Innovation & Disruption

Key speaking topics Formula 1 race engineering High-performance teamwork Real-time decision-making under pressure Motorsport strategy and execution Engineering leadership in elite sport Performance optimisation in competitive environments Ideal for Senior leadership teams Engineering and technical audiences Performance-focused organisations Corporate conferences seeking elite sport insights Audience outcomes Clear understanding of how Formula 1 teams operate under pressure. Insight into race-day communication and decision-making processes. Practical perspectives on teamwork in high-stakes environments. Greater appreciation of the role of data and engineering in performance delivery. Why organisations work with Julien Simon-Chautemps Direct experience from senior trackside roles in Formula 1. First-hand insight into collaboration between engineers and world-class drivers. Credible, technical perspective grounded in elite motorsport. Ability to translate complex engineering environments into accessible business lessons. Biography Julien Simon-Chautemps brings over two decades of elite motorsport engineering experience, including senior trackside roles in Formula 1. Working at the heart of high-performance race teams, he operated in environments defined by precision, pressure and constant competitive scrutiny. Across his Formula 1 career, he held race-engineering positions with Toyota, Lotus/Caterham, Renault/Lotus Renault and Sauber, later rebranded as Alfa Romeo. In these roles, he worked directly with world-class drivers including Kimi Räikkönen, Romain Grosjean, Jarno Trulli and Marcus Ericsson, supporting performance delivery at the highest level of international sport. His work required real-time decision-making, technical leadership and seamless communication between drivers, engineers and senior team management. The Formula 1 paddock demands clarity, discipline and alignment across complex technical systems, disciplines directly relevant to organisations navigating high-stakes operational and strategic environments. Following his Formula 1 career, Julien founded JSC7 Engineering, a motorsport and automotive consultancy drawing on his experience in race strategy, engineering execution and team performance. He also contributes technical analysis for Canal+ and has appeared as an on-air analyst for F1 TV, providing expert insight into the engineering and strategic dimensions of Formula 1. Fluent in English and French, with Italian also listed, Julien works with organisations seeking credible insight from elite performance environments. His perspective combines engineering depth with first-hand experience of operating where performance margins are measured in milliseconds and decisions shape outcomes instantly.

Why organisations work with Julie Holmes She has built and sold technology, not just studied it. Two innovation companies under her belt and products in over 60 countries give her keynotes the texture of an operator, not an analyst. The UPGRADE Framework gives audiences a seven-step structure they can apply on Monday morning, rather than a high-level provocation about AI’s importance. The AI Strategy Playbook, co-authored with Mary Kelly, addresses the gap most leadership teams admit privately: they do not yet have a written organisational AI strategy. PSA-UKI Hall of Fame status puts her among 33 speakers recognised for sustained craft on stage, useful when the brief is a high-stakes leadership audience. She lectures on innovation and AI at Yale, Birkbeck, and the American University of Beirut, which keeps the material tested against students and faculty as well as paying clients. Biography highlights Hall of Fame Speaker, PSA-UKI, one of 33 to hold the honour Author of Little Big Bangs for Leaders and co-author of The AI Strategy Playbook with Mary Kelly, PhD Founder of two innovation companies with products distributed in over 60 countries Clients include Oracle, Expedia, American Express, JetBlue, Nestle, EY, VMware, US Bank, and LinkedIn Guest lecturer at Yale, Birkbeck (University of London), and the American University of Beirut Creator of the UPGRADE Framework for AI adoption inside teams Biography Less than one in five companies has a written AI policy, let alone a strategy. That gap is what Julie Holmes works inside. She helps boards and leadership teams move from scattered AI pilots to a documented playbook the rest of the organisation can actually use. Her credibility comes from building, not commenting. Holmes founded two innovation companies and shipped products into more than 60 countries before the current AI cycle. That operator history shapes how she talks to senior audiences. The diagnosis is practical, the language is plain, and the deliverable is a structure leaders can apply. The UPGRADE Framework, her seven-step approach to embedding AI in team workflows, anchors most of her keynotes. The AI Strategy Playbook, co-authored with Mary Kelly, extends the same logic to the strategy layer. Earlier work, Little Big Bangs for Leaders, set out her broader thesis on incremental innovation as a leadership discipline. Holmes is a Hall of Fame Speaker with PSA-UKI, one of 33 to hold the honour, and a guest lecturer at Yale, Birkbeck, and the American University of Beirut. Brands including Oracle, Expedia, JetBlue, Nestle, EY, and LinkedIn have brought her in to do the same job: take AI off the slide deck and into the operating model. Key speaking topics AI strategy and adoption Enterprise AI playbooks AI-empowered teams and workflows Innovation as a leadership discipline Sales and customer experience under AI Future of work and AI capability building Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and CTOs setting an enterprise AI direction Heads of transformation and innovation responsible for AI deployment Sales and customer-experience leaders integrating AI into commercial workflows Boards seeking a credible operator perspective on AI strategy Audience outcomes A working seven-step structure (UPGRADE) for embedding AI into team operations A clearer view of what an AI strategy playbook contains and how to draft one Concrete examples of where AI changes sales and customer experience, with named tools Language for talking to non-technical employees about AI capability without inducing fear A sharper sense of which AI use cases are worth piloting and which are noise

