Marketing & Branding

Why organisations work with William Adoasi He has built, financed and scaled a consumer brand from a £7,000 personal stake into a business shipping to more than 30 countries, with the impact model embedded in the unit economics rather than bolted on as CSR. His Virgin StartUp loan and subsequent mentorship from Richard Branson give him a first-hand, founder-level view of how early-stage capital, investor relationships and brand storytelling actually convert into revenue. The Vitae London model directly funds school uniform, footwear and bags for children in Sub-Saharan Africa per purchase, giving him a concrete case study for purpose-led commercial design that finance and marketing leaders can interrogate. His Forbes listing as one of 25 Leading Black British Business People to Follow lends credibility to inclusion and entrepreneurship programmes without reducing the conversation to identity alone. He speaks from the founder’s chair, not the consultant’s, which is what audiences of aspiring operators and intrapreneurs actually want in the room. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Vitae London, launched 2016, distributing in 30+ countries. Founder of the wider Vitae Group, including Vitae Digital, Broken Chain Co and Vitae Photography. Named to Forbes “25 Leading Black British Business People to Follow”. 2016 Virgin StartUp ambassador; mentored by Richard Branson after pitching through the Virgin StartUp programme. TEDx speaker, “Finding Purpose Through Pain”. Opinion contributor at CEOWORLD magazine. Biography Vitae London started with £7,000 of personal savings and a Virgin StartUp loan. Within a few years it was selling watches in more than thirty countries and funding school uniform, footwear and a bag for a child in Sub-Saharan Africa with every purchase. The business case and the mission run on the same P&L. That is the through-line of William Adoasi’s work as a founder. He is the British-Ghanaian entrepreneur behind Vitae London and the wider Vitae Group, which spans digital, photography and lifestyle ventures. His pitch to Richard Branson, made through the Virgin StartUp programme, ended with Branson buying a watch on the spot and stepping in as a mentor. The detail matters because it explains why audiences pay attention. Adoasi can describe, from the operator’s seat, how a small consumer brand finances early inventory, how it earns shelf space across 30+ countries, and how purpose can be designed into the unit economics rather than marketed on top of them. Forbes named him one of 25 Leading Black British Business People to Follow on the strength of that record. For finance, marketing and impact teams trying to make a purpose-led commercial story stand up to scrutiny, his case is a useful one to interrogate. He has built the business, written about it as a CEOWORLD contributor, and tested the argument on a TEDx stage with “Finding Purpose Through Pain”. Key speaking topics Founder-led entrepreneurship Purpose-driven consumer brands Business model innovation Personal branding for founders Diversity in entrepreneurship Scaling from idea to international market Mentorship and early-stage capital Ideal for Founder programmes, accelerators and entrepreneur networks Marketing and brand leadership audiences working on purpose-led propositions Diversity, inclusion and emerging-talent forums inside large corporates Youth, education and community organisations connecting business to social mobility Audience outcomes A grounded view of how a purpose model can be designed into a product’s unit economics from the start. A working example of how a first-time founder turns a small loan and a mentor relationship into international distribution. Practical signals on what early investors and mentors are actually looking for in a founder pitch. A more honest reading of what “impact” means once it has to survive a balance sheet.

