Innovation & Disruption

Why organisations work with Ralf Schumacher Six Grand Prix victories with Williams between 2001 and 2003, including the team’s most recent 1-2 finish at the 2003 French Grand Prix with Juan Pablo Montoya. Performance at the front of one of the most publicly measured competitions in international sport. Still inside the sport every race weekend as Sky Deutschland’s Formula 1 co-commentator since 2019. His read on team strategy and driver dynamics reflects the current grid, not the one he raced on. Active operational role in motorsport beyond broadcasting: shareholder at Mücke Motorsport since 2013, where he mentors young Mercedes-Benz drivers, and co-team manager at US Racing since 2015 with Gerhard Ungar. Insider perspective on the data-driven culture that defines modern F1, where 1,800-person organisations align around fortnightly race deadlines and pit crews execute roughly 36 tasks in under two seconds. Biography highlights Six Formula 1 Grand Prix wins, 27 podiums, and 180 race starts across 11 seasons (1997 to 2007). Drove for Jordan, Williams, and Toyota in Formula 1; raced in DTM with Mercedes-Benz from 2008 to 2012. Won the 1995 Macau Grand Prix in Formula 3 and the 1996 Japanese Formula Nippon championship in his debut season. Co-commentator and pundit for Sky Deutschland’s Formula 1 coverage since 2019, alongside Timo Glock. Shareholder and mentor at Mücke Motorsport since 2013; co-team manager at US Racing since 2015. With brother Michael Schumacher, the only siblings to have each won Formula 1 Grands Prix. Biography Williams’ most recent 1-2 finish in Formula 1 came at the 2003 French Grand Prix. Ralf Schumacher led, Juan Pablo Montoya followed. It was the fifth of six Grand Prix victories Schumacher recorded across an eleven-season Formula 1 career with Jordan, Williams, and Toyota. The competitive ground that produced those results is unusual. A top Formula 1 team employs around 1,800 people, only a small fraction of whom ever attend a race. Performance depends on aligning that population around a calendar of two dozen race weekends where the deadlines are non-negotiable and the result is broadcast live. Drivers occupy one corner of that operation, with measurable output every fortnight. Since 2019, Schumacher has been a co-commentator for Sky Deutschland’s Formula 1 coverage, alongside Timo Glock. The role keeps his analysis current rather than archival. Each race weekend places him back inside the same strategy calls and driver dynamics he speaks about on stage, which is a meaningful gap between him and former drivers who left the sport a decade ago. Off the broadcast he runs an operational role in motorsport. Since 2013 he has been a shareholder and mentor at Mücke Motorsport, supporting young Mercedes-Benz drivers, and since 2015 he has been co-team manager at US Racing. In August 2024 he returned to racing at the Nürburgring, sharing a Ligier JS P320 LMP3 car with his son David in the Prototype Cup Germany. Seventeen years after his last Formula 1 start, he still occupies a working seat in the sport on both sides of the camera. Key speaking topics Team performance in Formula 1 Data-driven decision-making and marginal gains Risk management and safety culture in elite competition Talent development and mentoring Leadership through technological and regulatory change The business and economics of Formula 1 Ideal for Sales and commercial leadership teams in markets that grade performance every quarter Operations and engineering leaders accountable for repeatable execution against fixed deadlines High-potential and emerging-leader programmes inside multinationals DACH-region corporate audiences and German-speaking conferences Audience outcomes A vocabulary for performance under continuous pressure, drawn from one of the most publicly measured competitive environments in the world. Specific examples of how Formula 1 teams align around fortnightly race deadlines, and where that translates to corporate operating rhythm. An honest account of what F1’s data-driven culture actually produces, beyond the slogan of “marginal gains”. The view of talent development from inside the system that mentors Mercedes-Benz drivers.

