Leadership

Why organisations work with Sophie Carrigill Her sports psychology credentials (first-class degree from the University of Worcester and an MSc from Sheffield Hallam) mean she can explain what high-performance teams actually do under pressure, not just illustrate it with personal stories. That distinction matters when leaders are making structural decisions, not looking for inspiration. She captained the GB women’s wheelchair basketball squad for four consecutive years, and was the first captain to lead the team through a centralised programme and a full relocation. The leadership challenge she navigated is directly analogous to what organisations face in transformation: maintaining accountability, cohesion and performance through structural disruption. Forbes named her on its 30 Under 30 Europe list for Sports and Games in 2021 specifically for her sporting achievements alongside her work advancing inclusion; a recognition that positions her as a practitioner of inclusion, not a spokesperson for it. Her ten-year international career – across six European Championships, three World Championships, and three Paralympic Games – gives her a perspective on sustained performance that is qualitatively different from speakers whose credibility rests on a single defining event. She does not separate the inclusion argument from the performance argument. Organisations that have struggled to make either case benefit from an approach where both are argued from the same evidence base. Biography highlights Three-time Paralympian, representing Great Britain at Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 World Championship silver medallist (2018, Hamburg) and six-time European Championship competitor, with bronze medals (2013, 2015, 2017) and silver medals (2019, 2021, 2023) U25 World Championship gold medallist (2015, Beijing) Named on Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list, Sports and Games category (2021), recognising sporting achievement and inclusion work First-class honours degree in Sports Psychology, University of Worcester; MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology, Sheffield Hallam University Captain of the GB women’s wheelchair basketball squad for four consecutive years; first captain to lead the team through a centralised programme and squad relocation Women’s Sport Trust Unlocked programme contributor (2021–2023) Biography High-performance culture and genuine inclusion are managed as separate agendas in most organisations. Resolving that tension – rather than attempting to manage it – is what separates leadership teams that perform under genuine pressure from those that perform only when conditions are stable. Sophie Carrigill has been at the heart of the GB women’s wheelchair basketball programme for over a decade. A three-time Paralympian across Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, she captained the squad for four consecutive years, becoming the first captain to lead the team through a centralised programme and a full relocation to Sheffield. The 2018 World Championship silver medal, three European bronzes, three European silvers, and a U25 World gold came from a team built under conditions of continuous structural change. The leadership test was not exceptional circumstances; it was the job. Her academic formation distinguishes her from speakers with comparable competitive records. A first-class honours degree in Sports Psychology from the University of Worcester, followed by an MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Sheffield Hallam, equips her to explain the mechanisms behind elite performance, rather than to simply describe what it felt like. Forbes recognised that combination in 2021, placing her on its 30 Under 30 Europe list for Sports and Games for her record on court and her work advancing inclusion in sport. Off the court, she has contributed to the Women’s Sport Trust Unlocked programme and worked at Whisper, a sports and entertainment media production company. In a board or leadership team conversation about resilience, inclusion, or sustained performance under pressure, she does not present three separate cases. She presents one. Key speaking topics Resilience and performance under pressure Leadership through structural change Disability inclusion as competitive advantage High-performance team culture Sports psychology and elite mindset Sustained performance across long competitive cycles Identity, adversity and recovery Ideal for Senior leadership and executive teams examining the relationship between culture, inclusion and performance CHROs and people leaders building inclusion strategies that are anchored in performance outcomes, not compliance frameworks Organisations in transformation or restructuring, where team cohesion and leadership accountability are under active pressure DEI conference audiences seeking a performance-led argument for inclusion rather than a values-led one Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of resilience, as a practised, structural discipline rather than an individual personality trait Concrete examples of how inclusion decisions affect team performance at elite level, drawn from a decade of Paralympic competition A direct challenge to the assumption that high performance and genuine diversity are competing priorities Practical insight into how accountability operates in teams under structural change, including relocation, new systems and shifting leadership A model for sustaining performance across long cycles, not just optimising for peak moments

Why organisations work with Andy Lopata He reframes networking as a leadership discipline. The argument lands with executives who have dismissed the topic as junior or transactional, and gives them a structured way to think about who supports them, how, and why. The Relationship Matrix gives leaders a tangible way to audit their professional support system, identify where it is thin, and decide where to invest. Few speakers in this space work at that level of operational specificity. His mentoring work, anchored in The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring co-authored with Dr Ruth Gotian of Weill Cornell, gives organisations a serious reference point for designing mentoring programmes that retain senior talent. Twenty-five years inside the topic, recognition from the Financial Times and Forbes, and a 2025 Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award shortlist place him in a small group of speakers who have built genuine institutional credibility on professional relationships. He works with the cultural problem behind the leadership one: why senior people will not ask for help, and what it costs the organisation when they do not. Biography highlights Author of six books, including Connected Leadership (2020) and The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring (Pearson, 2024, with Dr Ruth Gotian). Shortlisted for the 2025 Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award. Two-time board member and former President of the Fellows Community of the Professional Speaking Association UK and Ireland; holder of the PSAE, the PSA’s Hall of Fame distinction. Fellow of the Learning and Performance Institute; member of the Association of Business Mentors and the Meetings Industry Association. Contributor to Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today; host of The Connected Leadership Podcast. Clients include PayPal, Google, Harrods, BBC, HSBC, GlaxoSmithKline, Allen and Overy, Saïd Business School and Brother International Europe. Biography Most senior leaders rise on technical and commercial credibility, then hit a level where the job is mostly relational. They under-invest in mentors, hesitate to ask for help, and end up isolated at exactly the point where their decisions carry the most weight. That gap is what Lopata’s work addresses. For