Marketing & Branding

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 Lars Ulrich He has run, with three bandmates, one of the most commercially successful independent creative businesses of the last forty years, with more than 125 million albums sold and full ownership of the master recordings. He led the Napster confrontation in 2000, the first artist-led legal challenge to peer-to-peer file sharing, which set much of the licensing groundwork that streaming platforms operate on today. He speaks from inside a band whose business model has been rebuilt at least three times, from major-label act to self-owned record company to direct-to-fan operator across a 60 million-strong social following. He chairs, with his bandmates, the All Within My Hands Foundation, which runs the Metallica Scholars Initiative with the American Association of Community Colleges and partners with Feeding America and World Central Kitchen. He is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog, useful only as evidence that the work has been recognised by serious institutions outside the music industry. Biography highlights Co-founder and drummer of Metallica, formed in Los Angeles in 1981. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, the first Danish artist to receive the honour. Ten Grammy Awards from 26 nominations, including six Best Metal Performance wins. Testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee in Metallica v. Napster, 11 July 2000. Co-founder of the All Within My Hands Foundation, established 2017, supporting workforce education, food security and disaster relief. Awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 2017. Biography Metallica has outsold most of the labels it has ever worked with. The band Lars Ulrich co-founded in 1981 has shipped more than 125 million records, won ten Grammy Awards, and now owns its entire master catalogue. It has done all of that without ever softening its sound to fit the commercial moment, and without ever being acquired, merged or absorbed. The interesting business question is how. Ulrich is one of the few people who can answer it from the inside. His account covers the decisions that mattered: refusing to chase trends with the Black Album, suing Napster in 2000 when the rest of the industry was paralysed, eventually buying back the masters, and rebuilding the band as its own record company, touring operation and direct-to-fan platform across more than 60 million followers. The Napster confrontation in particular is studied in business and law schools as a case in how an independent creative business defends its commercial rights against a technology shift. Ulrich’s Senate testimony in July 2000 became the artist-side argument that streaming services were eventually built around. He is candid about what the band got wrong in the public framing of that fight, and clear about what it preserved. Outside the band, he co-founded the All Within My Hands Foundation in 2017, which runs the Metallica Scholars Initiative with the American Association of Community Colleges and partners with Feeding America and World Central Kitchen. He was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe II in 2017, the same year the foundation launched. Key speaking topics Independent brand longevity Creative discipline at scale Business model reinvention Artist rights and the economics of digital distribution Partnership selectivity and brand integrity Philanthropy and foundation governance Team longevity and creative conflict Ideal for CEOs and founders running owner-led creative or brand-driven businesses CMOs and brand leads navigating partnership decisions and licensing Boards considering long-horizon brand strategy and succession Senior leadership offsites where the agenda is reinvention without losing identity Audience outcomes A concrete account of how a four-person creative business has stayed commercially independent for four decades. The reasoning behind Metallica’s decision to sue Napster, and what it produced for the wider industry. A clearer view of when to say no to brand partnerships, even profitable ones. A working sense of how creative conflict inside a senior team can be managed without breaking the team.

