Leadership speakers

Why organisations work with Christian Havrehed He has operated inside the Sino-Western seam at every level: management consulting at L.E.K., MD roles in Hong Kong and Shanghai with KPMG, Allianz and VIKING, and a two-person expedition partnership that lasted 70 days at sea. Mandarin fluency lets him work directly with Chinese stakeholders in the room, not through a translator, which materially changes the quality of preparation and post-meeting reading. The Atlantic row with Sun Haibin is a documented case study in trust-building under pressure, published in three languages and over 20,000 copies, that he uses to make cross-cultural failure modes concrete. He is qualified to challenge the comforting Western assumption that cultural difference can be managed with a framework imported from headquarters. For boards weighing China exposure, he brings a credible inside-and-outside view that few Western speakers can match without a state affiliation that constrains them. Biography highlights 20 years working in China, including managing director roles with KPMG, Allianz, and VIKING Life-Saving Equipment in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Former consultant at L.E.K. Consulting, London. BA Joint Hons. in Chinese Language and Western Management Studies, Durham University, with study at Renmin University, Beijing. Author of “Beijing to Barbados in a Rowboat”, published in English, Chinese, and Danish; over 20,000 copies sold. First Dane to row an ocean: 3,000-mile Atlantic crossing in 2001 with Chinese ex-soldier Sun Haibin. Founder of the Yantu Project; Adventure Ambassador for Engage with China and Eyesea; member of The Explorers Club. Biography China is no longer a question of market entry. It is a question of whether senior teams can lead partnerships, joint ventures, and supply relationships where the other side does not share their assumptions about risk, hierarchy, or time. That is the ground Christian Havrehed has worked for two decades. After reading Chinese at Durham University and studying at Renmin University in Beijing, he moved into management consulting at L.E.K. in London, then ran businesses inside China and Hong Kong as managing director with KPMG, Allianz, and VIKING Life-Saving Equipment. He speaks Mandarin in commercial settings, which changes the texture of every conversation he is part of. In 2001 he rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic with Sun Haibin, a former Chinese PLA soldier and Communist Party member, becoming the first Dane and the first Chinese citizen respectively to row an ocean. The story, told in “Beijing to Barbados in a Rowboat”, is published in three languages and used by Havrehed as a working case study in what trust actually requires when the contract runs out and the weather turns. For senior leaders, the value is practical. He challenges the soft-skills framing of cross-cultural work and treats it as a leadership problem with real commercial consequences: deal terms misread, partners disengaged, talent lost. His Yantu Project, founded in 2000, has been the spine of this work since long before China became a board-level agenda item in the West. Key speaking topics Sino-Western leadership and partnership Cross-cultural collaboration in joint ventures Trust-building under operational pressure China market strategy and stakeholder engagement Risk-taking and decision-making in unfamiliar conditions Sustainability and citizen science through expedition Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material China exposure Country leaders, regional MDs, and joint-venture sponsors operating in or with Greater China Heads of strategy, M&A, and partnerships evaluating Asia-Pacific deals Senior teams running multinational cross-border programmes where cultural fluency is operationally load-bearing Audience outcomes A clearer view of where Sino-Western partnerships actually fail, drawn from inside both sides of the seam. Specific, named examples of trust-building behaviours that hold up when conditions deteriorate. A direct challenge to standard cultural-intelligence frameworks imported from Western HQ. Practical reframing of risk-taking as an organisational capability, not a personality trait. A more grounded basis for boardroom conversations about China exposure, partnership terms, and joint-venture governance.

Why organisations work with Christian Horner He rebuilt Red Bull Racing’s championship standing twice. The two dominant eras – 2010 to 2013 and 2021 to 2023 – are separated by eight years of Mercedes dominance, making his leadership record one of the few in elite sport that spans genuine decline and recovery, not just a single peak. His pivotal talent decisions include recruiting Adrian Newey from McLaren, developing Sebastian Vettel through the junior system, and promoting Max Verstappen mid-season at 18 – each a bold call taken before the outcome was certain, with verifiable long-term consequences. He ran an independent, UK-based team against factory-backed rivals with greater institutional resources and outcompeted them twice, on culture, structure, and strategic clarity rather than budget. His tenure included real organisational pressures – an FIA budget cap penalty in 2022, the departure of lead technical architect Newey in 2024, and sustained management conflict at parent company level – providing concrete case material on keeping an organisation competitive through reputational and structural challenge. He initiated Red Bull Powertrains and a long-term technical partnership with Ford – a decision to internalise a critical competitive dependency, taken while actively defending championship positions, with consequences measured in performance and cost over a decade. Biography highlights Former Team Principal and CEO, Red Bull Racing, 2005-2025 – longest-serving team principal in the sport during that period 14 Formula 1 World Championship titles: 8 Drivers’ Championships and 6 Constructors’, plus 124 Grand Prix victories Appointed youngest Team Principal in Formula 1 history at age 31 – a record unbroken at the point of his departure in 2025 Founded Arden International; led the team to three consecutive International Formula 3000 teams’ championships (2002-2004) before entering Formula 1 management OBE (2013) and CBE (2024) for services to motorsport Key verified talent decisions include recruiting chief designer Adrian Newey from McLaren and promoting Max Verstappen to the senior team mid-season at 18 Biography Red Bull Racing won its first Formula 1 World Championship in 2010 and its most recent in 2023 – thirteen years apart, with eight years of Mercedes dominance in between. Christian Horner CBE was Team Principal and CEO for all of it. Building the team from an uncompetitive acquisition into a championship operation required bold early decisions. Horner recruited Adrian Newey from McLaren