Innovation & Disruption

Why organisations work with Lara Lewington Fourteen years inside BBC Click gives her a first-hand catalogue of which AI and health-tech claims held up and which collapsed, useful for boards trying to triage vendor pitches. Hacking Humanity (Penguin, 2025) is a structured, sourced argument on the technologies extending healthspan, not a survey article, so audiences leave with a thesis rather than a topic tour. Formal study in the Ethics of AI at the London School of Economics, layered onto her broadcast work, makes her a credible voice in governance and risk conversations, not only product showcases. She is regularly trusted to host the main stage at AI Summit London, Founders Forum, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which means she moves comfortably between keynote and high-stakes moderation in the same event. Long-form access to the people building this technology, from Silicon Valley founders to NHS clinicians, lets her describe what is actually being deployed rather than what is being announced. Biography highlights Co-presenter of BBC Click, the corporation’s flagship technology programme, for seven years until the show ended in March 2025; reporter on the programme from 2011. Author of Hacking Humanity: How technology can save your health and your life (Penguin, WH Allen, July 2025). Fronted BBC Panorama’s “Beyond Human: Artificial Intelligence and Us” and BBC One documentary “Forever Young?” on biological age reversal. AI Agony Aunt on ITV’s Lorraine since 2023; recurring technology commentator on Good Morning Britain, Woman’s Hour and BBC Radio 5 Live. Studied Ethics of AI at the London School of Economics; Senior Fellow at the John Schofield Trust mentoring early-career journalists. Host and moderator at AI Summit London, Founders Forum Global, LEAP Tech Arena, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Biography Most boardroom conversations about artificial intelligence and health technology run aground on the same problem. The pace of announcement outstrips the pace of verification. Lara Lewington has spent 14 years inside the programme that, more than any other in British broadcasting, exists to do that verification on the public’s behalf: BBC Click. She reported for the show from 2011, co-presented from 2018 with Spencer Kelly, and stayed until the programme ended in March 2025. Hacking Humanity (Penguin, July 2025) takes the same instinct into book form. It examines the AI, gene editing and robotics now reshaping medicine, with a clear thesis: the meaningful prize is healthspan, the years lived in good health, not raw lifespan. Endorsed by Lorraine Kelly, Davina McCall and Dr Amir Khan, it draws on access from Silicon Valley founders to NHS clinicians, and frames where the science is real, where it is premature, and where the ethical exposure sits. The AI ethics work is anchored by formal study at the London School of Economics and a steady stream of fronted documentaries: Panorama’s “Beyond Human: Artificial Intelligence and Us”, BBC One’s “Forever Young?”, ITV’s “Tonight: Healthy Ageing”, and BBC Radio 4’s “A Documentary: By ChatGPT”. She is the AI Agony Aunt on ITV’s Lorraine, a regular voice on Good Morning Britain and Woman’s Hour, and a Senior Fellow at the John Schofield Trust. Event organisers book her for two distinct jobs. She delivers keynotes on AI ethics, the human impact of automation and the healthspan revolution. She also hosts and moderates the main stage at AI Summit London, Founders Forum Global, LEAP Tech Arena, London Tech Week and the Royal Academy of Engineering, where the brief is to interview a chief executive or scientist and keep the conversation honest in real time. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and its human impact AI ethics and responsible deployment Health technology and the healthspan economy Longevity science and biological age Wearables, diagnostics and consumer health data The role of robotics in care and clinical settings Technology hype versus evidence Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI policy and digital health strategy CHROs, chief medical officers and benefits leaders shaping workforce health programmes Health, life sciences and pharma leadership audiences tracking the AI inflection in their sector Conference organisers needing a credible host or moderator for AI, health-tech and innovation main-stage sessions Audience outcomes A clear read on which AI and health-tech claims are evidence-backed and which are still vendor narrative A working vocabulary for healthspan, longevity science and the technologies driving them Sharper questions to put to internal teams and external suppliers on AI ethics and data governance A grounded view of how rapidly diagnostic and preventive technology is moving from research into mainstream use

Why organisations work with Riaz Shah He has run reskilling at a scale almost no academic or consultant has matched: more than 400,000 employees and 24 million hours of learning a year inside EY. He built the EY Tech MBA, one of the first corporate degree programmes to put technology fluency at the centre of professional services training, and can speak about what it took to make it work. His authority on the future of work rests on operating responsibility, not research alone. He has been the executive on the hook for the budget, the platform choices and the outcomes. He chairs One Degree Academy, a free school for children in an underserved part of London now ranked among the world’s top ten in the Overcoming Adversity category of the World’s Best School Prizes. His argument that learning design matters at scale is supported by results, not theory. His OBE for Services to Education, awarded by HM King Charles III in 2023, signals that the credibility is recognised beyond the corporate audience. Biography highlights Professor of Practice for Innovation & Leadership, Hult International Business School. 