Leadership

Why organisations work with Jenson Button A first-hand account of winning a world title with a team that did not exist eighteen months earlier, when Honda withdrew and the Brawn GP outfit was rebuilt from the wreckage. The temperament side of elite performance, drawn from 306 Grand Prix starts: how a driver and a team hold their nerve when the result is twenty seconds away and there are no second chances. A current insider voice on Formula 1 strategy and team dynamics, with active roles at Williams Racing and Sky Sports F1 that keep the perspective live, not retrospective. Credibility across disciplines: F1 World Champion, Super GT GT500 champion in Japan, and FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar driver with Hertz Team JOTA. Biography highlights 2009 FIA Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion with Brawn GP. 15 Grand Prix victories, 50 podiums, 8 pole positions across 18 F1 seasons with Williams, Renault, BAR, Honda, Brawn GP, and McLaren. MBE for services to motorsport, 2010 New Year Honours. Senior Advisor, Williams Racing, working with the team and its driver academy. Lead pundit and expert analyst on the Sky Sports F1 broadcast team. 2018 Super GT GT500 Series Champion (Japan); 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar driver with Hertz Team JOTA. Author of “Life to the Limit: My Autobiography” (2017), longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2018. Biography Honda walked away from Formula 1 at the end of 2008. The team Button had been driving for had no engine, no sponsor, and no certainty it would make the grid. By March it had become Brawn GP. By November he was World Champion. The story is well known in the paddock; the lesson, less so. Button won the 2009 title because the discipline he had built across nine seasons of underperforming machinery transferred intact to a car that finally matched him. Across 18 F1 seasons and 306 Grand Prix starts, Button took 15 victories, 50 podiums, and the 2009 World Drivers’ Championship. He raced for Williams, Benetton-Renault, BAR, Honda, Brawn GP, and McLaren, partnering Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, and Rubens Barrichello. He was awarded an MBE for services to motorsport in 2010. The career did not end with F1. Button won the 2018 Super GT GT500 series in Japan, raced at the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours with the NASCAR Garage 56 entry, and contested the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2024 with Hertz Team JOTA in a Porsche 963 Hypercar. He is Senior Advisor to Williams Racing, where he works with the team and its driver academy, and a lead expert on Sky Sports F1’s broadcast team. For organisations, the value sits in the practical content of composure under pressure: how a driver makes decisions in tenths of a second with championship implications, how a team holds together when results stop arriving, and how performance is sustained across two decades of repeated reinvention. His autobiography, “Life to the Limit”, set out the same argument in 2017: the title was won as much in the head as in the car. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Decision-making at speed Team dynamics in elite environments Resilience across long careers Formula 1 strategy and competition Mental preparation and composure Ideal for Leadership teams facing a high-stakes execution moment, product launch, transformation milestone, or competitive deadline. Sales, performance, and operations groups where individual composure compounds into team result. After-dinner audiences at corporate hospitality, championship-night events, and senior leadership offsites. Organisations using motorsport partnerships (sponsors, suppliers, hospitality programmes) to anchor a leadership narrative. Audience outcomes A working account of how a championship-winning driver prepares for and executes under pressure. A close-quarters view of the Brawn GP turnaround as a case in team performance after structural collapse. A current read on Formula 1’s competitive dynamics, drawn from active Williams and Sky Sports roles. A clear connection between the discipline of elite sport and the discipline required to lead a senior team through a difficult cycle.

