Marketing & Branding

Why organisations work with Rafe Offer He has run brand portfolios at the scale most marketers only study, including a $1.2 billion Coca-Cola business and a Disney adult merchandise category that grew from $50m to $800m under his marketing leadership. He turned a single concert in a North London flat into Sofar Sounds, a venture-backed live music network operating in over 300 cities, with $40 million raised and partnerships with Airbnb and Uber. He works on the seam between brand and community, which is where most companies now have to compete and where most marketing leaders lack practical playbooks. His career spans the corporate brand machine and the founder seat, so the same talk holds up in front of a CMO at a listed business and a scale-up CEO with a board to convince. Biography highlights Founder and Founder-Chair of Sofar Sounds, the global live music community founded in London in 2009. Former Director of Global Marketing, Disney Consumer Products, leading worldwide marketing for a $12bn licensing business. Former Global Marketing Director, The Coca-Cola Company, with responsibility for $1.2bn in stores, attractions, events and licensed merchandise. Former Director of Innovation, Diageo. Founder of “this & that,” a community and tech start-up focused on the practice of dialogue. Sofar Sounds named “one of the top new brands in America” by New York Magazine and described as a “quiet revolution” by The Guardian. Biography A live concert in a North London flat in 2009, eight friends invited to listen to a single performer, became the seed of Sofar Sounds. From that evening, Rafe Offer built a global live music network now operating in more than 300 cities, with about $40 million raised across three funding rounds and partnerships with Airbnb and Uber. New York Magazine called it one of the top new brands in America. The unusual part of his career is the route in. Before Sofar, Offer ran the Mickey Unlimited adult merchandise programme at Disney, where the “having fun never goes out of style” campaign helped grow that category from $50m to $800m. He went on to lead worldwide marketing for Disney Consumer Products’ $12bn licensing business, then ran a $1.2bn Coca-Cola portfolio of stores, events and licensed merchandise as Global Marketing Director, before taking a Director of Innovation role at Diageo. That sequence, big-brand operator turned founder, is what gives his perspective its weight. He has built community-led growth from scratch and run brand P&Ls at industrial scale. He talks credibly to a CMO worried about declining ad efficiency and to a founder trying to convert a passionate audience into a fundable business. His more recent venture, this & that, is a community and tech start-up built around the practice of dialogue. It extends the through-line of his work: how organisations earn the right to people’s attention, and how that attention becomes commercial substance. Key speaking topics Brand building in the era of community Customer experience as a growth engine Scaling a start-up from idea to global brand Marketing and innovation inside large organisations Company culture in entrepreneurial businesses Fundraising and commercialising a community brand Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders rebuilding marketing for a low-trust, low-attention environment Founders and scale-up CEOs converting community traction into investable growth Customer experience and innovation leads inside large consumer businesses Boards reviewing brand and growth strategy in consumer-facing categories Audience outcomes A clearer view of why community has become the central question for consumer brands, with examples from Sofar, Disney and Coca-Cola Specific lessons on running a global brand portfolio at scale, drawn from leading $1.2bn at Coca-Cola and $12bn licensing at Disney A founder’s account of what investors actually fund in a community-led business Practical detail on how culture and customer experience interact in fast-growing companies

Why organisations work with Claire Harper She has run senior marketing inside three of the UK’s most scrutinised retail brands, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, and Argos, during periods of leadership change and digital pivot. She has also done the founder’s job: built IndiaCoco from a dining-table operation to an award-winning multi-channel children’s brand, with the cash-flow scars to prove it. She translates board-level brand strategy into the operating decisions marketing teams actually face the next morning, on pricing, range, channel mix, and acquisition. Her current commercial leadership at London Pulse Netball gives her live material on building a consumer brand in women’s sport, a sector under significant commercial expansion. One credential that travels: first female board director at Mamas & Papas, brought in to scale the brand domestically and internationally. Biography highlights First Head of Customer Acquisition and PR at Ocado, later Head of Marketing during the company’s grocery delivery breakthrough. Head of Online Marketing at Sainsbury’s during Justin King’s turnaround programme. First female board director at Mamas & Papas, with international brand remit. Founder of IndiaCoco childrenswear; winner of Theo Paphitis Small Business Sunday and Jacqueline Gold WOW awards. Non-Executive Director at Blue Diamond Garden Centres; former Marketing Director at Frosts Garden Centres. Currently leading commercial and marketing for London Pulse Netball in the Netball Super League. Biography Ocado was a niche online grocer when Claire Harper joined at 26 as its first Head of Customer Acquisition and PR. By the time she had been promoted to Head of Marketing, the company was redrawing what UK households expected from a weekly shop. That early bet on customer behaviour, before the category had a name, set the pattern for the rest of her career. She moved into Sainsbury’s as Head of Online Marketing during Justin King’s “Make Sainsbury’s Great Again” turnaround, and into Argos during a hostile-takeover period that forced the brand to confront multi-channel reality. Both roles asked the same question: how do you keep a customer proposition coherent while the leadership and operating model are being rebuilt around it. At Mamas & Papas she became the first female board director, charged with scaling the brand internationally. She then founded IndiaCoco, a British childrenswear brand that grew from her dining room into a multi-channel business and picked up backing from Theo Paphitis and Jacqueline Gold. The founder years gave her the commercial discipline that corporate marketing budgets rarely teach. She now sits on the board at Blue Diamond Garden Centres and leads commercial and marketing for London Pulse Netball, one of the fastest-growing franchises in the Netball Super League. Audiences get a speaker who has run the brand from inside the boardroom and from inside a single-founder profit and loss, in retail categories where the customer is the only honest scoreboard. Key speaking topics Customer-led brand strategy in multi-channel retail Marketing leadership through restructure and ownership change Building consumer brands from founder stage to scale Commercial growth in women’s sport Non-executive contribution to consumer businesses Women’s leadership in retail and consumer industries Ideal for CMOs, brand directors, and customer experience leaders in consumer retail Boards and NEDs at consumer-facing businesses navigating ownership or strategic change Founders and scale-up leadership teams in DTC and consumer categories Sponsors, commercial partners, and leadership in women’s sport Audience outcomes A working view of how customer insight should sit at the centre of commercial decisions, not at the end of them Practical reference points from inside Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Argos, and Mamas & Papas during periods of strategic change A clearer sense of where founder discipline and corporate scale-marketing diverge, and what each can borrow from the other A current read on the commercial mechanics of women’s sport as a consumer category

Why organisations work with Karen Blackett She ran WPP in the UK during the COVID turnaround, responsible for around US$2 billion of revenue and 13,000 people, which gives her authority on what cultural change at FTSE scale actually requires. During her five years as CEO of MediaCom UK, ethnic diversity moved from 11% to 19% and women in senior management reached 44%, the kind of attributable shift most leadership talks cannot reference. As the UK government’s Race Equality Business Champion under the Race at Work Charter, she has worked across sectors on the specific mechanics of progression, not the rhetoric of inclusion. Her current Diageo board seat and her co-founder role at the Black Equity Organisation give her a live view of how the same questions land in a FTSE 10 boardroom and in national civil society. Biography highlights Former UK President, WPP, with responsibility for around US$2 billion of revenue and 13,000 people. Former CEO of MediaCom UK and CEO of GroupM UK; MediaCom named Campaign Agency of the Year in 2013 and 2014 under her leadership. Non-Executive Director, Diageo plc, since June 2022; member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committees. Non-Executive Director, Cabinet Office Board; previously UK Race Equality Business Champion under the Race at Work Charter. Co-founder, Black Equity Organisation (2021), alongside David Lammy, David Olusoga, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Ric Lewis and Dame Vivian Hunt. Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, the first alumna to hold the position. Awarded CBE (2025) for services to Advertising and the Creative Industries; OBE (2014); first businesswoman to top the Powerlist. Biography Running a marketing services group of 13,000 people through a pandemic exposes whether a leader’s cultural language is operational or decorative. WPP UK was Karen Blackett’s brief for four years, with around US$2 billion of revenue under her remit and a workforce that needed to be both held together and pushed forward. She came to the role after running MediaCom UK as CEO, where the agency was named Campaign Agency of the Year in 2013 and 2014. The MediaCom record is the one she is most often asked about. Across her five years as CEO, ethnic diversity in the business moved from 11% to 19% and women in senior management reached 44%. Those numbers are unusual because they exist at all. Most senior leaders speaking on culture cannot point to a specific business they changed by a specific amount. That track record is why government and boards now use her. She was appointed UK Race Equality Business Champion in 2018 by Prime Minister Theresa May, working through the Race at Work Charter with Business in the Community. She sits on the Cabinet Office Board as a Non-Executive Director, and on the Diageo board as a Non-Executive Director, where she is a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committees. In 2021 she co-founded the Black Equity Organisation with David Lammy, David Olusoga, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Ric Lewis and Dame Vivian Hunt, an independent national civil rights body for Black Britons. She was awarded an OBE in 2014 and a CBE in the 2025 King’s New Year Honours. She was the first businesswoman to top the Powerlist of Britain’s 100 most influential Black people, in 2015. Key speaking topics Leadership at scale through periods of disruption Culture as an operating system, not a statement Inclusion as a measurable business outcome Board-level race equity and the Race at Work agenda Future of work in marketing and creative industries Brand, growth and consumer change Ideal for CEO and board audiences considering how to make culture or inclusion commitments measurable CHROs, CPOs and group HR directors responsible for senior progression data Marketing and communications leadership teams in FTSE-scale businesses Networks and councils focused on Black leadership progression in UK corporates Audience outcomes A board-level frame for treating culture as part of operating performance rather than a separate workstream. A specific worked example of how senior leadership composition changes when progression mechanics are redesigned. A clearer view of where Race at Work Charter commitments most often fail and what holds them in place. Sharper language for talking about inclusion in a contested external environment without retreating to compliance speak.

Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and business building Consumer brand development Scaling founder-led businesses Beauty and cosmetics industry insights E-commerce and retail growth Personal branding and audience building From practitioner to business leader Ideal for Corporate audiences in retail, beauty, and consumer brands Entrepreneurs and founders Marketing and brand leadership teams Women in business and leadership audiences Audience outcomes Clear insight into launching and scaling a consumer brand Practical perspectives on transitioning from founder to CEO Understanding of brand growth across digital and retail channels Real-world lessons from building a business in a competitive market Why organisations work with Aimee Connolly Organisations work with Aimee Connolly for her direct experience building and scaling a modern consumer brand, her ability to translate entrepreneurial lessons into commercial insight, and her relevance to audiences navigating growth, brand development, and leadership in fast-moving markets. Biography Aimee Connolly brings first-hand experience of building and scaling a consumer brand in a competitive, fast-moving market. As founder and CEO of Sculpted by Aimee, she has grown the business from a founder-led startup into a multi-market cosmetics brand with operations across Ireland and the UK, employing a large and expanding team. Her work spans product development, brand positioning, retail and e-commerce growth, and the commercial realities of leading a modern consumer business. Alongside the core brand, she established Sculpted: The Academy, extending her expertise into education and professional development within the beauty sector. Connolly is also active across media, working as a beauty columnist, commentator, and television presenter or guest. This visibility has strengthened her understanding of audience engagement, personal branding, and the intersection between content, community, and commercial growth. Her entrepreneurial impact has been recognised through national and industry awards for business performance and leadership. For corporate audiences, Connolly offers grounded insight into entrepreneurship, brand-building, and the transition from specialist practitioner to business leader, informed by real-world experience rather than theory.

Why organisations work with Matt Davies He has built positioning work for both regulated giants and founder-led companies, including Nestle, Boots, Specsavers, Virgin, Nikon and Capital One, so the methods have been tested across categories rather than refined inside one. His Brand Strategy Triangle gives executive teams a single shared structure for four arguments they usually have separately: why we exist, who we serve, how we show up, and what we offer. He pushes back hard against generic purpose statements. His “Purpose Fatigue” argument is built for boards tired of green and social washing being mistaken for strategy. He sits inside the practitioner conversation, not above it. Co-hosting the JUST Branding podcast with over 500,000 downloads means the frameworks he brings into a room have been pressure-tested against the working strategists who use them. Operator credibility: he founded, scaled and sold a branding agency, then ran an in-house creative function at Capital One UK. He has been on the buyer’s side of brand work, not only the consultant’s. Biography highlights Author of Storyategy, a six-step process for building a brand strategy on story foundations. Co-host of the JUST Branding Podcast with Jacob Cass; 500,000-plus downloads, guests including Marty Neumeier, David Aaker, Denise Lee Yohn and Chris Do. Named Top 50 UK Advisor by Enterprise Nation in 2019, 2020 and 2021, in the branding and design category. Certified Level C Brand Specialist, Strategist and Architect; Silver Star recipient in the 2020 LEVEL C Metaskills Challenge. Founder of Matt Davies Consultancy Ltd; advisory and fractional roles at Newfound, Motto and ikon. Earlier career: founder of Attitude Design (2008 to 2017, acquired); Creative Department Manager at Capital One UK, where he established the in-house Creative Studio. Biography Most companies do not have a positioning problem. They have a clarity problem. The leadership team cannot agree, in plain language, on the answer to why we exist, who we serve, how we show up and what we sell. Marketing fills the gap with purpose statements that could belong to any competitor in the category. That is the gap Matt Davies works in. His Brand Strategy Triangle reduces a year of internal debate to four questions a board can actually answer in a room together. His book Storyategy sets out the six-step process behind it, built on the argument that a brand is a story an organisation has to live, not a statement it has to write. The credibility comes from having sat in every seat. He founded the branding agency Attitude Design in 2008, ran it for nine years and sold it. He then built and led the in-house Creative Studio inside Capital One UK, learning what brand work looks like inside a regulated business with operational constraints. Today he advises CEOs, CMOs and founders through his consultancy and fractional strategy roles at Newfound, Motto and ikon, with named clients including Nestle, Boots, Specsavers, Virgin, Nikon, Fred Perry and Experian. He also keeps one foot inside the practitioner debate. The JUST Branding podcast he co-hosts with Jacob Cass has passed 500,000 downloads and put him in conversation with Marty Neumeier, David Aaker, Denise Lee Yohn and most of the working canon of brand strategy. Enterprise Nation has named him a UK Top 50 Advisor for three consecutive years in branding and design. Key speaking topics Brand positioning and category differentiation Story-led brand strategy Purpose, meaning and the limits of purpose marketing Customer experience and brand alignment Leadership vision and internal brand Culture and brand as one strategic asset Brand-led growth for founder and scale-up businesses Ideal for CEOs, founders and MDs leading a repositioning, a rebrand, or a category shift CMOs and brand directors are trying to land a single positioning argument across a leadership team Boards and ExCos are tired of generic purpose statements and are looking for a more commercial alternative Marketing and design leaders inside large or regulated organisations who need their work to be understood as strategy, not decoration Audience outcomes A working answer to the four questions of the Brand Strategy Triangle, applied to the audience’s own business A sharper view of where the company’s positioning is generic and where it is genuinely defensible A clearer language for talking about brand inside the leadership team, beyond logos and taglines A practical critique of purpose-driven messaging and a workable alternative built on customer-centric ideas Confidence that brand strategy is a commercial growth tool, not a marketing afterthought