27 years as a partner at EY, including Global Learning Leader, Managing Partner of London Assurance and Chief Operations Officer for EMEIA Markets. Architect of the EY Tech MBA, deployed across a workforce of more than 400,000 professionals. OBE for Services to Education, 2023. Founder and Chair of One Degree Academy, a Top 10 finalist for the World’s Best School Prize in the Overcoming Adversity category. Non-executive director, Genius Group (appointed July 2024). Biography Most large organisations have an AI strategy. Very few have a learning strategy capable of delivering it. That gap, between what a workforce is being asked to do next year and what it knows how to do today, is the specific problem Riaz Shah has spent the last decade inside. At EY, as Global Learning Leader, he carried operating responsibility for how more than 400,000 professionals were equipped for a market reshaped by automation, AI and digital platforms. His team delivered more than 24 million hours of learning a year and built the EY Tech MBA, a full corporate degree programme that put technology fluency at the centre of a professional services career. He had previously been Managing Partner of London Assurance and Chief Operations Officer for EMEIA Markets, so the work was anchored in commercial reality, not in the learning department’s preferences. He now teaches at Hult International Business School as Professor of Practice for Innovation & Leadership, where his sessions with senior executives concentrate on global megatrends, digital disruption and how organisations rebuild capability fast enough to keep up. He also chairs One Degree Academy, a state-funded free school for children aged 4 to 18 in an underserved part of London. The school is a Top 10 finalist in the Overcoming Adversity category of the World’s Best School Prizes, and is the practical expression of his argument that learning design, done seriously, scales. In 2023, King Charles III awarded him the OBE for Services to Education. He sits on the board of Genius Group, a Nasdaq-listed education business, and is a member of YPO. Key speaking topics AI and the future of work Reskilling and workforce transformation at scale Corporate learning as a strategic capability Innovation and growth mindset inside large organisations Generational shifts in the workplace Demographics and changing consumer attitudes Leadership in conditions of digital disruption Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers commissioning a workforce transformation tied to AI and automation. CEOs and executive committees of large services and knowledge businesses where the talent base is the product. Boards reviewing the capability assumptions inside a digital or AI strategy. Senior leadership conferences where the brief is to make the case for serious, not cosmetic, reskilling. Audience outcomes A sharper view of where the gap between AI ambition and workforce capability is biggest, and which gaps matter most commercially. A clearer picture of what corporate learning has to look like to keep pace with technology, drawn from running it at EY scale. An honest read on what worked and what did not in building the EY Tech MBA, with the operational detail intact. A more confident sense of how to talk to a workforce about AI without losing trust.

Why organisations work with Ida Kymmer Brings a working knowledge of how the same technologies are deployed in commercial, defence, and peacebuilding contexts, so leaders see the full surface area of a decision rather than one face of it. Founder of House of PeaceTech, the ecosystem platform connecting investors, startups, governments, and NGOs working on conflict prevention and recovery technology, which gives clients access to a network most strategy advisors cannot reach. Has shaped immersive technology programmes for BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido during her tenure at Journee, so the perspective is built on real brand deployment, not theory. Active across MENA, Korea, and the Nordics through Infinite Reality, Hub71, and Vinnova, giving organisations a read on emerging technology adoption beyond the usual US and Western European frame. Publishes Tech for War and Peace weekly, so the analysis a client receives is built from continuous primary research, not refreshed every booking cycle. Biography highlights Director of Business, MENA at Infinite Reality Founder of House of PeaceTech, the ecosystem platform for technology in conflict prevention and recovery Former Director of Global Affairs at Journee, working with BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido Author of Tech for War and Peace, a weekly newsletter on defence, conflict, and peacebuilding technology Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies Startup judge for Vinnova (Sweden) and Hub71 (Abu Dhabi); speaking record at World Economic Forum, SXSW, Gitex, TechBBQ, and Deloitte Innovation Day Biography Emerging technology rarely arrives with a clean use case. The same systems that power immersive retail can be repurposed for surveillance, defence, or disinformation. Most advisors look at one face of that surface. Few look at all of them. Ida Kymmer’s work sits across the commercial, defence, and peacebuilding applications of the same technologies. She holds a Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies and founded House of PeaceTech, an ecosystem platform connecting investors, startups, governments, and NGOs working on conflict prevention and recovery. Her weekly newsletter, Tech for War and Peace, tracks how defence-adjacent technologies move between sectors. Her commercial credibility is built on deployment, not theory. As Director of Global Affairs at Journee from 2021 to 2023, she shaped immersive technology programmes for BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido. She now serves as Director of Business, MENA at Infinite Reality, and judges startups for Sweden’s Vinnova and Abu Dhabi’s Hub71. The geographic and linguistic range matters here. She has lived in nine countries, speaks five languages, and reads emerging technology adoption from Seoul, the Gulf, and the Nordics as fluently as from Silicon Valley. Boards in any of those markets get a perspective that the usual American or Western European advisory pool does not provide. Key speaking topics Emerging technology and innovation strategy Defence and peace technology Immersive technology and commerce Disinformation and information integrity Sustainability and the green transition Korean innovation systems and soft power MENA technology ecosystems Ideal for Boards and executive teams making frontier technology investment or deployment decisions Chief innovation, strategy, and digital officers in consumer brands, automotive, and luxury Government, defence, and policy audiences engaging with dual-use technology Sustainability and ESG leads scrutinising green-transition supply chains Audience outcomes A clearer map of how a single technology operates across commercial, defence, and humanitarian use cases Specific examples of immersive technology deployment from named global brands A working view of innovation ecosystems in Korea, MENA, and the Nordics Sharper questions to put to internal teams on dual-use exposure, supply chain ethics, and emerging technology partnerships

