Learning & Development

Why organisations work with Ruth Gotian Her research base is unusual in the leadership field: in-person interviews with named peak performers including Anthony Fauci, Nobel laureate Mike Brown, former NASA Chief Astronaut Peggy Whitson, and Steve Kerr, not aggregated case studies pulled from secondary sources. Thinkers50 named her the #1 emerging management thinker in the world in 2021, placed her on the Coaches50 list in 2024, and shortlisted her in 2025 for the Coaching and Mentoring Award, one of eight thought leaders globally. Few executive development voices hold all three. For 29 years inside Weill Cornell Medicine, most recently as Chief Learning Officer, she built and ran the mentoring infrastructure her frameworks describe. The work is operational, not theoretical. Her four-attribute model from The Success Factor (intrinsic motivation, perseverance, strong foundation, constant informal learning) gives leadership teams a shared, testable language for what they are actually selecting and promoting for. Her mentoring work is structural, including how to recognise toxic mentorship and where to find mentors outside the obvious channels, which is what large organisations actually struggle with when formal programmes stall. Biography highlights Faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University, teaching graduate-level courses on high achievement based on her research. Previously Chief Learning Officer and Associate Professor of Education in Anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, over a 29-year career. Author of The Success Factor (Kogan Page, 2022), co-author of The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring with Andy Lopata (Pearson/FT, 2024), and co-author of Mentoring in Healthcare with Vineet Chopra and Sanjay Saint (2025). Thinkers50 Radar Award, 2021 (#1 emerging management thinker); Coaches50, 2024; shortlisted for the Coaching and Mentoring Award, 2025 (top eight globally). Cited as a leadership expert by The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and NBC News; named a top mentor by Nature, The Wall Street Journal, and Columbia University. Contributing author at Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Psychology Today, and Fast Company; LinkedIn Top Voice in Mentoring, 2023. Semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. Biography The four attributes that distinguish Nobel laureates, astronauts, Olympic champions, and world-class CEOs are not the ones senior leaders typically optimise for. Intrinsic motivation, perseverance, a strong foundation, and constant informal learning, all running at once. That is the central finding behind The Success Factor, the book that put Ruth Gotian on the Thinkers50 Radar in 2021 as the world’s #1 emerging management thinker. The research is what gives the work its weight. The book is built on direct interviews with named figures, including Anthony Fauci, Nobel laureate Mike Brown, former NASA Chief Astronaut Peggy Whitson, Build-A-Bear founder Maxine Clark, and Steve Kerr. The conclusions are not extrapolated from secondary case studies, which is the standard pattern in the success and performance category. For 29 years inside Weill Cornell Medicine, most recently as Chief Learning Officer and Associate Professor of Education in Anesthesiology, she built and ran the institution’s mentoring infrastructure. That operational base is what separates her advice on building mentoring capability from the lighter material in the field. The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring, co-authored with Andy Lopata, is the practical companion volume; Mentoring in Healthcare, co-authored with Vineet Chopra and Sanjay Saint, extends the work into the sector that taught her the discipline. She now sits on the faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she earned her doctorate in adult learning and leadership, teaching graduate-level courses on high achievement built on the same research. She writes regularly for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Psychology Today, and Fast Company, and was named a LinkedIn Top Voice in Mentoring in 2023. Nature, The Wall Street Journal, and Columbia University have each named her among the top mentors in the world; The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and NBC News have called on her as a leadership expert. The 2025 Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award shortlist placed her among eight thought leaders globally on the discipline she has spent her career inside. Key speaking topics High performance and the science of extreme success Mentorship as a leadership discipline Executive coaching and senior talent development Authentic professional networks Leadership behaviours of Nobel laureates, astronauts, and Olympic champions Retention of high performers Organisational learning and chief learning officer practice Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers building leadership and mentoring capability Boards and executive committees thinking through succession and senior talent retention Partner-track and director-level cohorts inside professional services and healthcare Women’s leadership and executive development programmes inside large enterprises Audience outcomes A defined model for what high performance actually consists of, usable inside promotion and selection conversations A practical method for spotting and avoiding toxic mentorship inside formal programmes Concrete language for how senior leaders can develop people, not just deliver results A clearer view of how peak performers maintain momentum after early success Specific examples drawn from named Nobel laureates, astronauts, and CEOs that audiences can cite the next day

