Innovation & Disruption speakers

Why organisations work with Steve Wozniak He is the only living engineer who designed both the Apple I and Apple II from scratch – making him the sole speaker who can give an unmediated, first-hand account of the technical and creative decisions that launched the personal computer industry, not a retelling of someone else’s story. His account of innovation is engineering-first, not strategy-first: the Apple II preceded the business plan, not the other way round. That distinction gives organisations a direct counterpoint to the assumption that great products are the output of structured innovation programmes. The National Medal of Technology (1985) and the Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment (2000) – awarded specifically for “single-handedly designing the first personal computer” – are among the most rigorously assessed technology honours in the United States, and are publicly verifiable by any due-diligence process. His three decades of direct involvement in technology education – from adopting a school district to co-founding Woz U in 2017 – extend his argument about curiosity-driven invention into how organisations build and develop technical talent, not just how they manage innovation strategy. His signature format is a moderated conversation, not a fixed keynote: organisations set the agenda, and Wozniak engages directly with the specific challenges the audience brings. The result is different from – and harder to replicate than – a pre-packaged talk. Biography highlights Sole engineer on the Apple I (1976) and Apple II (1977); listed as sole inventor on four Apple patents National Medal of Technology, 1985 – awarded by President Ronald Reagan, jointly with Steve Jobs, for the development and introduction of the personal computer ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, 1979; Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment, 2000; National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee, 2000 Computer History Museum Fellow, 1998 Author of iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon (W.W. Norton, 2006) – a New York Times bestselling autobiography BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley; co-founded Woz U in 2017, a postsecondary software engineering and technology training platform Founding sponsor of the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose and The Tech Interactive, Silicon Valley’s technology museum Biography The Apple II was built by one engineer, on his own time, because the problem interested him. Steve Wozniak had no brief, no product committee, and no market research – just an engineering puzzle he found compelling. That creative condition is what produced the personal computer industry, and it is what Wozniak has spent decades trying to explain and, through his education work, replicate. That engineering-first perspective sets his account apart from those who discuss innovation as a strategic discipline. The Apple II preceded the business, not the other way round. Its colour graphics, integrated keyboard, and floppy disk drive were engineering decisions, not market-research conclusions. The product that launched a global industry was a technical artefact made by a person who loved making things. That distinction matters to any organisation asking why its own innovation efforts consistently underperform. The recognition that followed has been rigorous and specific. Wozniak received the National Medal of Technology in 1985 – jointly with Steve Jobs, for the development and introduction of the personal computer – the highest honour for technological achievement awarded by the United States government. The ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award recognised his contributions in 1979. In 2000, the Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment cited him explicitly for designing the first personal computer and redirecting his work toward education. He holds four Apple patents and is a Fellow of the Computer History Museum. His commitment to education has been sustained and direct. He adopted the Los Gatos School District, co-founded Woz U in 2017 to expand access to software engineering training, and has taught computer literacy in classrooms. His autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon (W.W. Norton, 2006), was a New York Times bestseller. His BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley was completed years after Apple had already become a global company – a fact that says something about what he values and why. Key speaking topics Engineering-led innovation and market creation The founding of Apple Computer Entrepreneurial thinking inside large organisations The origins of the personal computer industry Robotics, AI, and automation Technology education and technical talent development Creative freedom and engineering culture Ideal for CEOs and board-level audiences examining why large-organisation innovation consistently underperforms relative to investment CTOs, Chief Innovation Officers, and engineering leadership teams seeking a primary-source perspective on invention rather than innovation methodology Corporate innovation programmes and R&D functions looking to ground strategy in engineering-first thinking Technology and digital transformation conferences requiring a speaker whose credibility is structural, not positional Audience outcomes A first-hand account of the technical decisions and working conditions that produced the Apple I and Apple II – the machines that defined personal computing A clearer understanding of why genuine invention tends to emerge from curiosity and freedom rather than process and planning cycles Practical perspective on what organisations can do – and stop doing – to allow engineering talent and technical curiosity to produce commercially significant results Insight into the relationship between education, hands-on technical skill, and the kind of innovation that creates new industries rather than improves existing ones Exposure to a model of entrepreneurship that began with engineering before it had a business – and what that sequence reveals about how lasting technology companies are actually built

Why organisations work with Sydney Finkelstein His work is grounded in two decade-long research programmes: one into executive failure, published as Why Smart Executives Fail, and one into talent-generating leaders, published as Superbosses. Both give clients an evidence base that a typical leadership keynote does not. As Steven Roth Professor of Management at Dartmouth Tuck and Director of the Tuck Executive Program, he is embedded in the executive development the organisations he speaks to actually attend. Thinkers50 recognition, Fellowship of the Academy of Management, and multiple Best Paper Awards provide the independent external validation that boards and chief people officers look for before investing in a headline speaker. His client list, including American Express, Barclays, Boeing, Chevron, Deutsche Bank, GE, Glaxo and Heinz, means his material has been tested in front of some of the same leadership teams his audiences sit in. He presents research-heavy material in plain English, a point the Wall Street Journal called out explicitly in its review of Why Smart Executives Fail. Biography highlights Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College Director of the Tuck Executive Program Author of Superbosses (Penguin Portfolio, 2016) and Why Smart Executives Fail (Penguin Portfolio, 2003), among 20-plus books and 90-plus articles Thinkers50 ranked management thinker Fellow of the Academy of Management; Academy of Management Executive Best Paper Awards (1997, 2004) Regular