Leadership

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

Why organisations work with Jeanette Bronée She treats self-care as a leadership discipline, not a wellbeing programme. Her Power-Pausing method is built for executives who cannot afford to slow down but cannot afford to decide badly either. She brings two decades of work with Fortune 500 organisations including Microsoft, BlackRock, HSBC, Siemens, and the U.S. Navy, and has presented at the United Nations. Her book The Self-Care Mindset (Wiley, 2022) gives clients a tested framework leaders can apply between sessions, not a speaker high that fades by Monday. She contributed the chapter on Power-Pausing in Thinkers50 and Wiley’s Connectedness, a recognition that places her work alongside the field’s most cited voices on human connection and leadership. Her Danish business background and US executive experience give her a register that travels comfortably across European and North American leadership audiences. Biography highlights Author, The Self-Care Mindset, Wiley (2022) Contributing author, Connectedness, Thinkers50 and Wiley, foreword by Rita McGrath Three-time TEDx speaker, including TEDxUNCPembroke Founder of Path for Life, established 2004 Former Board Member, National Speakers Association New York Speaking clients include Microsoft, BlackRock, HSBC, Siemens, eBay, McKesson, U.S. Navy, SHRM, and the United Nations Biography Most leadership advice on pressure assumes the answer is more discipline. Bronée argues the opposite. The capacity to lead well under sustained load is built by what happens in the seconds before a decision, not by what happens after burnout has already arrived. Her Power-Pausing method, developed over twenty years of consulting work, treats that micro-pause as a metacognitive operating practice, not a wellness habit. The work has a specific origin. She built her first company at 23, ran a team of 50 by 25, and was diagnosed with the early markers of the cancer that had killed both her parents. She left the fashion industry, founded Path for Life in 2004, and spent the next two decades testing what actually changes when leaders rebuild their relationship to attention, stress, and trust. That research now sits in The Self-Care Mindset, published by Wiley in 2022, and in her contributing chapter to Connectedness, the Thinkers50 and Wiley volume on authentic human connection at work, with a foreword by Columbia Business School’s Rita McGrath. She has delivered three TEDx talks and worked with Microsoft, BlackRock, HSBC, Siemens, McKesson, the U.S. Navy, and the United Nations. The current emphasis is on trust and judgement in AI-saturated workplaces. As more cognitive load shifts to machines, the leadership variables that matter most are the ones that cannot be automated: the quality of attention a leader brings to a hard call, and the conditions that allow a team to disagree well. Bronée’s argument is that those variables are trainable. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under pressure Power-Pausing as a decision-making practice Building cultures of trust in AI-saturated workplaces The Self-Care Mindset for senior leaders Care-Driven Leadership Resilience and sustainable performance Human capacity in the age of AI Ideal for CEOs, CHROs and senior HR leaders rebuilding the social contract with their workforce Leadership development sponsors designing programmes for newly senior executives Organisations introducing AI tools and worried about the cultural cost of speed without judgement Conferences for women in senior leadership and executive transition programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of self-care as a leadership capability, separate from wellbeing programming The Power-Pausing practice as a tool for higher-quality decisions under time pressure A clearer view of how trust is built or eroded in the small interactions that precede big calls Language to use with their own teams about capacity, not just performance An honest read on where their current culture rewards urgency at the expense of judgement

Why organisations work with Paul Gibbons His Adaptive Adoption model – a seven-pillar behavioral science framework for AI adoption – and its companion diagnostic, the Adaptive Adoption Maturity Index (AAMI), give leaders a structured tool for assessing and addressing the human conditions that determine whether an AI investment delivers returns or stalls. This kind of named, built IP is rare in this topic area. «The Science of Organizational Change» is cited by Google’s change team and Microsoft’s internal culture group as having reoriented how they approach transformation: an unusual form of verification that the intellectual framework holds up under real operational pressure, not just in consulting engagements. He will tell an organisation what is wrong with its change thinking. The Chairman of KPMG described the experience as hearing «what we needed to hear, not what we wanted to hear», a quality that becomes valuable when senior leaders have quietly invested