perceived, how influence actually works, why new products stall on launch – and translate them into decisions marketing and product teams can take the next morning. Key speaking topics Customer psychology and the science of influence Behavioural pricing Marketing-led business growth Innovation adoption inside organisations Digital marketing strategy Applied behavioural science for commercial teams Ideal for CMOs, marketing directors and commercial leaders rebuilding how their teams think about customer decision-making. Pricing, revenue and product leaders who need a behavioural-science lens on pricing architecture and positioning. Innovation and transformation leads launching new propositions into sceptical internal and external audiences. Senior leadership teams in regulated or public-sector contexts where persuasion and adoption matter as much as the policy itself. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the behavioural mechanisms that drive customer choice, with named principles rather than anecdotes. Specific questions to take back to pricing, marketing and product teams about where psychology is being ignored in current practice. A sharper read on why well-resourced campaigns and launches underperform, and what to change first. Practical examples drawn from Google training and FTSE-scale client work, not laboratory studies alone.

Why organisations work with Andy Bass His Suits & Geeks Trap framework gives leaders a named, structured diagnosis for one of the most persistent and underacknowledged barriers to growth in technology-driven businesses – the breakdown between commercial and technical functions – and a clear method for resolving it. His Start With What Works thesis (Pearson) challenges the default assumption that growth requires new investment; the argument is that most organisations are sitting on underused capabilities, relationships and knowledge that can be mobilised before new capital is sought. His C.E.O. Roadmap from Committed Action – Curiosity, Exploration, Ownership – gives leaders a specific, repeatable method for moving people from passive compliance to genuine ownership of strategic priorities. His PhD in Software Engineering and early career at BT Research Labs give him standing inside technical organisations that a leadership generalist cannot credibly claim – he can hold the room with engineers and commercial directors simultaneously. Inducted into the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame (2017) and named to Ogilvy’s #ogilvychange Big Thinkers panel – external recognitions of consulting practice, earned outside the speaking circuit. Biography highlights Founder and principal of BassClusker Consulting; advisory work spanning more than 30 industries across 12 countries PhD in Software Engineering and BSc in Computer Science and Ergonomics, both from Aston University; career began at BT Research Labs, Human Factors Division Executive educator at Oxford Saïd, Warwick, Aston and Strathclyde Business Schools; Visiting Professor in Consulting Practice, Birmingham City University Inducted into the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame (2017) by Alan Weiss Author of five books including The Suits & Geeks Trap, Start With What Works (Pearson) and Committed Action Named to Ogilvy’s #ogilvychange ‘Big Thinkers’ panel of experts Corporate clients include L’Oréal, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, KPMG and International Automotive Components Group Biography In technology-driven organisations, one of the most consistent barriers to growth is not the strategy, it is the relationship between the people who build things and the people who sell them. Andy Bass, founder of BassClusker Consulting and author of The Suits & Geeks Trap, has spent over two decades working on that specific problem: helping senior leaders diagnose and close the gap between strategic intent and organisational execution. His Suits & Geeks Trap framework identifies a pattern that recurs across industries: commercial and technical teams defaulting to stereotyping and blame, with leaders drawn into refereeing internal politics rather than facing the market. The framework, developed through advisory work with organisations ranging from Deutsche Bank and L’Oréal to mid-sized growth businesses across 12 countries, gives leaders a structured way to reverse that dynamic and redirect energy toward the customer. His parallel argument, developed in Start With What Works (Pearson), challenges what he calls one of the most persistent thinking traps in business: that growth requires new investment. Bass makes the case (supported by client work across 30 industries) that most organisations have more usable capability than they recognise. The book presents practical tools for identifying and deploying those hidden assets before leaders turn to capital-intensive alternatives. His third major framework, the C.E.O. Roadmap from Committed Action, addresses the question leaders ask most consistently: why their people do not engage with strategic priorities as fully as intended. Bass’s answer, structured around Curiosity, Exploration and Ownership, gives leaders a repeatable method for building genuine commitment rather than managed compliance. His credentials span both sides of the technical-commercial divide he studies: a PhD in Software Engineering from Aston University, an early career at BT Research Labs, executive education