Innovation & Disruption

Why organisations work with Aidan McCullen A working library of change thinking. The Innovation Show has put him in long-form conversation with hundreds of named authors and practitioners on transformation, which feeds directly into the frameworks he brings into a room. A book with institutional weight. Undisruptable is a Wiley title with a foreword by Visa founder Dee Hock, and sits on a defined three-part argument about reinvention rather than a generic change pitch. Credentialled by Thinkers50. The 2025 Innovation Award places him among a small group of named voices that the management research community treats as serious on this topic. A practitioner seat at Trinity. He built and teaches the Emerging Technology Trends module at Trinity Business School, which forces his material to hold up under repeated MBA-level scrutiny. Reinvention as lived experience. A decade as an Ireland international rugby player, then digital lead at Bauer Media, then Head of Innovation at RTE, then author and board director, gives him standing to talk about personal reinvention without it sounding theoretical. Biography highlights Author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organisations and Life, Wiley, with a foreword by Dee Hock, founder of Visa. Recipient of the Thinkers50 Innovation Award in 2025. Host and creator of The Innovation Show, broadcast on RTE Ireland and Finland’s Business FM. Adjunct Professor at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, where he developed the Emerging Technology Trends module. Non-Executive Director at National Broadband Ireland. Former Ireland rugby international with more than 100 senior appearances for Leinster, Toulouse and London Irish. Biography Reinvention is the part of change leadership that organisations consistently underprice. Strategy decks are easy. Sustaining the personal and cultural shift after the deck is signed off is where most transformation programmes quietly break, which is the territory Aidan McCullen has spent the last decade mapping. His book Undisruptable, published by Wiley with a foreword by Visa founder Dee Hock, sets out a three-part argument: change as opportunity, the cognitive biases that block it, and the language leaders need to carry an organisation through it. The book sits alongside The Innovation Show, his interview platform, where he has worked through the material in long-form conversation with several hundred named authors, founders and academics on change and innovation. That output earned him the Thinkers50 Innovation Award in 2025 and an adjunct seat at Trinity Business School, where he built the Emerging Technology Trends module. He also serves as a Non-Executive Director at National Broadband Ireland, which keeps the work close to live infrastructure decisions rather than pure commentary. His own track record is the unusual part of the case. A decade as an Ireland rugby international with Leinster, Toulouse and London Irish, followed by digital ecosystem work at Bauer Media, the Head of Innovation role at RTE, and now author, broadcaster and board director, gives him direct experience of the cost of reinvention, which is what senior audiences tend to want to interrogate when the topic is on the agenda. Key speaking topics Permanent reinvention as a leadership discipline Change management and transformation programmes Cognitive bias and decision-making under change Emerging technology trends for senior leaders Innovation culture and operating models Personal reinvention and career transitions Communicating change inside large organisations Ideal for CEOs, COOs and transformation leads running multi-year change programmes CHROs and senior HR leaders responsible for leadership development and culture Boards and executive committees stress-testing the organisation’s capacity to keep changing Innovation, strategy and digital leaders who own the operating-model side of reinvention Audience outcomes A working model for treating reinvention as a continuous capability, not a one-off programme Specific named cases (including Fujifilm) of organisations that survived structural disruption, and what they did differently A clearer view of the cognitive biases that stall senior teams during change Language and analogies leaders can use to carry their own organisations through reinvention A short reading list of the most useful change thinkers, drawn from his interview catalogue

Why organisations work with Albert Read He ran Conde Nast Britain through the most disruptive decade in publishing, taking titles such as Vogue, GQ and Wired through a shift from print to multi-platform commerce. The lessons translate directly for any business whose product was built for an earlier distribution model. His book The Imagination Muscle (Hachette, 2023) makes a specific argument: imagination is a faculty that can be trained, measured against output, and embedded in how teams work. It gives a leadership audience something more useful than a creativity pep talk. He built and launched Conde Nast operations in China, India and the UAE, which gives him concrete experience of exporting a creative business into new commercial and regulatory environments. As a Senior Advisor to the Milken Institute and External Advisor to Bain and Company, he is engaged by serious institutions for strategic counsel, not as a celebrity author. He is the rare speaker on creativity who has actually carried operating P and L responsibility for creative businesses at scale, which makes the argument credible in a CEO or board setting. Biography highlights Managing Director, Conde Nast Britain, 2017 to 2024. Oversaw British Vogue, GQ, Wired UK, Vanity Fair, Tatler, Conde Nast Traveller, Glamour, House and Garden and World of Interiors. Executive Chairman, The Evening Standard, from September 2024. Author, The Imagination Muscle: Where Good Ideas Come From (Hachette, 2023). Senior Advisor, Milken Institute. External Advisor, Bain and Company. Launched Wired UK in 2009 and led Conde Nast market launches in China, India and the UAE. Classics, New College, Oxford. MBA, INSEAD. Contributor to The Spectator, The Telegraph and The Times of London. Biography For most of the past two decades, the question facing legacy media businesses has been the same one now reaching every other industry. The product was designed for one distribution model, the audience moved to another, and the response cannot be a slower version of what already exists. Albert Read spent twenty-five years at Conde Nast inside that question, and as Managing Director of Conde Nast Britain from 2017 to 2024 he was the executive accountable for the answer across British Vogue, GQ, Wired, Vanity Fair, Tatler, Conde Nast Traveller and the rest of the UK portfolio. His operating record covers the parts of reinvention that are easy to claim and hard to do. He launched Wired in the UK, took Conde Nast into new digital