Why organisations work with Jenk Oz A live daily feed of Gen Z behaviour. Thred.com publishes in 17 languages across 220+ countries and territories, feeding his brand advice with first-party data instead of commissioned surveys. Consulting credibility built on named client work. Thred Media has advised Coca-Cola, Google, Ford, Dunkin’, Microsoft, Snapchat, and Ogilvy on Gen Z strategy, so executive audiences engage with a working commercial operator. Primary-source Gen Z insight. Thred’s editorial team is almost entirely Gen Z, which grounds brand strategy work in lived cohort behaviour. A structural edge in data. The combination of publishing arm, Change Maker Discord community, and consulting practice generates zero- and first-party signals on emerging youth culture that traditional agencies do not hold. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Thred Media, the Gen Z publishing and consulting business headquartered in London. Thred.com publishes in 17 languages, reaches audiences in 220+ countries and territories, and generates approximately 350,000 monthly article reads alongside 200,000+ social followers. Consulting clients include Coca-Cola, Google, Ford, Dunkin’, Microsoft, Snapchat, Ogilvy, Hilton, Meta, Universal Music Group, and Epic Games. Named on Forbes 30 Under 30 (Europe), winner of Digiday’s Future Leader Award and Greater Good Award, and recipient of a Webby/Anthem Young Leader Award in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Member of the Google Z-Council, Oracle for Startups, and the Microsoft Surface young entrepreneur programme. Delivered three TEDx talks and has spoken at 90+ international conferences, including Amazon AWS Summit London (where he interviewed Amazon CTO Werner Vogels), Forbes Summit Cincinnati, Vox YMS New York, Oxford University Model UN, and Brand Week Istanbul. Biography Most brand advice about Gen Z is produced from outside the generation it describes. Survey data and panel research reach brand teams after the fact, often long after the behaviour they track has moved on. Thred Media was built on the opposite principle. What became Thred Media began with a school show-and-tell by an eight-year-old Jenk Oz about the activities he was doing outside class. That project grew into iCoolKid, which was rebranded and repositioned as Thred Media in 2019. Today, Thred.com publishes in 17 languages and reaches audiences in 220+ countries, giving the business a live first-party read on what young consumers are actually doing and buying. The consulting arm applies that feed to commercial questions. Coca-Cola, Google, Ford, Dunkin’, Microsoft, Snapchat, Ogilvy, and Hilton have used Thred Media for Gen Z strategy work that draws on live behaviour from the Change Maker Discord community and the editorial desk. Recognition has followed: Forbes 30 Under 30 (Europe), the Digiday Future Leader Award, a Webby/Anthem Award in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts. The commercial distinction is straightforward. He runs a functioning Gen Z business that advises major consumer brands, and he belongs to the generation he is paid to interpret. He has delivered three TEDx talks, interviewed Amazon CTO Werner Vogels at AWS Summit London, and been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Fortune, and the Evening Standard. Key speaking topics Gen Z consumer behaviour Brand relevance and the Gen Z market Gen Z marketing strategy Youth culture and social change Digital activism and clicktivism Youth entrepreneurship The future of work through a Gen Z lens Ideal for Chief marketing officers, brand directors, and consumer strategy teams are trying to close the relevance gap with Gen Z consumers. Agencies and consultancies whose clients are asking sharper questions about youth audiences than internal research can answer. Corporate innovation and growth teams are building commercial plans that depend on reaching emerging consumer cohorts. Board and executive audiences wanting a primary source on Gen Z behaviour, not secondhand interpretation. Audience outcomes A live view of how Gen Z is actually behaving across purchase and media decisions, drawn from Thred.com’s daily publishing feed and Change Maker community. Recalibrated assumptions about the signals brands use to judge youth relevance, with examples from named client work. Specific examples of where established brands are winning and losing Gen Z attention, drawn from Thred Media’s advisory engagements. A direct read on how social change and purpose shape purchase decisions in the generation that now accounts for the largest share of emerging consumer spend.