in approaches that are not working. His practitioner career spans founding one of Europe’s leading leadership consulting firms (Future Considerations), serving as Partner at IBM Consulting, and developing change management methodology in PwC’s Strategy, Innovation and Change practice, meaning the frameworks have been stress-tested in exactly the large, complex organisations that attend senior leadership events. His academic breadth spanning neurochemistry, economics, neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral science – allows him to draw on disciplines rarely applied to organizational transformation, and to name and debunk the pseudoscience that fills a field where, as Stanford’s Jeffrey Pfeffer has noted publicly, charlatanism is common. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Future Considerations (2001), one of Europe’s leading leadership and culture change consulting firms, with named clients including Shell, BP, HSBC, Barclays, and KPMG Former Partner at IBM Consulting (Talent and Transformation); former senior strategist at PwC’s Strategy, Innovation and Change practice, where he developed its change management and corporate transformation methodologies Author of eight books including «The Science of Organizational Change» – named among the top change management texts of all time – and «Adopting AI: The People-First Approach» (2025) Ranked #5 globally in organizational culture change by Global Gurus; named among the top 52 globally in AI in 2026 (London Speaker Bureau) Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA); Adjunct Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Denver (2015-2018); member of the American Philosophical Association and the U.S. Academy of Management Council Writing featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and The Guardian; endorsed by Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford Business School) and Simon Collins (Chairman, KPMG) Biography Most organisations know their AI and transformation investments are underperforming. The harder question is why and the honest answer, in most cases, is that the behavioural and cultural architecture of the organisation was never redesigned alongside the technology. Paul Gibbons has spent three decades building the evidence base that explains this failure, and the frameworks that help leaders act on it. His intellectual contribution begins with a provocation. In «The Science of Organizational Change,» Gibbons argues that most change management frameworks are built on myth and untested pop psychology, and replaces them with approaches grounded in behavioural economics, neuroscience, and complexity theory. Google’s change team and Microsoft’s internal culture group both credited the book with reorienting how they approach transformation. Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford Business School praised his work for bringing scientific rigour to what he described as a field riddled with pseudoscience. That critique evolved into a constructive framework for the AI era. His Adaptive Adoption model, a seven-pillar approach grounded in behavioral science, offers leaders a structured alternative to applying conventional change management to AI transformation. Its companion diagnostic, the Adaptive Adoption Maturity Index, helps organisations assess where they actually stand. The model draws on three decades of board and C-suite advisory work, including founding Future Considerations, one of Europe’s leading leadership consulting firms, serving as Partner at IBM Consulting, and developing change methodology in PwC’s Strategy, Innovation and Change practice. Gibbons is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is ranked among the top five globally in organizational culture change by Global Gurus, and among the top 52 globally in AI in 2026. He has taught business ethics and leadership at the University of Denver, serves on the board of Denver’s Institute for Enterprise Ethics, and hosts the Think Bigger Think Better podcast, which explores the intersection of AI, behavioral science, and organizational leadership. Key speaking topics Behavioral science and organizational change AI adoption and workforce transformation Culture change and behavior design Change management myths and evidence-based practice AI ethics and organizational governance Leadership in complex and uncertain environments The future of work and human-machine collaboration Ideal for CHROs and people transformation leaders navigating technology-driven organizational change Boards and C-suite leaders making AI adoption and governance decisions Organizational development and change management practitioners Digital and technology transformation leaders in large, complex organizations Audience outcomes A clear framework for understanding why culture change and AI adoption efforts typically fail, grounded in behavioral science rather than convention Practical tools for diagnosing where behavioral and cultural gaps are undermining technology investments A more rigorous basis for evaluating AI adoption strategies and distinguishing credible signals from market noise Language and framing for board and C-suite conversations about the organizational conditions required for successful transformation Familiarity with the Adaptive Adoption framework and Adaptive Adoption Maturity Index as structured, evidence-based alternatives to conventional change management applied to AI

