Innovation & Disruption

Why organisations work with Timothy Armoo He has actually sold Gen Z attention to the buyers in the room. Fanbytes ran creator campaigns for Apple, McDonald’s, Nike, Samsung, Deliveroo and the UK Government before exiting to Brainlabs. Two exits before 28 give him an operator’s view of scale-up commercial discipline that most Gen Z marketing voices cannot match. His Penguin book What’s Stopping You? gives commercial audiences a structured language for the founder mindset he is asked to transfer into corporate teams. He sits inside Brainlabs as VP Influencer Marketing, which keeps his read on creator platforms, CPMs and Gen Z behaviour current rather than retrospective. He brings a credible answer to the multigenerational question: not a generational stereotype deck, but a working view of how Gen Z employees and customers behave once incentives are on the table. Biography highlights Co-founder and former CEO of Fanbytes; sold to Brainlabs in 2022 in an eight-figure deal. Sold his first business, EntrepreneurXpress, to Horizon Media at 17. Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2021, Media & Marketing. Named in the Evening Standard Progress 1000 list of London’s most influential figures in advertising and media. Author of What’s Stopping You? 11 Cheatcodes to Unlock the Life You Want, published by Penguin. Currently Vice President of Influencer Marketing at Brainlabs, the global digital agency that acquired Fanbytes. Biography The hardest commercial question facing many consumer brands is no longer awareness. It is whether the under-30 customer takes them seriously at all. Influencer budgets are climbing, internal teams are stretched between TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube, and most boards have no operator in the room who has actually run those campaigns at scale. Fanbytes was built to sit in that gap. Co-founded by Timothy Armoo in 2017 with Ambrose Cooke and Mitchell Fasanya, the agency ran creator campaigns for Apple, McDonald’s, Nike, Samsung, Deliveroo, Boohoo and the UK Government. In May 2022, Brainlabs acquired the business in an eight-figure deal. Armoo was 27. He stayed on as Vice President of Influencer Marketing at Brainlabs, which keeps his commercial view of Gen Z platforms current, not retrospective. The track record was not a single lucky exit. He sold his first company, EntrepreneurXpress, to Horizon Media at 17. Forbes named him to its 30 Under 30 Europe list for Media and Marketing in 2021. The Evening Standard Progress 1000 listed him among London’s most influential figures in advertising and media. His Penguin book What’s Stopping You? extends the same operator’s logic into a wider audience of commercial leaders and early-career professionals. For senior buyers, the value is specific. He is the rare voice on Gen Z marketing who can speak to a CMO with the discipline of a founder who had to make a P&L work, sell to a procurement team, and exit to a global agency. That is a different conversation from a panel on creator culture. Key speaking topics Gen Z consumer behaviour and brand decisions Influencer and creator-led marketing strategy Entrepreneurship and scale-up commercial discipline Building, scaling and exiting a venture-backed business The multigenerational customer and workforce Social platforms and the modern media landscape Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and consumer marketing leadership rethinking creator and Gen Z strategy Founders, scale-up CEOs and growth leaders preparing for raise, scale or exit Boards and exec teams of consumer-facing businesses with under-30 customer exposure Talent, employer brand and graduate recruitment leads who need a sharper read on Gen Z employees Audience outcomes A clearer commercial map of how Gen Z actually decides on brand, employer and product Specific operator lessons from building, scaling and selling a creator-economy agency A framework for evaluating influencer and creator spend as a measurable channel, not a content experiment A more honest read on the gap between how senior teams talk about Gen Z and how Gen Z behave Conviction to back internal entrepreneurial bets that conventional governance tends to slow

Why organisations work with Adam Smith The Real Junk Food Project is not a case study from a consultancy report. Smith built it from a single Leeds cafe in 2013 to a network of 120+ projects across seven countries, which makes his argument about the scalability of surplus redistribution operationally evidenced, not theoretical. The Pay As You Feel model challenges the assumption that pricing must track cost-price. For organisations navigating social value procurement, circular economy strategy, or food retail margins, that challenge is commercially relevant. Smith has given parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste, which means his framing has direct policy credibility – useful for organisations managing regulatory and reputational exposure on ESG commitments. His current work at Surplus to Purpose, which diverted 506 tonnes of food in 2023, keeps his insight current. He is not drawing on a legacy project. The Telegraph named him one of the 50 most influential people in UK Food & Drink (Food & Drink Power List, 2017). His argument has been stress-tested in public, not just on stage. Biography highlights Founded The Real Junk Food Project in Leeds in December 2013; the network grew to 120+ projects across seven countries within four years TEDx speaker at TEDxWarwick (2015): “Let’s REALLY Feed the World” Named one of 50 most influential people in UK Food & Drink, The Telegraph Food & Drink Power List (2017) FRSA (Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts) Gave parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste Yorkshire Awards 2025 Community Hero Award; Canal & River Trust Unsung Hero of Leeds (2022) CEO of Surplus to Purpose since 2022; appeared on Channel 4’s Inside the Superbrands Observer Food Monthly Awards runner-up across TRJFP projects in Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds (2017, 2018) Biography The UK food industry wastes an estimated 9.5 million tonnes of food