Leadership

Why organisations work with Peter Avis A career from dishwasher to General Manager of Galvin at Windows at the London Hilton on Park Lane, giving him operational credibility with both frontline teams and executive leadership in the same room. Fifteen years inside the Virgin Group, working alongside Sir Richard Branson on the London Roof Gardens, Mont Rochelle and Kasbah Tamadot, where service culture is a measurable commercial asset. UK Restaurant Manager of the Year in 2009 and Chairman of the UK Guild of Restaurant Services, recognised credentials that translate hospitality language into commercially serious customer experience. A working operator’s view of employee engagement, not a consultant’s deck: how rosters, recognition and recruitment actually change guest outcomes. Biography highlights General Manager of Galvin at Windows and 10 Degrees Bar at the London Hilton on Park Lane from February 2020, succeeding Fred Sirieix. UK Restaurant Manager of the Year, 2009, while running Babylon Restaurant at The Roof Gardens, which won Best London Restaurant at the Visit London Awards in 2008. More than 15 years with the Virgin Group, including involvement in the launches of Virgin Limited Edition properties Mont Rochelle in South Africa and Kasbah Tamadot in Morocco. Chairman of the UK Guild of Restaurant Services and Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality. Recipient of the 2014 Richard Branson Special Award for Services to the Community and the 2014 Carey Award Manager of the Year. Awarded the Platinum Jubilee Medal in 2022 and inducted into the Seal of Excellence at the House of Lords for services to hospitality. Biography Service businesses can describe their brand promise clearly. The difficulty is keeping it intact across a 14-hour service, three sittings, a kitchen running short and a new starter on the floor. That gap, between corporate standard and the table the guest is actually sitting at, is the problem Peter Avis has spent a career solving. He began as a dishwasher in Liverpool and ran kitchens, floors and rooms up through the ranks at named London venues. By 2009 he was UK Restaurant Manager of the Year at Babylon Restaurant in The Roof Gardens, Kensington. Babylon had taken Best London Restaurant at the Visit London Awards a year earlier under his management. Fifteen years inside the Virgin Group followed, working closely with Sir Richard Branson and the Virgin Limited Edition team. He was part of the launch teams for Mont Rochelle in South Africa and Kasbah Tamadot in Morocco, brands where service is the product. In 2020 he was appointed General Manager of Galvin at Windows and 10 Degrees Bar at the London Hilton on Park Lane, succeeding Fred Sirieix. That breadth gives him an unusually grounded view of engagement, recognition and service culture. He chairs the UK Guild of Restaurant Services and holds Fellow status at the Institute of Hospitality. Boards and operational leaders book him because he can talk about engagement, retention and customer experience in the language of a working operator, not a consultant. Key speaking topics Customer service and guest experience Employee engagement in service businesses Building high-performing hospitality teams Leadership in service operations Delivering on a brand promise Recognition, retention and culture in frontline industries Ideal for Hospitality, leisure and retail leadership teams and operations directors Customer experience and service excellence functions across consumer-facing industries HR and people leaders working on engagement and retention in frontline workforces Conferences focused on service culture, brand delivery and operational excellence Audience outcomes A practical view of how recognition, recruitment and floor leadership change guest outcomes A clearer understanding of where brand promise breaks down between executive intent and frontline delivery Specific examples from named flagship operations rather than generic service theory Confidence that service excellence is a managed system, not a personality trait

Why organisations work with Luke Donald A live, repeatable case study in winning team leadership: back-to-back Ryder Cup victories as captain in 2023 and 2025, the second at Bethpage Black against a hostile American gallery, with a third captaincy confirmed for 2027. Operational specifics on selection, pairings, and communication inside a high-stakes team built from elite individuals, drawn from a role he has done at the top of his sport, not adapted from a different career. A rare combination on the speaker market: a former World Number One with 56 weeks at the top, and the first player to win both the PGA Tour and European Tour money lists in the same year, who has since proven himself in the captain’s seat as well as the player’s. A working insight on doing things differently to win. Donald’s playing career was built on precision rather than power; his captaincy has been built on detail and preparation rather than rhetoric. Both translate cleanly into how serious organisations compete without the biggest budget in the room. Biography highlights Former World Number One in the Official World Golf Ranking, with 56 cumulative weeks at the top. First golfer to win both the PGA Tour money list and the European Tour Race to Dubai in the same season (2011); first Englishman to be named PGA Tour Player of the Year. European Ryder Cup winning captain in 2023 (Rome) and 2025 (Bethpage Black); confirmed for a third captaincy in 2027 at Adare Manor. Played in four Ryder Cups, on the winning side every time, including the 2012 “Miracle of Medinah”. MBE for services to golf (2012); honorary life member of the European Tour. Won the 1999 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship at Northwestern, breaking the scoring record previously held by Tiger Woods. Biography Bethpage Black was set up to make Europe lose. The gallery was loud, the course was American, the run of home wins stretched back over a decade. Europe won 15 to 13. The captain was Luke Donald, doing the job for the second time in two years. The first time was Rome in 2023, a 16.5 to 11.5 win against a United States team many had favoured. The combination, Rome then