Innovation & Disruption speakers

Why organisations work with Sharon Gai She offers a working model for redesigning teams and reporting lines when agentic AI absorbs the work middle management was paid to do. Her book How to Do More with Less (Wiley, 2026) maps the shift from task-based to capability-based org structures, with named roles for what humans do once execution is automated. Most AI adoption speakers describe what is happening to organisations from the outside. As Head of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba’s Tmall, Sharon worked inside the operating core of one of the world’s most AI-integrated commercial platforms. The vantage gives her authority on AI’s organisational effects that advisers and analysts cannot manufacture. Her practitioner depth on China’s ecommerce ecosystem, built into Ecommerce Reimagined (World Scientific, 2022), gives commercial and transformation leaders a primary source on consumer-to-manufacturer models and AI-integrated logistics via Cainiao. For European boards looking five years ahead, this is the live case study Western markets are still catching up to. Her “Culture Fluid” framework gives leadership teams a way to address the human side of AI adoption without falling into change-management cliché. It explains why two organisations with the same technology stack will get different results. Her client list spans UBS, Deloitte, Nestlé, Walmart, LVMH, and Lenovo, with platform exposure on Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, TechCrunch, and Wired. Recognised as a LinkedIn Top AI Voice (2026) and a RETHINK Retail Top AI Leader. Biography highlights Author of How to Do More with Less: Future-Proofing Yourself in an AI-Driven Economy (Wiley, 2026) and Ecommerce Reimagined: Retail and Ecommerce in China (World Scientific, 2022) Former Head of Global Key Accounts at Tmall, Alibaba’s core commerce pillar, led omnichannel and ecommerce strategy for major international accounts including Adidas, P&G, H&M, and Xiaomi Selected for the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, the internal programme designed to globalise Alibaba’s business units MS in Information & Knowledge Strategy, Columbia University; Honours BA in International Development, McGill University Former Global Shaper, World Economic Forum Named in AAE’s Top Keynote Speakers 2023; recognised as a RETHINK Retail Top AI Leader, LinkedIn Top Voice (2024), and LinkedIn Top AI Voice (2026) Media appearances on Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, TechCrunch, Wired, CBC, and CCTV; keynote clients include UBS, Deloitte, Nestlé, Walmart, LVMH, and Lenovo Biography The work middle management was paid to do is moving into systems. Reporting, status tracking, summarisation, performance feedback, project oversight: agentic AI now performs each of these to the standard a competent manager would have delivered five years ago. The org chart that organisations grew up with is becoming structurally redundant, and most leadership teams do not yet have a working model for what replaces it. That question is the centre of Sharon Gai’s recent work. Her book How to Do More with Less (Wiley, 2026) maps the shift from task-based org structures to capability-based ones, naming what concentrates in humans once execution is automated: judgement, taste, theory of mind, original problem definition. The book sits within an active body of writing on what she calls the Org Chart of the Future, drawing on the live restructures already underway at Meta, Microsoft, and others. Her authority on these questions comes from operational experience few AI speakers can claim. As Head of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba’s Tmall, she worked inside one of the world’s most AI-integrated commercial platforms, leading omnichannel and ecommerce strategy for Adidas, P&G, H&M, and Xiaomi. Selection for the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, the internal programme tasked with globalising Alibaba’s business units, deepened that vantage. Her first book, Ecommerce Reimagined (World Scientific, 2022), remains the only practitioner account of China’s ecommerce ecosystem written from within Alibaba, examining how consumer-to-manufacturer models and AI-integrated logistics via Cainiao function inside the company. Her “Culture Fluid” framework addresses the parallel internal question: how to build the agility to compete across simultaneous cultural and technological shifts. The work connects the structural argument of the Org Chart of the Future to the human capability conditions that make any redesign executable. Without the second, the first remains an idea on a slide. Key speaking topics The Org Chart of the Future: AI-era team and role design AI adoption at organisational scale: from pilots to operating model The disappearing middle: agentic AI and management layers Future-proofing in an AI-driven economy China’s AI-integrated commerce ecosystem Culture Fluid: organisational agility across cultural and technological shifts Consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) models and AI-integrated supply chains Ideal for CHROs, COOs, and transformation leads designing the operating model and workforce for an AI-augmented organisation Boards and executive committees confronting the structural implications of AI on management layers, headcount, and capability planning Chief Commercial Officers and heads of digital in retail, FMCG, luxury, and consumer brands looking at AI’s effect on platform commerce Leadership development programmes where AI adoption needs the perspective of someone who has worked inside an organisation operating at AI saturation Audience outcomes A structural model for redesigning teams and reporting lines when agentic AI absorbs the work middle management was paid to do Operating clarity on which AI use cases produce advantage and which produce vendor revenue A view of how China’s AI-integrated commerce platforms actually function, drawn from inside Alibaba, and what is genuinely replicable in Western markets A direct answer to the question of where human capability concentrates in an AI-driven organisation: judgement, taste, theory of mind, original problem definition A shared language, through the Culture Fluid model, for the human side of AI adoption