annually. Most of it is edible. In December 2013, Adam Smith opened a single cafe in Armley, Leeds, that served meals made entirely from intercepted surplus. He called the pricing model Pay As You Feel. Within four years, that cafe had become a network of 120+ projects operating across seven countries. The model did not succeed because it was charitable. It succeeded because it demonstrated a functional alternative to the assumption that surplus has no commercial value – and that communities, schools, and organisations could participate in redistribution at scale without requiring philanthropy as a precondition. Smith stepped back from The Real Junk Food Project in 2019 and, in 2022, took on the leadership of Surplus to Purpose – a social enterprise built on the same structural argument but with a more explicit focus on the environmental costs of food waste in the supply chain. Surplus to Purpose diverted 506 tonnes of food in 2023. He has given parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste, and The Telegraph placed him on its Food & Drink Power List in 2017 as one of the 50 most influential people in the sector. The TEDxWarwick talk from 2015 covers the core argument clearly. Food waste is a corporate supply chain decision, not a consumer behaviour problem. The organisations with the most leverage to change it are the ones that benefit most from not changing it. Key speaking topics Surplus food redistribution and supply chain waste Pay As You Feel and alternative pricing models Purpose-led business model design Social enterprise at scale ESG and food system accountability Corporate responsibility in the food supply chain Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads in food retail, hospitality, and manufacturing Procurement and supply chain leadership in organisations with food or FMCG exposure Strategy and transformation teams working on circular economy frameworks Social value and impact leads in public sector and corporate foundations Audience outcomes A working model for how surplus redistribution operates at scale – not a concept, but a documented case with known failure points and operational evidence A concrete example of how pricing can be decoupled from cost-price to deliver both social value and commercial viability Clarity on where corporate supply chains generate waste and why existing incentive structures keep that waste in place A framework for distinguishing between ESG commitments that reduce reputational risk and changes that alter the underlying supply chain economics

Why organisations work with Adjiedj Bakas His analytical framework tracks six categories of structural change simultaneously – economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security – giving leadership teams a coherent map rather than a trend list. No single category is read in isolation; the interactions between them are where the real strategic insight lives. His “#Forwardism” thesis reframes megatrend analysis as a source of opportunity rather than a catalogue of threat. This is a deliberate intellectual stance, not a motivational gloss – it changes how an organisation positions itself in response to disruption. His biography is genuinely differentiating in a field dominated by Western vantage points. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas brings a Global South perspective to questions about the shifting balance of economic and cultural power that most European or American futurists cannot replicate. His material has been tested against the most demanding institutional audiences on the circuit: the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, Shell’s major futures conferences, and central banking and financial institutions across Africa and Asia. A Shell audience of senior executives elected him one of the top two speakers from a field of fifty. His books – including World Megatrends and Beyond the Crisis – have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai, and the intellectual rigour of his framework has earned consistent media recognition from CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. Biography highlights Founder of Trend Office Bakas, Amsterdam – a trendwatching practice serving multinationals, financial institutions and governments internationally Author of more than ten books on global megatrends, distributed across 40+ countries; titles include World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis, Megatrends Europe and #Forwardism Elected Trendwatcher of the Year 2009 and Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 in the Netherlands Covered as a leading voice on global futures by CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Times of India and China Daily Keynote engagements include Shell, Deloitte, Google, Microsoft, ABN AMRO, KPMG, Rabobank, Credit Suisse and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Course material at CEIBS (China Europe International Business School, Shanghai) and Emory University, Atlanta Biography Most organisations run their long-term strategy on a three-to-five year horizon. The megatrends that actually reshape industries – demographic reordering, geopolitical power shifts, energy transitions, technological discontinuities – operate on timescales of twenty years or more. Adjiedj Bakas, founder of Trend Office Bakas in Amsterdam, has spent his career helping senior leaders read those slower, more consequential signals before they arrive as operational emergencies. His body of work – more than ten books published across 40 countries, including World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis and Megatrends Europe – develops a consistent analytical lens across six categories of structural change: economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security. His most recent work, #Forwardism, introduces the concept of “Happynomy” – the argument that the most powerful megatrends are better interpreted as sources of strategic opportunity than as threats to be mitigated. The perspective he brings is shaped by biography as much as by research. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas has a genuinely non-Western vantage point on shifts in global economic and cultural power that most European futurists cannot replicate. His engagements span Shell, Deloitte, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, and financial institutions across Africa, Asia and Europe – audiences for whom a view of the future that goes beyond the Western horizon is not optional. Elected Trendwatcher of the Year in the Netherlands in 2009, his work has been covered by CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. His books have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai and Emory University in Atlanta. Key speaking topics Global megatrends and structural futures Geopolitical power shifts and the rise of the Global South Demographic change and its economic consequences Long-cycle economic forecasting and scenario planning Energy and environmental transitions Technology and innovation futures Opportunity-centred strategic foresight (#Forwardism / Happynomy) Ideal for C-suite and board leaders developing long-range organisational strategy Strategy and foresight teams in multinationals requiring a structured macro-trend framework Financial institutions and investment firms assessing long-term geopolitical and economic risk Government and public-sector organisations navigating demographic and geopolitical change Audience outcomes A structured, six-category framework for mapping structural megatrends across economic, technological, demographic, environmental and geopolitical dimensions Greater confidence in distinguishing long-cycle structural shifts from short-term cyclical noise Exposure to the Global South’s increasing influence on economic and cultural direction – a perspective absent from most standard futures briefings A reframed strategic posture: tools for reading disruption as a source of opportunity rather than purely a risk management challenge A renewed and evidence-based basis for organisational optimism in conditions of uncertainty

Why organisations work with Brenda Romero Forty-plus years inside a creative industry as designer, studio CEO and educator, with credits on roughly 49 shipped titles including the Wizardry series, Jagged Alliance, Ghost Recon and Empire of Sin. A working perspective on running an independent creative business: she co-founded Romero Games in Galway in 2015 and has built it through publisher deals, original IP and the realities of indie studio economics. An unusual record on the question of how design carries meaning. Her Train (2009) and the broader The Mechanic is the Message series are studied in academic literature as examples of game mechanics used to communicate difficult historical material. Formal industry recognition that buyers can reference without explanation: BAFTA Special Award (2017), GDC Ambassador Award (2015), Fulbright Scholar (2014). An educator’s clarity. As Director of the MSc in Game Design and Development at the University of Limerick (2016 to 2019) she taught the craft to a graduate cohort, and co-authored Challenges for Game Designers with Ian Schreiber, a standard text in the field. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO, Romero Games Ltd, Galway, Ireland (2015 to present). BAFTA Special Award, 2017, for creative contribution to the games industry. Game Developers Choice Ambassador Award, 2015. Fulbright Scholar, 2014. Director, MSc in Game Design and Development, University of Limerick, 2016 to 2019. Designer of Train (2009) and the The Mechanic is the Message series; works held by the Strong National Museum of Play; TED speaker on games for understanding. Biography Most discussions of innovation get stuck at the level of culture. Romero’s career is a sustained argument that it is really a question of craft. She began at Sir-tech Software in 1981 on the Wizardry role-playing series, and has since shipped credits on roughly 49 titles across PC, console and mobile, including Jagged Alliance, Ghost Recon, Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes and Empire of Sin. In 2015 she co-founded Romero Games in Galway with John Romero, where she is CEO. The studio sits outside the conventional tech hubs, an operating choice rather than an aesthetic one, and a useful case study for any leader thinking about how to build a creative organisation away from the talent magnet cities. The work spans publisher partnerships, original IP and the day-to-day of running a creative business through cycles. Alongside the commercial work, Romero has used game design to address serious historical material. Train (2009) and the wider The Mechanic is the Message series treat the mechanics of a game, the rules players agree to follow, as the message itself. Train won the IndieCade Vanguard Award and is studied in academic literature on serious games and design ethics. The credentials line up around a consistent argument. BAFTA Special Award in 2017. GDC Ambassador Award in 2015. Fulbright Scholar in 2014. Director of the MSc in Game Design and Development at the University of Limerick from 2016 to 2019. Co-author with Ian Schreiber of Challenges for Game Designers, a standard text used in graduate programmes worldwide. Key speaking topics Creative leadership in technology and entertainment The discipline of design and managed innovation Building and running an independent creative studio Games as a medium for communicating complex ideas Women in technology and the games industry The economics of creative work and intellectual property Ideal for Leaders of creative, R and D, brand and product organisations. Boards and executive teams in entertainment, media and consumer technology. Innovation and transformation leads looking for a working studio perspective on creative output. Talent and learning leaders building creative capability inside a corporate environment. Audience outcomes A working operator’s view of how creative output is produced under commercial pressure. A clearer picture of what good design discipline looks like when the subject is hard or contested. Reference points from inside the games industry that translate into corporate creative function. A frank account of building a creative business outside the obvious geographies, with the trade-offs named.

