Health & Wellbeing

Why organisations work with Ben Tavassoli A working screen actor, currently visible in Channel 4’s Screw and previously a lead in BBC One’s New Blood, who chooses to talk in workplace settings about what high-visibility work actually costs him. Personal testimony rather than wellness theory, which lands differently with audiences who have heard the corporate wellbeing pitch before and tuned it out. Useful for events where the goal is to break the room’s silence on mental health, particularly with male audiences and high-performance cultures where vulnerability is rare. A profile audiences recognise from screen, which removes the friction of introducing an unfamiliar voice on a sensitive subject. Biography highlights Lead role as Arrash “Rash” Sayyad in BBC One’s New Blood, the detective drama created and written by Anthony Horowitz. Lead role as Mikey Markides in Sky One’s Bulletproof. Louis Costa in Channel 4’s prison drama Screw. Screen credits across Silent Witness (BBC), No Offence (Channel 4), and Fox’s Tyrant. Feature film roles in Warner Brothers’ Overlord, produced by J.J. Abrams, and An Acceptable Loss opposite Jamie Lee Curtis. Scouted out of drama school in 2015 by a UK talent agency. Biography The entertainment industry runs on visible confidence and private cost. Actors are paid to appear composed in the moments they are most exposed, and the same pattern shows up in any culture that rewards people for looking unaffected by pressure. That is where the conversation Ben Tavassoli leads to in corporate rooms begins. Tavassoli left drama school in 2015 after a UK talent agency signed him, and worked across UK and US production almost immediately. His credits include Anthony Horowitz’s BBC One detective drama New Blood, where he played trainee investigator Rash Sayyad, the Sky One series Bulletproof, Channel 4’s No Offence and Screw, and BBC’s Silent Witness. On film he appeared in Warner Brothers’ Overlord, produced by J.J. Abrams, and opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in An Acceptable Loss. Alongside that career he speaks publicly about his own mental health, drawing on the pressures of audition, rejection, and sustained visibility. He frames the conversation around the gap between public performance and private state, and the cost of pretending those two things are the same. The point in a corporate setting is rarely about acting. It is about the cultures that ask people to perform competence whether or not they are coping. His value in a room is recognisability and candour. Audiences encounter a face they know from television talking honestly about a subject most leaders find difficult to introduce. For events focused on stigma reduction and the substance of wellbeing rather than its branding, he is a credible opening voice. Key speaking topics Mental health in the workplace Resilience under pressure Personal wellbeing and self-management Workplace culture and stigma reduction Confidence and self-presentation Lessons from a screen acting career Ideal for Internal wellbeing weeks, mental health awareness events, and CHRO-led culture moments Male-dominated and high-performance environments where stigma around mental health is the main barrier Client-facing or public-facing teams under sustained visibility pressure Early-career and graduate audiences in industries with intense performance expectations Audience outcomes A more honest internal vocabulary for discussing mental health at work Permission for senior people in the room to name pressure they would normally keep private A working example of how someone with public visibility manages the gap between performance and private state A reduction in the assumption that wellbeing content has to be clinical or generic to be useful

Why organisations work with Catherine Tyldesley A familiar face from prime-time British television, with seven years as Eva Price in Coronation Street and a Strictly Come Dancing run that gives her instant recognition with mass-market audiences. Comfortable carrying a live audience, drawn from arena work on the Strictly Come Dancing Tour, presenting on Lorraine, and winning All Star Musicals at Christmas in 2021. A documented personal weight loss and wellness journey, including a 12-week Ultimate Performance transformation, that gives her credible first-person material on body image, food and physical health. Speaks openly about the tension between career, motherhood and self-care, which lands directly with employee audiences for International Women’s Day, family policy and wellbeing programming. Booked equally for hosting, awards and moderation work, where the value is poise on stage and rapport with a room rather than subject-matter expertise. Biography highlights Played Eva Price in ITV’s Coronation Street from 2011 to 2018, with a return to the role confirmed for 2025. First leading role as Iris Moss in the BBC One period drama Lilies (2007), written by Heidi Thomas. Lead role as Karen Norris in the BBC One sitcom Scarborough (2019), created by Derren Litten. Cast member of Strictly Come Dancing series 17 (2019), followed by the arena tour. Other television work includes 15 Days (Channel 5), Viewpoint (ITV), McDonald and Dodds (ITV), A Good Ship Murder (Channel 5) and Cooking with the Stars (ITV1). Winner of All Star Musicals at Christmas (ITV1, 2021), and released her debut studio album, Rise, in 2016. Biography Coronation Street ran in 24 million homes a week at its peak in the years Catherine Tyldesley was playing Eva Price. She held the role from 2011 to 2018, returning in 2025 as the new landlady of the Rovers Return. That long run on prime-time ITV is what gives her the audience recognition that corporate event teams hire her for. Her acting work sits across several formats. Lilies, the 2007 BBC One period drama written by Heidi Thomas, gave her a first leading role as Iris Moss. She went on to play Karen Norris in the BBC One sitcom Scarborough, and has taken roles in 15 Days on Channel 5, Viewpoint and McDonald and Dodds on ITV, and the Channel 5 thriller A Good Ship Murder. Strictly Come Dancing series 17 and the subsequent arena tour added a live-performance dimension to her public profile. Outside drama, she works as a presenter, host and panellist across cooking, lifestyle and entertainment formats. She won All Star Musicals at Christmas in 2021, presents food segments on Lorraine, and has appeared on Cooking with the Stars and a range of ITV game and panel shows. Brand partnerships across Tesco, Matalan, Vodafone, Fairy, Symprove and others sit alongside the on-screen work. Her wellness platform comes from her own story. She has spoken openly about weighing close to 15 stone as a teenager and changing her relationship with food, exercise and body image over many years, including a 12-week transformation with Ultimate Performance in 2019. That material, alongside her experience of motherhood, IBS, and the practical demands of working in television, is what she draws on when she speaks at corporate events on wellbeing, balance and confidence. Key speaking topics Health and wellbeing Body image and confidence Balancing career and family Mental health and personal resilience Women in the public eye Event hosting and moderating Ideal for Internal employee events for International Women’s Day, family policy and wellbeing weeks Awards ceremonies, gala dinners and conference hosting where audience recognition matters Health, lifestyle and consumer brand events looking for a recognisable presenter Customer-facing experiences where warmth and on-stage poise carry the room Audience outcomes A relatable, first-person account of long-term weight management, body image and changing relationship with food. Honest reflection on the pressures of working in television while raising young children. Reassurance for employee audiences that wellbeing struggles sit alongside successful careers. A confident host or moderator presence that holds a room of non-specialist guests.