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 Yan Lefort He has done the work commercial teams are usually only theorising about: replacing a category that funded an entire industry, in his case tobacco in Formula 1, with sponsors that pass modern scrutiny. As Commercial & Marketing Director of Sauber Motorsport from 2018 to 2022, he sat on the management board and was directly responsible for landing the long-term Alfa Romeo partnership and the Orlen title sponsorship that anchored the team’s finances. He has run the partner side and the rights-holder side of the same deal. At IWC Schaffhausen he built the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 partnership during the Hamilton era; at Sauber he sold the property. Few speakers can credibly describe both seats. His operating context is one of the most commercially exposed environments in business, where every quarter the product performs in public and sponsors decide whether to renew. That discipline transfers to any organisation whose revenue depends on relationship renewals under pressure. Biography highlights Commercial & Marketing Director, Sauber Motorsport AG, 2018 to 2022, and member of the Alfa Romeo Racing F1 management board Global Head of Partnerships, PR and CSR at IWC Schaffhausen, leading the IWC partnership with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team Global PR Manager for the Lucky Strike F1 programme with BAR Honda Six years at Rothmans managing the sponsorship of the Williams F1 team Ran an independent commercial and sponsorship consultancy serving OEM automotive clients including Toyota’s F1 team, sponsors, rights holders and F1 drivers Speaker, International Sports Convention, Geneva Biography When tobacco sponsorship was banned from Formula 1 in 2005, the sport lost the category that had paid most of its bills for thirty years. Teams, rights holders and agencies had to rebuild their commercial books from scratch. Yan Lefort had spent the previous decade inside that commercial machine, six years at Rothmans on the Williams F1 sponsorship and seven as Global PR Manager of the Lucky Strike F1 programme with BAR Honda. He set up his own consultancy and spent the next five years rewiring sponsorship strategies for OEM clients including Toyota’s F1 team, plus a range of sponsors, rights holders and drivers. In 2011 he joined IWC Schaffhausen as Global Head of Partnerships, PR and CSR, where he ran the luxury watchmaker’s partnership with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team through the period of Lewis Hamilton’s dominance. That gave him the brand-side view of the most demanding partner relationship in motorsport. At the start of 2018 he moved to Sauber Motorsport as Commercial & Marketing Director and joined the team’s management board. The team had no title sponsor and a weak commercial position. By the time he left in 2022 he had landed the long-term Alfa Romeo partnership that rebranded the team and the title sponsorship from the Polish energy company Orlen. During those years he worked closely with World Champion Kimi Raikkonen and ten-time Grand Prix winner Valtteri Bottas. That sequence, rights-holder to sponsor to rights-holder, agency to brand to team, gives him a practical reading of how partnership revenue is actually built and defended. He speaks to that work directly, drawing on named deals and named counterparts rather than abstractions about engagement or storytelling. Key speaking topics Sponsorship and partnership strategy Commercial leadership in Formula 1 Sports marketing and brand activation Rebuilding revenue after category disruption Luxury brand partnerships in regulated environments High-performance team commercial operations Ideal for CCOs, CMOs and heads of partnerships at sponsors and rights holders Boards of sports properties, federations and motorsport teams Brand and partnership leaders inside luxury, automotive and energy companies Commercial leadership teams whose revenue model relies on long-cycle partner renewals Audience outcomes A working view of how a modern F1 team builds and defends its sponsorship book A specific account of how a banned-category sport rebuilt its commercial model, with lessons for any industry facing regulatory or reputational disruption to its revenue base The brand-side and rights-holder-side perspectives on the same partnership, drawn from IWC’s relationship with Mercedes-AMG F1 and Sauber’s relationship with Alfa Romeo and Orlen A clearer test for whether a partnership is commercial substance or marketing decoration

Why organisations work with Richard Shotton Translates academic behavioural science into specific marketing moves, tested against named consumer brands including Google, Mondelez, BrewDog, Barclays and Sky through his consultancy Astroten. Runs original field experiments rather than recycling textbook biases, giving senior marketers fresh evidence on questions like pricing, costly signalling and admitting weakness. Author of two best-selling behavioural science books, with The Choice Factory translated into 15 languages and named Best Sales and Marketing Book at the 2019 Business Book Awards. Speaks the language of working marketers, not academics, after starting his career as a media planner on Coca-Cola, Lexus and comparethemarket before turning to behavioural science. Biography highlights Founder of Astroten, a behavioural science consultancy advising