Bethpage, made Donald the first European captain since Tony Jacklin in the 1980s to win consecutive Ryder Cups. In March 2026 he accepted a third captaincy for 2027 at Adare Manor, with the chance to become the first captain ever to win three in a row. The playing record behind the captaincy is its own argument for the depth of the content. Donald reached World Number One in 2011 after winning the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth and held the ranking across a cumulative 56 weeks. The same year he became the first golfer to top both the PGA Tour money list and the European Tour Race to Dubai, was named PGA Tour Player of the Year, and won the Vardon Trophy. He was appointed MBE in 2012. Before all of that, in 1999, he won the NCAA individual championship at Northwestern, breaking a scoring record held by Tiger Woods. What organisations get on stage is the working content of leading elite individuals through a short, public, high-stakes window. Selection. Pairings. The decisions captains make at 6am and at midnight. The detail behind a result that looks, from the outside, like inevitability. Key speaking topics Building and sustaining high-performance teams from elite individuals Leadership and decision-making under pressure Selection, pairings, and the mechanics of team composition Continuous improvement and competing without the biggest physical advantage Strategy and preparation in short, public, high-stakes windows Captaincy lessons from back-to-back Ryder Cup wins Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and conferences where the brief is performance, composure, and team execution Boards and executive teams entering a defining short-window moment such as integration, launch, or campaign Sales kick-offs and commercial leadership events where competing against a larger incumbent is the strategic reality Major corporate dinners and anniversary moments requiring a recognisable, current, on-brief keynote presence Audience outcomes A direct account of how a captain turns elite individuals into a team that performs in a hostile environment Specific, named decisions behind two consecutive Ryder Cup wins, including selection and pairings logic A working view on the role of preparation, detail, and composure when the stakes are short, public, and binary A practical case for competing on precision and preparation rather than raw advantage

Why organisations work with Matt Barbet A current Sky News anchor who can chair a CEO panel, run a town hall or moderate a board offsite at the standard of a national broadcast interview. Inside view from Freuds, where he advised executives and global figures on storytelling and on managing crises in real time, not in theory. Two decades of frontline reporting across BBC, ITV and Channel 5, including coverage of elections, conflict and natural disasters, which gives him a credible voice on how reputations break and recover. A second keynote on artificial intelligence that focuses on human judgement and authentic communication as the variables that matter when AI takes over routine output. Biography highlights Sky News anchor, hosting the Sunday 10am to 2pm programme since February 2024. Partner at Freuds, the London public relations firm, since 2018. Former anchor of Channel 5’s 5 News flagship 17:00 programme and co-presenter of ITV Breakfast’s Daybreak. Reporting career across BBC News, BBC Radio 1, ITV News and Channel 5 spanning more than twenty years. Covered major international stories including the 2010 Haiti earthquake and embedded reporting in Afghanistan. Cardiff University and Cardiff School of Journalism graduate. Biography A reputational crisis used to be a press office problem. It is now a board problem, with a clock measured in hours and an audience that includes regulators, investors, customers and staff watching the same feed at the same time. The leaders who navigate this well tend to share one quality, the ability to think clearly and communicate plainly while the noise is at its loudest. This is the territory Matt Barbet has worked in from both sides. As a Sky News anchor, and previously across BBC News, ITV and Channel 5, he has spent more than twenty years interviewing senior figures during the moments that define their organisations. As a partner at Freuds since 2018, he has sat on the other side of the table, advising executives and high-profile clients on how to prepare for those moments and how to recover from them. The dual vantage point is what makes him useful to a serious audience. He can describe what a newsroom sees during a developing story, what makes a spokesperson credible on camera, and where leaders most commonly lose control of a narrative. The reporting gives him the field examples. The Freuds work gives him the language of strategy and reputational risk. For most clients the commercial product is hosting. Barbet chairs conferences, moderates panels of senior executives and runs awards ceremonies and town halls at broadcast standard. The keynote material on crisis communications and on artificial intelligence sits alongside that work, anchored in the same craft of listening carefully and speaking clearly under pressure. Key speaking topics Crisis communications and reputational risk Leadership communication under media scrutiny Storytelling for senior executives Artificial intelligence and the human side of communication Conference hosting and panel moderation Frontline journalism and how news is made Ideal for CEOs, CCOs and communications directors preparing for reputational incidents Senior leadership teams running town halls, conferences or investor events that need broadcast-quality hosting Boards and executive committees commissioning a moderator for high-stakes panel sessions Awards ceremonies and flagship industry conferences Audience outcomes A clearer view of how a newsroom processes a developing story, and what that means for the speed of a corporate response. Specific examples of how senior figures hold or lose credibility on camera. A practical sense of how communications, legal and operational decisions interact during a live crisis. A point of view on where AI raises the value of direct human communication rather than reducing it.