Why organisations work with Christian Jessen Clinical authority paired with a household-name broadcast platform. GMC-registered, UCL-trained, and the public face of Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies for eight years, which gives him a rare ability to hold a corporate audience on subjects most staff avoid. Substantive expertise in sexual health, HIV and LGBT+ health equity, including work in Kenya and Uganda and an appointment as National HIV Testing Week Ambassador in 2015. Useful when inclusion and health intersect with real clinical content. First-person testimony on depression, bulimia and muscle dysmorphia, delivered without performance. Audiences hear from a clinician who has been the patient, which moves the conversation past awareness scripts. A communication style built over two decades of primetime television: plain language, comfort with discomfort, no euphemism. The right register for a room where leaders have been told mental health matters but do not know what to say next. Biography highlights MBBS, University College London (2001). MSc in sexual health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Co-presenter, Embarrassing Bodies, Channel 4 (2007 to 2015), alongside Pixie McKenna and Dawn Harper. Co-presenter, Supersize vs Superskinny, Channel 4 (2008 to 2014). National HIV Testing Week Ambassador, 2015. Author of Can I Just Ask? (2010) and a three-book Scholastic series for adolescents covering growing up, sensitive subjects and the self. Patron of Humanists UK. Biography Stigma is the reason health conversations stall inside organisations. People know what they should disclose, and they know what their employer says it supports, and they still do not speak. Christian Jessen has spent two decades working at the point where that silence breaks, first as a clinician in sexual health and infectious disease, then as the face of Channel 4’s most successful health franchise. The medical training is substantive. UCL for the MBBS in 2001, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for an MSc in sexual health, with field experience on HIV and malaria in Kenya and Uganda. That clinical grounding ran through eight years co-presenting Embarrassing Bodies and six years on Supersize vs Superskinny, where the production worked because the doctor on screen was a doctor, not a presenter playing one. His written work for younger readers, the Scholastic trilogy on growing up and the everyday questions adolescents will not ask aloud, shows the same instinct. Take subjects coded as awkward, name them in plain language, treat the audience as intelligent. The 2015 appointment as National HIV Testing Week Ambassador reflected the same trust in his communication: clinical accuracy without moralising. In corporate rooms the relevance is specific. He has spoken openly about his own experience of depression, bulimia and muscle dysmorphia, which lets him hold a discussion on workplace mental health that does not collapse into either policy summary or personal anecdote. For organisations moving beyond awareness campaigns into harder questions about disclosure, manager capability and clinical literacy, that combination of credentials and lived experience is the value. Key speaking topics Mental health in the workplace Body image and eating disorders Sexual health and LGBT+ health equity Stigma and disclosure in organisational settings Men’s health Health communication and behaviour change Ideal for CHROs, wellbeing leads and chief people officers building substantive mental health programmes DEI and ERG leaders running health-equity sessions, particularly around LGBT+ inclusion Employee Assistance Programme partners and benefits leaders looking for clinical credibility on stage All-staff wellbeing weeks and Mental Health Awareness events that need a clinician, not a motivational act Audience outcomes A clearer line between what wellbeing programmes can do and what clinical support is for Confidence to talk about eating disorders, body dysmorphia and men’s mental health in plain terms at work A working understanding of why stigma persists even where policy support exists A sharper sense of what good disclosure conversations sound like between staff and managers

Why organisations work with Clive Branson He gives wellbeing and safety teams something internal communications cannot produce: an unsentimental first-person account of suicidal crisis and psychiatric admission, delivered by someone who spent seventeen years on the employer side of workplace duty-of-care conversations. His professional background in Ministry of Defence industrial relations means he speaks the language of HR, health and safety, and line managers rather than clinical or motivational language. He carries three concurrent diagnoses, Motor Neurone Disease, Stage Two prostate cancer, and acute anxiety, and talks about functioning through them rather than recovering from them. Audiences dealing with long-term illness in colleagues recognise the reality he describes. He has been trusted inside HM Prison Service settings as well as corporate audiences such as Network Rail, Ecolab and Guy Carpenter, which tells a booker he holds a room across very different registers. Biography highlights Three years Royal Air Force service, followed by seventeen years in UK Ministry of Defence Industrial Relations. Founded and ran a health and safety consultancy before health challenges forced him to step back. Diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in