Why organisations work with Martin Newman He has run multichannel and digital operations inside Burberry, Harrods, Ted Baker, Pentland Brands and Intersport, so the customer-centricity argument lands as operating advice, not consultancy theory. He built and sold a 100-person global e-commerce consultancy, Practicology, acquired by Pattern in 2018, which gives him a P&L view of what customer experience is actually worth. His framework of new ROIs, set out in “ROI Reimagined”, gives leadership teams a concrete way to measure inspiration, integrity, inclusion, innovation and intervention alongside conventional financials. “100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience”, co-authored with Malcolm McDonald, was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019 and is used inside organisations as an operating reference, not a one-off read. He designed and teaches the Mini-MBA in Customer Centricity with Oxford College of Marketing, so the same content can be extended from a keynote into a structured learning programme for a leadership cohort. Biography highlights Founder of The Customer First Group and Customer Service Action, an independent platform for consumers to escalate service issues directly to CEOs. Founder of Practicology, scaled to around 100 staff across the UK, EU, Middle East and Asia, sold to US-based Pattern in 2018. Author of “100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience” (Kogan Page, with Malcolm McDonald), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019. Author of “The Power of Customer Experience” (Kogan Page) and “ROI Reimagined: 11 Bold New Ways to Measure What Really Matters”. Course director of the Mini-MBA in Customer Centricity, delivered with Oxford College of Marketing. Senior multichannel, digital and e-commerce roles at Burberry, Harrods, Ted Baker, Pentland Brands and Intersport. Biography Burberry, Harrods, Ted Baker, Pentland Brands and Intersport all sat inside the same generation of UK retailers that had to rebuild their business around digital while keeping the store estate honest. Newman ran multichannel and e-commerce operations inside several of them, which is where his customer-centricity argument actually comes from. He then founded Practicology, an e-commerce consultancy he scaled to around 100 people across the UK, EU, Middle East and Asia before selling it to Pattern in 2018. That experience gives him a commercial view of customer experience that most CX speakers do not have, namely what it is worth to a board, and where investment in it gets blocked. Two books with Kogan Page set out the framework. “100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience”, co-authored with Malcolm McDonald, was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019. “The Power of Customer Experience” makes the commercial case for customer-centricity as a growth strategy. His most recent book, “ROI Reimagined”, proposes eleven new measures of return, including return on integrity, inclusion, innovation and intervention, intended to sit alongside the financial metrics that already run the business. Alongside the books and keynote work, Newman runs Customer Service Action, a platform that escalates unresolved consumer issues to CEOs, and teaches the Mini-MBA in Customer Centricity with Oxford College of Marketing. Both extend the same argument: that when service operating choices are visible at the top of the organisation, behaviour changes. Key speaking topics Customer centricity as commercial strategy Customer experience and brand loyalty The new ROIs of customer-led business Multichannel and digital retail operations Organisational culture and the customer Voice of the customer and service recovery Customer-led growth in consumer-facing sectors Ideal for Boards and executive teams in retail, consumer goods, hospitality, financial services and telecoms reviewing their customer strategy CMOs, Chief Customer Officers, CX directors and digital leaders Transformation leads working on culture, service and operating model alongside digital change Leadership development cohorts running CX or growth-focused programmes Audience outcomes A clearer commercial argument for treating customer experience as a board-level strategic lever, not an operational function A working vocabulary for the new ROIs that customer-centric organisations are measuring alongside financials Specific operating examples from inside Burberry, Harrods and other named retailers that translate to other consumer-facing sectors A sharper view of where the gap typically sits between stated customer strategy and the experience the organisation actually delivers Practical reference points from “100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience” that leadership teams can apply after the session

Why organisations work with Barjis Chohan A 25-year operator’s view of brand discipline. She has run a designer label long enough to have seen the failure modes of growth, dilution, and trend-chasing, and to speak credibly about the cost of each. Hard-won sustainability substance. Seven years rebuilding supply chains, materials, and product lifecycles inside a working business, not a sustainability practice attached to a marketing function. A bicultural commercial perspective most boards do not have access to. She has financed and sold into the GCC, manufactured in the UK, and served Muslim, Western, and luxury hospitality clients inside one operating model. Verifiable entrepreneurial credentials, including Designer in International Trade from the Financial Mail on Sunday, Entrepreneur of the Year (London), and the Global MSME Champion Award from the Global Council for the Promotion of International Trade. Inclusion content with a practitioner’s edge. Her work on gender and cultural difference is shaped by running a multicultural business, not by a corporate DEI mandate. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of BARJIS London, established 1999, with bespoke luxury rugs preceding the womenswear line launched in 2011. BA Fashion Design, London College of Fashion, 1995; further study at Central Saint Martins. Worked under Vivienne Westwood and with a French fashion house in Monte Carlo before founding her business. Award record includes Designer in International Trade (Financial Mail on Sunday), Entrepreneur of the Year (London), Fashion Brand of the Year, and the Global MSME Champion Award from the Global Council for the Promotion of International Trade. Founder of The Barjis Initiative (2018), supporting creative entrepreneurship and enterprise education in schools. Speaking engagements include JP Morgan, the London School of Economics, Fonterra, Aston University, University of Surrey Students Union, and the Ministry of Culture of Colombia. Biography Most fashion businesses that survive their first decade do not survive their second with the same ethos intact. BARJIS London is an exception. Founded in 1999 with bespoke luxury rugs, the brand extended into womenswear in 2011 and has operated continuously across UK manufacturing, GCC investment, and luxury hospitality clients, with a sustainability programme rebuilt inside the business rather than added to its marketing. Chohan trained at London College of Fashion, graduating in 1995, and studied at Central Saint Martins. She interned with Vivienne Westwood and worked with a French fashion house in Monte Carlo before founding her own label. The Guardian described her as a Westwood prodigy. Her early commercial decisions, including writing to oil companies for investment at seventeen and travelling to the Middle East with a young family, set the bicultural pattern her business has followed since. Recognition has come from credible bodies. She holds the Financial Mail on Sunday Designer in International Trade award, Entrepreneur of the Year (London), Fashion Brand of the Year, and the Global MSME Champion Award from the Global Council for the Promotion of International Trade. The Barjis Initiative, launched in 2018, supports creative entrepreneurs and enterprise education in schools. Boards and leadership audiences book her for the operator’s lens, not the celebrity-founder presentation. Her talks examine brand erosion under growth pressure, creativity as a managed discipline rather than a slogan, and the specific commercial value of cultural fluency in markets where most British brands struggle to operate. Audiences at JP Morgan, the London School of Economics, Fonterra, and the Ministry of Culture of Colombia have heard versions of the same argument: ethos is a commercial asset, but only if it is defended structurally as the business scales. Key speaking topics Brand integrity and ethos at scale Creativity as a growth discipline Sustainability in product, supply chain, and operations Founder-led entrepreneurship and scale-up Cultural fluency in international markets Gender equity and inclusive workplaces Modest fashion and bicultural consumer markets Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and senior brand leaders in consumer-facing businesses CMOs and creative directors managing brand dilution risk under growth Heads of sustainability, procurement, and product development in fashion, retail, and luxury DEI and people leaders looking for practitioner-led content on gender and cultural inclusion Audience outcomes A working definition of brand ethos that holds up under commercial pressure A founder’s view of where sustainability programmes succeed and where they stall Practical reference points for entering GCC and modest-fashion markets without misreading them A reframing of gender and cultural inclusion as commercial capability rather than compliance Confidence to interrogate where their own organisation is trading long-term brand value for short-term growth

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.

Why organisations work with Stephen Attenborough He built the commercial foundation of an entirely new industry. Joining Virgin Galactic as employee number one in 2004, he created the customer journey, pricing, brand and trust architecture for a product that did not yet fly. He has held a customer base for almost two decades through delay, accident and regulatory scrutiny. Roughly 700 to 800 future astronauts from more than 50 countries committed deposits before commercial flights began. That retention pattern is unusual outside luxury and is rare in deep tech. His financial-services background, more than 15 years at Gartmore Investment Management working with sophisticated and high-net-worth clients, sits underneath the customer model at Virgin Galactic. He understands how serious buyers commit to long-horizon decisions. He saw the company through its NYSE listing in 2019, the first public commercial human spaceflight company, and through Richard Branson’s flight on Unity 22 in 2021. He can speak credibly about scaling a frontier brand inside public-market scrutiny. He now sits inside the next wave of the industry, as Strategic Advisor and European Lead at Space Perspective and Trustee of Virgin Unite US. His perspective on the commercial second space age is current, not archival. Biography highlights First full-time employee of Virgin Galactic, recruited personally by Sir Richard Branson in 2004 Commercial Director and later Chief Customer Officer, Virgin Galactic, 2004 to 2022 Built and led the team responsible for sales, marketing, customer care, PR and communications for the company’s future astronaut programme Oversaw the commercial side of Virgin Galactic’s 2019 NYSE listing, the first public