Why organisations work with Fiona Passantino Her AI Integration Roadmap gives organisations a structured, sequential process for embedding AI across teams, not a list of tools, but a governance-aware framework that accounts for readiness, culture and communication at each stage She addresses the segment most AI programming leaves behind: the competent, non-technical professional who is capable of meaningful AI adoption but has no entry point designed for them Her 15 years inside major European multinationals – including Philips, NN-Group and Danone – means she understands the internal resistance, governance gaps and anxiety that follow AI announcements from the inside AI-Powered Leader (2026) and AI-Powered Professional (2025), part of her award-winning Comic Books for Executives series, are practical, illustrated resources audiences leave with, extending a session’s impact beyond the room She connects AI adoption directly to the disciplines organisations already invest in: internal communications, employee engagement and culture; making the case for AI readiness in language leadership teams already use Biography highlights Creator of the AI Integration Roadmap, a structured framework for practical, organisation-wide AI adoption Author of AI-Powered Leader (2026) and AI-Powered Professional (2025), the latest titles in the Comic Books for Executives series; the series’ Handbook for Post-Covid Engagement won the 2023 UK Business Book Awards and a Goody Award for Thought Leadership MBA in Management with an AI concentration from the University of Amsterdam 15 years in corporate HR and internal communications at Danone, Philips, NN-Group, PostNL and Achmea TEDx speaker; has addressed audiences at events for the European Commission, Business Insider and Vodafone Host of the Working Humans podcast; founder of Executive Storylines Delivers sessions in English, Dutch and Italian Biography Most AI adoption programmes are built for the technically literate. Fiona Passantino built her practice around everyone else – the HR director, the communications lead, the team managers – the non-technical majority on whom successful AI integration actually depends. After fifteen years in corporate HR and internal communications at companies including Philips, NN-Group and Danone, Passantino understands what AI announcements look like from inside an organisation: the anxiety, the governance gaps, the employees who wait to be told what to do. Her MBA from the University of Amsterdam, with a concentration in AI, gave her the technical vocabulary. Her career gave her the people knowledge. The AI Integration Roadmap, her signature framework, brings both together in a structured, staged process that organisations can apply without a technical team leading it. Her books make the argument in concrete form. The Comic Books for Executives series won at the 2023 UK Business Book Awards; AI-Powered Professional (2025) is a practical, illustrated guide for the professional who has no technical background and limited tolerance for abstraction. AI-Powered Leader (2026) takes the same approach to the leadership team driving adoption across an organisation, built around her AI Integration Roadmap. As host of the Working Humans podcast and a speaker at events including the European Commission and TEDxLuxembourgCity, she consistently speaks to the audience most AI commentary bypasses. Her sessions cover AI adoption, communication, employee engagement and organisational culture, connecting AI readiness to the disciplines serious organisations already understand. She delivers in English, Dutch and Italian. Key speaking topics AI integration for non-technical professionals Human-AI collaboration and co-creation AI literacy and organisational readiness Employee engagement and culture in the age of AI AI and internal communications Workforce upskilling and future skills Professional communication and storytelling Ideal for HR directors and people teams leading AI adoption or workforce readiness initiatives Internal communications and employee engagement leads managing AI change programmes L&D professionals designing AI upskilling curricula for non-technical workforces Senior leadership teams navigating the cultural and communications challenges of organisation-wide AI integration Audience outcomes A clear mental model of how AI applies to non-technical roles and everyday workflows, reducing anxiety and increasing practical confidence Working familiarity with the AI Integration Roadmap and how to begin applying it within their own team or organisation Practical strategies for managing employee resistance and uneven adoption across a workforce Sharper understanding of how to communicate AI initiatives in ways that land with non-technical colleagues and teams Two concrete resources, AI-Powered Leader and AI-Powered Professional, that extend the value of the session beyond the event itself

Why organisations work with Katja Schipperheijn A published methodology, the Learning Ecosystem, that gives executives a working model for how learning, technology, and culture connect inside an operating business, not a slide of principles. Authority on both sides of the human-machine question: trained at MIT Sloan in algorithmic business thinking and digital learning strategy, and recognised by getAbstract for the learning impact of her work. Two Kogan Page books that translate the research into language a CHRO, a CLO, and a CEO can use in the same conversation. Practical operator experience through Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, advising multinationals, governments, and scale-ups on how to embed continuous learning into the fabric of the business. Biography highlights Author of Learning Ecosystems (Kogan Page, 2022), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2023 in the International Business Book category. Author of The Learning Mindset (Kogan Page, 2024), winner of the getAbstract Global Book Award for Learning Impact, 2025. Founder of Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, advising clients across Europe, the Gulf, and Asia. MIT Sloan programmes in Algorithmic Business Thinking and Digital Learning Strategy; International eMBA, Antwerp Management School. Founder of the sCooledu foundation; digital citizenship workshops delivered to over 15,000 children. Named to the Global 200 Women Power Leaders list, 2024. Biography AI rollouts are outpacing the workforce capability needed to use them well. Most organisations still treat learning as a programme delivered to people, rather than a property of how the business operates. Schipperheijn’s work sits in exactly that gap. Her first book, Learning Ecosystems, set out a working model for how learning, technology, and stakeholder behaviour connect inside an organisation. Published by Kogan Page in 2022, it was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards the following year. The follow-up, The Learning Mindset (2024), extends the argument into AI: what human competencies leaders need to cultivate when machines take on more cognitive work, and how to build them at scale. The book won the 2025 getAbstract Global Book Award for Learning Impact. The research is paired with operating experience. Through Habit of Improvement and The Learning Mindset Organization, she advises multinationals, governments, and scale-ups on continuous improvement, learning culture, and the integration of AI into day-to-day work. Her academic grounding sits between Antwerp Management School, where she completed an eMBA, and MIT Sloan, where she trained in algorithmic business thinking and digital learning strategy. She is also founder of the sCooledu