late 2017 and subsequently with Stage Two prostate cancer. Seven-week inpatient admission across two psychiatric hospitals for acute anxiety and suicidal ideation. Featured speaker at CarFest in 2022 and 2023. Delivers talks voluntarily inside HM Prison Service and to corporate audiences including Network Rail, Ecolab, Intermediate Capital Group, Guy Carpenter and Tindall Riley. Biography Most corporate mental health content is written by people who have read the research. Branson sat on the other side of the table for nearly two decades. In Ministry of Defence industrial relations he handled the employer-side conversations about employment law, occupational health and the human condition at work, which is to say he knew the policy apparatus before he needed any of it. In late 2017 he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. A Stage Two prostate cancer diagnosis followed. Surgery was ruled out because of the MND. Acute anxiety took over, and he was admitted to two psychiatric hospitals for a combined seven weeks after considering suicide. He lost his father, father-in-law and mother in the same stretch of years. What makes the talk useful to organisations is the combination of that experience with his prior role. He can describe, from the inside, what a line manager’s words actually landed as; why disclosure felt impossible; what policy language reads like to someone in crisis. He is not a clinician and does not claim to be. He is the employee that wellbeing policies are written for, who once wrote them. He works across corporate audiences including Network Rail, Ecolab, Intermediate Capital Group and Guy Carpenter, and volunteers inside HM Prison Service. He was a featured speaker at CarFest in 2022 and 2023 and has discussed resilience on BBC Radio Shropshire. The register adjusts to the room; the underlying account does not soften. Key speaking topics Workplace mental health Resilience under sustained adversity Suicide awareness and crisis disclosure Living and working with long-term illness Line manager communication in duty-of-care conversations Men’s mental health Grief and bereavement at work Ideal for CHROs, wellbeing leads and health and safety directors shaping workforce mental health programmes Line manager and people manager development audiences Employee resource groups focused on men’s health, long-term illness or cancer Organisations marking World Mental Health Day, Men’s Health Week or Mental Health Awareness Week with an internal keynote Audience outcomes A first-person account of what a suicidal crisis and psychiatric admission actually look like, from someone who once wrote workplace policy Specific language cues for line managers, on what helps and what closes a conversation down A reframing of vulnerability at work as something to surface rather than manage around Recognition of how long-term diagnosis reshapes an employee’s relationship with work, useful to colleagues and managers alike

Why organisations work with Conor Randall A first-person account of stage 4 stomach cancer, metastasis to multiple organs, sixteen rounds of chemotherapy, and a clear October 2023 remission. The story does the persuasion that wellbeing slide decks cannot. He gives leaders permission to open conversations about mental health without flinching, because the audience has just heard someone describe the floor of human experience. He focuses on the daily practice underneath recovery, acceptance, routine, and belief, rather than slogans. Useful for audiences who have heard every wellbeing keynote and stopped listening. He works well as a closing or anchor speaker on conference programmes that need an emotional gear change after dense content. Biography highlights Diagnosed at 29 with stage 4 stomach cancer, with metastasis to the pancreas, gallbladder, and abdominal nodules. Completed sixteen cycles of palliative chemotherapy and a partial stomach bypass before stepping away from conventional treatment in September 2022. Scans in October 2023 confirmed no active cancer remaining. Speaks internationally on resilience, mental and physical wellbeing, mindset, and dealing with setbacks. Publishes long-form writing on his recovery, including the essay “An Unexpected Journey” on Medium, and shares the story across LinkedIn and TikTok. Represented by multiple international speaker bureaux, including Speakers Associates and Kruger Cowne. Biography In November 2021, at 29, a routine investigation returned a stage 4 stomach cancer diagnosis with metastasis to the pancreas, gallbladder, and abdominal nodules. Conor Randall was given an initial prognosis measured in weeks. A partial stomach bypass and sixteen cycles of palliative chemotherapy followed. In September 2022, he stepped away from conventional treatment and turned to holistic methods, working on stress, trauma, belief, and daily routine. He has written that the work was as much psychological as physiological. By October 2023, scans showed no active cancer remaining. He now speaks to corporate audiences, conferences, and leadership gatherings about what the recovery actually required, day by day. The talks centre on acceptance, mindset, routine, and the practical content of resilience when a person is being asked to live differently. He writes long-form on Medium, including the essay “An Unexpected Journey”, and is represented by international speaker bureaux, including Speakers Associates and Kruger Cowne. The value to a