Why organisations work with Nicole Bearne A continuous twenty-five-year vantage point inside one Formula One team, from founding member of British American Racing in 1998 to Head of Internal Communications at Mercedes-AMG Petronas through its run of consecutive Constructors’ Championships. Few practitioners in this field have anywhere near that depth of single-environment experience. Reported directly to Team Principal Ross Brawn between 2007 and 2013, including the 2009 Brawn GP season that delivered both world titles in the team’s first and only year of existence and is the subject of the 2023 Disney+ documentary Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story. Built and led the Internal Communications function at Mercedes-AMG Petronas from scratch within a 1,300-person engineering organisation operating across multiple UK sites and racing every fortnight. MSc in Organisational Behaviour from Birkbeck, University of London, and a CIPR Diploma in Internal Communications. Few practitioners with comparable F1 operational experience hold formal qualifications in organisational psychology. Independent Non-Executive Director at Motorsport UK and Chair of its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, adding a board-level governance perspective to the operational track record. Biography highlights Head of Internal Communications, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, for approximately a decade through a sustained period of world championship success. Executive Assistant to Team Principal Ross Brawn (2007 to 2013), covering Honda Racing F1, the 2009 Brawn GP championship year, and the Mercedes acquisition. Founding member of British American Racing Formula One Team in 1998. Independent Non-Executive Director at Motorsport UK and Chair of its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee. MSc in Organisational Behaviour, Birkbeck, University of London; CIPR Diploma in Internal Communications; Member of CIPR (MCIPR); Accredited PR Practitioner. Founder and Director of The Comms Exchange Ltd; featured in the 2023 Disney+ documentary Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story. Biography Inside Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, internal communications is treated as a performance variable. The function exists to make sure that 1,300 people across multiple sites act on the same strategy at the same time, every race weekend. That is the environment Nicole Bearne worked inside for 25 years. She was a founding member of British American Racing in 1998 and stayed through the team’s transitions to Honda Racing F1, Brawn GP and Mercedes-AMG Petronas. Between 2007 and 2013 she was Executive Assistant to Team Principal Ross Brawn. That tenure included the 2009 season when Brawn GP took both world titles in its first and only year of existence. She then built the Internal Communications function at Mercedes-AMG Petronas from scratch and led it for the next decade. She operated at board level through a period in which the team won eight consecutive Constructors’ Championships. Her academic grounding sits alongside that operational experience: an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from Birkbeck and the CIPR Diploma in Internal Communications. Today she runs The Comms Exchange, advising organisations on internal communications and engagement in complex environments. She also serves as Independent Non-Executive Director at Motorsport UK and chairs its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee. The Brawn GP season she lived through is the subject of the 2023 Disney+ documentary Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story. Key speaking topics Internal communications in high-performance organisations Employee engagement and employee experience Leadership communication at scale Culture inside elite sport Diversity, equity and inclusion governance Lessons from Formula One for complex organisations Ideal for Internal communications, corporate affairs and employee experience leaders Chief People Officers, HR directors and heads of culture Senior leadership teams in large or multi-site organisations operating under sustained competitive pressure Boards and committees responsible for inclusion, engagement and organisational culture Audience outcomes A view of internal communications as an operating discipline, drawn from a decade running the function at Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team. How a 1,300-person F1 team translates strategy into execution under non-negotiable race deadlines. What four ownership transitions of one F1 team reveal about leading communications through structural change. The link between employee experience and on-track performance, with named examples from Brawn GP and Mercedes’ championship years.

Meet Jann Mardenborough Jann Mardenborough’s remarkable journey from computer gamer to professional racing driver has captured the imagination of millions of fans around the world. Ultimately his ‘gamer-to-racer’ life story inspiring the 2023 Sony Pictures film Gran Turismo Movie starring David Harbour and Orlando Bloom. Born in Darlington, England, Jann’s journey into the world of international single seater and sports car racing began when his passion for cars and motorsport led him to the world of on-line gaming, specifically the Gran Turismo game which was available on platforms including Sony Playstation. A tie-up between Gran Turismo and Nissan Motorsport led to the creation of the Nissan GT Academy, an on-line tournament which was hotly contested by legions of would-be racers. Jann won the series in 2011, the prize for which was his dream of becoming a professional racing driver in one of Nissan’s highly sought after GT teams. Jann’s skill behind the wheel resulted in him expanding his career to include both GT and sports car racing alongside single seater programmes including Formula 3, GP3 and GP2, the important feeder categories to Formula 1. In 2013 Jann made the first of three appearances at the world famous Le Mans 24 Hours sports car race, finishing 3rd in the competitive LMP2 class at the wheel of the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan. He returned to the French classic in 2014 and 2015, but in 2016 he focused his racing career in Japan, scoring 2nd place in the national Formula 3 series with six pole positions and four victories to his credit. Since then Jann has focused primarily on Japan’s ultra competitive GT500 sports car series and become involved with the highly innovative, all-electric Formula E series as both a test and simulator driver. His was closely involved in the 2023 production and promotion of the Grand Turismo Movie by Sony Pictures. Jann’s role in the film was played by London-born actor Archie Madekwe. As a speaker Jann is uniquely placed to give a remarkable insight into the convergence of computer gaming and motorsports as the digital landscape blurs the boundaries between virtual and real world racing. He knows better than anyone the opportunities which the connected world is creating for both fans and would-be competitors alike. His journey has been inspiring, a young man whose passion for motorsport led to a ground breaking career path which has captured the imagination of fans around the world, not to mention the attention of Hollywood.