foundation, which has delivered digital citizenship workshops to more than 15,000 children. That work feeds back into her commercial argument: the capacity to keep learning is the capability that determines whether an organisation, or a society, gets value out of AI. Key speaking topics Learning ecosystems and continuous improvement AI and the future of work Human-machine symbiosis Workforce upskilling and reskilling Liminal leadership through disruptive change Digital learning strategy Innovation culture inside large organisations Ideal for CHROs and Chief Learning Officers redesigning workforce capability around AI Executive committees and boards setting the AI and workforce agenda together Transformation and innovation leads embedding learning into operating change HR, L&D, and talent leadership audiences inside multinationals Audience outcomes A working definition of a learning ecosystem and how it differs from a training function A clearer view of which human competencies become more valuable as AI capability grows, and which become less so Practical lenses for assessing whether their current L&D operating model can support AI-era work Language that connects the CHRO, CLO, and CEO agendas on workforce readiness Examples drawn from her advisory work across Europe, the Gulf, and Asia

Why organisations work with Nick Hutchinson He has spent seven years studying, at scale, what separates readers who change their behaviour from readers who do not. The pattern recognition is specific and rare. He brings the operating reality of a top 2% global podcast, with named guests including Grant Cardone, Lewis Howes, and Alex Hormozi, into a keynote on what actually transfers from reading to results. His framework in “Rise of the Reader” gives audiences over a hundred concrete reading and implementation habits, not motivational generalities. He built BookThinkers from zero to a seven-figure agency reaching over a million people a month, organically. The credibility on action-from-information comes from having done it. Biography highlights Founder of BookThinkers, a book marketing agency serving mission-driven authors, built organically to a reported reach of over one million people per month. Author of “Rise of the Reader: Strategies For Mastering Your Reading Habits and Applying What You Learn”, published by The Reading Revolution in 2023. Host of BookThinkers: Life-Changing Books, ranked in the global top 2% of podcasts, featuring guests including Grant Cardone, Lewis Howes, and Alex Hormozi. Founder of the BookThinkers Live event series, gathering authors and readers in the personal development community. Featured in Authority Magazine and Kirkus Reviews, and across podcasts including The Chris Voss Show and Laurie Ruettimann’s show. Has personally read more than 400 personal development books, the experience that produced the implementation framework behind his work. Biography Most professionals finish more personal development books than they apply. The shelf gets longer, the podcast queue refills, the behaviour stays the same. BookThinkers was built around this specific gap. The company connects authors with readers who actually want to act on the ideas, and the business case for the agency is that information without implementation does not change anything. The platform now reaches a reported one million people a month, built without paid acquisition, over roughly seven years. The podcast, BookThinkers: Life-Changing Books, sits in the global top 2% and has hosted Grant Cardone, Lewis Howes, and Alex Hormozi. The vantage point is unusual: hundreds of long-form interviews with the authors whose books are most often bought and least often acted on. “Rise of the Reader”, published by The Reading Revolution in 2023, distils that vantage point into a framework. Over a hundred specific habits across reading selection, retention, and implementation. The argument is that reading is a professional discipline, not a leisure category, and that the practical machinery of applying ideas can be taught. For organisations, the relevance is in workforce capability rather than motivation. Teams that read intentionally and act on what they read compound differently. The work he brings to a keynote audience is the operating substance of that compounding, evidenced by the agency he built using the same method. Key speaking topics Reading as a professional discipline Translating personal development content into action Building an audience and a business organically Personal productivity and habit design Self-leadership and continuous learning Author and creator economy operating practice Ideal for L&D and talent development leaders building reading and learning cultures inside their organisations Sales and business development teams whose performance is tied to ongoing self-development Founder communities, entrepreneur networks, and scale-up leadership cohorts Conferences and offsites where the brief is to convert inspiration into specific next actions Audience outcomes A concrete method for selecting books and content that match a defined professional goal A retention and note-taking practice that survives contact with a normal working week A short list of immediate behaviours to test in the week after the session A reframing of reading from leisure habit to professional capability A clearer view of how disciplined consumption of ideas compounds into commercial and career outcomes

Why organisations work with Nikhil Desai A signature programme on stress management, “Achieving Excellence Thru Stress Management”, that has been delivered to executives across more than 2,000 organisations and refined over three decades. A trainer’s instinct for behaviour change at scale, built through 250,000-plus participants across 42 countries, not a single keynote act. Direct operating credibility from building eight businesses in eight years across Indian textile and automobile manufacturing after his US MBA. A practical blend of corporate yoga practice and MBA discipline that lands well with mixed audiences in Asia, the Gulf, and beyond. Biography highlights Director of The Centre For Excellence, the corporate training firm he founded in 1991 in the year of India’s economic liberalisation. MBA from a US university where he graduated first in his class, followed by a period working in New York. Built and ran manufacturing operations across the Indian textile and automobile sectors before moving full time into training. Programmes delivered to more than 250,000 participants across 300-plus cities in 42 countries. Recipient of the Global Iconic Motivational Speaker Award (Leadership & Excellence Awards 2021) and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World