as chief technical architect and developed Sebastian Vettel through the Red Bull junior system. Within five seasons, the team had moved from the back of the grid to world champions. The second era required different thinking. When regulation changes in 2014 ended the first dominant run, Horner navigated nearly eight years without a championship before switching engine supplier from Renault to Honda and promoting Max Verstappen from the junior team mid-season at 18. The four consecutive Drivers’ Championships from 2021 followed from decisions taken when those outcomes were far from certain. Horner led the organisation through an FIA budget cap penalty in 2022 and the departure of lead technical architect Newey in 2024. His CBE (2024), following an OBE (2013), marks national recognition for a record of 14 World Championships and 124 Grand Prix victories built across two decades. Key speaking topics High-performance team leadership Decision-making under competitive pressure Talent identification, succession, and bold recruitment Competitive strategy across long performance cycles Organisational culture in elite performance environments Leading through regulatory and structural change Sustaining resilience across extended performance cycles Ideal for Executive leadership teams and boards responsible for multi-year performance strategy CHROs and people leaders building talent pipelines in high-competition environments CEOs and managing directors leading organisations through competitive disruption or market shifts Transformation leads managing capability builds across multiple cycles Audience outcomes A concrete framework for distinguishing a performance system from a performance moment, and what it takes to build the former. Insight into talent decisions that compound over multiple competitive cycles, drawn from specific, verifiable recruitment and succession calls. Practical lessons in leading through genuine organisational crises – reputational, structural, and competitive – without losing competitive function. Clarity on the leadership differences between building for a first win and sustaining advantage when rivals close the gap. Case examples drawn from 20 years of high-stakes decisions with traceable long-term consequences.

Why organisations work with Claire Rafferty Lived experience of operating at the top of two unrelated industries simultaneously, elite international football and investment banking at Deutsche Bank, where most speakers offer one or the other. A specific, named recovery story. Two anterior cruciate ligament injuries during her career, including a second in 2011, followed by a return to international football and a starting place at a World Cup semi-final. A current operating role in the football industry through TransferRoom, where she works on global transfer activity, plus a board seat at Lewes FC, the only professional club paying its men’s and women’s teams equally. Audiences hear someone still inside the commercial mechanics of the sport, not retired from it. Practised broadcast presence across BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT and ITV News, which translates into clean delivery on stage and confidence under live questioning. Biography highlights 18 senior caps for England between 2010 and 2017, including starting left-back at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup where England finished third. 2012 Team GB Olympian at the London Games. 101 senior appearances for Chelsea FC across eleven seasons; FA WSL champion in 2015 and 2017 to 18, FA Women’s Cup winner in 2014 to 15 and 2017 to 18. Economics degree, Loughborough University, 2011; analyst at Deutsche Bank from 2012, held in parallel with her playing career. Senior Customer Success Manager, TransferRoom; Non-Executive Director, Lewes FC. Regular pundit and contributor across BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT, BBC 5 Live and ITV News. Biography Two anterior cruciate ligament injuries can end a career. Claire Rafferty came back from one as a teenager at Millwall Lionesses, then from a second in 2011 to win starting selection for England’s run to third place at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The story sits at the centre of her speaking content because she has not stylised it. Recovery is presented as long, dull, repeatable work, not a redemption arc. Her career also broke a common pattern in elite sport. Through most of her playing years at Chelsea, where she made 101 appearances and finished as the club’s longest-serving player, Rafferty worked as an analyst at Deutsche Bank. The dual track was not a sponsored side project; it was a deliberate choice to keep a professional identity outside football, made before women’s full-time contracts were standard in the English game. Since retiring from West Ham at the end of the 2018 to 19 season, she has stayed inside the commercial machinery of the sport. At TransferRoom she works on global transfer activity across men’s and women’s football. At Lewes FC, on the board since January 2020, she sits inside the only professional club paying its men’s and women’s first teams from a single equal budget. Both roles give her current material, not retrospective material. The broadcasting work runs alongside this. Rafferty contributes to BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT and ITV News, and covered the 2019 Women’s World Cup on multiple platforms. The cumulative effect for an audience is a speaker who can speak about pressure, recovery and parallel careers from the inside of two industries that rarely overlap. Key speaking topics Resilience after physical and professional setback Parallel careers in elite sport and the City Performing under sustained competitive pressure Women in football and equal pay in professional sport Career transition after a defined competitive peak Team performance and high-trust environments Ideal for Leadership offsites and conferences seeking a voice on resilience grounded in elite competition rather than executive theory. Financial services audiences, where the Deutsche Bank parallel career is directly recognisable. Sports business, federation and broadcast audiences working on women’s football, commercialisation and equal-pay structures. ERG and Women in Leadership programmes, particularly those addressing dual-career pressure and recovery from setback. Audience outcomes A concrete account of recovery from career-threatening injury, told in operational rather than motivational terms. A working model for sustaining two professional identities at the same time, drawn from football and investment banking. A current view of the commercial and structural state of women’s football from inside the industry, not from the press box. Renewed credibility for the claim that competitive performance and equal investment can coexist, evidenced by the Lewes FC model.