Why organisations work with Damon Hill His championship was not won from a position of privilege or natural advantage. Hill self-financed his junior career, started F1 with a team that folded mid-season, and was dismissed by Williams on the day he became World Champion. The argument for persistence and composure under adversity is the literal story of his career, not a theme applied to it afterwards. Across three consecutive seasons his primary rival was Michael Schumacher. In two of them, the championship was settled at the final race. That direct, tested experience of executing under maximum competitive scrutiny, when everything is at stake and a better-resourced rival is closing, is specific to him and cannot be replicated by other speakers in this topic area. As one of only two sons of an F1 World Champion to win the title themselves, Hill brings a distinctive perspective on performing under inherited expectation, legacy pressure, and public scrutiny; a dynamic immediately recognisable to second-generation business leaders, acquired organisations, and teams carrying institutional reputations. His autobiography, Watching the Wheels (Pan Macmillan, 2016), disclosed post-retirement depression with unusual candour for an elite sportsperson of his generation. That frankness about the psychological cost of sustained high performance gives him credibility in discussions about mental resilience that most athlete speakers avoid. His tenure as BRDC President (2006-2011) required institutional leadership in a complex stakeholder environment, including negotiating the 17-year contract that secured the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. It is a demonstrable leadership record beyond the cockpit, relevant to audiences dealing with governance, stakeholder management, and long-term institutional decisions. Biography highlights 1996 FIA F1 World Drivers’ Champion with Williams; 22 Grand Prix victories across eight seasons One of only two sons of an F1 World Champion to win the title themselves Twice named BBC Sports Personality of the Year (1994 and 1996) BRDC President (2006-2011), succeeding Sir Jackie Stewart; negotiated the 17-year contract securing the British Grand Prix at Silverstone Author of Watching the Wheels (Pan Macmillan, 2016), a candid account of elite performance, grief, and post-career depression Sky Sports F1 pundit for 13 seasons (2012-2024); appointed Williams F1 Ambassador in February 2026 Biography The 1996 Formula One Drivers’ Championship was not won by the most naturally gifted driver on the grid. Hill self-financed his junior career, started F1 with a team that folded mid-season, and was told his services were no longer required by Williams on the day he became champion. The title was built through persistence, technical precision, and composure under conditions designed to break both. What gives Hill’s perspective organisational value is the specificity of those conditions. Across three consecutive seasons, his primary rival was Michael Schumacher. In two of them the championship was decided at the final race, including the notorious 1994 finale in Adelaide. Maintaining judgment and execution quality when pressure is at its most extreme is the argument his career makes, and it maps directly to what organisations face in genuinely competitive markets. After retirement, Hill served as President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club from 2006 to 2011, succeeding Sir Jackie Stewart. He negotiated the 17-year contract that secured the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and oversaw the circuit’s major redevelopment. It was institutional leadership in a complex stakeholder environment – a different dimension to the individual performance story, and a credible one. Hill’s autobiography, Watching the Wheels (Pan Macmillan, 2016), disclosed post-retirement depression with unusual candour for an elite sportsperson of his generation. That frankness about the psychological cost of sustained performance gives him a credibility that statistics alone cannot. And as one of only two sons of an F1 World Champion to have won the title, his perspective on legacy, expectation, and self-determination is specific to him. Key speaking topics High performance under competitive pressure Leadership and decision-making in extreme conditions Resilience and recovery from sustained adversity Team performance and composure under scrutiny Risk management in high-stakes environments Performance culture in elite sport Institutional leadership and stakeholder negotiation Ideal for Senior leadership and C-suite teams preparing for periods of intense competitive pressure or strategic inflection Sales, trading, and performance-led organisations benchmarking mindset and execution against elite standards HR, talent, and organisational development leaders working on resilience, psychological safety, and sustained performance Financial services, professional services, and corporate conference audiences seeking leadership insight grounded in direct competitive experience Audience outcomes A clear framework for understanding how composure and judgment quality, not raw capability, determine outcomes when competitive pressure is highest Practical insight into how elite performers and teams sustain execution quality through adversity, loss, and periods of institutional change A model for distinguishing between risk aversion and disciplined risk management, drawn from direct competitive experience in an unforgiving environment Greater awareness of the psychological dimensions of peak performance and the personal cost of sustained high achievement Specific lessons applicable to performance culture, team alignment, and decision-making under pressure in corporate contexts