Why organisations work with Jeff Salzenstein He brings a verified elite-performance credential into the executive room. ATP top 100, two NCAA team titles at Stanford, and a return to the top 100 at age 30 after two career-threatening injuries. The recovery story is not metaphor; it is the source material for the framework. The Own Your Zone of Excellence methodology is structured, not motivational. Four named pillars (rapid stress reduction, mindset shifts, emotional regulation, rest and recovery) that map onto the specific nervous-system and recovery decisions a senior leader can make inside a week. He is booked by organisations whose leaders are visibly under load: Duck Creek Technologies, U.S. Radiology Specialists, Weil Gotshal & Manges, Vistage chairs. The repeat work in private practice, healthcare, and legal services indicates the framework holds up in high-intensity professional settings. He runs Tennis Evolution, a coaching business with a 85,000-subscriber YouTube channel. He has built and scaled a teaching product, which is rare among speakers whose credibility rests on a past career. Biography highlights Former ATP top 100 singles player; career-high world No. 100 reached in June 2004, the oldest American to first crack the top 100 at that age. Two-time Stanford All-American, NCAA team champion 1995 and 1996, played No. 1 singles, team captain, coached by Dick Gould. Tennis Week magazine Rookie of the Year, 1997. Competed in the main draw of all four Grand Slams. Inducted into the Colorado Tennis Hall of Fame, 2005. Founder of Tennis Evolution, an online coaching platform with a YouTube channel exceeding 85,000 subscribers. Contributing author of “The Ultimate Success Guide” with Brian Tracy. Biography Most executive wellbeing programmes are designed for the workforce and ignore the layer under the most pressure. The leadership team gets a slide on resilience and a meditation app. The mechanics of how senior leaders actually regulate stress, recover, and stay sharp through compressed cycles rarely make it into the conversation. Salzenstein’s work starts where that conversation gives up. The credential is unusually concrete. He played No. 1 singles for Stanford under Dick Gould, captained back-to-back NCAA team championships in 1995 and 1996, and reached world No. 100 on the ATP tour. He then broke into the top 100 a second time, at 30, after two career-threatening injuries. Tennis Week named him Rookie of the Year in 1997. The Colorado Tennis Hall of Fame inducted him in 2005. The Own Your Zone of Excellence framework grew out of that arc and out of a family mental health and addiction crisis that ended his playing career. It is built around four operational pillars: rapid stress reduction, mindset shifts, emotional regulation, and rest and recovery. The content is closer to applied performance science than to motivational speaking, and it is structured so leaders can use it inside an ordinary working week. Organisations that book him tend to be in high-intensity professional settings where the executive layer is visibly under load. Duck Creek Technologies, U.S. Radiology Specialists, Weil Gotshal & Manges, Lightspeed Systems, The Mortgage Collaborative, and Vistage chairs have used him as keynote or coach. He also runs Tennis Evolution, an online coaching business with a YouTube channel of more than 85,000 subscribers, which makes him one of the few speakers in the performance space who has built and sustained a teaching product alongside his keynote work. Key speaking topics Executive resilience and burnout prevention Stress regulation and nervous system recovery Peak performance under pressure Mental and emotional health for senior leaders Mindset and focus for high-performing teams Sales team performance and pressure Culture and engagement for executive teams Ideal for CEOs and executive leadership teams running high-intensity cycles, particularly in professional services, healthcare, technology, and financial services CHROs and chief people officers building wellbeing programmes that include the senior layer, not just the broader workforce Sales leaders and revenue teams operating under sustained quota pressure Vistage chairs, peer-advisory groups, and leadership offsites focused on personal performance and recovery Audience outcomes A concrete set of practices for rapid stress reduction and nervous system regulation that senior leaders can use during the working day A vocabulary for talking about executive burnout and recovery inside the leadership team Specific techniques for reframing pressure moments without losing edge or focus A clearer sense of what rest and recovery look like at the executive level, beyond holiday and headspace apps