more than twenty-five years he has worked on professional relationships as an executive capability rather than a soft skill. The Financial Times has called him one of Europe’s leading business networking strategists; Forbes has described him as a true master of networking. The label undersells the work. His Relationship Matrix gives leaders a structured way to audit who supports them, where the gaps are, and where to invest. Frameworks like the Seven Stages of Professional Relationships and The Influence Wheel extend that work into stakeholder mapping, influence and senior mentoring practice. His books map the territory in detail. Connected Leadership argues that executive success is built on a deliberate web of relationships, and was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards in 2021. The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring, co-authored with Dr Ruth Gotian of Weill Cornell Medicine in 2024, gives organisations a reference text for treating mentoring as a strategic retention and development tool. The book was a runner-up for Leadership Book of the Year at the 2024 Leadership Awards. The institutional weight follows the work. He is a former President of the Fellows Community of the Professional Speaking Association UK and Ireland and holds its PSAE Hall of Fame distinction. He was shortlisted for the 2025 Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award, contributes to Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today, and has worked with PayPal, Google, HSBC, GlaxoSmithKline, the BBC and Saïd Business School on the same underlying problem: how senior people stop performing in isolation and start leading through the relationships around them. Key speaking topics Professional relationships as a leadership capability Mentoring strategy and programme design Asking for help and the cost of not asking Vulnerable leadership Referral and influence networks Connected leadership and executive support systems Psychological safety and speaking up at senior level Ideal for CEOs, executive committees and partners moving into senior leadership roles where the work becomes relational CHROs and learning leaders designing mentoring, succession and retention programmes Professional services and partner-track populations where business development depends on relationship quality Sales leaders rebuilding referral networks and account relationships Audience outcomes A clear framework, the Relationship Matrix, for auditing the professional support system around a senior role A different language for mentoring as a strategic asset rather than a benefit programme Specific shifts in how leaders approach asking for help, and why most do not A more honest read on where executive isolation is costing the organisation in retention, succession and decision quality Practical adjustments to how teams use referrals, networks and senior relationships in commercial contexts

Why organisations work with Helle Thorning-Schmidt She brings direct, first-hand experience of governing at national level – the pressures, trade-offs, and decision logic of political leadership that no management theory course can replicate. Her role as co-chair of the Meta Oversight Board is live, not historical. She is actively making binding, precedent-setting decisions on content moderation, AI-generated material, and free speech – and publicly challenging Meta’s leadership where she disagrees. That currency is rare in any speaker on digital governance. Her current board seats span cybersecurity (Palo Alto Networks, Governance and Security Committees), clean energy (Vestas Wind Systems), and communications (Edelman). She is not describing corporate governance from the outside; she is practising it across sectors simultaneously. She can translate the logic of European regulatory thinking – from platform accountability to energy policy to humanitarian law – into terms a corporate board can act on, drawing on relationships across the US Council on Foreign Relations, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board. Her three years leading Save the Children International – 17,000 staff, 120 countries, active conflict zones – gives her an operational understanding of how international systems function and where they fail that is directly relevant to any organisation with complex, exposed global operations. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Denmark, 2011-2015; Denmark’s first female Prime Minister and first female leader of the Social Democratic Party Member of the European Parliament, 1999-2004; Member of the Danish Parliament, 2005-2015 CEO, Save the Children International, 2016-2019, overseeing 17,000 staff across 120 countries Co-chair, Meta Oversight Board, since 2020 – the independent body issuing binding content moderation decisions for Facebook and Instagram Board member, Palo Alto Networks (Governance and Sustainability Committee; Security Committee); board member, Vestas Wind Systems; board member, Edelman Named to Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, 2017; co-chair, World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos, 2017 Member: US Council on Foreign Relations, European Council on Foreign Relations, Atlantic Council International Advisory Board, Berggruen 21st Century Council Biography The decisions that most challenge senior leadership teams today – how to govern AI, how to navigate geopolitical disruption, how to respond when digital regulation rewrites the rules of global commerce – were once considered the exclusive domain of governments. Helle Thorning-Schmidt has worked on both sides of that divide. As Denmark’s first female Prime Minister from 2011 to 2015, she led a government through the aftermath of the financial crisis while managing complex European and international relationships from the highest level of executive authority. From 2016 to 2019, she served as CEO of Save the Children International, overseeing 17,000 staff in 120 countries and engaging governments, multilateral institutions, and civil society on live humanitarian crises in Yemen, Syria, and Myanmar. That experience gave her an operational understanding of how international systems function – and where they fail – that no advisory role provides. Since 2020, she has co-chaired the Meta Oversight Board, the independent body that makes binding content moderation decisions for Facebook and Instagram and issues policy recommendations directly to Meta’s leadership. She has publicly challenged Meta’s practices where the board disagrees – including on the company’s 2025 decision to drop independent fact-checking – making her perspective on platform accountability distinctly independent. Her appointment in February 2025 to the board of Palo Alto Networks, where she sits on both the Governance and Sustainability Committee and the Security Committee, extends that reach into live cybersecurity governance. She also serves on the boards of Vestas Wind Systems and Edelman. Her foreign policy engagements include membership of the US Council on Foreign Relations, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group, and the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board. Named to Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in 2017, she co-chaired the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos that same year. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and international governance Corporate governance and board accountability Platform governance and digital regulation Leadership under political and institutional pressure Cross-sector governance across government, business, and civil society Diverse and inclusive board leadership Humanitarian risk and operating in complex global environments Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors navigating geopolitical complexity and regulatory pressure Senior leadership teams in technology, energy, financial services, and other heavily regulated sectors Public affairs, government relations, and risk functions in multinational organisations International policy forums, governance conferences, and executive leadership summits Audience outcomes Clearer understanding of how political and regulatory decisions affecting business are actually made at government level Practical context for board-level governance in an environment of increasing digital, geopolitical, and regulatory complexity Insight into the logic of platform regulation and what it means for corporate accountability and communications strategy A more grounded framework for assessing geopolitical risk and its direct implications for organisational decision-making Perspective on what effective leadership under genuine institutional pressure – rather than corporate simulation of it – actually looks like