products, conferences, awards and education, and led the company’s market launches in China, India and the UAE. In September 2024 he was appointed Executive Chairman of The Evening Standard, taking on the title’s shift from daily to weekly. His book, The Imagination Muscle: Where Good Ideas Come From, published by Hachette in 2023, argues that imagination is not a temperament but a faculty that can be trained, exercised and built into how an organisation works. Spanning examples from cave painting to Steve Jobs, it gives senior leaders something more practical than the usual creativity literature: a way of thinking about creative output as a discipline that responds to environment, observation and routine. Read is a Senior Advisor to the Milken Institute and an External Advisor to Bain and Company. He read Classics at New College, Oxford, holds an MBA from INSEAD, and has written for The Spectator, The Telegraph and The Times of London. He is the son of the novelist Piers Paul Read and grandson of the art critic Sir Herbert Read, founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Key speaking topics Creativity and imagination as commercial discipline Leadership through digital disruption in legacy businesses Brand reinvention at scale Human creativity in the age of artificial intelligence Entrepreneurial culture inside large organisations The new responsibilities of the modern leader Ideal for CEOs and executive teams in legacy businesses facing structural reinvention CMOs, brand and content leaders responsible for creative output at scale Innovation, R and D and strategy leaders building creative capability inside large organisations Boards and leadership offsites looking at the human counterweight to AI investment Audience outcomes A working definition of imagination as an organisational capability that can be developed, not a personality trait you either have or do not. Concrete examples from Conde Nast and beyond of how creative businesses survived and grew through digital disruption. A sharper view of where AI extends human creative capacity and where it crowds it out. Specific habits, environments and decisions that make teams more inventive without losing operational discipline.

Why organisations work with Patrick Leddin A co-authored New York Times bestseller with James Patterson, Disrupt Everything and Win, that has been licensed by FranklinCovey as a global corporate training programme. Few keynote speakers have their material adopted as a productised curriculum at that scale. A working research base at Vanderbilt Owen, where he runs the Disruption Project. The frameworks in the keynote (the 5 roles of disruption, the 16 behaviours of successful disruptors) are grounded in field research, not consulting anecdotes. A career that has actually run leadership at every scale he speaks about: a ranger-qualified Army infantry officer, KPMG consultant, FranklinCovey practitioner, and co-founder of an Inc. 5000 firm. Senior audiences recognise the difference. A direct line into the Stephen M.R. Covey and FranklinCovey leadership canon, which is the operating language for L&D functions inside many large enterprises. Biography highlights Associate Professor of the Practice of Business Studies, Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management. Teaches Corporate Strategy, Negotiation, Advanced Marketing, and Crisis Leadership. Co-author with James Patterson of Disrupt Everything and Win: Take Control of Your Future (Little, Brown, 2025), an instant New York Times bestseller. Author of The Five-Week Leadership Challenge, a Wall Street Journal bestseller introduced by Stephen M.R. Covey. Subject-matter source for FranklinCovey’s Disrupt Everything: Innovate for Impact corporate training programme, launched October 2025. Host of the Leadership Lab podcast, with on-record interviews including Stephen M.R. Covey, Patrick Lencioni, Liz Wiseman, Chris Voss, and Marshall Goldsmith. Former U.S. Army airborne infantry ranger-qualified officer, former KPMG Consulting and FranklinCovey practitioner, co-founder of Wedgewood Consulting Group and Leddin Group. Biography Disruption used to be the event a leadership team planned for. It is now the operating condition. The question that follows is harder than the one most leadership development is built to answer: what does a leader actually do, day to day, when the disruption never stops arriving? That question is the subject of Disrupt Everything and Win, the New York Times bestseller Patrick Leddin co-authored with James Patterson. The book grew out of the Disruption Project at Vanderbilt Owen, where Leddin teaches Corporate Strategy and Crisis Leadership. The research produced specific output: five roles people play inside a disruption, sixteen behaviours that distinguish successful disruptors, eight tools leaders can use to convert disruption into progress. FranklinCovey has since licensed the material as a global training programme, Disrupt Everything: Innovate for Impact. The credibility behind that work is operational. Leddin served as a ranger-qualified U.S. Army infantry officer with the 82nd Airborne, ran large client engagements at KPMG Consulting and FranklinCovey, and co-founded Wedgewood Consulting Group, an Inc. 5000 firm that was acquired in 2012. His earlier book, The Five-Week Leadership Challenge, was introduced by Stephen M.R. Covey and reached the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. He hosts the Leadership Lab podcast, where his guests have included Patrick Lencioni, Liz Wiseman, Chris Voss, and Marshall Goldsmith. The argument senior teams come for is concrete. Disruption is not a communication problem to be managed by the executive office. It is a leadership capability that can be specified, taught, and practised at every level of the organisation, and a board that treats it that way will outperform one that does not. Key speaking topics Leadership in disruption Crisis leadership Organisational change and culture Leadership pipeline development Negotiation and influence Corporate strategy under uncertainty Innovation as a leadership behaviour Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and senior leadership teams running through extended restructuring or market repositioning CHROs and chief learning officers building leadership pipelines that have to operate under continuous change Strategy and transformation leaders responsible for cultural readiness alongside operating model change Industry conferences in regulated sectors (financial services, healthcare, energy, government) where leaders manage repeated external shocks Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the roles people play during a disruption, and a way to name which role is missing in their own team The sixteen behaviours that distinguish leaders who use disruption as fuel from those who absorb it as damage A concrete set of tools, drawn from the Vanderbilt research, that leaders can apply to a specific change they are already running A sharper view of the difference between managing crisis and building a leadership culture that expects disruption as a baseline