Why organisations work with Chika Russell CHIKA’S Foods went from home production to listings in Waitrose, Holland & Barrett and Ocado, and then to a $9.8 million Series A – Russell’s perspective covers every stage of that journey, not just the origin story. Her management accounting background gives her a financially specific way of talking about growth decisions that most founder narratives avoid: she built her initial stock and order management systems in Excel before the business could afford software, and that discipline remained the foundation of the company’s commercial architecture. She navigated a reverse diaspora expansion – building a UK consumer brand first, then returning to Nigeria with a manufacturing operation producing 2.6 million units a week – which is a rare, documented case study in cross-border market entry that runs in the opposite direction to most internationalisation models. In 2015 she received offers from all five investors on BBC’s Dragons’ Den and declined them all; six years later she secured institutional PE from a fund backed by the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank. For organisations thinking about strategic patience and investor fit, that sequence is evidence, not anecdote. Social impact is structurally embedded in her commercial model – a penny from every pack sold goes to World Vision’s Empowering Girls programme, and CHIKA’S Africa employs over 300 people, more than half of them women – making her a credible voice on what purpose-led growth actually costs and yields. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of CHIKA’S Foods, launched 2015; UK national retail distribution including Waitrose, Co-op, Holland & Barrett, Ocado and WH Smith Secured $9.8 million Series A from Alitheia IDF, a gender-lens private equity fund backed by the European Investment Bank and African Development Bank (December 2021) Qualified management accountant; ten years in banking and finance before founding CHIKA’S BBC Dragons’ Den (2015): received offers from all five investors; Deborah Meaden described it as one of the best pitches she had ever seen BBC Question Time panellist; regular contributor to BBC Radio’s Wake Up to Money Business Leader Top 30 Inspiring UK Entrepreneurs (2019); Consumer Business Rising Star, Black British Business Awards (2019) Biography CHIKA’S Foods began in a home kitchen in 2014 with hand-toasted peanuts and plantain crisps inspired by Nigerian street food. Within a decade it had secured institutional private equity backing and a Lagos manufacturing operation producing 2.6 million units a week. The path between those two points is what Chika Russell talks about. Her background shapes that conversation in an unusual way. She is a qualified management accountant who spent a decade in banking before founding CHIKA’S. Her instinct for financial architecture, investor narrative and cost control runs through every growth decision she describes – not as theory, but as method. In 2015, she appeared on BBC’s Dragons’ Den and received offers from all five investors. She turned them all down. Six years later, she secured $9.8 million from Alitheia IDF – a gender-lens private equity fund backed by the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank. For organisations trying to understand what attracts the right institutional capital, that sequence is direct evidence. CHIKA’S Africa, launched in Lagos in 2022, now employs over 300 people – more than half of them women. The business donates a penny from every pack to World Vision’s Empowering Girls programme. Russell is a BBC Question Time panellist and a regular on BBC Radio’s Wake Up to Money: the standing of an operator who has built across markets, not one who has written about doing so. Key speaking topics Consumer brand building and retail distribution Access to growth capital and institutional investment Cross-border market entry and expansion into Africa Financial discipline in early-stage and scaling businesses Purpose-driven commercial growth Entrepreneurship and founder decision-making Gender-lens investing and impact-linked capital Ideal for Founders and entrepreneurs seeking institutional capital or retail distribution scale FMCG, CPG and consumer brand leaders exploring cross-border or emerging market growth Investment and private equity audiences focused on impact-linked or growth-market strategies Senior executives in corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, or commercial development programmes Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how financial discipline – not product vision alone – determines whether a consumer brand crosses from traction to institutional scale Insight into what impact-linked institutional investors actually require, and how to construct a credible narrative for them A practical perspective on cross-border market entry drawn from real first-mover experience in both the UK FMCG market and Nigeria Greater clarity on how to embed social purpose into a commercial model without compromising financial performance A more honest account of the investor journey – including the strategic value of declining the wrong capital

Why organisations work with Ashley Dudarenok She runs the operating relationships most foreign executives only read about. Alarice and ChoZan, both founded and led by her from inside China, give clients direct access to working partnerships with Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo, ByteDance and Tencent. Thinkers50 placed her on its Radar list and labelled her a “Guru on digital marketing and fast-evolving trends in China,” a designation reserved for thinkers shaping the next wave of management ideas. She translates Chinese commerce into board-room decisions, not headlines. New retail formats, livestream commerce, KOL economics and platform mechanics are framed as actions a Western CMO or COO can take, not as cultural curiosities. A library of books and a working agency, not a single thesis. Eleven titles across consumer behaviour, KOL marketing, B2B and cross-border ecommerce mean the content is regularly refreshed against active client work, not frozen at publication. Western frame, Chinese context. She is a naturalised Chinese national with native-level Mandarin and Russian, English and German fluency, which means she can interrogate Chinese platforms in the language they operate in and explain them in the language Western boards make decisions in. Biography highlights Founder of Alarice (2011), a China digital marketing agency with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and ChoZan (2016), a China digital transformation consultancy. Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2021. Author of eleven books on digital China, including New Retail Born in China Going Global and Digital China: Working with Bloggers, Influencers and KOLs. Recognised among the World’s Top 100 Retail Influencers 2023 by RETHINK Retail and named a LinkedIn Top Voice in Marketing. Clients and audiences include Alibaba, LVMH, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, BMW, HSBC, Disney, Huawei and Adobe. Featured in Bloomberg, Forbes, CNBC, South China Morning Post, Business Insider and CGTN. Biography Most Western executives still understand China through a 2015 lens: factory floor, growth market, regulatory headache. The actual commercial picture has moved on. Livestream commerce is a meaningful share of retail, mini-programs have replaced apps, KOL economics drive product launches, and consumer expectations on speed, personalisation and service have re-set what “good” looks like. Ashley Dudarenok built a business interpreting that gap for global firms. She founded Alarice in Hong Kong in 2011 and ChoZan in 2016, running both as operating businesses with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen. That structure matters. Her commentary draws on live client work with the platforms she is describing, not on observation from outside the system. Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Tencent and ByteDance are working relationships, not case studies pulled from the FT. The intellectual contribution is recognised externally. Thinkers50 placed her on its 2021 Radar list, the cohort it tracks as the next wave of management thinkers, with the designation “Guru on digital marketing and fast-evolving trends in China.” She is a LinkedIn Top Voice in Marketing and was named to RETHINK Retail’s Top 100 Retail Influencers in 2023. Eleven books, including New Retail Born in China Going Global and the Digital China mini-book series, give her arguments a published spine that conference appearances alone do not. What she offers a board is the ability to treat China as a leading indicator. Boards walk away with a sharper read on how Chinese consumer behaviour is likely to surface in their own market, where their digital and customer-experience playbook is now structurally behind, and which platform mechanics, livestream, social commerce, AI-driven retail, are worth piloting before competitors close the gap. Key speaking topics China consumer trends and digital commerce New retail and social commerce KOL, livestream and influencer economics Customer centricity and the modern Chinese consumer Digital transformation lessons from China Innovation playbooks from Chinese tech and brand companies Future of marketing and retail Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders setting customer experience and digital strategy in consumer-facing industries Retail, luxury, FMCG and automotive boards with material China exposure or China ambitions Innovation and digital transformation leads benchmarking against Chinese platform standards Strategy and corporate development teams assessing how Chinese commercial models are likely to enter their home markets Audience outcomes A current, board-level read on the Chinese consumer and the platforms they live on Concrete examples of Chinese retail, marketing and product mechanics that Western firms can translate into pilots A clearer view of where their own digital and customer playbook is lagging the Chinese benchmark A working list of categories, BYD, Mixue, Labubu, DeepSeek, TikTok parent ByteDance, where China has set the new commercial standard Confidence to challenge internal assumptions that treat China as a sales market rather than a strategic teacher

Why organisations work with Alex Payne A working operator’s read on the brand-influencer market through The Room, the marketplace business he co-founded in 2017, rather than commentary from outside the category. Ten-plus years presenting live for Sky Sports built the practical communication discipline he teaches to senior leaders: clarity under time pressure, listening on camera, holding a room. A safe pair of hands for high-stakes hosting at scale, with named credits including HSBC, Heineken, the World Rugby Awards and the NSPCC. One of British rugby’s most recognisable broadcast voices, useful for organisations whose audiences sit in or adjacent to that world. Biography highlights Led Sky Sports’ rugby union coverage for more than ten years and hosted the channel’s Rugby Club studio show. Presenter across Sky Sports News and Sky News, with additional credits in tennis and poker coverage. Co-founder of The Room, a marketplace tech business connecting brands and influencers, launched in 2017. Co-host of The Good, The Bad and The Rugby with James Haskell and Mike Tindall, a UK number-one Apple podcast with a 2024 book and live tour. Hosting credits for HSBC, Heineken, Help for Heroes, NSPCC, the World Rugby Awards and the RPA Awards. Biography The brand-influencer market still clears through relationships and gut feel more than through any agreed operating model. That is the gap Alex Payne walked into when he co-founded The Room in 2017, a marketplace tech business built to connect brands and influencers on terms both sides could measure. Before that, and still alongside it, he spent more than a decade as the lead presenter of Sky Sports’ rugby union coverage. He fronted the channel’s Rugby Club studio show and presented across Sky Sports News and Sky News, including tennis and poker assignments. The studio years gave him a working communication discipline that he now teaches to senior leaders. He co-hosts The Good, The Bad and The Rugby with James Haskell and Mike Tindall. The show debuted at number one on Apple Podcasts in the UK and has expanded into live arena tours and a 2024 book. His event-hosting roster includes HSBC, Heineken, Help for Heroes, NSPCC, the World Rugby Awards and the RPA Awards. Payne is most useful to organisations as a host who knows how influence works on the inside. He has built a business in the category, sat behind a camera through ten years of live broadcast, and run rooms for some of the largest sponsoring brands in British sport. Key speaking topics Brand and influencer marketplaces Communication under pressure Media training for senior leaders Sport, sponsorship and audience Live event hosting and moderation Ideal for Marketing and brand leaders rethinking influencer spend Sponsorship and partnership teams in sport, lifestyle and consumer brands Senior leaders preparing for media-facing moments Awards ceremonies, conferences and client events needing a credible host Audience outcomes A clearer view of how the brand-influencer market actually clears, from someone running a marketplace inside it. Practical adjustments to how senior leaders show up on camera and on stage. A working sense of what makes communication land in high-pressure live settings. For hosted events, a steady tempo and named credibility with sport-adjacent audiences.

