Leadership

Why organisations work with Lucy Cooke She brings primary-source evolutionary biology into leadership conversations that usually run on management frameworks, giving senior teams a different evidence base for talking about dominance, hierarchy and cooperation. Her Bitch thesis, that female biology has been systematically misread by science, gives organisations a serious, research-led entry point into conversations about gender and authority that often default to slogan. The Oxford zoology training under Richard Dawkins, the National Geographic Explorer designation and the Royal Society Science Book Prize shortlist for The Truth About Animals together establish a level of scientific credibility unusual on a corporate stage. She is a working broadcaster with credits across BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, PBS, Animal Planet and Discovery, which translates into stage craft that holds large audiences on technical material without losing them. Biography highlights Master’s in zoology, New College, Oxford, studying under Richard Dawkins. National Geographic Explorer. Author of Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal, a New York Times bestseller and one of the Telegraph’s 50 best books of 2022. Author of The Truth About Animals, shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. TED speaker; documentary presenter and producer for BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, PBS, Animal Planet and Discovery. Founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society and regular contributor on BBC Radio 4 programmes including The Infinite Monkey Cage and Woman’s Hour. Biography The alpha leader, the lone silverback, the dominant male at the top of the troop: these are the images management writing has borrowed from animal behaviour for a century. Most of them turn out to be wrong. Newer evolutionary biology shows cooperation, female agency and flexible hierarchy doing more of the work that organisations actually want their leaders to do. Lucy Cooke is the speaker who carries that research into the boardroom. She trained as a zoologist at New College, Oxford under Richard Dawkins, became a National Geographic Explorer, and built a parallel career as a documentary maker and writer, with credits across BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, PBS, Animal Planet and Discovery. Her book Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal, a New York Times bestseller and one of the Telegraph’s 50 best books of 2022, rewrites a great deal of received wisdom about female biology and what evolution actually selects for. The Truth About Animals, shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize, applies the same scrutiny to the popular myths organisations still tell themselves about wolves, alphas and pecking orders. On stage she works the gap between the popular story and the peer-reviewed one. Bonobo societies run on female coalitions and conflict resolution, not dominance displays. Wolf packs are family units, not tournaments. The science is sharper than the management metaphor, and a serious audience leaves able to defend a different model of leadership than the one they walked in with. Key speaking topics Leadership beyond the alpha model Evolutionary biology and human cooperation Gender, biology and authority Teamwork and collective intelligence in animal societies Science communication and storytelling Female leadership through an evolutionary lens Ideal for Senior leadership and executive team offsites where the brief is to reset assumptions about authority and dominance. HR, DEI and culture leads looking for an evidence-based external voice on gender and leadership that sits outside the usual frameworks. Conferences seeking a science-led keynote that lands with both technical and general audiences. Audience outcomes A fact-based critique of the alpha-leader model and why it does not hold up against current animal behaviour research. A new vocabulary for talking about cooperation, female authority and group decision-making at work, drawn from named species and named studies. Memorable case material from the animal kingdom that senior leaders can use in their own conversations and communications. A sharper, science-grounded view of what evolution actually selects for in successful social groups.

Why organisations work with Scott Tillema Practitioner authority that is genuinely operational. The negotiation craft was learned in live SWAT incidents in the Chicago area, not modelled in a classroom. That changes how a sceptical executive room receives the material. A single, transferable framework. The Four Pillars (Understanding, Timing, Delivery, Respect) gives an executive team a shared vocabulary they can use in the next M&A negotiation, regulator call, or internal escalation, not just remember from the talk. A proven public artefact. The TEDxNaperville talk “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators” has passed one million views, which means most participants arrive primed and engaged rather than cold. Cross-sector translation. The same material has been delivered to Microsoft, Citi, Vimeo, Bosch, YPO chapters across three continents, and audiences at SHRM and PMI conferences, which gives a buyer evidence that the content lands outside its origin context. A teaching credential at IMD. Five guest appearances on IMD Business School’s Advanced High Performance Leadership programme means the material has been pressure-tested in front of senior leaders inside one of Europe’s top executive education environments, not only on the keynote circuit. Biography highlights Twenty-plus years in law enforcement, retired SWAT hostage negotiator, Chicago area FBI-trained crisis negotiator Graduate degree in psychology and bachelor’s degree in behavioral science Negotiation training at Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and at IMD Business School Five-time guest speaker on IMD Business School’s Advanced High Performance Leadership programme TEDxNaperville speaker, “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators”, over