Inclusive Leadership

Why organisations work with Dame Heather Rabbatts She co-founded TIME’S UP UK in 2018 and played a founding role in establishing CIISA, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority – a track record of translating accountability advocacy into operational governance infrastructure rather than policy recommendations. As the first woman on The Football Association board in its more than 150-year history, she has direct experience of governance cultures structurally resistant to inclusion – and of the specific mechanisms through which that resistance operates and where it can be broken. Non-executive experience across Associated British Foods, M&C Saatchi, and Bloomsbury Publishing, alongside earlier roles at the Bank of England, the BBC, and Crossrail, gives her a governance perspective formed across very different ownership structures and operating environments. Her legal training as a barrister and her track record as a public-sector CEO who led the turnaround of the London Borough of Lambeth give her a precise understanding of what accountability looks like when it is working – and when it is not. Her experience stepping up from non-executive to executive chair of a listed company during a period of CEO succession and commercial pressure is a live credential on what active board oversight requires in practice. Biography highlights Barrister qualified in 1981; educated at the London School of Economics Chief Executive of the London Borough of Lambeth; youngest local authority chief executive in the UK at time of appointment First woman appointed to the board of The Football Association in its history (2011); resigned from FIFA’s anti-discrimination taskforce on principle following Sepp Blatter’s re-election (2015) BBC Governor (1999-2001); Managing Director of 4Learning, Channel 4’s education arm; former Chair of Shed Media, overseeing its sale to Time Warner Executive Chair, M&C Saatchi; Senior Independent Director, Associated British Foods; Non-Executive Director, Bloomsbury Publishing; former non-executive roles include the Bank of England, Crossrail, and the Royal Opera House Co-founder and Chair, TIME’S UP UK (since 2018); founding Chair, Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA); Chair, Soho Theatre; DBE awarded in 2016 New Year Honours for services to football and equality Biography Boards rarely lack formal structures – what they frequently lack is the culture, diversity, and accountability practice to make those structures function as designed. Dame Heather Rabbatts has spent three decades working at exactly that intersection. Her career spans barrister practice, the CEO role at the London Borough of Lambeth, and non-executive directorships across sport, media, and listed companies. Her 2011 appointment as the first woman on The Football Association board placed her inside one of the most structurally resistant governance environments in British sport. She used the role publicly – criticising the composition of the FA’s commission on diversity, and resigning from FIFA’s anti-discrimination taskforce in 2015 following Sepp Blatter’s re-election. Her broader media career included serving as BBC Governor and Managing Director of Channel 4’s education business, 4Learning, and subsequently chairing Shed Media through its sale to Time Warner. She serves as Executive Chair of M&C Saatchi, Senior Independent Director at Associated British Foods, and Non-Executive Director at Bloomsbury Publishing. She co-founded TIME’S UP UK in 2018 alongside Barbara Broccoli. Together they played a founding role in establishing CIISA, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority, which provides an operational framework for handling misconduct across film and television. The unifying thread across her career – council chambers, listed company boards, football administration, and film production – is a single practical question. What does genuine accountability at board level actually require? Her answer is grounded in experience of governance under real pressure, not governance in theory. Key speaking topics Board governance and accountability Inclusion in corporate leadership Governance in sport and football administration Culture change in creative industries Ethical oversight and organisational standards Non-executive leadership and board composition Public sector leadership and institutional reform Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors navigating governance reform, composition review, or accountability challenges CHROs and Chief People Officers building the case for inclusion at board and senior leadership level Sport governing bodies and rights holders managing governance and inclusion reform Senior leadership teams in media, creative, or public institutions undergoing culture change Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of where formal governance structures typically fail to produce actual accountability – and what intervention at board level usually requires Insight into inclusion as a governance discipline, drawn from direct experience of institutional resistance and cultural change in high-profile organisations Practical perspective on how organisations can move from policy-level commitments on DEI to embedded board-level practice Clearer framing of the non-executive role in holding executive teams to account on culture, ethics, and standards An understanding of how industry standards bodies can translate advocacy into operational governance infrastructure, illustrated by the development of CIISA

Why organisations work with Ebony-Jewel Rainford-Brent She built the ACE Programme from a Surrey initiative in 2020 into a national charity with hubs in six cities, giving boards a working example of how inclusion moves from statement to system. As ECB Non-Executive Director and Surrey’s first female Director of Women’s Cricket, she speaks from inside governance, not as an external observer of it. Her career as the first Black woman to play cricket for England gives a credibility on race, talent pipelines and belonging that few business speakers can match. She translates elite-sport performance habits, preparation under pressure, recovery, decision-making in narrow margins, into language operating teams recognise. Through The Art of Success podcast and her broadcasting work for BBC Test Match Special and Sky Sports, she has interviewed and dissected the methods of high performers across sport and business at length. Biography highlights World Cup winner with England, 2009 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, Sydney First Black woman to play cricket for England MBE for services to cricket and charity, 2021 Birthday Honours Founder of the ACE Programme; the charity now operates hubs across six English cities ECB Non-Executive Director; first female Director of Women’s Cricket at Surrey CCC BBC Test Match Special commentator and Sky Sports cricket pundit; host of The Art of Success podcast Honorary degree, Loughborough University, 2023 Biography Most diversity initiatives in professional sport collapse at