Inclusive Leadership speakers

Why organisations work with Sally Penni She founded and chairs Women in the Law UK, the largest professional development network for women in the legal profession in the country, giving her firsthand evidence of what fair progression looks like when it is built as an institution rather than announced as a policy. Her authority on fair progression is grounded in active legal practice at Kenworthy’s Chambers, a Bencher position at Gray’s Inn, and appointment to the International Criminal Court list of counsel. The argument carries weight because the practitioner is real. Through the Talking Law podcast she has interviewed Lord Pannick KC, Jolyon Maugham KC, the Treasury Solicitor, and other figures at the top of the UK legal system, building a body of recorded conversation about leadership, culture, and reform inside one of the most conservative professions. Her board portfolio spans the Royal Exchange Theatre, Arawak Walton Housing Association, the Access to Justice Foundation, and a part-time judicial role at the Valuation Tribunal, so the perspective is informed by governance experience across cultural, housing, legal, and judicial settings. She was awarded an MBE specifically for diversity, social mobility, and law, a recognition of practical contribution rather than profile, and one that signals to senior buyers that the work has stood up to external scrutiny. Biography highlights Practising barrister at Kenworthy’s Chambers, Manchester, specialising in criminal, employment, public, and data protection law. Founder and chair of Women in the Law UK, the professional development organisation she established in 2012. MBE for services to diversity, social mobility, and law, Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020. Two honorary doctorates in law, from Manchester Metropolitan University (2022) and the University of Salford (2023). Bencher of Gray’s Inn. Appointed to the list of counsel for the International Criminal Court. Companion of the Chartered Management Institute (CCMI) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA); author of the Talking Law book series; TEDx speaker. Host of two podcasts, Talking Law and The Law and Guidance Podcast. Talking Law features senior UK legal figures including Lord Pannick KC and the Treasury Solicitor. Non-Executive Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre and Arawak Walton Housing Association; Trustee, Access to Justice Foundation; part-time judge, Valuation Tribunal for England. Biography The legal profession is one of the most credentialled and slowest-moving institutions in British public life. It is also one of the places where the gap between stated values and lived experience is most visible. Sally Penni MBE has spent her career working that gap from the inside, as a practising barrister, an institution-builder, and a public voice on what it takes to widen access to a closed profession. She practises at Kenworthy’s Chambers in Manchester across criminal, employment, public, and data protection law, and sits as a part-time judge on the Valuation Tribunal for England. She is a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and on the International Criminal Court list of counsel. The institutional standing matters because it is the basis on which the rest of the work is taken seriously inside the profession. In 2012 she founded Women in the Law UK, now the country’s largest professional network for women in legal practice. Her Talking Law podcast, and a second show, The Law and Guidance Podcast, have built a record of conversation with senior figures of the bar, including Lord Pannick KC and the Treasury Solicitor. Through the same network she has built a substantial body of work on women’s health at work, including menopause, and the legal duties employers carry. Outside the law she sits on boards across theatre, housing, and access to justice, including the Royal Exchange Theatre, Arawak Walton Housing Association, and the Access to Justice Foundation. That work has been recognised on its own terms. An MBE in 2020 for diversity, social mobility, and law, honorary doctorates in law from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2022 and the University of Salford in 2023, and appointment as a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute. The recognition points at one thing: a body of work that has changed institutions rather than commented on them, recorded in the Talking Law books drawn from the same conversations that built the podcast. Key speaking topics Values-based leadership Women in leadership and the legal profession Social mobility and access to the professions Mentorship and talent development Governance and board-level standards Wellbeing and resilience in professional careers Law, regulation, and the future of the legal profession Women’s health, menopause, and the law at work Ideal for General Counsel, Chief Legal Officers, and senior in-house legal teams setting standards on culture and how the firm develops its people Chief People Officers, CHROs, and heads of talent designing culture and progression strategy for professional and regulated workforces Boards, NEDs, and chairs reviewing governance standards on culture, social mobility, and access Senior partners and managing partners at law firms, chambers, and professional services firms Employers and people teams developing menopause and women’s-health policy under employment-law obligations Audience outcomes A clearer view of what values-based leadership requires when the organisation is regulated, conservative, and resistant to change Direct reference points from inside the legal profession on building durable institutions for under-represented talent A sharper standard for telling genuine culture change apart from communications Practical perspective on mentoring, sponsorship, and progression at senior levels A grounded view of employers’ legal duties around menopause and women’s health at work, from a practising barrister rather than a consultant