HRD Congress. Author of the forthcoming book “9 Habits Of Super Successful People”. Biography The Centre For Excellence opened its doors in 1991, the year India dismantled its old industrial controls and a generation of managers had to learn a new commercial language. Nikhil Desai had already lived both sides of that shift. He had taken an MBA in the United States, graduating first in his class, then worked in New York before returning to India to build manufacturing businesses across textiles and automobile components. That operating background matters because it shapes what he teaches. He grew one business into eight in eight years, which gave him a working view of how middle managers actually behave under cost pressure, missed deadlines, and family obligation pulling in opposite directions. His signature programmes, “In Pursuit Of Excellence” and “Achieving Excellence Thru Stress Management”, are designed around that lived friction rather than a textbook model of motivation. The reach is large by any standard for the corporate training market. More than 250,000 participants across 300 cities in 42 countries have been through his programmes over three decades. He works in English and Gujarati, runs sessions from Mumbai to Muscat, and is one of a small number of Indian trainers regularly booked into multinational programmes in the Gulf, South Africa, and South East Asia. What he is not is a strategy speaker. The work sits in personal effectiveness, stress resilience, communication, and team behaviour, which is its own discipline and one most senior leaders quietly know their organisations are weakest at. The Lifetime Achievement Award from the World HRD Congress reflects that. His forthcoming book, “9 Habits Of Super Successful People”, continues the same line. Key speaking topics Stress management and personal resilience Personal effectiveness and time management Motivation and excellence in the workplace Leadership and team performance Communication and presentation skills Customer care and sales behaviour Train the trainer programmes Ideal for HR and L&D leaders commissioning company-wide capability programmes Sales and customer-facing teams under sustained delivery pressure Middle managers stepping up into leadership roles for the first time Indian and Gulf-based organisations with mixed-language workforces Audience outcomes Practical techniques for managing stress without disengaging from the work Sharper personal time management habits that survive the week after the session A clearer view of what excellence looks like in their specific role Communication and presentation skills that hold up in front of internal and external audiences Greater confidence in handling difficult customers, colleagues, and team dynamics

Why organisations work with Andrew Ng His AI Transformation Playbook – a named, five-step framework derived directly from building AI teams at Google and Baidu – gives organisations a structured implementation path, not principles. It is the difference between a direction and a plan. He has operated on both sides of the AI adoption challenge: as the person responsible for making two of the world’s largest technology companies into AI-first organisations, and as the founder of platforms that have trained more than 8 million people in AI skills. The failure modes at both ends are not theoretical to him. His “AI is the new electricity” thesis reframes AI as general-purpose infrastructure rather than a feature or a product – a distinction that changes how boards allocate capital and how leadership teams structure accountability. Named to Time’s inaugural Time100 AI list (2023) – recognising active, current influence in the field – and to Amazon’s board of directors. The former signals peer standing; the latter signals boardroom credibility. Through AI Aspire, developed in partnership with Bain & Company, he advises enterprises moving from AI experimentation to scalable transformation – giving organisations access to a perspective tested across venture building, hyperscale operations, and mass education. Biography highlights Co-founded Google Brain – the research team credited with reshaping Google’s approach to artificial intelligence VP and Chief Scientist at Baidu, leading a 1,300-person AI team responsible for the company’s global AI strategy Co-founder and Chairman of Coursera (NYSE: COUR), now serving 150 million+ registered learners globally Founder of DeepLearning.AI – over 8 million people have completed AI courses through his programmes Named to Time100 Most Influential People (2012), Fast Company’s Most Creative People (2014), and Time100 AI (2023) Member of Amazon’s board of directors (appointed April 2024) Author of the AI Transformation Playbook and Machine Learning Yearning, both in wide circulation Holds a BSc from Carnegie Mellon, MSc from MIT, and PhD from UC Berkeley; co-authored over 200 research papers Biography Most AI pilot projects never become AI companies. Andrew Ng has spent years examining why – first as the founding lead of Google Brain and then as VP and Chief Scientist at Baidu, where he built a 1,300-person AI team. The gap between isolated AI experimentation and enterprise-wide capability is the problem he has studied from the inside. His AI Transformation Playbook – drawn directly from that experience – sets out a five-step framework for taking AI adoption from initial momentum to company-wide infrastructure. It circulates widely because it treats AI transformation as an operational challenge, not a technology question. His thesis that AI is infrastructure the way electricity was infrastructure gives boards a strategic frame that holds across industries and business models. Ng co-founded Coursera, which now serves over 150 million registered learners, and founded DeepLearning.AI, through which more than 8 million people have trained in AI skills. Building AI literacy at that scale – and measuring what works – gives him a concrete, tested perspective on what workforce transformation in practice actually requires. Few speakers can point to comparable operational evidence. He holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and UC Berkeley, has co-authored over 200 research papers, and sits on Amazon’s board of directors. Named to Time’s inaugural Time100 AI list in 2023 – recognising current influence rather than historical contribution – he continues to co-found AI companies through AI Fund and advise enterprises on AI strategy through AI Aspire, a firm he built in partnership with Bain & Company. Key speaking topics Enterprise AI adoption and transformation AI strategy for boards and C-suite leaders Agentic AI and the next phase of AI systems AI workforce development and