Why organisations work with Jacinda Ardern Ardern made consequential governance decisions – not advisory ones – during a live-streamed act of mass terrorism, a major volcanic eruption, and a global pandemic, all within a single term in office. What she brings to organisations is a practitioner’s account of crisis governance under conditions of maximum accountability. She co-founded the Christchurch Call with French President Macron in 2019 and remains Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation today. That initiative – a multi-government, multi-platform framework for eliminating terrorist content online – gives her grounded authority on AI governance, platform accountability, and digital regulation that most governance specialists cannot match. Her memoir A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House/Pan Macmillan, 2025), a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, develops the concept of “pragmatic idealism” – the argument, backed by her own record in office, that empathy and decisive institutional action reinforce each other rather than pull against each other. Her Harvard appointments span three distinct domains: public leadership (Hauser Leader, Center for Public Leadership), AI and platform governance (Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow, Berkman Klein Center), and women’s policy (Senior Fellow, Women and Public Policy Program). This breadth reflects genuine multi-domain institutional credibility. As board member of The Earthshot Prize and Arnhold Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International, she engages with climate accountability at the level of institutional design – not as a cause, but as a governance and measurement problem that boards increasingly own. Biography highlights 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand, 2017-2023; the world’s youngest female head of government at the time of her election, aged 37 Led the governmental response to the Christchurch mosque attacks (2019), the Whakaari White Island volcanic eruption, and the COVID-19 pandemic – each requiring real-time governance decisions at national scale Co-founded the Christchurch Call with President Macron (2019); Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation, the NGO established by New Zealand and France in 2024 to coordinate global action on violent extremist content online Multiple Harvard fellowships across Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, including the Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow, Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership, and Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow Author of A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House / Pan Macmillan, 2025) – New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller; shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Harvard Kennedy School Gleitsman International Activist Award (2020); Harvard 2022 Commencement speaker; Honorary Doctorate from Harvard University; twice named to Time Magazine’s Most Influential People list Board member, The Earthshot Prize; Arnhold Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International; founder of the Field Fellowship on empathetic leadership (2024) Biography New Zealand was four weeks past the Christchurch mosque attacks when Jacinda Ardern stood with French President Macron in Paris and co-launched the Christchurch Call – a commitment from governments and technology companies to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. It was a governance response to a governance failure, assembled at pace, and it is still operating. That sequence captures what is most useful about Ardern’s perspective: she did not observe the intersection of crisis leadership, platform accountability, and public trust from the outside. She was accountable for it. Her concept of “pragmatic idealism” – developed across her term in office and set out in her memoir A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House/Pan Macmillan, 2025, a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller) – makes the case that empathy is not a soft alternative to decisive leadership but a structural condition of it. Leaders who build genuine trust before a crisis hits have more to draw on when decisions must be made under pressure and incomplete information. Leaders who do not find that the crisis itself destroys the conditions needed to manage it. Since leaving office in early 2023, Ardern has held multiple fellowships at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, where her focus has been AI governance, algorithmic accountability, and platform regulation. She is board member of The Earthshot Prize, Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation, Arnhold Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International, and founder of the Field Fellowship, a programme supporting political leaders in empathetic leadership practice. For boards navigating crisis preparedness, digital governance, or ESG accountability, Ardern brings a record of decisions taken, at national scale, under conditions that most leadership frameworks were not designed for. Key speaking topics Crisis decision-making and governance under pressure Trust, institutional credibility, and stakeholder communication Digital platform accountability and online safety AI governance and technology regulation Climate accountability and ESG leadership Empathetic leadership and values-based decision-making Women in leadership and inclusive governance Ideal for Board and C-suite audiences responsible for crisis response, reputation management, and stakeholder trust under public scrutiny Technology and digital governance leaders focused on platform accountability, AI regulation, and online safety policy ESG and sustainability officers translating climate commitments into credible, auditable, scrutiny-resistant action Public sector and government-adjacent leaders managing delivery under high institutional pressure Audience outcomes A practical decision-making framework developed through direct, accountable experience of national-scale crisis – not theoretical modelling A sharper understanding of how trust is built, maintained, and lost under crisis conditions – and what communication disciplines make the difference Grounded perspective on digital platform accountability and AI governance from someone who helped design one of the world’s first functioning multi-government frameworks in this space A working account of how “pragmatic idealism” operates as a leadership model: acting from values without sacrificing speed, coherence, or institutional effectiveness Concrete principles for maintaining organisational credibility when multiple stakeholder groups are applying conflicting pressure simultaneously

Why organisations work with Morten Toft Two decades of repeat innovation facilitation work for Grundfos, Danfoss and other large Danish manufacturers, which is unusual longevity for a process consultant. Author of Innovationsrecepten (The Innovation Recipe), Jyllands-Postens Forlag, a text used as a teaching reference on Danish innovation and entrepreneurship programmes, giving his methodology a documented, teachable form. Operating background as sales and marketing director at Photo Experten across 146 stores, so the co-creation work is grounded in line-management experience, not pure consultancy. Initiator of Danske Hospitalsklovne and the MAD House Denmark Innovation Centre, which gives him a track record of building functioning organisations from a standing start, not only advising existing ones. Sessions are designed for engagement and recall, with humour and physical staging used deliberately to lock in concepts that pure presentation tends to lose. Biography highlights Author of Innovationsrecepten (The Innovation Recipe), Jyllands-Postens Forlag, 2007, with Ole Vestergaard Poulsen, used as a teaching text on Danish innovation and entrepreneurship programmes. Author of To Be Perfectly Honest (Aschehoug, 2001) on authentic leadership, and Changemakers (2020, with Rachel Rouncefield). Co-developer with Rachel Rouncefield (De Montfort University) of the Changemakers youth empowerment programme, building on the Butterfly Project in Peterborough. Long-running innovation facilitator for Grundfos and Danfoss. Initiator of Danske Hospitalsklovne (Danish Hospital Clowns), founded after working with Patch Adams at the Gesundheit Institute in West Virginia. Co-initiator of the MAD House Denmark Innovation Centre in Middelfart. Former sales and marketing director at Photo Experten across 146 Danish stores; earlier consultant at GREY. Biography Innovation in large industrial businesses tends to fail in a specific way. Ideas accumulate in the central team. Adoption stalls at the operating units. The work that reaches customers is a thin version of what was originally proposed. Morten Toft has spent over twenty years working inside that gap, mainly with Danish manufacturing groups including Grundfos and Danfoss, designing co-creation processes that bring stakeholders into the work early enough to own it. His methodology is documented in Innovationsrecepten (The Innovation Recipe), co-authored with Ole Vestergaard Poulsen and published by Politikens Forlag. The book is used as required reading on Danish innovation and entrepreneurship programmes, which gives his approach a teachable structure rather than the personality dependence common to facilitator-consultants. The work draws on a line operating background. Before consultancy, Toft was sales and marketing director at Photo Experten, with responsibility across 146 retail stores in Denmark. That experience, alongside earlier work at GREY, shapes a facilitation style oriented to commercial outcomes and to the practical question of who actually executes the change. He is also the initiator of Danske Hospitalsklovne, founded after a period with Patch Adams at the Gesundheit Institute in West Virginia, and a co-initiator of the MAD House Denmark Innovation Centre. Alongside the innovation work, Toft has written on authentic leadership and personal development, including a forthcoming memoir, Journey Out to Find Home (Danish edition August 2026, English edition planned). He also runs Changemakers, a youth empowerment programme co-developed with Rachel Rouncefield of De Montfort University and grounded in the Butterfly Project in Peterborough, which involved several thousand young people over eight years. The connecting argument across his output is straightforward: organisations get more from their people, and societies more from their young people, when those involved feel they built the answer themselves. Key speaking topics Co-creation and stakeholder-led innovation Innovation process design in industrial organisations Authentic leadership Personal development and purpose at work Building healthy organisational cultures Youth empowerment and the changemaker concept Ideal for Innovation, R&D and product directors in industrial and manufacturing businesses HR and learning leaders running leadership development programmes C-suite and senior teams setting direction for cultural change Founders and entrepreneurial leaders running participation-led organisations Audience outcomes A working model for designing innovation processes that build adoption alongside ideas. Specific tools for involving operating-unit stakeholders before, not after, decisions are made. A clearer view of the link between authentic leadership behaviour and commercial culture. Practical examples drawn from long-running work with Grundfos, Danfoss and Danish retail.