Why organisations work with Ana Andjelic Her “aspirational economy” thesis that brand value is now built through social, cultural, and environmental capital rather than product features or advertising reach gives leadership teams a conceptually rigorous basis for repositioning brands in fragmented consumer markets, not just a set of tactics. She has delivered verified results at scale: the Banana Republic rebrand under her leadership produced a 27% year-on-year comparable sales increase, which means boards are not being asked to take a theory on faith. Her two Routledge-published books, combined with The Sociology of Business newsletter (ranked among Substack’s top 15 business publications), mean her framework is publicly available, continuously tested, and already in use by the marketing leaders her audiences need to influence. She brings C-suite brand experience across three distinct commercial contexts – global mass retail (Banana Republic, Esprit), contemporary luxury (Mansur Gavriel), and independent fashion (Rebecca Minkoff), making her diagnostic toolkit applicable beyond any single category or brand tier. A Columbia sociology doctorate and a senior career at agencies including Droga5 and Havas means she can diagnose what has broken in a brand’s relationship with culture and explain why, not just describe the symptoms. Biography highlights Chief Brand Officer at Banana Republic, rebrand delivered a 27% year-on-year comparable sales increase Former Global Chief Brand Officer at Esprit, led brand repositioning across Europe and market re-entry in North America and Asia-Pacific Author of two books published by Routledge: The Business of Aspiration and Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture Recognised three times by Forbes for CMO work, including Forbes CMO Next Publishes The Sociology of Business, ranked among the top 15 business publications on Substack Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, Fast Company, The Guardian, Adweek, and Vogue PhD in Sociology and MA in Media Studies; senior agency experience at Droga5, Havas Media, and Spring Studios Biography Ana Andjelic spent two decades in C-suite brand roles, at Banana Republic, Esprit, Mansur Gavriel, and Rebecca Minkoff, while simultaneously building a body of intellectual work that explains why most brand strategy fails. The result is a perspective with unusual commercial credibility: she has made the argument at board level and then delivered the numbers. Her central thesis, developed in The Business of Aspiration (Routledge), is that modern consumers no longer signal status through wealth or possessions but through taste, curation, and values – what she calls social, cultural, and environmental capital. The organisations that understand this are not running better advertising. They are restructuring brand strategy around cultural influence: collaborations, creative communities, content, and what she identifies in her second book, Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture, as the systematic production of cultural hits. At Banana Republic, she translated this framework into a full brand repositioning that delivered a 27% year-on-year comparable sales increase. At Esprit, she oversaw the brand’s repositioning across Europe and its re-entry into North American and Asia-Pacific markets. Both assignments required her to make cultural arguments in commercial terms and to redesign the marketing function to deliver them. Andjelic holds a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University and a Masters in Media Studies. Her Sociology of Business newsletter is among Substack’s top 15 business publications. She contributes to Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, Fast Company, and Vogue, and is a frequent expert source for the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Key speaking topics Brand strategy and repositioning Cultural influence and the aspirational economy Consumer aspiration and shifting status symbols Cultural hitmaking as commercial strategy The Creative Class and cultural audience segmentation Brand storytelling and narrative architecture Retail innovation and brand-driven growth Ideal for Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Brand Officers leading brand repositioning or category entry C-suite leaders in fashion, luxury, and retail responsible for connecting brand investment to commercial outcomes Strategy and brand teams in consumer-facing businesses seeking a model for cultural relevance that scales Boards and leadership teams reviewing brand value architecture, growth planning, or market re-entry Audience outcomes A working framework for understanding how social, cultural, and environmental capital now drive brand value and purchase decisions, and what that means for brand investment A practical model for redefining brand strategy as cultural influence, with organisational and operational implications Clarity on the role of cultural products, collaborations, content, entertainment, community, in building sustainable brand growth beyond advertising A method for segmenting audiences by their relationship to culture, including how the Creative Class functions as an amplification layer Tested examples of how cultural strategy translates into commercial results, including the conditions that made the Banana Republic repositioning work

