Marketing & Branding

Why organisations work with Martin Lindstrom He built his reputation on primary research, not commentary. The fMRI study behind Buyology covered 2,000 consumers across five countries; the fieldwork behind Small Data covered 2,000 families across more than 70 countries. He gives senior teams a method, not a slogan. Small data is a working approach for finding the unspoken consumer signal that quantitative research routinely misses. He has advised brands across categories most consultants never touch in the same year, from Pepsi and Nestle to Burger King, Lowe’s, LEGO, and Disney, which means his diagnoses translate across very different commercial contexts. He treats internal bureaucracy as a brand problem. The Ministry of Common Sense names a tension every CEO recognises: the gap between what the company promises customers and what its own processes allow employees to deliver. His authority is independently signalled. TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, repeated Thinkers50 rankings, and a Wall Street Journal verdict on Brand Sense as one of the five best marketing books ever written are not bureau claims; they are matters of public record. Biography highlights Founder and chairman of Lindstrom Company, advising Fortune 500 clients including Pepsi, Nestle, Google, Burger King, Lowe’s, LEGO, Disney, and Unilever. Named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the Scientists and Thinkers category. Multiple-time Thinkers50 ranked thinker, including positions of #18, #36, and #20 in successive listings. Author of seven New York Times bestsellers, translated into roughly 60 languages, including Buyology, Brandwashed, Small Data, Brand Sense, and The Ministry of Common Sense. Columnist for TIME, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review; recurring contributor on NBC’s TODAY show. Featured in Morgan Spurlock’s documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011). Biography The fMRI study behind Buyology scanned the brains of 2,000 consumers across five countries to test what advertising and branding actually do inside the human head. Most of what the marketing industry believed about why people buy did not survive the data. That study, and the books that followed, made Martin Lindstrom one of the few branding voices senior leaders take seriously on the science of consumer decision-making. He runs Lindstrom Company, a brand and culture transformation firm whose client list reads as a cross-section of the global economy: Pepsi, Nestle, Google, Burger King, Lowe’s, LEGO, Disney, Unilever. The work is not pitch theatre. It is rebuilding brand strategy around evidence drawn from ethnographic fieldwork, neuroscience, and the unguarded behaviour of real customers in their own homes. His Small Data method came out of more than a decade visiting families in over 70 countries, looking for the small inconsistencies that point to unmet consumer needs. The thesis is direct. Big data tells you what is happening at scale. Small data tells you why, and where the next product or positioning idea actually lives. It is a working method, used inside the Lindstrom Company practice, not a publishing concept. The Ministry of Common Sense extends the same instinct inward. Lindstrom argues that most large companies have engineered themselves into a state where employees cannot do the obvious right thing for a customer without breaching a process. Strip the bureaucracy, restore common sense, and brand performance follows. Buyers who book him for the marketing thesis often find the organisational thesis is the one their executive team keeps quoting back six months later. Key speaking topics Brand strategy and consumer neuroscience Small data and ethnographic customer insight Culture transformation and corporate common sense Customer experience and behavioural decision-making Marketing effectiveness in the AI era Future of retail and physical-digital strategy Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders rebuilding propositions around customer evidence rather than category convention. CEOs and COOs whose internal processes are eroding the customer experience their brand promises. Strategy, innovation, and customer insight teams looking for a working method to find unmet needs. Global leadership conferences and senior offsites where the brief is commercial reinvention. Audience outcomes A clearer reading of why current consumer research keeps producing the wrong answers, and what to use instead. A practical introduction to small data as a method for surfacing unmet customer needs. A direct view of where internal bureaucracy is quietly killing brand and commercial performance. Named examples from Fortune 500 engagements that translate into questions a leadership team can ask the next morning.