the first hard year. ACE has not. Founded at Surrey in January 2020 in response to a sharp decline in Black British professional cricketers, the programme became an independent charity and now runs hubs in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield. Its founder built it while serving as Surrey’s first female Director of Women’s Cricket and now sits on the ECB Board as a Non-Executive Director. That operational record is what gives the speaking work its weight. The argument is not that inclusion matters in principle. It is what governance, scouting, scholarships and academy pathways have to look like for the numbers to move, and what stops them moving when the early enthusiasm fades. The performance content draws on a playing career that ended in a World Cup-winning England side in Sydney in 2009 and an Ashes retention later that year. It runs through the BBC Test Match Special commentary box, the Sky Sports studio, and seven years of conversations with high performers on The Art of Success podcast. The texture is specific: how teams handle narrow margins, how individuals rebuild after injury and selection setbacks, how a culture either absorbs pressure or buckles under it. The MBE in 2021 and the honorary degree from Loughborough in 2023 are recognition of work already in motion, not the point of the story. The point is a body of practice on representation and high performance that organisations can actually use. Key speaking topics Inclusion as institutional practice High-performance culture in elite teams Resilience and decision-making under pressure Talent pipelines and representation Leadership in male-dominated environments Building programmes that survive their first hard year Performance lessons from elite sport for business Ideal for CHROs and Chief People Officers redesigning inclusion strategy beyond brand statements Boards and ExCos confronting representation gaps with hard data, not narrative Leadership and talent functions building cross-cultural pipelines Senior teams under sustained pressure looking for usable lessons from elite sport Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of why most inclusion programmes stall and what design choices keep ACE moving A vocabulary for performance under pressure that elite teams actually use, separated from motivational generalities Specific examples of governance, sponsorship and pathway design that change participation numbers Renewed conviction that representation work is a leadership discipline, not a communications exercise

Why organisations work with Nihal Arthanayake A daily-broadcast interviewer’s instinct for live conversation. Over eight years presenting the BBC Radio 5 Live afternoon show, plus the Headliners interview series, mean panel craft built across thousands of hours of unscripted live radio. A named winner at the 2019 BBC Radio & Music Awards for Interview of the Year. The room can feel the difference when an interviewer can actually draw out a senior guest, not just read questions in order. The author of a serious trade book on conversation. Let’s Talk (Hachette, 2022) is built on interviews with figures from Mary McAleese to hostage negotiators, which gives Nihal a content keynote that other hosts simply cannot offer. Twenty-five years of cultural fluency across BBC, MTV, Channel 4 and BBC Two. Comfortable on a Hugo Boss or Mercedes stage and equally credible chairing a panel on race, identity or media. Few hosts cover both rooms. Public-trust credentials that travel well into sponsor-sensitive briefs. Appointed to the BBC’s Independent Diversity Advisory Board alongside Sir Lenny Henry and Dame Floella Benjamin; trustee at HOME Manchester; ambassador for the British Asian Trust. Biography highlights BBC Radio 5 Live presenter; eight-plus years on the afternoon show; current host of the Headliners interview series. Winner of Interview of the Year, 2019 BBC Radio & Music Awards. Author of Let’s Talk: How to Have Better Conversations (Hachette, 2022). BBC Radio 1 alumnus; co-host of Asian Beats (Sony Radio Award winner) and host of Review with Nihal. Appointed to the BBC’s Independent Diversity Advisory Board in 2014 by the BBC Director General. Trustee, HOME Manchester. Former trustee, Southbank Centre and British Council. Ambassador, British Asian Trust. Biography Live conversation is harder than it looks on a run sheet. A guarded executive answers in talking points. A four-person panel splinters. An awards stage drifts by the third category. The job of the host is to recover all of that without the audience noticing. That is the craft Nihal Arthanayake has spent twenty-five years building. Eight years presenting the afternoon show on BBC Radio 5 Live, plus the Sunday interview series Headliners, mean a live-radio interviewer who reads a room in real time. The 2019 BBC Radio & Music Award for Interview of the Year recognised the same skill in a different setting: a candid, on-the-record conversation that other interviewers could not have got. That craft is the subject of his 2022 Hachette book, Let’s Talk: How to Have Better Conversations. The book draws on conversations with former Irish president Mary McAleese, Professor Tanya Byron, Lorraine Kelly and Johann Hari, plus hostage negotiators and clinicians, to ask what actually changes when two people listen to each other properly. It gives organisations a content keynote on dialogue, listening and disagreement that most hosts cannot offer. The broader public-trust footprint is what makes the work travel into sponsor-sensitive briefs. Appointed to the BBC’s Independent Diversity Advisory Board in 2014 by the Director General, alongside Sir Lenny Henry, George the Poet and Dame Floella Benjamin. Trustee at HOME Manchester. Ambassador for the British Asian Trust. Corporate hosting clients include Adobe, Google, X, GQ, Hugo Boss, Mercedes-Benz, Tottenham Hotspur and Boots. Key speaking topics Conference and awards hosting Panel moderation and on-stage interviewing The craft of conversation and dialogue Communication and listening as leadership skills Diversity, representation and identity in media Cultural commentary and the public conversation Ideal for Senior corporate awards, summits and gala dinners that need a host who can carry a long-form running order Town halls, leadership conferences and offsites where a CEO or chair will be interviewed live on stage Panel sessions on culture, identity or representation that need an experienced moderator on contested ground Internal communication, L&D and people-team events on listening, dialogue and conversation skills Audience outcomes A live event that holds energy from welcome to close, with senior guests drawn out rather than read at A clearer practical sense of what makes a conversation actually work, drawn from Let’s Talk and twenty-five years of interviewing A panel that moves, with a moderator who reads the room and lets the strongest contributions land A host who is credible on both commercial and culture-and-identity briefs, without switching register awkwardly between them