capability building Responsible AI development and regulation Machine learning fundamentals and applied AI The economics of AI as general-purpose infrastructure Ideal for C-suite executives and boards setting AI strategy and capital allocation Chief Technology Officers and Chief Digital Officers leading enterprise AI programmes CHROs and people leaders responsible for AI upskilling and workforce transformation Transformation leads and innovation teams moving from AI pilots to scaled deployment Audience outcomes A structured framework for diagnosing where enterprise AI adoption is stalling and what to do next Clarity on how to build internal AI capability – teams, workflows, and governance – rather than relying on isolated project-by-project approaches A board-level frame for AI as infrastructure, with implications for investment, talent, and competitive positioning Practical understanding of what large-scale AI workforce development requires, drawn from programmes that have trained millions A more grounded view of responsible AI development – distinguishing credible risk from speculative concern – from a practitioner who has argued these positions in public and in policy

Why organisations work with Juan Campoo A proprietary, named model. The Mind Canvas gives audiences a concrete mental framework rather than a list of wellbeing tips, which is what makes the content stick after the keynote. Recognised practitioner credibility. Best Wellness Coach 2023 at the CoachAwards is an external mark from a coaching-industry body, not self-applied bureau language. Useful for both populations. The same underlying model has been adapted for general employee audiences (“Accelerate Your Inner Development”) and for people leaders (“Accelerate The Leader Within”), so HR can run a coherent programme across cohorts. A practitioner voice, not an academic one. Campoo built the work after his own burnout in a corporate role, which gives the room a different register from a researcher presenting findings. Trilingual delivery. Working in English, Spanish and Dutch makes him unusually portable for European employee programmes that span sites. Biography highlights Author of The Mind Canvas: A Revolutionary Approach to Personal Mastery (2022), an Amazon best-seller, with a contribution from values-based leadership author Richard Barrett. TEDx speaker on personal development and wellbeing. Best Wellness Coach 2023, CoachAwards. Developer of the Mind Canvas method, applied in keynotes, workshops and one-to-one coaching. Works in English, Spanish and Dutch across European corporate audiences. Based in The Netherlands; born and raised in Argentina. Biography Workplace wellbeing programmes have a credibility problem. They consume budget, generate engagement-survey questions, and rarely change how a stressed manager actually responds at 4pm on a Thursday. The gap is not effort, it is that most interventions never reach the level of how people regulate their own thinking under pressure. This is the territory Juan Campoo works in. His Mind Canvas method, set out in his 2022 Amazon best-seller The Mind Canvas: A Revolutionary Approach to Personal Mastery, gives audiences a single visual model for understanding how thoughts, emotions and behaviours interact, and what to do with that understanding in real working conditions. Richard Barrett, the values-based leadership author, contributed to the book. Campoo’s authority on this comes from practice rather than theory. He hit burnout and depression early in his own corporate career, then spent more than a decade studying mindset and behaviour change and building a coaching and training practice across Europe. The CoachAwards named him Best Wellness Coach in 2023. His two anchor talks, “Accelerate Your Inner Development” and “Accelerate The Leader Within”, apply the same model to two audiences: staff who need better emotional regulation, and leaders whose behaviour shapes whether psychological safety actually exists in their teams. He delivers in English, Spanish and Dutch. Key speaking topics Emotional intelligence at work Mindset and behaviour change Wellbeing and burnout prevention Psychological safety Personal mastery and self-regulation Leadership behaviour and influence Stress and resilience Ideal for HR, People and L&D leads designing wellbeing or emotional intelligence programmes for staff People managers and team leaders working on psychological safety and team behaviour Leadership development cohorts inside European multinationals, particularly multilingual sites Employee conferences and culture days where the brief is practical self-development, not corporate strategy Audience outcomes A working mental model (Mind Canvas) for how thoughts, emotions and behaviour connect Specific daily practices for self-regulation under pressure A clearer view of what psychological safety looks like in everyday team behaviour, not policy Language for talking about stress and burnout that managers can actually use with their teams Renewed individual ownership of wellbeing rather than waiting for the organisation to fix it

Why organisations work with Andy Storch He has facilitated talent and leadership programmes for Salesforce, Oracle, Google, Toyota, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, Cisco, Sony, and Tiffany & Co., which means he has tested his career-ownership material against the most demanding corporate L&D functions in the market. He runs the room where his buyers meet each other. The Talent Development Think Tank conference, community, and podcast give him a working view of what CHROs and L&D leaders are actually trying to fix, before they brief a speaker. His thesis is concrete and actionable: career ownership is a learnable practice, not a slogan. Own Your Career Own Your Life breaks it into specific steps employees and managers can apply on Monday. His 2025 follow-up with Mike Kim, Own Your Brand, Own Your Career, gives organisations a practical handle on personal brand as a retention and internal mobility lever, not a LinkedIn exercise. He works equally credibly as a keynote, workshop facilitator, and community host. For talent functions running multi-day events, that flexibility is rare. Biography highlights Author of Own Your Career Own Your Life (2020) and co-author with Mike Kim of Own Your Brand, Own Your Career (2025). Founder and host of the Talent Development Think Tank podcast, conference, and community, sponsored by Advantage Performance Group. Has consulted, taught, or facilitated for Salesforce, Oracle, Google, Toyota, State Farm, Red Bull, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, HP, Sony, Cisco, and Tiffany & Co. MBA, USC Marshall School of Business (President of the