Why organisations work with David Marquet The framework comes from an operational turnaround inside a high-consequence command environment. The crew of a nuclear submarine cannot afford the kind of leadership failure a corporate team can absorb, and the system Marquet built was tested against that standard. Intent-Based Leadership replaces the request for permission with a statement of intent, which is a specific behavioural change a leadership team can implement on Monday morning. It is a working method, not a philosophy. “Turn the Ship Around!” became a reference text inside US Navy submarine command, technology firms, manufacturers and healthcare systems. Adoption across that range of industries is rare for a leadership book. “Leadership is Language” gives senior leaders specific verbal moves to dismantle the industrial-age meeting culture that still produces compliant teams and over-burdened decision-makers. Stephen R. Covey studied Santa Fe directly and called it the most empowering organisation he had encountered. The endorsement carries weight because Covey rarely attached his name to operational case studies of this kind. Biography highlights Commanded USS Santa Fe (SSN-763) from 1999 to 2001, taking it from the lowest-rated submarine in the fleet to the highest in retention and operational evaluations. 1981 graduate of the US Naval Academy, top of class; 28 years of service in the US submarine force. Author of “Turn the Ship Around!” (Penguin Portfolio, 2013), foreword by Stephen R. Covey, called by Fortune “the best how-to manual anywhere for managers on delegating, training, and driving flawless execution.” Author of “Leadership is Language” (Penguin Portfolio, 2020), setting out six leadership plays for dismantling industrial-age meeting culture. Founder of Intent-Based Leadership International, the consulting firm operationalising the framework inside corporate, healthcare and government organisations. Named to Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers. Biography The USS Santa Fe was the lowest-rated nuclear submarine in the US fleet when David Marquet took command in 1999. Within two years it had the highest retention and operational evaluations in the force. Over the following decade, a disproportionate number of its officers were selected for submarine command of their own. The shift began with a single moment. Marquet gave an order that could not be executed on his class of submarine, and the watch officer relayed it anyway. When asked why, the answer was: because you told me to. Marquet stopped giving orders. He built a system in which crew members stated intent (“I intend to surface the boat at 0300”) and the officer’s job was to certify competence and clarity, not to authorise the decision. He calls this Intent-Based Leadership. It is now used inside manufacturers, healthcare systems, technology companies, professional sports teams and government agencies that face the same structural problem: decision-makers too far from the information, and a workforce trained to wait for instruction. Stephen R. Covey spent time aboard Santa Fe and wrote about it in “The 8th Habit”, calling it the most empowering organisation he had observed. His second book, “Leadership is Language”, extends the framework into the meeting room. Marquet argues that industrial-age verbal habits (“Does anyone have any concerns?”, “Sounds good to me”) manufacture compliance and silence dissent at the moment leaders need it most. The six plays in the book give senior teams specific replacement language, tested in environments where the cost of an unchallenged bad decision is operational rather than theoretical. Key speaking topics Intent-Based Leadership Distributed decision-making in high-consequence environments Leadership language and meeting design Psychological safety and high-reliability teams Cultural transformation in command-and-control organisations Leader development and succession at scale Ideal for CEOs and senior operating leaders rebuilding decision rights after a period of centralisation COOs and operations leaders in regulated or high-consequence industries (energy, healthcare, defence, manufacturing) CHROs and chief learning officers designing leadership development programmes that change behaviour, not vocabulary Boards and executive teams reviewing why their organisation is slow to act on information the workforce already has Audience outcomes A working language for replacing requests for permission with statements of intent, usable inside the next leadership meeting. A diagnostic for where in the organisation control, competence and clarity are out of balance. The six plays from “Leadership is Language” as a structured alternative to industrial-age meeting habits. A clearer view of which decisions a senior leader should still own, and which have been hoarded by default. Evidence, drawn from a documented operational turnaround, that distributed authority improves performance under pressure rather than weakening it.