BBC contributor; consulting clients including American Express, Barclays, Boeing, Chevron, Deutsche Bank, GE, Glaxo and Heinz Biography Why executives fail is a more answerable question than most organisations assume. Sydney Finkelstein’s career has been built around answering it. As Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and Director of the Tuck Executive Program, he has spent two decades combining academic rigour with the specifics of named corporate failures, a body of work that is now a standard reference in leadership and strategy literature. Why Smart Executives Fail, published in 2003 by Penguin Portfolio, remains the book that sets out the diagnostic pattern. The Wall Street Journal described it as «a marvel, a jargon-free business book based on serious research». His subsequent book, Superbosses, took the opposite question, why some leaders produce more outstanding talent than their peers, and spent ten years answering it through figures ranging from Ralph Lauren, Lorne Michaels and George Lucas to hedge fund founder Julian Robertson and chef Alice Waters. The thesis has since shaped how senior HR and CEO succession teams think about talent generation at the top of organisations. Finkelstein is one of the recurring names on the Thinkers50 list, a Fellow of the Academy of Management and the recipient of multiple Academy of Management Executive Best Paper Awards in 1997 and 2004. His writing extends beyond books to more than 90 articles, and he contributes regularly to the BBC. The consulting and speaking work sits with organisations including American Express, Barclays, Boeing, Chevron, Deutsche Bank, GE, Glaxo and Heinz. For boards and executive teams facing difficult succession, integration or leadership-change questions, the useful thing about Finkelstein is the combination of research archive and plain-language delivery. He arrives with frameworks his audiences have probably read in HBR, but with the corporate case material to apply them without slipping into abstraction. Key speaking topics Why smart executives fail Superbosses and talent-generating leadership Leadership decision-making under pressure Strategic renewal and «built to change» organisations Succession, talent pipelines and HR strategy for the C-suite Innovation leadership Ideal for Boards, CEOs and executive committees working through succession, turnaround or post-M&A leadership decisions CHROs and heads of executive development designing senior leadership and succession programmes Corporate universities and executive education programmes looking for a Thinkers50 headliner with teaching credentials Industry conferences and CEO summits where research-grade leadership content is expected Audience outcomes A specific framework for identifying the decision patterns that precede executive failure The Superbosses model of talent generation, translated into practical leadership behaviours Named case material drawn from high-profile corporate failures and successes, usable in the audience’s own context Reference points that connect academic research with clients including American Express, Barclays, Boeing and GE A sharper view of the link between leadership behaviour, talent pipeline and long-run organisational performance

Why organisations work with Talya Miron-Shatz Trained directly under Daniel Kahneman at Princeton, with a research output of more than 60 peer-reviewed papers anchoring every commercial recommendation in published evidence. Translates behavioural science into specific design decisions on consent forms, patient journeys, adherence programmes and customer communications, not abstract nudges. Operating credibility with global pharma and consumer brands including Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Novartis, BMS, AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim and Samsung, where she has worked on advisory boards, customer outreach and behaviour-change programmes. Author of Your Life Depends on It (Basic Books, 2021), a book-length argument for why even motivated customers fail to act on the information they are given, and what producers of products and information can do about it. Biography highlights Full Professor, Ono Academic College, Faculty of Business Administration. Visiting Researcher, Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, University of Cambridge. Postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University with Daniel Kahneman; former adjunct lecturer in consumer behaviour at the Wharton School. Author of Your Life Depends on It (Basic Books, 2021); over 60 peer-reviewed publications on decision-making and behaviour change. CEO of CureMyWay, advising pharmaceutical companies, insurers and digital health firms on patient and customer behaviour. Senior Fellow, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, New York. Biography Most customer decisions are not made the way product strategy assumes. People skim consent forms, default to inaction, misread probabilities and disengage at the precise points a business model depends on them showing up. Closing that gap is the practical job of behavioural science in commercial settings, and it is the question Talya Miron-Shatz has spent two decades answering. Her research training came from inside the field that defined the question. After a PhD in psychology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, she spent four years at Princeton as a postdoctoral fellow under Daniel Kahneman, then taught consumer behaviour at the Wharton School. She is now a full professor at Ono Academic College and a visiting researcher at the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge, with more than 60 peer-reviewed publications on decision-making, risk communication and patient comprehension. The applied work matters as much as the academic record. As CEO of CureMyWay she has advised Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Novartis, BMS, AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim and Samsung on how to design products, communications and customer pathways that line up with how people actually process information. Her 2021 book Your Life Depends on It (Basic Books) sets out the underlying argument: even highly motivated customers fail to act when the choice architecture is wrong, and the responsibility sits with the organisation that designed it. What this gives a leadership team is a behavioural lens with operating teeth. Pricing, product, marketing and customer experience decisions get tested against published evidence on attention, comprehension and choice, and the recommendations come back as specific design changes a team can ship. Key speaking topics Behavioural economics in commercial decision-making Choice architecture and customer experience Risk communication and information design Patient and consumer behaviour in healthcare Decision-making under uncertainty Behaviour change and adherence Wellbeing and the science of life satisfaction Ideal for Pharmaceutical, medtech and health insurance leadership teams designing patient and physician journeys CMOs, CX leaders and product heads in regulated consumer markets Strategy and innovation teams using behavioural insight to shape pricing, communication and service design Boards and executive committees commissioning customer behaviour-change programmes Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for diagnosing where customer decisions break down and why Specific design moves to apply to communications, consent flows, choice menus and adherence programmes A clear separation between behavioural insight that holds up in published research and the looser claims of the broader nudge industry Evidence-based ways to align product, marketing and operations around real customer cognition rather than assumed rationality