one million views Founder of Negotiation Excellence, LLC; clients include Microsoft, Citi, Vimeo, Bosch, the FBI, Harvard University and YPO chapters Biography Most negotiation training in corporate settings is built on case studies. Scott Tillema’s is built on incidents where someone’s life depended on the next sentence. Twenty years as a SWAT hostage negotiator in the Chicago area, FBI-trained, and the work shows up in the room as composure rather than theory. The academic foundation is real as well. A graduate degree in psychology, an undergraduate degree in behavioral science, and negotiation training at both Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and IMD Business School. The combination is what allows the operational material to be taught, not just demonstrated. Leaders leave with a framework they can use, not an anecdote they can retell. The framework is the Four Pillars: Understanding, Timing, Delivery, Respect. It was first laid out for a wider audience in the TEDxNaperville talk “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators”, which has now passed one million views. The same model now anchors the executive sessions he runs through Negotiation Excellence, LLC for Microsoft, Citi, Vimeo, Bosch, YPO chapters across three continents, and audiences at SHRM and PMI conferences. It is also the basis on which IMD invited him back five times to its Advanced High Performance Leadership programme. What a senior team typically takes from a session is not a lecture on persuasion. It is a more disciplined posture in the conversations that actually decide things, the regulator call, the M&A walk-through, the internal escalation, the workforce announcement that has to land cleanly the first time. Key speaking topics High-stakes communication Crisis negotiation and de-escalation Influence without authority Conflict resolution Trust building Leading difficult conversations Decision-making under pressure Ideal for CEOs, COOs and senior leadership teams preparing for board, regulator, or workforce conversations where the first sentence sets the outcome HR, people and ER leaders managing escalations, restructure conversations, or formal grievance processes Sales, business development and commercial leaders running enterprise negotiations Crisis, security and legal teams who need their senior leaders fluent in de-escalation, not just trained in process Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the Four Pillars (Understanding, Timing, Delivery, Respect) that a leadership team can use in their own conversations the following week A more disciplined sense of when to slow a conversation down and when to move Practical de-escalation techniques drawn from live crisis negotiation, not workshop simulations Greater confidence in conversations where authority alone will not produce the outcome

Why organisations work with Thomas Erikson A four-colour behavioural vocabulary that a 200-person sales team or a board can adopt in a single session and use in the next meeting, with no consultancy follow-up required. One of the highest-recognition author brands in European business: “Surrounded by Idiots” alone is one of Sweden’s best-selling non-fiction titles ever, with the series at over seven million copies in more than 70 languages. Direct application across the hardest interpersonal terrain leaders actually face: difficult bosses, narcissistic colleagues, manipulative behaviour, conflict in cross-cultural and hybrid teams. More than two decades inside companies such as IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA, with roughly 120 keynotes a year keeping the material tested against live corporate audiences. A communicator first: the material is built for retention by non-specialists, so the language survives the journey from the keynote room into Monday-morning behaviour. Biography highlights Author of the “Surrounded by” series, including Surrounded by Idiots, Surrounded by Psychopaths, Surrounded by Bad Bosses and Lazy Employees, Surrounded by Narcissists, Surrounded by Setbacks, Surrounded by Energy Vampires and Surrounded by Liars. More than 12 million books sold across the series, translated into over 70 languages; one of the most translated living Swedish authors. Delivers approximately 120 keynote lectures per year to executive and corporate audiences across Europe. Has mentored executives and run sessions at companies including IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA Motors. Twenty-plus years specialising in communication, personality dynamics and interpersonal behaviour in professional settings. Built his keynote material on the colour-coded DISC framework (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue), used to map how people decide, communicate and react under pressure. Biography Most workplace tension is not philosophical. It is two competent people reading the same situation in incompatible ways and deciding the other one is the problem. The “Surrounded by Idiots” series turned that observation into a vocabulary that millions of readers now apply at work without having to read a textbook to use it. The series, beginning with Surrounded by Idiots, has sold more than 12 million copies across more than 70 languages, with subsequent titles extending the framework to psychopaths, narcissists, bad bosses, setbacks, energy vampires and liars. The books rest on the colour-coded DISC model, mapping behaviour onto four types (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue) that describe how different people make decisions, give feedback and behave under pressure. The keynote work has run in parallel for over two decades, with roughly 120 corporate lectures a year. Audiences have included IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA Motors. The session is built to leave a room of 50 or 500 with the same shared language, so the colour-coding survives into the next sales call, the next performance review and the next conflict between two senior people who quietly cannot stand each other. What is unusual is the reach. Most communication frameworks live inside training