serious organisation is narrow but real. He is not a clinician, researcher, or HR practitioner. He is a person who has been to a place most audiences only fear, returned from it, and learned to talk about it in a way leaders can use to open conversations about mental health that would otherwise stay closed. Key speaking topics Resilience and mental wellbeing Mindset and belief under adversity Dealing with setbacks Stress management Acceptance and recovery Daily routine as a wellbeing practice Mental and physical health Ideal for Internal wellbeing weeks, mental health awareness moments, and people-team events Sales kick-offs, all-hands meetings, and conferences seeking an anchor or closing speaker with emotional weight Leadership offsites where senior teams are under sustained pressure Healthcare, life sciences, and patient-facing organisations engaging with the patient perspective Audience outcomes A vivid, first-person reference point for what resilience looks like under extreme conditions Permission to talk openly about mental health and adversity inside a professional setting Practical handholds, acceptance, belief, routine, that audiences can take into their own week An emotional reset on a conference programme that has become dense or transactional

Why organisations work with Daniel Chappell A first-hand account of raising significant early-stage capital with no trading history, which is the situation most internal innovation teams quietly find themselves in when pitching new ventures to their own boards. A working operator’s view of UNTIL, a business that pairs physical premises in Soho, Liverpool Street and Marylebone with a digital membership model. Useful for any leadership team thinking about hybrid product-and-place propositions. An unusually honest voice on neurodiversity from a founder who runs a company while managing dyslexia and dyspraxia, rather than a clinical or HR-led perspective. A high-performance sports background that translates the language of marginal gains, recovery, and team standards into the running of a commercial business, without leaning on tired sporting metaphor. Biography highlights Co-founder of UNTIL, a members business for freelance health, wellness and medical practitioners operating from three central London sites. UNTIL counts Steven Bartlett among its investors and co-founders, following a high-profile early funding round. MSc in Strength and Conditioning, Cardiff Metropolitan University. BSc in Sports and Exercise Science, St Mary’s University, Twickenham. Over a decade working inside high-performance sporting environments before launching his own ventures. Speaks publicly about dyslexia and dyspraxia, and treats neurodiversity as part of his founder identity, not a sidebar. Biography Service industries built on individual practitioners tend to share the same problem. The talent is excellent and the business model is fragile. UNTIL, the London business Daniel Chappell co-founded, was built around that gap: a members club and workspace that lets freelance health, wellness and medical professionals operate from premium premises in Soho, Liverpool Street and Marylebone without carrying the cost of their own. The route in matters. More than a decade inside high-performance sport gave Daniel an instinct for how elite practitioners work, what they need around them, and where their time is wasted. An MSc in Strength and Conditioning from Cardiff Metropolitan University and a BSc in Sports and Exercise Science from St Mary’s University, Twickenham sit behind that view. The transition from working with athletes to building a company for the people who work with athletes is the spine of the story. UNTIL has since attracted Steven Bartlett as an investor and co-founder, and has built a community of more than 300 practitioners across more than 40 disciplines. For a buyer, the value of the talk is not the milestone list. It is what the talk reveals about persuading investors with no trading history, building a founding team that can scale, and running a young company in public. Daniel is also open about managing dyslexia and dyspraxia as a founder, and speaks to neurodiversity from the inside of a working business. That perspective is useful in any leadership conversation about how organisations actually get the best out of people whose minds are wired differently from the average hire. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and founding-team dynamics Early-stage fundraising and investor relationships Building a business in the health and wellness sector High performance applied to commercial environments Neurodiversity in leadership and at work Team culture in young companies Resilience and personal performance for founders Ideal for Leadership offsites for scale-ups and founder-led businesses Corporate innovation, ventures and intrapreneurship teams HR and people leaders building practical neurodiversity programmes Wellbeing, benefits and employee-experience conferences Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what early-stage investors actually respond to when there is no trading history to point at. A practical framing of how a young founding team divides work, makes decisions, and survives the first eighteen months. A working model for treating neurodiversity as a commercial asset inside a team, with examples from a live business. Language for translating high-performance habits into a corporate or scale-up context without resorting to sports cliché.