Why organisations work with Rory Stewart He has sat inside the decision-making structures most geopolitical analysts only describe – as a UK Cabinet minister, National Security Council member, and coalition administrator governing two Iraqi provinces at 29. That is not a background organisations can easily find elsewhere on a speaker platform. His co-authored book Can Intervention Work? (2011) makes a specific, tested argument about the conditions under which external state interventions succeed or fail – relevant to any organisation navigating politically unstable markets or working alongside governments in fragile environments. Politics on the Edge (British Book Awards Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year 2024) provides a forensic account of how democratic governance hollows out – useful for any leadership team trying to anticipate political risk in Western markets, not just emerging ones. He teaches grand strategy at Yale’s Jackson School alongside his public engagement – his analysis is grounded in academic rigour about how states make long-term choices under uncertainty, not in the rolling commentary of the news cycle. Co-hosting the UK’s most-listened podcast across all genres (The Rest Is Politics) gives him an unusually clear read of where public and political opinion is moving – and why the gap between elite decision-making and public trust continues to widen. Biography highlights Inaugural Brady-Johnson Professor in the Practice of Grand Strategy and co-director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs (from January 2024) Former UK Secretary of State for International Development and member of the National Security Council; held six ministerial roles across four government departments under David Cameron and Theresa May Former Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights, Harvard Kennedy School Founder of Turquoise Mountain Foundation, Kabul – a cultural heritage and livelihoods charity operating under the patronage of King Charles III Author of six books including The Places in Between (Ondaatje Prize, Royal Society of Literature, 2005) and Politics on the Edge (British Book Awards Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year 2024, #1 Sunday Times bestseller) OBE for services in Iraq (2004); Livingstone Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2009); Ness Award, Royal Geographical Society (2018); three BBC television documentaries; contributor to the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, and Times Literary Supplement Biography Rory Stewart served as a UK Cabinet minister and member of the National Security Council, held six ministerial roles across four departments, governed two Iraqi provinces as a coalition administrator at 29, and founded an operating NGO in Kabul before it was fashionable to work there. He is now the inaugural Brady-Johnson Professor in the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, where he co-directs the programme that trains the next generation of strategists. He is not a commentator who studies power. He is someone who has held it. His intellectual contribution goes beyond memoir. Can Intervention Work? (2011) – co-authored with Gerald Knaus – makes a specific argument about why external state interventions fail and under what conditions they can succeed. Politics on the Edge (2023), winner of the British Book Awards Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year and named a best book of the year by the Financial Times and Foreign Affairs, dissects the structural causes of democratic decline from the inside – cronyism, the hollowing of expertise, the capture of institutions by short-term political incentives. Both books ask questions that boards are now asking about the environments in which they operate. Before Parliament, Stewart served in the UK Diplomatic Service in Indonesia and Montenegro, walked solo across Afghanistan in 2002 – documented in The Places in Between, winner of the Ondaatje Prize – and later led Turquoise Mountain in Kabul. He directed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School before abandoning that chair to stand for Parliament. The breadth is not accidental: his authority on geopolitical risk rests on having moved between every layer of the system that produces it. Co-hosting The Rest Is Politics – the most-listened-to podcast in the UK across all genres – has given him a reading of the gap between institutional decision-making and public trust that no think-tank report captures. For organisations trying to understand not just what geopolitical risk looks like but why it is so consistently misjudged by the institutions they rely on, that perspective is specific and hard to replicate. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the shifting global order Grand strategy and statecraft Political risk and institutional failure The limits of state intervention International development and fragile states Democratic governance and the crisis of political trust Leadership under uncertainty in high-stakes environments Ideal for Boards and executive committees assessing geopolitical exposure in global strategy and investment decisions Chief Risk Officers and political risk functions in financial services, energy, and infrastructure sectors Government affairs and public policy leadership navigating an unstable regulatory and political environment International development organisations, multilaterals, and NGOs operating in fragile or conflict-affected contexts Audience outcomes A clearer framework for distinguishing genuine geopolitical risk from noise – grounded in how decisions are actually made inside governments, not how they are reported Specific insight into why state interventions and institutional responses to crises so often fail, and what the structural causes are A more calibrated understanding of the relationship between democratic instability in Western markets and long-term strategic planning Practical exposure to how grand strategy is taught and applied – the long-arc thinking that boards and senior leadership teams rarely build time for Greater confidence in engaging with geopolitical complexity without defaulting to the oversimplified framings of media commentary

