Leadership

Why organisations work with Eddie Jones Thirty years of head-coach experience at the top of international sport, tested against the sharpest public scrutiny three national rugby unions can apply. A working account, set out in his 2021 book “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, of how to raise standards, rebuild confidence, and hold a team accountable when results are not yet on the board. Authored the single most studied upset in modern rugby: Japan’s 34-32 win over South Africa at the 2015 World Cup, the “Brighton Miracle”, built over three years of culture and conditioning work. World Rugby Coach of the Year 2017, after leading England to a Grand Slam and a record run of consecutive Test wins. A rare speaker who has built and rebuilt teams in three different national cultures (Japanese, Australian, English) and can translate between them for executive audiences. Biography highlights Head coach of England 2015 to 2022: first non-British coach, two Six Nations titles, 2016 Grand Slam, 2019 Rugby World Cup final. World Rugby Coach of the Year, 2017. Head coach of Japan 2012 to 2015, re-appointed December 2023. Head coach of Australia 2001 to 2005, leading the Wallabies to the 2003 Rugby World Cup final. Head coach of the ACT Brumbies, Super Rugby champions 2001. Technical adviser to the Springboks’ 2007 Rugby World Cup-winning squad. Author of “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby” (Macmillan, 2021) and “My Life and Rugby: The Autobiography” (Macmillan, 2019). Biography Japan beat South Africa 34-32 in Brighton in September 2015. The squad had been together three years, trained to a schedule their opponents would not recognise, and made the late call to turn down a draw for a winning try. The head coach was Eddie Jones. That match is the cleanest single case study in his career, but not the only one. Jones has held senior head-coach roles with Japan, Australia, and England, reached two Rugby World Cup finals, served as technical adviser to a third World Cup-winning team, and won a Super Rugby title with the Brumbies in 2001. The through line is not a single style. It is a method for taking on teams that are underperforming relative to their resources, setting a higher standard than the group thinks it can meet, and holding it. His 2021 book, “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, makes that method explicit. It draws on the 2015 Japan campaign, the 2016 England turnaround, and the failures in between to argue that elite performance is a daily discipline of selection, feedback, and standard-setting, not a product of talent or motivation. Jones was named World Rugby Coach of the Year in 2017 after leading England to a Grand Slam and a run of consecutive Test wins second only to the All Blacks. For a senior audience, the value is in the translation. Three national cultures, three turnarounds, one argument about how leaders behave when the team is not yet winning. That is what he brings into a room. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure and public scrutiny Building and turning around elite teams Standards, accountability, and high-performance culture Decision-making in compressed time frames Cross-cultural leadership across international organisations Talent development and succession Ideal for Boards and executive committees leading a turnaround or performance reset CEO and C-suite offsites on standards and accountability CHRO and people leaders working on high-performance culture at scale Sales and commercial leadership teams operating in competitive, results-measured environments Audience outcomes A clearer view of what separates elite teams from good ones in day-to-day behaviour Specific examples of how standards are set, reinforced, and recovered when they slip A model for leading through scrutiny without losing the team Practical reference points from three national turnarounds, not one Language for talking to executives about accountability without euphemism

Why organisations work with Ed Stafford He has done something measurable that no one else has done. The 860-day Amazon walk gives every resilience argument he makes a verifiable ceiling, not a rhetorical one. His military service, from Sandhurst to command in South Armagh, grounds his leadership content in operational judgement rather than motivational framing. He speaks credibly to risk tolerance and expedition planning, including how small, slow decisions compound into outcomes that look inevitable only in retrospect. His Discovery and Channel 4 work, from Left for Dead to 60 Days on the Streets, means he brings on-camera narrative discipline, useful for plenary sessions that need pace. Biography highlights First person recognised by Guinness World Records to walk the Amazon River from source to sea, 860 days, completed August 2010. National Geographic Adventurer of the Year 2010; European Adventurer of the Year 2011. Former captain, British Army. Commissioned into the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment after Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Served in Northern Ireland. Author of Walking the Amazon and Naked and Marooned, both published under Penguin Random House imprints. Presenter of Discovery series Naked and Marooned, Marooned with Ed Stafford, Into the Unknown, Left for Dead and First Man Out. Presenter of Channel 4’s 60 Days on the Streets, a three-part documentary on homelessness in Manchester, London and Glasgow. Biography The Amazon had never been walked in full when Ed Stafford set off from the Peruvian coast in April 2008. Twenty-eight months later, having covered more than four thousand miles on foot through Peru, Colombia and Brazil, he arrived at the Atlantic. Guinness World Records recognised him as the first person to do it. The expedition is the obvious credential, but the useful one for organisations is what it took to sustain: a decision framework applied every day for 860 days, under physical duress, logistical collapse and team change. That discipline did not come from adventure. It came from Sandhurst, a commission into the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, and command responsibility in South Armagh before he was 25. Between military service and broadcast, Stafford led conservation and community expeditions in Belize, Guatemala and Borneo, worked as a UN contractor in Afghanistan, and set up a BBC Natural History Unit base in the Guyanese rainforest. His television work, including Discovery’s Naked and Marooned, Left for Dead and First Man Out, and Channel 4’s 60 Days on the Streets, has turned the same operating instincts into filmed case studies in judgement under scarcity. National Geographic named him Adventurer of the Year in 2010. He was awarded European Adventurer of the Year in Stockholm the following year. For leadership audiences, the value is not the record. It is a working account of how composure, planning and willingness to reset a plan mid-execution hold up when the environment refuses to cooperate. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Decision-making in ambiguous environments Resilience and recovery after setback Risk tolerance and expedition-grade planning Team dynamics in remote and hostile conditions Performance when conditions refuse to stabilise Ideal for Leadership offsites where senior teams are preparing for a period of operational uncertainty CEO and executive-committee sessions on risk appetite and decision discipline Transformation programmes where stamina, not strategy, is the binding constraint Awards, conference plenaries and all-hands events that need a credible human story with operational substance Audience outcomes A sharper picture of how experienced operators actually decide when information is incomplete A usable vocabulary for discussing risk tolerance and pacing on long, hard initiatives Specific, named examples of when to hold a plan and when to break it A reset on what resilience looks like in practice, distinct from how it is marketed