Why organisations work with Mira Murati She led the teams that built ChatGPT, DALL-E and Sora at OpenAI. Few speakers can describe frontier AI development from the operational seat; most describe it from the outside. She is the active founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, currently raising capital, hiring researchers, building infrastructure and shipping product against the same labs leaders read about in the news. The view she offers is current. She has spoken publicly on AI governance from the position of someone who has actually shipped the systems being regulated, including at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center. That changes the credibility of the conversation in a boardroom. Thinking Machines Lab is structured as a public benefit corporation. The trade-offs between commercial pressure and societal responsibility are written into how the company is governed, which is rare among frontier AI labs. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, an AI public benefit corporation that raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation in July 2025, the largest seed round in venture capital history. Former Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, with leadership across research, product and safety teams behind ChatGPT, DALL-E, Codex, Sora and GPT-4. Briefly named interim CEO of OpenAI during the November 2023 board transition. Senior product roles at Tesla on the Model X programme and at Leap Motion before joining OpenAI in 2018. Recognised in TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI (2024), TIME 100 Next (2023), Fortune’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Business (2023) and CNBC Changemakers (2026). Honorary Doctor of Science from Dartmouth College (2024); Bachelor of Engineering from Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and Bachelor of Arts from Colby College. Biography The decisions about how today’s frontier AI systems would be deployed were made inside small research labs, largely closed to outside scrutiny. The most consequential of those decisions, around ChatGPT, DALL-E, Sora and the GPT series, were made in rooms most boards still cannot see into. Mira Murati was in those rooms. She was Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI from 2022 until 2024, leading the research, product and safety teams behind the systems that brought generative AI into mainstream use. Her tenure included the November 2023 board episode, when she was named interim CEO during the brief removal of Sam Altman, returning to the CTO role within days. She left OpenAI in September 2024, by which point the products her teams had shipped were in everyday use by hundreds of millions of people. In February 2025 she founded Thinking Machines Lab, a public benefit corporation based in San Francisco. The company raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation in July 2025, led by Andreessen Horowitz with Nvidia, AMD, Cisco, Accel and Jane Street participating. It was the largest seed round in venture capital history. The lab’s first product, Tinker, launched in October 2025 as an API that lets researchers fine-tune frontier open-weight models without managing the underlying compute. Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley were among the early users. For senior audiences, this is unusual access: a builder’s view of frontier AI from someone still building. Murati has written for Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on the language and creativity of large models. She has spoken publicly on AI governance at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center. Just over a year after she left OpenAI, Thinking Machines Lab was reportedly in early talks to raise capital at a $50 billion valuation. Key speaking topics Frontier AI development and deployment Generative AI and large language models AI safety, governance and responsible deployment AI product leadership at scale Public benefit corporation models for frontier technology Fine-tuning and model customisation AI strategy and adoption for senior leaders Ideal for Boards and senior executive teams setting AI strategy and capital allocation CTOs, CIOs and chief AI officers responsible for technology platform decisions Public-sector and policy audiences engaging with AI regulation Technology investors and corporate development teams evaluating AI exposure Audience outcomes A direct read on how frontier AI labs actually make development and deployment decisions, drawn from someone who made them. A grounded view of where current AI capability sits and how far the field is from the frontier claims circulating in headlines. A working understanding of governance trade-offs from a builder’s perspective, including how a public benefit corporation structures them. A sharper view of which AI investments and adoption decisions deserve board-level attention over the next 18 to 36 months.

Why organisations work with Rodney Williams He has built two venture-backed fintech companies from concept to scale, including SoLo Funds, the only Black-led Certified B Corp fintech in the US, with over 1 million loans funded for 1.5 million users. He raised more than $40M for LISNR with clients including Visa, Ticketmaster, Jaguar Land Rover, and Lenovo, giving him operating experience inside the commercial functions of global brands rather than a venture-capital perspective from the outside. He brings a working operator’s view of financial inclusion that does not collapse into advocacy, anchored in his testimony to federal regulators and direct experience designing products for working and middle-class consumers. Named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list five times across nine years, a recurrence that is unusual and signals durable founder relevance rather than one moment of attention. Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, with the framing capacity that programme selects for, which translates to a keynote that argues rather than just narrates. Biography highlights Co-founder and President, SoLo Funds, the largest community finance platform in the US, with over 1 million loans funded since 2018. Founder and Chair, LISNR, an ultrasonic data-transmission company backed by Visa with over $40M raised. Former Brand Manager, Procter & Gamble, leading digital strategy and ecommerce for Pampers North America. 