Why organisations work with Claire Williams A rare first-hand credential: one of only two women to have ever led a Formula 1 team, with seven years of operational accountability across a 1,800-person organisation. She negotiated the 2020 sale of Williams Racing to Dorilton Capital, securing the team’s future at a point when commercial terms and the pandemic were squeezing independent teams out of the sport. A commercial track record with specific deals attached, including a reported £65M sponsorship with Unilever and the growth of what became WAE Technologies, later acquired by Fortescue. A demonstrable record on representation: during her tenure, the proportion of women at Williams reached 17.6%, the highest in the F1 paddock, and she gave Susie Wolff her first F1 race weekend drive by a woman since 1992. Currently a recurring expert analyst on Netflix’s Drive to Survive, which keeps her commentary connected to the races and decisions audiences already follow. Biography highlights Deputy Team Principal of Williams Racing, 2013 to 2020, with day-to-day operational control of the Formula 1 team. Led Williams to consecutive third-place finishes in the Constructors’ Championship in 2014 and 2015, the team’s best results since 2003. Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to Formula 1, awarded in the 2016 Birthday Honours. Brand Ambassador for Fortescue WAE (formerly Williams Advanced Engineering), the green-technologies business she helped grow during her tenure. Vice President of the Spinal Injuries Association; founded the Sir Frank Williams Academy for spinal cord injury care in April 2023. Recurring expert analyst on Netflix’s Drive to Survive, including the 2024 and 2025 editions. Biography The Formula 1 paddock runs on non-negotiable deadlines and live public scrutiny. Every operational decision lands against a fixed calendar of race weekends, with 1,800 staff to align and investors watching results on Sunday. Claire Williams ran Williams Racing in this environment for seven seasons as Deputy Team Principal, from 2013 to 2020. She took over day-to-day operation from her father, Sir Frank Williams, in 2013. The team had just come through some of the weakest years in its history. She replaced the race drivers, restructured the engineering department, switched to Mercedes engines, and secured the sponsorship deals that funded the rebuild. Williams finished third in the Constructors’ Championship in 2014 and again in 2015, its best results since 2003. Fortescue WAE grew under her watch from an internal sustainability unit into a commercial R&D business later acquired by Fortescue. The proportion of women at Williams reached 17.6%, the highest in the paddock. In 2014, Susie Wolff drove a Williams in a practice session, the first F1 race weekend drive by a woman since 1992. The OBE followed in 2016, for services to the sport. The final chapter was the hardest to execute. Faced with commercial terms that favoured the top teams and the financial impact of the pandemic, she negotiated the sale of Williams Racing to Dorilton Capital in August 2020. She stepped down after the Italian Grand Prix the following month. The sale secured the team’s future under new ownership after more than four decades of Williams family leadership in the sport. Key speaking topics Leadership in high-pressure, high-scrutiny environments High-performance team culture at scale Elite decision-making and operational accountability Commercial turnaround and succession Women in leadership in traditionally closed sectors Safety, risk, and learning cultures Ideal for CEOs, executive committees, and boards running organisations under sustained public scrutiny Senior leadership teams in high-stakes or heavily regulated sectors (financial services, sport, energy, aerospace) CHROs and heads of talent building high-performance cultures or advancing gender representation in traditionally closed sectors Transformation leaders and programme sponsors running commercial rebuilds or succession-stage handovers Audience outcomes A first-hand view of leadership inside a Formula 1 team under constant competitive and commercial pressure Reference points from elite-sport operations on accountability and how high-performing teams handle failure at scale A sharper read on what a commercial rebuild followed by a distressed exit requires from the person at the top A credible account of how representation is built in a closed sector, told through named decisions and measurable results

Why organisations work with Clare Kenny Her material starts from nervous system science: what sustained activation does to decision quality, and which working norms are producing it. As Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry she owned a strategy covering 9,000 employees globally, so she argues the business case for wellbeing investment at scale, not only the human one. Her grounding is behavioural science and leadership psychology, from MindGym and from YSC Consulting, now part of Accenture. She has a TEDx talk on addiction and stigma, and lived experience of burnout, anxiety, addiction, and late-diagnosed ADHD, so the material on pressure is not delivered at a distance from it. On neuro-inclusion she starts from the arithmetic: around one in five people are neurodivergent, and most workplaces