Why organisations work with Kian Bakhtiari Direct primary-source insight from a live community of 2,000+ Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha contributors across 50+ markets, rather than the lagged trend reports most boards are working from. A published, practitioner argument on purpose-led marketing through Kogan Page’s “Marketing for Social Change”, giving commercial teams a framework for purpose that survives the backlash cycle. Strategic credibility across two registers: the agency boardroom (former Head of Strategy at Dentsu Aegis Network) and the multilateral institution (WEF Agenda Contributor, UNFCCC advisor). Operating experience with consumer-facing brands that have to convert Gen-Z, including Adidas, Unilever, Diesel, L’Oreal, Danone, Innocent Drinks, Pentland Brands and Speedo. A Financial Times Top 50 Future Leaders listing, which gives a buyer external validation that the perspective is taken seriously by the business press. Biography highlights Founder of The People, a Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha cultural intelligence consultancy with contributors across 50+ markets. Author of “Marketing for Social Change: How to Turn Purpose Into Business and Social Impact”, Kogan Page (2024). Named in the Financial Times “Top 50 Future Leaders” for contributions to marketing. Agenda Contributor to the World Economic Forum; Advisor to UN Climate Change (UNFCCC). Forbes contributor on Gen-Z, brand and consumer culture; featured in Campaign, The Drum, Vogue Business and Rolling Stone. Former Head of Strategy at Dentsu Aegis Network; TEDx Brighton speaker on imagination and innovation. Biography Marketing teams have been trying to “reach Gen-Z” with the tools of the previous cycle: panels, focus groups, agency trend decks. The cohort itself has moved on, and most of the commercial signals reaching the boardroom are already a generation late. Kian Bakhtiari built The People to close that gap, running a live network of Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha contributors across 50+ markets that feeds primary cultural intelligence directly into client work. His background is unusually balanced for the field. Former Head of Strategy at Dentsu Aegis Network, he understands what the commercial brief looks like inside a holding company. As Agenda Contributor to the World Economic Forum and Advisor to UN Climate Change, he sees how the same generational questions land in policy and multilateral settings. The Financial Times named him in its Top 50 Future Leaders for marketing, an external read on where his work sits in the discipline. His book, “Marketing for Social Change” (Kogan Page, 2024), is the practitioner argument behind the consultancy. It sets out how brands can embed purpose into the operating substance of the business rather than the campaign layer, and how to avoid the backlash that hits when the two diverge. Clients he has worked with on this terrain include Unilever, L’Oreal, Diesel, Adidas, Danone, Innocent Drinks, Pentland Brands, Speedo and the BBC. What he gives a senior team is a route into a consumer base they cannot read with their existing tools, and a defensible position on purpose that holds up when scrutinised. That sits at the centre of how commercial strategy is now being rewritten for younger consumers and workers. Key speaking topics Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha consumer behaviour Purpose-led marketing and brand activism Cultural intelligence and foresight Marketing for social change The future workforce and generational diversity Brand communities and the creator economy Innovation, imagination and creativity Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and consumer insight leads recalibrating their approach to Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha audiences Chief Strategy Officers and growth leads in consumer-facing categories where younger cohorts decide the next decade of revenue Boards and executive committees stress-testing purpose, ESG and brand positioning against a more sceptical, more political consumer base CHROs and culture leads working on multigenerational workforces where Gen-Z is reshaping engagement and retention Audience outcomes A sharper picture of what Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha actually want from brands, employers and institutions, drawn from a live primary-source network rather than syndicated research. A practical test for whether a brand’s purpose can survive contact with the operating business, and where it most often breaks. A view of the commercial cost of getting generational signals wrong, and the categories where that cost is already showing up. Specific examples of brands that have moved purpose from campaign to product, and what made the difference.

Why organisations work with Hatem Salem Operating perspective from running an integrated communication group across Cairo and Paris since 1991, including Media Hatem Salem, Brands & Branding, Act CSR, and Global Arabian Network. Few speakers on AI in marketing have built and led the full agency stack themselves. Practical fluency in MENA consumer markets that most Western marketing speakers do not have, useful for organisations looking at brand entry, expansion, or partner work across the Arab world. Track record of building owned platforms, including Cairo Fashion Week, Cairo Mobile Film Festival, Egypt CSR Day, the International Branding Conference, and the Blue Star Award. Useful for clients thinking about brand events as a channel, not a line item. Multiple Agency of the Year awards from the International Advertising Association Egypt Chapter, including for the Smart Village and Sharm El Sheikh public service campaigns. Concrete agency credibility, not a personal-brand claim. Current focus on neuromarketing and AI in advertising creativity gives buyers a speaker who can connect behavioural science, generative tools and brand strategy in the same talk, rather than picking one lens. Biography highlights Chairman and CEO, Hatem Salem Communication