2019 Henry Crown Fellow, Aspen Global Leadership Network. CNBC Disruptor 50 honouree in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2023. Cannes Gold Lion (2015); Ad Age 40 Under 40 (2012); Black Enterprise Tech Entrepreneur of the Year (2016); Ebony Power 100 (2018). Biography SoLo Funds has facilitated more than a million loans to working and lower-middle-class Americans since 2018, and it did so by treating its users as both borrowers and lenders to each other. The business depends on a functioning peer community, not on a marketing community. That distinction sounds semantic until a leadership team tries to operationalise it. Rodney Williams co-founded SoLo Funds after building LISNR, an ultrasonic data-transmission platform he scaled to over $40M in funding with commercial deployments at Visa, Ticketmaster, Jaguar Land Rover, and Lenovo. Before LISNR, he ran digital and ecommerce strategy for Pampers North America at Procter & Gamble, which is where he learned how large consumer organisations actually think about customer acquisition, retention, and brand economics. That sequence matters. He has built community-led commercial models inside a $300B consumer goods business, inside a B2B technology company selling to global brands, and inside a fintech that has become the only Black-led Certified B Corp in its category. The arguments he makes about community as a commercial mechanism are operating arguments, not theoretical ones. He has been named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list five times across nine years, including 2023, and is a 2019 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. His most pointed contribution for a corporate audience is on what financial inclusion actually requires from product, regulatory, and capital partners once advocacy ends and operations begin. SoLo’s growth has placed him in direct conversation with federal regulators, congressional offices, and tier-one investors including Serena Ventures, ACME Capital, and Endeavor Catalyst, and he speaks from inside those conversations rather than from a panel about them. Key speaking topics Community as commercial operating model Founding and scaling venture-backed fintech Financial inclusion and the underserved consumer Brand building inside large consumer organisations Inclusive capital raising and founder ecosystems Disruptive product strategy in regulated markets Black entrepreneurship and category creation Ideal for CMOs, brand leaders, and growth executives at consumer-facing organisations rethinking community as a commercial channel. Boards and leadership teams of banks, fintechs, and financial services firms reassessing the underserved-consumer opportunity. Founders, venture investors, and corporate venture units focused on inclusive innovation and scale-up discipline. DEI, ESG, and impact leaders looking for a founder-operator voice on inclusive commercial outcomes rather than advocacy framing. Audience outcomes A concrete view of how community functions as an operating mechanism inside a commercial business, not as a brand layer. A founder-operator perspective on building, financing, and defending an inclusive product inside a regulated category. Arguments and case material on why the working and lower-middle-class consumer is structurally underserved, and what product responses actually move the market. Direct experience and pattern recognition from raising capital as a Black founder, applicable to inclusive investment and founder-development programmes.

Why organisations work with Omar Christidis He has spent a decade mapping the MENA digital economy at a depth no global consultancy replicates: 30+ Arabnet conferences, 15+ original research reports and direct visibility into more than 650 regional startups. He sits inside the deal flow as Partner and Board Member at Flat6Labs Beirut, so his read on what is actually getting funded in the region is operational, not commentary. His advisory work with the Middle East Institute’s Strategic Foresights Program and the Aspen Institute UK gives him a policy-grade frame on technology that translates well to boards weighing geopolitical exposure alongside digital strategy. He is one of the few speakers who can hold a serious technology conversation in both English and Arabic for a regional C-suite audience, with the Yale and Booz analytical pedigree to back it up. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Arabnet, the MENA-focused digital events, media and research company, founded in Beirut in 2009. Partner and Board Member, Flat6Labs Beirut, a $20m accelerator with 33 investments in Lebanese startups. Advisory Board Member, Strategic Foresights Program, Middle East Institute, Washington DC. Faculty Member and Moderator, Aspen Institute UK. BA and MBA, Yale University; former consultant at Booz & Co. MENA. Named Global Finance Magazine Top Innovator for the Middle East (2018); featured in Forbes, CNN, CNBC Arabia and Sky News Arabia. Biography The MENA digital economy is no longer an emerging-market footnote. Over the past decade it has produced unicorns, regulatory frameworks for fintech and e-commerce, and a regional venture industry that now writes cheques large enough to keep founders at home. Few people have shaped that shift more practically than the founder of Arabnet. Arabnet was launched in Beirut in 2009, after Omar Christidis left a role in private wealth management in New York during the financial crisis and a stint at Booz & Co. in the MENA. The company has since organised more than thirty regional tech conferences, published over fifteen original research reports on the Arab digital ecosystem, and supported 650+ startups, becoming the standing forum where founders, corporates and investors meet. His credibility is built on access, not opinion. As Partner and Board Member at Flat6Labs Beirut, a $20m accelerator with 33 Lebanese investments, he sees what is being funded. As an Advisory Board Member of the Middle East Institute’s Strategic Foresights Program in Washington and a Faculty Member at Aspen Institute UK, he sees how regional technology decisions are being read in policy circles. The result is a speaker who can tell a Gulf board what the next wave of digital challengers actually looks like, where capital is moving, and which corporate innovation playbooks travel and which do not. Global Finance Magazine named him Top Innovator for the Middle East in 2018; the World Economic Forum named Arabnet a Top 100 Arab World Startup the year before. Key speaking topics MENA digital economy and startup ecosystem Corporate innovation strategy Digital disruption and emerging business models Tech investment and venture capital in the Arab world Future of media and advertising Fourth industrial revolution Banking and fintech in the Middle East Ideal for Boards and C-suites of regional incumbents in banking, telco, media and retail facing digital challengers Global corporates entering or scaling in MENA who need a regional read on customer behaviour and competitive risk Investors, family offices and sovereign funds allocating to MENA technology and venture Government and policy audiences shaping digital, fintech and innovation regulation in the region Audience outcomes A current, named view of where MENA digital capital is flowing and which sub-sectors are concentrating A working frame for distinguishing genuine regional disruptors from imported business models that will not survive local conditions Specific examples of how incumbents in banking, retail and media have responded to digital challengers in MENA, and what worked A sharper read on how Gulf and Levant regulators are shaping the operating environment for technology businesses