are designed for one type of brain. Biography highlights Former Global Wellbeing Lead, Burberry: led global wellbeing strategy for a 9,000-person workforce Two decades in leadership and learning and development across Europe and Asia Former Head of Client Operations (Europe) at YSC Consulting, now part of Accenture, and Client Executive at MindGym, the behavioural science consultancy BSc in Psychology, University of Manchester TEDx speaker on addiction and stigma Clients include KPMG, Warner Bros Discovery, Channel 4, Novartis, Fidelity International, the Ministry of Justice, Specsavers, and the Harry Potter Studios Biography The ADHD diagnosis came at 40. The two decades before it involved extreme anxiety, emotional dysregulation, memory problems, addiction and overwhelm. Nobody suggested the obvious explanation, Clare Kenny included. She did not fit the picture most people carry of what ADHD looks like. Living with an unregulated nervous system and no account of why is what pushed her towards the neuroscience of performance. The professional grounding came first. A BSc in Psychology from the University of Manchester, then MindGym, the behavioural science learning consultancy, then senior director roles in leadership consultancy across Europe and Asia. At YSC Consulting, now part of Accenture, she ran client operations for Europe. As Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry she built and ran the wellbeing strategy for a 9,000-person global workforce. That in-house experience shapes where she puts the intervention: how leaders behave, how work is distributed, and when people are expected to be available. It is the starting point for her work with KPMG, Warner Bros Discovery, Channel 4, Novartis and the Ministry of Justice. Her current material is translation work, taking the science of stress and behaviour and turning it into changes a senior team can make the following Monday. Her TEDx talk, “We Need to Change How We See Addiction”, sits behind the lived experience she brings to it. The keynotes lean on Google’s Project Aristotle, which found psychological safety was the single most important factor in high-performing teams. She also works from a simpler fact: around one in five people are neurodivergent, and most workplaces are designed for one kind of brain. Key speaking topics Neuroscience of stress and performance Nervous system regulation and leadership Psychological safety in high-performing teams Burnout prevention and sustainable performance Neuro-inclusion and diversity of thought Late-diagnosed ADHD in the workplace Ideal for CHROs, people directors, and L&D leads resetting a wellbeing or performance strategy Executive teams and senior leadership offsites where burnout or sustained pressure is the presenting problem Leadership conferences and all-staff events on pressure, performance and workplace culture Culture change programmes, management development programmes, and inclusion events Audience outcomes How to identify the working norms in their own organisation that are keeping people in a stress response What a leader’s own regulation does to a team, and how to change it deliberately How organisations undermine psychological safety without meaning to, and the leader behaviours that rebuild it Why neuro-inclusion is a question of how the environment is designed, and where to start changing it Language for having honest conversations about mental health inside a high-performance culture

About Clive Tyldesley Clive Tyldesley is a television sports broadcaster. He was ITV’s senior football commentator from 1998 until 2020. In that role, he has led the ITV commentary team at four World Cups and four European Championships, and been lead commentator on 17 UEFA Champions League finals and a commentator on nine FA Cup finals for ITV. He won the prestigious Royal Television Society Sports Commentator of the Year in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2005, and was voted the Sony Radio Awards’ Sports Broadcaster of the Year in 1983. He currently serves as a commentator for ITV Sport, Amazon Prime, TalkSPORT, CBS/Paramount Plus in USA and Rangers Football Club on their in-house Rangers TV service. In 2021 his first book was published by Headline: the semi-autobiographical ‘Not for me, Clive’. Following requests from his social media followers Clive has also made prints of his famous commentary charts available to purchase online. Tyldesley was born in Radcliffe, Lancashire, and was educated at Bury Grammar School, Kirkham Grammar School and the University of Nottingham. He obtained an honours degree in Industrial Economics, but always wanted to pursue a career in sports commentating. In June 1975, he began his broadcast career straight from university with Radio Trent in Nottingham, where he became their regular Nottingham Forest reporter. In April 1977, he joined Radio City (Liverpool) and remained there for the next 12 years. After succeeding Elton Welsby as City’s sports editor, he covered the successes of Everton and Liverpool through the late 1970s and 1980s. Tyldesley was on-air at the scene of the Heysel disaster in 1985, but did not attend Liverpool’s tragic FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough in 1989. He was heavily involved in City’s coverage of the aftermath of the disaster.