Why organisations work with Emil Dobrovolschi He is a working airline captain and EASA-certified examiner, so the discipline he teaches around briefings, checklists and crew coordination is the discipline he is held to in the cockpit. Co-author of Dark Cockpit with Octavian Pantis, a published thesis that gives leaders a shared vocabulary for a calm, fully functioning operating state and the behaviours that produce it. Three decades inside a national flag carrier, including time as Director of Flight Operations, give him a frank view of what command, accountability and quiet discipline look like in a regulated organisation. The pilots he has trained as a Type Rating Instructor have gone on to fly as captains for at least twelve international airlines, evidence that his teaching method travels and holds up under examination. The aviation material is concrete. Audiences leave with named behaviours, not metaphors: how a brief is structured, how a challenge is raised, how a captain hands over control. Biography highlights Captain, instructor and examiner at TAROM since 1994, across Antonov 24, ATR 42/72, Airbus A320 and A310. Former Vice President and Director of Flight Operations, TAROM. EASA-certified Type Rating Examiner; Type Rating Instructor since 2001. Commander of special flights for the Romanian President and government officials. Co-author of Dark Cockpit: How to Communicate, Lead, and Be in Control at All Times Like an Airline Captain (with Octavian Pantis). TEDx speaker (TEDxBaiaMare, “Gata de decolare”). Biography A commercial flight deck is one of the few corporate settings where bad communication is logged, debriefed and corrected by regulation. Aviation does not assume good leaders happen. It produces them through briefings, checklists, standard calls and a regulated training cycle. Emil Dobrovolschi has spent his career inside that system. He joined TAROM, the Romanian flag carrier, in 1994 and worked through every rank from Antonov 24 co-pilot to Airbus A320 and A310 captain, instructor and examiner. As a Type Rating Instructor since 2001 and an EASA-certified examiner, he has trained pilots who now hold left-seat command at twelve or more international carriers. Inside TAROM he served as Vice President and Director of Flight Operations, and as commander of special flights for the Romanian President and government officials. The corporate work grew out of that. With consultant and author Octavian Pantis he co-wrote Dark Cockpit: How to Communicate, Lead, and Be in Control at All Times Like an Airline Captain. The dark cockpit is the aviation term for the state in which no caution lights are on, the aircraft is functioning, and the crew can do its job. The book translates that into a leadership thesis: the conditions for clarity, command and trust are designed in, not improvised when something goes wrong. In keynotes, that translation is concrete. He shows how a captain runs a pre-flight brief, how a junior officer is trained to challenge a senior one, and what changes when control is formally handed over. Senior teams use the material to look at their own briefings, escalation paths and quiet failures of communication. The authority behind it is straightforward: he is still the captain in the room. Key speaking topics Leadership and command in high-stakes environments Communication and crew resource management Decision-making under pressure Teamwork, hierarchy and the freedom to speak up Crisis management and recovery Building professional standards inside an operating culture Ideal for Executive teams and boards reviewing how decisions are taken when the situation tightens CHROs and leadership development leads designing programmes for newly senior managers Operations, safety and risk leaders in regulated industries (energy, healthcare, financial services, transport) Corporate offsites and leadership weeks looking for an external voice with operational credibility, not consulting language Audience outcomes A vocabulary borrowed from the cockpit (brief, checklist, challenge, handover) that makes everyday leadership behaviours explicit. A clearer view of where their own organisation tolerates ambiguous communication that aviation would not. Specific practices for raising a concern up a hierarchy and for receiving one. A working definition of composure under pressure as a trained behaviour, not a personality trait. A frame for distinguishing routine operations from genuine crisis, and for behaving differently in each.