Group; founder of Media Hatem Salem (1991), Brands & Branding (2000), Act CSR (2010), and Global Arabian Network (2014). Founder and President of Cairo Fashion Week, Cairo Mobile Film Festival, Egypt CSR Day, the International Branding Conference, and the Blue Star Award. Multiple Agency of the Year awards from the International Advertising Association Egypt Chapter and from the American University in Cairo. BA in Mass Communication, Cairo University; MA in Mass Communication, Press, Publicity, New Media and Cinema Science, Stendhal Grenoble 3. Former journalist and press correspondent in Paris covering European and Middle Eastern media for over five years. Has taught media, marketing, branding and advertising at Cairo University, the French University in Egypt, the British University in Egypt and the University of Grenoble. Biography The marketing function is being rebuilt twice over. AI is reshaping how creative, media and customer experience are produced, and the audience side has changed too, with attention more fragmented and brand loyalty thinner than at any point in the past two decades. Most organisations are still reasoning about this as a set of tool choices, when the real question is which parts of the marketing operation hold their shape and which get redesigned. Salem has been running marketing and communication businesses through every prior wave of this shift. He founded Media Hatem Salem in Cairo in 1991, then built out an integrated group with Brands & Branding, Act CSR, and the Global Arabian Network, working across above the line, below the line and through the line channels for clients across Egypt and the wider Arab market. The group has earned multiple Agency of the Year honours from the International Advertising Association Egypt Chapter, including for the Smart Village and Sharm El Sheikh campaigns. Alongside the agency work, he has built owned brand platforms that operate as commercial assets in their own right. Cairo Fashion Week, Cairo Mobile Film Festival, Egypt CSR Day, the International Branding Conference and the Blue Star Award all sit inside the group, giving him a working view of brand events as a channel rather than a marketing line item. Earlier in his career he worked as a Paris-based press correspondent covering European and Middle Eastern media, and held research and teaching posts at Stendhal Grenoble 3, Cairo University, the French University in Egypt, and the British University in Egypt. His current work focuses on neuromarketing, AI in advertising creativity, AI in event management, and the future of media, cinema and social platforms. The connecting thread is operational: how generative tools, behavioural science and experience design change what marketing teams actually produce, and what stays human. Key speaking topics Neuromarketing and consumer behaviour AI in advertising and creative production AI in marketing and customer experience Brand strategy in MENA and emerging markets Event platforms as brand assets The future of media, cinema and social platforms Corporate social responsibility and brand reputation Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams rebuilding the marketing operating model around AI. Boards and executive teams of consumer brands entering or scaling in MENA and the Arab market. Heads of communications, customer experience and creative agencies working through generative AI integration. Event, sponsorship and brand partnership leads rethinking the role of owned platforms. Audience outcomes A clearer view of which parts of the marketing operation are most exposed to AI redesign, and which parts hold. Working examples of neuromarketing and behavioural science applied to brand, advertising and event work. A practitioner read on the MENA market that most Western marketing voices cannot provide. A more concrete sense of how owned brand platforms function as a commercial channel. Sharper questions for CMOs and agency partners on AI in creative production, personalisation and customer experience.

Why organisations work with Chris Baréz-Brown Twenty-five years working the commercial creativity brief as an operator, first agency-side and then running his own firm. The view is from inside the work, not from a research perch. Five Penguin titles set out a coherent published thesis on creativity as a learnable behaviour, so buyers can read the argument before booking the room. His Unilever programme was written up in Harvard Business Review, a rare credential in this territory. He ships a behaviour-change tool with the keynote. TiO and the Elvis Energy Lab let the room run the method the next morning, not just remember the speech. A repeat-booking record on the brand side that other creativity speakers don’t match. Biography highlights Founder of Upping Your Elvis, a creativity and energy consultancy working with global brands. Former director at innovation consultancy ?What If!, leading offices in London, New York and Sydney. Author of five Penguin books: Shine, Wake Up!, Free!, How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas, and Upping Your Elvis. Penguin’s bestselling author in 2014. Creator of TiO, a workplace mental wellbeing app with research from the University of Bristol. Featured in Harvard Business Review for the impact of his work with Unilever. Media appearances include the BBC, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Fast Company and Calm. Biography Most creativity programmes inside large organisations fail at the same point. The room leaves energised, the workstreams revert, and within a quarter the operating model has absorbed the change. The problem is rarely a shortage of ideas. It is the absence of a daily practice that lets ordinary employees produce original work under commercial pressure. This is the territory Chris Baréz-Brown has worked in for twenty-five years. He spent over a decade as a director at ?What If!, the innovation consultancy, running the