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 Shivvy Jervis A forecaster who has worked through Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division, briefing each on where digital, AI and neuroscience advances are heading next. A second specialism in applied neuroscience, covering drive, stress and persuasion, which gives her sessions a behavioural dimension most technology speakers cannot offer. A broadcaster’s craft built across CNN, Reuters and a Discovery Channel documentary, so she can hold a leadership audience for a keynote and run the full event around it. Recognition from Forbes (Trailblazer), Management Today (Champion of Change) and Britain’s Women of the Year, anchoring her credibility outside the speaker circuit. Sustained focus on human-centred technology rather than tool demos, which lands with audiences asking how to deploy AI without losing the workforce in the process. Biography highlights Founder of FutureScape 248, a social innovation and forecasting consultancy launched in 2017. Former CNN broadcast journalist; presenter of a two-part Discovery Channel documentary on the future of cities. Forecasting work conducted for Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division. Named a Trailblazer by Forbes, one of Britain’s Women of the Year, and a Champion of Change by Management Today. Two long-running streaming video series on technology and innovation with a reported audience of 14 million. Recognised by the World Economic Forum and cited by CNN as one of the most trusted voices on technology. Biography Most boards now sit between two pressures on technology. There is a brief to “do something with AI” arriving from above, and a workforce asking what any of it means for their job. The reading they need is editorial, not vendor-led. That is the gap Shivvy Jervis works in. As founder of FutureScape 248, the forecasting consultancy she launched in 2017, she has briefed Microsoft, the United Nations, Salesforce, Lenovo and the UK Government’s digital division on what is plausible, what is hype, and what is close enough to commit capital to. The frame is consistently human-centred: not what the technology does, but what it changes about how people work, decide and buy. A second strand of her practice draws on applied neuroscience, covering drive, stress and persuasion at work. That gives her keynote a behavioural dimension that most technology speakers cannot match, and it lands with audiences who are wary of pure futurism. The output is editorial in tone, built from years as a broadcast journalist with CNN, Reuters and Discovery Channel. Her recognitions sit outside the bureau circuit, including Forbes Trailblazer, Britain’s Women of the Year, and Champion of Change from Management Today. The reason senior buyers commission her is more specific than awards. She translates the noise around AI and emerging tech into the small number of shifts a leadership team needs to act on. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and human-centred deployment Forecasting and emerging technology Digital transformation and the future of work Applied neuroscience for performance and decision-making Cybersecurity, privacy and data ethics Innovation strategy in regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI and digital strategy CHROs and transformation leads handling workforce response to AI Innovation, digital and customer experience leadership Industry conferences seeking a forecaster who can also host Audience outcomes A clear read on which AI and emerging-tech shifts will affect the audience’s industry on a near-term horizon. A behavioural lens on adoption, covering how people respond to AI in their work and what that means for change plans. Specific examples from her work with Microsoft, the UN, Salesforce, Lenovo and UK Government, used as reference points rather than case studies. A vocabulary leaders can use internally to separate hype from substance in vendor and pilot decisions.

Why organisations work with Shiza Shahid She has built a global non-profit alongside a Nobel laureate and a viral consumer brand from the ground up, which gives boards a credible voice on what purpose looks like inside a P&L rather than on a slide. Our Place put a specific commercial bet on multicultural cooking and on cookware made without PFAS, PTFE and PFOA. She can speak about how a values position becomes a product specification and a category position. Through NOW Ventures and her AngelList partnership, she has seen hundreds of early-stage decks from mission-led founders. She can tell a corporate audience which purpose-led strategies are creating real growth and which are positioning. Her arc from McKinsey analyst to non-profit CEO to consumer founder to seed investor gives her language that translates across the room, from a CFO to a brand lead to an innovation team. Biography highlights Co-founder and founding CEO of the Malala Fund, established in 2013 with Malala Yousafzai to advance girls’ education in Pakistan and across Africa. Co-founder and Co-CEO of Our Place, the direct-to-consumer kitchenware brand behind the Always Pan, launched in 2019. Founder of NOW Ventures, an early-stage fund launched in 2017 in partnership with AngelList, backing mission-driven technology startups. Author of Dinner at Our Place: Recipes for Gathering, published by HarperCollins in 2025 with eleven chefs and tastemakers. BA, Stanford University, graduated with University Distinction; former business analyst, McKinsey & Company, Dubai. Named to TIME’s 30 Under 30 People Changing the World and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs; honoured as a Tribeca Disruptive Innovator. Biography A teenage activist in Islamabad set up a summer camp for Malala Yousafzai and other Pakistani girls in 2009. Three years later, after Malala was shot, that camp became the foundation for the Malala Fund. Shiza Shahid was the founding CEO, working alongside Malala and her father Ziauddin to build a global organisation focused on girls’ education in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya and Sierra Leone. The Malala Fund was a lesson in scaling a mission. The Our Place chapter, which started in 2019 with husband Amir Tehrani and co-founder Zach Rosner, was a lesson in scaling a product. The brand bet that multicultural cooking and toxin-free cookware were a commercial proposition, not a niche, and the Always Pan answered that bet with a 30,000-person waitlist on release. NOW Ventures, launched in 2017 with AngelList, is the third lens. Shahid writes early cheques into mission-led founders in technology, with an explicit emphasis on women and diverse entrepreneurs. The fund gives her a constant view of which purpose-led businesses are converting into commercial substance, and which are still positioning. Her cookbook, Dinner at Our Place, published by HarperCollins in 2025, sits on top of that body of work. The recipes are written with eleven chefs and tastemakers, and the book is structured around hosting as a cultural act. It is the most concrete expression yet of the conviction that drives her companies: that culture, commerce and care are not separate categories. Key speaking topics Mission-driven entrepreneurship and scale Purpose as a commercial proposition Building a consumer brand from launch Women and diverse founders in early-stage tech Girls’ education and social impact Inclusive brand and product design Investing in technology for global challenges Ideal for CEOs and founders building purpose-led consumer brands and DTC businesses Chief marketing, chief brand and chief sustainability officers in consumer goods Corporate venture, innovation and ESG teams designing new mission-led ventures Women in leadership programmes, founder networks and philanthropy boards Audience outcomes A grounded view of how a mission becomes a product specification, a brand position and a category bet, not a marketing line. A clearer read on which purpose-led commercial strategies are creating growth and which are signalling. A working vocabulary for backing women and diverse founders in early-stage technology, from someone who writes cheques. A direct account of how a non-profit at global scale and a consumer brand at viral scale are built from the same founder discipline.