Why organisations work with Tan Le A working neurotech CEO. EMOTIV’s brainwear is used by researchers and enterprises in over 140 countries and cited across more than 4,000 peer-reviewed studies. Her view of where neurotechnology meets business is built on shipped products and enterprise pilots with companies like Dell and JLL. A defined thesis for the next decade. Her book The NeuroGeneration sets out how brain science, AI, and consumer-grade neurotechnology are converging into a new generation of human-machine integration. Leadership audiences leave with a structured way to think about a domain most have only encountered through headlines. Credibility at the level boards take seriously. She holds a board seat at ASX-listed QBE Insurance Group, sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Neurotechnologies and Brain Science, and writes for the Forbes Technology Council. The cognitive workplace, made tangible. EMOTIV’s enterprise products measure attention and cognitive stress in everyday work settings. For leadership teams thinking about productivity and wellbeing as separate questions, she shows how cognitive measurement is starting to bring them together. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of EMOTIV, the Silicon Valley neurotechnology company whose EEG-based brain-computer interface technology is used in over 140 countries and validated across more than 4,000 peer-reviewed studies Author of The NeuroGeneration: The New Era in Brain Enhancement That Is Revolutionizing the Way We Think, Work, and Heal (BenBella/Simon & Schuster, 2020), endorsed by Klaus Schwab and David Eagleman Non-Executive Director of QBE Insurance Group, an ASX-listed multinational insurer with over 11,700 employees across more than 27 countries Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Neurotechnologies and Brain Science, and a WEF Young Global Leader since 2009 Three-time TED speaker; her TEDxWomen talk “My Immigration Story” has been viewed more than 1.4 million times Recipient of the Industrial Research Institute Achievement Award (2018), Young Australian of the Year (1998), Fast Company Most Influential Women in Technology (2010), Forbes 50 Names You Need to Know (2011), and National Geographic Emerging Explorer (2013); her portrait is held in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia Biography Wireless EEG technology has crossed out of the research lab into everyday environments. Offices, classrooms, and consumer products are starting to use brain data in ways that were impossible a decade ago. EMOTIV has been one of the companies opening that path. Tan Le founded EMOTIV in 2011 and runs it today. The company’s headsets and earbuds turn brain activity into usable data for researchers and enterprises in more than 140 countries, with citations across over 4,000 peer-reviewed studies. Pilots with Dell and JLL apply that measurement to attention and cognitive stress in real workplace settings. Her book The NeuroGeneration (Simon & Schuster, 2020) traces how brain-computer interfaces, neural stimulation, and AI are converging into human-machine integration that reshapes work, healthcare, and learning. The book carries endorsements from Klaus Schwab and David Eagleman. Le sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Neurotechnologies and Brain Science. She also holds a board seat at ASX-listed QBE Insurance Group and writes for the Forbes Technology Council. That biographical arc adds to the institutional credibility. She arrived in Australia as a four-year-old refugee from Vietnam and was named Young Australian of the Year at 21. Today, she runs one of the most cited platforms in mobile EEG research. Her portrait sits in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia. Key speaking topics Brain-computer interfaces and neurotechnology The future of work and human-machine integration AI, automation, and cognitive augmentation Workplace wellbeing and cognitive performance Innovation and entrepreneurship in deep technology The ethics and governance of neurotechnology Reinvention and outsider thinking Ideal for Boards and CEOs setting long-range technology strategy in financial services, healthcare, technology, and consumer industries Chief Technology Officers and Chief Innovation Officers are thinking about the convergence of AI, neurotech, and human performance CHROs and Chief People Officers looking for substantive content on cognitive workplace design beyond the wellness category Founders and growth-stage entrepreneurs working at frontier-technology intersections Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of which neurotechnology and brain-computer interface applications are operating today and which are still emerging The argument behind The NeuroGeneration, with concrete examples from enterprise pilots and clinical research A practical frame for how cognitive measurement is starting to change how leaders think about workplace productivity and wellbeing A view of the ethical and governance questions board-level decision-makers will face as neurotechnology moves into enterprise use Sharper questions to ask vendors and internal teams making claims about brain-related products

Why organisations work with Tania de Jong AM A working body of evidence that creativity is buildable inside an organisation, drawn from six businesses and four charities she has founded, including Creative Universe, Creativity Australia and The Song Room. Co-founder and Executive Director of Mind Medicine Australia, the organisation behind Australia’s 2023 rescheduling of psilocybin and MDMA for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD, the first national framework of its kind in the world. A keynote format that pairs argument with live performance, used at Thinkers50 European Business Forum in Denmark and the International Forum on Consciousness in the United States, and tested across more than 40 countries. Eight editions of the Creative Innovation Asia Pacific Global Forum, awarded Corporate Event of the Year at the global Eventex Awards, giving her direct exposure to how international leaders are framing innovation, AI, wellbeing and the future of work. A position on social inclusion through the With One Voice programme that is grounded in operating practice, not theory, having reached thousands of participants across community choirs in Australia. Biography highlights Co-founder and Executive Director of Mind Medicine Australia, the organisation behind the world-first 2023 rescheduling of psilocybin and MDMA in Australia for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD. Member of the Order of Australia (AM), 2008, for service to the arts and to music and arts enrichment programmes in schools and communities. Founder of Creativity Australia, Creative Universe, Creative Innovation Global, The Song Room, MTA Entertainment & Events, Dimension5 and Pot-Pourri. Keynote speaker at the Thinkers50 European Business Forum, Denmark, 2018, and the International Forum on Consciousness, United States, 2019; TEDxMelbourne speaker, “How singing together changes the brain”. Named in the Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence, Richtopia’s 100 Most Influential Australian Entrepreneurs, and Psychedelic Invest’s 100 Most Influential People in Psychedelics. Ernst and Young Australian Social Entrepreneur of the Year; Churchill Fellow; AGSE Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame, Swinburne University; Bachelor of Law (Honours), University of Melbourne. Special guest performer on Dr Bessel van der Kolk’s 2026 four-city Australian workshop tour for The Body Keeps the Score, presented