Why organisations work with Eric Ries He authored the operating method most used by modern product teams. When a CFO asks how an innovation portfolio should be measured and governed, the answer most large companies reach for is his. He has tested the method inside GE, IBM, Intuit, and the US federal government, not just early-stage startups, so the case studies he draws on are at enterprise scale. He founded the Long-Term Stock Exchange, a SEC-approved national securities exchange. That gives him a working perspective on how ownership structure and reporting cadence shape executive behaviour, well beyond a consultant’s view. His new book Incorruptible reframes corporate governance as a strategic act, addressing why successful companies drift from the principles that built them. Useful for boards under pressure on mission, accountability, and long-term value. Biography highlights Author of The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, and Incorruptible (Authors Equity, distributed by Simon & Schuster, 2026). Founder and Executive Chairman of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, approved by the SEC in 2019. Architect of GE’s FastWorks program under CEO Jeff Immelt, applied across thousands of GE executives. Former Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School and IDEO Fellow; advisor to Pivotal. Ranked #12 on the Thinkers50 list (2019); The Lean Startup on the Thinkers50 Management Classics Booklist (2023). Biography Most large companies are excellent at running the business they already have and unreliable at building the next one. The systems that govern the core business, budgets, milestones, quarterly review, were not designed for ventures whose value is mostly unknown at the point of funding. Eric Ries spent two decades turning that mismatch into a working method. The Lean Startup, published in 2011, codified validated learning, the minimum viable product, and innovation accounting as a portable management discipline. The book has been translated into more than thirty languages and now sits on the Thinkers50 Management Classics Booklist. Its follow-up, The Startup Way, captured what happens when those ideas are pushed into established companies. The case studies are drawn from inside GE, where Ries worked with CEO Jeff Immelt on the FastWorks program, alongside engagements with IBM, Intuit, and the US federal government. The governance question runs through all of his work. In 2015 he proposed the Long-Term Stock Exchange in The Lean Startup; the SEC approved LTSE as a national securities exchange in 2019, and Ries serves as Executive Chairman. His 2026 book Incorruptible, published by Authors Equity and distributed by Simon & Schuster, argues that good companies fail predictably because ownership, incentives, and accountability quietly reshape behaviour as they scale. The book was selected for the Thinkers50 Best New Management Booklist. What separates Ries from other innovation speakers is range. He has authored the methodology, run the corporate transformations that test it, and built a regulated capital-markets venue to address the structural problem his books diagnose. For senior teams that want innovation handled as a portfolio discipline, not a culture programme, he is the source. Key speaking topics Lean Startup methodology Innovation accounting and the management of internal ventures Entrepreneurial management inside established companies Corporate governance and long-term value AI applied to product validation and customer acquisition The Long-Term Stock Exchange and capital-markets reform Ideal for CEOs and boards of public companies wrestling with quarterly pressure versus long-horizon investment. Chief innovation, strategy, and transformation officers responsible for portfolios of new ventures inside large organisations. Founders and senior leaders of scale-up companies preparing for institutional ownership. Corporate development and venture teams looking to apply validated-learning discipline to internal investment decisions. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for measuring new ventures separately from the core business, drawn directly from innovation accounting. A clear diagnosis of why most corporate innovation programmes fail at the governance layer rather than the creativity layer. A view of how ownership structure, board cadence, and reporting rules quietly shape executive behaviour over time. Specific case material from GE, IBM, Intuit, and US federal agencies that audiences can map onto their own structures.