commercial human spaceflight company Strategic Advisor and European Lead, Space Perspective, from October 2023 Board Member and Trustee, Virgin Unite US; Advisory Board member, Space for Humanity Earlier career: more than 15 years in investment management at Gartmore Investment Management, London, in roles serving institutional and high-net-worth clients Biography The commercial foundation of a new industry rarely gets written down. When Sir Richard Branson recruited Stephen Attenborough as the first full-time employee of Virgin Galactic in 2004, there was no product, no flight history, no regulatory category and no customer base. There was a proposition: that private individuals would one day pay to leave the atmosphere. Eighteen years later, when he left the company in 2022, Virgin Galactic was a NYSE-listed business with a deposit-paying customer base across more than fifty countries, and its founder had flown. That arc is the heart of his speaking work. As Commercial Director and then Chief Customer Officer, he led sales, marketing, customer care and communications for the future astronaut programme. The customer task was unusual. Buyers were committing significant sums for an experience that had never been delivered, would arrive years later than expected, and would be examined in detail by media and regulators every step of the way. Holding a customer base through that pattern, without losing trust, is the commercial discipline he can speak to in detail. His earlier career sits underneath that work. More than fifteen years at Gartmore Investment Management in London gave him a long apprenticeship in how sophisticated clients commit capital and what they expect from the relationship. The skill set translated cleanly: long-horizon decisions, high information asymmetry, and the need for the seller to behave as a long-term partner rather than a transactional one. He remains active in the sector. As Strategic Advisor and European Lead at Space Perspective from October 2023, and as a Trustee of Virgin Unite US and Advisory Board member of Space for Humanity, he sits inside the commercial conversation about what the second space age becomes once the novelty fades and the operating questions begin. Key speaking topics The commercial second space age Building a customer base for a category that does not yet exist Brand and trust at the frontier of technology Customer experience for high-net-worth and long-horizon buyers Sustaining entrepreneurial culture through public listing and public scrutiny Frontier innovation as a commercial discipline The Virgin Galactic story, from employee one to NYSE Ideal for CMOs, CCOs and customer experience leaders in luxury, financial services and frontier technology categories Boards and executive teams building or scaling brand-led businesses in deep tech, climate tech and space Founders and commercial leaders selling long-horizon, high-trust products to demanding customers Innovation and strategy audiences working at the edge of a new market category Audience outcomes A practical view of how to build a customer base for a product that does not yet exist A frame for keeping customers committed through delay, setback and public scrutiny Specific lessons from the commercialisation of Virgin Galactic, including the move into public markets An informed view of where the commercial second space age is heading and what it means for adjacent industries A way of thinking about brand and trust as load-bearing commercial assets in frontier categories

Why organisations work with Monica McCoy She built her practice from inside a Fortune 100 procurement and strategy function, not from advocacy. Her recommendations work because they account for how large companies actually source. Her trademarked Pitch University and Global Supplier Diversity Conference are operating programmes with named corporate partners, including Microsoft, Porsche, and Santander, not concepts. She works upstream of typical DEI conversations, on the pipeline of founders that procurement teams can credibly contract with, which is where most inclusion strategies break down. Her non-profit Pivot Purposefully extends the same discipline to formerly incarcerated women founders, giving her a defensible position on inclusion that goes beyond corporate audiences. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Monica Motivates, LLC (2017 to present); supports 38 Fortune 500 clients on supplier diversity and inclusion delivery Fifteen years at The Coca-Cola Company, most recently Acting Global Director of Strategy and Innovation, McDonald’s Division Creator of Pitch University, the Annual Global Supplier Diversity Conference, and a Microsoft-backed accelerator for commercial real estate founders Founder, Pivot Purposefully, non-profit supporting formerly incarcerated women entrepreneurs Recognitions include American Express Founder of Change (2020), Porsche Driven Women (2021), Iconic Women Creating a Better World for All (Women’s Economic Forum), YWCA Corporate Woman of Achievement (2015) BA Psychology, Emory University; Oxford College Alumni Board Biography Most corporate inclusion programmes fail at the seam between policy and procurement. The policy gets signed. The procurement function keeps sourcing from the same qualified vendor pool. The pipeline of underrepresented founders never reaches contract size. This is the gap Monica McCoy spent fifteen years observing from inside The Coca-Cola Company, and the one her firm now exists to close. Monica Motivates, founded in 2017, works with 38 Fortune 500 clients, including Microsoft, Porsche, and Santander, on the practical mechanics of bringing underrepresented founders into corporate supply chains. The firm’s programmes are operating, not conceptual. Pitch University trains