Why organisations work with Sean Pillot de Chenecey He turned the trust collapse into a working brand discipline. The Post-Truth Business, his Kogan Page bestseller, gives commercial leaders a concrete language for authenticity at a time when most marketing advice is still optimising for awareness. He sits inside formal futures-studies practice, not only commercial consulting. As UK Associate Partner at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, he runs the institute’s Foresight-Driven Innovation course, which he applies to client brand and innovation work. He holds office in the global futures-studies field. As Director of Public Affairs at the World Futures Studies Federation, the UNESCO-partnered global body for futures studies scholarship, he operates inside the same institutional network as the academics, policy specialists and foresight practitioners shaping how organisations think about long-range change. He has been doing trends and foresight long enough to know what holds. Co-founding The Future Laboratory in the 1990s, then operating his own consultancy Brand Positive, gives him three decades of pattern recognition across consumer, cultural and commercial cycles. His podcast, The New Abnormal, approaching 300,000 downloads, keeps him in continuous dialogue with academics, operators and activists shaping how organisations are perceived, which feeds directly into client work. Biography highlights Author of The Post-Truth Business (Kogan Page), No. 1 Business Bestseller, on rebuilding brand authenticity in a distrusting world. Author of Influencers and Revolutionaries (Kogan Page), shortlisted for the Business Book of the Year Awards. UK Associate Partner, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, leading the Foresight-Driven Innovation course. Director of Public Affairs, World Futures Studies Federation, the UNESCO-partnered global body for futures studies scholarship. Co-founder of trend forecasting agency The Future Laboratory; founder of independent strategy consultancy Brand Positive. Host of The New Abnormal podcast, approaching 300,000 downloads. Agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum; visiting lecturer at University of the Arts London (Central Saint Martins, London College of Fashion), the Royal College of Art, the University of Brighton and other leading creative and business schools for more than two decades. Biography Most brand thinkers stop at narrative. Most futurists stop at the macro picture. Sean Pillot de Chenecey works the join between the two, and that is where his commercial value sits. His Kogan Page bestseller The Post-Truth Business argued that brand authenticity, not louder advertising, is the operating answer to collapsing customer trust, and gave senior marketers a working framework rather than a critique. His career put him in the right place to take that argument seriously. In the 1990s he co-founded The Future Laboratory, the trend forecasting agency, before running his own consultancy Brand Positive for clients across consumer, financial services and technology. The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies brought him in as UK Associate Partner, and he leads the institute’s Foresight-Driven Innovation course, used by organisations who want innovation work grounded in real scenario method rather than ideation theatre. He also serves as Director of Public Affairs at the World Futures Studies Federation, the UNESCO-partnered global peak body for futures studies scholarship. His second book, Influencers and Revolutionaries, shortlisted for the Business Book of the Year Awards, mapped the founders, technologists and activists actually moving markets. The New Abnormal, his podcast, has crossed 250,000 downloads and now functions as a working research instrument; he is in continuous conversation with the academics, operators and cultural figures who shape how organisations are perceived. He has lectured on strategy and innovation at Central Saint Martins, the Royal College of Art, Chelsea College of Art, LSBU Business School, Miami Ad School, OMNES/INSEEC and the University for the Creative Arts for more than twenty years, and contributes to the World Economic Forum’s agenda. The combination, three decades of trends practice plus a formal futures-studies foothold plus a published thesis on trust, is what brings him into rooms where the brief is brand authenticity, customer trust or innovation strategy under uncertainty. Key speaking topics Brand authenticity and customer trust Foresight-driven innovation Megatrends and scenario planning Consumer behaviour in a post-truth environment Marketing strategy under uncertainty Anticipatory leadership Politics, philosophy and the future of business Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and customer experience leaders rebuilding trust with sceptical audiences. Chief strategy officers and innovation leads who need foresight integrated into commercial planning. Boards and executive committees setting brand and reputation direction in a low-trust environment. Marketing, communications and insight teams refreshing their approach to consumer and cultural change. Audience outcomes A working definition of brand authenticity that holds up against current consumer scepticism. A clearer view of which megatrends actually intersect with the audience’s commercial decisions, and which are noise. A method for moving from trend awareness to innovation choices that survive contact with the operating plan. Sharper questions about where customer trust is being earned, eroded or faked inside the organisation today.

Why organisations work with Harmeen Mehta She has run digital and AI transformation as an operator inside three of the world’s largest technology and telecoms incumbents (Equinix, BT Group, Bharti Airtel), not as an external advisor. She has built and scaled new digital businesses, including Airtel Payments Bank and Airtel’s cloud and security units, giving her credibility on revenue creation, not only cost out. Her board work at Lloyds Banking Group, including the IT and Cyber Advisory Forum, gives her direct line of sight on how non-executive directors expect technology risk and AI governance to be discussed. Recipient of the 2018 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award and the TM Forum Global CIO of the Year, both peer-judged on execution. Biography highlights Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Equinix (from April 2025). Former Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, BT Group (March 2021 to September 2024). Former Global CIO and CEO of Cloud and Security Business, Bharti Airtel (seven years). Earlier CIO positions at BBVA, HSBC, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Independent Non-Executive Director, Lloyds Banking Group; Vice-Chair and Board member, TM Forum. 2018 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award; TM Forum Global CIO of the Year; Women Economic Forum “Woman of the Decade in Innovation and Leadership.” Biography The gap between AI pilot and AI in production is where most enterprise value is currently lost. Boards want commercial outcomes; CIOs are still cleaning up legacy estate. Mehta has spent the last decade operating exactly in that gap, and her career arc is unusual because she has done it across three sectors. At Bharti Airtel, as Global CIO and head of the cloud and security business, she launched Airtel Payments Bank and built standalone cloud and security units serving hundreds of millions of customers. This is operating P&L experience, not advisory work. At BT Group, as the first Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, she ran a Group-wide programme that simplified a complex IT estate, scaled digital channels, and put AI into production across customer operations. Earlier CIO roles at BBVA, HSBC, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch gave her grounding in regulated environments, where governance, cyber risk, and resilience are not afterthoughts. That perspective now feeds her board work at Lloyds Banking Group, where she sits on the IT and Cyber Advisory Forum, and at TM Forum, where she is Vice-Chair and chairs the Appointments and Governance Committee. In April 2025 she joined Equinix as Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, reporting to CEO Adaire Fox-Martin. The 2018 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award and the TM Forum Global CIO of the Year recognise the same thing the boards she serves on do: she is judged on what she ships, not what she proposes. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and operational deployment Digital transformation in complex incumbents Cybersecurity and technology risk at board level Data strategy and the commercial value of data Cloud, platforms, and modern engineering operating models Women in technology and senior STEM leadership Building new digital businesses inside large groups Ideal for Boards and audit, risk, and technology committees commissioning conversations on AI governance and cyber resilience. CEOs, CIOs, CDOs, and transformation leads moving AI from pilot to production. Telecoms, financial services, and digital infrastructure leadership teams confronting legacy estate and platform redesign. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI investment converts to commercial value and where it stalls. An operator’s perspective on what good AI governance looks like inside a regulated, board-supervised business. A practical read on how digital channels and platforms produce revenue, not only cost reduction. Sharper questions to ask the executive team about AI, cyber, and data risk.