Why organisations work with David Aguilar He holds a Guinness World Record for the first functional LEGO prosthetic arm and has built five iterations, MK-I through MK-V, giving any conversation on inclusion a concrete engineering artefact rather than a general narrative. He translates a congenital condition, Poland syndrome, into a design problem and a product line under the Hand Solo brand, which reframes accessibility as a market and a capability question for R&D, HR, and product teams. He is a UIC Barcelona bioengineering graduate and recipient of the university’s Bioengineering Innovation Prize, so the engineering credibility is not improvised around the story. He carries unusual cultural reach for an inventor: winner of LEGO Masters France, subject of the Filmax documentary Mr. Hand Solo (Boston Sci-Fi Festival, Best Documentary Feature), and a face of LEGO’s #RebuildTheWorld global campaign. He speaks in English and Spanish and pairs well with technology, healthcare, and culture audiences who want an innovation voice that is not another Silicon Valley founder. Biography highlights Guinness World Records title holder, first functional LEGO prosthetic arm (MK-I); Guinness Hall of Fame inductee. Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering from Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona); recipient of the UIC Bioengineering Innovation Prize, 2018. Author of Piece by Piece: How I Built My Life (No Instructions Required), with Ferran Aguilar; Amazon Crossing (English), Penguin Random House (Spanish). Subject of Mr. Hand Solo (Filmax, 2021), Best Documentary Feature, Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. Winner, LEGO Masters France. Featured by Great Big Story (CNN Worldwide), WIPO Magazine, and in LEGO’s #RebuildTheWorld global campaign. Biography Poland syndrome is a rare congenital condition that prevents the full development of muscles on one side of the body. David Aguilar was born with it, and built his first LEGO prosthesis at nine. By eighteen, working from a LEGO Technic Rescue Helicopter set, he had built MK-I, the first functional LEGO prosthetic arm that Guinness has recognised. The work has continued in versions, not anecdotes. MK-I to MK-V move from mechanical grabber to motorised five-finger hand controlled by residual-arm movement. He has since built an arm for an eight-year-old and launched Hand Solo as a brand aimed at accessible, affordable prosthetics. UIC Barcelona awarded him its Bioengineering Innovation Prize and a place to complete the degree. The story travels because it behaves like both engineering and culture. The documentary Mr. Hand Solo won Best Documentary Feature at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. His memoir Piece by Piece, co-written with his father Ferran, sits on both trade and children’s lists. LEGO cast him in the global #RebuildTheWorld campaign, and he won LEGO Masters France on primetime television. For serious organisations, the relevance is practical. He gives inclusion teams a product, gives R&D teams a user who is also a builder, and gives leadership audiences a single question to take back to their own operating model: who inside this company is quietly solving a problem we never designed around, and what would it take to give them the bricks? Key speaking topics Inclusive innovation and design Accessibility and assistive technology Bioengineering and prosthetics STEAM education and youth invention Resilience through engineering Purpose-driven entrepreneurship Ideal for CHROs and heads of DEI building an inclusion agenda that produces outputs, not statements. R&D, product, and healthcare leaders working on accessibility as a market rather than a compliance question. STEAM education programmes, universities, and youth-focused foundations. Corporate culture and internal-innovation audiences where the brief calls for a builder rather than a consultant. Audience outcomes A working example of how a constraint becomes a product, not a motivational metaphor. A sharper brief for what accessible design looks like when the user is the engineer. A named set of artefacts (MK-I to MK-V, Hand Solo) that teams can reference back in their own work. A reset on what inclusion programmes should produce, measured in things built rather than campaigns run. A concrete answer to what young engineers inside the organisation might do with permission and materials.

Why organisations work with David Hughes Hughes reads the whole value chain – from farm inputs and life science companies through manufacturers, retailers and food service – and identifies the commercial implications of change at each stage, giving organisations a perspective they cannot assemble internally. His 1994 book «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» established the intellectual case for vertical supply chain collaboration – a thesis that remains central to competitive advantage in the sector today. He does not only analyse food businesses; he built one. As co-founder of a branded fresh produce company that he grew and sold into US supermarkets, and as a 20-year Non-Executive Director of Berry Gardens Ltd – the UK’s largest farmer-owned berry business – his commercial judgement is grounded in direct business experience. Organisations working in any geography get genuine cross-continental intelligence. Hughes works across Africa, Asia, Australasia, North and South America and Europe, making his read on consumer trends and retail dynamics global in scope rather than extrapolated from one market. As Honorary Nuffield Scholar and the inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at what is now Imperial College London, his academic standing gives food and agribusiness organisations a credible, research-grounded voice for external-facing events, policy engagements and board-level discussions. Biography highlights Emeritus Professor of Food Marketing, Imperial College London; inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at Wye College (now Imperial College London) from 1991 Visiting Professor, Royal Agricultural University, UK Ph.D. Food Marketing, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; M.Sc. Agricultural Marketing; B.Sc. (Hons.) Agricultural Economics Non-Executive Director, Berry Gardens Ltd – UK’s largest farmer-owned berry business – for 20 years; co-founder of a branded fresh produce business sold into US supermarket chains Author/editor: «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» (Wye College Press, 1994); published in British Food Journal, Supply Chain Management, and Business Ethics: A European Review Honorary Nuffield Scholar; keynote speaker at major food industry conferences across Africa, Asia, Australasia, the Americas and Europe, with named clients including Nestlé HQ (Switzerland) and William Reed Ltd (The Grocer) Biography Consumer preferences for health, sustainability and convenience are not moving in straight lines – and the food businesses that are best placed to respond are those that see how each shift propagates across the whole value chain, from the genetics company at one end to the food service operator at the other. David Hughes has spent more than fifty years building exactly that whole-chain, whole-world view, working with senior management in food and agribusiness on every continent. Hughes became the inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at Wye College in 1991, later Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London, where he established and directed the