Why organisations work with Samira Ahmed More than three decades in senior British journalism, including current presenting roles on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and BBC One’s Newswatch, give her the instinct to read a room and the standing to hold it. Her January 2020 equal pay tribunal win against the BBC gives her direct, lived authority on workplace fairness that few moderators can claim. She has chaired panels for the British Museum, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the United Nations, the Cabinet Office and KPMG, and handles contested material without flattening it into talking points. Stonewall Broadcaster of the Year in 2009 and a current trustee of the Centre for Women’s Justice, she brings a journalistically tested base in equality and gender topics that few corporate hosts can claim. Biography highlights Presenter, Front Row, BBC Radio 4, and Newswatch, BBC One and BBC News Channel. British Broadcasting Press Guild Audio Presenter of the Year, 2020. Stonewall Broadcaster of the Year, 2009, for Channel 4 News reporting on the “corrective” rape of lesbian women in South Africa. Brought and won the landmark equal pay tribunal against the BBC, January 2020. Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford; honorary doctorates from City University of London, the University of East Anglia, Kingston University and the University of Winchester. Trustee, Centre for Women’s Justice; former Channel 4 News presenter and correspondent and former BBC Los Angeles correspondent. Biography In January 2020, an employment tribunal in central London ruled that Samira Ahmed had been paid less than a male colleague for the same broadcasting work. The judgment set a new reference point in British equal pay law and triggered pay reviews across the BBC. That case sits inside more than three decades of senior British journalism. It also explains why organisations book her to chair the conversations they cannot easily host themselves. She has been the named subject in a public fight over pay and gender, where most professional moderators have only commented from outside. She presents Front Row on BBC Radio 4 and Newswatch on BBC One. Before that came eleven years at Channel 4 News, plus an earlier BBC posting to Los Angeles to cover the OJ Simpson trial. Her honours include the 2020 British Broadcasting Press Guild Audio Presenter of the Year. A Stonewall Broadcaster of the Year award followed in 2009 for her Channel 4 News reporting on “corrective” rape in South Africa. She has chaired live discussions for the British Museum, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the British Film Institute, the United Nations and the Cabinet Office. She presented the Civil Service Awards for five consecutive years. In April 2023, on Front Row, she announced the earliest known complete recording of a Beatles concert in Britain. The tape was made by a fifteen-year-old pupil at Stowe School in 1963 and is now held by the British Library. Key speaking topics Equal pay and workplace fairness Gender equality and women’s rights Public trust in journalism and institutions Cultural intelligence in public discourse Senior conference chairing and panel moderation Diversity and representation in public life Ideal for Award ceremonies, leadership summits and AGMs requiring a credible senior chair CHROs and pay equity committees hosting public discussions on workplace fairness DEI leads, communications directors and ESG officers running events on gender equality and fair pay Cultural institutions and public-sector bodies briefing audiences on contested or sensitive material Audience outcomes A direct, journalist-trained perspective on equal pay and workplace fairness, drawn from her own landmark BBC tribunal A working understanding of how the BBC weighs editorial trust and audience scrutiny, from the presenter of Newswatch A discussion that keeps its substance when the material is sensitive, with senior contributors tested rather than handled A model of senior public chairing where the room is led with authority and contested material given space to land

Why organisations work with Samuel Kasumu He led the cross-government vaccine confidence programme during COVID-19. As Special Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, he worked with vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi to take uptake in some communities from under 30% to around 75%. A working understanding of how board composition actually changes. Through Inclusive Boards, the executive search firm he co-founded, he has placed non-executive directors across more than 150 sports governing bodies and led culture change work with organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society and the Rugby Football League. A serious editorial thesis on the strategic value of outsider perspective, set out in The Power of the Outsider (Hodder & Stoughton, 2023). The book gives boards a usable frame for treating difference as a commercial asset, drawn from his own experience inside Downing Street. Direct exposure to the political and reputational risks senior leaders face when public trust fractures. Few speakers have served at the centre of UK government during a comparable period of institutional pressure. Biography highlights Special Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson with the Civil Society and Communities brief, 2019 to 2021. The most senior Black adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office during this period. Co-founder of Inclusive Boards, an executive search firm specialising in non-executive and board appointments. Named Third Sector and Public Sector Recruiter of the Year at the 2023 National Recruiter Awards. Author of The Power of the Outsider: A Journey of Discovery (Hodder & Stoughton, 2023), with cover endorsement from ITV political editor Robert Peston, and Winning the Race (RoperPenberthy, 2012). Member of the Race Disparity Audit Advisory Board under Prime