Why organisations work with Byron Reese He places today’s AI moment inside a 100,000-year arc of technology shifts, giving senior leaders a framework for long-range decisions that vendor briefings cannot supply. As CEO of Gigaom, he sits at the intersection of independent technology analysis and operating leadership, which lets him speak to both the engineering reality and the boardroom question. His five books, published by Simon & Schuster and BenBella, take positions on machine consciousness, automation, and the future of work that are specific and contestable, not generic optimism. He addresses AI without the doom-or-hype binary that dominates the speaking circuit, which is what most leadership audiences are quietly asking for. Biography highlights CEO and publisher of Gigaom, an independent technology research firm. Author of five books, including The Fourth Age (Simon & Schuster, 2018), described by The New York Times as “entertaining and engaging”. Founder of multiple technology companies, with two NASDAQ IPOs and several US patents to his name. Hosts podcasts on artificial intelligence, including Voices in AI and The Agora Podcast. Featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg Businessweek, USA Today and the Financial Times. Bloomberg Businessweek credited him with “quietly pioneer[ing] a new breed of media company”. Biography Most futurists work in five-year horizons because that is what corporate planning cycles demand. The cost is that the most important question, which is what AI actually does to the human story, gets answered by analogy and anecdote rather than by argument. Byron Reese works in a different timeframe. In The Fourth Age, published by Simon & Schuster in 2018, he argues that technology has reshaped humanity three times: fire and language, agriculture and cities, the wheel and writing. Artificial intelligence and robotics, he argues, are now driving the fourth. The book reframes machine consciousness, automation and the future of work as questions of philosophy and history rather than software roadmaps, and The New York Times called it “entertaining and engaging”. His credibility is operational as well as intellectual. As CEO and publisher of Gigaom, he runs one of the better-known independent technology research firms. Before that he founded and sold multiple companies, took two through NASDAQ IPOs, and built consumer internet platforms that Bloomberg Businessweek described as “a new breed of media company”. He holds several US patents in crowdsourcing and content technology. Reese is, by his own description, the “Future of” guy: he has written and spoken on the future of AI, work, banking, education, agriculture, and the planet. His later books, Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think and We Are Agora, extend the same long-range argument into how humans forecast and how human collectives behave. The thread that connects all of it, and the reason boards keep booking him, is that he is willing to take a position on where this is going. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the future of work The long arc of technology and human civilisation Automation and workforce redesign Machine consciousness and AI ethics Innovation in conditions of rapid technological change Reasoned optimism as a leadership stance on technology The future of education, banking and agriculture Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting long-range AI and automation strategy CHROs and workforce planners redesigning roles around AI capability Innovation and strategy leaders in financial services, education and industrial sectors Conference audiences looking for a substantive counterweight to AI hype and AI doom Audience outcomes A clearer mental model of where AI sits in the longer history of human technology Sharper questions for internal AI strategy conversations, particularly on workforce and capital allocation A credible counter-position to the dominant doom-or-hype framing of AI in the press A specific account of how automation reshapes employment, drawn from Reese’s published argument rather than generic forecasts Renewed confidence that leadership decisions on technology can be made with intellectual rigour, not faith

Why organisations work with Zahaan Bharmal He sits inside Google at senior level, shaping how the company communicates AI to enterprise and policy audiences across EMEA. Boards get an insider’s read on where AI is actually heading, not a consultant’s deck. His book The Art of Physics gives him a developed framework for using ideas like uncertainty, entropy and chaos to interrogate strategic decisions. Audiences leave with a vocabulary for thinking, not a slide of takeaways. He founded YouTube Space Lab, the international science competition run with NASA, ESA and JAXA, and holds NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. That is a credential almost no other corporate keynote speaker carries. He moves between physics, AI, government and frontier industry, advising the commercial space station company Vast. The result is a speaker who can talk to a board about AI strategy and to a STEM audience about scientific curiosity without changing register. Biography highlights Senior Director at Google, London, with seventeen years at the company across strategy, marketing and communications, including work with Google DeepMind. Author of The Art of Physics: Eight Elegant Ideas to Make Sense of Almost Everything (2024), published in the UK by Hodder and in North America by Greystone Books. Founder of YouTube Space Lab, run with NASA, ESA, JAXA and Lenovo, reaching students in over eighty countries. Recipient of NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. Physics graduate of the University of Oxford and Fulbright Scholar with an MBA from Stanford University. Regular contributor on physics and space to The Guardian; advisor to commercial space station company Vast. Biography Frontier AI is being deployed inside organisations faster than most boards can build the judgement to govern it. The hard question is not what the technology can do. It is how to make defensible decisions when the underlying system is changing every quarter and the available evidence keeps shifting. That is the territory Zahaan Bharmal works in. As a Senior Director at Google with seventeen years at the company, he has led strategy and communications across marketing, operations and Google DeepMind, focused on how AI is understood and adopted by enterprise and policy audiences in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He