Why organisations work with Sheena Allen She built and ran a venture-backed US digital bank to closure and is willing to talk in detail about what the regulatory environment, capital cycle, and category timing did to it. Practitioner perspective, not commentary. She bootstrapped a five-app mobile studio to millions of downloads before raising a dollar, so her view of fundraising versus self-funding comes from having done both. She is a credible voice on financial inclusion grounded in market reality, not advocacy posture, having designed product for banking-desert communities and seen what compliance and unit economics impose. She speaks to the non-technical founder problem with authority because she has built tech companies as a psychology and film major, including her current AI-product work through MindFull AI. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of CapWay, a Y Combinator Summer 2020 fintech and digital bank backed by Backstage Capital, Fearless Fund, and Khosla Ventures. Founder of Sheena Allen Apps, a bootstrapped mobile studio with five apps and millions of downloads. Currently leads CREAM Factory, a fintech venture studio and research organisation, and builds AI-native products through MindFull AI. Co-host of the Rich Lessons podcast with Sevetri Wilson Taylor. Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree. Featured in Google’s Webby Award-winning documentary series Black Women in Tech and in the film She Started It; author of The Starting Guide. Biography CapWay was a venture-backed US digital bank built to serve customers in banking deserts. It raised from Backstage Capital, Fearless Fund, and Khosla Ventures, went through Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 cohort, and closed in 2024 after the wider fintech regulatory environment turned against companies that depended on partner banks. Sheena Allen ran it from founding to wind-down. That arc is the spine of her work as a speaker. She talks about fintech not as a category to admire but as a category that punishes founders who underestimate compliance cost, capital cycles, and the dependency on infrastructure they do not own. After the Synapse collapse and the Evolve Bank breach, she was direct in the press about why the business could not raise another round. Before CapWay, she bootstrapped Sheena Allen Apps from her dorm room at the University of Southern Mississippi into a five-app mobile studio with millions of downloads. She studied psychology and film, not computer science, and she has built every venture since by assembling technical teams around her rather than coding herself. That is the perspective behind her current work at CREAM Factory, a fintech venture studio, and at MindFull AI, where she ships AI-native products as a non-technical founder. She is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree, co-hosts the Rich Lessons podcast with Sevetri Wilson Taylor, and was featured in Google’s Black Women in Tech series and the film She Started It. Her book, The Starting Guide, walks first-time founders through the operational decisions she made early and would now make differently. Key speaking topics Building venture-backed companies in regulated categories Financial inclusion and the economics of banking deserts Bootstrapping versus venture capital as founder strategies Non-technical founders and how they actually ship product AI tools for small teams and solo operators Mobile product strategy and pre-development planning Women and underrepresented founders in fintech Ideal for Founder programmes, accelerators, and venture studios looking for an operator who has built and closed a regulated business. Financial services, fintech, and banking conferences seeking a practitioner voice on financial inclusion and partner-bank risk. Diversity and inclusion programmes inside banks, payment networks, and large tech companies that want substance over symbolism. Innovation and product audiences inside non-technical industries that want to hear how non-technical founders ship. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how capital cycles and regulatory shifts decide which fintechs survive. Specific lessons from inside a Y Combinator-backed digital bank that closed, including what she would do differently. A grounded read on financial inclusion as a market problem, not a campaign theme. Concrete examples of how a non-technical founder builds and runs product teams, including with AI tooling. A useable mental model for choosing between bootstrapping and venture capital at different stages.

Why organisations work with Lolita Taub She runs a working venture fund built on the community-as-moat thesis, so the argument is tested against capital decisions every week, not theorised from the outside. She has sat on both sides of the cap table: $50M-plus in enterprise tech sold at IBM and Cisco, then 100-plus pre-seed and seed investments through Backstage Capital, The Community Fund and Ganas Ventures. She built Ganas Ventures as the first Latina-led traditional VC fund using a public fundraising structure under SEC Rule 506(c), which gives her direct experience of investor access as a design problem, not a diversity slogan. Her audience network of 90,000-plus founders, funders and operators, plus a 22,000-subscriber newsletter, is itself proof of the playbook she teaches. Biography highlights General Partner and founder, Ganas Ventures, investing pre-seed and seed across the US and Latin America. Co-founder of The Community Fund with Jesse Middleton and Flybridge, a $5M vehicle backing community-driven startups. Forbes 30 Under 30 Finalist; World Economic Forum Global Shaper across San Diego, Madrid and New York hubs. 2x TEDx speaker; keynote stages at Meta, Zoom, Stanford and Harvard. 2025 Stella Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award; 2025 ¡HOLA! Latina Powerhouse in the Disrupters category. MBA, IE Business School; BA International Relations, University of Southern California. Biography Most early-stage companies are built on a marketing assumption that no longer holds. Distribution channels are saturated, paid acquisition costs keep climbing, and customers move on the moment a cheaper alternative appears. The companies that survive are the ones whose users, contributors and earliest believers feel ownership over the product, and that is a structural design choice, not a campaign. Ganas Ventures was built around that observation. As General Partner and founder, Taub invests pre-seed and seed cheques into community-driven companies across the US and Latin America, and runs the fund itself as a community of operators, angels and LPs rather than a closed institutional vehicle. Before Ganas, she co-founded The Community Fund with Jesse Middleton and Flybridge, a $5M fund seeding the same thesis into 100 startups. The