Why organisations work with Silvia Leal She advises the OECD’s Global Forum on Technology on immersive reality, which gives boards direct line of sight to how international policy thinking on emerging tech is being shaped. The IV Premio Nacional de Management 2024 places her among Spain’s most recognised authorities on technology-led management, not on technology in the abstract. She has run innovation and technology programmes at IE Business School and held commercial roles at SAP and Banco Santander, so she speaks to senior teams as someone who has had to operationalise the technology, not only describe it. Her broadcast work on RTVE’s “La Cuarta Revolucion” trained her to make AI, automation and the future of work intelligible to non-specialist audiences, which translates directly into mixed-seniority rooms. She works fluently in Spanish and English, with published books and a regular podcast that give clients a body of public material to brief from. Biography highlights PhD in Sociology; expert member of the OECD Global Forum on Technology. IV Premio Nacional de Management 2024, presented at DLA Piper Spain. Former Director of Innovation and Technology Programs, IE Business School. Prior commercial experience at SAP and in Banco Santander’s technology division. Creator and presenter of “La Cuarta Revolucion” on RTVE La 2, produced with Onza. Author of “Ingenio y pasion” (IE Business Publishing), “Y de repente llego el Metaverso” and “Tendencias: Claves para entender el futuro y construir el presente”. Inspire Award 2021 from the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Association for AI popularisation. Biography Most senior teams now have an AI strategy on paper. Far fewer have a shared language for what the technology can already do well, what it cannot, and which calls have to be made this year. That translation problem sits at the centre of Silvia Leal’s work. She holds a PhD in Sociology and sits on the OECD’s Global Forum on Technology, where she contributes to the working group on immersive reality. Before that she ran the Innovation and Technology Programs at IE Business School, after commercial roles at SAP and in Banco Santander’s technology division. The combination gives her a clear view of both the policy thinking and the operational reality. In Spain her authority is recognised formally. In 2024 she received the IV Premio Nacional de Management at a ceremony hosted by DLA Piper, and in 2021 she was given the Inspire Award by the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Association for her work on AI popularisation. Her public-facing record includes “La Cuarta Revolucion”, the seven-part RTVE series she created and presented on La 2, and the podcast “Tendencias con Silvia Leal”. Her books, including “Ingenio y pasion” in the IE Business Publishing collection and “Y de repente llego el Metaverso”, read as practical management texts rather than tech commentary. For boards and executive teams trying to make AI, the metaverse and digital transformation legible to their own organisation, that practical register is the point. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence in the enterprise Digital transformation and innovation leadership The metaverse and immersive technology Future of work and workforce transformation Emerging technology policy and governance Cybersecurity as a leadership issue Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI and digital priorities. Chief Technology, Innovation and Transformation Officers translating strategy into operating decisions. CHROs and HR leaders preparing the workforce for AI-shaped roles. Industry associations and policy-facing events that need a credible bridge between European institutions and operating businesses. Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and immersive-tech capabilities are real today and which remain promise. Sharper questions for vendors, partners and internal teams when commissioning AI work. A practical framing of the metaverse and immersive reality as a business question, not a consumer trend. A more honest view of how AI is reshaping roles, skills and recruiting inside their own organisation.