Why organisations work with Lord Sebastian Coe He has led, end to end, one of the largest peacetime delivery programmes a UK organisation has ever attempted: the London 2012 bid, build, and Games. Few speakers can talk about institutional execution at that scale from inside the room. As President of World Athletics since 2015, he has run a global federation through doping scandals, Russian sanctions, prize-money reform, and gender-eligibility policy. The case material is contemporary, contested, and useful to any board navigating reputational risk. He moves credibly between elite performance, political office, and institutional governance. That breadth lets him address both the human side of leadership and the structural side without flattening either. He brings a working operator’s view of stakeholder management: IOC, host governments, sponsors, broadcasters, athletes, media. Buyers wrestling with multi-principal accountability get a practitioner, not a commentator. Biography highlights President of World Athletics since 2015; member of the International Olympic Committee since 2020. Chair of the London 2012 bid and of LOCOG, the organising committee that delivered the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Chairman of the British Olympic Association, 2012 to 2016. Conservative MP for Falmouth and Camborne, 1992 to 1997; Chief of Staff to William Hague as Leader of the Opposition; created Baron Coe of Ranmore in 2000. Two-time Olympic 1500m gold medallist (Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984); set twelve world records across middle-distance events. KBE (2006), Companion of Honour (2013); author of Running My Life: The Autobiography (Hodder & Stoughton, 2012). Biography The London 2012 bid was three points behind Paris in the final IOC stretch. The committee changed chairs, brought in a new presentation, and won the host vote in Singapore on 6 July 2005. The work that followed, seven years of build, contracts, security, transport, and ceremony, finished on time and inside its public envelope. That is the institutional record buyers come to hear about. What sits behind it is unusual. Coe was an Olympic 1500m champion in 1980 and 1984 and held twelve world records before he left the track. He then served as a Conservative MP for Falmouth and Camborne, became Chief of Staff to William Hague, and was created a life peer in 2000. By the time he chaired LOCOG he had already worked at close range on how political institutions actually function under stress. Since 2015 he has been President of World Athletics. The federation he inherited was in the middle of the Russian doping crisis and faced an open question about whether its own governance was credible. The decade since has involved sanctions, reform of integrity systems, the introduction of prize money at the Olympic Games, and contested decisions on transgender and DSD eligibility in elite competition. None of those calls were uncontested; all of them were made. He brings to a corporate audience a working knowledge of leadership where the stakeholders are not aligned, the deadline does not move, and the public verdict arrives the same week as the decision. That is the part of the experience that translates. Key speaking topics Leadership of complex institutions under public scrutiny Delivering large-scale programmes against fixed deadlines Governance reform and integrity in international organisations Stakeholder management across political, commercial, and civic principals Building and sustaining high-performance cultures Legacy, reputation, and long-horizon decision-making Transitioning from individual performance to institutional leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams running multi-stakeholder organisations where regulators, governments, and the public are all in the room CEOs and transformation leads delivering large programmes against fixed external deadlines Public-sector and federated bodies facing reform under reputational pressure Senior leadership audiences in sport, broadcasting, infrastructure, and major-event delivery Audience outcomes A working frame for setting and holding direction when stakeholders do not share interests Specific case material from London 2012 and a decade at World Athletics on integrity, reform, and crisis response Sharper sense of how to manage the gap between elite performance and institutional leadership Perspective on legacy, reputation, and the trade-offs that surface late in long programmes A direct read on what high-stakes accountability looks like from the inside of the room

Why organisations work with Rachel Treece A coach-led leadership thesis grounded in published work, not platform rhetoric: her book “The Henka Effect” sets out how coaching changes the operating behaviour of senior leaders, with named case studies from financial services. Operating credibility inside financial services. The Henka Institute reports work with a majority of the largest fund managers and investment banks, and her podcast “Flex and the City” speaks directly to FS leadership audiences. ICF-accredited coaching credentials (PCC, CPCC) and a psychology background, which means the content is built on practice-tested method, not opinion. A multinational and multilingual delivery range across 35 countries, useful for boards and leadership populations that span Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. A direct, no-platitudes register on inclusion and culture that buyers can put in front of mixed senior audiences without it landing as DEI theatre. Biography highlights CEO of The Henka Institute and fts global, a leadership development firm operating in 35 countries. Author of “The Henka Effect: How Coaching is Transforming Leadership and Organisations” (2022). Host of the podcast “Flex and the City – Great leadership in financial services”. ICF-credentialled executive coach (PCC, CPCC) and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Speaker at the ALFI Leadership Seminar, the leading industry forum for the Luxembourg fund and asset management sector. Co-founder of Dress for Success Luxembourg. Biography Most senior leaders know that pushing harder no longer produces the result it used to. Workforces are exhausted by repeated change, sceptical of slogans, and quick to disengage from leaders who default to control. The harder question is what leaders should do instead, and how to develop that behaviour at scale. Rachel Treece’s answer is coaching. Not coaching as a development perk, but coaching as the operating mode of senior leadership itself. Her book “The Henka Effect” sets out the argument with case material drawn from her work inside financial services, where she has spent much of her career advising FTSE and Fortune 100 leadership teams. That work runs through The Henka Institute, the Luxembourg-based firm she leads. The institute operates across 35 countries and reports clients including a majority of the largest fund asset managers and investment banks. Her credentials sit alongside the practice: PCC and CPCC coaching certifications, a psychology background, and Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. For organisations going through restructure, integration, or cultural reset, the value of her work is specific. She gives senior leaders a usable behavioural toolkit that replaces directive instinct with curiosity, ownership, and accountability, rather than asking them to soften their style and hope. Key speaking topics Coaching as a leadership operating model Leadership in financial services Inclusive and values-based leadership Change and transformation in regulated industries Communication and executive presence Organisational culture and trust Sustainable performance and leader energy Ideal for CEOs, CHROs, and heads of leadership development inside banks, asset managers, and other regulated financial institutions. Boards and executive committees navigating restructuring, M&A integration, or cultural reset. Senior leadership populations being asked to lead through change without burning out their teams or themselves. Audience outcomes A clear distinction between coaching as a development activity and coaching as a senior leadership behaviour, with the second framed as the lever for sustainable performance. Specific behavioural moves senior leaders can use to replace directive defaults in real conversations with their teams. A working model for building trust and ownership inside teams that have been through repeated change. An honest read on what inclusive leadership looks like in practice in commercial organisations, beyond statement-making.