departments. This one has crossed into mass-market reading culture, which means a leadership audience often arrives already half-fluent. The job of the keynote is to turn that recognition into something the organisation can actually use. Key speaking topics Behavioural styles and the DISC colour model Communication across different personality types Difficult colleagues, manipulation and narcissism at work Leadership and how to read your team Sales and the behaviour of the buyer Conflict, feedback and tough conversations Resilience and managing setbacks Ideal for Leadership teams that want a shared language for behaviour and communication Sales and customer-facing organisations whose results depend on reading the other side of the table HR, L&D and culture leads designing development around feedback, conflict and team dynamics Cross-cultural, hybrid and matrix teams where misreads between colleagues compound quickly Audience outcomes A shared four-colour vocabulary the whole audience can use to describe colleagues and clients within the same week A clearer read on their own default style and how it is experienced by people who do not share it Practical adjustments for handling the colleague, boss or client they currently find hardest to deal with A working frame for recognising manipulation, narcissism and other high-cost behaviours before they damage the team A common reference point that survives the keynote and shows up in the next round of meetings, reviews and sales calls

Why organisations work with Michelle Moore Her conscious leadership course on LinkedIn Learning has reached more than 25,000 learners, giving her a teaching method that has been tested at scale before it reaches a client’s leadership team. She has sat on a national regulatory commission (the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket) whose findings forced the ECB into a public reckoning, which means she speaks about inclusion from the inside of governance, not from the outside. Her book Real Wins, published by Hachette and shortlisted for the CMI Management Book of the Year, gives leaders a vocabulary for connecting identity, resilience, and performance without reducing any of the three to a slogan. She works across business, sport, government, and education, with named clients including the Premier League, UNICEF, the University of Cambridge, and BAFTA, so her examples translate across sectors instead of staying locked inside one. Biography highlights Author of Real Wins: Race, Leadership and How to Redefine Success (Nicholas Brealey, Hachette UK), shortlisted for the Chartered Management Institute Book of the Year and the Business Book Awards. LinkedIn Learning instructor on Conscious Leadership, 25,000+ learners. Former commissioner, Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, whose 2023 report led to the ECB’s public apology. Trustee, SportsAid; member, Sport England Talent Inclusion Advisory Board; advisor, Women’s Sport Trust. Senior honorary associate lecturer, University of Worcester; former instructor, The Guardian Masterclasses. Winner of the 2016 PRECIOUS Award for Outstanding Woman in Sport and a national Changemaker award. Biography Conscious leadership is often misread as a softer register of the same management language. In Moore’s hands it is a working discipline: how leaders relate to themselves, how they hold values under pressure, and how they make decisions that survive scrutiny. Her LinkedIn Learning course on the subject has reached more than 25,000 learners, which is a rare evidence base for any one speaker’s framework. The credibility behind the framework comes from where Moore has used it. She served as a commissioner on the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, the body whose 2023 report compelled the England and Wales Cricket Board to issue an unreserved apology over racism, sexism, and class exclusion in the English game. She holds board roles with SportsAid, Sport England’s Talent Inclusion Advisory Board, and the Women’s Sport Trust. Real Wins, published by Nicholas Brealey at Hachette UK, was shortlisted for the Chartered Management Institute Book of the Year and the Business Book Awards. The book argues that resilience, identity, and performance are linked, and that leaders who try to separate them tend to manage all three badly. The same argument shapes her keynotes for the Premier League, UNICEF, the University of Cambridge, and BAFTA. What makes her useful to a boardroom is the combination of governance-grade experience and a teaching practice that has been pressure-tested at scale. She talks about inclusion as something senior leaders do under cost, not something they declare without one. Key speaking topics Conscious leadership Values-based and inclusive leadership Executive presence and credibility Resilience under sustained pressure Identity, performance, and self-leadership Inclusion as a leadership capability Changemaking in regulated and high-scrutiny environments Ideal for CEOs, CHROs, and senior leadership teams navigating inclusion as a governance question rather than a communications one Boards and executive committees in sport, media, and regulated industries facing public scrutiny on culture and equity Leadership development programmes for newly senior leaders building presence, values clarity, and resilience ERG sponsors, transformation leads, and inclusion councils that want a speaker with governance credibility, not bureau polish Audience outcomes A working definition of conscious leadership that leaders can apply to their own decisions, not an abstract model Language for connecting identity, resilience, and performance in ways that hold up in performance reviews and board conversations A clearer view of where inclusion becomes a leadership behaviour and where it stops being one Reference points drawn from elite sport governance, regulatory work, and corporate leadership development that tr