business across London, New York and Sydney before founding Upping Your Elvis in 2010. The premise of the firm is that human energy, not strategy decks, is the variable that determines whether a creative culture survives contact with the operating model. His five Penguin titles, including the bestseller Upping Your Elvis, set out a body of practice that treats creativity as a learnable behaviour rather than a personality trait. The work has run inside Nike, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Unilever, Roche, Microsoft and the WPP agency network on the brand side, with Harvard Business Review featuring the impact of the Unilever programme. What sets the offer apart from a standard creativity keynote is the post-event mechanism. Through TiO, an app developed with research from the University of Bristol, and the Elvis Energy Lab, audiences leave with a method they can run themselves. The thesis underneath all of it is commercial: brave thinking is a function of human state, and human state can be designed for. Key speaking topics Commercial creativity and innovation practice Energy management and human performance at work Mental and emotional wellbeing in high-pressure roles Leadership of creative teams Behaviour change and habit design inside organisations Brand-side innovation case studies Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders looking to lift creative output across marketing organisations Heads of innovation and R&D in consumer-facing businesses Senior HR and people leaders responsible for engagement and wellbeing strategy Leadership offsites where the brief is renewal of energy and creative confidence, not a strategy refresh Audience outcomes A working definition of creativity as daily practice, not occasional inspiration Specific behavioural tools, including TiO, that audiences can use the next morning A sharper read on how their own energy state is shaping the quality of their commercial decisions Case material on what holds up when a creative culture meets the operating model

Why organisations work with Dorothée Töreki She has run digital transformation from the inside. Eleven years at IBM Germany and a Director of Digitalisation role at the Boysen Group give her a working understanding of how AI and digital tools actually land in industrial and corporate environments. She teaches the same material she presents on stage. Her part-time lectureship at Duale Hochschule Heidenheim covers blockchain and generative AI, which keeps the content close to the underlying mechanics rather than the marketing layer. She is one of the few German-language voices who can move an audience from technology scepticism to active engagement, in both English and German, without simplifying the substance. Her work spans the connected stack: generative AI, blockchain, Web 3.0, the Internet of Things and human-machine collaboration. That breadth lets her show executives where today’s pilots are pointing. Biography highlights Eleven years at IBM Germany in roles spanning Digital Advisor, Competitive Leader and Digital Workplace Consultant. Former Director of Digitalisation at the Boysen Group, leading cultural transformation. Founder of Denkräume im Digitalen, established 2019. Part-time lecturer in blockchain and generative AI at Duale Hochschule Heidenheim. LinkedIn Top Voice DACH 2018 and Best of IBM 2016. Co-author for Springer Gabler on generative AI and digitalisation themes. Biography Most German industrial firms can describe what generative AI is. Far fewer can describe what it changes inside their operating model. That gap, between technical literacy and operating capability, is the territory Dorothée Töreki has worked in for two decades. Her route into the subject is unusual. She trained as a civil engineer and worked on infrastructure projects including the ICE rail link between Frankfurt and Cologne, before moving into information technology. Eleven years at IBM Germany followed, in roles that ran from digital workplace consulting to competitive analysis on cloud and AI. As Director of Digitalisation at the Boysen Group, she carried that perspective into an industrial automotive supplier, designing the cultural side of digital change. In 2019 she founded Denkräume im Digitalen to focus on executive education and keynotes. The body of work spans generative AI, blockchain, Web 3.0 and human-machine collaboration. She teaches the same material at Duale Hochschule Heidenheim, which gives the content a level of technical detail most keynote speakers cannot match. Springer Gabler publishes her as a contributing author on generative AI and digital business. She is recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice DACH and was named Best of IBM in 2016. Her delivery, in German or English, is built on turning abstract technology into specific operational consequence: what changes for marketing, for service operations, for the workplace, for the way decisions get made. Key speaking topics Generative AI in business Digital transformation in industrial organisations Blockchain and Web 3.0 Human-machine collaboration Future of work and digital workplace Internet of Things and Economy of Things Cultural change in technology adoption Ideal for CIOs, CDOs and heads of digital transformation in industrial and B2B firms. Executive committees and boards setting AI strategy. Marketing, sales and customer experience leadership teams. German-speaking corporate audiences seeking technical depth without losing accessibility. Audience outcomes A working picture of where generative AI changes specific business functions, not a generic technology overview. Clear language for the cultural and organisational shifts that decide whether digital pilots scale. A more precise read on adjacent technologies such as blockchain, Web 3.0 and IoT, and how they connect to AI strategy. The confidence to engage rather than retreat from the next wave of technology decisions.