Why organisations work with Duncan Goodhew His personal story is not simply inspirational. It is instructive. Two named conditions (alopecia universalis from age ten, dyslexia diagnosed at thirteen) that could have ended ambition became the foundation of a specific discipline: redefining success on individual terms rather than defaulting to external expectation. That argument is directly usable by organisations managing performance under pressure. His published thesis, developed in Sink or Swim (co-written with Victoria Hislop), is that success is an entirely individual matter; a claim with direct implications for how organisations set targets, evaluate performance, and retain people who do not fit a standard template. He co-founded the Youth Sport Trust in 1994 with Sir John Beckwith, securing £2 million in initial funding; the organisation now operates across every primary school in England. This is institution-building at scale, not just personal achievement. The corporate organisations that have engaged him; IBM, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express, and Barclays were not buying an Olympic story. They were working on a shared problem: how to maintain consistent human performance under commercial pressure. As President of Swimathon, which has raised more than £34 million for national charities, he brings direct experience of building and sustaining large-scale movements, not simply motivating individuals in a room. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, 100m breaststroke, and bronze medallist, 4×100m medley relay, 1980 Moscow Olympics Captain of the Great Britain swimming team, 1978-1980; three silver medals at the 1978 Commonwealth Games, Edmonton MBE awarded 1983 for services to sport Co-founder, Youth Sport Trust (1994), now active across every primary school in England President of Swimathon, which has raised more than £34 million for charity across its history Author of Sink or Swim and Fix Your Life – Now!, both co-written with Victoria Hislop Inducted into the Swim England Hall of Fame, 2019 Biography Duncan Goodhew won Olympic gold in Moscow in 1980, competing as a young man who had been bald since the age of ten and formally diagnosed with dyslexia at thirteen. His published work, developed in Sink or Swim (co-written with Victoria Hislop), makes a specific claim: sustained high performance depends on one insight above all others – success is an individual matter. People who perform consistently under pressure are almost always those who have stopped competing against someone else’s definition of what winning looks like. For organisations managing performance through disruption or change, that has practical implications for how targets are set and how people are evaluated. His record beyond the speaking circuit is equally concrete. He co-founded the Youth Sport Trust in 1994 with Sir John Beckwith, securing £2 million in initial funding; the organisation now operates across every primary school in England. As President of Swimathon, he has overseen an organisation that has raised more than £34 million for national charities. The organisations that have engaged him over the course of his career; IBM, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express, Barclays were working on a consistent underlying challenge: how to maintain human performance when conditions are difficult, stakes are high, and the outcome is not guaranteed. That is the question his work is designed to answer. Key speaking topics Resilience and performance under pressure Overcoming adversity and personal reinvention Individual definitions of success and goal-setting Mental toughness in high-stakes environments Leadership through uncertainty and change Team motivation and sustained engagement Youth sport, physical activity, and long-term wellbeing Ideal for Senior leadership and C-suite audiences navigating organisational change or sustained commercial pressure HR, talent, and people leaders responsible for employee engagement, resilience, and retention Sales, commercial, and operational teams where consistent performance in demanding conditions is a strategic priority Corporate conferences where a credible, evidence-grounded narrative around resilience and peak performance is the brief Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of what peak performance actually requires, and why individually defined success criteria outperform externally imposed targets Practical insight into how elite athletes manage sustained pressure, maintain motivation, and continue performing through extended adversity A clearer sense of how personal disadvantage or difference can be converted from liability into competitive foundation Reflection on whether their organisation’s definitions of success are genuinely motivating the people they most want to retain A memorable, evidence-backed narrative around resilience that individuals and teams can carry into their own work

Why organisations work with Dominique Turpin He has led two of the most internationally respected business schools, IMD and CEIBS, which gives him a rare operational read on how senior teams actually make commercial decisions under pressure. His case library, ranked by The Case Centre among the top 50 bestselling globally for several consecutive years, is taught inside the MBA programmes of the companies that buy his counsel. He combines a PhD from Sophia University Tokyo with decades of client work across Japan, China and Southeast Asia, useful to any European or North American board navigating Asian market entry or partnership. He works from named case material, not generic frameworks: Nespresso, Jollibee, Ducati, Toyota KINTO, among others, each linked to a specific brand or customer-centricity argument. His writing for Financial Times, MIT Sloan Management Review and European Business Forum gives executive audiences a concrete reference point for the arguments he develops on stage. Biography highlights Professor Emeritus of Marketing Strategy, IMD; former President and Nestle Professor, 2010 to 2016. President Emeritus of CEIBS; served as President (European) based out of the Zurich campus. PhD in Economics, Sophia University, Tokyo; MSc from ESSCA, France. Author of more than 100 books, articles and case studies, including The Essential Book of Business and Life Quotations (Anthem Press). Ranked on The Case Centre Top 50 Bestselling Case Authors for multiple consecutive years. Chairman of DAA Capital Partners; advisory and