Why organisations work with Mariano Sigman A 2018 Nature Human Behaviour study he co-authored, run with 5,180 live participants, showed that aggregating small structured debates produces sharper answers than the wisdom of thousands; that finding rewrites how senior groups should be designed to decide. He directs the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project, Europe’s flagship neuroscience consortium, and is the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship in that initiative. His training in physics in Buenos Aires, neuroscience at Rockefeller, and postdoctoral work with Stanislas Dehaene at the College de France gives his claims a methodological grounding that separates them from motivational uses of the same science. “The Secret Life of the Mind”, published by HarperCollins, has been translated into more than a dozen languages and reviewed by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Science Magazine; his ideas hold up outside the speaker circuit. His 2023 book “Artificial”, co-authored with Santiago Bilinkis, gives leadership audiences a calm, scientifically grounded read on what AI changes and does not change in human cognition. Biography highlights PhD in neuroscience from Rockefeller University; postdoctoral research with Stanislas Dehaene at the College de France. Director of the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project; the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship in that initiative. Associate Professor at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; founder of the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires; Principal Researcher at CONICET. Pius XI Medal from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (2016); James S. McDonnell Scholar Award; Human Frontier Science Program Career Development Award. Author of “The Secret Life of the Mind” (HarperCollins, 2017) and “El poder de las palabras” (2022); co-author of “Artificial” with Santiago Bilinkis (2023). TED main-stage speaker on collective intelligence with Dan Ariely. Biography Smart people in a room together do not reliably make smart decisions. Mariano Sigman has spent two decades building the experimental science that explains why, and what to change about it. His laboratory at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella draws on physics, neuroscience, linguistics, and cognitive science to study how individuals and groups actually form judgments under uncertainty. The clearest example is a 2018 paper in Nature Human Behaviour with Joaquin Navajas and colleagues. Working with 5,180 live participants, the team showed that aggregating the consensus of small structured debate groups was substantially more accurate than averaging the opinions of thousands of independent individuals. The architecture of a conversation, in other words, matters more than the number of voices inside it. Sigman trained as a physicist at the University of Buenos Aires, took a PhD in neuroscience at Rockefeller, and did postdoctoral research at the College de France with Stanislas Dehaene, one of the leading figures in cognitive science. He directs the Decision-Making programme of the Human Brain Project, the European flagship initiative, and is the only Latin American scientist to hold a directorship there. “The Secret Life of the Mind”, published by HarperCollins, became an international bestseller and brought his work on judgment, learning, and consciousness to readers in more than a dozen languages. His 2023 book “Artificial”, co-authored with Santiago Bilinkis, applies the same lens to the relationship between human cognition and AI. For boards and executive teams, that body of work answers a specific question. Senior decisions live or die on how a small group aggregates uncertain information. Sigman gives leaders a working account of where that process breaks, why it breaks, and which structural moves close the gap. Key speaking topics Collective intelligence and group decision-making Cognitive bias and judgment under uncertainty The neuroscience of learning and adult neuroplasticity Conversation, language, and belief formation Artificial intelligence and human cognition Consciousness and the science of the mind Creativity and the cognitive roots of innovation Ideal for Boards and executive committees rethinking how high-stakes decisions are deliberated and made CHROs and learning leaders designing capability and judgment programmes for senior talent Strategy, innovation, and transformation leaders working under deep uncertainty Technology and AI leadership teams reasoning about human-machine collaboration Audience outcomes A working account of why structured small-group debate outperforms both lone experts and large consensus meetings. A specific vocabulary for the cognitive distortions that quietly shape leadership judgment, including confidence bias and equality bias. A clearer read on how the adult brain learns and changes, and where common assumptions about learning capacity are wrong. A practical sense of how language and conversation shape belief, memory, and choice inside teams. A grounded view of what AI changes, and does not change, in the cognitive demands placed on senior leaders.

Why organisations work with Alex Polizzi She has walked into more than a hundred real struggling businesses on camera and named exactly what was failing – her credibility is documented and specific, not theoretical. Audiences working on customer experience get something rare: an operator who can describe the gap between management assumption and customer reality from both sides of the front desk. Her commercial advice carries a weight most speakers cannot match – she applies the same standards to The Polizzi Collection’s three boutique hotels as she applies to the businesses she advises, with her own balance sheet as the test. Her BBC Two series The Fixer took her diagnostic approach beyond hospitality into retail, manufacturing, and food service – making her relevant to any audience grappling with family-run or founder-led business performance, not only hotels. She founded and scaled Millers Bespoke Bakery from start-up to a supplier of Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Fortnum & Mason, giving her genuine entrepreneur-to-operator credibility that extends beyond the family hospitality dynasty. Biography highlights Presenter of Channel 5’s The Hotel Inspector since 2008 – nineteen-plus series visiting and turning around struggling British hospitality businesses Presenter of BBC Two’s The Fixer (four series, 2012-2015) – extending the business turnaround model to family enterprises across retail, manufacturing, and food Co-owner and active operator of The Polizzi Collection: Hotel Tresanton (Cornwall), Hotel Endsleigh (Devon), and The Star, Alfriston (East Sussex, opened 2021) Trained at the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong; worked for Marco Pierre White at the Criterion, London; held operational roles across Rocco Forte Hotels in Cardiff, Rome, and St Petersburg Read English at St Catherine’s College, Oxford Co-founded Millers Bespoke Bakery; grew to supply Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Fortnum & Mason Author, Alex Polizzi’s Little Black Book of Hotels (2010) Granddaughter of Lord Forte; mother is Olga Polizzi CBE, Director of Design at Rocco Forte Hotels Biography Most owners of service businesses are certain they know what their customers experience. Nineteen series of