Why organisations work with James Benson-King He has tested resilience claims under conditions that almost no corporate audience has access to: a 32,000km solo ride from Alaska to Argentina, ultra-endurance racing, and a Guinness-ratified ascent from sea level to the world’s highest road in 14 days. His corporate finance background, ten years inside JP Morgan’s Investment Banking Operations, means he translates the physical lessons into the language and pressures senior commercial audiences actually recognise. The childhood cardiac story is genuine, not staged inspiration. It connects directly to his work with Cardiac Risk in the Young and gives the resilience material a clinical and personal foundation that other endurance speakers do not have. He talks about decision-making under exhaustion, not motivation. Audiences leave with material on what to do when the conditions for good thinking have already gone. Biography highlights Former Vice President, Investment Banking Operations, JP Morgan Guinness World Record holder: fastest ascent, Khambhat to Umling La Pass by standard bicycle (June 2025, ratified by WUCA) Completed a 32,000km solo cycle from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina, raising funds for Cardiac Risk in the Young Lead figure in “Pedal The Impossible”, a planned solo unsupported cycle to the South Pole Brand partner of GOREWEAR and Restrap; published rider features with both Public profile under “The Biking Viking”, with documentary-style video coverage of his ultra-endurance attempts Biography The hardest part of an ultra-endurance ride is rarely the terrain. It is what happens to judgement after weeks of broken sleep, cold, and physical decline. That is the territory James Benson-King has spent the last several years inside, and the territory that gives his speaking material its weight. A childhood heart condition, with two operations before he turned seventeen, set the original frame. It is also the reason his cycling work is tied to Cardiac Risk in the Young, the charity behind his 32,000km Alaska to Argentina ride beginning in 2022. He cycled from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia through fifteen countries, including a 900km stretch ridden on one leg. The corporate context is real and recent. He spent close to a decade at JP Morgan, reaching Vice President in Investment Banking Operations. That background shapes how he speaks to senior commercial audiences: he understands quarterly pressure, operational decision-making, and what resilience language sounds like when it is empty. In June 2025 he set a Guinness World Record for the fastest ascent from Khambhat at sea level to Umling La Pass at 5,800m, completing 2,100km and 17,595m of climbing in 14 days, 4 hours, 25 minutes, ratified by the World Ultra Cycling Association. His current project, Pedal The Impossible, is an attempt to become the first person to cycle solo and unsupported to the South Pole. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained pressure Decision-making in fatigue and uncertainty Mental health for high performers Goal-setting and execution over multi-year horizons Recovery from physical and personal setbacks Performance under extreme conditions Ideal for Sales and trading leadership teams managing prolonged commercial pressure Operations and transformation leaders running multi-year change programmes HR and wellbeing leads building substantive resilience content for senior populations Off-site keynotes for leadership groups requiring lived rather than theoretical resilience material Audience outcomes A direct account of how decisions degrade under exhaustion, and what to protect first Specific, repeatable practices used by ultra-endurance athletes that translate into commercial settings A frank perspective on mental health from someone who built a career on physical risk A reference point that audiences carry into their own difficult periods, anchored in named events rather than abstractions

Why organisations work with Rob Hosking He has made decisions in 999 response situations where the cost of a poor call is measured in lives, and he can translate that experience into language a leadership team or frontline workforce will actually listen to His own breakdown, suicide plan and PTSD diagnosis sit at the centre of his keynote, which is why men’s forums, wellbeing networks and emergency-services audiences book him to start conversations that other speakers can only describe The “What’s in Your Vest?” framework gives audiences a concrete tool, built from a real police equipment vest, for thinking about the communication, composure and curiosity they carry into pressure Chris Evans nicknamed him “The Mighty Motivator” on national radio, and that platform, alongside Channel 4, Talk TV and GB News, has built the public profile that lets him land in front of senior corporate audiences at the London Stock Exchange, Kellogg’s and Heathrow Biography highlights Former frontline Police Officer with Police Scotland TEDx speaker, “Always Choose Happiness”, TEDxUWE Author of Lessons from the Frontline – Your Unexpected Guide to True Happiness (Fisher King Publishing) Shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the 2024 Speaker Awards Featured on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show (Virgin Radio), Channel 4, Talk TV and GB News Co-founder of Rise of Happiness, Contributor to The Growth Hub, Associate Trainer for Wellity, trained mental health first aider Worked with the NHS, Kellogg’s, London Stock Exchange, Heathrow Airport, Parker Meggitt, Secret Escapes, LetterOne, NI Water and Bedfordshire Police Biography Most workplace conversations about pressure are theoretical. Rob Hosking spent his early career as a frontline officer with Police Scotland, attending 999 calls where every decision had a tight clock and a real consequence. The practical question for any leader, of how people stay clear-headed, communicate well and keep performing when the operating environment is hostile, is the question his career was built to answer. Hosking left policing after a single shift in which he witnessed a young man take his own life and a colleague die of a heart attack. Months earlier, in July 2018, he had planned to take his own life and was interrupted by his dog. He has since been diagnosed with PTSD and trained as a mental health first aider. That sequence is the substance of his keynote, not its preamble, and it is what allows him to speak to men’s networks, emergency services and leadership audiences with a credibility that policy and academic content cannot match. The work has earned a public platform. Chris Evans dubbed him “The Mighty Motivator” on Virgin Radio, and he has appeared on Channel 4, Talk TV and GB News. His TEDx talk “Always Choose Happiness” was delivered at TEDxUWE, and his book Lessons from the Frontline – Your Unexpected Guide to True Happiness was published by Fisher King Publishing. He was shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the 2024 Speaker Awards. His “What’s in Your Vest?” framework uses the contents of an officer’s equipment vest as a way of asking audiences what tools they carry into pressure, including communication, composure, clarity and curiosity. He has delivered this material for the London Stock Exchange, Kellogg’s, Heathrow Airport, the NHS, Parker Meggitt, Secret Escapes, NI Water, LetterOne and Bedfordshire Police, with men’s mental health, wellbeing, resilience and adaptability as the recurring themes. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Adaptability and managing change Mental health in the workplace Resilience and stress management Psychologically safe leadership Decision-making in high-stakes environments Workplace wellbeing culture Ideal for HR, wellbeing and DEI leads programming mental health, resilience or men’s network events Leadership and management teams operating in high-tempo, high-consequence environments such as emergency services, healthcare, transport and infrastructure Internal conferences, all-hands and away-days where the brief is to open up the conversation on pressure and performance Wellbeing weeks, mental health awareness campaigns and employee network launches Audience outcomes A frank vocabulary for talking about pressure, trauma and mental health at work, drawn from a speaker who has lived it The “What’s in Your Vest?” model as a shared reference point teams can return to after the session A clearer view of how sustained stress degrades judgement, communication and team trust Specific habits and behaviours, taken from operational policing, for staying decisive when conditions are unstable Permission, particularly in male-heavy environments, to speak earlier when something is wrong

Why organisations work with Nick Jankel He works with senior executives as a peer rather than an outsider. His position lets him challenge leadership teams in the room and stay engaged across the programmes that follow, which is the difference between a keynote that lands and a keynote that fades by the next quarter. Bio-Transformation® (BTX®) is one of the few leadership frameworks built from medical science and philosophy of science rather than consulting practice. The argument that change fails when leaders apply machine logic to living systems is a defensible intellectual position, not a packaging exercise. His Cambridge Triple First in Medicine and Philosophy of Science, combined with twenty-five years applying the framework inside organisations, gives senior leaders a rare combination: a scientist’s argument about human behaviour and a practitioner’s instinct for what works in the room. Across roughly 250 executive leadership and transformation programmes for organisations including Unilever, Microsoft, HSBC, LEGO, Genentech, NHS, and Intel, the methodology has shaped the development of approximately 100,000 senior leaders and executives. His keynotes are designed as interventions: customised, experiential, and built to move leaders toward leading change, AI transition, or transformation, rather than simply describing why it matters. Biography highlights Cambridge Triple First (summa cum laude) in Medicine and Philosophy of Science; clinical medicine at UCL Co-founder and CEO of Switch On Leadership, designer of executive leadership and transformation programmes for organisations including Unilever, Microsoft, HSBC, LEGO, Genentech, NHS, and Intel Creator of the Bio-Transformation® (BTX) methodology, a neuroscience-based framework for individual, team, and organisational change Roughly 250 executive leadership development and transformation programmes designed and delivered, shaping the development of approximately 100,000 senior leaders and executives Author of multiple books on leadership and transformation, including Now Lead the Change (2020) and Switch On (2014); work translated into Chinese Lectured at Yale, Oxford, London Business School, Sciences Po, and UC Berkeley; media coverage in the Financial Times, The Times, The Economist, and The Guardian Transformation coach on BBC and MTV television series; spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Talks@Google, and The Economist Summit Biography Most senior leaders are now asked to lead change, AI transition, and transformation in parallel, often without the time to recover between cycles. The standard answer is to equip them with better strategy. The harder answer, and the one Nick Jankel has spent twenty-five years working on, is that under pressure most leaders default to protecting rather than adapting, and no amount of strategic clarity rewrites that biology. Jankel arrived at this argument by an unusual route. He studied medicine and philosophy of science at Cambridge, graduating with a Triple First, before training in clinical medicine at UCL. He then moved into brand strategy at TBWA/Chiat Day on accounts including PlayStation and Nike. Bio-Transformation® (BTX®), the methodology he later built, draws on all three: a clinician’s view of human systems, a philosopher’s account of how knowledge changes under pressure, and a practitioner’s understanding of how people actually choose. As co-founder of Switch On Leadership, Jankel applies BTX through senior executive interventions, leadership team development, and enterprise-wide programmes for organisations including Unilever, Microsoft, HSBC, LEGO, Genentech, NHS, and Intel. Roughly 250 programmes and 100,000 leaders have been built around the methodology to date. He has explored the underlying ideas in books including Now Lead the Change (2020) and Switch On (2014), and lectured at Yale, Oxford, London Business School, Sciences Po, and UC Berkeley. What separates his keynote work is the deliberate refusal to treat the keynote as a speech. The session is designed as an intervention, customised to a leadership group’s actual change agenda and built to move people, not only inform them. The Financial Times, The Times, The Economist, and The Guardian have covered his work; he has spoken at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Talks@Google, and The Economist Summit, and hosted transformation-focused series for the BBC and MTV. Key speaking topics Executive leadership development under pressure Leading change, AI transition, and transformation Neuroscience of organisational change and human adaptation Adaptive leadership and senior team capability Leadership for the age of generative AI Bio-Transformation® methodology and applied complexity science Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams leading transformation, AI transition, or large-scale organisational change CHROs and Chief Learning Officers commissioning executive leadership development programmes at top-50, top-100, or top-500 leader scale Boards and executive committees seeking a science-backed perspective on why standard leadership development underdelivers in conditions of sustained pressure Innovation, transformation, and AI leads in regulated or complex sectors including pharma, financial services, and government Audience outcomes Senior leaders leave with a working understanding of why their organisation’s last change programme stalled at the human level, framed through the Control-and-Protect vs Create-and-Connect distinction at the heart of BTX® Practical tools for regulating stress responses and shifting leadership defaults under live pressure, applicable inside the room and after the event A shared language for naming the human dynamics of change at senior team level, so the work continues without him A clearer view of what generative AI specifically asks of leaders, distinct from what it asks of technology functions Visible movement, not only information: the session is designed to leave leaders ready to lead the next phase of change, not only to think about it