Why organisations work with Scott Lesnick He has spent 24 years inside Shaw Industries, a Berkshire Hathaway Fortune 500 business, before moving into speaking, so the change, retention and communication material is delivered from operating experience, not a consultancy framework. His multigenerational workplace content draws on a five-year practitioner survey and converts it into seven concrete strategies for recruiting, retaining and integrating Millennials, Gen Z and the incoming Generation Alpha. The Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation from the National Speakers Association, plus a term as Dean of the NSA Academy for Professional Speakers, is a credential of speaking craft, not of subject expertise, and it shows up in the quality of room-handling for plenary keynotes. The Kidjacked story (recovering his two children after international abduction) gives him a non-negotiable platform for keynotes on resilience and persistence under sustained pressure, used by clients including UPS Freight, US Bank, 7-Eleven and SHRM. Biography highlights 24 years in sales and management leadership at Shaw Industries, a Berkshire Hathaway Fortune 500 company. Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), National Speakers Association. Former Dean of the Academy for Professional Speakers, National Speakers Association. TEDx speaker, TEDx Oshkosh: “Limited Resources or Unlimited Resourcefulness”. Author of Kidjacked: A Father’s Story and Lifejacked: Life Lessons on Leadership. Named client list includes UPS Freight, US Bank, 7-Eleven, SHRM, the Financial Planning Association and the American Association of Orthodontists. Biography For the first time in working memory, five generations are sharing the same office, the same Slack channel and the same performance review system. Traditionalists are exiting, Generation Alpha is starting to arrive, and managers in between are running engagement playbooks built for a workforce that no longer exists. Scott Lesnick built his speaking practice on that problem. After 24 years leading sales and management teams at Shaw Industries, a Berkshire Hathaway Fortune 500 business, he moved into keynote work full time and built a multigenerational workplace programme around a five-year practitioner survey. The output is a set of seven concrete strategies for recruiting, retaining and integrating workers across Millennials, Gen Z and the incoming cohorts. The resilience material runs alongside it. Lesnick’s memoir Kidjacked tells the story of locating and recovering his two young children after they were abducted to the Middle East, and his second book, Lifejacked, collects interviews with people who came through serious adversity and went on to lead. Both feed into the change, burnout and persistence content he is most often booked for. He holds the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation from the National Speakers Association, served as Dean of the NSA Academy for Professional Speakers, and delivered a TEDx talk on doing more with less at TEDx Oshkosh. Named clients include UPS Freight, US Bank, 7-Eleven, SHRM, the Financial Planning Association and the American Association of Orthodontists. Key speaking topics Multigenerational workplace strategy Leading through organisational change Employee engagement and retention Resilience and burnout Communication across generational cohorts Hybrid workplace dynamics Ideal for CHROs, talent and people leaders rebuilding engagement across a five-generation workforce. Sales and commercial leaders managing teams through restructure or market change. Healthcare, financial services and trade associations running practitioner conferences with mixed-cohort audiences. Internal leadership development programmes for newly promoted managers leading older and younger reports. Audience outcomes Seven practitioner strategies for blending and retaining multiple generations on the same team. A clearer read on what Millennials, Gen Z and Generation Alpha actually respond to in recruitment and engagement design. Specific tools for reducing burnout and protecting decision quality during periods of sustained change. A working vocabulary for inclusion and communication that is portable across the organisation.

Why organisations work with Claire Williams A rare first-hand credential: one of only two women to have ever led a Formula 1 team, with seven years of operational accountability across a 1,800-person organisation. She negotiated the 2020 sale of Williams Racing to Dorilton Capital, securing the team’s future at a point when commercial terms and the pandemic were squeezing independent teams out of the sport. A commercial track record with specific deals attached, including a reported £65M sponsorship with Unilever and the growth of what became WAE Technologies, later acquired by Fortescue. A demonstrable record on representation: during her tenure, the proportion of women at Williams reached 17.6%, the highest in the F1 paddock, and she gave Susie Wolff her first F1 race weekend drive by a woman since 1992. Currently a recurring expert analyst on Netflix’s Drive to Survive, which keeps her commentary connected to the races and decisions audiences already follow. Biography highlights Deputy Team Principal of Williams Racing, 2013 to 2020, with day-to-day operational control of the Formula 1 team. Led Williams to consecutive third-place finishes in the Constructors’ Championship in 2014 and 2015, the team’s best results since 2003. Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to Formula 1, awarded in the 2016 Birthday Honours. Brand Ambassador for Fortescue WAE (formerly Williams Advanced Engineering), the green-technologies business she helped grow during her tenure. Vice President of the Spinal Injuries Association; founded the Sir Frank Williams Academy for spinal cord injury care in April 2023. Recurring expert analyst on Netflix’s Drive to Survive, including the 2024 and 2025 editions. Biography The Formula 1 paddock runs on non-negotiable deadlines and live public scrutiny. Every operational decision lands against a fixed calendar of race weekends, with 1,800 staff to align and investors watching results on Sunday. Claire Williams ran Williams Racing in this environment for seven seasons as Deputy Team Principal, from 2013 to 2020. She took over day-to-day operation from her father, Sir Frank Williams, in 2013. The team had just come through some of the weakest years in its history. She replaced the race drivers, restructured the engineering department, switched to Mercedes engines, and secured the sponsorship deals that funded the rebuild. Williams finished third in the Constructors’ Championship in 2014 and again in 2015, its best results since 