Why organisations work with Riaz Shah He has run reskilling at a scale almost no academic or consultant has matched: more than 400,000 employees and 24 million hours of learning a year inside EY. He built the EY Tech MBA, one of the first corporate degree programmes to put technology fluency at the centre of professional services training, and can speak about what it took to make it work. His authority on the future of work rests on operating responsibility, not research alone. He has been the executive on the hook for the budget, the platform choices and the outcomes. He chairs One Degree Academy, a free school for children in an underserved part of London now ranked among the world’s top ten in the Overcoming Adversity category of the World’s Best School Prizes. His argument that learning design matters at scale is supported by results, not theory. His OBE for Services to Education, awarded by HM King Charles III in 2023, signals that the credibility is recognised beyond the corporate audience. Biography highlights Professor of Practice for Innovation & Leadership, Hult International Business School. 27 years as a partner at EY, including Global Learning Leader, Managing Partner of London Assurance and Chief Operations Officer for EMEIA Markets. Architect of the EY Tech MBA, deployed across a workforce of more than 400,000 professionals. OBE for Services to Education, 2023. Founder and Chair of One Degree Academy, a Top 10 finalist for the World’s Best School Prize in the Overcoming Adversity category. Non-executive director, Genius Group (appointed July 2024). Biography Most large organisations have an AI strategy. Very few have a learning strategy capable of delivering it. That gap, between what a workforce is being asked to do next year and what it knows how to do today, is the specific problem Riaz Shah has spent the last decade inside. At EY, as Global Learning Leader, he carried operating responsibility for how more than 400,000 professionals were equipped for a market reshaped by automation, AI and digital platforms. His team delivered more than 24 million hours of learning a year and built the EY Tech MBA, a full corporate degree programme that put technology fluency at the centre of a professional services career. He had previously been Managing Partner of London Assurance and Chief Operations Officer for EMEIA Markets, so the work was anchored in commercial reality, not in the learning department’s preferences. He now teaches at Hult International Business School as Professor of Practice for Innovation & Leadership, where his sessions with senior executives concentrate on global megatrends, digital disruption and how organisations rebuild capability fast enough to keep up. He also chairs One Degree Academy, a state-funded free school for children aged 4 to 18 in an underserved part of London. The school is a Top 10 finalist in the Overcoming Adversity category of the World’s Best School Prizes, and is the practical expression of his argument that learning design, done seriously, scales. In 2023, King Charles III awarded him the OBE for Services to Education. He sits on the board of Genius Group, a Nasdaq-listed education business, and is a member of YPO. Key speaking topics AI and the future of work Reskilling and workforce transformation at scale Corporate learning as a strategic capability Innovation and growth mindset inside large organisations Generational shifts in the workplace Demographics and changing consumer attitudes Leadership in conditions of digital disruption Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers commissioning a workforce transformation tied to AI and automation. CEOs and executive committees of large services and knowledge businesses where the talent base is the product. Boards reviewing the capability assumptions inside a digital or AI strategy. Senior leadership conferences where the brief is to make the case for serious, not cosmetic, reskilling. Audience outcomes A sharper view of where the gap between AI ambition and workforce capability is biggest, and which gaps matter most commercially. A clearer picture of what corporate learning has to look like to keep pace with technology, drawn from running it at EY scale. An honest read on what worked and what did not in building the EY Tech MBA, with the operational detail intact. A more confident sense of how to talk to a workforce about AI without losing trust.

Why organisations work with Jeff de Kleijn Two decades inside HP and Canon across Asia Pacific and Europe, including running HP’s Large Format Printing business for APJ, gives him operating credibility with senior leaders who have lived through global restructures. Works fluently across Western systems thinking and Chinese strategic philosophy, useful for European and US executive teams navigating Asia exposure without simplifying it. Frames leadership as an operating system question, where decision rights, rhythm and supervisory clarity are the variables, not personality or style. Brings a working executive’s vantage point through his current role leading Dilaco, so the room hears a peer, not a retired commentator. Biography highlights Former General Manager, Large Format Printing Division, HP Asia Pacific and Japan. Senior executive roles at Canon across Europe and Asia. Chief Executive of Dilaco Group since 2019. Founder of Cortlandt Gulch, his leadership advisory and writing platform. Forthcoming book, Postmodern Leadership: Navigating Crises and Complexity in the Information Era. Trained in theatre and improvisation at the Bruges Conservatory of Music & Arts; works in English, Dutch and Chinese. Biography Most