Why organisations work with Colin MacLachlan He has been the hostage, the hostage negotiator and the hostage rescuer. Very few people on any speaker roster have operated on all three sides of a crisis, and it shows in how he teaches boards to read one. His account of the 2005 Basra prison incident, including repeated mock executions before British forces broke through the compound walls, gives senior audiences an unvarnished view of composure under conditions no leadership course simulates. As an instructor on Series 1 of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, he has publicly assessed how ordinary civilians perform under Selection-grade pressure, which translates directly into honest diagnostics of corporate teams. He pairs the platform with clinical substance: co-founder of Who Dares Cares, a UK charity supporting Armed Forces and Blue Light personnel with PTSD, so the resilience content is built on years of live casework rather than stage anecdote. Author of The Pilgrim: SAS Who Dares Wins (Pen and Sword), endorsed by Bear Grylls, Chris Ryan, Andy McNab and Damien Lewis, which gives buyers a named, citable body of work to brief their leadership against. Biography highlights 22 SAS operator (Mountain Troop), serving in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. Took part in Operation Barras, the 2000 hostage rescue of British soldiers from the West Side Boys in Sierra Leone. Central figure in the Basra prison incident of September 2005, captured by Iraqi police and rescued by British forces. Instructor on Series 1 of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins; contributor to Channel 5’s Secrets of the SAS. Author of The Pilgrim: SAS Who Dares Wins (Pen and Sword), endorsed by Bear Grylls, Chris Ryan, Andy McNab and Damien Lewis. Co-founder of Who Dares Cares, a UK charity supporting Armed Forces and Blue Light personnel living with PTSD. Biography Two British SAS soldiers were captured by Iraqi police in Basra on 19 September 2005 and held through a series of mock executions before a Warrior-led assault broke through the compound walls and extracted them. Colin MacLachlan was one of those two men. That single episode shapes how he talks to leadership teams about composure, and why serious audiences listen. The operational record behind it is equally specific. Mountain Troop in 22 SAS, deployments across Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, and a role in Operation Barras, the 2000 hostage rescue against the West Side Boys. Hostage negotiation, hostage rescue and being taken hostage are three distinct problems. Very few operators have done all three, and that combined perspective is what gives his leadership argument its weight. The public-facing work gives buyers a body of evidence they can brief against. He was an instructor on Series 1 of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, putting civilians through Selection-grade pressure on camera, and a contributor to Channel 5’s Secrets of the SAS. His memoir, The Pilgrim: SAS Who Dares Wins, is published by Pen and Sword and carries cover endorsements from Bear Grylls, Chris Ryan, Andy McNab and Damien Lewis. He also co-founded Who Dares Cares, a UK charity supporting Armed Forces and Blue Light personnel with PTSD. That is what keeps the resilience material honest. When he tells a leadership team how stress shows up inside a person months after the event, the claim is backed by years of clinical casework, not a stage anecdote. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under pressure Crisis response and high-stakes negotiation Team performance in hostile environments Resilience and recovery from acute stress Risk assessment and security awareness Hostage survival and the psychology of captivity Veteran mental health and post-traumatic growth Ideal for Boards and executive committees stress-testing how their leadership team behaves when a crisis is live, not rehearsed. CROs, heads of security and business-continuity leads responsible for people in volatile jurisdictions. CHROs and wellbeing leads building resilience programmes that need clinical credibility, not motivational theatre. Senior leadership offsites where the brief is composure, judgement and team cohesion under sustained pressure. Audience outcomes A concrete vocabulary for making decisions when information is incomplete and the cost of delay is high. A sharper read on how individuals and teams actually behave under acute stress, drawn from Selection-grade assessments and live operations. A working understanding of hostage and crisis negotiation logic that transfers to hostile commercial situations. A more honest view of post-traumatic stress and recovery, useful to anyone responsible for people who have been through a serious event. A memorable, citable set of operational examples that senior audiences take back into their own leadership conversations.

Why organisations work with Colleen Francis She reframes where growth actually comes from. Her Right on the Money thesis argues that the installed base, not the prospecting funnel, is the primary engine of bold growth, and gives revenue leaders a playbook for acting on it. She closes the gap between sales strategy and sales behaviour. Her work with Chevron, Merck, Royal Bank, John Deere and Dow is focused on what frontline sellers and managers actually do differently on Monday morning. She brings a full-cycle pipeline discipline rather than a single tactic. Nonstop Sales Boom is built around ending the boom-and-bust cycle through continuous engagement, qualification shared with the buyer, and disciplined prioritisation. She carries the credentials that senior audiences expect without leaning on them. Induction into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame and the Canadian Speaking Hall of Fame is the signal; the room is there for the argument. Biography highlights Founder and President, Engage Selling Solutions. Author of Right on the Money: New Principles for Bold Growth (Morgan James, 2022), Nonstop Sales Boom, and Honesty Sells. Inductee, Professional Speakers Hall of Fame. Inductee, Canadian Speaking Hall of Fame, and past President of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. Named a LinkedIn Top Voice for Sales. Keynote speaker at Dreamforce and MDRT Experience, with client work across Chevron, John Deere, Merck, Abbott, Experian, Royal Bank, Dow, Adobe and Salesforce. Biography Most B2B organisations still build their growth model around new-logo acquisition. The numbers tell a different story. The accounts already inside the house are usually under-penetrated, under-priced, and handed off to service teams the moment the contract signs. Colleen Francis has spent more than twenty years arguing that this is where bold growth is actually hiding, and building the systems that let revenue leaders reach it. That argument is the spine of Right on the Money, published by Morgan James in 2022, and the thread that runs through Engage Selling Solutions, the firm she founded and leads. Her earlier book, Nonstop Sales Boom, sets out the other half of the discipline: ending the boom-and-bust quarter by treating pipeline generation, deal progression, customer retention and account expansion as one connected system, not four competing ones. The work is built on client evidence, not theory. Engage Selling has run programmes with Chevron, John Deere, Merck, Abbott, Experian, Royal Bank, Dow, Adobe and Salesforce, among others. Francis speaks on the main stages these clients attend, including Dreamforce and MDRT Experience, and has been named a LinkedIn Top Voice for Sales. The credentials are there – induction into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame and the Canadian Speaking Hall of Fame, past President of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers – but the reason senior revenue leaders book her is simpler. She tells a sales organisation what to stop doing, with specifics, and then what to do instead. Key speaking topics Sales strategy and commercial growth Account expansion and customer retention Pipeline discipline and revenue predictability Sales leadership and frontline management Buyer behaviour and modern B2B selling Sales transformation in mature businesses Ideal for Chief Revenue Officers, Chief Sales Officers and VPs of Sales running large distributed sales organisations. Senior sales leadership audiences inside B2B businesses where retention and expansion matter more than new-logo volume. Partner, channel and enterprise account leaders responsible for growing inside existing customers. Sales kickoffs and annual conferences looking for a commercial keynote with a practical, named methodology. Audience outcomes A clear commercial case for treating the installed customer base as the primary growth engine, with the metrics to defend it. Named behaviours that separate consistent sales teams from boom-and-bust ones, at both rep and manager level. A sharper view of where pipeline is leaking – qualification, handoff, account planning – and which of those to fix first. Language senior sales leaders can take straight into their next QBR on retention, expansion and forecast discipline.