Why organisations work with Eliza VanCort A working method for executive presence rooted in Meisner acting technique, not generic confidence coaching. Voice, posture and physicality are treated as trainable instruments, not personality traits. An intersectional lens that takes inclusion past slogans. Her sessions address how mansplaining, interruption, and microaggression actually move through a meeting, and what a leader can do in the moment. A bestselling book, A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space, that gives delegates a structured framework before and after the room, with named behaviours and language. Mainstream media reach. Appearances on The Drew Barrymore Show, Forbes, Fast Company and CNBC give her work cultural traction outside corporate L&D, which travels with audiences. Co-founder of Think Twice Labs with Alma Derricks, former CMO of Cirque du Soleil, building emotional intelligence and cross-difference communication tools used inside organisations. Biography highlights Author of A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space: Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard, Berrett-Koehler, May 2021. Cook House Fellow, Cornell University. TEDxRochester speaker, “Women, Power and Revolutionizing Speech”. Founder of The Actor’s Workshop of Ithaca, a Meisner Technique studio. Co-founder of Think Twice Labs with Alma Derricks, former CMO of Cirque du Soleil. Featured in The Drew Barrymore Show, Forbes, Fast Company, CNBC, and Success magazine. Biography Most executive presence work treats authority as a personality trait. Eliza VanCort treats it as a craft. Her starting point is that voice, posture and language are trainable instruments, the same way an actor’s are, and that women and underrepresented leaders are routinely operating those instruments inside rooms that were not built for them. That argument has a specific origin. She founded The Actor’s Workshop of Ithaca, the region’s Meisner Technique studio, and spent years teaching how performers hold a stage. She then applied the same discipline to meeting rooms and boardrooms. A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space, published by Berrett-Koehler in 2021, sets out the framework: five behaviours that shift how a leader is read, from posture and vocal placement to ending self-sabotage and building cross-difference coalitions. The work has reach beyond corporate L&D. Her TEDxRochester talk on women, power and speech has been viewed widely. Appearances on The Drew Barrymore Show, Forbes, Fast Company and CNBC have built a public audience of more than 250,000 followers. Inside organisations, she co-founded Think Twice Labs with Alma Derricks, former CMO of Cirque du Soleil, to translate the same material into emotional intelligence and communication tools teams can use across difference. She is a Cook House Fellow at Cornell University and an advisory board member of Performing Arts for Social Change. The intellectual frame is intersectional: most of her organisational work is about what happens to people with less institutional power when they intersect with structures designed around someone else’s authority. The output is concrete. Delegates leave with named behaviours, specific language and a vocabulary for the dynamics they have been navigating without naming for years. Key speaking topics Executive presence and communication craft Women in leadership and the politics of voice Anti-racist and cross-difference communication Emotional intelligence in senior teams Inclusion under pressure Confidence, posture and physicality for leaders Power dynamics in everyday workplace interaction Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers building executive-presence programmes for senior women Leadership-development leads designing high-potential and sponsorship pathways ERG sponsors and DEI heads commissioning substantive, non-performative inclusion content Senior women’s leadership summits, partner-track development programmes, and emerging-leader cohorts Audience outcomes A vocabulary for the meeting-room behaviours that quietly cost women authority, and language to interrupt them in the moment Specific techniques for voice, posture and physicality drawn from Meisner training, applied to senior business settings A framework from A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space delegates can carry back into their teams Practical anti-racist and cross-difference communication moves that work inside live conversations, not only in policy documents A clearer reading of how power moves through an organisation’s everyday talk, and where to act on it

Why organisations work with Erika Lucas Her accelerator, run in partnership with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned startups since 2017. She draws on live operating experience, finding and scaling founders that most capital systems miss. Her venture fund, VEST Her Ventures, invests in women-led companies in the care economy and the future of work. She brings a current portfolio view of where workforce shifts and regulatory pressure are opening commercial opportunities, and the market is under-pricing. She speaks the language of the full capital stack. As a former private equity Partner and as Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, she is fluent in public incentives, PE, VC, and bank credit, which matters for boards making complex allocation decisions. Her TED talk, “America’s Trillion Dollar Blindspot,” makes a market-sizing case for capital flowing to overlooked founders. That is the register that senior leaders and investment committees respond to. She operates from Oklahoma City, away from the coastal hubs from which most speakers on this topic come. For companies building workforce, consumer, or policy strategies outside a handful of metros, her ground-level view is difficult to source elsewhere. Biography highlights Co-founder of StitchCrew, its accelerator with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned startups since 2017 Founder and General Partner of VEST Her Ventures, an early-stage venture fund investing in women-led companies in the care economy and future of work TED speaker: “America’s Trillion Dollar Blindspot” (TEDxOU) Host of the VEST Her Podcast, examining the structural barriers to women’s economic advancement Board of Directors at Arvest Bank; Fellow at the Just Economy Institute; Member of the Latino Corporate Directors Association Former Partner at a US and European private equity firm; former Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, where 38 international companies located or expanded during her tenure Biography Only a sliver of venture capital reaches women and founders of colour. The commercial cost of that pattern is usually understated. Whole categories of customers, markets, and operators are being systematically under-priced by capital that is trained to look in the same handful of places. StitchCrew was built on that reading of the market. Co-founded with her husband Chris in 2016, it runs an accelerator in partnership with