founders for the specific pitch standards large companies use. The Annual Global Supplier Diversity Conference puts buyers and suppliers in the same room at scale. A Microsoft-backed accelerator focuses on commercial real estate, where founder access has historically been narrowest. The corporate credentials sit underneath this work. McCoy was Acting Global Director of Strategy and Innovation for the McDonald’s Division at Coca-Cola, a role that gave her direct exposure to how a Fortune 100 firm sources, qualifies, and contracts at scale. That experience is what makes her programmes legible to procurement leaders, not just to inclusion officers. Her non-profit, Pivot Purposefully, applies the same discipline to a harder constituency, formerly incarcerated women founding businesses. Recognition from the Women’s Economic Forum, American Express, Porsche, and the YWCA tracks the same throughline: inclusion treated as a delivery problem. Key speaking topics Supplier diversity programme design Founder pipeline and access for underrepresented entrepreneurs Inclusion as procurement capability Entrepreneurial pitch and storytelling discipline Corporate strategy and innovation at Fortune 100 scale Personal brand and executive presence for senior women Ideal for CHROs, chief diversity officers, and heads of supplier diversity at large corporates Procurement and category leaders responsible for diverse sourcing targets Founder networks and accelerator audiences focused on underrepresented entrepreneurs Senior women’s leadership programmes inside Fortune 500 organisations Audience outcomes A clearer view of where inclusion policy stalls inside procurement and category management Specific programme structures that have moved underrepresented founders into Fortune 500 supply chains A defensible position on inclusion grounded in operating mechanics, not advocacy framing Practical pitch and access standards founders need to clear to win corporate contracts

Why organisations work with Scott Dikkers A published method for generating creative output at volume, codified in the “How to Write Funny” series and tested over three decades of running The Onion newsroom. The founder’s view of how a $16,000 college newspaper became a national satirical brand worth multiples of that, with a defined argument about mission, culture and creative discipline drawn from “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Built and runs the “Writing with The Onion” programme at The Second City in Chicago, training comedy writers who have gone on to Emmy-winning television rooms, so the keynote sits on top of a working teaching practice. A practitioner’s perspective on creativity in the age of generative AI, framed around how human writers and editors keep brand voice intact when first drafts are cheap and originality is not. Biography highlights Founder of The Onion and TheOnion.com, the world’s first humour website. Longest-serving editor-in-chief of The Onion across two tenures (1988-1999 and 2005-2008) and former General Manager and VP of Creative Development. Number one New York Times bestselling author of “Our Dumb Century,” winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Author of more than 30 books, including the “How to Write Funny” series, “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Creator of the “Writing with The Onion” programme at The Second City training centre in Chicago. Syndicated cartoonist of “Jim’s Journal,” distributed to college newspapers across the United States from 1987 to 1997. Biography A satirical college newspaper bought for $16,000 in 1989 became one of the most recognisable brands in American media. The route from there to a national audience, a Peabody-winning news network and a publishing list that has sold millions of copies was not luck. It was a writers’ room run with unusual discipline, and Scott Dikkers ran it for most of its formative years. As editor-in-chief of The Onion across two tenures, and later as General Manager and VP of Creative Development, Dikkers built the editorial process that produced the headlines most readers can still quote. He launched TheOnion.com in 1996, the first humour website on the internet, and went on to edit “Our Dumb Century,” a number one New York Times bestseller that won the Thurber Prize for American Humor and has sold more than half a million copies. The argument behind his commercial work is set out in “How to Write Funny,” “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Comedy is not magic. It is a method, and brand voice is the operational output of that method. Dikkers codified the process at The Onion, then transferred it into the “Writing with The Onion” programme he created at The Second City training centre in Chicago, where his students have been hired into Emmy-winning television rooms. For corporate audiences, the relevance is direct. Generative AI has made first drafts trivial and originality scarce. Dikkers’ keynote takes the writers’ room discipline that built The Onion and applies it to creative output, brand voice and the question every marketing and product team is now asking: how do you keep what makes your work yours when the cost of imitation has collapsed. Key speaking topics Creativity as an operating discipline Brand voice and editorial culture Humour and storytelling in business communication Building a media brand from a standing start Creative leadership in the age of generative AI Media literacy and the reading of satire Mission-led culture in creative organisations Ideal for CMOs, brand and content leaders managing creative output at scale Innovation, R&D and product leadership teams working alongside generative AI tools Communications, internal comms and L&D leaders rebuilding storytelling capability Entrepreneurship programmes and founder audiences at universities and conferences Audience outcomes A working method for generating original creative material, drawn from the writers’ room that built The Onion A clearer language for what brand voice is and how it survives contact with AI-generated content A founder’s view of how a small editorial team scaled into a national media business without losing its identity A sharper test for distinguishing satire and credible information in a feed-driven media environment A reference set of named examples from three decades of Onion headlines that a team can take back into its own creative reviews