Why organisations work with Sina Kahen He has shipped a regulated, complex technology product into a sceptical market. Commercialising Celito, named publicly as the UK’s first orthopaedic robot, gives him operator credibility that very few AI speakers carry. He runs a generative AI company today. VAICE, where he is co-founder and CEO, builds workplace productivity software, which means his views on enterprise AI come from active build decisions, not commentary. His book “The Promised Land of AI” gives leaders a usable strategic playbook for AI adoption, structured around use-case discovery, data readiness, and the build, buy or partner question that most boards stall on. He teaches AI strategy at Imperial College Business School, so the material is tested against MBA cohorts and senior executives every term, not assembled for the stage. He brings a working language for ethics, philosophy and human judgement in AI, drawing on his published philosophical work, without drifting into abstraction that leaves an operating team with nothing to do on Monday. Biography highlights MBA, Imperial College Business School; degree in Biomedical Sciences Guest Lecturer in AI, healthcare and corporate innovation, Imperial College Business School Co-founder and CEO, VAICE, building generative AI software for workplace productivity Former Innovation Business Manager at DeSoutter Medical; led commercialisation of Celito, publicly described as the UK’s first orthopaedic robot Author of “The Promised Land of AI: A Practical Guide to AI for Business” and “Brief Insights on Medical Robotics” Engagements and clients include Google, Amazon, BBC, O2, Shell, Imperial College, InterSystems, Juniper Networks, Ipsen Pharma and Novateur Ventures Biography Celito was the UK’s first orthopaedic robot. Sina Kahen, then Innovation Business Manager at DeSoutter Medical, was the person responsible for bringing it through commercialisation into operating theatres. That work, taking a regulated, high-stakes technology from concept into the hands of surgeons, is the experience he now applies to a different problem: enterprise adoption of generative AI. The current vehicle for that work is VAICE, a company he co-founded and runs as CEO, building generative AI software for workplace productivity. Around it sits his book “The Promised Land of AI: A Practical Guide to AI for Business”, a Guest Lectureship at Imperial College Business School, and engagements with organisations including Google, Amazon, BBC, O2, Shell, InterSystems and Ipsen Pharma. The argument running through all of it is operational. Most companies have proved AI can do something useful. The harder questions, which buyers are now ready to confront, are about strategy: which use cases actually compound, whether to build, buy or partner, how to make data and people ready, and how to govern decisions that cannot be fully explained. Kahen has trained as a Biomedical Scientist and holds an MBA from Imperial, which is one reason his framing of these questions feels closer to medicine than marketing: rigorous about evidence, blunt about what is not yet known. He is also the author of several books on Jewish philosophy, and that interest shows up in the AI work as a refusal to let the human and ethical questions float free of operating practice. Boards do not need another AI ethics policy. They need a way to make defensible AI decisions inside their existing governance, and to take their workforce with them. That is the territory Kahen occupies. Key speaking topics Generative AI strategy for enterprise AI adoption and operating performance AI in healthcare and life sciences Responsible AI and AI governance Build, buy or partner decisions in AI sourcing Innovation and intrapreneurship inside large organisations Philosophy, ethics and the human side of AI Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning enterprise-wide AI strategy CIOs, CTOs, Chief Data Officers and Chief AI Officers translating pilots into operating systems Healthcare and life sciences leadership confronting AI, robotics and regulated innovation Heads of Innovation and transformation leads structuring AI portfolios across business units Audience outcomes A working framework for moving AI from pilot into measurable operating performance A clearer view on when to build, buy or partner for AI capability Sharper questions to ask of internal teams and external vendors on data readiness, governance and use-case selection A practical position on AI ethics that holds up inside real operating decisions, not slide decks Language and reference points senior leaders can use to bring the rest of the organisation with them

Why organisations work with Spencer Kelly Two decades inside the BBC’s flagship technology programme, Click, give him a working knowledge of frontier tech that very few keynote speakers can match, and a presenter’s instinct for what a general audience can absorb. He is one of the few speakers who is equally credible as a keynote on AI and emerging tech and as the host or moderator who runs the rest of the day, which reduces the number of people a conference organiser has to brief. A Cambridge Computer Science background, with an undergraduate dissertation on AI, means his explanations sit on actual technical understanding rather than on borrowed framing. He has interviewed the people audiences are most curious about, from Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to James Cameron, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, which gives his sessions named primary material instead of recycled commentary. BBC Radio 4’s Understand: Tech & AI and the technology segment on BBC Morning Live keep him in current weekly conversation with a non-specialist audience, which is the audience most leadership teams actually resemble. Biography highlights Presenter of BBC Click from January 2006 to its final episode in March 2025, the BBC’s longest-serving technology presenter. Host of BBC Radio 4’s Understand: Tech & AI, a 10-part series first broadcast in July 2023. Presents the technology segment on BBC Morning Live. Computer Science double first from Churchill College, Cambridge, with an undergraduate dissertation on artificial intelligence. Honorary Doctor of Technology, Coventry University. Named T3 Magazine Tech Personality of the Year in 2015. Biography BBC Click ran for 25 years on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel. Spencer Kelly presented it for nearly 19 of them, from January 2006 to its final episode in March 2025. That single fact carries more weight in a leadership audience than any speaker bio summary, because it means the person at the front of the room has been tracking, testing and explaining frontier technology to a global audience continuously across an entire technology cycle. The Cambridge Computer Science training matters here. His double first at Churchill College, with an undergraduate dissertation on artificial intelligence and genetic algorithms, is the reason his explanations of AI sit on actual technical foundations rather than on metaphors. He moves fluently between the engineering reality and the boardroom question, which is exactly what most senior audiences are trying to do when they sit down at a strategy day. Beyond Click, he hosts BBC Radio 4’s Understand: Tech & AI, the 10-part series launched in July 2023, and presents the technology segment on BBC Morning Live. He has interviewed Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, James Cameron, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. T3 Magazine named him Tech Personality of the Year in 2015. Coventry University awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Technology. For an event with leadership stakes, he is unusually flexible. He delivers the keynote on AI, automation and emerging technology when that is the brief, and he hosts, moderates or runs the awards when the day needs a presenter who can carry the room and stay on the subject. The same person does both jobs to BBC standard, which is rarer than most conference programmes assume. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence in business Emerging technology and its commercial impact Automation and the future of work Quantum computing, blockchain and the metaverse Technology hosting, moderation and awards presenting Ideal for Boards and executive teams running an AI literacy or emerging tech briefing Conference organisers who need a single host across keynote, panel and awards CIO, CTO and digital transformation leaders running annual offsites Industry awards and sector summits that want a recognisable, technically credible host Audience outcomes A clearer picture of where AI and adjacent technologies are now, separated from the marketing layer. Specific named examples of how organisations are using emerging tech, drawn from his Click reporting. A working sense of which technologies sit in the next 18 months and which sit further out. The confidence to ask sharper questions of internal teams and external vendors.