Why organisations work with Tim Smit He does not make the case for sustainability in principle. Instead, he has built one of Britain’s most visited destinations on the premise that ecological purpose and economic return are the same project. The Eden Project’s contribution to the Cornish economy exceeds £1.9 billion. His KBE was awarded specifically for services to public engagement with science, recognition that his primary skill is making complex environmental challenges legible and motivating to non-specialist audiences, including sceptical ones. Where most ESG speakers work from frameworks or research, Smit works from operations: active international development projects in Colombia, Australia, China, and Northern Ireland, each built on the Eden model of derelict land, public-private partnership, and ecological purpose that also generates revenue. He reframes the internal sustainability conversation from risk mitigation and reporting into a question of commercial imagination, which is a materially different starting point for a leadership team than most ESG speakers offer. The Lost Gardens of Heligan, his account of the first restoration project, was voted Sunday Times Book of the Year in 1997, evidence of an unusual ability to make environmental ambition into a story that reaches well beyond specialist audiences. Biography highlights Co-founder and Executive Vice-Chair, Eden Project, Cornwall: former china clay pit transformed into one of Britain’s most visited destinations, contributing over £1.9 billion to the regional economy Director, Lost Gardens of Heligan: co-led restoration of the neglected Tremayne estate; his account of the project was voted Sunday Times Book of the Year, 1997 KBE (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire), awarded 2011, substantive 2012, for services to public engagement with science RSA Albert Medal, 2003; Morgan Stanley Great Britons Award (Environment category), 2007; Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year special award, 2011 Speaker at TEDxKingsCross, 2021 – «How We’re Going to Solve Climate Change» (COP26 countdown event) Author of two books: The Lost Gardens of Heligan and Eden (Penguin, updated 15th anniversary edition, 2016) Biography The Eden Project began as a derelict china clay pit in Cornwall. It now attracts over a million visitors a year and has contributed more than £1.9 billion to the regional economy. Sir Tim Smit KBE conceived it in 1995, opened it in 2001, and has spent the intervening years using it as a working proof: that environmental ambition and commercial success are the same project, not a trade-off between them. Smit’s central argument is about courage as much as strategy. Most organisations approach sustainability as a compliance function; obligations to manage, metrics to report. Eden was built to demonstrate something more radical: that a project rooted in ecology, science communication, and community investment could produce a destination business with private financing, a £1.9 billion economic footprint, and a KBE from the Crown for services to public engagement with science. The model is now being replicated globally. Through Eden Project International, formally launched in 2017, Smit has secured partnerships with national governments in Colombia – working with the Humboldt Institute on a biome in one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, alongside active development projects in Australia, China, and Northern Ireland. The ambition is an Eden presence on every inhabited continent. For executives navigating the gap between ESG commitment and meaningful action, Smit’s contribution is specific and uncomfortable in equal measure. He has spent three decades demonstrating that the starting point for a new business model can be a landscape others have written off. The barrier, in his view, is not knowledge or resource; it is a failure of commercial imagination, and he has built institutions to fill it. Key speaking topics Environmental regeneration as a commercial business model ESG strategy and the economics of sustainability Entrepreneurship and large-scale transformational project delivery Science communication and public engagement with environmental issues Multi-stakeholder project leadership across public, private, and community sectors Climate action and biodiversity: the business opportunity framing Place-based and regional economic regeneration Ideal for CEOs and executive teams building or pressure-testing sustainability and ESG strategy Boards facing investor, regulatory, or employee pressure on environmental commitments Transformation and programme directors overseeing large-scale environmental, infrastructure, or regeneration initiatives Public sector and civic leaders working on regional development and post-industrial recovery Audience outcomes A reframe of sustainability from reporting obligation to genuine business model, with specific, quantified evidence from Eden’s own track record Practical understanding of how to structure and sustain multi-stakeholder projects at transformational scale A more ambitious and commercially grounded vocabulary for internal ESG conversations Exposure to a model of science communication that moves non-specialist audiences to change behaviour, not just awareness Confidence that large-scale environmental projects can attract private capital and deliver measurable economic returns alongside ecological impact

Why organisations work with James Henderson He treats strategy as a sequence of staged commitments, not a single plan, which is what boards facing capital decisions in volatile sectors actually need. His teaching draws on more than 50 published case studies built with named companies, so the room is working with operating examples, not abstractions. He has run IMD’s Strategic Partnerships and Leading Sustainable Business Transformation programs, giving him a working view of how ecosystems and sustainability commitments are reshaping competitive strategy. As a former Dean of Programs and Innovation at IMD, he has built and led large executive programs himself, which translates into sessions designed for senior decision-makers rather than classroom delivery. Biography highlights Professor of Strategic Management, IMD Lausanne, since 2006. Program Director of IMD’s Strategic Partnerships course; Co-Director of Leading Sustainable Business Transformation. Former Dean of Programs and Innovation at IMD (2012 to 2016); launched the Global Leadership in the Cloud online portfolio. Co-edited