Why organisations work with Kenton Cool He has summited Mount Everest 20 times, the most of any non-Nepali climber, which gives his observations on decision-making and risk a weight that no theoretical speaker can match. He led Sir Ranulph Fiennes to the Everest summit in 2009 and up the Eiger’s north face in 2007, so he speaks with first-hand authority on guiding individuals through environments they cannot manage alone. In 2013 he completed the Everest Horseshoe of Nuptse, Everest and Lhotse in seven days without returning to base camp, a previously unachieved sequence used as a case study in sustained performance and recovery between high-consequence efforts. His corporate content is rooted in repeatable expedition practice: how to read a team in real time, how to decide when to turn back, how to set a risk tolerance before the pressure begins. Biography highlights 20 summits of Mount Everest, the record for any non-Nepali climber, most recently on 22 May 2026. IFMGA/UIAGM Mountain Guide and member of the British Association of Mountain Guides. First person to climb Nuptse, Everest and Lhotse in a single push from base camp, May 2013. Led Sir Ranulph Fiennes on a successful Everest summit in 2009 and on the first British guided ascent of the Eiger’s north face in 2007. Author of One Man’s Everest (Preface, Penguin Random House, 2015). BSc Geological Sciences, University of Leeds; honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Leeds, 2018. Biography Most decisions in a corporate setting can be undone. On the Lhotse Face above Camp 3, with weather closing and oxygen burning down, they cannot. Kenton Cool has stood in that position more often than any non-Nepali climber alive, 20 times on the summit of Everest, and the corporate content he brings into boardrooms is built around what those moments actually demand of a leader. In 1996, an accident on a Welsh rock face fractured both his heel bones. A consultant told him he was unlikely to walk unaided again. He returned to climbing within a year, joined the British Association of Mountain Guides scheme, and went on to earn IFMGA certification, the gold standard for high-altitude guiding. That recovery, and the discipline behind it, shapes how he talks about resilience and the relationship between pain, judgement, and continued performance. His climbing record gives the talks their credibility. In May 2013 he completed the Everest Horseshoe of Nuptse, Everest and Lhotse in a single seven-day push without returning to base camp, a sequence no one had done before. He guided Sir Ranulph Fiennes up the Eiger’s north face in 2007 and to the Everest summit in 2009. In 2012, he carried a 1924 Olympic gold medal awarded to the 1922 British Everest expedition to the top, fulfilling an 88-year-old pledge that Lord Coe credited with helping launch the 2012 London Games. The corporate work translates this into specifics. How to set a risk tolerance before fatigue, ego or sunk cost distort the call. How to read team trust when individual capability is no longer the binding constraint. How to design decision processes that hold up when the time to think runs out. The frameworks are not academic. They are what an IFMGA guide does to bring people home from 8,000 metres. Key speaking topics High-stakes decision-making Risk tolerance and contingency planning Team trust and shared purpose Resilience after setback Leadership under physical and psychological pressure High-performance culture Ideal for Senior leadership teams and boards facing high-consequence strategic decisions Sales kick-offs, partner conferences, and after-dinner events where lived authority is the brief Transformation and operations leadership groups navigating sustained pressure Awards evenings and hosted events requiring a credible, on-stage presence Audience outcomes A concrete account of how an expedition leader sets risk tolerance and decides when to turn back A vocabulary for talking about team trust as an operational capability, not a soft attribute A working model of how to make binary calls when information is incomplete and time is short A reset on what resilience looks like when the recovery is long and the prognosis is bad Energy and a story senior audiences will repeat, anchored in a verifiable climbing record

Why organisations work with Jennifer Vessels The P.E.A.C.E. Framework gives transformation a structured language and methodology: not abstract change theory, but a tested roadmap built from live engagements inside organisations including Adobe, Cisco, and Novartis She brings Silicon Valley operational experience applied globally. Having led transformation programmes across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, she translates insider knowledge of how the world’s most innovation-intensive organisations actually work into practical approaches for complex, multinational businesses She is an active CEO running transformation programmes concurrently with her speaking engagements, meaning her insights reflect current deployments, not retrospective case studies Her work on generational integration, aligning Gen Z talent, AI capability, and experienced human capital, addresses a workforce tension that most change and transformation speakers do not tackle with equivalent specificity Through the Executive Growth Alliance (EGA), she connects audiences to a live community of F100 leaders navigating the same challenges, giving organisations access to a peer learning network beyond the event itself Biography highlights CEO of Next Step, Silicon Valley consulting firm leading business transformation for global enterprises since 2006 Founder, Executive Growth Alliance: a global peer community of Fortune 100 leaders focused on future-of-work and AI adoption Creator of the P.E.A.C.E. Framework (Purpose, Exploration, Action, Collaboration, Empowerment), deployed across organisations including Adobe, Cisco, Google, IKEA, Microsoft, Novartis, and Schneider Electric Awarded “Best Technology Speaker ’24” (IOFM, Diversified Communications) Author of No Clue, No Fear: Navigating Storms of Change; new book Emergence: How Leaders Break Free from Outdated Thinking (Wiley, October 2026) Featured by EFMD, the World Economic Forum, the Institute of Directors, the San Jose Mercury News, and The New York Times MBA, San Jose State University; MS Occupational Psychology, University of London; INSEAD board governance certification Early career: international business development at Tandberg (acquired by Cisco); Director of Global Sales Operations at Tandem Computers Biography Leadership thinking built for the Industrial Age is not built for what organisations are experiencing now. Most change programmes assume that if the strategy is sound and the technology is right, transformation will follow. It does not. The missing variable is almost always how leaders are thinking, and what they are willing to let go of. Jennifer Vessels has spent two decades inside that gap, working as CEO of Next Step across