brings boards an insider’s view of how a frontier AI organisation actually thinks about deployment, risk and credibility. His book The Art of Physics, published in 2024 by Hodder in the UK and Greystone in North America, sets out eight ideas from physics, including uncertainty, entropy and chaos theory, and uses them to interrogate everyday decision-making. The argument carries weight because of where he sits: a physicist by training who has spent a career inside one of the companies building the systems that now sit on every executive agenda. Before Google, Zahaan studied Physics at Oxford, worked as a management consultant and then as a UK Government policy adviser, before winning a Fulbright Scholarship to Stanford for an MBA. He founded YouTube Space Lab with NASA, ESA and JAXA, the largest international school space science competition, for which he received NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. He writes on science for The Guardian and advises Vast, the private company building commercial space stations. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the practical limits of corporate decision-making Ideas from physics applied to leadership under uncertainty Science communication and public trust in AI Curiosity, complexity and innovation Resilience and composure in fast-moving systems The future of space and frontier industries Ideal for Board and executive committee sessions on AI strategy and responsible adoption Senior leadership audiences in regulated industries grappling with frontier technology decisions CHRO, CSO and transformation leads working on decision quality under uncertainty Innovation, R&D and STEM audiences inside scientific and engineering organisations Audience outcomes A clearer mental model for making decisions when the evidence base is moving Specific physics-derived heuristics for thinking about uncertainty, entropy and chaos in commercial contexts An insider’s view of how AI is being built, deployed and communicated inside a frontier technology company Renewed appetite for scientific curiosity as a leadership trait, not a soft skill

Why organisations work with Michelle K. Lee A rare three-sided view of AI: senior executive inside Google, Vice President of Amazon Web Services’ Machine Learning Solutions Lab, and a presidentially appointed agency head responsible for national IP and technology policy. Board-room credibility built on board service. Current director at MassMutual, Unity Technologies and The MIT Corporation, so audiences hear a peer, not a presenter. AI governance grounded in the law and the operating reality. Founder and CEO of Obsidian Strategies, advising on AI opportunity selection and the governance that goes with it. A track record of running AI at scale. Led a global AWS team that built machine learning into operations, customer experience and new revenue lines for clients across industries. Federal-scale execution. Ran the 10,000-person USPTO as the first woman to direct the agency, including its own AI strategy and digital modernisation. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Obsidian Strategies, advising Fortune-class companies and boards on AI opportunities and AI governance. Former Vice President, Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision, Amazon Web Services. Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the first woman in the role. Former Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy at Google. Board director: The MIT Corporation, MassMutual, Unity Technologies. Co-founder of ChIPs. MIT-trained computer scientist (B.S., M.S., EECS) and Stanford Law graduate (J.D.). Featured by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, NPR, MIT Sloan Management Review, CES, SXSW, the World Knowledge Forum and the National Association of Corporate Directors. Biography Most boards have moved past the question of whether AI matters. The harder problem is which AI decisions belong with the board, which belong with the operators, and how to govern a technology whose capabilities and regulatory picture keep moving. Michelle K. Lee has worked that problem from every side of the table. At Google she spent eight years inside one of the most consequential technology companies of the era, ending as Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy. At Amazon Web Services she ran the Machine Learning Solutions Lab and Computer Vision businesses as a Vice President, leading a global team that helped clients across industries build machine learning into operations, customer experience and new revenue lines. Few AI advisors have actually shipped AI at that scale. Between those roles she was appointed by the President to serve as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the first woman to hold the position. She ran a 10,000-person agency, set its own AI strategy, and was the principal advisor to the President on intellectual property policy. That public-sector vantage point is what makes her boardroom counsel on AI regulation and governance unusually grounded. Today she runs Obsidian Strategies, advising Fortune-class companies and their boards on where to deploy AI for material return and how to govern it credibly. She sits on the boards of MassMutual, Unity Technologies and The MIT Corporation, so the people she advises know she is making the same decisions in her day job. Key speaking topics AI strategy for the board and the executive team AI governance, ethics and regulation Generative AI: opportunities and operational risks Machine learning in customer experience and operations Digital transformation and innovation Intellectual property in the age of AI Director-level technology oversight Ideal for Boards and audit, risk or technology committees framing AI oversight and governance. CEO, CIO, CTO, Chief AI Officer and General Counsel audiences moving AI from pilot to production. Senior leadership offsites on AI strategy, regulation and competitive positioning. Industry events convening regulated sectors (financial services, insurance, healthcare, public sector) navigating AI policy. Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI investment produces measurable return and where it does not. A practical board-level framework for AI governance, risk and accountability. A read on where AI regulation is heading and what it means for current strategy. A more honest conversation about generative AI: what to deploy, what to defer, and what to refuse. Confidence that the speaker has personally built, operated and regulated the technology under discussion.