Why organisations work with Oswald Rodrigo Pereira He has summited five eight-thousand-metre peaks without supplementary oxygen or Sherpa support, a credential held by a small population of climbers worldwide and one that gives his risk material a basis no simulation can replicate. He has been on the active end of two high-altitude rescues, including the 2023 evacuation of 84-year-old Carlos Soria from Dhaulagiri, and uses both as worked examples of crisis decision-making rather than as anecdote. His twelve years as a television journalist before mountaineering give him a working method for information triage under deadline, which he applies directly to how leadership teams handle incomplete data. He directs and shoots his own documentary work in the death zone, including The Silent Escape, which gives his sessions visual evidence at a level most speakers in the resilience category cannot match. Biography highlights Five eight-thousand-metre summits without supplementary oxygen: Broad Peak, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Makalu, Kangchenjunga Ten Himalayan and Karakoram expeditions in seven years, including two winter K2 attempts Director of The Silent Escape, awarded Best Mountain Film at the Krakow Mountain Festival 2023 and screened in more than twenty countries Co-led the 2023 high-altitude rescue of climber Carlos Soria on Dhaulagiri Twelve-year prior career as a television journalist in Poland covering politics, economics and sport Law studies at the University of Warsaw and the University of Lisbon Biography The death zone above eight thousand metres is the highest-stakes operating environment a person can voluntarily enter. Judgement degrades, oxygen falls below half of sea-level value, and the consequences of a slow decision are irreversible. Oswald Rodrigo Pereira has worked in that environment for seven years, on ten expeditions, and has summited five of its peaks without supplementary oxygen. His route to the mountain ran through journalism. Twelve years in Polish television covering politics, economics and sport gave him a working discipline around information under deadline. The pivot came on a winter K2 expedition, where he went as a correspondent and stayed as a climber. He now films what he climbs. The documentary The Silent Escape premiered in Seoul in October 2023, won Best Mountain Film at the Krakow Mountain Festival, and has since screened in over twenty countries. Two rescues anchor his crisis material. The 2023 evacuation of 84-year-old Carlos Soria from Dhaulagiri, reported in detail by Explorersweb, required him and climbing partner Bartek Ziemski to return to altitude with stretcher and oxygen after their own summit and ski descent. The decisions in that sequence, who moves, in what order, with what margin, are the substance of his risk and decision-making sessions, not the dressing. What he offers leadership audiences is not motivation. It is a working description of how a small team triages information, allocates physical and cognitive reserve, and decides what to abandon when conditions change faster than the plan. The translation to boardroom risk is left to the audience, deliberately, and that is the strongest test of whether the material lands. Key speaking topics Risk management in extreme conditions Decision-making under sustained pressure Crisis response and rescue operations Resilience and recovery Information triage from journalism to crisis leadership High-altitude filmmaking and storytelling Personal transformation and physical reinvention Ideal for Executive teams and boards running risk, safety, or crisis-response remits Operations and field leaders in industries with consequential physical risk (energy, construction, logistics, defence) Leadership offsites focused on decision-making under pressure Conferences in insurance, security, or resilience adjacent sectors Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how a small team makes consequential decisions when information is partial and time is short Two worked examples of high-altitude crisis response, used to surface the structure of good and bad calls under load A framing of risk that separates the avoidable from the inherent, and treats the inherent as something to be managed rather than removed Footage and first-person material from inside the death zone that gives the abstract content concrete weight

Why organisations work with Mike Evans He gives an audience a defence plan for AI disruption, not a forecast. The 7-Sided Pincer Movement maps the forces reshaping work, and the 5-Ingredient Kryptonite Defence sets out the capabilities that keep people and teams hard to replace. He has worked these forces since the 1990s, inside Kotter International, FranklinCovey, and Tom Peters Company, which puts three decades of change practice behind a topic most speakers picked up after 2023. He built and tested the frameworks inside 34 of the Fortune 50, with named results such as shorter decision cycles at Intel and a rebuilt pilot training pipeline at the US Army Aviation Center. He builds each keynote backward from a structured discovery call with the client, so the room gets its own challenges addressed rather than a stock talk. His Kryptonite Scorecard, a 30-behaviour diagnostic, and the distributed ownership thesis in Achieve with Accountability give a leadership team a way to keep working the plan after the session. Biography highlights Author of two books: Distinct or Extinct: Future-Proofing People and Organizations in the Age of AI (Pincer Press, 2026) and Achieve with Accountability (Wiley). Founder of Pincer Press; works full-time as a keynote speaker and author. Former senior consultant at Kotter International, FranklinCovey, and Tom Peters Company, working alongside John Kotter, Stephen Covey, and Tom Peters. Clients include 34 of the Fortune 50, among them Intel, Apple, PepsiCo, Caterpillar, Cargill, Capital One, and Pfizer. Developer of the 7-Sided Pincer Movement and the 5-Ingredient Kryptonite Defence, with the Kryptonite Scorecard diagnostic. Biography Seven forces are reshaping how organisations work at the same time: software, robotics, globalisation, outsourcing, digital transformation, disruptive competition, and AI as the accelerant that multiplies the rest. Most organisations defend