argument has weight because she sold the technology stack before she invested in it. Seven-plus years at IBM and Cisco produced the first US Cloud sale at QAD and the first Cisco IoT Connected Cities project, and a track record across data analytics, security and cloud. She then moved through Backstage Capital, Indie.VC, K Fund and NextGen Venture Partners, and now sits on more than 100 portfolio cap tables. Outside the fund, she is a 2x TEDx speaker and World Economic Forum Global Shaper who has keynoted at Meta, Zoom, Stanford and Harvard. The 2025 Stella Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and a place on ¡HOLA!’s Latina Powerhouse list recognise a working venture practice, not a personal story. Key speaking topics Community as commercial moat Early-stage venture strategy Building investor and founder networks Underestimated founders and capital access Latin America and US cross-border tech Responsible AI and bias in product Inclusive investing and Rule 506(c) fund design Ideal for Founders and operating teams at pre-seed through Series A Corporate venture, innovation and ecosystem leads building community plays CMOs and growth leaders rethinking brand around customer ownership LP and family office audiences allocating to emerging-manager strategies Audience outcomes A working definition of community moat that can be applied to a specific product, not a generic brand claim A view of how early capital is actually allocated to community-driven companies, from a GP writing those cheques Practical reference points from 100-plus portfolio investments, including what separates a real community from an audience A grounded reading of how inclusion shows up in commercial strategy and fund design, away from political signalling Direct exposure to the US and Latin America early-stage landscape from an investor active on both sides

Why organisations work with Neil Sahota He was an operator inside the IBM Watson Group when cognitive computing first met enterprise budgets, which gives him a deployment vocabulary most AI speakers lack. As co-founder of the UN’s AI for Good Initiative, he has helped scope and govern AI projects across the Sustainable Development Goals, giving boards a credible reference point on responsible deployment. His book “Own the A.I. Revolution,” named a Soundview Best Business Book of 2019 and published by McGraw Hill, sets out a buyer-side framework for AI investment that holds up in front of a commercial executive committee. He sits at the intersection of enterprise AI and capital allocation through Tech Coast Angels and advisory roles with Miramar and CerraCap, so he reads AI strategy through an investor lens as well as an engineer’s. As Chief Innovation Officer at UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering, he keeps a continuous line into university research, which means his keynote content moves with the field, not behind it. Biography highlights IBM Master Inventor and former World Wide Business Development Leader, IBM Watson Group United Nations Artificial Intelligence Advisor and co-founder of the UN’s AI for Good Initiative Chief Innovation Officer, Samueli School of Engineering, UC Irvine Author of “Own the A.I. Revolution” (McGraw Hill), Soundview Best Business Book of 2019 Forbes contributor; featured in the Wall Street Journal, BBC, Wired, Fast Company and Business Insider CEO of ACSI Labs; member of Tech Coast Angels; advisor to Miramar Ventures and CerraCap Ventures Co-host of the “AI for All” podcast Biography Inside the IBM Watson Group, in the years between the Jeopardy! Grand Challenge and Watson’s first commercial healthcare deployments, a small group of business development leaders had to teach Fortune 500 buyers what cognitive computing was actually for. Neil Sahota was one of them. That experience, building enterprise AI cases when the category did not yet exist, is the foundation of everything he now offers a senior audience. He carried that operator perspective into the United Nations as an AI Advisor and co-founder of the AI for Good Initiative, where the work shifted from selling AI capability to governing it. The Initiative now coordinates AI projects against the Sustainable Development Goals, and Sahota’s role gives him a working view of how AI behaves at scale, across jurisdictions, and under public scrutiny. Few keynote speakers in the AI category hold both an enterprise deployment credential and a multilateral governance seat. His book “Own the A.I. Revolution,” published by McGraw Hill and named a Soundview Best Business Book of 2019, sets out an investment logic for AI that a commercial executive committee can actually use: where to play, how to assemble the team, how to evaluate vendors and partners. As Chief Innovation Officer at UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering, and as a contributor to Forbes and a regular voice in the Wall Street Journal, BBC and Wired, he keeps that argument current as the technology and the regulatory perimeter both move. The buyer test is simple. A leadership team that wants a serious conversation about turning AI ambition into operating advantage, with someone who has built it, governed it, and written the framework, gets one in the room. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI strategy and deployment Responsible AI and governance Generative AI and the future of business AI for social impact and the UN Sustainable Development Goals Innovation, entrepreneurship and emerging technology The future of work in the age of AI Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI investment priorities CIOs, CTOs and Chief AI Officers moving from pilot to production Heads of innovation and corporate venture leads scoping AI partnerships Public sector and multilateral audiences working on AI governance and public-good applications Audience outcomes A clearer read on where AI investment produces commercial advantage and where it produces sunk cost A practical view of AI governance from someone who has helped shape it at the United Nations Specific reference cases drawn from IBM Watson-era enterprise deployments and current UN AI for Good projects A sharper internal language for AI strategy that a board, a finance committee and an engineering function can all use