with Mind Medicine Australia; speaker on psychedelic-assisted therapies at Dave Asprey’s BEYOND Biohacking Conference in Austin, Texas. Biography Australia became the first country in the world to reschedule psilocybin and MDMA for the treatment of depression and PTSD in 2023. Mind Medicine Australia, which de Jong co-founded with Peter Hunt and now runs as Executive Director, did the regulatory and clinical groundwork that made it possible. That outcome is the clearest statement of how de Jong tends to work: a long-running campaign to change a system that most assume cannot be moved. The same pattern runs through the rest of her record. Six businesses and four charities, including Creative Universe, Creativity Australia, The Song Room and Creative Innovation Global, each built around a specific argument about creativity, inclusion or social repair. The Song Room alone has reached over a million Australian students through music programmes in schools that would not otherwise access them. Her speaking work is unusual in form. She is a classically trained soprano who has performed in over 40 countries, and her keynotes weave argument with live singing. Thinkers50 invited her to keynote its European Business Forum in 2018, and in 2026 she performed as special guest on Dr Bessel van der Kolk’s Australian tour for The Body Keeps the Score. Her TEDxMelbourne talk on the neuroscience of group singing is often cited in workplace wellbeing writing. The substantive claim underneath all of it is that creativity and collective purpose are operating disciplines. The Creative Innovation Asia Pacific Global Forum, which she has run eight times and which won Corporate Event of the Year at the Eventex Awards, is the working venue for that argument across AI, leadership, wellbeing and the future of work. Key speaking topics Creativity as a strategic discipline Innovation culture and the future of work Entrepreneurship and social enterprise Mental health, wellbeing and the neuroscience of connection Diversity, inclusion and collective purpose Leadership in disruption and reinvention Storytelling and performance in business communication Ideal for CHROs and culture leads designing engagement, wellbeing and inclusion programmes that need to land beyond the slide deck. Innovation leads, transformation directors and strategy teams looking to move creativity from training programme to operating practice. CEOs and boards in sectors facing structural reinvention, where the soft conditions of change are as material as the hard ones. Conference organisers seeking a keynote that combines argument with live performance and high audience engagement. Audience outcomes A specific case for treating creativity as a leadership capability, not a workshop output. A working view of how social inclusion and collective practice change individual and team performance, drawn from the With One Voice programme and supporting neuroscience. An updated read on the global innovation agenda, informed by eight editions of the Creative Innovation Asia Pacific Forum. Exposure to one of the few global voices arguing for psychedelic-assisted therapy as a serious instrument of mental health policy, with evidence from the Australian rescheduling. A keynote experience that uses live performance to shift the energy of a room, useful for conferences that need a tonal lift alongside content.

Why organisations work with Tanya Menon A research voice on inclusion that starts with network structure, hiring data, and decision bias rather than identity language, useful for leadership teams that need substance under a contested topic. Tenured academic credibility: Stanford PhD, Fisher College professorship, Associate Editor at Management Science, a decade teaching Power and Influence at Chicago Booth. Co-author of Stop Spending, Start Managing (Harvard Business Review Press), which names five specific organisational traps including expertise lock-in and conflict avoidance, applied directly to senior team behaviour. A TED Talk with 1.8 million-plus views that translates weak-tie network research into a behaviour senior leaders and their teams can immediately recognise in themselves. Equally fluent on team performance, persuasion, and hiring, which makes her a credible single speaker across an HR or culture programme rather than one topic in a series. Biography highlights Professor of Management and Human Resources, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University. PhD, Stanford Graduate School of Business; BA, Harvard University. Associate Editor, Management Science. Co-author, Stop Spending, Start Managing: Strategies to Transform Wasteful Habits, Harvard Business Review Press. TED Talk listed among TED.com’s most popular of 2018, with over 1.8 million views. Faculty for over a decade at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, teaching Power and Influence. Research cited in The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Guardian, The Times of London, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe. Biography Most senior teams know who they talk to every day. Far fewer can name who they have stopped talking to, and what that has cost the organisation. Tanya Menon’s research starts in that gap. Her work at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, supported by a Stanford PhD and a decade teaching at Chicago Booth, focuses on how relationships at work shape decisions, hiring, and innovation. Her TED Talk, “The secret to great opportunities? The person you haven’t met yet,” reframes networking as a structural problem rather than a personal one. Drawing on Mark Granovetter’s classic work on weak ties, she shows why the routines that feel efficient inside an organisation quietly narrow the people, ideas, and candidates a leader ever encounters. Over 1.8 million people have watched it. With Leigh Thompson of Kellogg, she wrote Stop Spending, Start Managing for Harvard Business Review Press. The book identifies five concrete traps, including the Expertise Trap, the Winner’s Trap, and the Agreement Trap, that explain why competent teams burn time and money on the wrong problems. It is built for leaders who run real teams, not for a general management audience. She has been an Associate Editor at Management Science, and her research has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Guardian, The Times of London, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe. The through-line is a usable diagnostic vocabulary for the parts of organisational life that look like soft skills until they start producing hard losses. Key speaking topics Networks and weak ties at work Inclusion through hiring and network design Team decision-making and productive conflict Power, persuasion, and influence Innovation and pattern-breaking Wasteful organisational habits and managerial traps AI and human decision-making in hiring Ideal for CHROs and Heads of Talent rethinking hiring pipelines and selection bias. Heads of DEI and culture leaders looking for a research-led, non-ideological frame for inclusion. Senior leadership teams under pressure to improve cross-functional collaboration. Learning and development leads designing executive programmes on influence, networks, and team performance. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the network and hiring habits that quietly limit inclusion and innovation. Five named organisational traps senior teams can test their own behaviour against. A research-grounded view of weak ties as a hiring, learning, and idea-generation lever. Specific tactics for breaking routine social patterns inside large organisations. A more defensible inclusion narrative grounded in network structure and decision data.