one flank while the other six go unguarded. Mike Evans has worked these forces since the 1990s, well before AI made them urgent. He built his frameworks inside Kotter International, FranklinCovey, and Tom Peters Company. He worked directly with John Kotter on change acceleration, with Stephen Covey on personal effectiveness, and with Tom Peters on operational excellence. His 2026 book, Distinct or Extinct, turns that history into a method. It argues that people and organisations survive disruption by becoming hard to replace, through five capabilities: ideas, speed, talent, distinction, and leadership at all levels. Evans founded Pincer Press to publish it, choosing speed to market over a traditional deal so it reached leaders inside the 2026 disruption window. The frameworks were tested inside 34 of the Fortune 50, including Intel, Apple, PepsiCo, and the US Army Aviation Center. His Wiley book, Achieve with Accountability, supplies the execution layer beneath them, the distributed ownership that lets a workforce act on a plan rather than receive one. At Intel the work shortened decision cycles; at the US Army Aviation Center it rebuilt a pilot training pipeline under a constrained budget. Key speaking topics AI disruption and the future of work Future-proofing people and organisations The 7-Sided Pincer Movement and converging disruptive forces Distributed accountability and execution discipline Change leadership under permanent disruption Personal and organisational distinctiveness Resilience under repeated disruption Ideal for Boards and executive teams deciding how AI changes their workforce and operating model Chief People Officers and Chief Transformation Officers redesigning roles and accountability for an AI-shaped workforce Leadership conferences, annual meetings, and sales kickoffs in sectors under pressure from AI, such as financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, pharma, and technology Associations running “future of the industry” programmes where members are anxious about staying relevant Audience outcomes A map of the seven forces hitting their organisation at once, and which ones they are currently leaving unguarded The five capabilities that keep people and teams hard to replace as AI absorbs routine work A working model for distributing accountability so a workforce can act on the plan rather than receive it Specific changes leaders can put in motion within the week, beyond general AI awareness Shared language senior teams can use after the session to hold momentum

Why organisations work with Kieran Gilmurray He has shipped AI and intelligent automation programmes inside named enterprises including Rapid7, Mercer, and Pearson, with documented savings in the tens of millions. That track record sits behind every framework he presents. His three books on generative AI, agentic AI, and organisational digital transformation give boards a structured reference, not a hype reel. They are written for the executive who has to decide, not the engineer who has to build. He treats agentic AI as an operating model question. The conversation moves quickly from “what is an AI agent” to which decisions an agent should own, what governance the board needs to put around it, and how the workforce is redesigned in response. Seven LinkedIn Top Voice recognitions and Thinkers360 rankings in generative and agentic AI mean the audience is hearing from a voice already widely cited in their own feeds, which lifts the in-room credibility of the conversation. Biography highlights Author of Agentic AI: A Business Leader’s Guide to the Future of Work and Digital Labour, The A to Z of Generative AI, and The A-Z of Organizational Digital Transformation. CEO and Founder, Kieran Gilmurray and Company Limited. Chief AI Innovator, Technology Transformation Group. Seven-time LinkedIn Top Voice in AI and related categories. Listed by Thinkers360 in the Top 50 Generative AI and Top 100 Agentic AI thought leaders. MBA (1st Class Distinction, Entrepreneurship Award) and MSc in Computer Science, both Queen’s University Belfast. Biography The gap between AI ambition and AI in operation has become the defining management problem of the decade. Pilots prove the technology works. Boards then struggle to convert those pilots into structural advantage, and most leadership teams still lack a clear view of which decisions an AI agent should now own. This is the territory Kieran Gilmurray works in. As CEO of Kieran Gilmurray and Company Limited and Chief AI Innovator at the Technology Transformation Group, he advises boards and executive teams on moving generative and agentic AI from concept into operating reality. His work spans finance, HR, customer service, and the wider digital labour stack. The credibility behind the advice is operational. Programmes he has led inside Rapid7, Mercer, and Pearson are referenced across his bureau profiles with quantified outcomes in the tens of millions of pounds and dollars. His three books, including Agentic AI: A Business Leader’s Guide to the Future of Work and Digital Labour, give business leaders a structured way to think about agent design, governance, and workforce redesign without retreating into engineering language. Independent recognition reinforces the position. Kieran has been named a LinkedIn Top Voice seven times and ranks on Thinkers360 leaderboards for both generative AI and agentic AI. He holds an MBA with distinction from Queen’s University Belfast and an MSc in Computer Science from the same institution, a pairing that maps directly onto the audience he writes for: business leaders who need the technology to make commercial sense. Key speaking topics Agentic AI and digital labour Generative AI for business leaders AI strategy and operating model design Intelligent automation at enterprise scale Digital transformation in regulated industries AI governance and board-level oversight Future of work in the age of AI Ideal for Boards and executive committees moving from AI pilots to enterprise deployment CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, and Chief AI Officers designing operating models around generative and agentic AI CHROs and transformation leads redesigning roles and workflows as AI agents enter the workforce Industry conferences in financial services, professional services, technology, insurance, and the public sector Audience outcomes A working definition of agentic AI that distinguishes it from generative AI and earlier automation, with examples from named enterprises A board-level view of where AI agents are already producing operating savings and where they are still pilot theatre A practical map of governance questions a leadership team must answer before scaling AI agents across functions A clear framing of workforce redesign as AI shifts which decisions sit with humans and which sit with digital labour