Why organisations work with Ramy Nassar He brings a published, structured method for AI product design from idea to launch, set out in the AI Product Design Handbook and used by enterprise teams who need a repeatable process rather than another inspiration deck. He has run innovation inside Mattel and led design and strategy at Architech for Apple, Air Canada, CIBC, Facebook and Rogers, so the operational reality of shipping new products inside large organisations is in the room. His work separates “AI Now, Next and Never,” giving boards a defensible position on what to deploy, what to wait on, and where to draw governance lines. He teaches design thinking and innovation at McMaster University and Toronto Metropolitan University, and executive programmes at Schulich ExecEd, which keeps the frameworks tested against working leaders. Client engagements span Apple, TD Bank, TELUS, Verizon, New Balance and the Government of Canada, covering both regulated and consumer environments. Biography highlights Author, AI Product Design Handbook Former Head of Innovation, Mattel, where he launched the company’s first innovation lab Former Managing Director, Design and Strategy, Architech Founder, 1000 Days Out, advisory practice on AI and emerging technology Faculty: McMaster University, Toronto Metropolitan University, Schulich ExecEd at York University Featured by CPA Canada at The ONE national conference; speaker at FITC, IxDA, FWD50 and World Usability Congress Biography Most AI projects inside large organisations have the same shape. A pilot ships, attention moves on, and the operating model does not change. Boards then have to decide whether the next round of spend should go into more experiments or into the harder work of getting AI into the product and into the workflow. That is the decision Ramy Nassar is built to inform. The AI Product Design Handbook sets out a repeatable process for taking AI products from idea to launch, with explicit attention to user trust, transparency and governance. It is used by product and design leaders who need a method, not a manifesto. The argument is grounded in his time as Head of Innovation at Mattel, where he launched the company’s first innovation lab and led emerging-technology work for Barbie and Hot Wheels, and earlier as Managing Director of Design and Strategy at Architech, where he ran client work for Apple, Air Canada, CIBC, Facebook and Rogers. Through 1000 Days Out he advises senior teams at Apple, TD Bank, TELUS, Verizon, New Balance and the Government of Canada on AI adoption, strategic foresight and product strategy. His framing of “AI Now, Next and Never” is designed for boards that need to commit capital and set governance lines at the same time, and his strategic foresight work gives leaders a structured way to test decisions against multiple long-range scenarios. Faculty roles at McMaster University, Toronto Metropolitan University and Schulich ExecEd at York University keep the frameworks tested against working executives. CPA Canada featured him at The ONE national conference on turning insights into measurable impact, and his international speaking includes FITC, IxDA, FWD50 and the World Usability Congress. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence adoption and product design Responsible AI and governance Strategic foresight and scenario planning Innovation strategy Emerging technology and exponential change Digital product and customer experience design Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams setting AI investment and governance policy Chief Product Officers, Chief Design Officers and Chief Innovation Officers moving from pilots to deployed AI Heads of Strategy and corporate development running scenario planning under technology uncertainty Public-sector leaders shaping responsible AI policy and procurement Audience outcomes A defensible “now, next, never” view of where to deploy AI, where to wait, and where to refuse A structured method for taking AI features from concept to launch with governance built in Sharper foresight tools for testing strategy against multiple long-range scenarios Concrete language for communicating AI risk, ethics and product trade-offs to non-technical executives and customers

Why organisations work with Neil West First-hand operator perspective from inside Apple Music, the App Store, Apple TV+ and iTunes during the period the company shifted a billion-dollar services business across Europe. A specific thesis on simplicity as competitive advantage, set out in It Just Works (Macmillan Business, 2026) and structured as nine rules leaders can apply to their own products and teams. Useful for the meeting after the strategy offsite: he speaks to the practical work of cutting features, killing projects, and protecting customer experience from internal politics. Co-founded the iTunes Festival and curated Apple’s relationship with artists from Beyonce to Bono, which gives the talks the texture of a content business, not a generic technology keynote. Translates Steve Jobs era principles into language that lands with commercial and product leaders who have to ship, not theorise. Biography highlights Head of Services, Apple Southern Europe, with responsibility for App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud, Books, Podcasts, Arcade and Fitness+ across the region. Head of Music, Apple UK and Europe, for ten years, including the period iTunes became the world’s largest music retailer. Co-founder and curator of the iTunes Festival. Author of It Just Works: The Nine Simple Rules of Apple’s Success, Macmillan Business, September 2026. TEDx speaker on The Beatles, Steve Jobs, and Team Management. Earlier career: European Editor-in-Chief at Rhapsody, the first music streaming subscription service, Creative Director at Garageband.com (founded with Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads and Sir George Martin), and Editor-in-Chief of NEXT Generation magazine. Biography iTunes was a record store before it was a streaming service, and the App Store was a developer experiment before it was a platform. The hard part of running those businesses across Europe was not adding features. It was deciding what not to build, what to pull, and which artist or partner relationship was worth defending against internal pressure to standardise. West did that work for sixteen years. As Head of Music for Apple in the UK and Europe, he led the team through the period iTunes became the world’s biggest music retailer, and co-founded the iTunes Festival as a way of binding the catalogue to a live cultural moment. He then ran Services for Apple Southern Europe, a billion-dollar portfolio covering App Store, Apple Music, TV+, iCloud, Books, Podcasts, Arcade and Fitness+, through the shift from downloads to subscription. His argument now, set out in It Just Works (Macmillan Business, 2026), is that Apple’s edge has always been a discipline for removing complexity rather than a talent for adding features. The book offers nine rules drawn from inside the business, on simplifying products, reducing friction in customer journeys, and protecting focus when an organisation grows. His TEDx talk on The Beatles and Steve Jobs makes the team-design version of the same case. For audiences in product, marketing, services and digital businesses, the value is the operator detail. He talks about specific decisions, named launches, and the politics of holding a line on customer experience when commercial pressure points the other way. Key speaking topics Simplicity as commercial operating discipline Customer experience in subscription and platform businesses The shift from downloads to streaming and what it taught the wider content economy Product and service launches at scale Building and managing creative teams Lessons from inside Apple’s services business Ideal for Product, services and platform leaders running multi-product portfolios CMOs and customer experience leaders in subscription, media and consumer businesses Innovation and transformation directors looking for an operator voice rather than a consultant frame Leadership teams resetting after a period of feature accumulation or proposition drift Audience outcomes A working definition of simplicity that can be applied to a roadmap, not just a brand line. Specific tests for deciding what to cut from a product, service or process. A view of Apple’s services business from inside the European operation, including how artist and partner relationships were handled. Language for protecting customer experience against internal pressure to add complexity. A team-design lens drawn from how Apple, and before it The Beatles, structured small creative groups for output.

Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence governance Digital policy and regulation Data strategy and Big Data European AI regulation International technology cooperation Cybersecurity and digital transformation Ideal for Government and public sector leaders Boards and senior executives shaping AI strategy Technology and digital transformation leaders Policy and regulatory audiences Audience outcomes Clear understanding of AI governance frameworks and global policy dynamics Insight into the regulatory landscape shaping artificial intelligence in Europe Practical perspective on aligning AI strategy with public policy requirements Strategic context for navigating digital transformation at national and organisational level Why organisations work with Carme Artigas Direct experience shaping national and European AI policy. Senior leadership background across both public administration and technology ventures. International perspective through United Nations and European institutional roles. Commercial understanding of data and AI from founding and scaling a technology consultancy. Biography Carme Artigas brings rare, first-hand experience of shaping artificial intelligence policy at national, European and international level. As Spain’s Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, she led the country’s digital and AI agenda and represented Spain in key European and global technology forums. During Spain’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, she coordinated work connected to negotiations on European AI regulation, positioning her at the centre of discussions on responsible AI, governance frameworks and regulatory design. She also serves as Co-Chair of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, contributing to international dialogue on the future of AI governance. Her expertise is grounded in substantial private-sector leadership. She co-founded Synergic Partners, a data analytics and Big Data consultancy that was later integrated into Telefónica, and previously served as CEO of Ericsson Innova, the Ericsson Group’s European venture capital fund. These roles give her a practical understanding of how data strategy, innovation and regulation intersect in real organisations. In addition to her public and corporate leadership, she is affiliated as a Senior Fellow with Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and is recognised in Spain as an ambassador for Stanford University’s Women in Data Science initiative. For organisations navigating AI adoption, digital transformation and regulatory change, Carme Artigas offers strategic insight drawn from direct experience at the highest levels of technology policy and data-driven business.

Why organisations work with Ashlea Atigolo She has co-built a generative AI product, Finley AI, that has been recognised on the WealthTech100 2024 list, so the advice she offers boards is grounded in shipped technology rather than commentary. She brings a regulated-industry lens. Her work spans wealth management, private equity and fintech, where the question is not whether to deploy AI but how to do it without breaking trust, compliance, or customer relationships. She is a credible voice on women in AI without leaning on the topic alone. The named recognition (TechRound Top 64 Women in Tech, Great British Businesswoman finalist, Fintech Powerlist) sits alongside the technical and commercial credentials. She is equally fluent as a keynote speaker, panel host and workshop facilitator, which makes her a flexible fit for AI summits, leadership offsites and investor-facing events. Biography highlights Co-founder of INATIGO, a generative AI venture builder. Co-founder of Finley AI, listed on the WealthTech100 2024. Managing Partner at Consult Venture Partners, advising executives on generative and agentic AI adoption. Former Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of City Wharf Private Wealth, awarded Europe’s Most Innovative Wealth Management Model at the 2021 WealthBriefing European Awards. Listed on TechRound’s Top 64 Influential Women in UK Technology (2022) and named on the Fintech Powerlist. Speaker and host at Fintech Week London, Fintech Connect and Chatbot Africa AI Summit. Biography Most organisations have an AI strategy. A much smaller number have AI in production, talking to customers, sitting inside regulated workflows and answering to a compliance function. Ashlea Atigolo works at that second layer. As co-founder of INATIGO and its flagship product Finley AI, listed on the WealthTech100 2024, she has built generative AI systems for personal finance rather than written about them. Her route into AI was operational, not academic. Before INATIGO she co-founded City Wharf Private Wealth, where her co-leadership won Europe’s Most Innovative Wealth Management Model at the 2021 WealthBriefing European Awards. That background gives her advisory work a distinctive cast. She understands wealth, private equity and fintech as live operating environments, not case studies, and her current role as Managing Partner at Consult Venture Partners is built on that. Her independent recognition is dense and recent. She has been named on TechRound’s Top 64 Influential Women in UK Technology, included on the Fintech Powerlist, and shortlisted as a finalist for the Great British Businesswoman Awards in technology. She has advised Adobe directly and has been engaged through GLG, AlphaSense and GuidePoint by executives in fintech, private equity and financial services. On stage she is most useful to organisations that need a builder’s view of generative and agentic AI: what to deploy, what to delay, how to govern it, and where the human still has to sit inside the workflow. She hosts and keynotes at Fintech Week London, Fintech