Why organisations work with Aimee Connolly She has grown a cosmetics brand from one product to more than 100, and from a founder-led startup to around EUR 32.6 million in revenue in 2024 without external investment, giving her a concrete view on capital discipline most consumer founders do not have. She has worked every stage of modern beauty distribution in person: independent pharmacies, Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores, Selfridges, airport retail, direct-to-consumer and standalone stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London. Her team has scaled from her alone to more than 100 staff across Ireland and the UK, which makes her credible on the operational and cultural shifts a founder has to make to stop being the bottleneck. She is preparing a US launch for Q4 2026 and speaks openly about how AI is being used inside the business to lift productivity and support that expansion, which is unusually specific for a consumer-brand founder. Her awards are from credible named bodies (EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland 2021 in the Emerging category, IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025, UCD Alumni Award in Business 2025), so her authority does not rest on a single category or year. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Sculpted by Aimee; founded the business at age 23 while finishing her degree. Scaled the brand to EUR 32.6 million in 2024 revenue, 47% year-on-year growth, with more than 100 staff and over 500 stockists across Ireland, the UK and the Middle East. Retail footprint includes Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores and Selfridges, plus own-brand stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London. EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland 2021, Emerging category. IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025; Young Businesswoman of the Year 2022; Business and Finance Elevation Award 2024. University College Dublin Alumni Award in Business 2025; BComm International (first-class honours), UCD. Founder of Sculpted: The Academy, a professional training business for makeup artists. Biography Sculpted by Aimee did not exist in 2016. By 2024 it was turning over EUR 32.6 million, growing 47% year on year, and sitting on shelves in Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores and Selfridges. It got there without outside investors. That single fact changes the conversation about what a bootstrapped consumer brand can realistically do inside a category dominated by multinationals. Aimee Connolly built the business at 23, while finishing a first-class BComm International at University College Dublin. The first product was a three-pan sculpting palette, which is where the name came from. The range is now past 100 SKUs, the team past 100 people, and the retail footprint covers Ireland, the UK and the Middle East, with own-brand stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London and a US launch planned for the fourth quarter of 2026. Her credibility on growth is not theoretical. She has lived each transition that breaks most consumer founders: from practitioner to operator, from single-market to multi-market, from independent stockists to listings with Boots and Selfridges, from founder-led decisions to a structured team. She has been named EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland in the Emerging category, IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025, and received the University College Dublin Alumni Award in Business 2025. What she brings into a room is unusually specific for a consumer founder: the mechanics of self-funded scaling, retail buyer relationships, product discipline under rapid range expansion, and, more recently, how AI is being embedded inside the business to support the US move. She is the operator buyers want when the brief is how to grow without losing the brand, and without giving it away. Key speaking topics Scaling a self-funded consumer brand Founder to CEO transition Retail and omnichannel strategy in beauty Direct-to-consumer and e-commerce growth International market entry AI in operations and brand building Building and retaining a high-growth team Ideal for Founders and CEOs of consumer and beauty brands preparing for a step-change in scale. Retail, buying and category leadership teams looking at how challenger brands are winning shelf space. Women’s leadership and entrepreneurship programmes in large corporates. Marketing and e-commerce leadership teams in founder-led or founder-adjacent businesses. Audience outcomes A concrete sense of what self-funded scaling actually demands, from working capital to retail terms. A clearer view of the decisions that break founders at the EUR 10 million to EUR 50 million transition. Practical perspective on how a challenger brand gets and keeps listings at Boots, Brown Thomas and Selfridges. A grounded read on where AI is genuinely moving the needle in a consumer business today. Renewed confidence in the case for patient, brand-led growth over capital-heavy expansion.

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