Channel 5’s The Hotel Inspector suggest otherwise. Alex Polizzi has spent more than fifteen years walking into struggling British hotels and family enterprises and naming, clearly, what the management cannot see from the inside. Her authority comes from two directions. She trained at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, worked for Marco Pierre White at the Criterion, and held operational roles across Rocco Forte Hotels in Cardiff, Rome, and St Petersburg. She also co-founded Millers Bespoke Bakery with her then-partner Marcus Miller – building it from a start-up to a supplier of Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Fortnum & Mason. She read English at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. That experience extends to The Polizzi Collection, three boutique hotels she co-owns and actively operates with her mother, the designer Olga Polizzi: Hotel Tresanton in Cornwall, Hotel Endsleigh in Devon, and The Star in Alfriston, East Sussex. Her advice to other businesses carries the weight of someone whose own commercial performance depends on the same standards she applies elsewhere. For BBC Two’s The Fixer (four series, 2012-2015), she extended the same diagnostic lens beyond hotels to family businesses in retail, manufacturing, and food – demonstrating that the tension between conviction and commercial reality is not a hospitality problem alone. The granddaughter of Lord Forte, she brings both the heritage of a three-generation hotel dynasty and the independence of someone who has built and operated alongside it on her own terms. Key speaking topics Hospitality leadership and operational improvement Business turnaround in service and family-run enterprises Customer experience and service standards Commercial positioning for independent and boutique businesses Entrepreneurship and scaling founder-led businesses Recruitment and performance in service industries Family business dynamics and succession Ideal for Hospitality industry conferences and hotel association events Family business forums and owner-managed business summits Customer experience and service excellence programmes (cross-sector) SME and entrepreneurial leadership events where founder perspective is central Audience outcomes A clearer framework for diagnosing the gap between what a business intends to deliver and what customers actually receive Practical understanding of the operational and cultural patterns that drive underperformance in service businesses Insight into how service standards, staff performance, and commercial positioning interact – and which lever to pull first Perspective on the specific challenges of running or advising family-owned enterprises, including how personal loyalty can mask business-critical problems Grounded confidence that improvement in service and commercial performance is achievable through process discipline, not wholesale transformation

Why organisations work with Margaret Heffernan She gives executive teams a precise vocabulary for organisational failure. “Wilful Blindness” turned the cognitive mechanics of why leaders ignore the obvious into a working diagnostic, and the Financial Times named it one of the most important business books of the decade. She has run companies, not just studied them. Five CEO roles across media and technology mean her arguments about hierarchy, dissent and decision-making are tested against the operational reality buyers actually face. She offers a serious counterweight to forecasting culture. “Uncharted” makes the case that prediction is a poor tool for navigating uncertainty, and gives leaders a more honest set of practices for acting without it. Thinkers50 inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2023 for lasting contribution to management thinking, which places her among the most established voices on organisational behaviour working today. She is trusted in the room with senior leaders. Through Merryck & Co. she mentors CEOs of major global organisations, and she serves as Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme. Biography highlights Professor of Practice, University of Bath School of Management. Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee, 2023. Author of eight books including “Wilful Blindness”, “A Bigger Prize” (Transmission Prize winner), “Beyond Measure”, “Uncharted” and “Embracing Uncertainty”, published by Simon & Schuster and Bristol University Press. TED Global speaker; four TED talks with more than 12 million combined views. Former Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCast Corporation; senior multimedia roles at Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard & Poor’s. Thirteen years as a BBC producer of drama and documentary programmes; regular Financial Times contributor and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster. Biography Most leadership teams do not lack information. They lack the conditions to act on the information they already have. That is the problem Margaret Heffernan has spent two decades naming, first as a CEO and now as one of the most respected voices on organisational behaviour in Europe. “Wilful Blindness”, her third book, set out the cognitive and cultural reasons people in organisations ignore what they can plainly see. The Financial Times listed it among the most important business books of the decade. “A Bigger Prize” challenged the assumption that competition reliably produces the best outcomes and won the Transmission Prize. “Uncharted” pressed further into the territory of how leaders should think, plan and decide when prediction stops working. The credibility behind the writing is operational. Heffernan ran five companies, including InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCast Corporation, after thirteen years producing drama and documentary programmes for the BBC. She holds a Professor of Practice post at the University of Bath, leads faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme, and mentors chief executives through Merryck & Co. Thinkers50 inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2023. Her TED talks, including “Dare to Disagree” and “The human skills we need in an unpredictable world”, have been viewed more than 12 million times. The reason senior teams keep returning to her work is simple: she gives them a serious account of why organisations fail to see, and a usable set of responses. Key speaking topics Organisational blindness and decision-making Leadership under uncertainty The limits of efficiency and forecasting Dissent, candour and constructive conflict Collaboration and the costs of competition Responsible leadership and corporate ethics Building organisational resilience Ideal for CEOs, board members and ExCo teams confronting strategic uncertainty CHROs and senior leadership development heads building executive judgement Audit, risk and governance leaders working on early-warning culture Partner-track and senior leadership programmes inside professional services and regulated industries Audience outcomes A clearer language for the cognitive and structural reasons organisations miss the obvious. A working alternative to forecasting-led strategy when conditions will not hold still. Concrete practices for surfacing dissent and constructive conflict at senior levels. A sharper view of where the pursuit of efficiency is quietly degrading resilience. Confidence to act on partial information rather than wait for certainty that will not arrive.