MBA programme); BS, University of Florida. Host of three podcasts: The Talent Development Hot Seat, Own Your Career, and My NFT Journey. Workshop facilitator for global enterprises since 2011. Biography Career development inside large organisations has become a quiet contract failure. Employees assume their employer will plot the path; employers assume employees will take initiative; the middle is where engagement and retention disappear. Storch built a practice around closing that gap from both sides. His book Own Your Career Own Your Life sets out a step-by-step approach to career ownership for individual contributors and managers. The 2025 follow-up with Mike Kim, Own Your Brand, Own Your Career, extends the argument into personal brand as an internal-mobility and retention lever rather than an external marketing exercise. Both books are direct and operational, not motivational. The proof point most relevant to corporate buyers is who he works with. Salesforce, Oracle, Google, Toyota, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, Cisco, Sony, and Tiffany & Co. have used him to facilitate leadership and talent programmes. He has been running these workshops since 2011, which is what allows the keynote material to land in language a senior L&D function recognises. The Talent Development Think Tank, his podcast, conference, and community, gives him an unusual position in the market. He is not commenting on the talent development field from outside it; he is the convener inside it. For a CHRO or head of L&D, that means the speaker on stage has heard, in private, the same problems they are trying to solve. Key speaking topics Career ownership and employee development Talent development strategy Personal brand and internal mobility Leadership for managers of professionals Employee engagement and retention Future of work and talent trends Ideal for CHROs, heads of L&D, and talent development leaders running enterprise development programmes Annual talent and leadership offsites for managers of professionals Employee resource groups and internal high-potential cohorts Sales and account leadership conferences focused on retention and growth of top performers Audience outcomes A working definition of career ownership that managers and employees can apply to weekly conversations Specific tools to make personal brand work as an internal mobility and retention asset A clearer line between what the employer owes the employee and what the employee owes their own career Language to frame development conversations that does not collapse into performance review template A view of where talent development practice is heading, drawn from a sitting community of CHROs and L&D leaders

Why organisations work with Christian Byrge He treats creativity as a skill that can be coached into a team, not a culture project. Leaders leave with specific habits they can run on Monday morning, not a manifesto. He has a working position on AI in the creative process, grounded in current research, that goes beyond the prompt-engineering surface most innovation talks stop at. His research base is unusually deep for a speaker in this category: 70+ academic publications and a full professorship, paired with operational training inside LEGO, Maersk, Novo Nordisk, Grundfos, and the Danish Armed Forces. He is comfortable in front of an executive audience and inside a workshop room. Same content holds at both altitudes, which makes him useful when the brief is a keynote that has to seed follow-on internal work. Biography highlights Full Professor of Business Creativity, Vilnius University Business School. PhD in Creativity and Business, Aalborg University. Author of Everyday Innovator (BIS Publishers), How to Teach Creativity, and Enhancing Creativity for Individuals, Groups and Organizations. 70+ academic publications across creativity, team creativity culture, creative self-efficacy, and AI creativity. Worked with LEGO, Maersk, Novo Nordisk, Velux, Grundfos, Danfoss, Siemens, Kompan, TotalEnergies, and the Danish Armed Forces. Trained creative practice with practitioners across engineering, law, healthcare, software, education, and film production. Biography Innovation programmes inside large organisations tend to fail in the same way. They start with energy, produce a portfolio of pilots, and stall when the original sponsor moves on. The diagnosis is usually written as a cultural problem. Christian Byrge’s research argues something more precise: the failure point is that idea generation was never built as a team skill in the first place. That argument is the core of his three books and seventy-plus academic publications. Everyday Innovator, published by BIS Publishers, names four habits that turn creative output into a repeatable behaviour rather than a mood. How to Teach Creativity and Enhance Creativity for Individuals, Groups, and Organizations extends the same logic into education and organisational design. The thread across all three is treating creativity as a trainable capability with named components, not an ambient quality of the workplace. He holds a full professorship in Business Creativity at Vilnius University Business School and a PhD from Aalborg University. The academic base matters because his recent work on AI in the creative process is one of the few executive-level treatments grounded in current research rather than vendor framing. He has trained creative practice inside LEGO, Maersk, Novo Nordisk, Velux, Grundfos, Siemens, and the Danish Armed Forces, which gives the research weight in front of an operating audience. The room he is most useful in is the one where leadership has decided innovation matters, but cannot describe what their teams should actually do differently on Tuesday. He gives them the answer in specific behaviours, not in a vision deck. Key speaking topics Team creativity as a trainable discipline Innovation capability inside operating teams AI-supported creative process Creative confidence and self-efficacy Idea generation and development practice Creative culture in regulated and engineering environments Ideal for CHROs and L&D leaders building innovation capability across the workforce Heads of innovation, R&D directors, and transformation leads Executive teams in engineering, life sciences, and industrial sectors, where creativity is treated as soft Educators and learning system leaders are responsible for creative competence development Audience outcomes A working definition of team creativity is a set of named behaviours, not a personality trait The four habits from Everyday Innovator are mapped to the audience’s own operating context A grounded view of where AI helps and where it flattens the creative process Specific practices senior leaders can install in standing meetings to lift idea quality A clear separation between creative culture rhetoric and creative output discipline