About James Peach Award-winning global marketing leader (Ex-Uber, Ex-Coca-Cola, Ex-Vinted, Ex-Innocent), world cyclist and adventurer, leadership and performance coach. James has built some of the world’s most successful household brands in tech and consumer goods, leading award-winning marketing and creative teams across Europe and North America. James spent two years cycling a lap of the world solo and unsupported, covering over 41,000 kilometers across 38 countries. He has hiked solo across three continents, and even pioneered the first triathlon to span an entire nation. As the Founder of The Growth Project, James is redefining the way we think about growth and how we achieve ambitious goals – moving beyond the traditional ‘growth mindset’ to a new, more actionable framework. The Growth Project explores how we can use the lessons of the past and adopt a set of behaviours to accelerate future growth, unlocking new ways for individuals, teams and business cultures to thrive. A highly relatable, entertaining and sought-after speaker, James captivates audiences with humor, energy, and meaningful takeaways. His talks offer a refreshing departure from the every day and inspire audiences to think differently about life and work. “I’ve seen a lot of speakers over the years, and James is the best I’ve encountered—a normal person who has done extraordinary things.” — Nestlé

Why organisations work with Nicolas Krauze He has run the live experiment that most executives only theorise about: leading rooms of 60 to 100 specialists, in real time, with no second take, across more than 20 years of professional practice. Conducting the National Philharmonic of Ukraine and the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle Europe gives him a credible vantage on what holds a team together when conditions are unstable, including the period leading into and through the war in Ukraine. He has worked with named soloists at the top of the global classical scene, including Renaud Capucon and Alexandre Kantorow, which gives executives a working answer to managing high-status individual talent inside a collective performance. The Sciences Po background means his corporate conferences are framed for senior commercial audiences, not as a music appreciation event. Clients including KPMG France, Groupe Chargeurs and Bluelink have hosted him with their global leadership groups. He works in French and English with equal precision, useful for European and multinational audiences who want a senior keynote that holds the room in either language. Biography highlights Principal Guest Conductor, National Philharmonic of Ukraine, 2018 to 2022, the first foreigner to hold the role. Musical and Artistic Director, Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle Europe, with more than 400 concerts leading the ensemble. Graduate of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with five first prizes, and of the Moscow Gnessin Institute. Conducting studies under Zsolt Nagy and Christoph Eschenbach. Has conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Wiener Concert-Verein, Arena di Verona Symphony, Athens State Symphony, and Lviv State Philharmonic, among others. Degree from Sciences Po Paris; works as a corporate speaker in French and English. Biography A symphony orchestra is one of the few professional environments where 80 people have to make a single coordinated decision every second, without speaking, in front of a paying audience. Nicolas Krauze has run that environment for two decades. The leadership question he addresses for organisations comes out of that practice directly: how do you get expert individuals to subordinate their judgement to a shared interpretation without losing what makes them expert in the first place. His conducting career covers the full institutional range. He is Musical and Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle Europe in Paris, where he has led more than 400 concerts. From 2018 to 2022 he was Principal Guest Conductor of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, the first foreigner to hold the position. He has conducted orchestras including the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, the Wiener Concert-Verein, the Arena di Verona Symphony and the Athens State Symphony, and has worked with soloists at the level of Renaud Capucon and Alexandre Kantorow. He trained at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he earned five first prizes, and at the Moscow Gnessin Institute, under conductors including Zsolt Nagy and Christoph Eschenbach. He also holds a degree from Sciences Po Paris, which shapes how he frames his work for executive audiences. His corporate conferences, delivered since 2018 in French and English, have been booked by KPMG France, Groupe Chargeurs and Bluelink, among others. What he gives executives is not a metaphor exercise. The conductor’s job is to set the interpretation, hold the tempo, signal the entries, manage individual ego inside a collective sound, and recover when something goes wrong in front of an audience. Those are the same problems a chief executive faces in a senior team. Krauze translates the craft, not the imagery. Key speaking topics Leadership and management Team cohesion and collective performance Motivation inside high-expertise groups Diversity of talent inside a single shared outcome