Why organisations work with Taryn Southern She produced the first solo-artist pop album composed with AI in 2018, when most organisations were still asking whether generative tools could ship anything usable. The lessons on creative workflow integration are now several years ahead of most enterprise practice. She runs storytelling and external communications at Blackrock Neurotech, an implantable BCI company, which gives her a working view of the next technology layer beyond generative AI. Her documentary work, including «I AM HUMAN» at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, gives her a rare ability to translate frontier neurotechnology into language a non-technical board can use. She has keynoted SXSW, Web Summit, the World AI Summit, and NY Times Future of Work, and has been booked by Google, Salesforce, Deloitte, and Gartner. Senior tech audiences treat her as a peer, not a populariser. Biography highlights Chief Storytelling Officer at Blackrock Neurotech since 2021, leading story strategy for funding rounds totalling over $230M led by Thiel Capital, Apeiron, and Tether Released «I AM AI» in 2018, the first solo-artist pop album composed and produced with AI tools including Amper, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta, and AIVA Directed and produced «I AM HUMAN,» premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival; subsequent awards include Best Director at Oslo Film Fest Three-time Streamy Awards nominee; 2018 Geena Davis Award recipient for innovative female filmmaking Keynote speaker at SXSW, Web Summit, World AI Summit, Google’s AI Summit, VidCon, The Next Web, NY Times Future of Work Featured in Vanity Fair, Billboard, Fast Company, Wired, Forbes, Psychology Today, and Harvard Business Review Biography The first solo-artist pop album composed with AI was released in September 2018, before most enterprises had finished their first ChatGPT briefing note. «I AM AI» used Amper, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta, and AIVA, with the lead single «Break Free» reaching the Top 100 radio charts. The interest, for a serious audience, is not the novelty. It is what the project showed about how a working creative integrates these tools into a production workflow that ships. That production credibility is the spine of the work Taryn Southern now does with senior teams. She has produced more than 1,500 videos across more than a decade of digital media, advised early product teams at YouTube, Google VR, and Snapchat, and directed an award-winning Google VR series. The vantage point is unusual: she has built original commercial product with generative tools at every stage of their maturity. Since 2021 she has been Chief Storytelling Officer at Blackrock Neurotech, the implantable brain-computer interface company. She launched what the company describes as the world’s first BCI museum, oversaw a corporate rebrand and the formation of a BCI Ethics Advisory board, and led communications strategy for funding rounds totalling over $230M, with investors including Thiel Capital, Apeiron, and Tether. The role gives her a working view of the technology layer that arrives after generative AI, and the regulatory and ethical questions a board will be asked to take a position on within the next decade. Her directorial debut, «I AM HUMAN,» premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and followed three of the first patients to receive implantable brain-computer interfaces. The film is the practical bridge in her work with corporate audiences: it shows what the next frontier of human-machine technology looks like in a hospital, in a home, and in the conversations a serious organisation will need to have about it well before the technology becomes commonplace. Key speaking topics Generative AI in creative production AI-augmented workflows and creative practice Brain-computer interfaces and human-machine integration Frontier neurotechnology and ethics Storytelling for emerging technology companies The future of human and artificial intelligence Ideal for Boards and leadership teams setting AI strategy beyond initial pilots Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Communications Officers, and creative leadership integrating generative tools into production Innovation, R&D, and strategy leaders tracking neurotech and the post-AI technology stack Senior leadership conferences in technology, media, healthcare, and life sciences Audience outcomes A working understanding of how generative AI tools function inside a real production workflow, drawn from a practitioner who has shipped commercial product A grounded view of brain-computer interface technology, what it currently does, where it is going, and the questions boards will face A sharper sense of which categories of creative and knowledge work are most exposed to generative AI, and which remain durably human An informed perspective on the ethical and governance terrain emerging at the intersection of AI and neurotechnology

Why organisations work with Terence Mauri He gives leadership teams a defined decision framework, DARE (Data, Agility, Risk, Evolution), drawn from his Wiley and Thinkers50 book, that turns “respond to disruption” from a slogan into a working method. His vantage point sits across operating roles, not commentary alone: founder of Hack Future Lab, Entrepreneur Mentor in Residence at MIT, visiting professor at IE Business School. Senior audiences can tell the difference. The content is built for the AI era without becoming a technology lecture. The argument is about how executives think, choose, and govern when technology cycles are shorter than planning cycles. He writes for a senior business readership through a monthly Inc.com column, “Future Proof,” which means the room hears arguments that have already been pressure-tested in print. Biography highlights Founder of Hack Future Lab, a global management think tank focused on leadership, AI, and disruption. Author of The Upside of Disruption (Wiley, in partnership with Thinkers50, 2024), centred on his DARE framework. Earlier books include The Leader’s Mindset and The 3D Leader. Entrepreneur Mentor in Residence at MIT and visiting professor at IE Business School. Inc.com columnist, author of the “Future Proof” column. Described by Thinkers50 as “an influential and outspoken thinker on the future of leadership.” Biography The hardest part of leading through disruption is not recognising that the environment has changed. It is changing the way a senior team decides while the business still has to deliver this quarter. That gap, between awareness and operating practice, is the question Terence Mauri has spent his work addressing. His most recent book, The Upside of Disruption, was published by Wiley in 2024 in partnership with Thinkers50. It introduces the DARE framework, Data, Agility, Risk, Evolution, as a way of organising executive