board roles across listed companies and educational institutions including Stockholm School of Economics and Waseda Business School. Biography Most global brands still describe themselves as customer-centric. Very few can show a senior leader what that actually changes inside a weekly country review. That gap between brand statement and operating behaviour is where Dominique Turpin has spent almost four decades of teaching and advisory work. Turpin joined IMD in 1986 after several years in Tokyo representing a French firm in Japan. He went on to hold the Dentsu Chair in Marketing, direct the MBA programme and serve as IMD President and Nestle Professor from 2010 to 2016. In 2022 he was appointed President (European) of CEIBS, the China Europe International Business School, a role he held until late 2025. He is now Professor Emeritus at IMD and President Emeritus at CEIBS. His case studies, taught inside companies as much as in classrooms, sit behind this body of work. Nespresso, Jollibee, Ducati, Toyota KINTO. Each uses a named company to argue a specific point about brand coherence, pricing power or customer design. The Case Centre has listed him among its top 50 bestselling case authors for several consecutive years, which is unusual longevity in a field dominated by one-off hits. The Japan and Asia dimension matters in his advisory work. Clients have included Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestle, Philips, KAO, Mondelez and Panasonic, and much of his applied research has examined how Asian firms build and defend brand equity in markets where European playbooks stall. He is Chairman of DAA Capital Partners, a Geneva-based private equity firm, and sits on boards and advisory councils including Stockholm School of Economics and Waseda Business School. Key speaking topics Brand management and brand strategy Customer centricity in multinational organisations Global marketing strategy Marketing leadership in Asia, with focus on Japan and China Corporate communications strategy Case-led executive development in commercial functions Ideal for CMOs and brand presidents inside consumer, industrial and healthcare multinationals. CEOs and group leadership teams setting Asia entry, partnership or expansion strategy. Executive development programmes for commercial and country-leadership populations. Boards and investment committees assessing brand-led businesses or consumer-facing acquisitions. Audience outcomes A working definition of customer centricity that survives contact with a country P and L. Named case examples senior teams can immediately apply to their own brand or pricing questions. A clearer view of how Japanese and Chinese firms build and defend brand equity, and what Western firms miss. Direct questions to ask marketing leadership about brand discipline, positioning and investment allocation. A vocabulary for talking about brand and customer strategy that aligns CEO, CFO and CMO.

Why organisations work with Dominic Alldis His sessions place executives inside a live orchestra or jazz band, making the dynamics of leadership – alignment, trust, listening under pressure – physically felt rather than conceptually described. No other leadership format uses professional live performance as the working medium in this way. The classical-vs-jazz framework gives organisations a precise vocabulary for a problem most struggle to name: when to follow the score and when to improvise – the alignment-versus-autonomy tension that runs through every complex team. The Orchestra Experience has been part of Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008, with endorsement from the programme’s Kravis Professor of Business – giving his approach academic standing alongside conference-format delivery. As an active professional musician and faculty member at the Royal Academy of Music since 1991, he brings current, first-person experience of high-performance ensembles – not a career retrospective applied to business. His client base runs from Microsoft, Google and Deutsche Bank to the United Nations, with executive education work at INSEAD, IMD Lausanne, London Business School and Columbia – evidence of trust from serious institutions across sectors and formats. Biography highlights Jazz pianist, orchestral conductor, arranger and singer; professional career began in Paris in 1982 and spans jazz clubs, concert halls and festival stages internationally Founder and Director of Music & Management, delivering music-based leadership development programmes for corporations and business schools worldwide Faculty member at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 1991, teaching jazz improvisation to classical pianists and opera singers; Honorary Associate since 2000; Steinway Artist since 2010 Music & Management has delivered the Orchestra Experience to Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008; executive education work also includes INSEAD/CEDEP, IMD Lausanne and London Business School Corporate clients include senior teams at Microsoft, WPP, Google, eBay, Deutsche Bank, LVMH, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, BCG, PwC, Mandarin Oriental and the United Nations Author of two books published by Hal Leonard Corporation: «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Harmony» and «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Improvisation» Founder of the Canzona Chamber Orchestra (2010), performing classical repertoire and jazz crossover projects Biography The tension between structure and spontaneity runs through every high-performing team. An orchestra delivers the score with precision; a jazz band improvises around shared norms. Dominic Alldis is a jazz pianist, conductor, and founder of Music & Management and has spent more than two decades translating this contrast into a direct learning experience for executives. The question he brings to business audiences is concrete: when should a team follow the score, and when should it improvise? His framework draws from a professional career that spans both traditions. Alldis studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, played jazz residencies in Paris and London, conducted orchestras across four continents, and has taught improvisation to classical pianists and opera singers at the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he holds the title of Honorary Associate) since 1991. That dual expertise is the engine of his practice: not music as illustration, but musical performance as a live laboratory for the dynamics organisations actually need to develop. Music & Management has embedded the Orchestra Experience in Columbia Business School’s Senior Executive Program since 2008 – endorsed by Paul Ingram, Kravis Professor of Business. Corporate clients include senior teams at Microsoft, WPP, Google, Deutsche Bank, LVMH and the United Nations. His executive education work spans INSEAD, IMD Lausanne and London Business School. Testimonials from CHROs, managing partners and CEOs consistently name the sessions as the most memorable leadership experience their organisations have produced. His books – «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Harmony» and «A Classical Approach to Jazz Piano Improvisation», both published by Hal Leonard