Why organisations work with Conn Bertish He built his resilience method from the inside of a rare adult brain cancer diagnosis, then road-tested it with oncologists at Groote Schuur, Red Cross Children’s Hospital, and Mediclinic before using it on corporate audiences. His Cancer Dojo platform is one of the only resilience tools that has been medically reviewed for use with patients under active treatment, which gives his frameworks a clinical credibility most motivational survivor stories lack. Twenty years inside top-tier creative agencies, including as executive creative director at JWT Cape Town and a member of the JWT Global Creative Council, means he can talk to leadership teams about creativity as an operating method, not a mood. His Cannes Lions record as speaker, judge, and award winner gives marketing and brand organisations a speaker who understands their craft from inside the jury room. He brings two distinct lenses, creative strategy and survival, to the same question: how do teams keep making good decisions when the ground is moving. Biography highlights Founder of Cancer Dojo, a mobile resilience platform for cancer patients, built with a clinical advisory team drawn from Groote Schuur, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, and Mediclinic. Former executive creative director at JWT Cape Town and former member of the JWT Global Creative Council. Cannes Lions speaker, juror, and award winner; has worked with Google, Airbnb, Nestlé, Merck, Standard Chartered, Coca-Cola, and Pfizer. Creator of the Happy People Are Harder To Kill and Never Fight The Ocean talk series, delivered to corporate, clinical, and creative-industry audiences. Creative Director for the Cape Town World Design Capital programme and steering committee partner at the Cape Town Design Network. Survivor of a rare form of adult brain cancer, Red Bull big wave surfer, downhill skateboarder, and winner of South Africa’s first Fear Factor. Biography Cancer Dojo began as a workbook that Bertish made for himself during treatment for a rare adult brain cancer. It became a mobile platform, reviewed by a panel of South African oncologists and psychologists, now used by patients across several countries. That is the unusual provenance of the resilience method he brings to corporate rooms. Before cancer, he spent two decades in advertising. He was executive creative director at JWT Cape Town, sat on the JWT Global Creative Council, and represented South Africa at Cannes Lions as a speaker, juror, and award winner. He walked away from a Chief Creative Officer role to build Cancer Dojo in 2015. Clients now include Google, Airbnb, Nestlé, Merck, Standard Chartered, Coca-Cola, and Pfizer. The talks sit under two series, Happy People Are Harder To Kill and Never Fight The Ocean, and they cover creative leadership under pressure, purpose inside teams, and mental health at work. What he offers a leadership audience is the collision of three things most speakers cannot combine credibly: senior creative-industry craft, clinical-grade resilience content, and a personal history of extreme pressure that stopped being metaphor in 2006. The Red Bull big wave record and the Fear Factor win are true, but the more useful fact is that his resilience curriculum has been signed off by the people treating cancer patients at Groote Schuur. Key speaking topics Creative leadership under pressure Resilience as a teachable organisational skill Mental health and performance at work Purpose-driven teams and collaboration Creativity as a strategic method, not a mood Leading through personal and organisational crisis Ideal for CEOs and executive teams navigating restructuring, layoffs, or sustained uncertainty CHROs and wellbeing leads designing resilience and mental health programmes with clinical credibility Chief Marketing Officers and creative leadership groups, particularly in agencies and brand organisations Leadership offsites where the brief is human performance under real pressure, not inspirational content Audience outcomes A practical vocabulary for talking about resilience as a skill their teams can build, not a personality trait Specific tools drawn from the Cancer Dojo workbook, adapted for workplace use A sharper view of how creative thinking functions as a decision-making method when conditions deteriorate An unusually honest account of what fear, crisis, and recovery look like from inside, useful for leaders holding the room through hard moments Language for connecting purpose, mental health, and performance without slipping into wellness cliché

Why organisations work with Connie Dieken The Influence360° assessment is the only validated psychometric instrument built specifically to measure how individual leaders influence stakeholders. Organisations gain hard data on a capability they have previously only been able to assess anecdotally – or not at all. The Connect-Convey-Convince® methodology, developed through more than 15 years of research with over 20,000 participants, gives leadership teams a shared, actionable language for a problem most organisations misdiagnose as a personality issue rather than a learnable skill gap. Twenty years interviewing presidents and global CEOs for ABC and NBC gave Dieken direct observational data on how influence operates under pressure and at scale. That empirical foundation is not available from the executive coaching mainstream. Her training programmes are licensed in corporate universities worldwide and both her Wiley books reached No. 1 on Amazon and Audible – which means her frameworks carry weight in the room before she enters it. Membership of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches, a highly selective global practitioner community, places her within the most rigorously vetted executive coaching cohort in the world and signals peer-level recognition, not self-designation. Biography highlights Founder of Influence360°, a validated leadership influence assessment, and The Dieken Group, a C-suite executive advisory firm operating on five continents Author of two Wiley bestsellers: Talk Less, Say More (Connect-Convey-Convince® methodology) and Become the Real Deal (Three Layers of Presence and Return on Influence® framework) Five-time Emmy Award winner and inductee of the Radio/Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame, the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame, and the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame Named Top 10 Executive Coach globally by the Global Gurus