decisions when conditions will not stabilise. Earlier books, The Leader’s Mindset and The 3D Leader, traced the same thread through the language of mindset and leadership behaviour. The institutional ground underneath the work matters. Mauri founded Hack Future Lab as a global management think tank, and holds active posts as Entrepreneur Mentor in Residence at MIT and visiting professor at IE Business School. He writes the “Future Proof” column for Inc.com, which is where many of the arguments arrive in public before they appear in a keynote. Thinkers50, the management ranking authority, has called him “an influential and outspoken thinker on the future of leadership.” For a senior team weighing whether to put a speaker in front of their own leadership, the practical question is sharper: he gives them a structured way to talk about decisions in conditions of uncertainty, drawn from a published framework rather than a slide deck. Key speaking topics Leadership in the age of AI Decision-making under uncertainty Future readiness and organisational agility Disruption as a strategic input, not a threat Executive mindset and unlearning Innovation and growth in fast-changing markets Ideal for CEOs and executive committees setting strategy in conditions where AI and market shifts have shortened planning horizons. CHROs and chief learning officers redesigning leadership development for senior cohorts. Boards and transformation leads asking how the organisation should make decisions, not just which technology to adopt. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for how senior leaders make decisions when the operating context is actively changing. The DARE framework as a structure for diagnosing where the leadership team is strong and where it is exposed. A sharper read on the difference between adopting AI and leading through the AI era. A set of named behaviours, around unlearning, calculated risk, and trust, that senior teams can return to after the keynote.

Why organisations work with Terry Virts He has held command in an environment where a missed checklist item ends a mission. That experience reframes what risk discipline looks like inside a corporate operating model. His ISS tour was a multinational, multilingual command, including Russian, American, and European crew members during a politically tense period. He speaks credibly to leaders managing cross-border teams under strain. He filmed A Beautiful Planet from orbit and authored View From Above with National Geographic. The visual material is a working asset for keynote audiences, not a slideshow. The 2019 One More Orbit polar circumnavigation is a current, civilian, board-relevant case study in mission planning, contingency design, and small-team execution. He writes and speaks fluently on the practical content of command, not the metaphor of it. His book How to Astronaut is the operating manual version of his keynote material. Beyond the keynote, he runs an experiential exercise built on the Apollo 13 carbon dioxide emergency, where teams split into mission control and flight crew and build a working scrubber from mismatched parts against a countdown. The room lives the coordination problem under time pressure. Biography highlights Retired NASA astronaut, US Air Force colonel, and former F-16 test pilot with over 5,300 flight hours across 40-plus aircraft types. Pilot of STS-130 aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, 2010. Commander of the International Space Station, Expedition 43, with 200 days in orbit and three spacewalks. Author of View From Above (National Geographic, 2017) and How to Astronaut (Workman Publishing, 2020). Lead astronaut cinematographer on the IMAX feature A Beautiful Planet, narrated by Jennifer Lawrence. Captain of the One More Orbit crew that set the FAI- and Guinness-certified world record for fastest pole-to-pole circumnavigation of Earth in July 2019. Biography A space station does not forgive a poorly briefed handover. Six people from three countries, in a structure travelling at 17,500 miles per hour, run on a checklist culture so disciplined it sounds bureaucratic until it saves a life. Terry Virts commanded that environment for Expedition 43, and the reason serious organisations book him is that the discipline travels. His route into that command is the spine of credibility. US Air Force Academy in Mathematics, F-16 pilot, test pilot, NASA selection in 2000, pilot of Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-130, then 200 days aboard the ISS with three spacewalks and the command of a multinational crew. A General Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2011 sits in the middle of that arc, which matters: he reads commercial decision-making in the language an executive audience uses. The post-NASA work is where the speaking proposition sharpens. He photographed and filmed the ISS for the IMAX feature A Beautiful Planet, published View From Above with National Geographic, and wrote How to Astronaut for Workman in 2020. In 2019, he led the One More Orbit crew that circled the planet over both poles in 46 hours 40 minutes, setting the FAI- and Guinness-certified world record. It is a civilian mission with a board-room shape: small team, hard constraint, narrow window. What sets Virts apart from the broader astronaut speaker pool is how specific his operational material is. He does not deliver awe. He delivers the structure beneath the awe, which is what senior teams come for. Key speaking topics Crisis leadership and command decision-making Risk discipline in high-consequence operations Cross-cultural team leadership under pressure Mission planning and contingency design Lessons from human spaceflight for executive teams Innovation in extreme environments Earth observation and the climate perspective from orbit Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and operating leaders running businesses with high-consequence decisions Boards and executive committees focused on crisis preparedness and operational resilience Senior teams managing cross-border or multinational workforces under political strain Aerospace, defence, energy, and engineering leadership audiences Audience outcomes A working model of how command-grade decision discipline operates when checklists run out A clearer view of what risk leadership looks like in environments where errors are irreversible Concrete examples of multinational team management under sustained operational stress A perspective on Earth, climate, and human capability that lifts the room without softening the argument