Google, Facebook, Mondelez, BrewDog, Barclays, Sky and Santander. Author of The Choice Factory (Harriman House, 2018), available in 15 languages. Winner, Best Sales and Marketing Book, 2019 Business Book Awards; voted #1 in the BBH World Cup of Advertising Books, 2018. Author of The Illusion of Choice (Harriman House, 2023) and co-author of Hacking the Human Mind (2025). Behavioural science columnist for Marketing Week; published in Campaign, The Drum, Admap and The Independent. BA in Geography, University of Oxford; MSc in Development Studies, SOAS University of London. Biography Most marketing budgets are still allocated on what customers say they prefer. The behavioural science evidence is now overwhelming that what people say and what they actually buy are different things, and that the gap is exploitable. This is the territory Richard Shotton has spent two decades mapping. He started in the industry as a media planner on Coca-Cola, Lexus and comparethemarket, before specialising in behavioural science. In 2018, he founded Astroten, a consultancy that has since worked with Google, Facebook, Mondelez, BrewDog, Barclays, Sky and Santander on questions of pricing, advertising and customer acquisition. His first book, The Choice Factory, set out 25 cognitive biases with concrete examples for marketers. It was named Best Sales and Marketing Book at the 2019 Business Book Awards, voted #1 in the BBH World Cup of Advertising Books, and is now published in 15 languages. The Illusion of Choice followed in 2023, with Hacking the Human Mind co-authored in 2025. What sets his work apart is the mix of sources. Alongside academic studies, he runs original field experiments, then writes them up for Marketing Week, Campaign, The Drum and Admap. The result is a body of work that gives commercial leaders evidence they can act on, not theory they have to translate. Key speaking topics Behavioural economics in marketing Cognitive biases and consumer choice Pricing and willingness to pay Advertising effectiveness Brand building and distinctiveness Customer habit formation Behavioural field experimentation Ideal for CMOs and marketing directors are making advertising and pricing decisions under tightening budgets. Brand and customer teams in consumer-facing categories are rebuilding their acquisition strategy. Insight, research and strategy leads who want evidence stronger than stated preference. Agency leadership teams responsible for creative and media effectiveness. Audience outcomes A working catalogue of cognitive biases with named examples of how brands have used them commercially. Sharper questioning of stated-preference research and traditional focus group outputs. Specific tactics for pricing presentation, costly signalling, habit formation and category framing. Evidence-led arguments to defend brand investment and creative quality inside the business.

Why organisations work with Collin Croome Thirty years of operator experience spanning the first websites in 1994 through generative AI and Apple Vision Pro rollouts, which lets him pressure test a digital strategy against what actually ships. Direct Apple lineage: over a decade as multimedia evangelist and trainer for Apple Germany, including co-developing the first German multimedia seminar for Apple in 1992. Founder and long-time owner of coma2 e-branding, where he delivered digital projects for premium international brands including Audi, Hugo Boss, Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom, Nespresso and Triumph. Author of two GABAL Verlag titles on the metaverse (Praxisbuch Metaverse, 30 Minuten Metaverse) and a regular on-air digital expert for ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL. Bilingual delivery in English and German with deep DACH market fluency, useful for organisations briefing European leadership audiences. Biography highlights Co-founder and long-time owner of coma2 e-branding, Munich, delivering 800 plus digital projects for international brands over 22 plus years. Multimedia evangelist and trainer for Apple Germany from 1991, co-developer of the first German Apple multimedia seminar in 1992. Author of Praxisbuch Metaverse (GABAL Verlag, 2023) and 30 Minuten Metaverse (GABAL Verlag, 2022). Certified Professional Speaker and Professional Member of the German Speakers Association (GSA). Recurring digital expert on ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL covering AI, metaverse and platform economics. Client list includes Audi, Hugo Boss, Microsoft, Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, TUI, Nespresso, KPMG and Triumph. Biography The first wave of corporate digital work in Germany ran through a small group of practitioners who knew both the technology and the brands that had to use it. Collin Croome was one of them. From 1991 he worked inside Apple Germany as multimedia evangelist and trainer, co-developing the country’s first Apple multimedia seminar in 1992 and spending more than a decade translating new hardware into tools that marketing and communications teams could actually run. In 1997 he co-founded coma2 e-branding in Munich and built it into a long-running digital agency for premium international brands. Over 22 plus years the agency delivered work for Audi, Hugo Boss, Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom, Nespresso, Triumph and TUI, covering the full arc from early websites to social platforms, e-commerce and immersive formats. That