Why organisations work with Martin Glenn He has run the P&L at four large consumer businesses and a national governing body, so brand arguments arrive with operator credibility, not agency theory. The Walkers story is a working case study, not an anecdote: he took share from roughly 30 percent to over 60 percent and built the Lineker campaign that still defines the category. He has done the hard version of culture change at the FA, including a 40 percent revenue lift and a record commitment to women’s football, while the senior England teams reached the 2018 World Cup semi-final. He led the United Biscuits turnaround through to a clean exit to Yildiz Holdings in 2014, which gives boards the rare combination of brand instinct and a private-equity-grade financial outcome. He is one of the few UK CEOs to have reached the top through marketing, which makes him useful when a board needs to rewire how the marketing function is positioned and resourced. He chairs PGMOL through one of the most publicly scrutinised reform programmes in English sport, and chaired Chapel Down through its admission to AIM and 2025 strategic review. Biography highlights Former Chief Executive of The Football Association, 2015 to 2019. Former CEO of United Biscuits, Birds Eye Iglo, and President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland. Architect of the Walkers crisps growth story, including the Gary Lineker advertising campaign. Chair of Professional Game Match Officials Limited since January 2024, the body that runs every referee in English professional football; Chair of the Football Foundation since 2020. Former Chair of Chapel Down Group, England’s largest winemaker, 2020 to 2025; oversaw the company’s admission to AIM in December 2023. Author of “The Best Job in the World”; President of The Marketing Society, 2014 to 2017; PPE graduate of Merton College, Oxford. Biography Walkers was a regional crisps brand in 1992. By the time Martin Glenn finished with it, it held more than 60 percent of the UK market and the Gary Lineker campaign had become the longest running advertising property in the country. That growth story is the spine of his career and the reason boards still bring him in. He spent fifteen years at PepsiCo, ending as President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland, before moving into private equity as CEO of Birds Eye Iglo and then United Biscuits, which he sold to Yildiz Holdings in December 2014. Each role asked the same question in a different setting: how do you grow a mature consumer business when distribution is solved and the next point of share has to come from the brand. In 2015 he answered a different version of the question at The Football Association. Over four seasons he restructured the organisation, oversaw a 40 percent rise in revenue, put a record investment behind the women’s game, and worked on the culture at St George’s Park that fed England’s run to the 2018 World Cup semi-final. He left at the end of the 2018-19 season into a portfolio of board roles. As Chair of Chapel Down from 2020 to 2025 he refocused the business onto premium sparkling wine and took it through its admission to AIM in December 2023. Since January 2024 he has chaired Professional Game Match Officials Limited, the body responsible for every referee in English professional football, helping the executive modernise an organisation that operates under permanent public scrutiny. He also chairs the Football Foundation, the UK’s largest sports charity. He is a PPE graduate of Merton College, Oxford, a former President of The Marketing Society, and the author of “The Best Job in the World”, which sets out the Walkers playbook in detail. The through-line is unusual: a CEO who came up through marketing and treats brand as the operating system of the business rather than a downstream function. Key speaking topics Brand-led growth in mature consumer markets Marketing as a route to general management Turnarounds and private equity exits Culture change inside national institutions The CEO operating model for FMCG businesses Leading governance reform under public scrutiny Ideal for CMOs, CEOs and boards in FMCG, retail and consumer health weighing brand investment against margin pressure. Chairs and CEOs of sports bodies, federations and member organisations facing structural reform. Private equity portfolio companies preparing for a brand-led value creation plan or exit. Senior marketing leaders being positioned for general management or P&L roles. Audience outcomes A clear view of how brand investment shows up in market share and enterprise value, drawn from the Walkers and United Biscuits numbers. A working model for the marketer-to-CEO transition, including what marketing leaders typically have to unlearn. A candid account of leading culture change inside a national institution under public scrutiny. Specific lessons on turnaround sequencing, from cost discipline through to brand reinvestment and exit.