Corporation – reflect the same bridging instinct: rigorous musical thinking made accessible to practitioners who come from a different tradition. Key speaking topics Leadership through musical performance Classical and jazz models of organisational alignment Collaboration and collective decision-making Listening as a leadership competency Creativity and improvisation in organisations Change and adaptability in complex environments Team dynamics and organisational trust Ideal for Senior executive teams at strategic off-sites, leadership summits, and cultural transformation programmes CHROs and L&D Directors designing experiential leadership development at executive level Business schools and executive education programmes seeking immersive, non-traditional learning formats CEOs and boards seeking a high-impact, memorable format that connects music, leadership, and organisational performance Audience outcomes A direct, experiential encounter with how alignment, trust, and collective decision-making operate in real time – not as concepts, but as felt dynamics A working vocabulary for the tension between structured coordination and creative autonomy in teams Greater awareness of listening as an operational leadership practice, not only a communication skill New perspective on how change and improvisation can be navigated without losing coherent direction Personal observations about their own leadership behaviour, prompted by the musical experience rather than delivered through instruction

Why organisations work with Digby Jones He has sat in both chairs that most business audiences only see from outside: head of the CBI and Minister of State for Trade. Very few speakers can tell a boardroom what the other side of the table is actually thinking. As Trade Minister he made 45 overseas visits to 31 countries in 15 months. That is a working map of how UK plc sells itself abroad, not a theory about it. His two Wiley books, Fixing Britain (2011) and Fixing Business (2017), set out a consistent argument about competitiveness, skills and responsible profit that still frames how he talks to boards today. He is a crossbencher by choice and a non-aligned voice in public life. For audiences tired of partisan framing, that independence is the point. The New Troubleshooter, his 2014 BBC Two series, put him inside three real British SMEs to diagnose and fix them on camera. It is a rare speaker credential: public evidence of how he actually thinks through a business problem. Biography highlights Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, 2000 to 2006. Minister of State for Trade and Investment, 2007 to 2008, jointly in BERR and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Life peer as Baron Jones of Birmingham, 2007; crossbencher in the House of Lords until retirement in 2020. Knight Bachelor, 2005 New Year Honours, for services to Business. Author of Fixing Britain (Wiley, 2011) and Fixing Business (Wiley, 2017); Fixing Britain shortlisted for the 2012 CMI Management Book of the Year. Presenter of BBC Two’s Digby Jones: The New Troubleshooter, 2014. Senior Partner at Edge & Ellison, Birmingham, 1995 to 1998, after two decades as a corporate lawyer in the West Midlands. Biography The CBI is where British business tells the government what it needs. The Department for Business is where the government tells British business what it is prepared to do. Digby Jones has run the first and served in the second. That combined vantage is what a boardroom is buying when it brings him in. He was Director General of the CBI from 2000 to 2006, then accepted an invitation from Gordon Brown to serve as Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2007 to 2008, joining the Lords as a crossbencher to take the post. In 15 months he made 45 overseas visits to 31 countries, pitching the UK as a place to invest and British firms as firms to buy from. He sat as a non-aligned peer until retiring from the Lords in 2020. The two books are where his argument lives. Fixing Britain (Wiley, 2011), shortlisted for the 2012 CMI Management Book of the Year, is a working plan for national competitiveness: skills, infrastructure, a functioning relationship between Whitehall and the wealth creators. Fixing Business (Wiley, 2017) extends the argument into how profitable companies can justify themselves to the societies they operate in. The thesis is consistent and it is his own. Before politics, he spent twenty years at Edge & Ellison in Birmingham, becoming senior partner, brokering deals for mid-market companies in a region that lives or dies by manufacturing. That is the register he still speaks in. On the BBC Two series The New Troubleshooter in 2014 he spent three episodes inside three British SMEs, arguing with owners and staff about pricing, exports and focus. A senior audience watching him work sees the same person they will meet on stage: direct, specific, unafraid to name the problem. Key speaking topics UK competitiveness and the business-government relationship Trade, exports and inward investment British economic policy and the view from Westminster Skills, productivity and the domestic labour market Responsible business and the case for profit Leadership from the employers’ side of the table Ideal for Board and executive committee offsites debating UK exposure, investment or political risk CEO and CFO audiences at trade associations, industry bodies and chambers of commerce Senior audiences at professional services and financial firms briefing clients on the UK economy After-dinner and conference keynotes where a non-partisan senior voice on British business is the draw Audience outcomes A candid read on where the UK economy and UK business policy actually stand, from someone who has worked both sides A clearer view of what government decisions mean for investment, exports and hiring A sharper argument for why skills and productivity remain the binding constraint on British growth A usable sense of how to talk about profit, responsibility and national interest in the same sentence Direct answers in Q&A: a working conversation with a senior practitioner, not a rehearsed set piece

Why organisations work with Didier Marlier Co-author of Engaging Leadership (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), which set out the Logos, Ethos and Pathos framework now used inside executive programmes at IMD, INSEAD, Nyenrode and Fundação Dom Cabral. Three decades of close work with European industrials, financial institutions and professional service firms, including BASF, Credit Suisse, Bank Julius Baer, Dow Chemical, Firmenich, KPMG and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Founded and ran the Enablers Network for almost thirty years before donating the brand to an independent association in 2024, an unusual signal of operating from conviction rather than commercial capture. Teaches change leadership across four continents in French, English and Portuguese, with deep practical exposure to Brazilian as well as European corporate cultures. Brings the same engagement methodology into professional sports environments, where the cost of disengagement is measurable on the scoreboard, and translates those lessons back into corporate boardrooms. Biography highlights