Why organisations work with Pedro Duque Two flown space missions, STS-95 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery and the Cervantes mission to the International Space Station, give him first-hand experience of mission-critical decision-making in high-risk multinational technical environments. Three years running Spain’s national innovation system as Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities. He saw what happens when research and innovation policy meet the real economy, and where the translation breaks down. Chair of Hispasat, one of three European operators inside SpaceRISE, the consortium awarded the IRIS² concession. He is inside the construction of European technological sovereignty, not commenting on it from the outside. He has approached the same questions about technology, risk, and capability from three operationally distinct positions: as an astronaut at ESA, as a CEO at Deimos Imaging, and as a minister in the Spanish government. Biography highlights ESA astronaut who flew STS-95 aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998 and the 10-day Cervantes mission to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA in 2003. Spain’s Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities from 2018 to 2021, and Minister of Science and Innovation from 2020 to 2021. Member of Spain’s Congress of Deputies for Alicante, 2019 to 2020. Chair of Hispasat since December 2023; the company is one of three European satellite operators in the SpaceRISE consortium awarded the EU’s IRIS² satellite constellation contract. Former Managing Director and Executive President of Deimos Imaging during the launch of Deimos-1, Spain’s first Earth observation satellite. Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering; recipient of Russia’s Order of Friendship, Spain’s Grand Cross of Aeronautical Merit, and the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. Biography On 29 October 1998, Spain watched its first astronaut launch from Cape Canaveral aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. Pedro Duque has stayed close to space ever since, but rarely from orbit. After a second flight in 2003, this time on a Soyuz to the International Space Station for the Cervantes mission, Duque moved between roles that few people combine. He led Deimos Imaging during the launch of Deimos-1, Spain’s first Earth observation satellite. He returned to ESA to head its Flight Operations Office, which oversees European activities on the ISS from the Columbus Control Centre near Munich. In 2018, Pedro Sánchez named him Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities. He held the post through 2021, including a period as Minister of Science and Innovation, and represented Spain on the European Space Agency’s Ministerial Council. During his tenure he committed an additional €701 million to Spain’s ESA contribution between 2020 and 2026. Since December 2023 he has chaired Hispasat. The company is now one of three European satellite operators inside SpaceRISE, the consortium awarded the IRIS² concession in late 2024. IRIS² is the EU’s third flagship space programme, a 290-satellite constellation built for European sovereignty in secure connectivity. Few speakers can describe what that means from the inside. Key speaking topics Space technology and the modern economy Satellite infrastructure and European sovereignty Innovation policy and national competitiveness International cooperation in complex technical programmes Decision-making in high-risk operational environments Earth observation and applied satellite data The space industry and geopolitical risk Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting strategy under technological and geopolitical uncertainty Government, policy, and public sector leadership forums on innovation, science and industrial strategy Aerospace, defence, telecommunications, and infrastructure leadership Corporate audiences shaping long-horizon technology and capability decisions Audience outcomes A reframing of satellite and space infrastructure as a strategic layer of the modern economy A view from inside the IRIS² consortium of what European secure connectivity actually requires How mission-critical decisions get made when failure is unacceptable and teams cross nationalities A grounded read on where national innovation policy translates into commercial outcomes and where it stalls

Why organisations work with Javier Verdura He has shipped category-defining hardware, not slide decks. The Supercharger form, the Powerwall housing and the Solar Roof tile are his team’s work, manufactured globally. He is named inventor on more than 130 patents across surgical equipment, consumer products, packaging and energy hardware. The range is the point: the discipline travels across sectors. He operates inside one of the most demanding product environments in the world, reporting into a company that asks its teams to “fail fast” and still hit volume. Leaders hear how that actually runs day to day. He can speak to the handoff between design, engineering and manufacturing, which is where most product organisations lose time and money. His philosophy is explicit: if you can’t manufacture what you create, it is not worth designing. He brings a credible Latin American voice into rooms that rarely hear one at this level of product leadership, which matters for organisations building global teams. Biography highlights Global Director of Product Design at Tesla since 2012. Product design lead on the Tesla Supercharger network, Powerwall home battery and Solar Roof. Named inventor on more than 130 patents. Graduate of ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena (BS Product Design, 1991). Former VP of Industrial Design and Development at Product Ventures (Connecticut), where he spent roughly 15 years before Tesla. Has taught industrial design at Georgia Tech School of Design and Architecture and at Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM). Biography The Supercharger stall, the Powerwall on the garage wall, the Solar Roof tile that reads as a roof before it reads as a panel. All three had to look inevitable and be manufacturable at volume. Javier Verdura leads the team inside Tesla that does that work, and has since 2012. His route in was unusual. Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, an ArtCenter classmate, called in 2012 and asked him to run product design. By then, Verdura had already spent a full career in industrial design consultancy: senior designer at Group 4 Design in Connecticut, design manager at Inno Design in Atlanta, then fifteen years as VP of design and development at Product Ventures, shipping surgical instruments, consumer goods and packaging for clients including Ingersoll-Rand, Kodak and Panasonic. The through-line is manufacturability. Verdura states his philosophy plainly: if you can’t make what you design, it isn’t worth designing. That discipline is what Tesla bought when it hired him, and it is the lens he brings to audiences wrestling with why their own product pipelines stall between concept and line. He holds more than 130 patents, a BS in Product Design from ArtCenter (1991), and teaching posts at Georgia Tech and Universidad de Monterrey. He is one of the most senior Mexican-born product leaders in the global technology sector, a fact that gives his accounts of working inside Tesla an additional resonance for organisations thinking about where their next generation of design and engineering talent comes from. Key speaking topics Product design leadership at scale Design-to-manufacture discipline Innovation inside Tesla: Supercharger, Powerwall, Solar Roof Electric vehicles and the energy transition Patent-driven product development Building global design and engineering teams Latin American talent in global technology Ideal for CEOs, CPOs and heads of R&D running product organisations where design, engineering and manufacturing have to meet on the same timeline. Boards and leadership teams in automotive, energy, consumer hardware and industrials benchmarking their innovation pipeline against Tesla’s. Design and engineering leadership summits that want an operator, not a theorist. Corporate events building Latino and Hispanic executive networks at a senior technical level. Audience outcomes A clear, first-hand account of how Tesla turns a pencil sketch into manufactured hardware at a global scale. The operating logic behind “fail fast” when the failures cost real capital, not slideware. A practical view of where most product organisations break between design, engineering and manufacturing, and where Tesla’s handoff is structured differently. Specific examples from the Supercharger, Powerwall and Solar Roof programmes, not generic innovation theory. A sharper sense of what a modern product leadership function has to look like to ship category-defining hardware.

Why organisations work with Fernando Trias de Bes He is the only Spanish author to have co-written books with Philip Kotler, and the frameworks in Lateral Marketing and Winning at Innovation give leadership teams a shared vocabulary for where their ideas actually come from. Winning at Innovation, with its A-to-F Model, won the CMI Innovation and Entrepreneurship category at the 2013 Management Book of the Year Awards, a credential that speaks directly to boards asking how innovation should be structured inside the firm. He runs Salvetti and Llombart, a Barcelona-based consumer research and innovation consultancy whose client list has included PepsiCo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Nestle and McKinsey, which means the classroom work is tested against paying clients. He bridges two registers most economists do not reach, serious academic marketing theory and popular business writing, and audiences that have read La buena suerte or El libro negro del emprendedor often arrive already familiar with his thinking. He presents in English and Spanish and has been delivering executive-level keynotes since 2003, with hundreds of international engagements behind him. Biography highlights Associate Professor of Marketing Management at ESADE Business School since 1994. Co-author with Philip Kotler of Lateral Marketing (Wiley, 2003) and Winning at Innovation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). CMI Management Book of the Year 2013, Innovation and Entrepreneurship category, for Winning at Innovation. Founder and President of Salvetti and Llombart, a consumer insight and innovation consultancy working with PepsiCo, Sony, HP, Nestle and McKinsey. Regular columnist for La Vanguardia, ARA and El Pais Semanal; author of more than twenty books of essay and fiction translated into more than thirty languages. Winner of the Premio Espasa de Ensayo (2015), Premio De Hoy de Ensayo (2009) and Shinpukai Prize (Japan, 2005). Biography Most innovation in large companies is lateral in name only. Teams segment further, tweak an existing product, and call it new. Fernando Trias de Bes spent two decades arguing, in books co-written with Philip Kotler, that this is the core reason corporate pipelines stall, and building methods that address it directly. Lateral Marketing, published by Wiley in 2003, set out a structured way to generate product concepts that do not come from narrower segmentation but from a different logical operation on the category itself. Winning at Innovation, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011, took the argument further with the A-to-F Model, a step-by-step description of the roles and stages an organisation needs to convert ideas into launches. The Chartered Management Institute named it Innovation and Entrepreneurship Book of the Year at its 2013 awards. Trias de Bes has taught marketing and innovation at ESADE Business School since 1994 and runs Salvetti and Llombart, the Barcelona consumer research and innovation consultancy he co-founded in 1996. Clients have included PepsiCo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, McKinsey and Nestle, which gives the academic frameworks a field of consumer goods and services to answer to. Beyond the business books he writes columns for La Vanguardia, ARA and El Pais Semanal, and has published essays and novels translated into more than thirty languages, including La buena suerte, co-written with Alex Rovira, and El libro negro del emprendedor. The Premio Espasa de Ensayo in 2015 sits alongside earlier recognition in Japan and Spain. That range, economist, consultant, columnist, novelist, is the unusual shape of the author, and it is what audiences tend to remember from the keynote. Key speaking topics Business model innovation Lateral marketing and creativity in commercial strategy The A-to-F Model for organising innovation Entrepreneurship and the economics of new ventures Economic trends and consumer behaviour Corporate reinvention and disruptive thinking Ideal for CMOs, CSOs and heads of innovation confronting commoditised categories and stalled pipelines. Executive committees running corporate strategy offsites on growth and reinvention. Business schools and management development programmes covering innovation, marketing and entrepreneurship. Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for lateral versus vertical innovation that a leadership team can use the next day. The A-to-F structure for assigning innovation roles and stages inside an organisation. Concrete examples, drawn from consumer goods and services, of where breakthrough ideas actually come from. A sharper read on why most corporate innovation produces line extensions rather than category moves.