Restructuring Strategy (Strategic Management Society, 2005); editorial board, Strategic Management Journal. EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award (2018); Academy of Management Carolyn Dexter Award (2009); ECCH Best Selling Case in Europe. PhD, INSEAD; MBA, Ivey School of Business; BA Economics, University of Western Ontario. Biography Strategy textbooks describe choices that have already been made. The harder work is the period before, when leaders must commit capital, build partnerships and reshape portfolios while the underlying competitive logic is still moving. That is the territory Henderson has spent twenty years teaching at IMD. He treats strategy as a discipline of staged commitment. Where many frameworks assume a stable view of advantage, his work focuses on options-based investment, corporate venturing, and the timing of moves into new positions. The argument is that senior teams overestimate the cost of acting early and underestimate the cost of waiting for clarity that does not arrive. That work is grounded in operating cases. Henderson has developed more than 50 published case studies, including the Heineken Buckler Beer case that became ECCH’s best-selling case in Europe. He co-edited the Strategic Management Society’s Restructuring Strategy and sits on the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal, the field’s flagship journal. Inside IMD he has carried operating responsibility as well as faculty responsibility. As Dean of Programs and Innovation he launched the school’s Global Leadership in the Cloud online portfolio. He directs the Strategic Partnerships course and co-directs Leading Sustainable Business Transformation, two of IMD’s anchor programs on how ecosystems and sustainability are reshaping commercial strategy. Key speaking topics Strategy under uncertainty Strategic agility and options-based investment Corporate strategy and portfolio decisions Strategic partnerships and ecosystems Strategy execution Sustainable business transformation Corporate entrepreneurship and new growth platforms Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing capital allocation decisions in volatile or transitioning markets. CSOs, heads of corporate development and strategy teams running portfolio and partnership reviews. CEOs and senior leadership teams working through sustainable business transformation. Senior leadership programs and offsite agendas focused on commitment and execution under uncertainty. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for staging strategic commitments rather than treating strategy as a single decision. A sharper read of when to invest early, when to hold optionality, and when waiting becomes the costlier choice. Operating examples from named companies that map onto the audience’s own portfolio and partnership questions. A view of how ecosystem and sustainability pressures are restructuring competitive advantage in capital-intensive industries.

Why organisations work with Alf Rehn His central argument runs against the grain of the innovation industry: that most of what organisations call innovation is performance, not practice – and that rebuilding the real thing requires dismantling the very frameworks many have paid consultants to install. Innovation for the Fatigued (Kogan Page) provides a named, publishable framework – “deep innovation” – that gives leadership teams a vocabulary to diagnose and address innovation theatre without discarding ambition. His current research at SDU’s Center for Organizational Datafication and its Ethics in Society gives him a credible, peer-reviewed lens on how AI and algorithmic systems are reshaping management and innovation decisions – a perspective grounded in data, not trend commentary. Having held chairs at three universities across Finland, Denmark and Sweden, and served on the board of a billion-dollar corporation, he operates across the researcher-practitioner boundary in a way that is rare in the innovation speaking space. His Thinkers50 Guru Radar inclusion (2016) and coverage in the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and Harvard Business Review give buyers a named, verifiable body of external endorsement to anchor the engagement. Biography highlights Professor of Innovation, Design and Management, University of Southern Denmark Head of the Center for Organizational Datafication and its Ethics in Society, SDU – researching AI’s effects on management, innovation and algorithmic ethics Previously held the Chair of Management and Organisation at Åbo Akademi University, Finland; and a professorship in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden Named to Thinkers50 Guru Radar (2016) – listed among “the 30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future of management” Author of Innovation for the Fatigued (Kogan Page) and Dangerous Ideas – the latter translated into eight languages Featured in the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and Harvard Business Review; over 1,000 keynotes delivered across five continents Biography Alf Rehn has spent much of his academic career making the same uncomfortable argument: that organisations are not suffering from a lack of innovation, but from an excess of innovation theatre. His book Innovation for the Fatigued, published by Kogan Page, names this problem directly – and his concept of “deep innovation” offers a framework for distinguishing creative cultures that produce real output from those that have learned to imitate one. That critique has weight because of where it comes from. Rehn holds a chair in Innovation, Design and Management at the University of Southern Denmark, where he also leads the Center for Organizational Datafication and its Ethics in Society – a research unit examining how AI and algorithmic technologies are changing the way executives, engineers and managers make decisions. He has previously held professorships at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, combining research across critical management studies, creativity and organisational theory. His earlier book Dangerous Ideas – translated into eight languages – argues that the ideas organisations most need are precisely the ones they are instinctively disposed to dismiss. Together, the two books form a coherent intellectual position: that genuine innovation requires not better processes but the courage to engage with what is uncomfortable, inconvenient and structurally difficult. Named to the Thinkers50 Guru Radar in 2016 and covered by the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and Harvard Business Review, Rehn engages boards and executive teams on the strategic gap between innovation ambition and innovation reality – and on how emerging technologies, including AI, are creating new versions of the same problem. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and organisational creativity Innovation fatigue and deep innovation Creative cultures and their destruction Dangerous and unconventional ideas in business AI, datafication and ethics in management Leadership paradox and contradictory demands on leaders Scenario planning and taboo futures Contrarian and critical thinking in strategy Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers and strategy leads seeking to audit and rebuild innovation culture Executive leadership teams who have invested in innovation programmes with limited return Boards and C-suite audiences examining how AI is reshaping organisational decision-making CHROs and transformation leads working on the cultural conditions for sustained creativity Audience outcomes A clearer diagnostic for distinguishing genuine creative capacity from performative innovation activity Practical language and frameworks from Innovation for the Fatigued to challenge and rebuild internal innovation practice A more rigorous approach to unconventional and uncomfortable ideas, informed by the argument of Dangerous Ideas Familiarity with how AI and algorithmic systems are reshaping management decisions, grounded in current academic research A more honest account of what leadership under contradictory demands actually requires – and how to navigate it without resolving it

Why organisations work with Zoe Kleinman She is the BBC’s first Technology Editor, which gives any panel or main-stage conversation an immediate authority signal that a corporate moderator cannot match. She has interviewed Tim Cook, Sir Demis Hassabis, Brad Smith and Jensen Huang on the record, and is comfortable holding senior technologists to a specific answer rather than letting a talking point pass. She translates AI, cybersecurity and digital regulation for boardrooms and general audiences without flattening the technical substance, which is the skill most in-house tech leaders ask for and rarely find. She has chaired flagship sessions for the Open Data Institute, the Royal Institution and Fintech Connect, and hosted The National AI Awards, so she arrives knowing the room. Her reporting has fed UK parliamentary inquiries and her March 2025 House of Lords evidence on AI governance gives her current standing on the regulatory questions buyers are now being asked by their own boards. Biography highlights BBC Technology Editor since September 2021, the first person appointed to the role. Over 20 years at the BBC, including senior technology reporter from 2009 to 2021. Reports across BBC News television, BBC World News, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC World Service. On-the-record interviews with Tim Cook, Sir Demis Hassabis, Brad Smith, Jensen Huang and Dave Baszucki. Has interviewed two serving UK Prime Ministers, Rishi Sunak at the 2023 UK Global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park and Keir Starmer. Gave evidence to the House of Lords on AI governance and data privacy in March 2025. Investigative reporting on children’s in-game spending triggered a UK parliamentary committee inquiry. Hosted The National AI Awards and chaired sessions for the Open Data Institute, Royal Institution and Fintech Connect. Biography The hard part of a senior AI conversation is no longer finding an expert. It is finding someone who can sit between the expert and the audience, ask the question the room wants asked, and refuse to let a polished non-answer count as an answer. That is the editorial craft Kleinman has been building at the BBC for two decades. She joined the BBC in 2003 and moved through web production, features editing and senior technology reporting before being appointed the corporation’s first Technology Editor in September 2021. Her reporting now runs across BBC News television, BBC World News, Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC World Service technology and business strands, with a specific brief on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, digital regulation and diversity in technology. The interview list is the part senior buyers usually recognise. Tim Cook at Apple, Sir Demis Hassabis at Google DeepMind, Brad Smith at Microsoft, Jensen Huang at Nvidia, Dave Baszucki at Roblox, and two serving Prime Ministers, Rishi Sunak at the 2023 UK Global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park and Keir Starmer. Her investigation into children’s in-game spending prompted a UK parliamentary committee inquiry, and in March 2025 she gave evidence to the House of Lords on AI governance and data privacy. What that record gives a corporate stage is something specific. She arrives understanding the technical detail, she knows what the regulators are about to ask, and she has spent enough time across the table from senior technologists to keep the conversation honest. For an organisation putting its leadership in front of clients or its own workforce to talk about AI, that is the moderator profile that does the work. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and generative AI AI governance, ethics and regulation Cybersecurity and digital risk Big Tech, platforms and competition Digital transformation and emerging technology Diversity in technology Innovation and disruption Moderation, hosting and panel chairing Ideal for AI, technology and innovation summits requiring a credible main-stage host or interviewer CIO, CISO, CTO and digital transformation leadership events Boards and executive committees commissioning a closed-door briefing on AI and digital regulation Awards ceremonies, flagship dinners and member events seeking a recognisable BBC face with subject authority Audience outcomes A clearer picture of where AI regulation and governance are moving in the UK, EU and US, and what that means for corporate decisions in the next 12 to 24 months. A sharper sense of which AI vendor and platform claims hold up under scrutiny and which do not. Direct exposure to how the world’s most senior technology leaders are talking, and not talking, about risk. A working vocabulary for non-technical executives to discuss AI, cybersecurity and digital regulation with confidence in front of clients, staff and regulators.