large organisations are still wired to push decisions up and instructions down. That structure is breaking against the speed and interdependence of the systems leaders now operate in. Jeff de Kleijn’s work begins from that mismatch, and from the specific question of how senior teams behave once they accept it. His authority on the subject is operational, not theoretical. He spent two decades in senior roles at HP and Canon, including running HP’s Large Format Printing business across Asia Pacific and Japan, before taking over Dilaco, a Belgian IT services group, in 2019. The throughline is leading commercial organisations through restructure, geographic complexity and technology shifts while the formal authority structure was always slightly behind events. He writes and advises through Cortlandt Gulch, and is finishing a book, Postmodern Leadership: Navigating Crises and Complexity in the Information Era, that sets out his core argument. Power inside large organisations has already moved from position to network connectivity. The leaders who are getting traction are the ones rebuilding their operating rhythm, supervisory cadence and decision rights around that fact, rather than working harder inside the old chart. What he brings to a room is the combination of a sitting executive’s vocabulary, exposure to both European and Asian operating cultures, and a stage discipline shaped by training in theatre at the Bruges Conservatory. Senior audiences leave with a sharper view of where their own authority architecture is misfiring, and a vocabulary for fixing it. Key speaking topics Networked and decentralised leadership Decision rights and supervisory clarity in complex organisations Leadership operating models under systemic uncertainty AI as an institutional, not technological, force Eastern and Western strategic thought in executive practice Restructuring and post-transformation leadership Ideal for Boards and executive committees redesigning how authority and decision rights operate post-restructure CEOs and group MDs of multi-region businesses with significant Asia exposure Private equity portfolio leadership teams under pressure to operate with fewer layers Transformation and strategy leads working on the leadership operating model, not just structure Audience outcomes A clearer read on where their current authority structure is the bottleneck, not the workload Specific language for separating control, coordination and supervision as distinct leadership tasks A working frame for combining Western strategic analysis with Chinese strategic thinking in real decisions A more honest internal conversation about what their organisation actually needs from its top team

Why organisations work with Matthias Schmitt He has scaled and exited the companies his audience is still inside. wealthpilot reached over 100,000 European customers under his co-founding, and Skigaudi became Germany’s leading student winter festival brand. His Expansion State Method is a named, proprietary coaching framework, not a borrowed model. It is designed specifically for founders navigating the gap between commercial success and personal meaning. He addresses burnout from inside the experience, having walked out of his own companies after hitting it. The credibility with senior operators is earned, not theoretical. He works in the territory most leadership programmes avoid: nervous system regulation, identity after exit, and the practical mechanics of sustaining decision quality under sustained pressure. Entrepreneur Asia Pacific named him to its Top Five Life Coaches to Watch in 2024, which gives the work external editorial validation in a category usually short of it. Biography highlights Co-founder of wealthpilot, a Munich-based FinTech SaaS serving over 100,000 European customers Co-founder of Skigaudi, Germany’s leading winter festival brand for students Founder of the Expansion State Method, a proprietary coaching framework for post-exit founders Named to Entrepreneur Asia Pacific’s Top Five Life Coaches to Watch in 2024 Trained in NLP, behavioural science, nervous system regulation, and meditation as applied to executive performance Works publicly under the title “Chief Fulfillment Officer,” focused on post-exit founders and conscious leaders Biography The exit is supposed to be the win. For many founders, it is also the moment the architecture they built their identity on disappears. The high-performance habits that scaled the company keep firing into an empty room. Matthias Schmitt co-founded wealthpilot, a Munich FinTech that scaled past 100,000 European customers, and Skigaudi, the leading German winter festival brand for students. He exited and hit burnout. The recovery became the work. Today he coaches post-exit entrepreneurs and senior leaders through that transition, using a proprietary framework he calls the Expansion State Method. The practical content draws on NLP, behavioural science, nervous system regulation, and meditation, applied to the specific problem of how senior operators sustain decision quality and meaning after the pressure that organised their lives lifts. Entrepreneur Asia Pacific named him to its Top Five Life Coaches to Watch in 2024. The recognition matters because the category he works in, founder coaching, is crowded with generalists. The differentiator here is operational time served at the level his clients are leaving. Key speaking topics Burnout recovery for founders and senior operators Post-exit identity and purpose Peak performance without collapse Nervous system regulation for high-pressure leadership Sales leadership and revenue performance Purpose-led business building Ideal for Founder communities, scale-up CEO peer groups, and post-exit networks Sales leadership offsites where revenue performance and team wellbeing are both on the table Private wealth and family office audiences working with HNW and UHNW founders Executive development programmes addressing sustained performance and burnout risk at senior levels Audience outcomes A clearer read on where current performance habits are producing diminishing returns Specific practices for nervous system regulation under sustained executive pressure A language for the post-exit transition that senior operators rarely have available Permission to treat fulfilment as a performance variable, not a soft topic