Why organisations work with Roger Dooley A 20-year published track record applying neuromarketing to commercial problems, not a recent rebrand into the topic. Friction gives commercial leaders a single operational lens for finding the small frictions that quietly suppress revenue, conversion, and loyalty. Brainfluence translates academic behavioural research into 100 specific tactics marketing and CX teams can deploy, which is why the book has been translated into eleven languages. Forthcoming Wiley title The Persuasion Engine (2026) positions the conversation on AI-enabled behavioural science before most CX functions have a working view of it. Forbes column and 400-plus episodes of the Brainfluence podcast keep him in active dialogue with the field’s leading researchers, from Robert Cialdini to Dan Ariely. Biography highlights Author of Brainfluence (Wiley, 2011), translated into eleven languages. Author of Friction (McGraw Hill, 2019), named a Top 3 Management Book and Best Business Book of 2019 by PwC’s strategy+business. Forthcoming author of The Persuasion Engine (Wiley, 2026), on AI applied to behavioural science. Forbes contributor on neuromarketing, customer experience and behavioural science. Host of the Brainfluence podcast, with guests including Robert Cialdini, Dan Ariely, Dan Pink, Tom Peters, Rory Sutherland, Nir Eyal and BJ Fogg. Named a Top 50 Global Thought Leader and Influencer on Customer Loyalty by Thinkers360. Biography Most marketing plans assume customers behave rationally. They do not. The gap between what a brand believes its customers are doing and what their brains are actually doing is where Roger Dooley has built his work for two decades. His 2019 book Friction (McGraw Hill) argues that the small unnecessary frictions inside a buying journey, an employee process, or a product experience are usually more powerful than the bigger strategic levers leaders prefer to discuss. PwC’s strategy+business named it a Top 3 Management Book and Best Business Book of 2019. The earlier Brainfluence (Wiley, 2011) compresses academic behavioural research into 100 marketing-grade tactics, and has been translated into eleven languages. That commercial frame is what separates Dooley from purely academic behavioural-economics voices. The Neuromarketing blog he started in 2005, his Forbes column, and 400-plus episodes of the Brainfluence podcast keep him in continuous dialogue with Robert Cialdini, Dan Ariely, Rory Sutherland, BJ Fogg and Nir Eyal, then translated for marketing, CX, and growth teams who need to ship decisions on Monday. His next book, The Persuasion Engine (Wiley, 2026), turns to AI: how language models and behavioural analytics are pushing the tools once held by Fortune 500 research budgets into the hands of much smaller commercial teams, and what governance, customer trust and brand questions that opens. Key speaking topics Neuromarketing and consumer neuroscience Friction in customer experience and operations Behavioural economics applied to marketing and sales AI-enabled behavioural science and persuasion Customer loyalty and brand trust Persuasion and decision architecture Ideal for CMOs and marketing leadership teams redesigning customer journeys Heads of customer experience and digital product leaders working on conversion and retention Sales leaders rebuilding playbooks around buyer psychology Growth and innovation teams testing AI-enabled behavioural tools Audience outcomes A working definition of where friction is suppressing revenue inside their own customer and employee journeys A vocabulary of behavioural mechanisms drawn from named research, not generic persuasion tropes A current read on how AI is changing the cost and access economics of behavioural research Specific, testable changes to marketing, sales or CX practice they can run inside their teams