the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and has supported more than 220 women and minority-owned founders. The positioning matters. It sits in the middle of the country, not on a coastal hub, and the deal flow reflects markets that most East Coast or Bay Area funds never see. The logic extended into investment. VEST Her Ventures, founded in 2022, backs early-stage women-led companies in the care economy and future of work, two sectors where demand is visibly running ahead of available capital. The fund came together in weeks. Two million dollars was raised in two months, entirely from women limited partners based in the middle of the country. The throughline runs back through her earlier career. She was a Partner at a private equity firm with investments in the United States and Europe, and Director of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, where 38 international companies located or expanded during her tenure. She sits on the board of Arvest Bank, is a Fellow at the Just Economy Institute, and hosts the VEST Her Podcast, where the repeated question is what it would take for American capital to stop leaving its most profitable markets untouched. Key speaking topics Access to capital and overlooked markets Entrepreneurship and the new majority economy The care economy and future of work Women in leadership and ownership Venture capital and economic inclusion Economic mobility and public-private strategy Ideal for Corporate boards and Chief Investment Officers are looking for the next source of portfolio growth Private equity and venture investment committees assessing deal flow and diversification CHROs and heads of talent building workforce and care infrastructure strategies Economic development agencies, chambers of commerce, and regional leadership forums are working on commercial inclusion Audience outcomes A sharper commercial argument for investing in overlooked founders and markets, drawn from a live accelerator and an active venture portfolio A clearer map of where venture and growth capital actually lands in the United States, and which geographies and founder profiles it consistently misses Named sectors where consumer and workforce change is already running ahead of investment capital, including the care economy and the infrastructure of work A vocabulary for discussing inclusion in commercial terms, usable with boards, investment committees, and senior executives who are sceptical of fairness-led framing

Why organisations work with Csaba Toth He runs ICQ Global, a people development business with more than 200 licensed partners across 45-plus countries, which means his methods have been pressure-tested in genuinely multicultural settings rather than theorised in one market. The Global DISC model is ICF and CPD-accredited and gives leaders one common language for personality, generation, profession, and nationality differences inside the same team. He measures and benchmarks psychological safety, motivational drivers, and cognitive diversity, so the conversation moves from cultural awareness slogans to specific data leaders can act on. His credential stack is unusually substantive: John Mattone Intelligent Leadership coach, Hofstede Insights Associate Partner, Richard Lewis-certified behavioural consultant, three Master’s degrees and an Executive MBA. He co-authored Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times with contributions from Marshall Goldsmith and John Mattone, a credibility marker for senior HR and L&D buyers familiar with that lineage. Biography highlights Founder of ICQ Global, a people development organisation with over 200 licensed partners across more than 45 countries. Developer of the Global DISC model, an ICF and CPD Standards-accredited intercultural behavioural framework. Author of Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times, with contributions from Marshall Goldsmith and John Mattone. Forbes Coaches Council member and Harvard Business Review Advisory Council member. Hofstede Insights Associate Partner and Richard Lewis Communications-certified cross-cultural trainer. Holds three Master’s degrees (Italy, UK, Hungary) and an Executive MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology. Biography Diversity strategies fail at the level of daily team interaction. People with different nationalities, professions, generations, and personalities sit in the same meeting, draw different conclusions from the same words, and lose trust in each other long before anyone names the problem. That is the gap Csaba Toth set out to close. He founded ICQ Global to make cognitive and cultural diversity measurable. The company now operates with more than 200 licensed partners across 45-plus countries, and its core asset is the Global DISC model, an ICF and CPD-accredited framework that extends the most widely used behavioural model in business with a layer for cultural intelligence. Leaders get a single language for the differences that actually slow teams down. The credentials behind the work are unusually deep. Toth is certified through John Mattone’s Intelligent Leadership programme, holds Human Synergistics accreditation, is a Hofstede Insights Associate Partner and a Richard Lewis Communications-certified behavioural consultant, with further certification in CBT, NLP, and Positive Intelligence. He sits on the Forbes Coaches Council and the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council, holds three Master’s degrees from Italy, the UK and Hungary, and an Executive MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology. His book, Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times, published with contributions from Marshall Goldsmith and John Mattone, sets out how leaders stay relevant when the people around them increasingly do not think, decide, or communicate the same way they do. That is the practical question he answers in a room. Key speaking topics Cultural intelligence and the Global DISC model Psychological safety in multicultural teams Cognitive diversity and team performance Inclusive leadership across generations and nationalities Communication breakdown in global organisations Motivational drivers and behavioural difference Coaching and people development at scale Ideal for CHROs, Heads of L&D, and Heads of Talent leading global or multicultural workforces. DEI and Inclusion leads moving past awareness work into measurable team outcomes. Leadership development and coaching faculties inside multinational businesses. Senior leaders of cross-border teams where communication and trust have stalled. Audience outcomes A common vocabulary for cultural, generational, and personality differences that a team can use the next day. A clearer read on where psychological safety is breaking down inside their own teams and why. The Global DISC lens applied to a real internal dynamic the audience already recognises. Specific behavioural shifts leaders can make when working across cultures, professions, and generations. A more honest assessment of how cognitive diversity is helping or hurting performance in their organisation.