operator history is the spine of his credibility on stage. Since 2021 his keynote work has concentrated on generative AI, the metaverse and Apple Vision Pro as commercial tools, not as futurology. He has written two GABAL Verlag books on the metaverse, appears regularly as a digital expert on ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL, and holds Certified Professional Speaker status with the German Speakers Association. The consistent thread across three decades is the same question he puts to boards now: which of the digital tools on the table will move revenue, customer experience or brand equity inside the next year, and what has to change in the organisation to make that happen. Key speaking topics Generative AI and ChatGPT in the enterprise Apple Vision Pro and immersive business applications Metaverse and Web3 strategy Digital transformation and megatrends Platform economics and the power of the internet giants Digital marketing and brand in an AI world Ideal for C-suite and board audiences making capital allocation decisions on AI, immersive and digital platform bets. CMOs, brand and customer experience leads translating AI and immersive tools into campaigns and products. DACH-market leadership groups that need a bilingual keynote in English or German. Premium consumer and lifestyle brands looking at AR, VR and platform-native commerce. Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and metaverse initiatives are ready for commercial use and which are still hype. A practical view of Apple Vision Pro and adjacent immersive tools as enterprise assets, grounded in early-adopter use. Reference points from named brand work (Audi, Hugo Boss, Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom) that leaders can map to their own organisation. Sharper questions to put to internal teams and external agencies on digital and AI roadmaps.

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. The Persuasion Engine (Wiley, 2026) gives buyers a published account of how AI is moving neuromarketing tools out of Fortune 500 research budgets and into reach of ordinary commercial teams, a shift most CX functions have not yet built a working view of. 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. Author of The Persuasion Engine (Wiley, 2026), on AI applied to behavioural science and neuromarketing. 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. The Persuasion Engine (Wiley, 2026) turns to AI: how language models and behavioural analytics are pushing tools once held inside Fortune 500 research budgets into the hands of much smaller commercial teams, and the governance and customer-trust questions that follow. 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 Dalia Feldheim She led the brand team behind Always #LikeAGirl, a campaign that won 14 Cannes Lions and was named by Forbes as one of the most influential of the decade. She now translates that instinct for cultural change into how leaders run teams. Her book “Dare to Lead Like a Girl”, with a foreword by Sheryl Sandberg, sets out a specific playbook built on purpose, perseverance, people-first and positivity, rooted in both corporate practice and organisational psychology. She teaches the Science of Happiness and Resilience as an Adjunct Professor at Singapore Management University, bringing applied positive psychology into the room, not just a founder story. Her credentials are practitioner-plus-clinician: an INSEAD Executive Masters in Consulting and Coaching for Change, ICF coach accreditation, and training as a psychodynamic group therapist. That range lets her work with executive teams on culture change without oversimplifying. She speaks from inside the marketing craft, which makes her credible with commercial leaders who are suspicious of wellbeing content that does not understand how businesses actually grow. Biography highlights 17 years at Procter and Gamble as a C-suite global marketing executive, leading Always, Tampax and Whisper brand teams. Led the Always #LikeAGirl campaign, 14 Cannes Lions, named by Forbes as one of the most influential campaigns of the decade. Author of “Dare to Lead Like a Girl” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022), foreword by Sheryl Sandberg. Revised paperback “Lead Like a Girl” followed in 2024. Adjunct Professor at Singapore Management University, teaching the Science of Happiness and Resilience. Executive Masters in Consulting and Coaching for Change, INSEAD. Certified teacher in the Science of Happiness via the Happiness Studies Academy with Tal Ben-Shahar. Founder of Flow Leadership Consultancy and of Uppiness, a positive-psychology game for employees. Featured in McKinsey Author Talks and on TED.com via TEDxJaffaWomen. Biography Always #LikeAGirl rewired how a generation talks about what girls can do. Dalia Feldheim led the brand team behind it at Procter and Gamble. The campaign won 14 Cannes Lions and was later listed by Forbes among the most influential campaigns of the decade. That work sits at the centre of how she thinks about leadership today. After 17 years running global marketing for P and G brands including Always, Tampax and Whisper, she retrained as an organisational psychologist at INSEAD and as a certified teacher in the Science of Happiness at the Happiness Studies Academy with Tal Ben-Shahar. Flow Leadership Consultancy grew out of that combination. Her book “Dare to Lead Like a