Food Industry Management Group. His 1994 edited volume «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» set out the commercial logic of vertical supply chain collaboration – an argument that has only become more relevant as retail power has concentrated and sustainability scrutiny has intensified. He is also Visiting Professor at the Royal Agricultural University and an Honorary Nuffield Scholar. What distinguishes Hughes from the academic analyst category is that he has operated commercially inside the industries he studies. He co-founded and sold a branded fresh produce business serving US supermarkets, and served as Non-Executive Director of Berry Gardens Ltd – Britain’s largest farmer-owned berry business – for two decades. That combination of institutional credibility and business experience is what makes his reads on market shifts actionable rather than observational. Known internationally as «Dr. Food,» Hughes speaks to boards, trade associations, producer groups and government bodies across Africa, Asia, Australasia, North and South America and Europe. His work is sector-wide – meat, dairy, fresh produce, packaged foods, food service and the input industries that serve them – and consistently oriented toward the commercial question: given what is shifting, what should an organisation do on Monday morning? Key speaking topics Global consumer food trends and retail dynamics Food and agribusiness commercial strategy Supply chain partnerships and vertical alliance models Sustainability, environment and the food industry Health, nutrition and food market development Fresh produce and grocery retail innovation Food entrepreneurship and business model change Ideal for C-suite and board-level audiences in food manufacturing, grocery retail, food service and agribusiness Trade associations and producer organisations seeking to brief members on market direction Government and policy bodies working on food security, trade and sustainability Financial services and investor audiences with food sector exposure Audience outcomes A clearer distinction between structural shifts in food consumer behaviour and short-term trends – and the commercial implications of each Understanding of how change in one part of the food value chain creates threats and opportunities in adjacent segments A cross-continental frame of reference for food market developments that is difficult to assemble from within a single geography or sector Practical direction on how food businesses can build the supply chain partnerships and consumer connections that underpin competitive advantage Greater confidence in communicating strategic rationale to boards, investors or government stakeholders on food industry direction

Why organisations work with David Woods Bartley Trained in QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) and certified in Mental Health First Aid for adults and youth and in safeTALK. He teaches the three QPR steps directly in his talks, so a manager leaves knowing how to ask the question and make the referral. Lived experience of severe depression, a suicide attempt at the Foresthill Bridge, and recovery through electroconvulsive therapy. The story carries the stigma-breaking weight that clinical presenters rarely match. Named 2021 Mental Health Champion by the Steinberg Institute, a credential anchored to a recognised advocacy body rather than bureau superlatives. Two TEDx talks in active distribution, including “How connection saved my life” on TED.com, which gives programme leads a vetted preview of voice and content before booking. Works across corporate, public sector, healthcare, education, and law enforcement audiences. Material has been delivered to sheriff’s departments, universities, and veterans’ health services, not only corporate wellness events. Biography highlights 2021 Mental Health Champion, Steinberg Institute. Two TEDx speaker: “How connection saved my life” (TEDxLosGatos) and “How to save a life by sitting down” (TEDxFolsom). Trained in QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer); certified in Mental Health First Aid for adults and youth and in safeTALK. Member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, International Association for Youth Mental Health, National Storytelling Network’s Healing Story Alliance, and Active Minds. Founder and former director of a nationally recognised animal sanctuary that housed up to 100 special-needs animals. Designer of “A Lesson in Mental Health,” a whole-school programme that trains students, teachers, and parents in a single day. Biography Most organisations have a mental health policy. Very few have trained the average manager to spot a colleague in distress and say something that helps. That gap is the work David Woods Bartley has been doing for over a decade, in more than 800 sessions across the United States, Canada, Central America, and India. His authority rests on two things that rarely appear together. The first is lived experience: a fight with treatment-resistant depression that took him to the edge of the Foresthill Bridge, and a recovery that included electroconvulsive therapy and the human connection that, in his telling, kept him alive long enough to get there. The second is formal training. He is trained in QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) and certified in Mental Health First Aid for adults and youth and in safeTALK. He teaches the QPR steps in his sessions, so audiences leave with a protocol they can put to use. The Steinberg Institute named him a 2021 Mental Health Champion. His two TEDx talks, “How connection saved my life” at TEDxLosGatos and “How to save a life by sitting down” at TEDxFolsom, are in active distribution on TED and YouTube. He is a member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the International Association for Youth Mental Health, the National Storytelling Network’s Healing Story Alliance, and Active Minds. What he gives a room is a practical shift. Bartley uses a framework he calls Whole Person Care, animal stories drawn from two decades running a sanctuary, and the blunt honesty of someone who has stood on the bridge. Managers walk out knowing how to sit down next to a colleague who is not alright, ask a direct question, and get them to the next step. Key speaking topics Suicide prevention and the QPR approach Workplace mental health literacy Psychological safety and supportive conversations Human connection and isolation Whole Person Care Lived experience of depression and recovery Mental health education for schools and communities Ideal for CHROs, heads of wellbeing, and people function leaders building mental health capability across a workforce Line managers, team leaders, and EAP programme owners responsible for early intervention Public sector, healthcare, and education leaders tasked with staff and community mental health Law enforcement, first responder, and veterans’ services leadership addressing occupational risk Audience outcomes A named protocol for asking direct questions when a colleague shows signs of distress, drawn from the QPR method. Language for starting mental health conversations without fearing the wrong word. A clearer sense of what recovery actually looks like, from someone who has been through severe depression and ECT. Reduced stigma around suicide as a topic that can be raised at work, supported by specific recognition cues and response steps. A self-care and wellness planning frame managers can apply to themselves before applying it to a team.