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 Debarati Guha Sits at the editorial centre of one of the largest non-Asian international broadcasters covering Asia, with operational responsibility across nine language services run from Germany, and bureaus in Taipei, Delhi, Jakarta, and Chennai. Two decades of front-line reporting on South Asian politics, including direct interviews with Sheikh Hasina, Shashi Tharoor, and Amartya Sen, gives her a working network few moderators in the region can match. Recognised as one of Germany’s top ten women leaders by Global Woman Leader in 2023, with a track record of leading multi-country, multi-language editorial teams through digital transition. Comfortable chairing complex media and policy panels for organisations like WAN-IFRA, where the room mixes editors, regulators, and platform leaders. Bilingual cultural register: equally readable to a Berlin or Brussels audience and a Delhi, Dhaka, or Jakarta one, which matters when the conversation crosses both. Biography highlights Director Programs for Asia, Deutsche Welle, leading nine Asian language departments plus Asia Desk (English and German). MA and MPhil in Political Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Career interviews include Sheikh Hasina, Shashi Tharoor, and Amartya Sen. Top 10 “Women Leader in Germany” 2023, Global Woman Leader. “Most Influential Business Leader” 2024, Business Frontier. Executive Management Programme, EBU Academy (2022); BAKS course on Southeast Asian politics and Germany (2023). Panel chair at WAN-IFRA Indian Media Leaders eSummit and similar industry forums. Biography Asia is no longer a single story for international organisations. India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Taiwan, and the Mekong economies each move on different political clocks, and the editorial signal reaching Western capitals is increasingly mediated by national platforms with their own agendas. Reading Asia from a London or Frankfurt boardroom is harder than it was ten years ago. That is the operational world Debarati Guha works inside every day. As Director Programs for Asia at Deutsche Welle, she oversees nine Asian language services plus the Asia Desk in English and German, with editorial bureaus in Taipei, Delhi, Jakarta, and Chennai. The job involves judgement calls on what crosses the line between regional reporting and global business interest, made several times a day across very different political environments. Her background is unusual for that seat. She trained in political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, started in journalism as the New Delhi assistant to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s Asia correspondent in 2003, and joined DW in 2007. By 2013 she was running DW’s Bengali service; by 2018, the whole Asia operation. Along the way she has interviewed Sheikh Hasina, Shashi Tharoor, and Amartya Sen, and built relationships across South and Southeast Asian political and intellectual life. For Speakers Associates, this means a moderator and panellist who can hold a room of senior leaders on Asia, media, and the politics of digital information without resorting to high-level summary. She was named one of Germany’s top ten women leaders by Global Woman Leader in 2023, and chairs panels at WAN-IFRA’s Indian Media Leaders eSummit, where the audience is exactly the working editors and platform leaders she manages every day. Key speaking topics Geopolitics of South and Southeast Asia Asia-Europe relations and cross-continental media strategy Digital transformation in newsrooms Women in media leadership Disinformation and political reporting in Asia Cross-cultural editorial leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams shaping Asia strategy or expansion plans Conferences on international media, journalism, and digital news Leadership programmes on cross-cultural management and women in senior media roles Panels and summits requiring an informed chair on Asia, geopolitics, or the information ecosystem Audience outcomes A clearer read on the political and media dynamics shaping South and Southeast Asia Direct insight into how a major international broadcaster makes editorial calls across nine languages and three Asian bureaus Practical perspective on running multilingual, multicultural teams through digital change A sharper sense of where disinformation, platform power, and politics intersect in Asia A panel or session moderated with senior-room composure, where the questions land and the speakers are pushed

Why organisations work with Zara Janjua She brings broadcast-grade interviewing into corporate rooms, drawing on more than 500 live hours of television and national news across BBC, ITV and STV. She is the host NatWest chose for its Women in Business podcast, its skills development series, and its internal What’s The Chat? podcast, which makes her a credible anchor for organisations building long-running internal communications platforms, not one-off events. She has chaired the Financial Alliance for Women Summit and the EBRD Conference on Skills Development in Central Asia, and has led onstage conversations with Karren Brady and Steven Bartlett, so she is trusted to handle senior figures and senior delegates at international level. She is an appointed member of NatWest’s Ethnicity Advisory Council, which gives her a working view of how a major institution actually moves on inclusion, not just how it speaks about it. She speaks on portfolio careers and reinvention as someone who has actually built one, from national news to comedy, television writing and documentary film, which reaches audiences facing their own career uncertainty in a way a career theorist cannot. Biography highlights BAFTA, NTA and RTS award-winning broadcaster; presents on BBC Radio Scotland and has fronted national news, daytime and comedy across BBC, ITV and STV. Delivered a keynote to an audience of around 16,000 in Melbourne for Rotary International. Led onstage conversations with Karren Brady and Steven Bartlett at the Women in Business and Tech Expo. Reporter for the New York Times Climate Hub at COP26, interviewing John Kerry and Al Gore. Host of NatWest’s Women in Business podcast and its internal What’s The Chat? podcast, and a member