Why organisations work with Roland Mouret He has lived the entire commercial cycle of a creative brand, from the global hit of the Galaxy dress to losing the rights to his own name in 2005, buying them back in 2010, and the brand entering administration in 2021. He talks about that as a practitioner, not a case study. He is one of very few designers who can describe what happens when capital structure and creative authorship come into conflict, and what a founder retains when the legal name is no longer theirs. He is the published author of “Roland Mouret: Provoke, Attract, Seduce” (Rizzoli), a monograph documenting twenty years of work, which gives audiences a clear point of entry into how his thinking on craft and identity holds up across decades. He acted as mentor to Victoria Beckham on the launch of her fashion line, a relationship he discusses publicly and which gives commercial audiences a credible view of how creative authority gets transferred between brands. He is an active voice on sustainability in luxury fashion, including the #SwitchToBlue circular hanger campaign with Arch & Hook and the British Fashion Council, and brings a designer’s view of where the industry’s environmental claims actually break down. Biography highlights British Designer of the Year, Elle Style Awards, 2002. Designer of the Galaxy dress, the defining red-carpet silhouette of the mid-2000s, worn by Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johansson, Victoria Beckham, the Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan Markle. Author of “Roland Mouret: Provoke, Attract, Seduce”, published by Rizzoli with Alexander Fury. Founder of the eponymous Roland Mouret label, sold internationally and acquired by Han Chong’s SP Collection (parent of self-portrait) in 2022. Launched the #SwitchToBlue circular hanger initiative with Arch & Hook, supported by the British Fashion Council. Mentor to Victoria Beckham at the launch of her fashion line in 2008, featured in her 2024 Netflix documentary. Biography The Galaxy dress arrived in spring 2006 and became the defining red-carpet silhouette of the decade. Vogue ran the line that for weeks you could not open a magazine without seeing it on a Hollywood A-lister. Less than two months later, its designer had walked away from the company, and lost the legal right to use his own name. That fracture is the centre of Roland Mouret’s story. He is the self-taught French designer, raised above a butcher’s shop in Lourdes, who launched his first London collection in 1998 and won British Designer of the Year at the Elle Style Awards in 2002. He is also the founder who spent five years getting his name back, finally buying the trademark in 2010 with backing from Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment. The work since has been a study in what a designer rebuilds when the brand has to be reassembled around the same hands. He published “Roland Mouret: Provoke, Attract, Seduce” with Rizzoli, mentored Victoria Beckham on the launch of her own line in 2008, and pushed the industry on circular packaging through the #SwitchToBlue hanger campaign with Arch & Hook and the British Fashion Council. The brand entered administration in November 2021 and was acquired by Han Chong’s SP Collection the following year. For audiences, the value is the directness of the account. He speaks about creative authorship, capital, and the moments where the two stop agreeing, from inside the experience of a designer whose name has been on the door, off the door, and back on it. Key speaking topics Creative entrepreneurship in luxury fashion Brand authorship and ownership of the founder name Sustainability and circularity in the fashion industry The economics of independent design houses Reinvention after commercial loss Mentorship and creative succession Craft, draping, and the female silhouette Ideal for Founder-led creative businesses, design studios, and luxury brands navigating capital partners or succession CMOs and brand leaders working on authorship, identity, and the commercial weight of a name Sustainability and procurement leads inside fashion, retail, and consumer goods looking at circular packaging and supply After-dinner audiences in creative industries, hospitality, and luxury where storytelling and craft are central Audience outcomes A specific account of how a creative founder loses, then recovers, control of their own brand, with the legal and commercial mechanics named. A working view of where sustainability claims in fashion hold up and where they collapse, drawn from a designer’s daily decisions on fabric, factories, and packaging. A clearer sense of how mentorship between creative founders actually functions, taken from the relationship with Victoria Beckham. A direct read on the economics of an independent luxury house, including the conditions under which one tips into administration.