Why organisations work with Max Lenderman He wrote the founding text of experiential marketing. Experience the Message (2005) put the category on the map. Twenty years on, his thinking is the underlying logic most brand-experience practice still draws from. He has run the experiential function at the agencies that shape global brand work: founder of the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, former CEO of School, current Chief Experience Officer at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing. He moves brands from broadcasting purpose to operating on it. His “invertising” approach starts inside the organisation, with employees, and makes brand purpose a commercial driver rather than a campaign line. He has been working on web3, NFTs, and the digital-physical convergence since 2021, before most CMOs had a position on any of it. His Adweek “Into the Metaverse” column is one of the longer-running serious treatments of the territory. He has built campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Absolut, and DaimlerChrysler. The case material in the room is from inside the work, not observed from outside it. Biography highlights Author of Experience the Message: How Experiential Marketing Is Changing the Brand World and Brand New World: How to Reach Billions, Not Millions Chief Experience Officer at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing, the world’s largest experiential marketing agency Founder of the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky; former CEO of School (Project Worldwide) Founding member of the International Experiential Marketing Association (IXMA) Columnist for Adweek and Campaign magazines, including the “Into the Metaverse” column Speaker at SXSW, Consensus, Forbes CMO Summit, Advertising Week, and X-Prize Biography Experience the Message was published in 2005. It is the book that put the phrase “experiential marketing” into the advertising vocabulary, and the thesis behind it, that the brand is what the customer experiences, not what the brand says about itself, is now treated as common sense by most serious CMOs. The author wrote it from inside the work, not as a theorist looking on. Max Lenderman has spent the last two decades building the function he named. He launched the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, served as CEO of School, the purpose-led consultancy inside Project Worldwide, and now holds the first Chief Experience Officer post at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing. The client list, Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Absolut, DaimlerChrysler, NASCAR Canada, gives him operating ground in categories where brand experience moves revenue. Two ideas anchor his current work with senior marketers. The first is “invertising,” the argument that brand purpose has to be operationalised through employees before it can be sold to customers, and that the financial return on purpose is measurable when treated this way. The second is the “phygital” frontier, where digital and physical experiences are designed as a single product rather than as a campaign with a digital extension. His Adweek column “Into the Metaverse” has tracked this territory since 2021. What he gives a senior marketing audience is the founding logic of the category and twenty years of inside work applying it. He cites a PwC finding that 86% of US buyers will pay more for a better brand experience, then shows what that figure actually requires of a brand operating model. Key speaking topics Customer experience and brand operating reality Experiential and “phygital” marketing Brand purpose as commercial driver Web3, NFTs, and the metaverse for marketers AI as creative amplifier in marketing Sports marketing and live brand experience Marketing innovation and emerging consumer behaviour Ideal for CMOs, CBOs, and brand directors rethinking the role of marketing in commercial strategy Customer experience and brand experience leads inside large consumer businesses Agency leaders and creative directors briefing on web3, AI, and digital-physical integration Sports, entertainment, and live-event sponsors building brand experience programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of brand experience that separates it from communications and advertising A view of brand purpose as an internal operating commitment, not a campaign theme A sharper read on where web3, NFTs, and the metaverse have commercial traction for marketers, and where they do not A direct argument for treating AI as a creative amplifier inside marketing teams Case material from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, School, and GMR Marketing applied to the audience’s own brand questions

Why organisations work with Dona Sarkar She runs the program that lets enterprise developers extend Microsoft Copilot onto their own data, so the practical content of her sessions is what she ships day-to-day at Microsoft, not commentary about it. She brings a track record of building global technical communities at scale, including the Windows Insider Program of around 20 million members, which informs how she advises leaders on adoption inside large workforces. Her work on accessibility and inclusive AI gives organisations a substantive position on responsible AI that goes beyond policy statements into product design and developer practice. She codifies her experience into named frameworks her audiences can use, including the SHENANIGANS approach to solving business problems and a structured method for tackling non-promotable work. She speaks credibly to the human side of AI transformation, from imposter syndrome in technical careers to mental health conversations at work, drawing on her own published books rather than borrowed material. Biography highlights Chief Troublemaker, Microsoft AI and Copilot Extensibility Program. Former Director of Technology for Microsoft Accessibility, leading inclusive design across the company. Led the Windows Insider Program from 2016 to 2019, a global community of around 20 million members. Author of The Imposter Syndrome Banishing Spell, Model 47: A Startup Storybook and You Had Me at Hello World, alongside three young-adult novels published by Harper Collins. Featured in Fast Company’s 100 Most Productive People; profiled in Fast Company and Microsoft’s own publications. Founder of Prima Dona, an ethical fashion line based in Seattle, alongside her engineering career. Biography Microsoft built Copilot, then had to answer the harder question: how do enterprises actually deploy generative AI on their own data, inside their own workflows, without losing the accessibility, governance and developer discipline that make software trustworthy. That is the program Dona Sarkar runs as Chief Troublemaker for Microsoft’s AI and Copilot Extensibility Program, working directly with the developers and IT leaders responsible for moving AI from pilot to production. Before this remit she was Director of Technology for Microsoft Accessibility, a role that shaped her view that inclusive design is engineering, not policy. She led the Windows Insider Program from 2016 to 2019, growing it into a global community of around 20 million members who tested early Windows builds, and she has run developer advocacy across HoloLens and Power Platform. Each of those roles required her to translate engineering decisions for