of its Ethnicity Advisory Council. Highly Commended finalist, Women of the Future Awards, sponsored by Oxford University and the Financial Times. Biography One career rarely runs from national news to stand-up comedy, television writing, and documentary film. Zara Janjua’s has, and each strand carries recognition: a BAFTA, NTA and RTS across her television work, a place in the BBC Comedy Writersroom won from more than four thousand applicants, and a Technical Award for her first documentary. That range is what makes her effective on a corporate stage. She interviews senior leaders without flattening them and holds a panel to its actual argument, drawing on more than 500 live hours of television and national news. She reported for the New York Times Climate Hub at COP26, securing interviews with John Kerry and Al Gore, and now presents on BBC Radio Scotland. NatWest shows how that translates inside an organisation. Janjua hosts the bank’s Women in Business podcast and its internal What’s The Chat? podcast, and sits on its Ethnicity Advisory Council. On larger stages she has led onstage conversations with Karren Brady and Steven Bartlett at the Women in Business and Tech Expo, and delivered a keynote to an audience of around 16,000 in Melbourne for Rotary International. Her keynote work has moved with her. The recurring subject is now the shape of a modern working life: portfolio careers, reinvention, resilience, and aligning work with purpose. The Women of the Future Awards, sponsored by Oxford University and the Financial Times, named her a Highly Commended finalist for building exactly that. The documentaries she produces in Nepal, Tanzania, and Guatemala for charitable partners are its clearest expression, and the reason a Rotary International president has publicly credited her fundraising impact. Key speaking topics Event hosting and moderation Panel chairing and interviewing Portfolio and multi-hyphen careers Career reinvention and resilience Future of work and careers Diversity, equity and inclusion Mental health in the workplace Storytelling and business communication Ideal for CHROs, internal communications leads and DEI directors anchoring long-running internal channels. Boards, summit organisers and awards committees commissioning a host for inclusion, women in business or skills conferences. Talent and early-careers leaders programming events on career reinvention, portfolio working and retention. Financial services, professional services and public-sector organisations briefing a moderator on senior international panels. Audience outcomes A panel or summit that lands its argument rather than drifting between speakers. An internal communications moment that employees actually listen to, anchored by a broadcaster they recognise as credible. Senior speakers drawn out on substance, not left to recite prepared lines. Sensitive subject matter on inclusion, mental health or women’s progression handled with editorial care. Audiences leave rethinking what a viable career can look like, prompted by someone who built one across news, comedy and film.

Why organisations work with Yuriko Koike She runs the world’s largest metropolitan economy. Few speakers can describe the operating reality of climate, security and fiscal trade-offs at megacity scale from the seat where the decisions are made. She authored the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy, with mandated solar panels on new detached homes from April 2025 and a target of halved emissions by 2030. Audiences hear how a major capital city is converting net zero language into capital allocation and regulation. As Environment Minister she designed Cool Biz, a behavioural and policy intervention that the Japanese Ministry of the Environment estimated cut 460,000 tons of CO2 in its first year. It is a rare example of a low-cost public policy producing measurable emissions reduction. She brings cabinet-level perspective on Japan’s geopolitical position. Former Minister of Defense, former National Security adviser, fluent Arabic speaker, Project Syndicate columnist on Asia, fiscal policy and the rules-based order since 2010. She is the first woman to govern Tokyo and the first to seek the LDP leadership. Her perspective on women in senior public and corporate roles is grounded in an actual executive career, not advocacy alone. Biography highlights Governor of Tokyo since 2016, re-elected in 2020 and 2024. Minister of the Environment of Japan (2003-2006); Minister of Defense (2007); Special Adviser to the Prime Minister for National Security. Architect of the Cool Biz campaign and the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy. Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award, 2019. Chair, OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth Initiative. Project Syndicate columnist since 2010; World Economic Forum Agenda contributor. Biography Tokyo, with a metropolitan population near 14 million and a GDP larger than most G20 economies, is one of the few cities where climate policy, fiscal stress and geopolitical exposure all run through the same office. Yuriko Koike has held that office since 2016, re-elected in 2020 and again in 2024. The decisions she has made there are the substance of her platform. Her policy track record predates the governorship. As Minister of the Environment under Junichiro Koizumi between 2003 and 2006, she launched Cool Biz, a behavioural and dress-code intervention that the Japanese Ministry of the Environment estimated reduced CO2 emissions by 460,000 tons in its first year. As Governor she authored the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy in December 2019, setting a 2050 net zero target with halved emissions by 2030, and pushed through a mandate that new detached homes in Tokyo install solar panels from April 2025. Few city leaders globally have moved climate ambition into binding metropolitan regulation at this scale. She also brings cabinet-level perspective on geopolitics. She was Japan’s Minister of Defense, served as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister for National Security, ran for the LDP presidency in 2008 as the first woman to seek the leadership of a major Japanese party, and has written for Project Syndicate on Asian security, fiscal