delivered at Oxford Saïd, Warwick, Aston and Strathclyde business schools, and induction into the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame in 2017. Key speaking topics Commercial and technical team alignment Organisational learning and execution Growth strategy using existing resources Leadership and committed action Change management and strategic engagement Organisational culture in technology-driven businesses Executive decision-making and capability development Ideal for CEOs and MDs of technology-driven, engineering-led or innovation-focused organisations managing persistent commercial-technical friction Senior leadership teams where execution consistently falls short of strategic ambition CHROs and organisational development leads working on engagement, ownership and culture in mixed commercial-technical workforces Professional services, financial services, manufacturing and growth-stage businesses navigating rapid change Audience outcomes A named framework for diagnosing commercial-technical team friction – and a clear method for resolving it before it becomes a leadership crisis Practical tools for identifying underused organisational assets and applying them to growth priorities, before seeking new capital or resource The C.E.O. Roadmap – a three-stage method for building genuine team commitment rather than surface-level compliance Sharper understanding of how leadership behaviour, not strategy alone, determines whether execution succeeds Specific questions and diagnostic approaches leaders can apply immediately to unlock stalled priorities or disengaged teams

Why organisations work with Anna Bance First-mover operator in luxury fashion rental. She built the category in 2009, before “circular” was a retail strategy term, and has spent over a decade running the unglamorous infrastructure behind it. Direct line of sight on what rental does to a balance sheet. Inventory turns, dry-cleaning economics, customer acquisition costs and breakage rates are answered from experience, not from a McKinsey deck. Credibility on both sides of the luxury question. Former Head of UK PR at Hermès, then founder of a platform that puts luxury brands into a rental model many of them initially resisted. Backed by Global Founders Capital, the Rocket Internet associated fund of Oliver Samwer, with Girl Meets Dress one of its maiden investments. A useful proof point on commercial substance, not just narrative. Articulate on the consumer shift behind the model: experience economy, sustainability pressure, and the limits of “buy something new every season” as a retail proposition. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO, Girl Meets Dress, since 2009 Former Head of UK PR, Hermès, and PR for Temperley London BA (Hons) Fashion Promotion, London College of Fashion Early-career editorial roles at The Telegraph, Harper’s Bazaar and InStyle First institutional funding from Global Founders Capital, the Oliver Samwer fund Recognition includes Drapers Etail Innovation Award, NatWest Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year, Specsavers Everywoman in Retail, and a Management Today 35 Under 35 cover Biography Girl Meets Dress launched in 2009, before “circular fashion” was a retail board agenda item. The proposition was simple, the operations were not: rent designer dresses online, return them, repeat. Anna Bance built the company from inside the luxury PR world, where she had been Head of UK PR for Hermès, and where she had watched designer wardrobes sit unworn for most of their useful life. The harder part of the story is what comes after the idea. Rental at scale is a logistics business dressed as a fashion brand: dry cleaning, inventory rotation, repair, sizing accuracy, customer acquisition against a category most consumers had to be taught existed. Global Founders Capital, Oliver Samwer’s fund, named Girl Meets Dress as one of its maiden investments, and the business spent the next decade proving the unit economics of rental in a category designed for ownership. That operator vantage point is what makes her useful to retail and consumer leadership teams. The argument for circular commerce is well understood at this point. The argument that needs sharper voices is the operational one: where rental margins actually come from, why some categories work and others do not, what the brand consequences are when a luxury house lets its product enter a secondary access model, and how consumer behaviour around occasion-wear is shifting under experience economy pressure. Recognition has followed the build, not the pitch. Drapers Etail Innovation Award, NatWest Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year, Specsavers Everywoman in Retail, a Management Today 35 Under 35 cover. The work that earned them is still running. Key speaking topics Circular fashion and rental as a retail model The operational economics of access over ownership Luxury brand strategy in a secondary-use market Female founders and scaling a category-defining business Consumer behaviour in the experience economy Sustainability as commercial strategy, not marketing Ideal for Retail, fashion and consumer goods leadership teams reassessing wholesale and DTC models Brand owners and CMOs in luxury weighing entry into rental, resale or subscription Sustainability and strategy leads who need the commercial case for circular, not the ethical one Female founder networks, VC-backed scale-up audiences and entrepreneurship programmes Audience outcomes A sharper read on which retail categories rental works in and which it does not Honest numbers on what circular fashion does to inventory, margin and customer acquisition A clearer view of where luxury brands stand to gain or lose by entering rental A founder-level account of building a category before its time, and the operational cost of doing so