organisation; member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches (2019) Guest lecturer in executive education and MBA programmes at Case Western University, Indiana University, and Ohio State University Thought leadership featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times Biography Most leaders believe they are more persuasive than others experience them. Connie Dieken, a broadcast journalist for ABC and NBC for two decades, built her career on closing that gap. Interviewing presidents and global CEOs, she identified the patterns that divided leaders who drove genuine action from those who merely spoke at people. That observation became a research project. Fifteen years of structured study involving more than 20,000 participants produced the Influence360° assessment, a validated instrument for measuring how leaders influence stakeholders. Two Wiley bestsellers followed: Talk Less, Say More, built on the Connect-Convey-Convince® methodology, and Become the Real Deal, which introduced the Three Layers of Presence and the Return on Influence® concept. The Dieken Group now advises C-suite executives at organisations including Coca-Cola, HP, Nestlé, BNP Paribas, and The Cleveland Clinic. Her influence training programmes are licensed in corporate universities on five continents. She is a guest lecturer in executive education at Case Western, Indiana, and Ohio State universities, and a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches. Dieken has been inducted into the Radio/Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame, the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame, and the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame. She has been named a Top 10 Executive Coach globally by the Global Gurus organisation and has delivered keynotes on four continents to audiences numbering in the thousands. Key speaking topics Leadership influence and stakeholder commitment Executive presence and authentic authority Influential communication under pressure Change leadership and stakeholder buy-in Human influence and decision-making in AI-shaped organisations Presentation strategy and persuasion Leadership assessment and behavioural diagnostics Ideal for Senior leadership teams navigating change, mergers, or strategic realignment where stakeholder buy-in is the critical variable CHROs and talent leaders designing executive development programmes where influence and presence are identified capability gaps Sales leadership and commercial functions where the ability to earn commitment is a direct performance driver Boards and executive committees seeking a research-grounded framework for developing leadership effectiveness at the top Audience outcomes A clear diagnostic of their personal influence pattern, including where they are most likely to lose stakeholder commitment and why A three-step methodology – Connect, Convey, Convince – they can apply immediately to high-stakes conversations, presentations, and change initiatives Understanding of the Three Layers of Presence and how inner, outer, and verbal presence affect their credibility with senior stakeholders Frameworks to distinguish between genuine influence and manipulation, and to lead without coercion or compliance-seeking Practical tools for navigating resistance from difficult stakeholders, including those who are dominant, anxious, or disengaged

Why organisations work with Corinna Pommerening Specific authority in the German Mittelstand and regional banking layer, where most international leadership speakers have no credible footprint. Two Springer Gabler and GABAL books arguing a structured thesis on leadership change inside the financial sector, not a generic leadership platform applied to banking. Treats employer brand and leadership culture as one programme rather than two HR projects, which is how regional banks actually experience the talent problem. Customer advisory seat at HASPA, Germany’s largest savings bank, anchors the work in a real institutional setting rather than a consultancy abstraction. Delivers in German and English, with formats from keynote to working session, suited to bank executive committees and supervisory-board offsites. Biography highlights Author of “New Leadership im Finanzsektor,” Springer Gabler, 2020; second edition 2022. Author of “Digitale Regionalokonomie,” GABAL Verlag, 2023. Host of “Leadership neu gedacht!” podcast, 140+ episodes. Co-founder of Ecosystems 4 Business AG. Member of the customer advisory board, Hamburger Sparkasse (HASPA). Certified employer brand manager; guest lecturer at the University of Wismar; Industry Insider with trend-research firm TRENDONE. Biography Most regional banks in Germany are running two redesigns at once. The business model is being rebuilt around digital and platform competition, and the workforce that has to deliver that rebuild is harder to keep and harder to recruit than at any point in the sector’s history. Treating those as separate projects is why so many programmes stall. Corinna Pommerening’s argument, set out in “New Leadership im Finanzsektor” (Springer Gabler, 2020; second edition 2022), is that leadership culture and employer brand are the same problem in a regional bank. Courage and responsibility have to move down from the executive layer, silo working has to give way to networked teams, and the institution has to become legible to the talent it wants. Her second book, “Digitale Regionalokonomie” (GABAL Verlag, 2023), extends the case to the regional economy these banks sit inside. The work has institutional grounding. She sits on the customer advisory board of Hamburger Sparkasse, Germany’s largest savings bank, co-founded Ecosystems 4 Business AG, and runs the “Leadership neu gedacht!” podcast across more than 140 episodes with senior practitioners in the financial sector. A certified employer brand manager and guest lecturer at the University of Wismar, she works in German and English, with formats running from board-level keynote to executive working session. What she gives a Sparkassen, Volksbank, or Mittelstand executive team is rare in the wider speaker market: an authoritative outside voice that already understands the regulatory, cultural and talent context they operate in, and that has written the book on the leadership shift the institution has to make. Key speaking topics New leadership in the financial sector Leadership culture in mid-market and regional banks Employer branding for the Mittelstand Future skills and workforce capability Digital and cultural transformation in regional economies Distributed responsibility and networked working Ideal for Executive boards and supervisory boards of Sparkassen, cooperative banks and regional commercial banks CHROs and HR directors in mid-market financial institutions Mittelstand CEOs running combined leadership and talent agendas Regional economic development bodies and bank-association events Audience outcomes A clearer read on why leadership culture and employer brand fail when run as separate programmes A working model for moving responsibility and decision-making down through a bank’s hierarchy Specific positions to take on future skills, lifelong learning and knowledge-sharing inside the institution A view of the regional bank as part of a regional economic ecosystem, not an isolated operator Language that supervisory boards and executive committees can use to align on the leadership shift