policy and the rules-based order since 2010. Before politics she was a Nippon TV anchor and Arabic-speaking foreign correspondent, with a sociology degree from Cairo University. She chairs the OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth Initiative and was awarded the Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award in 2019. Audiences who book her are typically working on the same problem she works on every day: how to govern an exposed, dense, ageing, ambitious economy when energy, geopolitics and capital are all moving at once. Key speaking topics Climate policy and city-scale decarbonisation Megacity resilience and inclusive urban growth Japan, China and the geopolitics of East Asia Energy transition and capital allocation Women in senior public and corporate leadership Public sector reform and fiscal discipline Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, energy and ESG strategy in Asia or with Asia exposure CFOs, CSOs and policy leads working on long-term capital allocation under climate and geopolitical risk Public-private convenings on urban resilience, infrastructure and inclusive growth Conferences on Japan, the Indo-Pacific and the global rules-based order Audience outcomes A first-hand view of how the world’s largest metropolitan economy is converting net zero policy into binding regulation and capital plans A sharper read on Japan’s economic and security position, and what it implies for organisations operating across East Asia A working example of behavioural climate policy that produced measurable emissions reduction at low fiscal cost A senior practitioner’s perspective on running large public institutions through fiscal pressure, demographic change and geopolitical realignment A direct account of breaking into senior leadership in a country and party where the path was not designed for women

Why organisations work with Susie Wolff She is the only executive who has both experienced structural exclusion at the top of global motorsport as a competitor and then returned to redesign those structures, giving her an argument that runs deeper than advocacy. F1 Academy under her leadership secured the backing of all ten Formula 1 teams, partnerships with Charlotte Tilbury, American Express, TAG Heuer and The LEGO Group, and grew to become the second-most followed motorsport series after Formula 1 – these are not diversity metrics, they are commercial outcomes. Her work addresses a specific organisational failure that most DEI programmes miss: talent exclusion is not primarily a selection problem, it is a pipeline and development problem. She has built the operational case study. Her track record spans the full leadership arc – elite competitor, team principal, CEO, series director – giving her credibility in conversations about performance culture, high-pressure decision-making, and building organisations that win under scrutiny. Driven, her memoir, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller on UK publication by Hodder & Stoughton, and was released in the US by Henry Holt in April 2026 with a Booklist Starred Review and Lewis Hamilton endorsement, extending her reach beyond motorsport audiences into mainstream leadership conversations. Biography highlights Managing Director, F1 Academy (Formula 1’s all-female development series), appointed March 2023; reports directly to Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali First woman to participate in a Formula One race weekend since 1992 – four FP1 sessions with the Williams F1 team, 2014–2015 Seven seasons in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) with Mercedes-Benz, 2006-2012 Team Principal then CEO, Venturi Formula E team, 2018-2022; took the team from the back of the grid to Formula E Vice-World Champions and oversaw its sale to Maserati on departure Founder, Dare To Be Different initiative (2016); merged with FIA Girls on Track (2019) Author, Driven (Hodder & Stoughton / Henry Holt) – instant Sunday Times bestseller; executive producer of Netflix docuseries F1: The Academy (2025) MBE (2017) for services to women in sport; Honorary Fellowship, University of Edinburgh (2013); CNBC Changemaker (2026) Biography Motorsport has long had a pipeline problem, not of talent, but of access. The structures that determined who made it to the top were built for a specific kind of competitor, and they were rarely questioned. Susie Wolff sat inside that system for over two decades: as a driver who pushed further into Formula One than any woman had in a generation, and then as the executive who went back to rebuild it. Her driving career ran from karting to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters with Mercedes-Benz, then to Williams F1, where she became the first woman to participate in a Formula One race weekend since 1992 across four practice sessions in 2014 and 2015. When she retired from driving, she turned to the leadership side of the sport: first as Team Principal, then CEO, of the Venturi Formula E team. Over four seasons she took the team from the back of the grid to a Formula E Vice-World Championship finish, then oversaw its sale to Maserati before joining F1 Academy in March 2023. At F1 Academy, Wolff has built something that did not exist before: a commercially viable, Formula 1-integrated development series for female talent, which now carries the liveries of all ten F1 teams, holds partnerships with brands including Charlotte Tilbury, American Express, TAG Heuer and The LEGO Group, and has grown to become the second-most followed motorsport series after Formula 1. She executive produced the 2025 Netflix docuseries F1: The Academy alongside Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. Her memoir Driven was an instant Sunday Times bestseller on UK publication by Hodder & Stoughton, and was released in the US by Henry Holt in April 2026 to a Booklist Starred Review. What Wolff offers corporate audiences is not a motivational narrative with a motorsport backdrop. It is a specific and replicable argument: that inclusive talent pipelines are not built by changing who you select, but by redesigning the conditions in which talent is identified and developed. She has built that case inside one of the world’s most commercially demanding sports, and has the results