Why organisations work with Whitney Johnson A field-tested model, the S Curve of Learning, that gives executives a shared language for placing every team member on a developmental trajectory rather than an annual performance grid. A track record of applying disruptive innovation theory to capital allocation, including co-founding the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Clayton Christensen and leading the seed investment in Coupang. A No. 8 Thinkers50 ranking in 2021 and consecutive listings since 2015, signalling sustained credibility with the same boards her audiences sit on. Direct relevance to succession planning, post-merger integration, and the talent risk inside transformation programmes, drawn from Fortune 500 advisory work with Kraft Heinz, Intermountain Health, Morgan Stanley, and Amazon. A Wall Street equity-analyst background that lets her speak to commercial leaders in their own language about return on people, not just culture. Biography highlights CEO and co-founder of Disruption Advisors, advising Fortune 500 companies, private equity portfolios, and scale-ups on leadership and team development. Co-founder with Clayton Christensen of the Disruptive Innovation Fund at Rose Park Advisors; led the seed round in Coupang. Ranked No. 8 on Thinkers50 in 2021, with continuous listings since 2015. Author of Smart Growth (Harvard Business Press, 2022), a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller and a Thinkers50 Best New Management Book. Author of Disrupt Yourself, Build an A-Team, and Dare, Dream, Do. LinkedIn Top Voice and host of the Disrupt Yourself podcast, with guests including Brene Brown, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Stanley McChrystal. Biography Most companies treat leadership development as a calendar of programmes. The harder question is where each senior leader sits on a learning curve, and what the organisation does when too many of them are stalled at the top of the same one. That is the question Whitney Johnson built a career around. Before founding Disruption Advisors, Johnson spent eight consecutive years as an Institutional Investor-ranked equity analyst on Wall Street. She then partnered with Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen to co-found the Disruptive Innovation Fund at Rose Park Advisors, where she served as President from 2007 to 2012 and led the seed round in what is now Coupang. Her shift from capital allocation to people allocation is the through line of her work. The S Curve of Learning, adapted from Everett Rogers and applied through her January-February 2022 Harvard Business Review article and the book Smart Growth, gives executives a way to manage their organisations as a portfolio of learning curves. It reframes engagement, retention, and succession as the same problem looked at from three angles. That argument has earned her a No. 8 Thinkers50 ranking in 2021 and a consistent place on the list since 2015. Her client roster includes Kraft Heinz, Intermountain Health, Morgan Stanley, and Amazon, and her Disrupt Yourself podcast features sustained conversations with figures including Brene Brown, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Stanley McChrystal. Key speaking topics Disruptive innovation applied to people and teams The S Curve of Learning as a development framework Succession planning and talent portfolio management Building and leading high-performing teams Personal disruption and reinvention for senior leaders Smart growth and organisational scaling Coaching cultures inside Fortune 500 companies Ideal for CEOs and executive committees rebuilding the bench beneath them CHROs and chief talent officers redesigning succession and development Private equity operating partners pressure-testing portfolio leadership Boards reviewing CEO succession and senior team capability Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for placing every senior leader on a learning curve, with implications for retention and succession A clearer view of when high performers are about to plateau and what to move them toward A practical link between team composition and commercial performance, drawn from her investment-fund experience Specific moves to disrupt their own roles before circumstances disrupt them Examples from named Fortune 500 engagements they can stress-test against their own organisation

Why organisations work with Vlatka Hlupic A single, evidence-led system of organisational transformation, built from more than two decades of research and field application across companies including GlaxoSmithKline, BP, SAP, Burberry, and the European Commission A measurable diagnostic, the Organisational Health Scan (developed from her 6 Box Leadership instrument), that lets a leadership team baseline its current culture, identify the constraints holding performance back, and track shift over time The intellectual authority of an academic who chairs a faculty position at Hult Ashridge and has published in Harvard Business Review, paired with the practitioner credibility of a CEO running her own consultancy A clear position on what comes after command-and-control management, set out in two books that have been recognised by Forbes, the Axiom Business Book Awards, and the CMI Biography highlights Professor of Leadership and Management, Hult Ashridge Executive Education Founder and CEO, Management Shift Solutions Ltd; Founder, Drucker Society London Author of “The Management Shift” (Palgrave Macmillan) and “Humane Capital” (Bloomsbury) “The Management Shift” listed by Forbes among the top eight business books of 2014; winner of the Axiom Business Book Award and CMI Management Articles of the Year 2015 Damehood (non-UK) received 2025 for contribution to humanising business; Think Global People “80 Outstanding Global Women 2025” Featured in Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes, and at the Global Peter Drucker Forum Biography Most large organisations are still managed through assumptions that were set in a different industrial cycle. Hierarchy, central control, and extrinsic incentives delivered scale in the twentieth century, but they produce diminishing returns when the work is knowledge-intensive and the workforce expects autonomy. Hlupic’s research argues that the gap between how leaders say they want their organisations to behave and how those organisations actually operate is the single largest drag on engagement and innovation today. Her response is the Management Shift, a five-level model of organisational culture developed across more than a decade of longitudinal research and set out in two books, “The Management Shift” (Palgrave Macmillan) and “Humane Capital” (Bloomsbury). The model describes the steps an organisation moves through as it leaves command-and-control behind, and it sits on top of a diagnostic, the Organisational Health Scan (developed from her 6 Box Leadership instrument), that