Why organisations work with Arunjay Katakam He has spent over a decade inside the GSMA and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation portfolios building the financial infrastructure that brought a billion people into the formal economy, so he speaks about inclusion as an operating problem, not a values statement. His book Generation Hope sets out a five-principle model (growth, participation, opportunity, stability, sustainability) that boards can map directly onto strategy, pricing, and product decisions. He has co-founded three startups, mentored 20-plus emerging-market fintechs through DFS Lab, and built ventures at Catalyst Fund, which gives him real authority on scale-up economics rather than commentary. He brings operator credibility on cross-border payments, digital public infrastructure, and zero-fee payment design, all areas where boards now face direct regulatory and competitive pressure. Biography highlights Author, Generation Hope: How Inclusive Economics Can Help Us All Thrive (Otterpine, 2024). Author, The Power of Micro Money Transfers, a practitioner guide to profitable money-transfer operators. Strategic Advisor, Interledger Foundation. Founder and CEO, Yooz, a cross-border remittance company. Founder, Inclusive Action Lab, a non-profit incubating ventures aimed at poverty alleviation by 2030. Co-author of two GSMA State of the Industry reports on mobile financial services for the unbanked; former EY consultant; mentor to 20-plus inclusive fintech startups via DFS Lab. Biography Most organisations describe inclusion as a values problem. After a decade inside the GSMA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, building the rails that brought a billion people into the formal economy, the case is sharper than that. Inclusion is an operating problem, with measurable consequences for pricing, distribution, and risk. That is the argument behind Generation Hope (Otterpine, 2024), which sets out five principles: growth, participation, opportunity, stability, and sustainability. The book gives senior leaders a usable frame for redesigning commercial strategy when the extractive model is running out of road, not a moral lecture. The operator background is what makes the case credible. Arunjay Katakam co-founded three startups, including one acquired by Twitter, ran cross-border remittance company Yooz, mentored more than 20 emerging-market fintechs at DFS Lab, and built ventures with Catalyst Fund. His earlier book, The Power of Micro Money Transfers, is a working manual for building profitable payment operators on zero-fee economics. He now advises the Interledger Foundation on open payments infrastructure and runs Inclusive Action Lab, a non-profit incubating moonshot ventures aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030. The throughline is consistent: commercial discipline applied to inclusive design, with the numbers to support it. Key speaking topics Inclusive economics as a commercial operating model Cross-border payments and digital public infrastructure Open and decentralised finance Scale-up leadership in emerging-market fintech Zero-fee payment design and unit economics Generation Hope: rebuilding growth around participation and sustainability Ideal for Boards and ExCos rethinking growth strategy under regulatory, customer, and capital pressure Financial services leaders (CEO, COO, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer) navigating cross-border payments, fintech disruption, and inclusion mandates Innovation and venture-building teams inside large institutions backing inclusive products Foundation, development finance, and policy audiences working on financial inclusion Audience outcomes A five-principle model audiences can apply to their own pricing, product, and strategy decisions A clearer view of where inclusive economics changes unit economics rather than just narrative Specific examples from cross-border payments and digital public infrastructure that show what works at scale A practical agenda for boards on how to position growth strategy for the next decade

Why organisations work with Avinash Kaushik He built the intellectual vocabulary a generation of marketers now uses, including the See-Think-Do-Care framework that maps content, media and measurement to real customer intent. Sixteen years as Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist gave him a view of marketing performance across most of the world’s largest advertisers, not a single case study. He bridges analytics and brand in a room that usually forces leaders to pick one, advising both a measurement firm (Human Made Machine) and a global fashion group (Tapestry). His books sit on the desks of working practitioners in ten-plus languages; the argument has survived translation, platform change and the rise of generative AI. He is unusually direct about what does not work in marketing measurement, which is why senior buyers use him to sharpen internal debates rather than flatter them. Biography