Minister Theresa May, chaired by Lord Simon Woolley. Recognised on the MIPAD Top 100 list (Most Influential People of African Descent), a UN-aligned global initiative. Regular UK political commentator on programmes including Question Time and Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Publishes Future-proof Politics on Substack. Biography In early 2021, vaccine uptake in some UK communities sat below 30 per cent. By the time Samuel Kasumu left Downing Street in May that year, it had climbed to around 75 per cent. The cross-government confidence programme he led, working alongside vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi, had reached audiences the rest of government could not. That campaign captures the practical question Samuel works on. As Special Adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson with the Civil Society and Communities brief, he was the most senior Black adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office. The role required both political instinct and credibility with communities Whitehall does not naturally reach. His commercial work runs in parallel. Inclusive Boards, the executive search firm he co-founded, has placed non-executive directors across more than 150 sports governing bodies. The firm has worked with organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society and the Rugby Football League on culture change. It was named Third Sector and Public Sector Recruiter of the Year at the 2023 National Recruiter Awards. His 2023 book The Power of the Outsider (Hodder & Stoughton) makes the case underpinning the rest of his work. Outsiders, he argues, see what insiders miss, and organisations that learn to value that perspective gain a strategic edge. The book carries a cover endorsement from ITV political editor Robert Peston. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership and board diversity Trust between institutions and communities Civil society and government relations Outsider perspective as a strategic asset Cultural intelligence in policy and corporate communication Race and identity in the modern workplace Crisis communication with hard-to-reach audiences Ideal for Chief People Officers and DEI leads responsible for board composition and culture change at scale Chairs and CEOs working through institutional trust challenges with employees and external stakeholders Public sector and government audiences engaged in community engagement and behaviour change Corporate leadership teams seeking a sharper frame on how to treat difference as a strategic asset Audience outcomes A clearer view of why institutional trust collapses with specific communities, and what kinds of leadership and engagement actually rebuild it Inside lessons on how government and large organisations make decisions when public confidence is fragile A sharper editorial frame for treating difference as a commercial asset across boards and executive teams Direct insight into what changes board composition in practice, drawn from work with hundreds of organisations through Inclusive Boards

Why organisations work with Sandi Toksvig She did not simply comment on gender equity: in 2015 she resigned one of the most prominent chairs in British broadcasting to co-found a political party around it. That choice gives her a credibility in the room that no consultant or commentator can acquire. Forty years in live, contested broadcast formats, chairing political satire, hosting mass-audience television, moderating fast-moving intellectual debate, represent a specific and rare capability: keeping a complex, high-stakes conversation moving with precision and warmth. Her TED Talk on structural gender representation and her play Bully Boy (Nuffield Theatre; West End, 2012), which examines moral ambiguity and institutional culture, demonstrate that her engagement with social complexity goes well beyond commentary. As President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and a Cambridge-educated author of 20-plus books across fiction, non-fiction, and drama, she brings genuine intellectual depth to conversations about communication, culture, and representation, not just platform authority. She has held the room at every level, from broadcast audiences of millions to TED stages, making serious arguments about inclusion, accountability, and change both rigorous and accessible to a leadership audience. Biography highlights First-class degree in archaeology and anthropology, Girton College, Cambridge; received two academic prizes; performed in the first all-woman Cambridge Footlights show, alongside Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Emma Thompson Co-founder, Women’s Equality Party (2015), with journalist Catherine Mayer; left BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz – a role she held for ten years – specifically to do so; covered by the New York Times; TED Talk on gender representation and political mobilisation Host, BBC Two’s QI (from 2016, succeeding Stephen Fry); co-presenter, Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off (2017-2020); chair, BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz (2006-2015) Playwright: Bully Boy premiered at Nuffield Theatre, Southampton (2011); transferred to launch the debut West End season of St James Theatre, London (2012) – the first new West End theatre in 30 years OBE for services to broadcasting (2014 New Year Honours); Chancellor, University of Portsmouth; Honorary Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge President, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (from 2019); author of more than twenty books for adults and children Biography The gap between organisations that declare commitment to gender equity and those that actually change their leadership pipelines is well documented. Sandi Toksvig entered this conversation at measurable personal cost – resigning as chair of BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz in 2015 to co-found the Women’s Equality Party with