Why organisations work with Speech Thomas His B.R.A.V.E. framework (Bold, Resilient, Adaptable, Vulnerable, Encouraging) is proprietary, named IP built from firsthand experience navigating commercial failure, personal loss, and creative reinvention across a multi-decade career, not a theoretical model adapted from management literature He integrates live musical performance structurally into the keynote itself, creating a shared emotional experience that makes the framework’s principles felt rather than simply heard – a format no other leadership speaker with equivalent platform credibility replicates The vulnerability pillar of B.R.A.V.E. carries specific weight: his origin story involves growing up in statistically one of the most difficult environments for Black youth in America and losing both his grandmother and brother in the same week; circumstances that directly shaped the framework’s architecture His 16 Bars documentary – in which he led a songwriting and recording collaboration inside a Virginia jail – provides independently verified, third-party evidence that his approach to creativity and leadership character works in conditions far more demanding than any corporate conference room The Dr. Terence N. Thomas Scholarship, a 501(c)3 he established in 1992, has directed over $1M in educational stipends to students from underserved communities – demonstrating that the «encouraging» principle of B.R.A.V.E. is operational, not rhetorical Biography highlights Founder, lead vocalist and producer of Arrested Development; two-time Grammy winner: Best New Artist and Best Rap Performance (1993) Arrested Development’s debut album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of… achieved multi-platinum certification in the United States «Tennessee» named one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s «500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll» Solo single «Like Marvin Gaye Said» held #1 on Japan’s Tokio 100 chart for seven consecutive weeks; solo album Spiritual People certified Gold by the RIAJ Producer and collaborator on 16 Bars (2018), an award-winning documentary following a music rehabilitation programme inside Richmond City Jail — winner of Best Documentary at the Downtown L.A. Film Festival Creator of the B.R.A.V.E. leadership framework, now delivered as a keynote at corporate, association and government conferences globally Founder of the Dr. Terence N. Thomas Scholarship (501(c)3, est. 1992), which has provided over $1M in stipends to university students from at-risk communities across three decades Biography The qualities most organisations say they want from their leaders – courage under pressure, the ability to adapt without losing direction, the willingness to be honest when honesty is costly – are precisely the ones that conventional leadership development struggles to instil. Why? Because they cannot be taught from a slide deck. They are formed through experience, reinforced through narrative, and transmitted most effectively when the person articulating them has actually lived them. Speech Thomas built his B.R.A.V.E. framework (Bold, Resilient, Adaptable, Vulnerable, Encouraging) from a career that required each of those qualities under genuine pressure. As the founder and lead vocalist of Arrested Development, he led a group that achieved two Grammy Awards and multi-platinum sales for a debut album that ran directly against the dominant commercial trends of its era. When the group disbanded, he rebuilt independently, building a substantial solo career across five albums and finding his largest audience in Japan – territory he entered without the infrastructure that had supported the group’s earlier success. What distinguishes his keynote from the standard musical-career-as-leadership-metaphor format is that the framework is specific and teachable, and the performance is structural rather than decorative. Speech integrates live music into the keynote itself because the argument he is making – that vulnerability and creative courage are leadership competencies, not personality traits – is demonstrated more effectively through song than through slides. His 16 Bars documentary, in which he led a songwriting and recording programme inside Richmond City Jail, provides third-party evidence that this methodology produces results in conditions that test it genuinely. The Dr. Terence N. Thomas Scholarship, which he established in 1992 following his brother’s death and which has since distributed over $1M to students from underserved communities, is where the «encouraging» pillar of B.R.A.V.E. becomes most legible. For boards and senior leadership teams evaluating whether a speaker’s values are substantive or performative, it is a credible and verifiable answer. Key speaking topics B.R.A.V.E. leadership framework Leadership character development Creativity and the artistic process as organisational tools Storytelling and voice in leadership communication Resilience and adaptability under pressure Music, culture and social impact Criminal justice reform and rehabilitation through creative practice Ideal for Senior leadership and executive teams exploring the relationship between character, culture and organisational performance CHROs and talent development leaders building leadership pipeline programmes that go beyond technical capability Conferences in creative industries, media, entertainment and arts sectors DEI and culture transformation events requiring a speaker whose credibility is built from lived experience rather than consultancy Audience outcomes A named, five-part leadership framework (B.R.A.V.E.) that individuals can apply to their own professional context A reframe of vulnerability from personal risk to leadership asset – with a credible, tested example of why it matters Practical perspective on how storytelling and creative expression function as tools for communication, not just culture A more concrete understanding of what distinguishes leadership under pressure from leadership in comfortable conditions Where a live performance element is included: a shared emotional experience that anchors the session’s themes in a way that participants recall and reference beyond the event itself

Why organisations work with Dan Clark He is one of fewer than 250 speakers ever inducted into the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame, a peer-voted recognition that signals craft at the level of Zig Ziglar, Colin Powell, and Earl Nightingale. His Art of Significance framework gives leadership teams a language for the difference between hitting targets and building something people want to stay inside. It travels well in family business, sales, and military leadership settings. He was a primary contributing author to the first twelve volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul, including the number two New York Times bestseller Chicken Soup for the College Soul. His stories are already in the bloodstream of audiences who did not know his name. He works at the top end of storytelling as a business discipline, teaching sales leaders and executives to construct narrative arcs that land without veering into motivational cliche. He has a long track record with U.S. military leadership audiences and with Fortune 500 sales organisations, which gives him a wider room to work than most motivational keynoters. Biography highlights Inducted into the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame, 2005. Earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association in 1987. Primary contributing author to the first twelve volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul; author of Chicken Soup for the College Soul, a number two New York Times bestseller. Author of The Art of Significance: Achieving the Level Beyond Success, and further titles including Influential Impact, Making of a Champion, and Transference of Trust. His short story Puppies for Sale was adapted into a 1998 Paramount short film starring Jack Lemmon, directed by Ron Krauss, with a score by Elmer Bernstein. International Board of Governors member, Operation Smile; National Advisory Board member, Operation Kids. Biography Most leadership keynotes run on frameworks. Clark runs on stories, and that choice is the argument. The Art of Significance separates successful people, who get what they think they want, from significant people, who want what they get. Clark treats that distinction as the working problem of senior leadership, not as motivational dressing. The credential stack sits behind the craft. He was inducted into the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame in 2005, a peer-voted designation held by fewer than 250 speakers in the association’s history. He earned the Certified Speaking Professional mark in 1987. Before that, he was a scholarship athlete at the University of Utah whose football career ended with a spinal injury in a tackling drill, which is where the speaking work began. Clark’s reach into general audiences predates the keynote career by a decade. He was a primary contributing author to the first twelve volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and author of Chicken Soup for the College Soul, which reached number two on the New York Times bestseller list. His short story Puppies for Sale was produced as a 1998 Paramount short film starring Jack Lemmon. The stories travel on their own, which is why the keynote lands inside corporate, military, and family business audiences that would otherwise resist the form. The work for serious organisations is not the motivation. It is the transfer. Clark teaches sales and leadership teams to build narrative arcs their own people can retell without losing the point. For organisations trying to tie culture, performance, and purpose together in front of a leadership audience, that is a specific craft, and there are very few speakers at this level still actively working the room. Key speaking topics The Art of Significance and leadership character Storytelling as a sales and leadership discipline Resilience after setback Team building and high performance culture Executive communication and platform skills Purpose-driven leadership Ideal for CEO and senior leadership offsites where the goal is shared conviction, not a content download Sales leadership kickoffs and top-performer incentive events Family business and family office leadership gatherings Military, public sector, and values-led organisations looking for a Hall of Fame keynote headliner Audience outcomes A working distinction between success and significance that leadership teams can apply to their own decisions. A repeatable approach to building and telling a business story so that it lands with a customer, a team, or a board. A renewed sense of standard inside senior teams that have drifted into transactional mode. Specific, retellable stories that give a leadership event a centre of gravity long after the session ends.

Why organisations work with Urs Meier He has made the kind of decision most executives describe in hypothetical terms: a single judgement call, contested by 50 million viewers, with no replay, no committee, and no time. The Euro 2004 England vs Portugal aftermath is the case study. He refereed 883 matches, including the 2002 Champions League final and a 2002 World Cup semi-final, and can show how the discipline of decision-making is rehearsed long before the moment arrives. His book Du bist die Entscheidung sets out a working method for acting quickly under uncertainty, drawing on a body of practice rather than borrowed management theory. Two decades as ZDF’s senior football analyst have given him a second skill leaders rarely train: explaining a contested decision clearly, in public, while it is still being argued about. He works in German and English, with a delivery style Süddeutsche Zeitung described as humorous and self-deprecating, useful when the topic is high-stakes mistakes and how to recover from them. Biography highlights FIFA international referee, 1994 to 2004, with 883 senior matches officiated. Referee, 2002 UEFA Champions League final, Real Madrid vs Bayer Leverkusen. Referee, 2002 FIFA World Cup semi-final, Germany vs South Korea. Referee, Euro 2004 quarter-final, England vs Portugal. Author, Du bist die Entscheidung. Schnell und entschlossen handeln, S. Fischer Verlag, 2008. Lead football analyst, ZDF German television, 2005 to 2021. Biography The decision a referee makes in the 90th minute is judged by people who have replays, slow motion, and time. The referee had none of those. That asymmetry, between how a call is made and how it is judged, is the territory Urs Meier has worked in for forty years, first on the pitch and then in front of a camera explaining other referees’ decisions to a national audience. He spent 27 years in active officiating, retiring in December 2004 after 883 matches. The career carried him through a 1998 World Cup, the 2002 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen, and the 2002 World Cup semi-final between Germany and South Korea. Each of those games turned on calls made in seconds, defended for years. His Euro 2004 quarter-final between England and Portugal is the moment that makes the talk land in a corporate room. He disallowed a late Sol Campbell header. The next morning he had roughly 16,000 abusive emails, most from England, and was placed under police protection. He later said he had not seen the foul, but had trusted twenty years of pattern recognition to know one had occurred. That gap, between the visible reasoning and the deeper basis for a call, is exactly what senior leaders wrestle with when they are asked to justify a judgement after the fact. The 2008 book Du bist die Entscheidung sets the practice down on paper: the role of evidence, intuition, and self-trust in fast decisions, and how to convince others once the call is made. He has since worked as ZDF’s senior football pundit through World Cups and European Championships, runs his own Swiss business, and advises on the professionalisation of officiating. The throughline is unusual: a working method for making and explaining hard calls, tested under conditions most leadership case studies have to invent. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Self-leadership and composure Resilience after public criticism Leadership of high-performing teams Fair play and ethics in business Motivation and personal performance Ideal for Executive teams and boards facing high-stakes, time-pressured calls Senior leaders preparing for visible scrutiny, regulator engagement, or media exposure Sales and client-facing leadership groups operating in adversarial environments Annual conferences seeking a substantive keynote on judgement and resilience Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for separating the act of deciding from the act of being right Concrete examples of how trained intuition complements analysis under time pressure A method for defending a contested decision in public without rewriting it Recognition of how to recover composure and authority after a publicly criticised call Renewed confidence to commit when the information will never be complete