highlights Former Senior Director of Global Analytics and Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google, a sixteen-year tenure. Global Chief Strategy Officer at Human Made Machine; Brand Strategy and Marketing Transformation Consultant at Tapestry. Author of “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” and “Web Analytics 2.0” (Wiley), translated into more than ten languages. Originator of the See-Think-Do-Care framework for intent-based marketing strategy. Recipient of the American Statistical Association’s Statistical Advocate of the Year and the Web Analytics Association’s Most Influential Industry Contributor award. Writes “The Marketing Analytics Intersect” newsletter, read by approximately 55,000 marketing and analytics leaders. Biography Marketing leaders rarely struggle for data. They struggle to decide what any of it means for growth next quarter. That is the problem Avinash Kaushik has spent two decades making tractable, first inside Google as its Senior Director of Global Analytics and Digital Marketing Evangelist, and now as global Chief Strategy Officer at Human Made Machine and brand strategy consultant to Tapestry. His See-Think-Do-Care framework reframed digital marketing around customer intent rather than channel or demographic, and it is now embedded in the working language of marketing teams from consumer goods to financial services. It is a simple idea with a disciplined consequence: measurement and content have to follow the audience’s state of mind, not the agency’s media plan. Two books, “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” and “Web Analytics 2.0”, carried that argument into practice and have been translated into more than ten languages. The American Statistical Association named him Statistical Advocate of the Year; the Web Analytics Association recognised him as its Most Influential Industry Contributor. He has taught and advised at Stanford, USC Annenberg and the Rotman school at Toronto. What sets his current work apart is the refusal to treat AI as a separate topic. In rooms with CMOs and CFOs, he draws the line from intent-based customer understanding to incrementality-based measurement to where generative AI actually earns its keep. The recommendation is usually sharper and the vendor pitch usually weaker by the time he is done. Key speaking topics Intent-centric marketing strategy Incrementality-based marketing measurement AI and generative AI in marketing Digital analytics and data-driven decision making Customer-centric growth and retention Marketing transformation for senior leaders The See-Think-Do-Care framework in practice Ideal for CMOs and marketing leadership teams rebuilding measurement for an AI-first environment. Boards and executive teams stress-testing the commercial return from digital and marketing investment. Heads of analytics, data and performance marketing aligning with brand and commercial functions. CEO and CFO audiences who want a serious outside view on marketing’s contribution to growth. Audience outcomes A clearer line between customer intent, marketing activity and commercial outcome. A sharper test for whether a measurement approach is actually incremental or just reported. A working critique of how generative AI is being sold into marketing and where it earns real return. A shared vocabulary, grounded in See-Think-Do-Care, that senior teams can use to align content, media and measurement. A more confident internal argument about where to stop investing, not only where to invest more.

Why organisations work with Aysha Turgut A practitioner’s view of wealth building drawn from running Grow Wealth Group, not theory borrowed from financial services marketing. A teaching style shaped by years as a university professor, which translates personal finance into something an audience can act on the next morning. A specific framework set out in her book “Earn It, Grow It, And Keep It!”, giving audiences a sequence rather than a list of tips. A real estate investing perspective grounded in her flagship “My First Deal or Million” program, useful for audiences interested in entrepreneurship and asset-based income. Biography highlights CEO and Founder of Grow Wealth Group LLC. Author of “Earn It, Grow It, And Keep It! A 7-Step Guide to Wealth Accumulation and Preservation.” Host of “The Grow Wealth Experience” podcast. Former university professor. Recognised as “Most Influential Investment Coaching Businesswoman 2023” by AI Global Media’s Influential Businesswoman Awards. International speaker with engagements cited at the City University of New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the residence of the US Ambassador to NATO in Brussels. Biography Most high earners are not wealthy. Income arrives, gets absorbed by lifestyle and tax, and the gap between what was earned and what is retained quietly widens over a career. Aysha Turgut works in that gap. As CEO and Founder of Grow Wealth Group, she coaches individuals and entrepreneurs to treat personal finance as a managed business with a strategy, a balance sheet, and a plan for compounding. Her method is set out in “Earn It, Grow It, And Keep It!”, a seven-step guide to wealth accumulation and preservation. The book pairs first-person practitioner experience with a sequence audiences can follow, from earning discipline through to long-term preservation. It is the basis for her keynotes and for the firm’s flagship