journalist Catherine Mayer. A TED Talk on gender representation and political mobilisation followed. The decision established Toksvig’s standing not as a commentator on inclusion but as someone who had tested her convictions against institutional consequence. Her broadcast career provides a different order of evidence. Four decades in live, contested formats – hosting BBC Two’s QI, co-presenting Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off, chairing political satire on Radio 4 – demonstrate a specific capability: keeping complex, high-stakes conversation moving with precision, wit, and authority. She holds a first-class degree from Girton College, Cambridge, where she also performed in the first all-woman Cambridge Footlights show. Her range extends beyond broadcasting. As a playwright, her Bully Boy – a work on moral ambiguity, institutional authority, and the human cost of political decision-making – premiered at the Nuffield Theatre and transferred to launch St James Theatre’s debut West End season. She has served as President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, and has published more than twenty books across fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature. For organisations working to close the distance between stated values and visible change on inclusion and representation, Toksvig brings something precise: four decades of live broadcast authority, the civic credibility of having acted on her convictions, and the capacity to hold a difficult room without losing it. Key speaking topics Gender equity and leadership representation Storytelling and political communication Cultural intelligence and cross-cultural perspective Civic activism and democratic accountability Satire, comedy, and public discourse Inclusive organisational culture Writing, publishing, and creative practice Ideal for CHROs and People & Culture leaders hosting executive summits or leadership conferences on inclusion, representation, and cultural change Boards and senior leadership teams working to move DEI commitments from policy to practice Awards ceremonies, after-dinner engagements, and conference programmes requiring an anchor voice combining intellectual authority with wit Professional associations in media, publishing, law, or higher education seeking a credible voice on representation, communication, and civic responsibility Audience outcomes A clear frame for why gender equity stalls despite broad agreement – and what it takes to make the argument land in a room Understanding of how communication style and conviction, not data alone, drive cultural change in organisations Perspective on the relationship between satire, public discourse, and institutional accountability A model of what sustained, costly commitment to inclusion looks like – beyond declarations and frameworks Confidence in approaching contested conversations about representation with authority and without defensiveness

Why organisations work with Sarah Moshman Her documentary Nevertheless is in active use as a sexual harassment prevention tool by employers and educators through distributor Indieflix, giving HR and DEI leads a piece of external content that has survived independent review. The Empowerment Project has been screened more than 700 times for corporate and education audiences and has been picked up as programming by Nordstrom, American Girl, Microsoft and Charles Schwab, which is a working track record for women’s leadership events rather than a speculative pitch. She brings a regional Emmy in the Human Interest category and a NASA CineSpace first-place win for UNBOUND, which gives her credibility as a maker, not only as a speaker telling stories about her own life. She has been booked into difficult rooms, including a US Air Force women’s symposium at Hill Air Force Base and the opening keynote at the PEI Women Conference, where the audience is not the converted. Her commercial film work for SPANX, Samsung, AT&T and Mattel means she understands the brief from a marketing buyer’s side and can speak credibly to internal communications and brand teams about storytelling that performs. Biography highlights Emmy Award winner, NATAS Chicago/Midwest Chapter, 2013, for Growing up Strong: Girls on the Run. Director of three feature documentaries: The Empowerment Project (2014), Losing Sight of Shore (Netflix, 2017) and Nevertheless (2020). UNBOUND won First Place at NASA’s CineSpace Global Short Film Competition. Author of Empowered Filmmaking: How To Make a Documentary On Your Own Terms (2020). Branded content work for SPANX, Samsung, AT&T and Mattel. Featured on CNN, Good Morning America, Marie Claire, Upworthy and PBS; TEDx speaker; adjunct professor in documentary film. Biography Compliance-led harassment training is the work environment most employees have come to mistrust. The films Sarah Moshman has made for the same audience take the opposite route. Nevertheless, her 2020 feature documentary, follows seven survivors across industries from a tech CEO to a 911 dispatcher, and is now distributed by Indieflix as part of structured prevention education in workplaces and schools. That outsider craft is what organisations are actually booking. The Empowerment Project, her 2014 feature on women in leadership across the US, has been screened more than 700 times for audiences from corporates to schools, and has carried sponsorship from Nordstrom, American Girl, Microsoft and Charles Schwab. Losing Sight of Shore (Netflix, 2017) follows four women rowing more than 8,000 miles across the Pacific and gives her a second register: endurance and team performance under conditions where every easy out has been removed. The credentials behind the work are specific. A regional Emmy in 2013 for Growing up Strong: Girls on the Run. First place at NASA’s CineSpace competition for the short UNBOUND. A book, Empowered Filmmaking, that documents how the films were funded, made and licensed to Netflix. Branded content commissions from SPANX, Samsung, AT&T and Mattel