Why organisations work with Stefan Hyttfors He translates AI, climate and geopolitical signals into the specific operating choices a board actually has to make, rather than leaving leaders with a trend deck. His thesis in Yoga for Leaders connects disruptive technology to human behaviour, which gives the room a usable language for the cultural side of transformation, not just the technology side. Two-time Swedish Speaker of the Year, with more than 1,000 engagements across 40+ countries, including IKEA, Microsoft, H&M, Spotify, Deloitte and AstraZeneca. A journalist’s instinct for narrative means complex foresight content lands with senior, mixed-discipline audiences without being diluted. Nordic register, low on hype, high on argument, which suits boards that have already heard the standard Silicon Valley futurism pitch and want something sharper. Biography highlights Author of Yoga for Leaders: How to manage self-disruption in a world of self-destruction, LID Publishing, 2016. Twice named Swedish Speaker of the Year by Talarforum. TEDx speaker, including “We don’t need jobs” (TEDxArendal) and “Can we really trust human intelligence?” (TEDxStockholm). Former photo journalist at Expressen and Photo Editor-in-Chief at a Swedish daily; trained economist. Co-founder of Swedish PR agency Wenderfalck. Client roster includes IKEA, Microsoft, Klarna, Spotify, H&M, Deloitte, AstraZeneca, Gartner, Ericsson, BMW, Toyota, Unilever, Nike, Skanska and E.ON. Biography Most organisations still treat foresight as a forecasting exercise. The default question is what is going to happen, and the default output is a slide of trends. The harder question, what kind of organisation can keep deciding well when the trend lines stop being reliable, is the one Stefan Hyttfors works on with leadership teams across Europe. His thesis is that disruption is misread when it is treated as a purely technological event. In Yoga for Leaders: How to manage self-disruption in a world of self-destruction, published by LID in 2016, he sets technology alongside human behaviour and argues that the binding constraint on adaptation is rarely the tool, it is the mind of the leader using it. That argument has carried into his current work on AI, climate, and geopolitical instability, where he frames the leadership task as composure under accelerating change rather than mastery of any single trend. The credibility sits on volume and range. More than a thousand keynotes across forty-plus countries, twice named Swedish Speaker of the Year by Talarforum, TEDx talks at Arendal and Stockholm, and a client list that runs from IKEA, H&M and Spotify to Microsoft, Deloitte and AstraZeneca. His training as a journalist and economist shows in how the material is built: trend data on one side, behavioural and cultural argument on the other, no filler in between. What buyers tend to single out is the tone. Hyttfors is sceptical of futurism that sells inevitability, and equally sceptical of leadership content that ignores the technology shift underneath. The talk lands as a working brief for the next twelve months, not a prediction about 2035. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight under accelerating change Artificial intelligence and the future of work Digital transformation and behavioural change Leadership in unstable conditions Sustainability and climate as strategic variables Disruptive technology and business model change Trust as a commercial differentiator Ideal for Board and ExCo offsites setting direction under AI, climate and geopolitical uncertainty CHRO and CPO audiences re-scoping workforce strategy around AI capability CSO and strategy leadership teams refreshing planning assumptions for the next cycle Industry conferences in financial services, technology, industrials and consumer where future-of-business framing anchors the programme Audience outcomes A working language for distinguishing signal from noise across AI, climate and geopolitical shifts A clearer view of where their own organisation is over-indexed on predictability and under-indexed on adaptive capacity A behavioural read on why transformation programmes stall, beyond the usual technology or governance explanations Specific prompts for the conversations the leadership team should be having internally in the next two quarters

Why organisations work with Stéphane J.G. Girod Co-author of Resetting Management (Kogan Page, 2021), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022 in Change & Sustainability, with diagnostic tools tested against the agility journeys of LEGO, General Electric, LVMH and ING. Co-edited the Summer 2023 California Management Review special issue on business agility with Julian Birkinshaw of London Business School and Christiane Prange, placing him at the academic centre of how agility is studied and taught. Directs IMD’s Luxury 2050 initiative and the Reinventing Luxury Lab, with named C-suite client work at Richemont, La Prairie, Cartier, PUIG, Mazda and Telenor. His Harvard Business Review article “Restructure or Reconfigure?” (with Samina Karim of Northeastern) gives executives the working distinction that one in three reorganisations get wrong: when to change the underlying structure and when only to recombine units within it. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Organizational Innovation at IMD Business School, Lausanne. Co-author, Resetting Management: Thrive with Agility in the Age of Uncertainty (Kogan Page, 2021); shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022 in Change & Sustainability. Co-editor of the Summer 2023 California Management Review special issue on business agility, with Julian Birkinshaw and Christiane Prange. Forbes columnist on innovation and transformation in luxury industries. Research published in Harvard Business Review, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal and Long Range Planning. DPhil in Strategic Management, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; MBA, Aalto University; speaks seven languages. Forthcoming with Wiley: Purposeful Luxury, on positive-impact sustainability strategies in luxury industries. Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Entertainment and Lifestyle Economy, 2025 to 2026. Biography Most large organisations are not built for the speed at which their markets now change. Strategy cycles run on multi-year horizons. Org charts assume stable competitive advantage. Both premises are under sustained strain in consumer goods, banking, retail and luxury. Stéphane Girod has spent his academic career on the diagnostic question this raises: when planning fails, what replaces it? His book Resetting Management, co-authored with Martin Králik and shortlisted for the 2022 Business Book Awards in Change & Sustainability, sets out a framework for business agility tested against case studies of LEGO, General Electric, LVMH and ING. Agility, in his account, lives at three distinct levels: strategic, organisational, and leadership. Most companies confuse one for another. His base is IMD, where he is Professor of Strategy and Organizational Innovation, leads the Luxury 2050 initiative, and directs the Reinventing Luxury Lab. He works directly with executive teams at Richemont, La Prairie, Cartier, PUIG, Mazda and Telenor on strategy and transformation. His sectoral focus on luxury, retail and consumer goods places him close to the industries where the agility question has become most urgent, where consumer behaviour, digital channels and sustainability pressure are now moving faster than strategic planning can absorb. His research has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal and Long Range Planning. With Samina Karim of Northeastern University, his 2017 HBR article “Restructure or Reconfigure?” gave executives a working distinction between two organisational change strategies that produce very different financial results. He co-edited the Summer 2023 California Management Review special issue on business agility with Julian Birkinshaw of London Business School and Christiane Prange. Girod holds a DPhil from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and speaks seven languages. He writes a Forbes column on innovation and transformation in luxury industries. His forthcoming book with Wiley, Purposeful Luxury, addresses how luxury houses move sustainability from brand narrative into operating substance. Key speaking topics Business agility in established organisations Strategy under uncertainty Organisational design and reconfiguration Digital execution in large companies Innovation and disruption in the luxury sector Sustainability strategy in luxury and consumer goods Leading large-scale transformation Ideal for Executive teams in luxury, consumer goods, retail and banking facing structural disruption Chief strategy officers and transformation leads designing the next planning cycle Boards of luxury and premium brands navigating polarisation, sustainability pressure and shifts in the Chinese market C-suites running a major reorganisation who need to choose between restructuring and reconfiguring Audience outcomes A working distinction between strategic, organisational and leadership agility, with a diagnostic for which one their company needs first A test for whether the next reorganisation should be a restructure or a reconfiguration, and what each implies financially Specific examples of how LEGO, ING, LVMH and General Electric have succeeded and failed at agility, with the lessons that travel across sectors A sector-specific read on how luxury and consumer-goods incumbents are responding to digital channels, sustainability pressure and shifts in the Chinese market

Why organisations work with Stephen Shapiro He treats innovation as a portfolio of small, structured bets rather than a culture programme, which is why his work lands with CFOs and operating leaders, not just innovation teams. His 25 Lenses framework, set out in Invisible Solutions, gives leadership teams a working tool for reframing the questions behind a stalled initiative, rather than another model to admire and shelve. He built and ran Accenture’s 20,000-person process and innovation practice, so the advice is grounded in operating a function at scale, not in observing one. Senior corporate audiences trust him with active programmes: 3M, P&G, Nike, Marriott, NASA, Microsoft, Capital One, and Johnson and Johnson are among the organisations that have brought him in to work on real innovation problems. The 2015 Speaker Hall of Fame induction and Senior Fellow appointment at The Conference Board signal that the speaking craft and the underlying research both meet a serious institutional bar. Biography highlights Senior Fellow, The Conference Board. 15-year career at Accenture, where he built the firm’s 20,000-person process and innovation practice. Inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE) by the National Speakers Association in 2015. Author of seven books, including Best Practices Are Stupid, named 800-CEO-READ’s best innovation and creativity book of the year, and Invisible Solutions, an INDIE Award winner. Industrial Engineering, Cornell University; Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation; six-year term on the NSA Board of Directors. Has worked with leadership teams in over 50 countries, including 3M, P&G, Marriott, Nike, NASA, Microsoft, Capital One, Honda, and Johnson and Johnson. Biography Most corporate innovation programmes fail in the same place. They generate ideas faster than the operating model can absorb them, and the executive committee eventually quietens down because the cost is visible and the return is not. The problem is rarely a shortage of creativity. It is a missing discipline for choosing which questions to spend money on. That is the problem Stephen Shapiro has spent twenty-five years working on. At Accenture he co-led the business process reengineering practice, then built the firm’s 20,000-person process and innovation practice. The shift from efficiency work to growth work shaped the argument that runs through his books: innovation is an operating capability, not a culture, and it can be managed with the same rigour as any other portfolio. His seven books trace that argument. Best Practices Are Stupid, named 800-CEO-READ’s best innovation and creativity book of the year, makes the case for small structured bets over large transformational programmes. Invisible Solutions sets out 25 Lenses for reframing the questions behind a stalled initiative. Pivotal, published in 2024, takes the same discipline into how organisations create stability while continuing to change. The recurring thesis is that better questions are cheaper and more useful than more answers. The