program, “My First Deal or Million,” aimed at new real estate investors who want to treat each deal as a business rather than a transaction. Before entrepreneurship, she taught at a university. That background shapes the speaking style: structured, plain, and built around what an audience can do on Monday. She hosts “The Grow Wealth Experience” podcast, where she interviews investors and operators on how wealth is actually built and held. Her audiences are typically individuals, entrepreneurs, and women’s networks rather than corporate boards. The strongest brief is one where the organising question is personal financial agency, real estate as a wealth vehicle, or the move from professional income to investor income. Key speaking topics Wealth accumulation and preservation Real estate investing for new investors Entrepreneurship and small-business growth Personal finance strategy Investor mindset and money behaviours Women and wealth Ideal for Entrepreneur and small-business networks Women’s professional networks and wealth-focused events Real estate investor groups and programmes Financial wellness streams within wider corporate wellbeing programmes Audience outcomes A clear seven-step sequence for earning, growing, and preserving personal wealth. A practical view of how to evaluate a first real estate deal as a business decision. A reset on the personal money habits that quietly erode long-term net worth. A vocabulary for talking about wealth as an operating discipline, not a product purchase.

Why organisations work with Bernardo Hernandez Operator credibility on both sides of the Atlantic: a senior Google product role through the Zagat acquisition, then running Flickr at Yahoo, then founding and selling Verse to Block. Few European speakers have lived that arc. Investor pattern recognition across a portfolio that includes Wallapop, Glovo, Fever, Paack, Citibox and Stripe. He talks about scaling consumer tech from inside the cap table, not from the outside. A working view of what AI is doing to product organisations through Pensero AI, his current company, which applies AI to engineering performance and management. Direct experience of the moves that matter to corporates: M&A integration at Google, platform repositioning at Yahoo and fintech exit to a US strategic acquirer. Biography highlights Co-founder of Idealista, Spain’s leading real estate platform. Director of Product Management at Google, 2005 to 2013; led the Zagat acquisition and team. Head of Flickr and Senior Vice President of Product at Yahoo, 2013 to 2015. Founder and CEO of Verse, the European payments app acquired by Block (Square) in 2020. Co-founder and Co-CEO of Pensero AI in New York. Board of Directors, Mapfre USA; trustee, Fundacion Princesa de Girona; jury member, Princess of Asturias Awards for Science and Technology. Recipient of Spain’s National Innovation and Design Award (2023, Ministry of Science). Biography Idealista was a small Madrid property site when Bernardo Hernandez co-founded it in 2000. Today it is the dominant real estate platform in southern Europe. That first venture set the template for a career spent building consumer internet businesses, then teaching incumbents how to think about the same problem. After five years as a portfolio manager at Fidelity, BBVA and Putnam, he joined Google in 2005 as Director of Product Management. He spent eight years inside the company, including leading the Zagat acquisition and integration. He then ran Flickr at Yahoo as Senior Vice President of Product before founding Verse, the European payments app that Block acquired in 2020. The operator track is matched by an investor track. He has backed Wallapop, Glovo, Fever, Paack, Citibox and Stripe, among others, and was an early investor in Tuenti before its sale to Telefonica. He sits on the board of Mapfre USA and is a trustee of the Fundacion Princesa de Girona under the Spanish Royal House. In 2023 he received Spain’s National Innovation and Design Award from the Ministry of Science. His current company, Pensero AI, applies AI to engineering management, giving him a live operating view of what generative AI is doing to product organisations rather than a theorist’s view. For corporate audiences this matters: he is currently building inside the technology shift he is invited to speak about. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and the scale-up playbook Digital business models and platform economics Consumer fintech and mobile payments AI in product and engineering organisations Corporate venturing, M&A and integration Innovation portfolios and angel investing Building between Europe and the United States Ideal for CEOs and board directors weighing build, buy or back decisions on new digital businesses. Chief Strategy, Chief Innovation and Corporate Development leaders running venture and M&A activity. Banks, insurers and retailers facing fintech and platform challengers. Leadership groups at European corporates with US ambitions, or US groups expanding into Europe. Audience outcomes A clearer sense of how founders make speed and capital decisions that corporate processes typically slow down. A working framework for evaluating new business models against existing P&L economics. Concrete reference points from Idealista, Google, Flickr, Verse and the current Pensero AI build. A sharper read on where AI is creating leverage inside product and engineering teams right now.