that confirm she can produce inside a marketing brief, not only on her own terms. In a room, she works from her own footage. The PEI Women Conference opened with her in 2019, the US Air Force hosted her at the Hill women’s symposium, and her TEDx delivery is on public record. The result is the rare speaker on these topics whose primary asset is film that an organisation can keep using long after the keynote ends. Key speaking topics Workplace sexual harassment prevention Women’s leadership and the next generation pipeline Storytelling for brand and internal communications Inclusion and allyship after #MeToo Courage and risk-taking in early careers Documentary craft and the business of independent film Ideal for CHROs, DEI leads and ER teams running harassment prevention or culture programmes Internal communications and employer brand leaders looking for narrative content Women’s leadership networks and ERG anchor events CMOs and brand teams interested in long-form storytelling as a commercial asset Audience outcomes A documentary screening or curated clips package that gives employees a shared piece of content to discuss, rather than a slide-led training A clear account of how the Nevertheless survivors describe what allyship looked like in practice, including from peers and managers Specific examples of how women profiled in The Empowerment Project moved into senior roles, useful as case material for internal mentoring conversations A working method for using story to make uncomfortable workplace conversations possible without defensiveness

Why organisations work with Shane Feldman He built Count Me In from a high-school project into a global incubator that has initiated more than 30,000 community ventures across 104 countries. The operator credentials are unusual in the engagement space. His research is field-built, not desk-built. Feldman has embedded himself in more than 100 cities across six continents to study how communities form, hold, and break, and translates that fieldwork into corporate retention frameworks. His client list (Google, Disney, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, PwC, TD Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Netflix, Coca-Cola, YPO) signals a buyer base of large, complex employers who use him for substantive HR and culture interventions, not motivational filler. He carries genuine media credibility (A&E “Undercover High”, coverage by Forbes, People, Larry King, Oprah) that lifts the marketing weight of the engagement around a keynote. Recognised by the White House, the United Nations, and the Prime Minister of Canada for community leadership work, which makes the substantive claim on community expertise defensible rather than rhetorical. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Count Me In, a social entrepreneurship incubator with more than 30,000 ventures launched across 104 countries. Author of “A Kids Book About Community” (A Kids Co., 2020). Cast member of A&E docuseries “Undercover High” (2018), an embedded social experiment in a US public high school. Recognised by the White House, the United Nations, and the Prime Minister of Canada for achievements in community leadership. Keynote speaker for Google, Disney, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, PwC, YPO, TD Bank, Shopify, Kaiser Permanente, Netflix, and Coca-Cola. Featured by Forbes, People Magazine, Larry King, and Oprah. Biography Most large employers now lose people not for reasons their engagement surveys can name. Compensation, perks, and policy are not the friction point. Belonging is. The organisations that retain talent in this environment are the ones treating workplace community as an operating problem rather than a soft one. Shane Feldman’s career has been an unusually direct route into that problem. He founded Count Me In in 2008 as a teenager in Toronto after a difficult school transition; the organisation has since grown into a social entrepreneurship incubator with members across 104 countries and more than 30,000 ventures initiated. The work has been recognised by the White House, the United Nations, and the Prime Minister of Canada. The frameworks he brings to corporate audiences come from two sources that rarely sit together. One is operator experience running a global organisation built around commitment, service, and retention. The other is field research; Feldman has embedded in more than 100 cities across six continents to study how communities form and hold. He translates that into structured tools for HR, sales, and leadership audiences, packaged as “Passport” keynotes covering team retention, customer loyalty, future-of-work, and AI integration. The corporate roster reflects how the work travels. Google, Disney, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, PwC, YPO, TD Bank, Shopify, Kaiser Permanente, Netflix, and Coca-Cola have all booked him on engagement, culture, and retention briefs. Key speaking topics Workplace community and belonging Employee engagement and retention Customer loyalty and relationship-driven sales Future of work and hybrid team performance Humanising AI in the workplace Inclusive and community-centred leadership Talent attraction and culture design Ideal for CHROs and CPOs running engagement, retention, and culture programmes Sales and customer success leaders rebuilding loyalty in low-trust markets Conferences focused on the future of work, hybrid productivity, and AI integration Membership organisations (YPO, EO, professional bodies) addressing community and connection Audience outcomes A clear read on why engagement and retention initiatives fail when they treat community as a soft outcome. Practical mechanisms for building belonging at team and organisation level, drawn from Count Me In’s operating playbook. A vocabulary for talking about workplace community that connects people strategy to commercial outcomes. A set of usable frames for integrating AI into work without eroding the human relationships that drive retention.