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

Why organisations work with Alberto Levy Operator credibility on emerging tech: he is the co-founder and CEO of Poly Crypto Rewards and innovation advisor to the Royal Commission for AlUla, so the perspective comes from current decisions, not commentary. Teaches innovation and entrepreneurship inside the IE University International MBA, which gives executives the frameworks his book Start Here codifies for first-time founders and intrapreneurs. Track record across roughly 1,500 projects with 300+ clients in more than 15 countries, including Fortune 500 work spanning automotive, FMCG, media and technology. Recognised on the platforms senior buyers track: World Economic Forum, Harvard Business Review Summit, MIT EmTech, Singularity University, TEDx. A distinctive human-centred voice in a category dominated by hype: his keynotes connect AI, Web3 and design to leadership behaviour and culture, not just technology roadmaps. Biography highlights Adjunct Professor on the International MBA at IE University, Madrid, since 2018, and faculty member on innovation, design thinking and digital leadership programmes at Porto Business School, EGADE / Tec de Monterrey, IPADE, and Financial Times Headspring. Co-founder and CEO of Poly Crypto Rewards, a crypto rewards platform. Innovation and Technology Advisor to the Royal Commission for AlUla, Saudi Arabia, and board advisor at the Founder Institute. Author of Start Here: A Practical Guide to Entrepreneurship for First-Time Founders. Featured speaker at the World Economic Forum, MIT EmTech, Harvard Business Review Summit, TEDx, Singularity University, and Oracle Leaders Circle. Master’s in Interactive Telecommunications, New York University; Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro; Aspen Institute alumnus and Forbes Business Council member. Biography The technology cycle has compressed. AI, Web3 and design tools that organisations were piloting two years ago are now embedded in their products, their go-to-market, and the daily work of their teams. Most leadership teams are still trying to convert that into durable operating advantage rather than another wave of pilots. Alberto Levy works in that gap. He has spent more than two decades inside roughly 1,500 projects across 15+ countries, advising Fortune 500 organisations in automotive, media, FMCG and technology, and has carried that experience into the classroom as an Adjunct Professor on the IE University International MBA, where he teaches innovation, design thinking and digital leadership. His operating profile gives the work weight. He is co-founder and CEO of Poly Crypto Rewards, an Innovation and Technology Advisor to the Royal Commission for AlUla in Saudi Arabia, and a board advisor at the Founder Institute. His book, Start Here: A Practical Guide to Entrepreneurship for First-Time Founders, distils the same playbook he uses with executive teams: spotting real problems, building businesses around them, and stress-testing them against modern tools, AI and digital business models included. Levy is described as an Innovation Evangelist by the Harvard Business Review Summit and the World Economic Forum, and has spoken at MIT EmTech, TEDx, Singularity University and Oracle Leaders Circle. The thread through all of it is a refusal to treat technology as the answer on its own. His argument to senior leaders is that AI, Web3 and design only become advantage when matched to a clear human problem the organisation has decided to solve. Key speaking topics Innovation as an operating discipline AI and human intelligence in the enterprise Web3, blockchain and the future of digital business Digital transformation with a human-centred lens Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship at scale Creative leadership and culture Customer experience and experiential storytelling Ideal for Board and executive teams setting an AI, Web3 or digital strategy that has to outlast the current technology cycle Chief Innovation Officers, CTOs and transformation leads moving from pilots to operating model Corporate venture, intrapreneurship and founder-track programmes inside large organisations CMOs and customer experience leaders rebuilding around emerging technology Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI and Web3 produce real operating advantage and where they do not A working model for translating innovation strategy into product, team and culture decisions Practical entrepreneurship tools drawn from Start Here, applicable to both founders and intrapreneurs A sharper sense of how to keep customers and employees at the centre of a technology agenda Confidence to make decisions on emerging technology without waiting for the next hype cycle

Why organisations work with Greg Williams His forthcoming book Code, Capital, Power (2027) is the spine of his current work: how big technology companies have redefined markets, reshaped global order and bent society to their design. The keynote is the boardroom version of that argument. Sixteen years at WIRED, including close to a decade as Editor-in-Chief of the UK edition, gave him access most writers on this beat do not get. Satya Nadella, Demis Hassabis, Reid Hoffman, Albert Bourla, Prime Ministers Blair, May and Johnson have all sat across from him. That access feeds directly into how he frames emerging signals for boards. He is cofounder of The Venture Group, an AI-first business operating as a founder accelerator programme. That adds an operator’s vantage point to the journalist’s depth he built at WIRED. Four-time British Society of Magazine Editors Editor of the Year for Science and Technology, and Chair of Judges for The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2026. Both are independent external markers that his judgement on this beat is taken seriously by people who track it closely. He works equally well as keynote, interviewer and on-stage moderator, which matters when the programme needs him to hold a room with a head of state, a founder and a regulator on the same panel. McKinsey and BCG have used him to host private leadership formats for this reason. Biography highlights Former Editor-in-Chief of WIRED UK and Deputy Global Editorial Director, WIRED, after sixteen years at the title; cofounder of