Silicon Valley, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Her client list includes Adobe, Cisco, Google, IKEA, Microsoft, Novartis, and Schneider Electric: organisations navigating business model change, AI adoption, and leadership redesign at scale. From that operational experience, she developed the P.E.A.C.E. Framework: a structured methodology giving leaders a repeatable roadmap through disruptive change rather than a case for why change is necessary. What distinguishes her position is its currency. She is not drawing on past engagements. As an active CEO running transformation programmes alongside her speaking work, the examples she brings to audiences reflect live challenges rather than archived successes. She also founded the Executive Growth Alliance, a community of F100 leaders using collaborative challenge-resolution as a vehicle for building future-readiness collectively. Her book Emergence: How Leaders Break Free from Outdated Thinking (Wiley, October 2026), endorsed by Thinkers50 co-founder Stuart Crainer, extends the framework into a broader argument about the leadership models that are no longer fit for purpose, and what replaces them. Key speaking topics AI Adoption and Human-Centred Integration Change Leadership and Organisational Transformation Future of Work and Generational Integration The P.E.A.C.E. Framework for Leading Through Change Silicon Valley Innovation Applied to Global Business Business Model Redesign in an AI Era Ideal for CEOs and senior leadership teams navigating business model transformation or AI adoption programmes Boards and executive committees seeking a working practitioner’s perspective on AI-era leadership CHROs and people leaders managing generational integration, workforce redesign, and future-of-work strategy Transformation leads and change management functions inside large multinational organisations Audience outcomes A structured, repeatable framework (P.E.A.C.E.) that gives teams shared language for leading through uncertainty, usable Monday morning A clear diagnosis of why AI adoption and transformation programmes stall at the leadership level, with specific approaches to address it Practical tools for integrating generational diversity, particularly Gen Z talent alongside experienced human capital and AI capability A first-hand view of how organisations including Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia are integrating people with advanced technology, applied to the audience’s own market A mindset shift from defending what is crumbling to building what is emerging, positioning disruption as a source of competitive advantage

Why organisations work with Nigel Taberner His “Level 2 listening” framework – drawn from 10 years of operational hostage negotiation, not from theory – gives leaders a named, structured method for building trust and influencing outcomes when positional power and concessions are unavailable. The “negotiating when you have nothing to give” argument maps directly to the situations most commercial and leadership teams actually face: a resistant enterprise client, a difficult board conversation, a supplier who holds all the terms. An operational record of more than 130 high-risk incidents – armed sieges, suicide interventions, and international kidnap situations – resolved without loss of life at any incident he attended gives his principles a level of practical validation that is genuinely rare. He contributed to the national training programmes that produced negotiators for forces in the UK, Finland, Australia, and the FBI, meaning the frameworks he teaches have been tested and refined across different cultures and high-stakes operational contexts. His interactive masterclasses give leadership and sales teams direct practice in the specific listening and influence techniques – not a theory of why they work, but structured repetition of actually applying them. Biography highlights 30-year career with Greater Manchester Police, rising from Police Constable in Moss Side to Detective Inspector 10 years as an operational hostage negotiator, attending more than 130 armed sieges, suicide interventions, and international kidnap situations States that no incident he attended ended in loss of life Detective Inspector for counter-terrorism policing operations at Manchester Airport and Liverpool John Lennon Airport Member of the national negotiator training team responsible for programmes delivered in the UK, Finland, Australia, and the FBI Founder and Managing Director of Level2Communications Featured speaker at AICPA and CIMA events on commercial negotiation and leadership communication Biography Nigel Taberner joined Greater Manchester Police as a constable in Moss Side in the early 1990s. Three decades later, he retired as a Detective Inspector, having led counter-terrorism operations at Manchester Airport and Liverpool John Lennon Airport. In between, he spent 10 years as an operational hostage negotiator. During those 10 years, he attended more than 130 high-risk incidents – armed sieges, suicide interventions, and international kidnap situations. He states that no one died in any incident he attended. From that experience, he drew a precise argument: what separates a resolved negotiation from a failed one is almost always the quality of listening, not the strength of the opening position. He calls this Level 2 listening – attending fully to what the other person is actually communicating, rather than preparing a response. The commercial application is direct. Most business negotiations happen without meaningful leverage. A sales team pursuing a reluctant client, a leader managing a team through unwanted change, a CFO trying to hold a supplier to terms – each faces the same dynamic a hostage negotiator faces when they hold no cards and can offer nothing in return. That is where the framework Taberner developed applies most sharply. He was a member of the national training team that developed new generations of negotiators for forces in the UK, Finland, Australia, and the FBI. Since founding Level2Communications, he has brought those same principles to corporate audiences, including events run by AICPA and CIMA. Key speaking topics Negotiation without leverage High-stakes communication Active listening and influence Trust-building under pressure Crisis communication Leadership under pressure Emotional intelligence in negotiation Ideal for Senior leaders and executive teams facing difficult internal or external stakeholder conversations Sales and commercial teams whose negotiations depend on relationship and trust rather than pricing power Risk, security, and crisis management professionals HR and people leaders managing conflict, sensitive conversations, or organisational change Audience outcomes A named, structured framework – Level 2 listening – for influencing outcomes when leverage is absent Practical techniques for building trust quickly in unfamiliar or high-pressure conversations A clearer understanding of how professional negotiators approach conversations most people find difficult, and why their methods work Greater confidence in handling conflict, resistant stakeholders, and high-stakes decisions A reframed view of listening as a strategic tool rather than a passive courtesy