2003. Fortescue WAE grew under her watch from an internal sustainability unit into a commercial R&D business later acquired by Fortescue. The proportion of women at Williams reached 17.6%, the highest in the paddock. In 2014, Susie Wolff drove a Williams in a practice session, the first F1 race weekend drive by a woman since 1992. The OBE followed in 2016, for services to the sport. The final chapter was the hardest to execute. Faced with commercial terms that favoured the top teams and the financial impact of the pandemic, she negotiated the sale of Williams Racing to Dorilton Capital in August 2020. She stepped down after the Italian Grand Prix the following month. The sale secured the team’s future under new ownership after more than four decades of Williams family leadership in the sport. Key speaking topics Leadership in high-pressure, high-scrutiny environments High-performance team culture at scale Elite decision-making and operational accountability Commercial turnaround and succession Women in leadership in traditionally closed sectors Safety, risk, and learning cultures Ideal for CEOs, executive committees, and boards running organisations under sustained public scrutiny Senior leadership teams in high-stakes or heavily regulated sectors (financial services, sport, energy, aerospace) CHROs and heads of talent building high-performance cultures or advancing gender representation in traditionally closed sectors Transformation leaders and programme sponsors running commercial rebuilds or succession-stage handovers Audience outcomes A first-hand view of leadership inside a Formula 1 team under constant competitive and commercial pressure Reference points from elite-sport operations on accountability and how high-performing teams handle failure at scale A sharper read on what a commercial rebuild followed by a distressed exit requires from the person at the top A credible account of how representation is built in a closed sector, told through named decisions and measurable results

Why organisations work with Willie Jolley Cavett Award winner, the National Speakers Association’s highest honour and an award given to one peer-elected member per year. Few keynote speakers active today carry that level of inside-the-profession validation. Worked with Ford Motor Company during its 2006 to 2009 turnaround period; former Ford CEO Alan Mulally endorsed the book that came out of that work. A named framework, Setback to Comeback, that gives leadership teams a shared language for how to behave when the business is under pressure, not just inspiration in the room. Sustained media platform on SiriusXM and Radio One puts him in front of senior business audiences weekly, so his frame is already familiar to many of the executives he speaks to. Equally credible with a senior executive room and a wider all-employee audience, which matters for clients running town halls, sales kickoffs and culture events off the back of restructure. Biography highlights Cavett Award, National Speakers Association, 2023; first African American man to receive it. Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, January 2023, for sustained voluntary service. Inductee, NSA Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE Council of Peers Award of Excellence). Author of five books including A Setback Is A Setup For A Comeback and Turn Setbacks Into Greenbacks, the latter endorsed by former Ford CEO Alan Mulally. Host, The Willie Jolley Wealthy Ways Show on SiriusXM Channel 141, with companion podcast distributed on iHeart Radio, C-Suite Radio, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Engaged by Ford Motor Company during the Mulally era turnaround; corporate client list includes Walmart, Verizon, Marriott, Johnson and Johnson, Coca-Cola and Prudential. Biography Ford was burning through cash in 2006 when Alan Mulally arrived as CEO. The turnaround that followed is now a business school case. Jolley was inside that period as a regular speaker to Ford teams, and the work formed the spine of Turn Setbacks Into Greenbacks, a book Mulally went on to endorse. That engagement still defines how serious operators read his work: practical content for leaders managing pressure, not a stage act. His core proposition is a framework called Setback to Comeback. Across five books, including A Setback Is A Setup For A Comeback and An Attitude of Excellence, he treats resilience as a leadership discipline that can be taught, with named steps. Vision. Decision. Action. Desire. That gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for how to behave when the numbers are bad and the workforce has stopped trusting the announcements. The credibility inside the speaking profession is unusual. In 2023 the National Speakers Association awarded him the Cavett, its highest honour, voted by peers and given to one member a year. He was the first African American man to receive it. The same year he received the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for voluntary service. Earlier in his career, Toastmasters International named him one of the outstanding five speakers in the world. The platform compounds the message. The Willie Jolley Wealthy Ways Show runs weekly on SiriusXM, interviewing business leaders and operators. By the time he walks on a corporate stage, the framework is already in circulation with the audience. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after organisational setback Leadership through change and restructure Attitude and performance in high-pressure teams Personal effectiveness and self-leadership Workplace culture and engagement Sales force motivation and renewal Excellence as an operating discipline Ideal for Leadership teams running restructure, integration or cost programmes that have fatigued the workforce CHROs and culture leads booking all-employee town halls or post-restructure resets Sales leaders running annual kickoffs where the team needs renewed conviction, not new product slides Public sector and faith-aligned audiences where a motivational frame is welcomed alongside leadership substance Audience outcomes A named four-step framework, Vision, Decision, Action, Desire, that leaders can apply to their own situation the same week A reset in how the audience reads setback inside their own organisation Specific behavioural moves a manager can take with a struggling team A lift in collective conviction at the moment a leadership team most needs it A shared reference point that survives past the event and into team conversations