Why organisations work with Zack Kass He built the commercial engine inside OpenAI that translated frontier research into deployed products, which is a different vantage point from any external futurist or consultant. His “Unmetered Intelligence” framework gives boards a concrete way to plan for AI as infrastructure, not as a vendor decision, and it travels into capital allocation conversations rather than staying inside the IT function. He works directly with the leadership teams of named global organisations, including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, and Amgen, so the room recognises that the playbook has been pressure-tested against companies they compete with. His Wiley book, The Next Renaissance, is a USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and LA Times bestseller, which gives a CHRO or CIO a coherent reference for their executive team and not only a keynote. He is a recurring voice on Bloomberg and CNBC on AI risk, capital, and workforce impact, so the credibility check a buyer does after the call confirms the brief. Biography highlights Former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI; built the sales, partnerships, and customer success teams. Author of The Next Renaissance: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential (Wiley, 2026); USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and LA Times bestseller. Executive-in-Residence, University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce. Founder of ZKAI LLC; author of the “Unmetered Intelligence” white paper. Advisor to Fortune 1,000 leadership teams including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, PayPal, MetLife, TikTok, Amgen, and The Hartford. Recurring AI commentator for Bloomberg and CNBC; bylined contributor to Fortune. B.A., University of California, Berkeley. Biography OpenAI’s research only became a market because someone had to translate model weights into contracts, support, and adoption inside the world’s largest companies. That commercial scaffolding was built by the team Kass led as Head of Go-To-Market, and it is the unusual seat that shapes what he now offers to boards. The proposition is operational. Most leadership teams have approved AI pilots. Few have made the harder decisions about where intelligence sits in the workflow, who is accountable for outcomes, and what gets reorganised when cognitive capacity stops being scarce. Kass writes about that shift in his Wiley book, The Next Renaissance, and codifies it in his “Unmetered Intelligence” framework, which treats AI as infrastructure on the order of electricity rather than as a product category. The advisory base is concrete. Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Deloitte, PayPal, MetLife, TikTok, Amgen, and The Hartford have all worked with him directly, and the case studies that surface in his keynotes are drawn from those rooms. Bloomberg and CNBC use him as a recurring voice on AI risk and capital allocation, and his Fortune writing pushes the same argument into wider business debate. He is also Executive-in-Residence at UVA McIntire, which keeps the research and the boardroom work on the same circuit. What boards take from him is a sharper read on the next two to three years of AI deployment, written in the language of operating decisions rather than technical features. The choices around workforce, capital, and capability sequencing are no longer theoretical for most executive teams, and Kass is one of the few voices who has watched them get made from the inside of the company that triggered them. Key speaking topics Applied AI strategy for Fortune 1,000 leadership teams The Unmetered Intelligence thesis AI deployment beyond pilots Workforce redesign in the age of AI The Next Renaissance: AI and human potential AI risk, regulation, and board governance Capital allocation and AI infrastructure Ideal for CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, and CHROs setting enterprise AI strategy Boards and audit committees pressure-testing AI risk and governance posture Senior leadership offsites focused on AI deployment and workforce redesign Industry conferences for financial services, technology, healthcare, and consumer goods Audience outcomes A clearer line between AI experimentation and the operating decisions that follow it A board-ready framing for AI as infrastructure, drawing on the Unmetered Intelligence thesis Specific reference points from named Fortune 1,000 deployments rather than generic case studies A defensible position on AI risk, capital allocation, and workforce impact to take back to executive teams

Why organisations work with Jeff Speck He has translated walkability from a planning preference into a measurable argument about carbon, healthcare costs, property values and downtown economic performance, set out in Walkable City and applied in master plans for Memphis, Grand Rapids, Lowell and Tampa. His General Theory of Walkability gives mayors, developers and corporate site selectors a single framework for evaluating the trade-offs in any street, block or downtown investment. He brings both sides of the table: ten years inside Duany Plater-Zyberk shaping the New Urbanism, four years running design policy at the National Endowment for the Arts, and almost two decades leading his own consultancy advising cities and the real estate industry. Walkable City is the best-selling urban planning book written this century, and his two 2013 TED Talks have passed six million views, which means audiences arrive already familiar with the argument and ready to discuss application. The 2022 Seaside Prize, awarded previously to Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, places him in a small group of figures recognised for shaping how cities are now planned. Biography highlights Principal of Speck Dempsey, the urban design consultancy he has led since 2007. Director of Design at the US National Endowment for the Arts, 2003 to 2007, where he ran the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and founded the Governors’ Institute on Community Design. Former Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company, a ten-year tenure inside the firm at the centre of the New Urbanism movement. Author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules; co-author of Suburban Nation and The Smart Growth Manual. FAICP, FCNU, LEED-AP, Honorary ASLA. Master of Architecture with Distinction, Harvard Graduate School of Design. 