Why organisations work with Sasha De Sola Two decades of live, unedited high-stakes performance at one of the world’s top ballet companies, with the recovery patterns and pre-performance discipline that go with it. A perspective on creative work as a managed practice, not an inspiration: rehearsal, mentorship and craft repetition as the actual mechanism behind so-called artistry. Credibility on resilience earned through specific recoveries, including injury and the prolonged shutdown of live performance during the pandemic, not abstract theory. An inaugural fellow of San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders programme, currently being developed as a future arts leader through executive coaching and an international placement at the Royal Swedish Ballet. A bilingual Venezuelan American voice on belonging, mentorship and the long arc from selective mutism in childhood to lead casting on a global stage. Biography highlights Principal Dancer, San Francisco Ballet (2017 to present); named Diane B. Wilsey Principal Dancer in 2020. Trained at the Kirov Academy of Ballet, Washington D.C., on full merit scholarship, and at the Paris Opera Ballet School. BA in Performing Arts, Summa Cum Laude, Saint Mary’s College of California; completed Harvard Business School’s Crossover Into Business programme. Inaugural fellow, San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders artist-development programme (2024 to 2026), with a placement at the Royal Swedish Ballet under Nicolas Le Riche. Medallist at Varna, World and USA International Ballet Competitions. Co-founder of The Ascendant, a charitable initiative supporting Dancin Power and San Francisco Ballet; board member, Dancin Power; advisory board, Pointe Magazine. Biography A dancer who has carried lead roles in Swan Lake, Giselle and The Sleeping Beauty does not get there on talent. She gets there on the discipline of repeating small corrections until the body holds them under stage lights, with an audience watching, on a night when the knee is not quite right. That is the territory Sasha De Sola speaks from. She was named an apprentice at San Francisco Ballet in 2006, joined the corps in 2007, was promoted to soloist in 2012 and to Principal Dancer in 2017. In 2020 she was appointed the Diane B. Wilsey Principal Dancer, one of the company’s named principal positions. Her training is classical: the Kirov Academy in Washington D.C. on full merit scholarship, with a 2004 scholarship to the Paris Opera Ballet School and medals at Varna, World and USA International Ballet Competitions. The intellectual frame she brings to leadership audiences was built deliberately. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Saint Mary’s College of California with a BA in Performing Arts and completed Harvard Business School’s Crossover Into Business programme in 2022. In 2024 she was named one of two inaugural fellows of San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders programme, a two-year curriculum that pairs executive coaching with an international placement shadowing Nicolas Le Riche at the Royal Swedish Ballet. What she gives a room is the practical content of staying composed when the conditions move. Recovery from injury. Performing through the prolonged closure of live theatre. The long mentorship work that, away from the stage, sits behind every confident debut. A Venezuelan American who was diagnosed with selective mutism as a child, she also speaks credibly on belonging and on the slow craft of building a voice in a setting that initially feels foreign. Key speaking topics Composure and recovery under sustained performance pressure Creative discipline as a managed practice Mentorship and craft development across long careers Resilience after injury and prolonged disruption Cross-cultural identity and belonging in high-performance settings Leadership lessons from elite artistic environments Ideal for Leadership offsites and senior-team retreats focused on performance under pressure CHRO and people-leader conferences on talent development, mentorship and craft Women’s leadership programmes and ERG events on resilience and belonging Cultural, arts and philanthropic audiences seeking a credible artist-leader voice Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what composure looks like in practice, not as a trait Specific examples of how recovery from setback is structured, not improvised A more honest read on what mentorship costs and what it produces in elite environments A counterweight to the language of “talent” with the language of repeated craft

Why organisations work with Harry Ife He speaks from the operational floor of UK construction, a sector where DEI and employability conversations are usually held about site managers rather than by one. Twice awarded the NHBC Pride in the Job quality benchmark, in 2021 and 2022, giving him credibility with operational leadership that a pure training specialist rarely has. Runs The I.F.E Foundation, a registered UK entity sponsoring schooling at Uwani Secondary School in Enugu, Nigeria and direct-support schemes in London, so his DEI argument is backed by his own delivery record. Works regularly with the University of Westminster, University of East London, City University London and University of Greenwich, which gives him a direct read on how students from underrepresented backgrounds experience the transition into professional life. Useful for internal audiences who tune out generic DEI training: his material is built around self-advocacy, mentorship and career mechanics rather than awareness. Biography highlights Senior construction professional working in build management and the delivery of mixed-use developments. NHBC Pride in the Job Award winner, 2021 and 2022. Founder of The I.F.E (Independence For Everyone) Foundation, UK company number 15038338. Guest speaker and lecturer at the University of Westminster, University of East London, City University London and University of Greenwich. Corporate speaking clients include Mimecast, where he has presented for the global DEI function. Holds a BA in Business Management, an MSc in International Management, and an NVQ Level 7 in Senior Construction Management. Biography Construction is one of the clearest tests of whether an organisation’s DEI commitments survive contact with an operational environment. The policies are written centrally. The behaviour that decides whether a twenty-five-year-old from an underrepresented background stays or leaves is set on site, in offices, and in the