Why organisations work with Costas Markides His “Fast Second” argument runs directly counter to first-mover advantage orthodoxy: established firms should let small entrepreneurial companies take the risk of discovering new markets, then move in as consolidators once a market has been validated. That counter-intuitive thesis – developed with Paul Geroski and shortlisted for the FT/Goldman Sachs Management Book of the Year – changes how organisations think about where to place innovation investment. His framework for “playing two business models at the same time” addresses a structural problem that most strategy advice sidesteps: how a firm competes in its existing market while also contesting the model that is disrupting it. He identifies specific conditions under which this works, and the organisational reasons why it usually fails. A UK Research Excellence Framework impact case study credits his work as the first to identify the “business model” as a concept distinct from product innovation – a distinction that gives organisations a more precise lens for analysing competitive threats and deciding which type of response a given disruption actually demands. His ideas on business model innovation have been formally adopted by Nestlé, Roche, and If Insurance as the basis for executive transformation programmes – documented in the REF 2014 public record, not claimed from a speaker circuit. He has appeared on the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top management thinkers every year since 2005, and was ranked 31st in 2011 – a sustained peer recognition that reflects a body of work rather than a single book cycle. Biography highlights Robert P. Bauman Chair of Strategic Leadership; Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, London Business School (since 1990) MBA and DBA, Harvard Business School; BA (Distinction) and MA in Economics, Boston University Thinkers50 listing every year since 2005; ranked 31st in 2011; named in Forbes.com “Most Influential Management Gurus” 2009 Author of six books including Fast Second (shortlisted FT/Goldman Sachs Management Book of the Year 2005) and All the Right Moves (shortlisted Igor Ansoff Strategic Management Award 2000) Published in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, and Academy of Management Journal Board of Directors, Strategic Management Society; World Economic Forum participant, Davos Biography The hardest question for an established company facing disruption is not whether to respond – it is which response will not destroy the model that made it successful. Costas Markides has spent three decades at London Business School studying exactly that problem, building a body of research that challenges the accepted wisdom on disruption at almost every point. His most counter-intuitive contribution is the “Fast Second” thesis, developed with Paul Geroski: large established companies are structurally poor at discovering radical new markets and should not try to be first. Their role is to move in once a market has been validated – as consolidators, not pioneers. That argument, shortlisted for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Management Book of the Year, reframes how organisations think about where innovation investment belongs. His subsequent research sharpened the strategic question further. Game-Changing Strategies (2008) and Business Model Innovation (2023) identify the conditions under which an established firm can disrupt its own disruptor – and the structural reasons most firms fail when they try. A UK Research Excellence Framework impact assessment credits his work as the first to distinguish “business model innovation” from product innovation as a separate strategic concept – a distinction now embedded in how companies like Nestlé and Roche have approached their own transformation programmes. Markides holds the Robert P. Bauman Chair of Strategic Leadership and has held a faculty position at LBS since 1990. His appearance on the Thinkers50 list every year since 2005 reflects continuity of contribution rather than a single publication; his most recent book, Diversification in the World of Data and AI (2025), extends his long-running framework into the context of AI-driven market change. Key speaking topics Business model innovation for established firms Strategic response to disruption Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation culture Strategic innovation and new market creation Growth strategy for incumbents Managing two business models simultaneously Diversification strategy in the age of AI Ideal for Chief Strategy Officers and strategy leadership teams at large established companies facing competitive disruption Boards and senior executive teams evaluating major decisions about business model change or market entry Executive education cohorts focused on corporate strategy, innovation leadership, and competitive positioning Transformation leads and heads of innovation at organisations initiating enterprise-wide strategic renewal Audience outcomes A framework for categorising the type of disruption the organisation faces and the range of available responses Understanding of why the most commonly reached-for responses to disruption tend to fail, based on documented research rather than case-study selection bias A practical structure for assessing when and how to pursue two business models simultaneously without fracturing the existing one Clearer distinction between business model innovation and product innovation as strategic challenges requiring different organisational approaches A more accurate mental model of when large established firms can realistically pioneer new markets – and when they should not try