to prove it. Key speaking topics Inclusive talent pipeline design Leadership and performance under competitive pressure Organisational culture change in structurally resistant industries Executive leadership in high-performance sport Building commercial frameworks for underrepresented talent Resilience and ambition in elite environments Diversity as a strategic performance lever Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams working on talent strategy, diversity, or cultural transformation CHROs and People directors designing inclusive talent development programmes Leadership and strategy teams in automotive, engineering, technology, and financial services Sports business, sponsorship, and commercial leadership audiences Audience outcomes A clear framework for distinguishing between diversity as selection (reactive) and diversity as pipeline design (structural) with a real-world organisational example Understanding of how to build commercial buy-in for inclusion initiatives, grounded in F1 Academy’s partnership and broadcast growth Insight into high-performance decision-making and the leadership qualities required to build organisations under public scrutiny A more specific vocabulary for talking about talent exclusion as a performance problem rather than a compliance issue First-hand perspective on what resilience, ambition, and goal-setting look like at the elite level, and how these translate into organisational contexts

Why organisations work with Susan Cain A single, defensible thesis. Quiet sold over four million copies, spent multiple years on the New York Times bestseller list and translated into 40 languages, which gives a senior audience a shared reference point before she walks on stage. Operational, not theoretical. Through the Quiet Leadership Institute she has delivered corporate programmes at GE, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble, NASA and the Dutch Air Force, and partnered with Steelcase to redesign office space around introvert-friendly workflows. Reframes inclusion in language that lands with sceptical executives. Personality bias is a talent and productivity argument, not a values argument, which makes the conversation possible in rooms where DEI has become contested. Cultural reach that pulls audiences in. The TED2012 talk has been viewed more than 30 million times and named by Bill Gates as a personal favourite, and Bittersweet was an Oprah’s Book Club pick in 2023. Biography highlights Honours graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School; former Wall Street negotiations attorney Author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, #1 New York Times bestseller, four million copies sold, 40 languages Author of Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, #1 New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club selection TED2012 talk “The Power of Introverts” viewed over 30 million times; named by Bill Gates as a favourite TED talk Co-founder of Quiet Revolution and the Quiet Leadership Institute, with corporate programmes at GE, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble, NASA and the Dutch Air Force Recipient of Harvard Law School’s Celebration Award for thought leadership and the Toastmasters International Golden Gavel Award Biography A third to half of the workforce is introverted, yet most companies are built as though everyone in the room is an extrovert. Hiring rewards the candidate who presents best in an interview. Meetings reward whoever speaks first. Open-plan offices reward visibility over depth of thought. The cumulative cost in lost ideas, attrition and shallow decision-making is significant, and rarely measured. That is the operational problem Quiet named in 2012. The book has sold over four million copies, sat on the New York Times bestseller list for years and been translated into 40 languages, which is why senior leaders tend to arrive at the keynote already inside the argument. The accompanying TED2012 talk has been viewed more than 30 million times and was named by Bill Gates as one of his favourites. The work since then has been practical. Through the Quiet Leadership Institute, founded with former West Point professor Mike Erwin, Cain has run corporate development programmes for organisations including GE, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble, NASA and the Dutch Air Force. With Steelcase, she co-designed the Quiet Spaces office concept, a direct intervention into the open-plan trend. Her second book, Bittersweet, debuted at #1 on the New York Times nonfiction list and was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 2023, broadening the conversation into how organisations handle emotion, longing and creativity at work. Her Princeton and Harvard Law training, and her earlier career as a Wall Street negotiator, show up in the way she argues. The case is a talent and productivity case before it is a values case, which is what makes it land in rooms where leaders are tired of the usual inclusion language. Key speaking topics The hidden strengths of introverted leaders Personality bias in hiring, meetings and promotion Workspace and office design for cognitive performance Talent strategy across the introvert and extrovert spectrum Creativity, deep work and the conditions for original thinking Inclusion framed as a productivity argument Emotion, longing and meaning at work (drawing on Bittersweet) Ideal for CHROs, talent leaders and heads of organisational development rethinking how they hire, promote and retain CEOs and senior executives whose workforce skews toward knowledge work, research, engineering or design Heads of workplace strategy and real estate teams designing the next generation of office space Learning and leadership development teams building inclusive leadership curricula that move beyond conventional DEI framing Audience outcomes A concrete vocabulary for the personality bias built into common hiring, meeting and performance practices Specific design choices to test, in meetings, workspaces and team rituals, to surface ideas from quieter staff A reframed argument for inclusion that survives executive scrutiny on commercial grounds A clearer view of where deep work and solitude belong in the operating model of a knowledge organisation