Girl” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022, foreword by Sheryl Sandberg) argues that the most durable response to burnout is a leadership style built on purpose, perseverance, people-first and positivity, for men and women alike. McKinsey featured her in its Author Talks series on the same thesis. She teaches the Science of Happiness and Resilience as an Adjunct Professor at Singapore Management University, and works with executive teams on building cultures that combine psychological safety with commercial ambition. Her TEDxJaffaWomen talk, also titled “Dare to Lead Like a Girl”, is published on TED.com. Key speaking topics Purpose-driven leadership and the four Ps: purpose, perseverance, people-first, positivity Psychological safety and culture change Resilience and the science of happiness at work Women in leadership and gender equality in the workplace Burnout, wellbeing and sustainable performance Purpose-led brand building Ideal for CHROs and heads of leadership development rethinking how they build leaders through sustained pressure. CMOs and brand leaders looking at purpose-led marketing from someone who has led it at scale. Executive teams running culture, DEI or wellbeing programmes that need credibility with commercial leaders. Leadership offsites where the audience wants substance from a practitioner, not motivational content. Audience outcomes A language for leading with empathy and purpose that commercial leaders can actually use with their teams. A clearer view of how psychological safety links to commercial performance, not just engagement scores. Specific positive-psychology practices leaders can apply to manage burnout in themselves and their teams. A sharper read on how purpose shows up in brand and culture, drawn from the Always #LikeAGirl playbook. A framework for rethinking gender and leadership style without reducing the conversation to representation numbers.

Why organisations work with Giuseppe Stigliano Co-author with Philip Kotler of three books on the future of retail and marketing, including Redefining Retail: 10 Guiding Principles for a Post-Digital World, giving boards a tested framework rather than a point of view. Sits on both sides of the table: Global CEO of Spring Studios, former CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy, and Adjunct Professor at UCL, so the same person who teaches the framework has run the P&L it applies to. Named to the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024, the bench of emerging thinkers the Thinkers50 community expects to shape management practice. Works directly with CMOs and retail leadership on the operating consequences of AI, omnichannel and changing consumer behaviour, not the headline trends. Delivers in English, Italian and French, with keynote experience in over thirty countries across B2B and B2C audiences. Biography highlights Co-author with Philip Kotler of Retail 4.0, Onlife Fashion and Redefining Retail (Wiley, 2024); books translated into eight languages. Global CEO of Spring Studios; former CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy; previously led a WPP EMEA team across FCA, J. Walter Thompson and Spring Studios. Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024. Adjunct Professor of Retail and Consumer Entrepreneurship at UCL School of Management, with prior teaching at Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and POLIMI Graduate School of Management. Ph.D. in Marketing and Economics; Forbes columnist and LinkedIn Top Voice. TEDx talk How To Become a Marketing Superhero with over one million views. Biography Retail used to be a question of channel. It is now a question of operating model. Consumer businesses run physical stores, e-commerce, marketplace, social commerce and emerging virtual touchpoints in parallel, often with separate leadership, separate metrics and separate technology stacks. The customer sees one brand. The organisation behaves like several. Redefining Retail, co-authored with Philip Kotler and published by Wiley in 2024, sets out ten principles for running the commercial model of a consumer business when the digital age is no longer the destination but the baseline. The argument behind the book is operational: sustainability, inclusion, working policy and AI are no longer brand topics, they are inputs into the value chain. The book sits alongside two earlier Kotler co-authorships, Retail 4.0 and Onlife Fashion, and together the three are translated into eight languages. The credibility on the operating side comes from three CEO tenures at international marketing agencies. As Global CEO of Spring Studios, Stigliano leads a creative platform with offices in London, New York, Los Angeles and Milan, serving fashion, beauty, luxury, hospitality and lifestyle clients. Before that he was CEO of Wunderman Thompson Italy and led a WPP EMEA team across FCA, J. Walter Thompson and Spring Studios. The academic side is held at UCL School of Management, where he is Adjunct Professor of Retail and Consumer Entrepreneurship. Thinkers50 named him to its Radar Class of 2024. He writes a Forbes column, holds a LinkedIn Top Voice designation, and his TEDx talk on marketing has passed a million views. In a boardroom on retail or consumer strategy, the most useful thing he brings is the dual standing: the framework being discussed is one he wrote, and the operating problem in the room is one he has had to solve as CEO. Key speaking