The Venture Group, an AI-first business operating as a founder accelerator programme. Author of the forthcoming Code, Capital, Power: How Big Tech Companies Redefined Markets, Reshaped Global Order and Are Transforming Society in Their Image (2027). Chair of Judges, The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2026. British Society of Magazine Editors Editor of the Year, Science and Technology, in 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2024. On-stage interviewer of Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, Demis Hassabis, Reid Hoffman, Albert Bourla and Prime Ministers Blair, May and Johnson. Speaking credits include the World Economic Forum in Davos, UN AI for Good, Cannes Lions, Web Summit, Vivatech, SXSW, DLD, Founders Forum and the World Governments Summit, plus private leadership formats for McKinsey and BCG. Biography The most consequential question for senior leadership over the next decade is no longer whether technology will reshape markets. It is who is doing the reshaping, who is benefiting, and what kind of operating environment that leaves for everyone else. The argument Greg Williams sets out in his forthcoming book Code, Capital, Power is that big technology companies have already redrawn the rules of markets, capital and global order, and that boards now have to lead inside that new geometry. That work draws on sixteen years at WIRED, where he ran the UK edition for close to a decade and held the role of Deputy Global Editorial Director, with editorial responsibility for teams from Mexico to Japan. He is also cofounder of The Venture Group, an AI-first business operating as a founder accelerator programme. Access compounds the credibility. Williams has interviewed Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, Demis Hassabis, Reid Hoffman, Albert Bourla and Prime Ministers Blair, May and Johnson, on stage and in print. He has shared programmes with the World Economic Forum in Davos, UN AI for Good, Cannes Lions, Web Summit, Vivatech, SXSW and the World Governments Summit, and has hosted private leadership formats for McKinsey and BCG. The British Society of Magazine Editors named him Editor of the Year for Science and Technology four times, in 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2024, and the Orwell Foundation appointed him Chair of Judges for its 2026 Prize for Journalism, on a panel with Nick Davies, Meenakshi Ravi and Sayeeda Warsi. For a leadership team, the booking works on two levels. As keynote, he translates AI, cybersecurity and the platform economics shaping global order into decisions a board can act on. As interviewer or moderator, he can hold a complicated panel, ask the sharper question, and keep the conversation honest when a founder, a regulator and a customer are on the same stage. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and its impact on business models Cybersecurity and digital risk at board level Technology and geopolitics Innovation and disruption Future of work and workforce transformation Strategic foresight and trend forecasting Leadership in a technology-driven economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI, data or cybersecurity strategy CEO and CIO offsites that need a credible outside read on the technology agenda Innovation, strategy and transformation leads briefing their organisation on what is coming Industry conferences that need a moderator who can interview founders, regulators and policymakers on the same stage Audience outcomes A sharper filter for separating real technology signal from hype A clearer view of the AI, cybersecurity and platform shifts that will hit their sector next A forward read on the technology economy shaped by his own argument that a small number of big tech companies are restructuring markets and the global order, not a vendor pitch Specific named companies, researchers and regulators to watch Better questions to put to their own technology and strategy teams on return

Why organisations work with Jack Shaw Nearly four decades of operator experience inside successive AI waves: from expert systems and knowledge-based AI through machine learning and predictive analytics to today’s generative AI and large language models. That continuity of pattern recognition is rare and directly useful when a board needs to separate durable shifts from noise. Author of The AI Imperative Series, a planned multi-volume set examining AI transformation industry by industry. The first volume, Manufacturing’s AI Imperative, was published in April 2026; subsequent volumes covering healthcare, finance, distribution, and government are in preparation. Track record advising senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, GE, Caterpillar, Rockwell Automation, Coca-Cola, 3M, IBM, Oracle, and Bosch. The client mix skews industrial and regulated, which is directly relevant when the audience is not a technology company. A working framework that separates tactical AI initiatives, which can pay back inside twelve months, from strategic programmes that reshape the operating model over three to five years. The framework is built for executive teams running both tracks simultaneously without one starving the other. Presents in 26 countries and all 50 U.S. states, with material that adapts to manufacturing, distribution, financial services, and public sector audiences rather than a single vertical. Biography highlights Author of The AI Imperative Series; first volume, Manufacturing’s AI Imperative, published April 2026 Graduate of Yale University; MBA, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University Nearly four decades of enterprise AI experience, from commercial expert systems through machine learning to generative AI Former Vice President of Commercial Systems, Applied Systems Intelligence; previously led an AI software company in Knowledge-Based Expert Systems Advisor to senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, GE, Caterpillar, Rockwell Automation, Coca-Cola, 3M, IBM, Oracle, and Bosch Keynote presentations in 26 countries and all 50 U.S. states, across manufacturing, distribution, financial services, and public sector audiences Biography Knowledge-Based Expert Systems were running in defence and industrial settings long before ChatGPT gave generative AI