institutional credentials reinforce the work. He is a Senior Fellow at The Conference Board, was inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE) in 2015, and holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation. Clients including 3M, P&G, Nike, Marriott, NASA, and Microsoft have brought him in for active innovation programmes rather than thought-leadership set pieces, which is the more useful test of where his work actually lands. Key speaking topics Innovation as a managed corporate discipline Question reframing and problem definition Portfolio approaches to innovation investment Culture and team composition for innovation Stability and adaptability in uncertain markets Growth strategy beyond best-practice benchmarking Ideal for CINOs, heads of innovation, and R&D leaders running enterprise programmes CEOs and strategy leaders trying to convert innovation activity into commercial results Transformation sponsors and operating committees rebuilding the innovation function after a stalled programme Large industrials, financial services, consumer goods, and healthcare organisations with complex internal innovation portfolios Audience outcomes A working method for reframing the strategic question behind a stalled initiative, drawn from the 25 Lenses framework A clear case for replacing large transformational bets with structured small ones, and the financial logic to defend it internally A diagnostic for which innovation activities are producing learning and which are producing motion Specific examples of how named Fortune 500 clients have restructured innovation portfolios, with the trade-offs made visible Language a senior leader can use the next morning to challenge their own innovation roadmap

Why organisations work with Steve Blank Co-creator of the Lean Startup methodology, the operating logic most corporate innovation programmes are now built on, taught by the person who designed it. His Lean LaunchPad curriculum became the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps, now the standard for commercialising research at the NSF, NIH and U.S. Department of Energy. Co-founder of Stanford’s Hacking for Defense programme and the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, with direct experience deploying innovation methodology inside the U.S. defence and intelligence community. Twenty-one years inside eight Silicon Valley startups, with four IPOs including E.piphany. He built what he teaches before he taught it. Named one of 12 Masters of Innovation by Harvard Business Review and listed on the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers. Biography highlights Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University. Author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, The Startup Owner’s Manual, and Hacking for Defense: Innovation Doctrine. May 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story, “Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything,” defined the field. Co-founder of Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation; served on the Defense Business Board and the U.S. Navy’s Science and Technology Advisory Board. Lean LaunchPad class taught at 75+ universities globally; Hacking for Defense at 70+, with more than 70 dual-use startups and over $350 million in follow-on funding. Eight Silicon Valley startups across 21 years, four IPOs, including E.piphany, Zilog, MIPS and SuperMac. Biography Startups search for a business model. Large companies execute one. Conflating the two is what makes most corporate innovation programmes underperform: they apply planning, forecasting and accountability tools designed for known businesses to activities that are inherently exploratory. Steve Blank’s argument, developed across two foundational books and a 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story, is that innovation has to be run as a managed discipline with its own operating logic. The Lean Startup methodology he co-created treats new ventures as a search process, where customer development, hypothesis testing and minimum viable products replace the business plan as the primary instrument of decision-making. His credibility on this is built from doing the work, not just teaching it. He spent 21 years inside eight Silicon Valley startups, four of which went public, including E.piphany. He then took the same methodology into the U.S. federal system: his Lean LaunchPad curriculum was adopted by the National Science Foundation as I-Corps, now the standard for commercialising research at the NSF, NIH and Department of Energy. His Hacking for Defense programme, co-founded at Stanford with Joe Felter and Peter Newell, has produced more than 70 dual-use startups and over $350 million in funding. He teaches at Stanford, Columbia and Berkeley, advises the Department of Defense, and co-founded Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Harvard Business Review has named him one of 12 Masters of Innovation; Thinkers50 ranked him among the global top 50. The reason corporate audiences book him is straightforward: he is one of very few people who has built innovation processes that work inside the most rigid bureaucracies in existence, and he can show a senior team how to do the same. Key speaking topics Lean Startup methodology Corporate innovation at scale Customer development and business model search Entrepreneurship Disruption and incumbent response Innovation inside government and defence Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and corporate venture leaders Boards and executive teams designing or resetting innovation programmes Government and defence leaders responsible for technology adoption and commercialisation Founders, scale-up CEOs and corporate accelerator leadership Audience outcomes A working distinction between executing a known business model and searching for a new one, with the implications for how each should be resourced, measured and led. The operating logic behind customer development, hypothesis testing and minimum viable products as decision-making instruments inside large organisations. Examples from the Lean LaunchPad, NSF I-Corps and Hacking for Defense programmes showing how the methodology has been deployed at federal scale. A diagnostic for why most corporate innovation programmes produce pilots and proofs-of-concept without commercial outcomes.