topics The future of retail and the post-digital consumer Marketing and brand transformation Customer experience and commerce across physical, digital and virtual channels The business implications of AI for consumer-facing organisations Post-digital leadership Innovation in fashion, beauty and luxury Scaling consumer businesses internationally Ideal for CMOs and Chief Customer Officers redesigning the marketing and commerce operating model Retail, fashion, beauty, luxury and hospitality executive teams and boards Heads of digital and e-commerce inside consumer businesses moving past pilot-stage AI Innovation, transformation and strategy leads in consumer industries Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the post-digital retail model and where it breaks current operating assumptions A framework, taken from Redefining Retail, for prioritising the ten shifts that matter most Sharper questions about where AI changes the customer-facing P&L and where it does not A clear read on how leading consumer brands are restructuring around omnichannel commerce Concrete examples drawn from his client work and CEO experience across luxury, fashion and beauty

Why organisations work with James McCabe He brings primary training in dramatic literature, not communications consulting, which gives the work a different starting point: structure, character, suspense and resolution as operating tools, not metaphors. His applied focus is the moments where corporate language usually fails most visibly, namely M&A integration, transformation programmes and AI roll-out, where employees disengage from the official storyline within weeks. He works directly with senior communication leaders at named global organisations including Allianz and Siemens, with engagement framed around outcomes for the business, not the comms function. His Fable workshop format compresses the craft into a working session that produces a usable narrative artefact for the leadership team, not a theory lecture. The intellectual lineage is unusually deep for the topic: an Oxford doctorate in literature, the British Council Millennium Prize, and twenty-five years of pattern recognition across European, American and Asian engagements. Biography highlights Doctorate in literature from St John’s College, Oxford, and a Double First from University College Dublin. British Council Millennium Prize for doctoral research. Twenty-five years applying classical narrative design at enterprise level across Europe, the US, and Asia. Engagements with Allianz and Siemens at Group Communications level. Founder of Fable, an artist collective of poets, designers, and filmmakers for corporate narrative work. Guest on industry storytelling podcasts including Business of Story and Storytelling for Business. Biography The standard corporate communication toolkit is rhetoric: slogans, value statements, change decks. It is designed to persuade in the moment and forgotten by the next quarter. Classical narrative is built differently. It is the form humans have used for three thousand years to make complex change feel inevitable, and most organisations are not using it. That gap is what McCabe has spent twenty-five years closing. He came to the work as a poet and literary scholar, with a doctorate from St John’s College, Oxford and the British Council Millennium Prize, before any of it touched the inside of a boardroom. The discipline he brought across is structural: how stories actually move audiences, why suspense and reversal matter more than messaging, and how character functions in a corporate cast. The applied work is concentrated in the moments where corporate language tends to break: mergers and acquisitions, restructures, AI roll-outs and sustainability programmes. Group Communications functions at organisations including Allianz and Siemens have used him to design the through-line of those programmes rather than the deck. His Fable workshop format takes a leadership team through a compressed version of that craft and produces a narrative artefact the team can use. What makes the offer unusual is the lineage. Most commercial storytelling consultants come from advertising or PR. McCabe’s frame of reference is dramatic literature, which is why the diagnosis tends to be sharper than the topic suggests: it is not about better stories, it is about whether the organisation has a structurally coherent one at all. Key speaking topics Corporate narrative strategy Storytelling for mergers and acquisitions Brand and reputation through narrative design Narrative for AI and digital transformation Sustainability storytelling Leadership communication and executive presence Culture and engagement through story Ideal for CCOs, Heads of Group Communications and brand leadership teams M&A integration leads and post-deal communication owners CEOs and CHROs running enterprise transformation or AI programmes Marketing and brand teams under pressure to differentiate in saturated categories Audience outcomes A working understanding of how dramatic narrative differs from corporate rhetoric, and why one travels and the other does not. The structural elements of a usable enterprise story: protagonist, stakes, reversal, resolution. A diagnostic for where the organisation’s existing story is failing, in M&A, AI roll-out, transformation or brand. A method for designing leadership communication around narrative architecture rather than message points.