a consumer face. Jack Shaw was building commercial software in that space in the 2000s as Vice President of Commercial Systems at Applied Systems Intelligence, after leading an AI software company through the previous wave. He has been inside enterprise AI since before most organisations were asking the question. That operator background sits underneath the current work. As an AI transformation advisor, Shaw works with senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, GE, Caterpillar, IBM, and Bosch on where AI actually changes the economics of the business, and how to get there from wherever the organisation is now. The client mix is industrial and regulated. The material reflects that: less consumer futurism, more operating-model impact. Shaw is a graduate of Yale University with an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, and the author of The AI Imperative Series. The first volume, Manufacturing’s AI Imperative, was published in April 2026; subsequent volumes covering distribution, government, and other industries are in preparation. The series applies the same structure across industries: a dual-path framework that separates the tactical AI initiatives that pay back inside twelve months from the strategic programmes that reshape the operating model over three to five years. The pattern across nearly four decades is consistent. Shaw translates the next technology wave into language a CFO or a board chair can act on, and does so with specific reference to what worked and what broke in the last three waves. That continuity is the reason senior teams keep booking him back when the technology label on the brief changes. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence strategy for the enterprise Generative AI and large language models in business operations Enterprise AI: from pilot to operating-model change Digital transformation and AI adoption in industrial and regulated sectors Decision latency and learning velocity in enterprise AI Innovation and change management in regulated industries Ideal for Boards and C-suites setting enterprise AI and digital strategy CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs sequencing AI investment across competing priorities: infrastructure, workforce capability, data readiness, and vendor selection Manufacturing, automotive, distribution, and financial services leadership teams Industry associations and regulated-sector conferences asking where the technology actually lands in operations Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI capabilities matter for their specific industry and time horizon Concrete examples from Fortune 500 deployments rather than generic case studies Vocabulary to challenge vendor pitches and internal proposals with sharper questions A dual-path framework for separating the AI initiatives that pay back inside twelve months from the strategic programmes that reshape the operating model over three to five years, with a method for running both tracks simultaneously without one starving the other

Why organisations work with Monique Morrow She speaks about cybersecurity and digital infrastructure as someone who built it. As the first CTO of Cisco Services and later CTO-Evangelist for New Frontiers Development and Engineering, she sat in the architecture seat through Cisco’s expansion into cloud, IoT and emerging networks. The standards organisations will operate under in extended reality and metaverse systems are partly being written by her. She chairs IEEE P7030 and IEEE P7016, two of the few global working groups defining how these technologies are assessed and built. Engineering credibility that few cybersecurity speakers match. More than seventeen USPTO patents covering networking, IoT, cybersecurity and data handling, plus three published technical books, mean she does not need to translate from analyst-speak. Board-level visibility into how distributed ledger governance actually works. As an Independent Director on the Hedera Council Board, she sees decisions on a major public DLT network being made, not just commented on. Her digital identity work has been pressure-tested against the hardest cases. Through The Humanized Internet, she has built frameworks for portable, self-sovereign identity for stateless and displaced populations, which sharpens her perspective on identity systems for corporate users. Biography highlights President and Co-Founder of The Humanized Internet, the Switzerland-based non-profit advancing self-sovereign digital identity for stateless and displaced populations Former first CTO of Cisco Services and CTO-Evangelist for New Frontiers Development and Engineering at Cisco; previously Senior Distinguished Architect for Emerging Technologies at Syniverse Technologies Independent Director on the Hedera Council Board, governing one of the larger public distributed ledger networks Chair of IEEE P7030 (global extended reality assessment standard) and IEEE P7016 (Standard for Ethically Aligned Design and Operation of Metaverse Systems) Co-author of The Humanized Internet (River Publishers, 2023), The Internet of Women (River Publishers, 2016) and Developing IP-Based Services (Morgan Kaufmann, 2003) Holder of more than seventeen USPTO patents in networking, IoT, cybersecurity and data handling; named one of Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech globally (2018) Biography Distributed ledger systems, extended reality platforms and digital identity protocols are being built faster than the governance around them. Once they scale, the rules embedded in them are very hard to remove. The decisions that matter most are being made at the architecture layer, often in working groups most senior leaders cannot name. Monique Morrow has spent more than twenty-five years inside that layer. She was the first CTO of Cisco Services and later CTO-Evangelist for New Frontiers Development and Engineering. The brief was to read economics, technology and research together and identify what was coming next for the business. She holds more than seventeen USPTO patents in networking, IoT, cybersecurity and data handling, and in 2005 was named Cisco’s first Distinguished Consulting Engineer. She is President and Co-Founder of The Humanized Internet, the Swiss non-profit working on portable, self-sovereign