Trust, delegation and dialogue at senior level Performance under live conditions Ideal for Executive committees and senior leadership teams who want to sharpen how they actually work together HR and L&D leaders running offsites focused on team cohesion or collective performance CEO and chair-level audiences at client events where the brief calls for a memorable keynote with senior substance Multinational audiences requiring a speaker who works at executive level in French and English Audience outcomes A working model of what trust, tempo and clear signalling look like inside a high-performing team A sharper sense of how a leader manages high-status individual talent without losing collective coherence Specific reference points from professional conducting that executives can carry back into their own meetings and decision rhythms A keynote experience that is unusual enough to be remembered and discussed inside the organisation afterwards

Why organisations work with Michelle Bachelet Has personally led major institutional reform inside a G20 economy, including pension overhaul, tax reform, and the creation of Chile’s Ministry of Women and Gender Equality. Held the UN’s senior human rights office at the moment human rights frameworks became binding inputs into corporate due diligence and sanctions risk. Built UN Women from the founding stage as its first Executive Director, which gives her a credible voice on gender equality as an institutional discipline. Brings personal moral authority to questions of democratic resilience: imprisoned and tortured under the Pinochet dictatorship, she returned from exile to become the first woman elected President of the country that had jailed her. Currently nominated as a candidate for the next UN Secretary-General, which keeps her active at the centre of debates on multilateralism and global governance. Biography highlights Twice elected President of Chile (2006-2010 and 2014-2018), the country’s first and only woman in the role. Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2018 to 2022. First Executive Director of UN Women, established 2010. First woman Defense Minister of Chile and of Latin America. Previously Chile’s Minister of Health. Recipient of the 2024 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development. Distinguished Fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics. Biography Human rights frameworks have moved from political commentary into the substance of investor due diligence and regulatory scrutiny. Bachelet has been at the centre of that shift. She served two terms as President of Chile, then four years as the seventh United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her two presidencies delivered structural reform of a kind few G20 leaders attempt. Pension overhaul, tax reform, equal pay legislation, and Chile’s Civil Union Act for same-sex couples were each politically expensive inside a centre-right legislative environment. Her administrations also established the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality, the National Institute for Human Rights, and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights. Between her presidential terms she served as the first Executive Director of UN Women, building the agency’s mandate from the founding stage. She returned to the United Nations in 2018 as High Commissioner for Human Rights under António Guterres, leading global human rights monitoring across country situations from Myanmar to Venezuela. Earlier in her career she had been the first woman to serve as Defense Minister of Chile and of Latin America, and Minister of Health before that. In 2018 she founded Horizonte Ciudadano, a civic foundation working on territorial democracy and climate adaptation in Chile. She is a Distinguished Fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics and the recipient of the 2024 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development. In February 2026 she was nominated by Brazil and Mexico as a candidate to succeed António Guterres as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and political risk Democratic governance and institutional resilience Global human rights frameworks in business and policy Multilateralism and the future of the United Nations Gender equality and women’s leadership Social protection and public-sector reform Civil-military relations Ideal for Boards and CEOs facing political risk and democratic instability in their operating markets CHROs and ESG leaders integrating human rights and gender frameworks into corporate practice Governments, multilateral institutions, and development finance leaders working on social policy reform Sovereign and institutional investors with long-dated political and governance exposure Audience outcomes A first-hand reading of how political risk plays out inside a country’s executive The mechanics of how human rights frameworks now shape corporate due diligence and sanctions exposure A frank assessment of where multilateral institutions are working and where they are failing A perspective on gender equality as institutional discipline, drawn from building UN Women from the founding stage The case for democratic resilience, made by someone who returned from exile to be elected president of the country that had imprisoned her