senior teams use to measure where they actually are. The credentials sit behind the argument, not in front of it. Hlupic is Professor of Leadership and Management at Hult Ashridge Executive Education, Founder and CEO of Management Shift Solutions, and Founder of the Drucker Society London. Her work has been applied inside organisations including GlaxoSmithKline, BP, SAP, Burberry, the European Commission, and the House of Commons. She has contributed to Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes, and the Global Peter Drucker Forum. In 2025 she received a non-UK damehood for her contribution to humanising business. Forbes listed “The Management Shift” among the top eight business books of 2014, and the work has since picked up the Axiom Business Book Award and the CMI Management Articles of the Year. The throughline across the academic publications, the books, and the client work is the same: a board that wants better engagement, better innovation, and a more durable culture has to change how it leads, and there is now a tested way to do that. Key speaking topics Conscious leadership and the post-command-and-control organisation The Management Shift framework Organisational culture transformation Employee engagement and human-centric leadership Innovation in knowledge-intensive organisations Future of work and digital transformation Humane capitalism and purpose-driven business Culture due diligence for mergers and acquisitions Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and boards re-examining their operating model after restructure, merger, or digital transformation CHROs and chief people officers leading culture change at enterprise scale Senior leadership teams using diagnostic instruments to baseline culture before and after major change programmes Executive education and leadership development functions in large multinationals Audience outcomes A clear five-level map of organisational culture and where their own organisation currently sits on it Specific behaviours that move a team from compliance-driven to engagement-driven performance Evidence from multinationals that have used the Management Shift approach, and what it changed in measurable terms A view of leadership beyond authority, drawn from her HBR work and longitudinal research Language and frame to take into their own executive conversations on culture, engagement, and innovation

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 Sahar Hashemi She has built three commercial ventures from a standing start. Coffee Republic (110 stores, £50 million market cap), Skinny Candy (acquired by Glisten Plc) and Buy Women Built (2,000+ businesses, £2.5 billion combined turnover) give her a working library of how entrepreneurial behaviour actually feels day to day. Her Start Up Forever framework breaks the entrepreneurial mindset down into a small set of repeatable daily behaviours, which is what lets it survive contact with corporate hierarchy. The book was named a Financial Times Business Book of the Month. She translates between two worlds that rarely speak the same language: founders running on instinct and customer obsession, and senior executives running on process and structure. Most speakers can describe one of those worlds; she has lived both. Her credibility on women-led growth is operating credibility, not advocacy. Buy Women Built is a commercial channel built with major retailers, and she co-chaired the UK government’s Scale Up Taskforce on growing SMEs. Biography highlights Co-founder, Coffee Republic; scaled to 110 stores and a £50 million market capitalisation Founder, Skinny Candy (50% acquired by Glisten Plc) and Buy Women Built Author, Anyone Can Do It (Wiley, 2003) and Start Up Forever (Troubador, 2019, Financial Times Business Book of the Month) OBE for services to the UK economy and to charity, 2012 Birthday Honours Co-chair, UK government Scale Up Taskforce; board member, Scale Up Institute Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum Biography Coffee Republic opened on South Molton Street in 1995, the first US-style coffee bar chain in the UK. Within five years it ran 110 stores at a £50 million market capitalisation. Sahar Hashemi co-founded the business with her brother Bobby after leaving a career in law, and the speed of the build became the basis of everything she has worked on since. The question that has occupied her for two decades is why large companies struggle to act on what they already know. Most have the people, the capital and the data to behave entrepreneurially. They rarely behave that way in practice. Her book Start Up Forever, named a Financial Times Business Book of the Month, breaks that gap into a set of daily habits that survive inside corporate structure rather than dying in workshop rooms. The work has weight because it is grounded in three operating businesses she actually built, not consulting case studies. Skinny Candy, the sugar-free confectionery brand, was acquired by Glisten Plc. Buy Women Built, launched in 2020, now represents more than 2,000 women-built businesses with combined turnover above £2.5 billion and has become a working channel inside major UK retailers. She co-chaired the UK government’s Scale Up Taskforce and sits on the board of the Scale Up Institute. Senior teams at Microsoft, L’Oreal, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble and Sky have brought her in for the same reason: she gives a leadership group a usable answer to the question of what entrepreneurial behaviour looks like on a Tuesday afternoon at a 50,000-person company. She was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to the UK economy and to charity, and named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurial mindset inside large organisations Innovation and creativity as everyday discipline Building start-up culture in established businesses Intrapreneurship and behaviour change at scale Women-led entrepreneurship and scale-up growth Customer obsession as a leadership behaviour Courage, action and the founder’s bias to start Ideal for Executive teams running innovation, transformation or culture-change programmes CHROs and learning leaders who want behaviour change, not awareness Strategy and growth leaders trying to build new businesses inside an existing one Sales, marketing and customer teams rebuilding around customer obsession Audience outcomes A practical model of entrepreneurial behaviour that translates into Monday-morning habits Specific examples of how founder instincts (customer obsession, bias to act, comfort with ambiguity) operate inside corporate structure A clearer view of why innovation programmes stall, and what to remove rather than add Renewed confidence in personal agency: what an individual contributor or senior leader can change without permission Frameworks from Start Up Forever that teams can apply to their own products, customers and decisions