2022 Seaside Prize, an award whose previous recipients include Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander. Ranked among the ten most influential urbanists of all time in Planetizen’s 2023 reader poll. Biography Most arguments about downtowns get stuck on aesthetics. The serious case is economic. Jeff Speck has spent twenty years showing public officials, developers and corporate leaders that the width of a lane, the placement of a parking lot and the design of a block decide whether a city captures investment, talent and tax base, or quietly loses it. Walkable City, published in 2012, set out the General Theory of Walkability and the ten-step process Speck uses to apply it. It became the best-selling urban planning book written this century, and his two 2013 TED Talks have since passed six million views. Walkable City Rules followed in 2018 as the operating manual for practitioners. The argument is built on three decades inside the work. Ten years as Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company, the firm at the centre of the New Urbanism movement. Four years running design at the US National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and created the Governors’ Institute on Community Design. Almost two decades leading Speck Dempsey on master plans and street designs for cities including Memphis, Grand Rapids, Lowell and Tampa. The 2022 Seaside Prize, awarded previously to Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, recognises the small group of figures whose work has changed how American cities are now planned. For boards, mayors and developers wrestling with the future of downtown, Speck is the rare adviser who can move between climate strategy, real estate economics and the design of a single intersection without losing the thread. Key speaking topics Walkable cities and downtown economic performance The General Theory of Walkability Street design and the public realm New Urbanism and smart growth Cities, climate and public health economics Downtown revitalisation and real estate investment Transportation policy and the future of the car Ideal for Mayors, city managers, planning directors and downtown development authorities Real estate developers, REITs and corporate site selectors making place-based investment decisions Sustainability, ESG and climate leads in organisations linking property and emissions strategy Boards and senior teams in retail, hospitality and mixed-use real estate Audience outcomes A working definition of walkability as four conditions a street must meet, applicable to any block under review The economic case for walkable places, expressed in terms of property values, retail performance, healthcare costs and carbon A ten-step sequence for prioritising downtown investments when the budget will fund a fraction of what is on the wishlist A clear view of the trade-offs between car capacity, street life and downtown tax base, with named examples of cities that have got it right and wrong A shared vocabulary between planners, developers, finance teams and elected officials for the next set of decisions

Why organisations work with Henrik von Scheel He is one of the named architects of Industry 4.0 as it was formalised in Germany’s high-tech strategy, so his frame of reference is the policy and standards layer most strategists only read about. His advisory seat on the EU AI Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM) lets him brief boards on regulation that is still being written, not regulation that has already shipped. He sits inside the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, whose trend material feeds the World Economic Forum, so the inputs he uses with clients are the same inputs shaping global agenda papers. His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption” gives clients a documented method for sequencing disruption response rather than a slide deck of trends. Co-authorship of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model, means he moves from boardroom narrative to operational specification inside the same engagement. Biography highlights Originated the term “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in 2011 as a member of the Advisory Group to the German Federal Ministry of Education & Research, with Prof August Wilhelm Scheer and Prof Henning Kagermann. Co-author of Germany’s Digital Agenda (2009 to 2010), later adopted as the European Commission’s Europe Digital Agenda 2020. Managing Director of the Institute of Strategic Intelligence and Professor of Economics and Strategy Management. Author of “Strategy in the Age of Disruption: A Handbook to Anticipate Change and Make Smart Decisions” (Wiley, 2024). Advisory Council Member on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM Scope 1 to 3); co-author of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. Recipient of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award (2019), the prize popularly described as the Nobel of knowledge sharing; named a leading authority on strategy by the Financial Times and a most influential futurist of the century by CNBC. Biography The phrase “Industry 4.0” was first written into a German federal policy paper in 2011, and the working group behind it had three names on it. One of them was Henrik von Scheel, then advising the Federal Ministry of Education & Research alongside August Wilhelm Scheer and Henning Kagermann. Two years later the concept was published as Germany’s high-tech strategy and became the dominant frame for industrial digitalisation across most advanced economies. That origin story matters because most strategists discuss digital transformation from outside the room. Von Scheel works from inside it. He co-authored Germany’s Digital Agenda with Scheer in 2009 to 2010, which the European Commission adopted as the Europe Digital Agenda 2020. He sits on the advisory council for the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board, where he is contributing to the Green Deal, FIT for 55 and CBAM. He is briefing boards on rules he is helping draft. The operational layer is just as concrete. Through the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, where he is Managing Director, he supplies trend research used by the World Economic Forum. He has co-authored 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. This is what lets him move a conversation from megatrend to operational specification without losing the room. His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption”, co-written with Ciprian Popa and Joshua von Scheel, sets out a method for anticipating change and sequencing decisions rather than reacting to disruption after the fact. Current demand reflects that range: law firms working through the future of legal practice, defence, banking, automotive and manufacturing leaders working through the move from automation to intelligence. Key speaking topics Industry 4.0 and industrial digitalisation Artificial intelligence strategy and the EU AI Act From automation to intelligence in industrial operations Strategic foresight and megatrend analysis Future of legal practice in the age of AI Digital transformation execution Supply chain and operations reinvention Sustainability, ESG and energy transition Ideal for Boards and CEOs in manufacturing, automotive, defence and banking setting AI, digital and Industry 4.0 strategy at group level Managing Partners and innovation leads in law firms working through how AI restructures legal practice and client work Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads sequencing capital and operating bets under disruption COOs and operations leaders reinventing factories, supply chains and service operations Government and policy audiences shaping national digital, AI or industrial agendas Audience outcomes A clear read on which megatrends are commercially actionable in the next planning cycle and which are still ten years out A defensible logic for sequencing AI, automation and digital investments against P&L impact An insider view of where EU AI and climate regulation is going before it lands A working method, drawn from his Wiley handbook, for making strategic decisions when the operating environment keeps shifting Confidence that the digital and Industry 4.0 narrative inside the organisation matches what is happening at policy and standards level