Why organisations work with Dominique Gisin A first-hand account of nine knee surgeries followed by an Olympic gold, used not as a story arc but as material for how leaders sustain commitment when each new attempt carries diminishing odds. A rare combination of elite sporting pedigree with a scientific frame of reference: a Sochi 2014 gold medal alongside an ETH Zurich MSc in Physics, which lifts the conversation above motivational anecdote. Co-delivery with Dr Christian Marcolli, her long-time sports psychologist, gives organisations a paired performance-and-psychology view in a single keynote rather than a one-voice talk. Operational credibility outside sport: a board seat at the listed TITLIS cable-car company, the CEO role she held at Schweizer Sporthilfe, and a spell flying as a commercial First Officer. The talk is anchored in real decision environments, not sport alone. Bilingual delivery in German and English, with strong relevance to Swiss, German-speaking, and international corporate audiences. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, Alpine Skiing Downhill, Sochi 2014, in the first ever Olympic alpine tie for gold (with Tina Maze). Swiss Sportswoman of the Year, 2014. Member of the Swiss National Alpine Ski Team, 2007 to 2015, with multiple World Cup podiums in downhill and super-G. MSc in Physics, ETH Zurich, 2022. CEO and board of trustees member, Schweizer Sporthilfe (Swiss Sports Aid Foundation), 2018 to 2022. Qualified commercial pilot; flew as a First Officer with Swiss carrier Fly7. Biography The downhill at Sochi 2014 produced the first tie for gold in Olympic alpine history. Dominique Gisin shared the podium with Tina Maze on identical times to the hundredth, ending a thirty-year wait for a Swiss women’s downhill gold. The medal arrived after nine knee surgeries and a career that had been written off more than once. What gives the talk its weight is what happened after. Gisin retired from the World Cup circuit in 2015 and was admitted to ETH Zurich, completing an MSc in Physics in 2022. She qualified as a commercial pilot in 2019 and flew as a First Officer for the Swiss carrier Fly7. From 2018 to 2022 she served as CEO and a board of trustees member of Schweizer Sporthilfe, the foundation that funds Swiss athlete development. For senior audiences, the relevant content is not the medal itself. It is the discipline of repeated comeback under thin evidence, paired with a working understanding of how performance, physiology, and decision pressure interact. Her keynote “Making It Happen” is co-delivered with sports psychologist Dr Christian Marcolli, which moves the material beyond personal narrative into a structured account of how composure is built and rebuilt. The pairing of Olympic-level performance, scientific training, and operational responsibility in two further professions is unusual. It gives leadership audiences something specific to take away: a credible read on what it takes to keep deciding well when the body, the data, or the team are all giving reasons to stop. Key speaking topics Resilience after serious setback Composure and decision-making under pressure Elite performance psychology Career reinvention and second-act leadership Team trust and individual accountability Inspiration from elite sport for corporate audiences Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and board awaydays facing a turnaround or post-shock phase HR, talent and L&D leaders running senior development programmes on resilience and performance Sales and commercial conferences anchored on sustained motivation through difficult cycles Audience outcomes A concrete account of how elite athletes prepare for, absorb, and recover from setback, applied to leadership decisions Language for talking about composure as a built capability rather than a personality trait A working frame, drawn from sports psychology, for how individuals and teams stay committed when results are slow to arrive A second-perspective view through Dr Christian Marcolli when the keynote is booked as a duo

Why organisations work with Bella Smith Clinical authority that holds up in the room. Twenty years as an NHS GP partner means the advice survives challenge from medical, HR and legal stakeholders alike. Operator credentials, not only commentary. Through The Well HQ she has built women’s health frameworks for clients including the FA and corporate employers, translating physiology into policy. A Sunday Times bestselling co-author of The Female Body Bible, the most cited recent reference book on female-specific health and performance in the UK market. Ambassador status with The Eve Appeal gives her standing on gynaecological health that goes beyond menopause, the topic most women’s health speakers default to. Direct, plain-language register. Audiences leave with vocabulary they can use the next day, in policy drafting, line-management conversations and personal decisions. Biography highlights NHS GP partner with over 20 years of clinical experience, specialising in women’s health Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of The Well HQ, a women’s health consultancy Co-author of The Female Body Bible (Penguin, 2023), a Sunday Times bestseller Ambassador for The Eve Appeal, the UK gynaecological cancer charity Media spokesperson as The Digital GP, with appearances on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio Suffolk and Sky News Co-led the design of an integrated female health framework across the Women’s Super League, the National Leagues and grassroots football Biography Women’s health has spent a decade being talked about and rarely being built into how organisations actually operate. Policies on menopause sit in handbooks no manager reads. Wellness budgets fund webinars that leave behavioural change untouched. The work of moving from sentiment to system is technical, and it is what Bella Smith does. She has been an NHS GP partner in Suffolk for over twenty years, with a clinical specialism in women’s health. That practice is the source of the directness audiences notice first. The advice is what she would give in a consultation, stripped of corporate hedging. In 2021 she co-founded The Well HQ with sports scientist Dr Emma Ross and coach Baz Moffat. The consultancy works with employers and sports bodies to translate female physiology into policy, manager training and culture. Their work with the FA produced an integrated female health framework spanning the Women’s Super League, National Leagues and grassroots football, the first of its kind. The Female Body Bible, co-authored with Ross and