Why organisations work with Bjarke Ingels His “hedonistic sustainability” concept – coined in a 2011 TED talk with over two million views – gives leadership teams a credible, named argument against the assumption that environmental ambition and commercial performance are in tension. The Yes Is More manifesto argues against the choice between bold vision and practical delivery; it is taught beyond architecture because the logic is genuinely transferable to any organisation navigating competing strategic demands. BIG’s project portfolio – CopenHill’s waste-to-energy plant with a public ski slope, the BIG U flood-defence park in Manhattan, the Google North Bayshore campus co-designed with Thomas Heatherwick – gives executive audiences proof that resolving sustainability and desirability through design produces outcomes superior to either goal pursued alone. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, TED, WIRED, and 10 Downing Street, meaning his frameworks have already been stress-tested in front of heads of government, technology leaders, and senior executives. Teaching at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Rice runs alongside leading a 400-person practice with major projects on four continents – his arguments carry the authority of both the seminar room and the construction site. Biography highlights Founder and creative partner of BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), established 2006; offices in New York, London, and Copenhagen; team of 400+ Originator of “hedonistic sustainability,” introduced in a 2011 TED talk now viewed over two million times Author of Yes Is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution (2009) and HOT TO COLD: An Odyssey of Architectural Adaptation Named to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People (2016); WSJ Innovator of the Year in Architecture; Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business Awards include the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2004), ULI Award for Excellence (2009), Danish Crown Prince’s Culture Prize (2011); Honorary Fellow of the AIA (2020) and RIBA (2015) Featured as opening subject of Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design; speaker at TED, the World Economic Forum, WIRED, and 10 Downing Street Has taught at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Rice Universities; honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen Biography CopenHill is a waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen that doubles as a public ski slope, climbing wall, and rooftop hiking trail. It is not a compromise between environmental performance and civic amenity. It is Bjarke Ingels’ most cited demonstration of what he calls “hedonistic sustainability” – the argument that reducing environmental impact and improving how people experience their city are the same design challenge. In his 2011 TED talk, now viewed over two million times, Ingels introduced the concept and set out the logic. His manifesto Yes Is More pushed the argument further, proposing “pragmatic utopianism” as a design principle: the deliberate rejection of the choice between visionary ambition and commercial delivery. The book was written for architects. It is now taught in business and strategy contexts because the core argument is transferable. Ingels founded BIG in Copenhagen in 2006, following earlier work at OMA under Rem Koolhaas and the co-founding of PLOT with Julien De Smedt. The firm now operates from New York, London, and Copenhagen with more than 400 staff. Its projects range from the BIG U – Manhattan’s Hurricane Sandy flood-defence infrastructure, redesigned as a continuous public park – to Google’s North Bayshore campus, co-designed with Thomas Heatherwick, where workplace performance and environmental targets were treated as a single design brief. TIME Magazine named him one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People in 2016. He holds the WSJ Innovator of the Year award, Honorary Fellowships from the AIA and RIBA, and has spoken at the World Economic Forum and 10 Downing Street. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Rice. Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design featured him as its opening subject. His discipline is architecture; his primary value to organisations is a framework for dissolving the trade-off between ambition and pragmatism. Key speaking topics Hedonistic sustainability and design-led climate action Pragmatic utopianism and innovation strategy Urban resilience and large-scale infrastructure design Architecture’s role in organisational and civic identity Creative leadership at scale The built environment and corporate space strategy Design thinking across disciplines Ideal for C-suite and executive leadership teams at real estate, infrastructure, and large-scale development organisations Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads seeking to reframe sustainability as a source of commercial advantage rather than compliance cost Corporate boards and transformation leads examining