Why organisations work with Michelle Stacy She has personally run the playbook she teaches. Keurig went from $200M to $2.5B in revenue on her watch, with category-defining partnerships built around Starbucks, Dunkin’, and Folgers. She brings sitting board director judgement, not retired-executive nostalgia. iRobot and Skullcandy are her current rooms; she speaks about commercial decisions she is still being held accountable for. She works with named operating frameworks, OGSM for strategic alignment and the Superconsumer model for customer prioritisation, so audiences leave with a structured way to attack the problem on Monday morning. Her 25 years inside P&G and Gillette give her a deep view on global brand building, including leading Gillette’s Oral Care across 70 countries and the launch of Mach3. She is one of a small group of speakers who can move credibly between a CEO offsite on growth strategy and a women’s leadership keynote without changing register. Biography highlights Former President, Keurig: grew revenue from $200M to $2.5B and built partnerships with Starbucks, Dunkin’, and Folgers 25 years at Procter & Gamble and Gillette, including leadership of Global Oral Care across 70+ countries and the launch of Gillette Mach3 Current board director: iRobot, Skullcandy, Milton’s Baking Company Prior board roles: Coravin, Hydrafacial, Tervis Tumblers, Young Innovations Advisor to growth-stage brands including Bellwether Coffee and Adventure Ready Brands MBA, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern; BA, Dartmouth College Biography Keurig was a $200M business when Michelle Stacy took over as President. Five years later it was a $2.5B category leader, with Starbucks, Dunkin’, and Folgers running their coffee through its system. That story is the basis of nearly every keynote she gives, but it is not nostalgia. It is the case study she uses to teach portfolio choice, partnership design, and the operating decisions that separate growth from scale. Before Keurig she spent 25 years inside Procter & Gamble and Gillette, including a global Oral Care role across more than 70 countries and the launch of Mach3, one of the most successful product introductions in shaving category history. That background gives her a view of consumer business most speakers cannot match: how a global parent operates, how a category challenger competes, and where the two playbooks differ. She is still in the rooms where these decisions get made. As a current board director at iRobot, Skullcandy, and Milton’s Baking Company, with prior service at Coravin, Hydrafacial, Tervis Tumblers, and Young Innovations, she works on live commercial questions every quarter. Her advisory clients, including Bellwether Coffee and Adventure Ready Brands, get the same operating lens. What she brings to a stage is named, structured method. OGSM as a strategic planning tool. The Superconsumer model to find the 10% of customers driving most of the value. A view of engagement built on the premise that disengaged teams cannot execute a growth plan, regardless of how good the plan is. Senior audiences leave with a playbook they recognise, because she has run it. Key speaking topics Scaling consumer brands Strategic partnerships and category creation Superconsumer segmentation Innovation portfolio management Engagement-driven leadership Board-level commercial judgement Women in senior commercial roles Ideal for CEOs and commercial leaders of consumer, retail, and CPG businesses scaling past $200M Boards and executive teams setting innovation and growth strategy Heads of marketing and customer experience working on segmentation and brand prioritisation Senior women’s networks inside large commercial organisations Audience outcomes A clearer view of which customer segments warrant the largest share of investment and why A structured strategic planning approach (OGSM) audiences can apply to their own businesses Specific lessons from category-defining partnerships, told from the inside of the deal A practical model for how engaged leadership translates into commercial execution

About Jeanette Bronée Work-Place Performance & Culture Strategist, Global Keynote and 3X TEDx Speaker, Author Jeanette Bronée, a global keynote and three-time TEDx speaker, stands at the forefront of igniting a profound transformation in individuals and organizations. With her compelling insights and unwavering passion, she has spoken to audiences across the world and at the United Nations about harnessing the power of care in guiding people toward unlocking their human potential. Her journey of resilience centers around the belief that resilience can only be achieved by harmonizing and empowering our internal landscapes. By embracing the transformative power of pausing, she inspires individuals and organizations alike to adopt an intentional approach to peak performance by recognizing collective well-being as the driving force behind unlocking our human advantage to connect, communicate, and collaborate with intention, care, and purpose. Through her work, she instills the value of fostering a supportive ecosystem of healthy human relationships, starting with the one we have with ourselves, cultivating a Culture of Care®, where people engage, grow, and collaborate wholeheartedly and teams flourish together, cultivating an environment that fosters creativity, resilience, and synchronized teamwork. In Jeanette Bronée’s transformative work, we find the roadmap to a world where individuals and organizations flourish, fueling a culture where infinite possibility, excellence, and peak performance are intertwined with collective well-being and harmony. She shows leaders and teams how to transform conversations by asking better questions to cultivate the human connection and growth mindset that builds a strong foundation for sustainable personal and professional success for ourselves and together. Born in Denmark, now a New Yorker, she integrates her business background, leadership experience, and certifications as a mindfulness meditation teacher and well-being coach to share the tools of the CARE framework to redefine resilience, reclaim agency, and harness change by becoming more aware, adaptable, and agile. She gives us the C.A.R.E.-driven framework, cultivating a culture where people create impact and sustainable success together. Her clients include IBM, BlackRock, Lockheed Martin, Vanguard, Kaiser Permanente, Genentech, Microsoft, Facebook, eBay, and Siemens, as well as associations for entrepreneurs and professionals who strive to create a positive impact in the world. Her book, The Self-Care Mindset®: How We Change And Grow, Harness Well-Being, And Reclaim Work-Life Quality, is a book of tools we can all learn to use to grow through adversity together. She’s also a contributing author to the book; Connectedness. How the Best Leaders Create Authentic Human Connection in a Disconnected World with Thinkers50.