first few conversations with a line manager. That is the ground Harry Ife works on. A senior construction professional specialising in build management and mixed-use developments, he has been recognised with the NHBC Pride in the Job Award in both 2021 and 2022, the industry’s main quality benchmark for site managers. He speaks to corporate and educational audiences from that vantage point rather than from a consulting or academic one. His public work is built around self-advocacy, mentorship and employability for early-career professionals, with particular focus on the experience of ethnic minority entrants into industries where they remain underrepresented. He has taken this into corporate DEI functions, including Mimecast, and into university audiences at Westminster, East London, City University London and Greenwich. Alongside his construction career he founded The I.F.E (Independence For Everyone) Foundation, which sponsors education at Uwani Secondary School in Enugu, Nigeria, and runs the Christmas in a Card initiative for low-income households in London. For a buyer, the useful point is that his speaking content and his delivery record are the same argument. Key speaking topics Self-advocacy in the workplace Early-career progression in underrepresented industries Mentorship and career mechanics Diversity, equity and inclusion in construction and engineering Employability and future skills Rehabilitation and second-chance employment pathways Ideal for CHROs, DEI leads and early-careers teams in construction, engineering, property and other trade-heavy sectors University careers services and student-experience teams running employability programmes Corporate ERG and employee-network events where the audience has heard the standard DEI talk before Foundations, CSR teams and charity partners working on youth employability Audience outcomes A sharper picture of where DEI intent actually breaks down for early-career talent on site and in the office. Concrete language for self-advocacy that junior professionals can use in real situations rather than in a training setting. A working view of what effective mentorship looks like from both sides of the relationship. An operational rather than theoretical frame on DEI in construction, engineering and similar industries.

Why organisations work with Frederika Roberts An applied positive psychology MSc and doctoral research base, rather than the wellness-industry credentialling that dominates this space. Author or co-author of five published works on character education and whole-school wellbeing, including titles with Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Sage. European Representative for IPPAed, giving access to current global research on positive education before it filters into mainstream practice. Working content for both education sectors and workplaces, covering character strengths, psychological safety, and Appreciative Inquiry as a change method. Operates in English, Italian, French, and German, which matters for European multi-site organisations and international school groups. Biography highlights MSc in Applied Positive Psychology; doctoral researcher in Education focused on whole-school wellbeing. European Representative for IPPAed, the International Positive Psychology Association’s Positive Education division. Founder of Educate to Flourish CIC, a social enterprise embedding wellbeing into school communities. Co-author, “Character Toolkit for Teachers” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018) and “Character Toolkit Strength Cards” (2020). Co-editor, “The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing” (2021); author, “For Flourishing’s Sake” (2020) and “Recipe for Happiness” (2013). Member of the Professional Speaking Association and the Global Speakers Federation; iPPL Expert Member. Biography Wellbeing has become one of the most over-claimed and under-delivered categories in organisational life. Initiatives proliferate; engagement and mental health indicators rarely move with them. The gap is methodological. Most wellbeing work is built on motivational content rather than on the published research that the field of positive psychology has produced over the last two decades. Roberts works inside that research base. She holds an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and is completing doctoral research on whole-school wellbeing using Appreciative Inquiry, a change methodology that focuses organisational attention on what is already working and how to build from it. As European Representative for IPPAed, the International Positive Psychology Association’s Positive Education division, she connects practitioners with current academic findings before they reach the trade press. Her published output gives organisations a clear sense of how she translates evidence into practice. “Character Toolkit for Teachers” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018) and the “Character Toolkit Strength Cards” (2020) provide working tools rather than abstract frameworks. “The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing” (2021), which she co-edited, sits across the major contributors in the field. “For Flourishing’s Sake” sets out how policy and practice can be redesigned to put flourishing at the centre. She founded Educate to Flourish CIC to take this work into schools as a social enterprise, and extends the same practice into workplaces, drawing on character strengths, psychological safety, and strengths-based approaches. The work is unusual in the wellbeing market for being explicitly research-grounded and equally credible in front of educators, HR leaders, and policy audiences. Key speaking topics Positive psychology in organisational and educational settings Whole-school and whole-organisation wellbeing Character education and character strengths Appreciative Inquiry as a change method Psychological safety and strengths-based culture Mental health and flourishing at work Ideal for HR and people leaders responsible for wellbeing strategy beyond surface-level programmes School leaders, MAT executives, and university leadership teams Conference audiences in education, public sector, and not-for-profit Boards or executives in family-owned and values-led organisations rethinking culture Audience outcomes A working understanding of what positive psychology research has actually shown about wellbeing and performance. Specific tools from character strengths, Appreciative Inquiry, and strengths-based practice that can be applied immediately. A sharper distinction between wellbeing programmes that produce change and those that do not. Language and a model for connecting individual flourishing to organisational outcomes.