how built environment decisions affect organisational culture, talent, and long-term asset value Civic leaders and urban planners making large-scale public investment decisions Audience outcomes A named, transferable framework – “hedonistic sustainability” – for challenging the trade-off assumption in ESG, design, and innovation strategy conversations Concrete examples, drawn from BIG’s global project portfolio, of how resolving competing constraints through design produces outcomes that neither goal alone would generate A reframe of what “innovation” means in large-scale, long-horizon project environments where short-term pragmatism typically wins Greater confidence in presenting design ambition as a strategic argument rather than an aesthetic or cost preference Practical insight into building and leading a high-velocity creative organisation across multiple geographies and project scales

Why organisations work with Brent Hoberman He has built and exited two unicorns, lastminute.com and Made.com, and can speak to scaling and to failure with equal credit. Through Founders Factory and firstminute capital, he has first-hand visibility of more than 400 early-stage companies and 12 seed-stage unicorns, giving corporate audiences a live read on where technology is moving. His corporate partner list at Founders Factory, including The Guardian, L’Oreal, easyJet, Aviva and Reckitt Benckiser, means he speaks the language of incumbent strategy as well as founder strategy. As Co-Chair of Enterprise Britain and an adviser to successive UK Prime Ministers, he frames growth inside the real policy and capital conditions leaders operate under. He is candid about what went wrong at Made.com, which gives senior audiences a working case study in IPO timing, governance and post-pandemic demand rather than a highlight reel. Biography highlights Co-founder and former CEO of lastminute.com; sold to Sabre for approximately $1.1bn in 2005. Co-founder of Made.com; founding chairman until shortly before its 2021 IPO. Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Founders Factory, Founders Forum and firstminute capital. Appointed CBE in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to entrepreneurship. Co-Chair of Enterprise Britain; has advised multiple UK Prime Ministers on entrepreneurship policy. Non-executive director roles have included Guardian Media Group, TalkTalk, Shazam, Time Out and The Economist. Biography Lastminute.com went public in March 2000, weeks before the dot-com market broke. The IPO was 43 times oversubscribed and remains one of the fastest company listings in European history. Brent Hoberman was its co-founder and CEO, and he ran the business through the crash and on to a $1.1bn sale to Sabre in 2005. That arc, from frenzy to survival to exit, sits under almost everything he says on stage. Since then he has built three platforms that back other founders. Founders Factory runs corporate-backed accelerators with partners including The Guardian, L’Oreal, easyJet, Aviva, Marks and Spencer and Reckitt Benckiser. firstminute capital is a global seed fund backed by more than 130 unicorn founders. Founders Forum is the community that connects the two. The combined portfolio gives him a working view across several hundred early-stage technology companies at once. He also co-founded Made.com in 2010 and was its founding chairman. He stepped down before the 2021 IPO, having questioned its timing, and the company later entered administration. He uses that outcome directly in corporate sessions on governance, category demand and IPO readiness, which is rare among founders at his level. Outside operating roles, he co-chairs Enterprise Britain with Stephen Fitzpatrick and has advised successive UK Prime Ministers on small business, scale-up and entrepreneurship policy. He was appointed CBE in 2015 for services to entrepreneurship. The policy work matters on the platform because it lets him connect founder behaviour, capital markets and government posture in a way most technology speakers cannot. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and founder psychology Scaling consumer internet and marketplace businesses Venture investing and early-stage capital Corporate innovation and startup partnerships AI and consumer technology trends UK and European tech policy Ideal for Boards and executive committees reviewing innovation strategy Corporate venture and M and A teams working with startups CEO and founder gatherings inside private equity and VC portfolios Senior leadership offsites at consumer, retail, media and financial services firms Audience outcomes A clear read on which early-stage technology categories are attracting serious capital and why A practical view of how corporates get useful work out of startup partnerships, from someone who structures them Frank lessons from a founder who has been through a record-breaking IPO, a billion-dollar exit and a public company collapse A sharper sense of how UK and European policy, capital and talent conditions shape what boards can realistically plan for