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

Why organisations work with Shola Kaye Her Emotional Audacity™ framework reframes empathy as an organisational capability – not a personal virtue – giving leaders a structured approach to courageous communication that is immediately applicable in high-pressure, high-stakes environments She holds an unusual credibility position: a Cambridge and Emory-trained scientist who also performed professionally on four continents. That combination makes her content land differently with technical and analytical audiences who typically resist people-skills programming Her work addresses a gap that DEI programmes and EQ training often miss separately: the intersection of speaking up, psychological safety, and inclusive communication as a single, integrated practice Her two published books and LinkedIn Learning instructor role mean buyers are extending into a content ecosystem, not just a single keynote She has worked across the full range of organisational contexts – from board-level at institutions including The United Nations and Deloitte to company-wide culture programmes – with consistent evidence of rebooking Biography highlights BA Natural Sciences, Cambridge University; PGCE, Oxford University; MSc Analytical Chemistry / Neuropharmacology, Emory University, with postgraduate research at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Early career in IT management consulting with clients including Goldman Sachs and Prudential Assurance, followed by account director roles in aviation and finance Professional entertainer and jazz singer; performed on four continents including BBC appearances Author of How to be a D.I.V.A. at Public Speaking (Amazon.com #1 bestseller) and Big Talk, Small Talk and Everything in Between (Callisto Media, 2020) Winner of the Jenny Seagrove Speaking Award (2016); Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), Toastmasters International; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) Regular contributor to Management Today, HR Zone, and People Management; featured in Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Forbes, and BBC; TEDx speaker on empathy in the workplace Biography Shola Kaye spent her early career moving between worlds that rarely overlap: neuroscience research at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, management consulting at investment banks in New York and London, and professional performance on stages across four continents. That trajectory is not a curiosity: it is the basis of her work. She understands analytically rigorous environments, the dynamics of corporate invisibility, and what it takes to hold a room. The core tension she addresses is one that organisations consistently underinvest in: the gap between stated inclusion values and the actual behavioural competencies required to make them real. Most people, even experienced leaders, struggle to give honest feedback, speak up under pressure, or navigate difficult conversations without defensiveness. Kaye’s Emotional Audacity™ framework names this gap explicitly: combining empathy, self-regulation, and courageous communication into a single, teachable practice. Her two books and a TEDx talk on workplace empathy establish the intellectual architecture behind the keynotes. Her contributors to Management Today, HR Zone, and People Management position her as a credible voice in the professional management conversation, not only on the conference circuit. Clients including The United Nations, Deloitte, HSBC, Google, and IBM have rebooked or extended her programmes into training formats, evidence that the content holds beyond a single session. What makes Kaye distinctive in a crowded DEI and communication space is the precise nature of her argument: that empathy, done seriously, is not a softening of leadership but a structural condition for high performance. For organisations navigating transformation, hybrid work, or underrepresentation challenges, that reframe tends to land where other approaches have not. Key speaking topics Empathy at work Inclusive leadership Psychological safety and communication Emotional intelligence Courageous workplace communication Diversity, equity and belonging People-first culture Feedback and difficult conversations Ideal for CHROs and People Directors building cultures where psychological safety is a practical reality, not an aspiration Leadership development programmes targeting mid-to-senior leaders managing diverse, distributed, or technically-oriented teams Organisations running DEI initiatives that need to move beyond awareness into behavioural change International Women’s Day and women’s leadership events where communication confidence and visibility are the focus Audience outcomes A named framework (Emotional Audacity™) for integrating empathy, courageous communication, and inclusive behaviour into daily leadership practice Practical tools for navigating difficult conversations, delivering constructive feedback, and creating environments where people feel safe to speak up Greater understanding of the structural conditions – not just the personal attitudes – that determine whether inclusion is felt in practice Specific techniques for communicating with clarity and impact, particularly for those in technical, analytical, or STEM-rooted working environments Renewed understanding of how communication behaviours at the manager level directly affect team performance, retention, and innovation output

Why organisations work with Simon Wheatcroft He offers a working case study, not a metaphor, of operating without the information channel most leaders treat as non-negotiable, with named technology partners including IBM and WearWorks behind the work. He has translated personal adaptation into shipped product: the Wayband haptic navigation device, piloted unaided across the 2017 New York City Marathon in 5:17:40, and the IBM-built eAscot corrective navigation app used in the 4 Deserts ultramarathon in Namibia. He pairs the keynote story with a credentialed teaching practice, holding the 2022 Pearson National Teaching Gold Award for Outstanding New Teacher in his first year teaching computer science at Outwood Academy Adwick. He gives technology and product audiences something rare: an accessible-design perspective from someone who is both the end user and a hands-on collaborator on the engineering, including data sonification work and the hackcessible accessible hackathon format. Biography highlights 2022 Pearson National Teaching Awards Gold Award for