Why organisations work with Lucy Hitchcock She has done the thing she talks about. Partner in Wine went from a lockdown side project to stockists at Selfridges, Liberty London, Oliver Bonas and Urban Outfitters, with a TikTok video that drove a single-day sales lift of 1,700%. She runs the agency, Sassy Digital, that supports the playbook. Marketing teams get a practitioner view of Shopify, e-commerce design and short-form video, not a keynote abstraction of them. Her recognition is concrete and named: Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch, plus inclusion in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021 list. She is one of the few UK speakers who can explain how a viral moment converts into a buyer meeting at Selfridges, and what the operations behind that conversion actually look like. Biography highlights Founder of Sassy Digital, a Shopify and Squarespace digital marketing and e-commerce agency. Founder of Partner in Wine, stocked at Selfridges, Liberty London, Oliver Bonas and Urban Outfitters. Named to the Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch list. Featured in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021 following a viral product launch video. Host of The Winging It Podcast, a business and entrepreneurship show produced by Sassy Digital. Featured by BBC News, Business Insider, Mail Online and The Sun on her business growth story. Biography A warm glass of wine in a London park during lockdown is an unlikely starting point for a consumer brand that ends up on the shelves at Selfridges and Liberty London. Partner in Wine, the insulated wine bottle business Lucy Hitchcock launched in 2020, took that path inside eighteen months. A single TikTok video in March 2021 drove half a million views in twelve hours and a 1,700% spike in same-day sales. The reason this matters to a commercial audience is not the virality. It is the conversion. Most brands that go viral do not end up with a buyer meeting at a flagship retailer; Hitchcock did, and then repeated it with Oliver Bonas, Urban Outfitters and Liberty. The growth was bootstrapped, run from her parents’ house in the early months, and underwritten by the agency she had already built. That agency is Sassy Digital, which she founded at 23 to help small consumer businesses with branding, Shopify builds and e-commerce design. Working both sides of the table, founder and agency operator, gives her an unusual view of where short-form social actually breaks down for product brands and where the operations have to catch up. Recognition followed the work. Hitchcock was named to the Telegraph and NatWest 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch list, and Partner in Wine was featured in TikTok’s Year on TikTok 2021. She hosts The Winging It Podcast, where she interviews other founders on what they actually did, not what they wish they had. Key speaking topics Direct-to-consumer brand building Short-form social and TikTok for product growth Bootstrapped e-commerce scaling Retail distribution and buyer conversion Female founder journey Digital marketing for small business Ideal for Founders and CMOs of consumer and DTC brands Marketing leaders responsible for organic social and content Retail buyer and merchandising audiences exploring emerging brands Entrepreneurship programmes and female founder networks Audience outcomes A practitioner view of how a single piece of organic content converts into retail distribution. Specific operational lessons from scaling a bootstrapped consumer brand from kitchen-table launch to Selfridges shelf. A clearer read on what actually drives short-form social performance for product, versus what looks good on a deck. A founder’s account of the unglamorous mechanics behind a viral moment: stock, fulfilment, cash, buyer outreach.

Why organisations work with Kudzi Chikumbu He built TikTok’s creator marketing, education, and community functions from a small U.S. team into a global operation, so he speaks from inside the engine room rather than from the outside as a commentator. He teaches the operating logic of authenticity as a brand strategy, not as a values statement, with a specific framework brands can apply to product launches, executive presence, and creator partnerships. He carries dual credibility: a senior platform operator who has also built a personal creator brand (Sir Candle Man) at meaningful scale, with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter, WWD and The Economist. His perspective on diversity and representation is grounded in what actually moves engagement and trust on platform, which makes it usable for CMOs who need substance rather than signalling. He now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, which gives a structured curriculum behind what could otherwise be presented as anecdote. Biography highlights Former Global Head of Creator Marketing at TikTok; longest-serving member of TikTok’s U.S. team. MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business; current faculty at Stanford GSB. Began career as an accountant and management consultant at Deloitte. Author, Let It Burn: Illuminate Your Life with Candles & Fragrance (Chronicle Books). Creator of Sir Candle Man, featured in The Hollywood Reporter, WWD, NY Mag, The Economist, and on The Rachael Ray Show. Fortune 40 Under 40, The Hollywood Reporter Next Gen 35 Under 35, Variety’s Hollywood’s New Leaders, AdWeek Experiential Executive of the Year, ADCOLOR Innovator Award. Biography The shift in marketing power from media buyers to creators happened faster than most brand teams adjusted. The companies that responded well treated creators as an operating channel with its own logic. The ones that didn’t treated TikTok like a new ad placement and underperformed on both reach and reputation. Kudzi Chikumbu spent the years that defined that transition inside TikTok, where he built the creator marketing, education, partnerships and community functions as the platform scaled from new entrant to global infrastructure. He was the longest-serving member of TikTok’s U.S. team and rose to Global Head of Creator Marketing, working at the point where brand strategy, platform mechanics, and creator economics meet. His operating thesis is that authenticity functions as a commercial system, not a value statement. Audiences pay attention when a brand or executive shows up with a specific point of view, a clear identity, and a willingness to be legible as a person or a culture. He has tested that thesis on himself: as Sir Candle Man, he built a luxury fragrance creator brand recognised by The Hollywood Reporter, WWD, The Economist, and Chronicle Books, which published his book Let It Burn. He now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, the same institution where he earned his MBA after starting his career at Deloitte. The combination of platform operator, working creator, and faculty member is unusual, and gives him a vocabulary that translates between marketing teams, executive sponsors, and the creator partners they are trying to work with. Key speaking topics Creator marketing and partnerships Brand authenticity as a commercial discipline Niche communities and audience strategy The future of social platforms and digital content Diversity and representation in consumer brands Personal brand and executive presence online Career pivots and reputation strategy Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams rebuilding their creator and platform strategy Communications and corporate affairs leaders preparing executives for visible digital presence Consumer brand, retail and lifestyle businesses where culture and creator influence drive purchase DEI, talent and culture leaders working on representation as a commercial, not symbolic, lever Audience outcomes A clearer model of how creator partnerships actually create commercial value, beyond reach metrics Specific tests for whether a brand’s content is platform-native or simply repurposed advertising A practical view of what authenticity means in marketing decisions, from product to executive voice Sharper understanding of how niche communities convert into durable audience relationships Renewed perspective on personal brand and online presence for senior leaders and emerging executives