Co-author of Engaging Leadership: Three Agendas for Sustaining Achievement, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Faculty and guest professor on executive programmes at IMD, INSEAD, Nyenrode, NEOMA and Fundação Dom Cabral. Founder of the Enablers Network, a European partnership of leadership and change practitioners, donated to the Enablers Association in 2024. MBA from IMD; law degree from Université de Lausanne. TEDx speaker and keynote at the GBTA Europe Conference 2013 in Prague. Long-standing client work with BASF, Credit Suisse, Dow Chemical, KPMG, Bank Julius Baer, Firmenich, Solvay, SAP and Total. Biography Strategy decks rarely fail on their logic. They fail because the people expected to deliver them never genuinely sign up. That gap, between the intellectual case for change and the behavioural reality of an organisation, is the territory Didier Marlier has worked in for three decades. His framework, set out with Chris Parker in Engaging Leadership (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), borrows from classical rhetoric. Logos is the strategic argument. Ethos is the behaviour and tone leaders model day to day. Pathos is the emotional commitment that turns compliance into ownership. The book argues that serious change requires all three running together, not strategy first and culture later. The client list reflects the breadth of that idea in practice: BASF, Credit Suisse, Bank Julius Baer, Dow Chemical, Firmenich, KPMG, Solvay and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer among them. He teaches the same material on executive programmes at IMD, INSEAD, Nyenrode and Fundação Dom Cabral, which gives him an unusually direct read on how European and Latin American executives experience change differently. In 2024 he donated the Enablers Network brand, which he had built over almost thirty years, to an independent association, and now works through DMD. He also applies the same engagement methodology inside professional sports teams, where disengagement shows up immediately in performance data and feeds back into how he advises corporate clients. Key speaking topics Leadership in the disruption economy Engagement through strategic, behavioural and emotional change Post-merger and post-acquisition integration Cultural transformation in multinational organisations Board and executive team effectiveness Change leadership across European and Latin American contexts Ideal for CEOs, executive committees and boards leading strategic, cultural or post-merger transformation CHROs and transformation leads responsible for behavioural adoption of new strategies Senior leadership programmes in multinational organisations with cross-cultural workforces Professional service firm partnerships managing change without command authority Audience outcomes A working language for diagnosing why a current change initiative is stalling A clearer line of sight between the strategic case for change and the day-to-day behaviour leaders must model Specific signals to watch for when intellectual buy-in masks emotional disengagement Cross-cultural reference points from European and Brazilian corporate practice

Why organisations work with Dermot Murnaghan Four decades of live news anchoring, from ITV News at Ten to BBC Breakfast to Sky News, give him the composure to handle a difficult room, a running schedule, or a senior panel that needs steering. Royal Television Society Interviewer of the Year for the Peter Mandelson interview that unseated a cabinet minister, a credential that buys him latitude with senior speakers and difficult subjects. He has anchored some of the defining live moments of the last thirty years, including Princess Diana’s death in 1997 and Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022, which is the kind of pedigree that calms a nervous client on the day. Corporate hosting CV across the Police Federation, Eurostar, the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Which? and Royal Mail, with consistent client feedback on professionalism and ease of working. Active interviewer on his podcast Legends of News, with recent guests including Sir Trevor McDonald, Nick Robinson and Jonathan Dimbleby, so the craft is current, not retired. Biography highlights Main presenter, BBC Breakfast, 2002 to 2007. Main anchor, Sky News, 2007 to 2023, including the Sunday Murnaghan show and Sky News Tonight. Host, BBC Two’s Eggheads, 2003 to 2014. Royal Television Society Interviewer of the Year, 1999. TRIC Newscaster of the Year, 2000. Host of Legends of News, an Acast podcast on the history of British broadcast journalism. Ambassador, Prostate Cancer Research, since June 2025. Biography Live news is unforgiving. The autocue breaks, the politician dodges, the breaking story lands in the middle of a different segment, and the anchor still has to be coherent, calm and on time. Dermot Murnaghan spent four decades doing exactly that across Channel 4, ITV, BBC and Sky News. The credentials sit behind the craft. The Royal Television Society named him Interviewer of the Year in 1999 for the Peter Mandelson interview that exposed the Geoffrey Robinson loan affair and pushed Mandelson out of the cabinet. TRIC named him Newscaster of the Year in 2000. On ITV he was the anchor who broke the news of Princess Diana’s death in 1997. On Sky News he announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. For corporate audiences, that lineage translates into conference chairing, awards hosting and panel moderation. He has worked the room for the Police Federation, Eurostar, the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Which? and Royal Mail. Clients consistently note that he is easy to work with on the day, briefed properly, and able to handle senior contributors without flattening them. The craft is still active. His Acast podcast Legends of News features long-form interviews with Sir Trevor McDonald, Nick Robinson, Martha Kearney, Jonathan Dimbleby and Tim Marshall, among others. Since June 2025 he has also been an ambassador for Prostate Cancer Research, following his own stage four diagnosis, and speaks publicly about screening and early detection. Key speaking topics Conference chairing and facilitation Awards hosting Panel moderation In-conversation interviews with senior figures After-dinner speaking on a career in broadcast news Men’s health and prostate cancer awareness The craft and ethics of broadcast journalism Ideal for Corporate and association annual conferences that need an external chair to hold the agenda together Industry awards nights requiring a recognisable, senior host Leadership offsites and client events that include a fireside chat or in-conversation format Internal communications, charity and CSR events on men’s health, screening and patient advocacy Audience outcomes A conference that runs on time, with senior contributors handled with judgement and warmth. A panel that interrogates the topic rather than drifting, with the chair reading the room and steering it. A fireside chat that lands the headline points the client cares about, in language the audience can quote. For health-themed events, a candid first-person account of a stage four prostate cancer diagnosis and a clear case for earlier screening.