Why organisations work with Carina Bruwer She draws on parallel high-performance careers in elite endurance sport, a SAMA-winning music business, and a technology platform she built and recently rebuilt, so the lessons on composure and decision-making land as operating principles a leadership team can apply. Her swims are credentialed by named bodies (WOWSA’s 2019 list of the World’s 50 Most Adventurous Open Water Women, and the Lewis Pugh Trophy for South Africa’s Outstanding Swim of the Year), which gives the resilience material a verifiable spine rather than motivational generality. Rebuilding Gigster, her events-technology platform, in 2026 put her back in the position of a beginner, which gives her reinvention material a current, first-hand reference point and not just a historical one. Through Swim For Hope, she has run a fifteen-year fundraising platform that has cleared R1 million for South African causes, which gives her credibility on values-led leadership without needing to reach for the language. She is one of the few keynote voices who can sit with a sales team in the morning and a leadership offsite in the afternoon and speak with first-hand authority in both rooms. Biography highlights Crossed the English Channel (36km) in 12h03 in 2005; held the female world record for the Strait of Gibraltar at the time and set numerous other records, including on iconic swims such as Robben Island, Cape Point, False Bay, Nelson Mandela Bay and Cape Agulhas. The only person to have completed a crossing of shark-infested Walker Bay, and the pioneer of a triple-country swim linking France, Monaco and Italy; the only person to have rounded both the northernmost and southernmost points of Africa. Featured on CNN; named in WOWSA’s 2019 list of the World’s 50 Most Adventurous Open Water Women; recipient of the Lewis Pugh Trophy for South Africa’s Outstanding Swim of the Year. Founder of Five Seasons Entertainment (2002), one of South Africa’s largest artist management agencies, and of the instrumental trio Sterling EQ (2007), winner of a South African Music Award in 2011. Founder of Gigster (2015), a live-events booking platform she rebuilt in 2026 as a technology marketplace with AI-assisted supplier tools. Founder of Swim For Hope (2014), which has raised over R1 million for beneficiaries including the Little Fighters Cancer Trust, Muzukidz and the Tribuo Fund. Biography The English Channel crossing in August 2005 took twelve hours and three minutes in unpredictable water. Carina Bruwer was twenty-three years into a competitive swimming life by then, and the swim placed her among a small group of South Africans who have completed the route. The records that followed are the spine of why senior audiences listen when she talks about preparation and composure. They include the female world record on the Strait of Gibraltar at the time, the only recorded crossing of shark-patrolled Walker Bay, and a triple-country swim linking France, Monaco and Italy. The swimming is only part of why a corporate room listens. While building the open water record, she founded Five Seasons Entertainment in 2002 and grew it into one of South Africa’s largest artist management agencies. In 2007 she launched the instrumental pop trio Sterling EQ, produced the live concert film that won a South African Music Award in 2011, and led the group through more than 2,000 performances across 20 countries. In 2015 she founded the live-events booking platform Gigster, and in 2026 rebuilt it from the ground up as a technology marketplace with AI-assisted supplier profiles and built-in quoting and contracting. The rebuild meant becoming a beginner again, an established performer and record-holder learning an unfamiliar discipline in public. It is the reason her reinvention material reads as current rather than retrospective: she is describing a choice she made this year, not a feat from the archive. The common thread is operating discipline under conditions that do not relent. The swimming supplies the language of preparation and composure; the businesses supply the language of building and rebuilding commercially, which is how she talks to leaders about the cost of staying decisive when conditions keep moving. Through Swim For Hope, founded in 2014, she has raised over R1 million for South African beneficiaries including the Little Fighters Cancer Trust and the Tribuo Fund. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under extreme pressure Resilience and recovery Composure and decision-making in volatile conditions High performance across parallel careers Entrepreneurship and creative enterprise Purpose, values and personal courage Goal setting and long-horizon execution Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes Sales kick-offs and high-performance commercial teams Conference plenaries on resilience, change and personal leadership Women’s leadership networks and ERG events Audience outcomes A concrete sense of what composure looks like as a practised skill, not a personality trait A clearer model for how to prepare for high-stakes performance moments inside the day-to-day calendar Permission to take ambitious personal goals seriously alongside the demands of a senior role A direct, lived case for how resilience is rebuilt after physical, commercial or emotional setback