non-technical leaders and to turn vague ambitions into concrete adoption. Outside Microsoft she has published books on imposter syndrome, startup methodology and mentorship, alongside three young-adult novels with Harper Collins. She founded Prima Dona, an ethical fashion line in Seattle, and has coached founders in emerging markets in East and West Africa. Fast Company has named her one of its 100 Most Productive People and profiled her approach to managing complex parallel careers. For senior buyers, her value is operational credibility on the enterprise AI question boards keep asking. She is not describing a market she observes. She runs the platform inside it. Key speaking topics Enterprise generative AI and Copilot deployment Inclusive AI and accessibility in product design Developer community and adoption at scale The future of work alongside AI agents Innovation frameworks for large organisations Career advancement and non-promotable work Mental health and imposter syndrome in technical careers Ideal for CIOs, CTOs and chief data officers planning enterprise AI deployment CHROs and heads of talent designing workforces around AI capability Heads of accessibility, DEI and responsible AI Engineering and developer relations leaders building internal AI fluency Audience outcomes A clearer view of where Copilot and generative AI add operating value on proprietary data, and where they do not A working vocabulary for inclusive AI that connects accessibility decisions to product and engineering practice Named frameworks for innovation and career progression that audiences can apply inside their teams A more honest conversation about imposter syndrome, mental health and burnout in technical organisations A read on Microsoft’s direction of travel on Copilot extensibility from someone responsible for delivering it

Why organisations work with Harold Hughes He has built a venture-backed company on blockchain infrastructure, raised more than four million dollars, and survived past the cohort year that kills most peers. The lessons are operating lessons, not theory. His Catalyst Labs curriculum has been adopted by Benedict College, the University of Texas, and Furman University, which means his programme has been pressure-tested by institutions that do not run on hype. He has a published book, A Kids Book About Blockchain, that translates Web3 into language a non-technical audience can act on. Few speakers in this space can do that without losing the substance. He is one of the few operators who has both written about social capital and used it to raise capital from inside underrepresented networks. Senior buyers get an inclusion conversation grounded in revenue, not rhetoric. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Bandwagon, a venture-backed live-experience identity and analytics company applying blockchain to ticketing and fan data Founder of NFNTE Capital and co-founder of Catalyst Labs, a 12-week accelerator for emerging founders Author, A Kids Book About Blockchain, published by A Kids Co. and distributed by Penguin Random House Inaugural cohort, IBM Blockchain Accelerator; finalist in the Smart Dubai Office Global Blockchain Challenge BA in Economics and Political Science and MBA, Clemson University; named to Clemson’s «Roaring 10» young alumni list Angel investor with a portfolio that includes Partake Foods, Liquid Death, Athletic Greens, and Broadway productions including Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen Biography Bandwagon began with a simple operating problem in live entertainment. Teams and venues knew almost nothing about the people sitting in their seats, and ticket fraud was eating into the relationship. Harold Hughes built a venture-backed company that uses blockchain infrastructure to give organisers verifiable identity and analytics. Bandwagon has raised more than four million dollars from investors including Backstage Capital and the State of South Carolina, was part of the inaugural IBM Blockchain Accelerator, and acquired Seattle-based IdealSeat in 2020. The work outside Bandwagon is what gives Hughes range. As founder of NFNTE Capital and co-founder of Catalyst Labs, he runs a twelve-week accelerator for emerging entrepreneurs whose curriculum has been adopted by Benedict College, the University of Texas, and Furman University. He wrote A Kids Book About Blockchain, published by A Kids Co. and distributed by Penguin Random House, because he saw that most explanation of Web3 had been written for people who already understood it. Hughes is a serious angel investor as well as an operator. His portfolio includes Partake Foods, Liquid Death, Athletic Greens, and Broadway productions such as Stereophonic and Hell’s Kitchen. The thesis behind that activity, and behind his programmes, is that social capital is a measurable input into commercial outcomes, and that founders from under-represented backgrounds have been systematically priced out of it. That is the point he made before the diversity conversation hardened, and it is the point he can still make commercially. He holds a bachelor’s in Economics and Political Science and an MBA from Clemson University, where he was named to the «Roaring 10» young alumni list in 2019. The credentials are useful context. The argument he brings to a senior audience is that early-stage discipline, operating clarity about new technology, and access to networks are the same problem, and the people who solve all three are the ones who scale. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and scale-up discipline Blockchain and Web3 in the enterprise Social capital as a commercial asset Diversity in venture and founder access to capital Customer identity and data in live experience Future of technology in consumer industries Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and leadership teams of growth-stage companies looking to build durable advantage from technology and network strategy Corporate innovation, brand, and partnership leaders working with sport, music, and live-experience platforms Diversity, talent, and people leaders who want a substantive operator voice on under-represented founder economics Universities, accelerators, and entrepreneurship programmes designing curricula for first-generation and emerging founders Audience outcomes A working understanding of how blockchain creates verifiable identity and ownership in consumer settings, beyond cryptocurrency A specific method for mapping personal and organisational networks as commercial inputs, taken from the Catalyst Labs and NFNTE programmes A frank account of what it took to raise capital and survive as a Black founder in venture markets, with implications for corporate inclusion strategy A scale-up operator’s view of the decisions that separate companies that get funded from those that get acquired or close