Why organisations work with David Roberts His Exponential Leadership framework draws a hard diagnostic line between revolutionary and truly disruptive technology – giving senior teams a structured method for a decision most organisations currently make by instinct. He holds an MIT degree in Artificial Intelligence alongside a Harvard MBA, and built ventures backed by Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla, and In-Q-Tel – his understanding of technology disruption is operational, not theoretical. As Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program, he has stress-tested these frameworks with senior leaders across sectors and geographies at scale. His background spans classified U.S. government programs – satellite systems, drone development, intelligence fusion centers – giving him credibility on high-stakes technological complexity that most innovation speakers cannot claim. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley Business Schools have written and taught case studies on his leadership and decision-making – a level of academic scrutiny that validates the substance of the framework, not just its presentation. Biography highlights MIT B.S. Computer Science and Engineering, Distinguished Graduate, majored in Artificial Intelligence and Bio-Computer Engineering Harvard MBA Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program; Distinguished Faculty member Coined the term Exponential Leadership in 2010; founder of Exponential Leadership organisation Co-founder and President of FireDrop and Zaplet, acquired by MetricStream; ventures backed by Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla, Cisco, Oracle, Accenture, and In-Q-Tel Chairman of 1QBit, one of the world’s first quantum computing software companies Career U.S. government officer: Air Force officer, decorated Special Agent; led development of satellite programs and the U.S. Drone Program; received personal citation from the Director of the FBI Media coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, USA Today, The New York Times, and CNN Biography Roberts studied AI at MIT before the term had reached the boardroom – under the guidance of Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of ELIZA and one of the discipline’s founding figures. That technical grounding was followed by a Goldman Sachs M&A posting and then a career in the U.S. government, where he led the development of satellite systems and the U.S. Drone Program across multiple national agencies. By the time he entered Silicon Valley, he had spent years building the technologies that other people were still learning to name. His venture career – FireDrop and Zaplet, backed by Kleiner Perkins and In-Q-Tel and ultimately acquired by MetricStream – gave him a second operational lens: what it takes to build and fund companies around genuinely disruptive technology, not merely competitive ones. That distinction became the foundation of his intellectual contribution. In 2010, working in a government context, he coined the term Exponential Leadership – a framework built on a single, testable claim: that the leadership models most organisations rely on were engineered for incremental change, and that they structurally fail when technologies start compressing competitive timelines from decades to years. Roberts went on to serve as Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program, reaching senior leaders across sectors with that framework. His talks do not stop at diagnosing the gap between technology speed and leadership capability – they give organisations a structured method for distinguishing truly disruptive technologies from merely revolutionary ones, and a leadership model calibrated to act on that distinction. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley Business Schools have used his leadership and decision-making as the basis for case studies. His technology ventures have been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and CNN. Key speaking topics Exponential Leadership Technology disruption and disruptive innovation theory Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies Quantum computing and advanced technology platforms Entrepreneurship and high-growth venture strategy Strategic decision-making in exponential environments Leadership development for technology-driven organisations Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating technology-driven transformation Strategy and innovation leaders in sectors facing accelerating competitive disruption Corporate leadership development programmes seeking a framework for exponential change Boards and executive committees assessing long-term technology risk and strategic positioning Audience outcomes A working distinction between revolutionary and genuinely disruptive technology, with a framework for applying it to current strategic decisions Understanding of why traditional leadership models underperform in exponentially changing environments, and what a more effective model looks like in practice Clearer organisational language for discussing exponential change – moving beyond general awareness to specific, actionable diagnostic categories Exposure to emerging technologies – including AI, quantum computing, synthetic biology, and autonomous systems – framed through their leadership and strategic implications A practical foundation for aligning leadership behaviour and decision-making with the actual pace of technology change

Why organisations work with David Coulthard He brings direct operational experience from three distinct Formula One team environments – Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull – across 15 seasons and 247 races. Most high-performance speakers have one team’s frame of reference. Coulthard has three, including a championship-contending team and an ambitious start-up that became the sport’s dominant force. The Winning Formula (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) is not a memoir retooled as a business book. It is a structured framework – drawing on F1 systems from pit-stop execution to real-time data decision-making – that gives corporate audiences a model to work with, not just a story to enjoy. His post-career record as co-founder of Whisper Films (Channel 4’s F1 production partner) and Velocity Experience means he has built commercial organisations and navigated partnership and governance structures. His leadership perspective is active, not historical. As President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club – the body that owns and governs Silverstone Circuit – he holds a current institutional role at the centre of elite motorsport. He is engaged with the governance and structural challenges of the sport today, not frozen at the moment he retired. His co-founding of More than Equal, a