Why organisations work with Katja Schipperheijn A published methodology, the Learning Ecosystem, that gives executives a working model for how learning, technology, and culture connect inside an operating business, not a slide of principles. Authority on both sides of the human-machine question: trained at MIT Sloan in algorithmic business thinking and digital learning strategy, and recognised by getAbstract for the learning impact of her work. Two Kogan Page books that translate the research into language a CHRO, a CLO, and a CEO can use in the same conversation. Practical operator experience through Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, advising multinationals, governments, and scale-ups on how to embed continuous learning into the fabric of the business. Biography highlights Author of Learning Ecosystems (Kogan Page, 2022), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2023 in the International Business Book category. Author of The Learning Mindset (Kogan Page, 2024), winner of the getAbstract Global Book Award for Learning Impact, 2025. Founder of Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, advising clients across Europe, the Gulf, and Asia. MIT Sloan programmes in Algorithmic Business Thinking and Digital Learning Strategy; International eMBA, Antwerp Management School. Founder of the sCooledu foundation; digital citizenship workshops delivered to over 15,000 children. Named to the Global 200 Women Power Leaders list, 2024. Biography AI rollouts are outpacing the workforce capability needed to use them well. Most organisations still treat learning as a programme delivered to people, rather than a property of how the business operates. Schipperheijn’s work sits in exactly that gap. Her first book, Learning Ecosystems, set out a working model for how learning, technology, and stakeholder behaviour connect inside an organisation. Published by Kogan Page in 2022, it was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards the following year. The follow-up, The Learning Mindset (2024), extends the argument into AI: what human competencies leaders need to cultivate when machines take on more cognitive work, and how to build them at scale. The book won the 2025 getAbstract Global Book Award for Learning Impact. The research is paired with operating experience. Through Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, she advises multinationals, governments, and scale-ups on continuous improvement, learning culture, and the integration of AI into day-to-day work. Her academic grounding sits between Antwerp Management School, where she completed an eMBA, and MIT Sloan, where she trained in algorithmic business thinking and digital learning strategy. She is also founder of the sCooledu foundation, which has delivered digital citizenship workshops to more than 15,000 children. That work feeds back into her commercial argument: the capacity to keep learning is the capability that determines whether an organisation, or a society, gets value out of AI. Key speaking topics Learning ecosystems and continuous improvement AI and the future of work Human-machine symbiosis Workforce upskilling and reskilling Liminal leadership through disruptive change Digital learning strategy Innovation culture inside large organisations Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers redesigning workforce capability around AI Executive committees and boards setting the AI and workforce agenda together Transformation and innovation leads embedding learning into operating change HR, L&D, and talent leadership audiences inside multinationals Audience outcomes A working definition of a learning ecosystem and how it differs from a training function A clearer view of which human competencies become more valuable as AI capability grows, and which become less so Practical lenses for assessing whether their current L&D operating model can support AI-era work Language that connects the CHRO, CLO, and CEO agendas on workforce readiness Examples drawn from her advisory work across Europe, the Gulf, and Asia

Why organisations work with Lewis Dartnell Translates planetary-scale science into commercial foresight that leadership teams can actually use in strategy work. Author of The Knowledge, a Sunday Times bestseller built around a question every operator should be able to answer: which technologies in your value chain are foundational, and which are replaceable. Connects geology, biology and climate to the present-day shape of supply chains, geopolitics and consumer behaviour, drawing on the Origins thesis translated into thirty languages. Brings broadcast-grade communication craft from BBC Horizon, Stargazing Live and a main-stage TED talk, calibrated for board and executive audiences, not lecture rooms. One of a small number of working research scientists who can hold a 45-minute keynote at the level required by a CEO offsite without losing scientific rigour. Biography highlights Professor of Science Communication, University of Westminster. PhD in Astrobiology, University College London. Former UK Space Agency Research Fellow at the University of Leicester. Author of The Knowledge, Origins, and Being Human, plus Life in the Universe and a guide to the solar system; Sunday Times bestsellers translated into more than thirty languages. Main-stage TED speaker (TED2015) and regular BBC presenter across Horizon, The Sky at Night and Stargazing Live. Bylines and contributions in The Guardian, The Times, New Scientist and The Daily Telegraph. Scientific consultant on HBO Max’s Station Eleven and on Brian Cox documentaries. Biography Modern organisations sit on top of scientific systems that almost no one in the room can explain. Energy, materials, communication networks, food chains, the climate envelope they operate within. When those systems shift, the strategic consequences arrive quickly, and the executive team often lacks the language to see them