Why organisations work with Angela Oguntala Her Futurecasting process is a replicable leadership methodology for distinguishing structural change from cyclical noise – giving strategy teams something to use after the keynote, not just a perspective to carry home. She brings a practitioner’s decade-long track record: foresight and innovation advisory work with Google, IKEA, the World Economic Forum, the World Trade Organization, BCG, and Deloitte, across sectors from healthcare to luxury to financial services. Her cross-disciplinary background – spanning interaction design, business strategy, and foresight research – allows her to connect technology shifts, sustainability pressures, and shifting social norms in a single strategic frame that sector specialists rarely produce. She was named a Future Innovator by the United Nations OICT and Ars Electronica – a designation that extends her credibility beyond the speaking circuit into formal expert recognition. Her central argument – that the future is not predictable but can be actively shaped – moves executive audiences from defensive risk-management to purposeful strategic action. Biography highlights Founding partner at Greyspace, a foresight and innovation consultancy, for over a decade Named Future Innovator by the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT) and Ars Electronica Salzburg Global Fellow for leaders challenged to shape a better world Advisory and keynote engagements with Google, IKEA, Microsoft, the World Economic Forum, the World Trade Organization, Heineken, BCG, and Deloitte, across healthcare, education, luxury, and financial services TED talk: Re-imagine the future – on how cultural narratives both inspire and constrain strategic imagination Featured as a futures thinking expert on NPR and Sky Biography The hardest thing about strategy is not analysing the present. It is imagining a future that does not yet exist – and committing resources to it before certainty arrives. Angela Oguntala built her career around exactly this problem. As founding partner of Greyspace, a foresight and innovation consultancy, Oguntala spent a decade working across industries – from healthcare and education to luxury goods and financial services – helping leadership teams develop the disciplines to read structural change before it becomes a crisis. Her clients have included Google, IKEA, the World Economic Forum, the World Trade Organization, Heineken, BCG, and Deloitte. Her named methodology, Futurecasting, is a structured process for mapping the forces shaping an organisation’s near and far future, and for building strategy around what is genuinely plausible rather than what feels intuitively familiar. It is not trend forecasting in the conventional sense; it is an exercise in building collective imagination at leadership level – a capability most organisations have never formally developed. Named a Future Innovator by the United Nations OICT and Ars Electronica, and a Salzburg Global Fellow, Oguntala speaks on the TED platform and has been featured as a futures expert on NPR and Sky. Her TED talk, Re-imagine the future, addresses the cultural blindspots that prevent organisations and individuals from imagining the full range of what is genuinely possible. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight and Futurecasting Innovation under uncertainty Emerging technology impacts Purpose-driven innovation Leadership and organisational foresight Sustainability and systemic transition Future of work Ideal for Chief Strategy Officers and strategy leadership teams planning beyond the conventional 3–5 year horizon CEOs and executive boards confronting compounding disruption across technology, climate, or market structure Chief Innovation Officers and heads of transformation navigating uncertainty without a clear methodological framework Government and institutional leaders working on long-horizon policy and societal change Audience outcomes A clearer distinction between structural change and cyclical noise – and an understanding of how to act on that distinction at leadership level Practical familiarity with the Futurecasting methodology as a replicable process for strategic decision-making under uncertainty A more integrated view of how emerging technologies, sustainability pressures, and shifting social expectations interact – rather than treating each as a separate workstream A reframed relationship with uncertainty: from something to manage defensively to something that can be navigated with intention Approaches to building organisations willing to experiment with genuinely new ideas rather than optimise existing ones

Why organisations work with Jade Simmons A mainstage moment that combines a Steinway, live performance and a structured keynote, rather than a podium talk. Few speakers can carry that format credibly at scale. A classical performance pedigree that holds up under scrutiny: Sphinx Medal of Excellence, performances at the White House and the US Supreme Court, repertoire from Rachmaninoff to contemporary crossover work. Author of an Amazon bestseller, Audacious Prayers for World Changers, and host of American Public Media’s Decomposed, a podcast named to best-of lists by Time, Esquire, BBC America and IndieWire. A track record headlining for Dell, NBCUniversal, Raytheon, Pfizer, Intuit QuickBooks, Nationwide, Hershey’s and Royal Bank of Canada at sales kick-offs, leadership summits and culture events. Biography highlights Recipient of the Sphinx Organization’s Medal of Excellence, with the ceremony hosted at the US Supreme Court by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Concert performances at the White House, Ravinia, Chicago Sinfonietta at Symphony Hall, New York’s Town Hall and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Host of Decomposed on American Public Media, recognised by Time, Esquire, BBC America and IndieWire. Author of Audacious Prayers for World Changers (Amazon bestseller, English and Spanish editions) and Purpose the Remix. CEO and founder of Jade Media Global; ran as an independent candidate for US President in 2020. Northwestern University undergraduate; Master’s as a Provost Fellow at Rice University; first runner-up at Miss America 2000. Biography Corporate audiences sit through more keynotes in a year than most of them care to count. The hardest brief a programme committee inherits is the opening or closing slot at a large convening, where the room needs to lift, not settle. A piano on stage and a performer who can also hold a leadership argument is one of the few formats that reliably moves a thousand people from neutral attention to engagement. Simmons built that format from the classical concert hall. She holds the Sphinx Organization’s Medal of Excellence, awarded in a ceremony at the US Supreme Court hosted by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Her concert resume includes