Why organisations work with Mira Murati She led the teams that built ChatGPT, DALL-E and Sora at OpenAI. Few speakers can describe frontier AI development from the operational seat; most describe it from the outside. She is the active founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, currently raising capital, hiring researchers, building infrastructure and shipping product against the same labs leaders read about in the news. The view she offers is current. She has spoken publicly on AI governance from the position of someone who has actually shipped the systems being regulated, including at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center. That changes the credibility of the conversation in a boardroom. Thinking Machines Lab is structured as a public benefit corporation. The trade-offs between commercial pressure and societal responsibility are written into how the company is governed, which is rare among frontier AI labs. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, an AI public benefit corporation that raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation in July 2025, the largest seed round in venture capital history. Former Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, with leadership across research, product and safety teams behind ChatGPT, DALL-E, Codex, Sora and GPT-4. Briefly named interim CEO of OpenAI during the November 2023 board transition. Senior product roles at Tesla on the Model X programme and at Leap Motion before joining OpenAI in 2018. Recognised in TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI (2024), TIME 100 Next (2023), Fortune’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Business (2023) and CNBC Changemakers (2026). Honorary Doctor of Science from Dartmouth College (2024); Bachelor of Engineering from Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and Bachelor of Arts from Colby College. Biography The decisions about how today’s frontier AI systems would be deployed were made inside small research labs, largely closed to outside scrutiny. The most consequential of those decisions, around ChatGPT, DALL-E, Sora and the GPT series, were made in rooms most boards still cannot see into. Mira Murati was in those rooms. She was Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI from 2022 until 2024, leading the research, product and safety teams behind the systems that brought generative AI into mainstream use. Her tenure included the November 2023 board episode, when she was named interim CEO during the brief removal of Sam Altman, returning to the CTO role within days. She left OpenAI in September 2024, by which point the products her teams had shipped were in everyday use by hundreds of millions of people. In February 2025 she founded Thinking Machines Lab, a public benefit corporation based in San Francisco. The company raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation in July 2025, led by Andreessen Horowitz with Nvidia, AMD, Cisco, Accel and Jane Street participating. It was the largest seed round in venture capital history. The lab’s first product, Tinker, launched in October 2025 as an API that lets researchers fine-tune frontier open-weight models without managing the underlying compute. Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley were among the early users. For senior audiences, this is unusual access: a builder’s view of frontier AI from someone still building. Murati has written for Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on the language and creativity of large models. She has spoken publicly on AI governance at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center. Just over a year after she left OpenAI, Thinking Machines Lab was reportedly in early talks to raise capital at a $50 billion valuation. Key speaking topics Frontier AI development and deployment Generative AI and large language models AI safety, governance and responsible deployment AI product leadership at scale Public benefit corporation models for frontier technology Fine-tuning and model customisation AI strategy and adoption for senior leaders Ideal for Boards and senior executive teams setting AI strategy and capital allocation CTOs, CIOs and chief AI officers responsible for technology platform decisions Public-sector and policy audiences engaging with AI regulation Technology investors and corporate development teams evaluating AI exposure Audience outcomes A direct read on how frontier AI labs actually make development and deployment decisions, drawn from someone who made them. A grounded view of where current AI capability sits and how far the field is from the frontier claims circulating in headlines. A working understanding of governance trade-offs from a builder’s perspective, including how a public benefit corporation structures them. A sharper view of which AI investments and adoption decisions deserve board-level attention over the next 18 to 36 months.