data-led programme to accelerate elite female racing drivers toward Formula One, gives him a credible and specific point of view on inclusive performance cultures – not as a topic layered on, but as something he is actively building. Biography highlights 13 Formula One Grand Prix victories across 15 seasons with Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull Racing (1994-2008); 62 podium finishes and 247 race starts Runner-up in the 2001 F1 World Drivers’ Championship; five top-three championship finishes in total, including a key role in McLaren’s 1998 Constructors’ Championship Delivered Red Bull Racing’s first Formula One podium at the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, elected 2019 (the BRDC owns and operates Silverstone Circuit) Author of The Winning Formula: Leadership, Strategy and Motivation the F1 Way (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) and autobiography It Is What It Is (2007) Co-founder of Whisper Films (Channel 4’s F1 production partner) and Velocity Experience; co-founder of More than Equal (2022), a data-led driver development programme for elite female racing drivers Channel 4 F1 commentator and analyst since 2016; previously BBC F1 pundit (2009-2016) Inaugural recipient of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award (1989); MBE (2010) Biography Formula One is the closest thing in sport to a working model of organisational performance under pressure. Every function – engineering, strategy, risk management, execution – must be aligned in real time, with the cost of misalignment immediate and public. David Coulthard spent 15 seasons inside that system, winning 13 Grands Prix across Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull. At McLaren through the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was part of one of the sport’s most technically and strategically demanding environments. He finished runner-up in the 2001 World Drivers’ Championship and played a central role in McLaren’s 1998 Constructors’ Championship. He later helped establish Red Bull Racing on the F1 podium in 2006 – the early foundation of what became the sport’s most dominant team. Those two environments give his perspective on performance culture an unusual range: what elite execution looks like when every resource is already optimised, and what it takes to build performance discipline in an organisation that is still finding its feet. His book The Winning Formula (2018, Sunday Times bestseller) sets out a structured framework for applying F1’s operational principles to business leadership. From pit-stop execution as a model for team accountability, to decision-making under real-time pressure with incomplete information, the book draws direct lines between elite motorsport practice and the challenges leadership teams actually face. As President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club – which owns and operates Silverstone Circuit – he holds an active governance role at the centre of the sport. Coulthard has built organisations as well as addressed them. He co-founded Whisper Films, which produces Channel 4’s Formula One coverage in the UK. He also co-founded More than Equal in 2022 – a data-led programme designed to create a pathway for the first woman to race in Formula One in the modern era. That combination of elite sporting record, published intellectual framework, and active commercial and institutional roles makes his leadership perspective harder to replicate than it might first appear. Key speaking topics High-performance decision-making under pressure Leadership accountability in elite team environments Strategy and execution alignment Performance culture and team cohesion Risk management in competitive conditions Entrepreneurship and commercial venture-building in elite sport Ideal for Senior leadership and C-suite teams in high-stakes or performance-driven industries CHROs and people leaders building or benchmarking high-performance team cultures Strategy and transformation leads examining how decision-making disciplines are built and sustained under pressure Executive development programmes at major corporate, professional services, or financial institutions Audience outcomes A transferable model for decision-making under pressure, drawn directly from F1 operational practice and articulated in The Winning Formula Concrete examples of how world-class teams structure accountability when execution cannot be approximate A sharper understanding of where the gap between strategic intent and operational delivery opens up – and how elite environments close it Reference points for building cultures where performance expectations hold under stress, not just in planning conditions Practical insight into what team composition, role clarity, and real-time feedback look like when they are working at the highest level

Why organisations work with Dave Ulrich The four-domain architecture of human capability, talent, leadership, organisation, and the HR function, is Ulrich’s own framework. It gives business and HR leaders a single integrated taxonomy for what is otherwise a sprawl of disconnected people and organisation initiatives, and a structured way to decide which investments will actually move stakeholder outcomes. The Human Resource Competency Study, now in its eighth round across 35 years, has cumulatively drawn on more than 100,000 respondents. Round 7 produced the headline finding that organisational capability has four times the business impact of individual talent. Round 8 sharpens the picture: HR department capability and the organisational capabilities HR helps build have six to eight times the business impact of individual HR competencies. Ulrich brings these findings into the room directly, not via a citation. Ulrich is the originator of the HR Business Partner model that most large organisations still operate today. Engaging him is not external validation of the existing model. It is access to the next-generation architecture, including the Organization Guidance System diagnostic that has now been run inside more than 500 organisations. The Leadership Capital Index reframes leadership quality as a measurable asset that investors and boards can rate the way Moody’s rates credit. For boards under increasing pressure to disclose human capital substance, not narrative, this is one of the few frameworks built explicitly for that conversation. Induction into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, alongside HR Magazine’s «father of modern HR» designation and recognition as the most influential HR thinker of the decade, places him among the small group of figures who have demonstrably shaped a field rather than contributed to one. Biography highlights Rensis Likert Professor Emeritus, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Co-founder