Moffat and published by Penguin in 2023, became a Sunday Times bestseller. It is now the reference text many HR teams use when they begin to take this seriously. As an ambassador for The Eve Appeal and a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour and Sky News, she has spent years closing the gap between clinical knowledge and public conversation. Inside organisations, that gap is where most policy fails. Key speaking topics Women’s health in the workplace Menopause policy and management Reproductive and gynaecological health Female physiology and performance Stress and lifestyle medicine Health communication and taboo Ideal for CHROs, heads of D&I and reward leads building or auditing women’s health policy Line manager and leadership audiences who need clinical fluency, not slogans Sports, performance and athlete-welfare organisations Employee resource groups and women’s networks running serious internal programming Audience outcomes A clinical baseline on menopause, reproductive health and female physiology that survives scrutiny Vocabulary and questions managers can use in their next one-to-one A clear view of where current workplace policy falls short, and what good looks like Practical reference points for HR teams designing or revising women’s health provision

Why organisations work with Elaine Kasket She is one of the few cyberpsychologists in Europe who is also a clinically trained, HCPC-registered counselling psychologist, which means her advice on digital wellbeing is grounded in clinical practice, not commentary. Her work covers technology across the full lifespan, from “sharenting” to digital afterlife, which gives leaders a coherent framework for thinking about the employee, the customer, and the citizen as the same person. She wrote the definitive trade book on digital death and digital legacy, All the Ghosts in the Machine, and now leads on the psychology of AI companions and grief bots, an area few executive audiences have heard explained well. She has consulted to organisations including Netflix, Santander, Deloitte, the NHS and Hill & Knowlton Strategies, so the work translates from research into board-level conversations about AI, attention and surveillance. Her newest book, Reset, gives leadership teams a practical vocabulary for agency over technology rather than the usual digital detox framing, which most senior buyers find too thin for adult professional audiences. Biography highlights BPS-Chartered Psychologist and HCPC-Registered Counselling Psychologist; Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society Visiting Professor at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath; formerly Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Wolverhampton Author of Reset: Rethinking Your Digital World for a Happier Life (Elliott & Thompson, 2024) and All the Ghosts in the Machine (Robinson, 2019) TEDx Oxford speaker; featured expert in the Netflix documentary The Future Of: Life After Death Regular contributor to BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, CNN, BBC Ideas, The Guardian, New Scientist, Psychology Today and Stylist Keynote engagements include Santander, Deloitte, the NHS, Royal Society of Medicine, Congreso Futuro, re:publica and the International Baccalaureate global conference Biography Most organisations talk about digital wellbeing in the language of the wellness industry: detoxes, screen-time apps, mindful breathing. The actual psychological problem is structural. Attention is being extracted, identity is being recorded, and the costs are showing up in engagement, retention and clinical mental health caseloads. That gap between the corporate vocabulary and the clinical reality is the space Elaine Kasket works in. She trained as a counselling psychologist before cyberpsychology was a discipline, and is registered with the HCPC alongside her chartered psychologist status with the British Psychological Society. That clinical grounding is what separates her commentary from the commentary economy around technology. She led the Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at Regent’s University London, was Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Wolverhampton for five years, and is now Visiting Professor at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. Her first trade book, All the Ghosts in the Machine (Robinson, 2019), opened a serious public conversation about digital legacy: what happens to your data, your accounts and your image when you die, and what that means for the people who outlive you. Reset: Rethinking Your Digital World for a Happier Life (Elliott & Thompson, 2024) extends the argument across the full lifespan, from “digital gestation” and sharenting to surveillance, AI relationships and the digital afterlife. For leadership audiences, she connects four conversations executives often run as separate problems: employee mental health, AI adoption, brand trust and data governance. Her recent keynotes for Santander, Deloitte, the NHS, the Royal Society of Medicine and Congreso Futuro have moved leaders away from “digital detox” framing and toward agency, the design question of how a workforce uses AI without losing the cognitive and relational ground organisations actually run on. Key speaking topics Cyberpsychology and digital wellbeing Psychology of AI adoption at work AI companions, grief bots and the future of human connection Digital legacy, data privacy and digital afterlife Attention, surveillance and the extractive attention economy Technology across the lifespan, from sharenting to digital afterlives Ideal for CHROs and Chief People Officers designing wellbeing, engagement and AI-readiness programmes Chief AI Officers and transformation leads embedding AI into employee experience and customer-facing tools Brand, marketing and communications leadership teams working on trust, privacy and AI narratives Boards and risk committees considering the human and reputational dimensions of data, surveillance and AI Audience outcomes A clinically grounded read on what technology is actually doing to attention, identity and relationships at work A vocabulary for talking about digital wellbeing that holds up in front of clinicians, regulators and senior employees A clearer view of where AI companions, grief bots and synthetic relationships intersect with workforce mental health and brand risk A practical sense of what individual and organisational agency look like in an extractive attention economy A framework that connects digital legacy, data governance and employee trust as one coherent leadership question