Connect and Chatbot Africa AI Summit, and is equally credible in a board workshop as on a main-stage panel. Key speaking topics Generative and agentic AI in financial services AI product strategy and deployment in regulated industries Conversational and empathetic AI design Responsible AI, trust and governance Fintech and wealth management innovation Women in AI and inclusive technology teams Leadership through technological disruption Ideal for Boards and executive committees in financial services, wealth management, private equity and fintech sizing up generative or agentic AI investments. CIO, CTO, CDO and Head of Innovation audiences moving from AI pilots into operating deployment. Fintech, AI and wealth-management conferences looking for an operator-speaker rather than a commentator. Internal AI summits, leadership offsites and women-in-tech programmes inside large enterprises. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of where generative and agentic AI is genuinely production-ready in regulated industries, and where it is not. A working vocabulary for governance conversations: agents, guardrails, oversight, human-in-the-loop. A view of how a builder, not a vendor, sequences AI adoption inside a regulated business. Named examples of fintech and wealth-management deployments that buyers can take into their own strategy conversations.

Why organisations work with Dhiraj Mukherjee He has done the thing most innovation speakers describe. Shazam was a category invention before mobile internet was mainstream, and it ended with a reported $400 million sale to Apple. A 250-company investment portfolio across AI, climate tech and frontier software gives him a working map of which emerging technologies are moving from pilot to operating substance and which are stalling. Direct line of sight into capital flows alongside Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, which is rare for a keynote speaker working on climate and AI together. Operator credibility inside large incumbents as well as start-ups, including Head of Banking Innovation at Virgin Money and senior roles at Bauer Media, Infosys and Reuters. Named to the Financial Times’ Top 50 European technology entrepreneurs, The Digital Banking Club’s Power 50 and Smith & Williamson’s Power 100, which positions him as a credible voice on UK and European innovation policy as well as commercial strategy. Biography highlights Co-founder of Shazam Entertainment, acquired by Apple in 2017 for a reported $400 million Named to the Financial Times’ Top 50 European technology entrepreneurs (2015) Elected to The Digital Banking Club’s Power 50 (2016) and Smith & Williamson’s Power 100 (2017) Angel investor in over 250 technology companies across AI, climate tech and “Tech for Good” Former Head of Banking Innovation, Virgin Money; previous roles at Bauer Media, Infosys, Reuters and Save the Children Mathematical Economics degree, Dartmouth College; MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business Biography Shazam was launched in 2000, before smartphones, before app stores, before mobile data was reliable enough to stream a song. The team built a service that recognised music by sound from a feature phone over a voice call. Eighteen years later, Apple bought the company for a reported $400 million. Dhiraj Mukherjee co-founded it. That history matters because it is the practical version of what most boards are now trying to do with AI. Identify a capability that the technology curve will eventually make obvious, build it before the market is ready, survive long enough to be right. Shazam went through the dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis on the way to Apple, which is why his perspective on category-building is closer to operating experience than to theory. Since exiting Shazam, Mukherjee has invested in more than 250 technology companies, with a declared focus on AI, climate tech and “Tech for Good.” He has co-invested into Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate vehicle backed by Bill Gates, and into Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, which gives him an unusual vantage point on where institutional capital is actually moving across the AI and energy transition curves. His earlier career sits inside large incumbents, including Head of Banking Innovation at Virgin Money and senior roles at Bauer Media, Infosys and Reuters. The Financial Times named him to its Top 50 European technology entrepreneurs in 2015, and he holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Mathematical Economics degree from Dartmouth. Key speaking topics Emerging technology and AI strategy Innovation and category creation Climate tech and the energy transition investment case Digital transformation inside large incumbents Resilience and the long arc of building a technology company Tech for Good and impact investing The future of work in the age of AI Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and innovation leads setting AI and emerging-technology strategy Boards and investment committees pressure-testing capital allocation across AI and climate Senior leadership teams inside banks, media and consumer businesses navigating digital transformation Founder and scale-up audiences inside corporate venturing and accelerator programmes Audience outcomes A sharper read on which emerging technologies are moving from pilot to operating advantage and which are stalling A working framework, drawn from Shazam, for how categories actually get built through downturns An investor’s view of where AI and climate-tech capital is concentrating, and what that signals for corporate strategy A more honest sense of the time, capital and persistence required to compound a technology bet into commercial outcome