Why organisations work with Tia White Operator perspective from inside a hyperscaler. She runs go-to-market, product and engineering for an AWS AI portfolio tracking over USD 25M in profit, including some of the fastest-growing services at AWS. A track record of taking generative AI and personalisation from theory into customer-facing product. She led the introduction of Personalized Search, Next Best Action and generative AI capabilities into Amazon Personalize. Cross-sector enterprise fluency. Before AWS she held senior technology roles at Wells Fargo, Capital One and JPMorgan Chase, leading regulated digital transformation programmes in financial services. A specific point of view on what separates AI investments that compound from AI investments that stall, grounded in current AWS customer work rather than vendor abstraction. A credible voice on building the technical leadership bench behind AI, including women and Black technologists, that boards are now being asked to account for. Biography highlights General Manager, AI and Machine Learning, Amazon Web Services. First Black woman hired as a GM in Machine Learning, AI and Analytics at AWS. Director of Engineering at a Fortune 100 company before age 30. Prior senior technology roles at Wells Fargo, Capital One and JPMorgan Chase. Led the launch of new Amazon Personalize capabilities including Personalized Search, Next Best Action and generative AI features; speaker at AWS re:Invent 2022 on personalisation. Featured in Forbes; keynote and emcee credits include SXSW and the Grace Hopper Celebration. Board and advisory roles include Rewriting the Code. Biography Generative AI has moved faster than most enterprise operating models can absorb. Inside AWS, Tia White runs the AI and Machine Learning business that customers turn to when a pilot has to become a product. She owns go-to-market, product and engineering for an AI portfolio tracking over USD 25M in profit, including some of the fastest-growing services at AWS. Her work at AWS includes leading the next generation of Amazon Personalize, with features such as Personalized Search, Next Best Action and generative AI capabilities now used by enterprises to lift engagement and revenue. She has spoken at AWS re:Invent on personalisation as an operating discipline rather than a marketing feature, and is regularly cited by AWS as a voice on what Gen Y and Gen Z customers expect from personalised experiences. Before AWS she held senior technology roles at Wells Fargo, Capital One and JPMorgan Chase, including the leadership of public cloud migrations in financial services. She reached Director of Engineering at a Fortune 100 company before the age of 30. That financial services background gives her a working answer to the questions regulated industries are now asking about generative AI, data, privacy and risk. She was the first Black woman hired as a GM in Machine Learning, AI and Analytics at AWS, and uses that platform to address the harder question behind most AI roadmaps, which is whether the organisation has the talent and the leadership bench to deliver them. She has been featured in Forbes, has keynoted and emceed at SXSW and the Grace Hopper Celebration, and sits on boards including Rewriting the Code. Key speaking topics Generative AI in the enterprise Personalisation as a revenue and engagement discipline AI agents and agentic workflows Machine learning in regulated industries Cloud migration and digital transformation Responsible AI and bias mitigation Building diverse technical leadership in AI and engineering Ideal for CTOs, CIOs and Chief Data and AI Officers moving from AI pilots into production CMOs and Chief Customer Officers investing in personalisation, recommendation and customer engagement Boards and executive committees in financial services, retail and regulated industries setting AI strategy CHROs and DEI leads responsible for the technical talent pipeline behind AI Audience outcomes A clearer read on which generative AI use cases pay back and which do not, drawn from live AWS customer patterns. A working view of personalisation as an operating capability that touches data, product and engineering, not a marketing campaign. Sharper questions for the board on AI risk, privacy and the operating model around generative AI. A concrete sense of what the technical leadership bench behind a serious AI roadmap looks like, and where most organisations are short.

Why organisations work with Tim Cole He began writing about the commercial internet in 1995, when he started one of the first online diaries in Germany, before the word blog existed. A thirty-year record of covering technology cycles is what lets him tell an inflection point from a sales pitch. AI Means Business and Digitale Transformation are written for non-technical managers, which is the constituency most companies actually need to move. He pitches at the board, not at the engineering org. As editor-in-chief of Smart Industry, he has continuous visibility into how Industry 4.0, IoT and cognitive computing are being deployed inside European manufacturers, which makes his examples concrete rather than aspirational. Wild Wild Web compares today’s platform giants to the monopolists of the 19th-century American frontier and argues for a code of digital ethics. It gives boards a usable vocabulary for GAFA dependency, regulation and digital sovereignty. He works in English and German, and has covered the German Mittelstand since the 1990s. On identity and access management he has operator standing, having co-founded the European analyst firm KuppingerCole in 2004. Biography highlights Editor-in-chief, Smart Industry – the IoT Business Magazine, since 2016. Editor-in-chief of the internet business magazine Net Investor; long-running columnist for FAZ, VDI-Nachrichten, Der Standard and IX. Author of around a dozen books on the digital economy, including Success Factor Internet (Econ, 1999), Digital Enlightenment Now! with Ossi Urchs, Digitale Transformation (Vahlen, 2015), Wild Wild Web (2018) and AI Means Business (2020). One of the first journalists in Germany to cover the internet; began writing an online diary in 1995, before the word blog existed. American-born, resident in German-speaking Europe since 1961 and now based in Austria; anchored the technology programme eTalk for n-tv and N24. Co-founder in 2004 of KuppingerCole, the European analyst firm for identity and access management, and a Distinguished Fellow of the firm; appointed in 2010 to run its US operation from Boston. Biography Success Factor Internet came out in 1999, four years after Tim Cole began writing an online diary, before the word blog existed. The books that followed, Digitale Transformation and AI Means Business among them, keep returning to the same question. How does a real company, with a real cost base and real customers, actually change? That long record is the asset. As editor-in-chief of Smart Industry, the IoT business magazine, Cole reports on European manufacturers moving from connected sensors to operating advantage, and on where those programmes stall. The magazine covers IIoT, Industry 4.0, cognitive computing and predictive analysis, which keeps his examples