coming. Lewis Dartnell’s work attacks that gap directly. The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch, a Sunday Times bestseller, asks which technologies a civilisation would have to recover first, and why. It is a thought experiment with a hard commercial edge. Strip away the assumptions, and what is actually foundational? A copy sits on the surface of the moon. The book has been adopted as a thinking tool in industries that depend on long-horizon decisions. Origins extended the argument to geology, plate tectonics and climate as drivers of human history, and has been translated into thirty languages. Being Human, his most recent book, examines how human biology and psychology continue to shape political, economic and consumer behaviour. The through-line is consistent: deep scientific structure explaining surface-level outcomes that boards spend their time arguing about. He holds a chair in science communication at the University of Westminster after research roles at University College London and the UK Space Agency programme at Leicester. His broadcast work for the BBC, his TED talk and his scientific consultancy on shows such as Station Eleven mean he speaks at a register designed for general audiences without losing the underlying rigour. For a senior leadership team trying to think clearly about technology, resources and the next twenty years, he is one of a small number of speakers who can hold both ends at once. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight and first-principles thinking Resilience and civilisational technology Long-range science and the future of business Geopolitics, resources and climate Space exploration and the commercial space economy Astrobiology and the search for life Human biology and behaviour as commercial forces Science communication and clear thinking Ideal for Board offsites and CEO leadership summits requiring scientific perspective on long-range risk CSOs, heads of strategy and corporate development teams running scenario work Innovation, R&D and technology leadership groups CHRO and leadership development audiences building first-principles thinking capability Audience outcomes A sharper view of which technologies and resources are foundational to the business, and which are substitutable A grounded understanding of the planetary and biological forces shaping geopolitics, supply chains and consumer behaviour A working vocabulary for long-range scientific risk that senior teams can use in their own strategy conversations A more disciplined first-principles approach to questioning assumptions inside the organisation Genuine intellectual engagement from senior audiences who normally tune out of “future trends” content

Why organisations work with Ulrich Walter He brings the credibility of a flown astronaut and a sitting university chair to AI and robotics conversations that usually rely on consultants or vendor analysts. His role on the Bavarian Ethics Council gives him direct exposure to how regulators, ethicists and engineers are drawing the operating lines around AI, useful for boards setting their own. Disruptive-innovation content drawn from NASA mission cases and his own IBM project-management work, not from secondhand business literature. A working researcher in geriatronics and service robotics, which gives him a concrete view of what AI-assisted hardware can and cannot do today, beyond the generative-AI conversation. Comfortable in technical depth and broad audience formats. Eleven books, a weekly TV programme on Welt TV, and a Spiegel bestseller indicate a speaker who can carry a non-specialist room without softening the science. Biography highlights Payload Specialist, NASA Space Shuttle Columbia, Spacelab D-2 mission (STS-55), 1993. Chair of the Institute of Astronautics, Technical University of Munich, 2003 to 2023, now emeritus. Member, Bavarian Ethics Council on robotics and artificial intelligence. German Professor of the Year 2008 in engineering sciences and informatics. Author of eleven books including the Spiegel bestseller “Im Schwarzen Loch ist der Teufel los” and the Wiley textbook Astronautics. Host, Spacetimes, weekly space-science documentary on Welt TV since 2016. Biography Most leadership teams are asked to make decisions about AI and robotics without a working understanding of how the underlying systems behave. That gap is where Ulrich Walter does his most useful work. Trained as a physicist at the University of Cologne, with postdoctoral years at Argonne National Laboratory and UC Berkeley, he combines an active scientific career with a policy seat that few keynote speakers can match. In 1993 he flew Spacelab D-2 aboard Space Shuttle Columbia as Payload Specialist, running 89 experiments across materials science, life sciences and robotics in just under ten days in orbit. After the mission he managed satellite imaging programmes at the German Aerospace Center, then ran development projects at IBM, before being appointed to the Chair of Astronautics at TU Munich in 2003. At TUM he led research on service robotics, geriatronics, and the systems engineering behind human spaceflight. He also sits on the Bavarian Ethics Council on robotics and AI, advising on where the operational and moral limits of these technologies should fall. The work is technical, and it is current. For corporate audiences, the most useful translation is the one between high-risk technical environments and ordinary business decision-making. How does NASA assess disruptive change? How does a project manager at IBM apply mission-grade discipline? What does a working scientist on Germany’s AI ethics body actually think a board should worry about? Walter is unusually direct on all three. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and ethics Disruptive innovation Space technology and the NewSpace economy Robotics and geriatronics Systems engineering and project management The future of human spaceflight Science communication for non-specialist audiences Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting governance on AI and emerging technology Engineering, R&D and innovation leadership at industrial and aerospace firms Senior project and programme managers in complex, high-risk environments Conferences and offsites looking for a substantive technology keynote that can also carry a non-technical room Audience outcomes A working view of where AI and robotics genuinely change the operating picture, and where the hype runs ahead of the science. A practical translation of NASA-style risk management and project discipline into commercial settings. A clearer sense of how European regulators and ethicists are framing the limits of AI deployment. Exposure to the NewSpace economy and what it signals about the next generation of commercial technology. A reset of perspective on long-horizon strategic thinking from someone who has spent ten days looking at the planet from orbit.