the White House, Ravinia, the Chicago Sinfonietta at Symphony Hall and New York’s Town Hall. She trained at Northwestern and Rice, where she held a Provost Fellowship. The keynote work extends the performance into a structured message about purpose, reinvention and what she calls “Maverick Behavior.” She has headlined for Dell, NBCUniversal, Raytheon, Pfizer, Intuit QuickBooks, Nationwide, Hershey’s and Royal Bank of Canada. Her book Audacious Prayers for World Changers is an Amazon bestseller in English and Spanish, and her American Public Media podcast Decomposed has been named to best-of lists by Time, Esquire, BBC America and IndieWire. She also runs Jade Media Global, the company that produces her live experiences and content. Buyers commission her when the brief is to make a single moment in a long agenda the one people remember. Key speaking topics Purpose and reinvention Leadership and self-leadership Creativity and personal innovation Performance and mainstage entertainment Diversity and inclusion as a culture lever Personal branding and creative identity Resilience and breakthrough Ideal for CEO town halls, sales kick-offs and annual leadership conferences that need a mainstage opener or closer Chief People Officers and culture leads programming purpose, inclusion or engagement events Awards nights, customer summits and recognition events where the room needs to feel something specific Industries booking marquee music-led keynotes (financial services, pharma, tech, professional services) Audience outcomes A shared mainstage moment the room references for the rest of the agenda A direct, personal message on purpose, reinvention and creative courage A live concert performance that sits inside, not alongside, the keynote argument Practical language for leaders to talk about reinvention with their own teams

Why organisations work with Cameron Atlas He delivers the message through an unusual format. Original songs written for the keynote, an argument about human performance built around the music, and a setup that scales to the room, from solo piano or guitar to a full band or string quartet. It is one of very few keynote products where the medium itself reinforces the message. His TEDxRoma talk, “What Future Are We Creating?”, featured on TED.com, brought 80 musicians from 40 countries onto one stage. It is the cleanest public proof point of his ability to organise creative collaboration at scale. His content is built for leadership audiences in environments where change has become continuous. The talks address composure, clarity and decision-making, not abstract motivation. His content is already commissioned beyond the stage. The Edge of Possible Leadership Program runs with executive teams and one to one with founders and CEOs, so the keynote is drawn from work that organisations pay to implement, not from the conference circuit alone. He is a credible choice when a conference programme needs a closing keynote with emotional weight, where a conventional speaker would leave the room flat. Biography highlights Delivered the closing talk at TEDxRoma, “What Future Are We Creating?”, now featured on TED.com Host of The Edge of Possible, a top 100 self-improvement podcast on Apple Podcasts National Geographic Explorer Original songs heard across 195 countries; performs them live on grand piano and acoustic guitar during keynotes Runs The Edge of Possible Leadership Program, delivered to executive teams and as a private engagement for founders and CEOs Grew up on a farm in outback Australia in a graduating class of 11; now speaks internationally with live music as the keynote spine Biography Most leadership keynotes ask an audience to absorb an argument. A small number ask them to feel it. Cameron Atlas works in the second category. His keynotes are built around original music played live on a grand piano, with the argument about resilience, focus and decision-making woven into the performance rather than delivered alongside it. The substantive content is straightforward. After more than 15 years running The Edge of Possible Leadership Program with CEOs, founders and senior teams, he addresses what senior leaders actually need when they are running organisations through continuous change: composure, clarity, and the ability to make decisions when the conditions keep moving. The music is the carrier, not the point. His clearest public proof point is the TEDxRoma talk “What Future Are We Creating?”, now featured on TED.com, which assembled 80 musicians from 40 countries into a single collaborative performance. He has since taken the format to keynote stages internationally, and his songs have been heard across 195 countries. He hosts The Edge of Possible, which Apple Podcasts has ranked among the top 100 in self-improvement, and works with a roster of high-performing operators between speaking engagements. The category he belongs to is small. Most keynote speakers who use music use it as ornament. The format here is the product, and it earns its place because the audiences he serves, leadership teams that have heard every conventional resilience talk, tend to remember the room differently afterwards. Key speaking topics Resilience and decision-making under sustained change Composure and clarity for senior leaders Adaptability as a performance discipline Creative collaboration at scale The role of focus in distraction-heavy environments Live-music keynote experiences for leadership audiences Ideal for CEOs, founders and executive teams running through continuous restructure or strategic change Leadership conferences and annual summits looking for a closing keynote with emotional weight Sales kick-offs and partner events where audiences arrive saturated with conventional content HR and people-function audiences working on resilience, wellbeing and high-performance culture Audience outcomes A clearer language for what composure under pressure looks like in senior roles A reset on the difference between motion and focus when teams are exhausted by change A live demonstration of how creative collaboration can hold a room of unfamiliar people together A keynote experience that audiences remember and refer back to, which matters when the surrounding programme is dense