Outstanding New Teacher, computer science, Outwood Academy Adwick First blind person to run the 4 Deserts ultramarathon in Namibia solo, May 2016 Completed the 2017 New York City Marathon unaided using the Wayband haptic device, 5:17:40 Ran 260 miles solo from Boston to New York over nine days in 2014 Collaborator with IBM on the eAscot corrective navigation app and with WearWorks on the Wayband haptic navigation system Created hackcessible, a user-led accessible hackathon format Featured by CBS News Sunday Morning, BBC Click, CNN and the New York Times Biography Most leadership content treats adversity as a chapter to be survived. The harder question is what an organisation does when the conditions producing the adversity do not pass. That is the conversation Simon Wheatcroft is qualified to lead. He was registered blind at 17 with Retinitis Pigmentosa. The relevant fact is what came next. He taught himself to run outdoors using only a smartphone GPS app and his remaining senses, and progressed inside seven months to a hundred-mile race. The work to remove the guide dog and the helper from the route turned into a research practice. He partnered with IBM on eAscot, a corrective navigation app named after his guide dog, and with WearWorks on the Wayband, a haptic device that holds a user inside a virtual corridor through small vibrations. He ran the 2017 New York City Marathon with the Wayband, unaided, in 5:17:40. The teaching career runs in parallel and sharpens the speaking work. He teaches computer science at Outwood Academy Adwick in Doncaster, and in 2022 won the Pearson National Teaching Gold Award for Outstanding New Teacher in his first year in the classroom. He runs enrichment clubs in gaming and physical computing, and has built a separate body of work on data sonification and on hackcessible, a user-led accessible hackathon format that opens the design process to disabled participants. That combination, an endurance discipline that ships product, gives him a useful brief in front of senior teams. The keynote is not a story about courage. It is a working account of how to set achievable tasks, how to minimise risk inside a route you cannot fully see, and how to rebuild a team’s confidence around new sources of information. For technology and product audiences he can also speak with authority on inclusive design from inside the engineering, an angle most accessibility keynotes cannot offer. Key speaking topics Decision-making and risk under sustained adversity Self-leadership and adaptation when information channels fail Inclusive design and accessible technology Human-computer interaction and assistive wearables Resilience as an operating discipline Diversity in technology and engineering teams Ideal for Leadership and senior team offsites focused on resilience and judgement under pressure Product, engineering and design organisations working on inclusive and accessible technology Transformation, HR and DEI leaders rebuilding cultures of confidence and adaptation Conferences on the human side of AI, wearables and assistive technology Audience outcomes A concrete model for setting achievable tasks when the path ahead is uncertain A first-hand view of how accessible technology is actually built, tested and used A rebuilt sense of what a team can do when its usual information channels are degraded Sharper questions for inclusive-design briefs, grounded in a real end-user practice A working language for talking about risk, adaptation and recovery without slipping into metaphor

Why organisations work with Sophie Morgan A founder credential rather than a commentator one. Morgan built Rights On Flights into the Assisted Air Travel Act, presented at the House of Commons in September 2023, after airline mishandling destroyed her wheelchair. Operator-grade media reach. Nearly a decade as a Channel 4 lead Paralympics presenter, NBC Paralympics host, Loose Women regular, and Conde Nast Traveller columnist gives her the platform to test what inclusion language actually lands. A production-company perspective on representation. Through Making Space Media, her first-look deal with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, she sits inside the commercial machinery of disability storytelling rather than commenting on it. A presenter who can host the room, not only speak from a lectern. Awards hosting, panel chairing and on-stage interview work are part of her core offer, useful when the brief is to run an event rather than fill a keynote slot. Biography highlights Lead presenter on Channel 4’s coverage of the Summer Paralympic Games for nearly a decade; presenter on NBC’s US Paralympics coverage. Author of Driving Forwards (Sphere/Little, Brown, 2022), a memoir on life after spinal cord injury. Founder of the Rights On Flights campaign; the Assisted Air Travel Act was presented at the House of Commons in September 2023. Co-founder of Making Space Media with Keely Cat-Wells, with a first-look unscripted deal with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. Regular panellist on ITV’s Loose Women; presenter of Living Wild, Fight to Fly, and Crufts; contributor to BBC Horizon, The One Show and Channel 4’s No Go Britain. Patron of Scope, Back Up and Human Rights Watch; voted into the UK’s Top 10 most influential people with a disability three years running. Biography A wheelchair was destroyed on a BA flight from Los Angeles to London in January 2023. The passenger was Sophie Morgan. Within weeks she had turned that single incident into Rights On Flights, the campaign that produced the Assisted Air Travel Act, presented at the House of Commons in September 2023 alongside MPs, airline industry figures and a White House delegation. That sequence, personal injury to legislative draft, is the pattern of her work. Morgan was paralysed from the chest down in a car crash at eighteen and has spent the years since translating private experience into public infrastructure. She is one of a small number of presenters with a physical disability working at broadcaster scale: lead presenter on Channel 4’s Summer Paralympics coverage for nearly a decade, NBC’s US Paralympics host, regular Loose Women panellist, and front of Channel 4 series including Living Wild and Fight to Fly. Her 2022 memoir Driving Forwards (Sphere/Little, Brown) sets out the argument that runs through her advocacy: the goal is not to overcome disability but to design environments in which disabled people can live well. The same argument shapes Making Space Media, the disabled-led production company she co-founded with Keely Cat-Wells in 2023, which holds a first-look unscripted deal with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and is building a talent pipeline on both sides of the camera. For organisations, the value is sharper than awareness. Morgan brings a working knowledge of where inclusion policy fails on contact with a real customer, employee or passenger, and a track record of forcing the response to be specific. She is a patron of Scope, Back Up and Human Rights Watch, and a Conde Nast Traveller columnist on accessible travel. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and accessibility in the workplace Authentic representation of disabled people in media and brand Accessible travel and consumer experience Resilience after life-changing injury Campaigning, advocacy and policy change Inclusive event design and audience access Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads designing accessibility into hiring, retention and physical workplace CMOs, brand and customer experience leaders responsible for disabled customers and audiences Travel, hospitality, aviation and live events businesses with disabled customer touchpoints Conference and awards organisers seeking a host with on-screen credibility and inclusion fluency Audience outcomes A sharper sense of where inclusion policy and lived accessibility diverge in their own organisation Concrete examples of how disabled customers and employees experience services, drawn from broadcast, travel and consumer brand contexts A working understanding of how the Rights On Flights campaign turned a single incident into policy, and what that model implies for corporate accountability Renewed confidence to commission, hire and represent disabled talent inside their own commercial pipeline

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

Why organisations work with Stef Reid A medal record, not a metaphor: triple Paralympic medallist, 2017 long jump world champion and five-time world record holder, with 18 years of evidence on what holds performance together when conditions change. Sharp specificity on the moment after the plan fails. Her material is built around what teams actually do in the hours and weeks after a setback, not the rhetoric of bouncing back. A working argument on inclusion that does not collapse into compliance language. Reid speaks about disability and difference as performance variables, drawing on her TEDxLondonWomen talk on accessible design and her public campaign that pushed Nike on single-shoe retail for amputee customers. Boardroom credibility built outside the speaking circuit: Vice President of British Athletics, broadcaster for Channel 4 and the BBC, MBE for services to Paralympic sport. Clients including BP, Sky, Bloomberg, Visa, McLaren, Barclays and Procter & Gamble, where the brief was leadership under pressure, not an inspirational set piece. Biography highlights Triple Paralympic medallist (Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016) and 2017 World Para Athletics long jump champion. MBE, 2018 New Year Honours, for services to Paralympic sport. Biochemistry graduate, Queen’s University, Kingston, on a full academic scholarship. Vice President of British Athletics and The Leprosy Mission UK; ambassador for London Air Ambulance and British Ice Skating. Broadcaster across Channel 4, BBC and CBC, including the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, the Invictus Games and the 2025 World Athletics Championships; Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Sports Host. TEDxLondonWomen speaker on accessible design; first British amputee to walk a London Fashion Week catwalk. Biography A boating accident at fifteen ended one version of Reid’s life and made the next one a question of design rather than recovery. The medical answer was amputation. The harder question, asked over the eighteen years that followed, was how to build a system, training, mindset, team, that turned a body operating under new constraints into one capable of winning at the highest level of world sport. She did. Three Paralympic medals across Beijing, London and Rio. A world long jump title in 2017. Five world records. An MBE in 2018 for services to Paralympic sport. The proof points sit on a single shelf, but the content she now brings to senior audiences sits underneath them, in the specific habits and decisions that allowed an athlete to keep performing through injury, classification changes and the routine collapse of plans. That material translates because organisations face the same problem in a different vocabulary. Reid works with leadership teams on the practical question of what high-performing groups actually do in the moment a strategy stops describing reality. Her talks for BP, Sky, Bloomberg, Visa, McLaren, Barclays and Procter & Gamble take the same arc, with frameworks built from elite sport science and her own career, not from generic motivational structure. The second strand of her work is inclusion as a performance question. Her TEDxLondonWomen talk argued that accessible design serves everyone, not a category. Her public campaign pressing Nike to sell single shoes to amputee customers made the same point in retail terms. As a broadcaster for Channel 4, the BBC and CBC, and as Vice President of British Athletics, she carries that argument into rooms where DEI language has otherwise lost its edge. Key speaking topics Adaptive mindset and team performance under pressure Resilience and recovery after setback High performance habits in elite sport and business Inclusion and disability as performance variables Mental health and sustained excellence Diversity as a competitive lever, not a compliance line Ideal for Senior leadership teams entering restructure, integration or a period of sustained pressure DEI, talent and culture leads briefing the board on inclusion as capability rather than reporting High-performing commercial, sales and trading teams operating under volatility Sales kick-offs, leadership offsites and all-hands moments where the audience needs a credible voice on adapting when the plan stops working Audience outcomes A clearer view of what a team’s actual response to setback says about its performance ceiling Practical habits drawn from elite-sport preparation that translate to operating decisions under pressure A sharper, less political vocabulary for inclusion that frames difference as a performance variable Renewed conviction at senior level that adaptive capacity is a leadership skill, not a personality trait