close to what companies are actually running. His audience is the non-technical manager. The books are written for executives who make capital allocation calls on AI, IoT and platform strategy without being engineers. They need a clear account of what the technology cannot do as well as what it can. He writes from inside the European debate on identity and security. In 2004 he co-founded KuppingerCole, the analyst firm that made identity and access management its speciality, and in 2010 he took charge of its US operation from Boston. Wild Wild Web, published by Vahlen in 2018 and in English the same year, sets the argument out at full length. It compares Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple to the monopolists of the 19th-century American frontier. The argument is that the digital society needs its own rule of law, a code of digital ethics that companies write and hold themselves to. Key speaking topics Digital transformation for non-technical leaders Artificial intelligence in business Industrial IoT and Industry 4.0 Digital ethics and the social contract of the internet Platform power, GAFA and digital sovereignty IT security and digital identity management Cognitive computing and predictive analysis The future of the European Mittelstand in a digital economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees of European industrial and Mittelstand companies confronting AI and IoT investment decisions CIOs, CDOs and transformation leads who need a credible non-technical voice to align the rest of the executive team CISOs and identity-management functions briefing boards on cyber and digital sovereignty Industry conferences on manufacturing, IoT, Industry 4.0 and applied AI Audience outcomes A grounded read on which AI and digital transformation moves are real operating advantage and which are still vendor narrative. A working vocabulary for board-level conversations about platform power, digital ethics and digital sovereignty. Examples drawn from European industrial and Mittelstand companies that Smart Industry has reported on. A clearer sense of where IoT and Industry 4.0 investment is actually paying back, and where it is stuck in pilot. A frame for talking about AI’s limits as well as its potential, in language a non-technical executive team can use.

Why organisations work with Tim Harford Translates economic and statistical research into commercial decisions, drawing on a Financial Times column that has run for nearly two decades and a body of ten published books. Brings credibility on numbers that very few speakers can match: Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and OBE for services to economic understanding. Reframes innovation as an evidence-based discipline grounded in adaptation and failure, the central thesis of “Adapt” and “Messy”, rather than the usual creativity rhetoric. Equips senior audiences to interrogate their own data culture using the rules from “How To Make The World Add Up”, a practical antidote to misleading statistics inside organisations. Trusted as a host, moderator and after-dinner speaker by serious audiences because his radio craft on “More or Less” and “Cautionary Tales” carries directly into the room. Biography highlights Senior columnist, Financial Times, writing “The Undercover Economist”. Presenter, BBC Radio 4’s “More or Less”, the long-running statistics-in-the-news programme. Host of “Cautionary Tales”, a Pushkin Industries podcast, and creator of “Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy”. Author of ten books, including “The Undercover Economist”, “Adapt”, “Messy”, “How To Make The World Add Up” and “The Truth Detective”. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and of Brasenose College, Oxford; Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford. OBE for services to Improving Economic Understanding; winner of the Bastiat Prize (twice), the Wincott Journalist of the Year award, and the Royal Statistical Society award for journalistic excellence. Biography Most organisations claim to be evidence-led. Few are. Decisions are framed in numbers but driven by narrative, and innovation programmes routinely refuse to learn from the failures that contain the most useful information. Harford’s work, across the Financial Times column, ten books and two long-running BBC and Pushkin productions, has been built around exactly that gap. His books map the intellectual territory leaders care about. “The Undercover Economist” reframed everyday markets through the lens of price, scarcity and incentive, and has sold more than 1.5 million copies in thirty languages. “Adapt” and “Messy” argue that progress depends on disciplined trial, error and tolerance for disorder, a more honest account of innovation than most corporate playbooks allow. “How To Make The World Add Up” gives senior audiences a practical method for testing the numbers they are asked to act on. The credentials behind that work are unusual. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Associate Member of Nuffield College Oxford, an OBE for services to economic understanding, and a body of awards from the Bastiat Prize to the Wincott. As presenter of BBC Radio 4’s “More or Less”, Harford has spent years publicly stress-testing the statistics that shape policy and business commentary, which makes him one of the few speakers who can hold a senior room on data culture without resorting to platitudes. For boards and leadership teams, the value is concrete. Sharper questions about innovation portfolios, a working method for separating signal from noise, and a more honest model of how organisations actually learn. The recent “Cautionary Tales” series, which dissects high-profile organisational failures, has become a reference point for leaders thinking seriously about how decisions go wrong. Key speaking topics Behavioural economics in commercial decision-making Innovation, adaptation and learning from failure Statistical literacy and data culture in organisations Economic forces shaping business and policy Creativity, disorder and team productivity Cognitive bias and judgement under uncertainty Ideal for Boards and executive committees confronting decisions where the numbers are contested Strategy, innovation and R&D leaders building portfolios under uncertainty CFOs and finance functions reviewing how evidence is presented and challenged internally Senior leadership offsites where the brief calls for serious intellectual content with broad relevance Audience outcomes A working method for interrogating statistics and management dashboards before acting on them A clearer model of innovation as managed trial and error, with practical implications for portfolio choice Sharper recognition of the cognitive errors that recur in senior decision-making Concrete references from “Cautionary Tales” and “More or Less” that audiences can use to reframe their own debates