Why organisations work with Steve Faktor He works from a proprietary, named methodology, the 4C’s of Innovation™, developed inside Fortune 100 innovation programmes at American Express, Citi and MasterCard, not adapted from case studies of others’ work. His operating record is concrete. As head of the $50M Chairman’s Innovation Fund at American Express, he launched commercial products including Zync, LoyaltyEdge, and the Private Sales joint venture with Vente Privée. His 9 Corporate Personality Types™, the viral Forbes piece picked up by NPR, gives audiences a working tool for diagnosing why innovation initiatives die inside specific corporate cultures. He carries a 750,000-strong LinkedIn following from his status as one of the platform’s original 160 Influencers, alongside figures like Richard Branson. Buyers hiring him get a futurist whose calls are public and dated. The voice in Econovation, sharp and satirical, is the same voice on stage. Senior leaders get an honest read on innovation work without the consultant gloss. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of IdeaFaktory, the innovation incubator behind multiple $100M+ businesses for Fortune 100 brands, built on its proprietary 4C’s of Innovation™ process. Former Vice President of Growth and Innovation and Head of the $50M Chairman’s Innovation Fund at American Express, where he launched Zync, LoyaltyEdge and the Private Sales joint venture with Vente Privée. Former SVP of Innovation and Growth Ventures at Citigroup; senior strategy and innovation executive at MasterCard; former management consultant at Arthur Andersen. Author of Econovation: The Red, White, and Blue Pill for Arousing Innovation (Wiley, 2011). Forbes and Harvard Business Review contributor; one of LinkedIn’s original 160 Influencers, with a 750,000-strong executive following. Host of The Trendaddy show; media credits include The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Bloomberg Radio and MSNBC. Graduate of NYU Stern School of Business. Biography At American Express, the Chairman’s Innovation Fund came with a $50M budget and a brief to launch new businesses inside the company. Steve Faktor ran it. Out of that role came Zync, LoyaltyEdge and a Private Sales joint venture with Vente Privée. The same period produced the methodology he has since codified as the 4C’s of Innovation™: context, creativity, capabilities and culture. That methodology is the operating logic he now applies through IdeaFaktory, the innovation firm he founded after leaving AmEx. IdeaFaktory has helped Fortune 100 clients launch multiple $100M+ businesses by partnering with vetted startups and rebuilding their internal innovation programmes from the culture out. The ‘culture out’ part matters. His viral Forbes piece on the 9 Corporate Personality Types, picked up by NPR, came from watching innovation initiatives die at the hands of identifiable, predictable internal characters. Faktor’s second strand of work is futurist. Econovation (Wiley, 2011) argued that consumerism was ending and producerism was emerging, with economic value shifting to those who make rather than those who consume. As one of LinkedIn’s original 160 Influencers, with a 750,000-strong executive following and Forbes and Harvard Business Review columns, he has built more than a decade of dated, public predictions clients can audit. In a boardroom, both strands earn their seat. Senior teams get a working framework rooted in real product P&Ls, the AmEx ones with his name on them, not someone else’s case studies. They also get a voice that has been right enough, often enough, in public, that buyers can audit the work before they commission it. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and methodology Corporate-startup partnerships and commercialisation Growth strategy in financial services and consumer goods Futurism and trend forecasting Innovation culture and corporate change Business model innovation Digital commerce, payments and loyalty Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and Heads of Strategy in Fortune 500 firms whose innovation programmes have plateaued at pilot stage. Growth and commercial leadership teams in financial services, payments and consumer goods evaluating where to commit capital next. Boards and executive committees commissioning a candid, externally validated read on internal innovation capability. Founders and corporate venture teams looking for an operator’s view of how large enterprises actually make buying decisions. Audience outcomes A specific diagnostic for why their innovation programmes are stalling, anchored to the 4C’s of Innovation™. A working vocabulary for the cultural archetypes that block or enable change inside large organisations, drawn from the 9 Corporate Personality Types. A view of which trends in technology, economics and consumer behaviour are most likely to disrupt their P&L over the next five to ten years. A short list of the highest-leverage moves a senior team can make to convert innovation budget into commercial product launches.