and partner, The RBL Group Author of more than 30 books including Human Resource Champions (Harvard Business School Press, 1997), The Leadership Capital Index (Berrett-Koehler, 2015), Victory Through Organization (McGraw-Hill, 2017), and Reinventing the Organization (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019) Editor, Human Resource Management journal, 1990 to 1999; Distinguished Fellow, National Academy of Human Resources Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, 2017; HR Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award, 2012, source of the «father of modern HR» designation; named most influential HR thinker of the decade by HR Magazine Lead architect of the Human Resource Competency Study (eight rounds, 35-plus years, more than 100,000 cumulative respondents) and the Organization Guidance System diagnostic (more than 500 organisations) Active global platform: more than 400,000 LinkedIn followers and a weekly newsletter with more than 230,000 subscribers, with weekly posts routinely reaching 50,000 to 70,000 views Biography HR is not about HR. The phrase is Ulrich’s own. It captures the through-line of three decades of work: that the HR function exists to deliver value to every stakeholder the organisation touches, not to perfect its own processes. Employees and executives inside. Customers, investors, and communities outside. The discipline he calls human capability is the architecture that connects them. That architecture has four domains, each backed by its own research base. Talent covers how organisations acquire, develop, and retain full contributors, now framed by Ulrich as Talent Advantage = AI × HI, artificial intelligence multiplied by human ingenuity. Organisation treats the company as a set of capabilities: agility, culture, innovation, strategic clarity, collaboration, and customer connection. These can be prioritised through the Organization Guidance System, now deployed in more than 500 companies. Leadership draws on the Leadership Code research with more than 30,000 respondents, and on the Leadership Capital Index, which gives boards and investors a measurable framework for leadership quality. The HR function rests on the 35-year Human Resource Competency Study, with more than 100,000 cumulative respondents, and shapes the operating models, practices, and competencies HR uses today. The practical consequences of this work have shaped how HR is organised. Human Resource Champions (1997) introduced the four-role model, strategic partner, change agent, administrative expert, and employee champion, that became the template for HR business partnering inside Fortune 500 organisations. The Leadership Capital Index (2015) made the case that leadership quality can be rated the way credit is rated. Victory Through Organization (2017) was the empirical headline: organisational capability has roughly four times the business impact of individual talent. Round 8 of the HRCS sharpens that further: the HR department and the organisational capabilities it helps build have six to eight times the business impact of individual HR competencies. Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor Emeritus at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and a partner at The RBL Group. He has worked with more than half of the Fortune 200 across more than 80 countries. He was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2017, and was named «father of modern HR» by HR Magazine in its 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award. His weekly LinkedIn posts reach more than 400,000 followers and 230,000 newsletter subscribers. That audience is how much of the global HR and business community engages with his current work in real time. Key speaking topics Stakeholder value through human capability The four domains of HR: talent, leadership, organisation, and the HR function HR transformation and the next-generation HR Business Partner model Organisational capability as competitive advantage Leadership Capital Index and leadership as a board-level asset The HR inflection point: AI, analytics, and the future of the HR function Culture transformation and organisational design Ideal for CEOs and executive teams looking for a single integrated language across talent, leadership, organisational capability, and the HR function CHROs and senior HR teams whose remit now spans stakeholder outcomes across employees, customers, investors, and communities Boards and investors who need a measurable framework for the human capability behind market value Transformation leads redesigning the HR operating model and the cross-functional accountabilities that sit alongside it across business leaders, HR, and employees Audience outcomes The four-domain human capability framework as a single integrated language for talent, leadership, organisation, and HR investment, replacing the disconnected list of HR programmes most teams are working from The empirical case for why organisational and capability investments outperform individual talent investments, drawn directly from HRCS and OGS findings A diagnostic logic for deciding which human capability investments will move customer share, investor confidence, and community standing, not just employee engagement scores A practical model for measuring leadership quality that can be defended in an investor or board conversation A clear position from which CHROs and CEOs can present HR as a leading indicator of business performance rather than a lagging cost

About Dave Trott Dave’s passion for creativity and advertising started in the ’70s when he worked for John Webster at BMP, who has won more advertising awards than anyone else in history. He worked his way to Deputy Creative Director, then left in 1980 to start his own agency, Gold Greenlees Trott. His time at BMP certainly stood him in good stead when Gold Greenlees Trott won Best Agency in the UK by Campaign magazine in their first year, followed four years later by Best Agency in the World by Ad Age magazine, New York. Current/Past Positions and Roles Consultant Joint Founder, Bainsfair Sharkey Trott Joint Founder, WTCS Chairman, The Gate Founder, D&AD Advertising Concepts Workshops Founder, Gold Greenlees Trott Deputy Creative Director, BMP Awards, Accolades, Achievements, Honours D&AD President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement Lifetime Achievement Award from The Creative Circle Lifetime Achievement Award from The Marketing Society Lifetime Achievement Award from The Scottish Advertising Association Speaking Topics Creativity Advertising Lateral Thinking Publications Dave has written six books exploring creativity, communication, and problem-solving: Creative Mischief Predatory Thinking 1+1=3 Creative Blindness The Power of Ignorance Crossover Creativity