digital identity for the more than one billion people without legal identity. Her 2023 book of the same name from River Publishers makes the argument that identity systems built for stateless and displaced populations produce more robust architecture than systems built for corporate convenience. She chairs IEEE P7030, the global working group writing the assessment standard for extended reality, and IEEE P7016, the standard for ethically aligned metaverse design. She also sits as an Independent Director on the Hedera Council Board, where governance of one of the larger public distributed ledger networks is decided. The rules organisations will operate under in the next decade are being drafted in rooms she chairs. Key speaking topics Cybersecurity strategy and risk Digital identity and self-sovereign identity systems Extended reality and metaverse governance Distributed ledger and blockchain infrastructure Privacy and data governance Ethics in emerging technology Standards and governance for AI and connected systems Ideal for CISOs, CTOs and chief digital officers setting cybersecurity and emerging technology direction Boards and audit committees scrutinising digital identity, AI and distributed ledger exposure Telecommunications, financial services and infrastructure organisations weighing investments in DLT, XR and biometric systems Policy and standards bodies shaping technology governance frameworks Audience outcomes Sharper view of where the actual risks sit in their cybersecurity and emerging technology architecture, separated from vendor noise Working knowledge of the IEEE, GSMA and WEF standards that will shape extended reality, distributed ledger and digital identity over the next five years Grounded perspective on what self-sovereign identity actually requires, from someone building systems for the hardest cases Specific questions to put to vendors and regulators on AI ethics, DLT governance and XR deployment A view of where the next set of regulatory and reputational pressures on emerging technology are likely to land

Why organisations work with Rory Cellan-Jones He has reported on every significant technology cycle from the dot.com bust to generative AI, which gives senior teams a working baseline for how this wave will and will not behave. His book Always On argues that the smartphone is the Model T Ford of the 21st century and traces the loss of public trust from the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony to Cambridge Analytica. That argument frames a board conversation on AI legitimacy in language buyers can use. He brings the institutional memory of the BBC technology desk into the room, including direct interviews with the founders and chief executives now setting the AI agenda. His OBE for services to journalism, honorary fellowship at the National Museum of Computing, and current advisory roles at FTI Consulting and Brands2Life signal a credibility that survives the move from press gallery to boardroom. He hosts and moderates with the discipline of a live broadcaster, which makes him a strong choice when the brief is a serious panel rather than a single keynote. Biography highlights BBC Technology Correspondent, 2007 to 2021, with prior roles on The Money Programme, Newsnight, and the Today Programme. Appointed OBE in the 2024 Birthday Honours for services to journalism. Author of Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era (Bloomsbury), Dot.Bomb, the memoir Ruskin Park, and Sophie From Romania. Co-host of the Movers and Shakers podcast on Parkinson’s disease, launched 2023. Senior Advisor, FTI Consulting; Senior Media and Strategy Consultant, Brands2Life. Honorary Fellow, National Museum of Computing; honorary degree, University of York. Biography The dot.com bust ran straight through Cellan-Jones’s first stint as a technology reporter. He had just been appointed BBC Internet Correspondent when the bubble broke, and the book he wrote about it, Dot.Bomb, set the pattern for a career spent reporting on technology as something that has to survive contact with markets, regulators and the public. That long memory is what senior teams now use him for. Across fourteen years as BBC Technology Correspondent, from January 2007, he covered the rise of the iPhone, the social media platforms, the cryptocurrency cycles, and the early arguments about AI safety. His book Always On reads that period as a single arc, with the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony as the high water mark of techno-optimism and the Cambridge Analytica revelations as the moment public trust broke. He left the BBC in 2021 and has since taken senior advisory roles at FTI Consulting and Brands2Life, which keep him close to the corporate side of the same questions he reported on as a journalist. He was appointed OBE in the 2024 Birthday Honours. The current AI debate is where the back catalogue earns its keep. Boards are being asked to make commitments at a pace that exceeds the evidence, and the reflex to copy whichever competitor moves first is exactly the pattern he watched go wrong in 2000, again in 2008, and again in 2017. Few speakers can frame that lesson with the same authority. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the public trust problem The smartphone era and the social contract of technology Disruptive innovation and the corporate response Technology regulation and the limits of self-governance Cybersecurity in consumer and corporate life Long-run lessons from forty years of technology cycles Health, technology and the patient experience Ideal for Boards setting AI adoption policy and accountability CIO, CTO and CDO leadership offsites looking for an outsider perspective on the current cycle Communications, public affairs and policy teams managing technology reputation risk Conferences requiring a moderator or host with deep subject knowledge Audience outcomes A clearer read on which parts of the current AI narrative match historical patterns and which are genuinely new A working framework for thinking about public trust as a corporate input, not an externality A sense of the regulatory direction in the UK, EU and US and what that implies for product and policy decisions Questions a board should be asking its own technology and risk leadership in the next twelve months