Why organisations work with Diana Binks Two decades of live broadcast experience at Channel 4, Sky, Channel 5, ITV, BBC and F1TV translates directly into composure when a corporate event runs late, off-script or off-cue. Pit-lane interviewing pedigree, including 100 interviews across a 22-hour stint at Le Mans, gives organisations a host who can hold a sharp on-stage conversation with a senior executive or a difficult guest without losing the audience. Track record running press office and media operations for Formula One, Formula E and BTCC teams means she reads a brand’s commercial sensitivities the way a media manager does, not the way an outside presenter does. Active F1TV producer credit since 2022 keeps her in front of contemporary motorsport audiences, useful for any sponsor activation, hospitality programme or partner event with a motorsport adjacency. Biography highlights More than 20 years of live broadcasting across Channel 4, Sky TV, Channel 5, ITV, BBC, Radio 5 Live, MotorsTV and Speed TV (USA). F1TV producer since 2022, covering FIA Formula 1 World Championship pit-lane content. Live news presenter for Motorsport TV Live. Pit-lane and presenting credits at the FIA Formula One World Championship, Formula E, Le Mans 24 Hours, British Touring Car Championship, British Superbike Championship and the Red Bull Air Race. Press office and media manager experience with teams in Formula One, Formula E and the British Touring Car series. Corporate hosting work spanning product launches, awards ceremonies, conferences and on-stage interviews, including the F1 Silverstone VIP Lounge. Biography The 24 Hours of Le Mans does not pause for tired presenters. Diana Binks once recorded 100 pit-lane interviews across a 22-hour stretch of it, an instructive line on her CV for any organisation that needs a host to keep a room with them when the running order slips. Her broadcasting career began in production at Channel 4 on The Big Breakfast and Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, then moved into sports presenting for Sky TV, Channel 5, ITV and the BBC. Motorsport became the spine of the work: Formula One, Formula E, Le Mans, British Touring Cars, British Superbikes and the Red Bull Air Race, including a Channel 5 piece presented from inside an aerobatic plane. Alongside the on-air career, she has run press office operations and worked as a media manager for teams across Formula One, Formula E and the BTCC. That side of the work matters commercially: she reads what a sponsor, a team or a corporate partner can and cannot say on stage, and shapes interviews around that. Since 2022 she has been a producer at F1TV, the FIA Formula 1 World Championship’s streaming service, working pit-lane coverage on the live feed. The corporate hosting work runs in parallel, covering product launches, awards ceremonies, conferences and on-stage interviews, with brands using her as an interviewer when the on-stage guest is senior, technical or commercially sensitive. Key speaking topics Corporate event hosting and emcee Awards ceremony presenting Panel moderation On-stage executive interviews Product launch hosting Motorsport commentary and audience engagement Sponsor activation and hospitality hosting Ideal for Brand and marketing leads running product launches, dealer events or partner conferences Sponsorship and hospitality teams running motorsport activations and VIP programmes Internal communications and HR leads running annual awards or recognition events Conference organisers needing a moderator for on-stage interviews with senior executives Audience outcomes A live event that holds pace from opening to close, with timings, hand-offs and Q&A handled cleanly On-stage interviews that surface a clear line from each executive guest, not a polite exchange Awards segments that read as broadcast-quality rather than internal-AV Motorsport-themed activations that land with audiences who actually follow the sport