Why organisations work with Mark Schaefer A connected, multi-book argument about where marketing economics are actually going, from Marketing Rebellion to Belonging to the Brand to Audacious, rather than a single talk track repackaged. A working position at the front of the AI-and-marketing conversation, anchored in his Rutgers “Mini-MBA: Digital Marketing in the Age of AI” and his book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. A serious thesis on community as a marketing asset, with case work on brands like Sephora, that gives CMOs a defensible alternative to paid-media-only growth plans. Direct consulting and keynote experience with global enterprises including Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Air Force, which means examples land for both regulated and consumer-facing audiences. A teaching habit, three years studying under Peter Drucker and an active Rutgers executive education role, that shows up in how he structures sessions: argument, evidence, frameworks leaders can take into a Monday meeting. Biography highlights Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, with consulting work for Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Dell, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. Air Force, and the UK Government. RBS Executive Education Lecturer at Rutgers Business School; teaches the Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing in the Age of AI and graduate marketing classes. Author of twelve best-selling marketing books, including Marketing Rebellion, Belonging to the Brand, KNOWN, The Content Code, Cumulative Advantage, Return on Influence, How AI is Changing Your Customers, and Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. Audacious launched with the first AI-driven Augmented Reality book cover and reached #1 in Amazon’s marketing category. Founder and co-host of The Marketing Companion podcast and publisher of the {grow} marketing blog. Featured commentator and contributor across The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, CBS News, BBC, NPR, Wired, and Harvard Business Review. Keynote speaker at South by Southwest, the Institute for International and European Affairs, Marketing Summit Tokyo, and Social Media Week London; has lectured at Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton. Named the third-most influential digital marketing authority by Brand24 in 2025. Biography The cost of reaching a customer keeps rising while the trust those impressions buy keeps falling. Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins set out the argument that built much of Mark Schaefer’s reputation, that businesses are no longer built on advertising impressions but on human impressions that help customers believe, belong, and find meaning. It is used as assigned reading at more than 70 universities and has been translated into 20 languages. That argument has continued through Belonging to the Brand, which makes the case for community as the next durable marketing strategy, and Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, which examines brands like e.l.f. Beauty, HBO, and Giant Spoon to show how creative nerve, not algorithmic optimisation, captures attention in saturated markets. Audacious reached number one in Amazon’s marketing category and launched with what the publisher described as the first AI-driven Augmented Reality book cover. His authority is grounded in operating credentials, not commentary alone. Schaefer runs Schaefer Marketing Solutions and has consulted for Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Air Force. At Rutgers Business School, he is the Executive Education lecturer behind the Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing in the Age of AI, and he has lectured at Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton. He studied under Peter Drucker for three years, and the structural rigour of that lineage is visible in the way his frameworks are built. He also runs the infrastructure most marketing thinkers only write about. The Marketing Companion is one of the longer-running marketing podcasts in the field, and the {grow} blog has been a fixture in the discipline for over a decade. The result, for senior commercial audiences, is a speaker who treats marketing as a system and tests his arguments in public, every week, against an audience that includes practitioners and competitors. Key speaking topics Human-centred marketing strategy Brand community as a growth strategy AI in marketing and creative work Personal branding for executives and professionals Customer trust, loyalty, and the post-advertising buyer Content strategy and influence Cumulative advantage and competitive momentum Ideal for CMOs, brand directors, and heads of marketing rebuilding strategy around community and human connection. CEOs and commercial leaders questioning the ROI of paid-media-led growth plans. Heads of customer experience and digital who need to integrate AI without losing brand distinctiveness. Communications, PR, and corporate marketing leaders in regulated industries facing trust and credibility challenges. Audience outcomes A reframed view of where marketing value now sits: human impressions, community, and creative nerve over paid reach. Concrete case examples, including Sephora, e.l.f. Beauty, HBO, and Giant Spoon, that audiences can map against their own categories. A working position on how to use AI in marketing without becoming indistinguishable from competitors using the same tools. A clearer set of questions to bring back to brand, content, and customer experience teams about what they should stop funding. A vocabulary for talking to boards about brand and community as commercial assets, not soft costs.

Why organisations work with Marcel Corstjens His research in MIT Sloan Management Review demonstrated that the largest FMCG companies (i.e. those spending over a billion dollars annually on R&D) see no appreciable sales return from that investment; only marketing spend correlates with revenue. This directly challenges how most consumer goods leadership teams allocate their growth budgets. The Mindspace and Shelfspace framework from Store Wars gives manufacturers and retailers a shared, precise language for the power dynamics that determine who controls the end consumer: still the most widely adopted conceptual map of that relationship, translated into five languages. His Harvard Business Review research showed that retail internationalisation does not reliably improve revenue or profit margins, and that home market strength is the primary driver of commercial performance: a finding that reshapes how boards evaluate international expansion decisions. His “Newtonian versus Lorenzian” innovation typology distinguishing companies that invest heavily in broad R&D from those that make small, targeted bets, gives commercial leaders a practical diagnostic for where innovation spending is being wasted at scale. He has consulted directly for Unilever, Heineken, Novartis, Roche, PepsiCo, and Cadbury Schweppes, giving him practical fluency across both FMCG and pharmaceutical commercial strategy that few academics can match. Biography highlights Emeritus Professor of Marketing and the Unilever Chaired Professor of Marketing, Emeritus, at INSEAD; visiting professor at Cornell and Stanford universities PhD, University of California, Berkeley; doctoral dissertation awarded first prize by the American Marketing Association Author of Store Wars: The Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace (J. Wiley & Sons, 1995; second edition 1999; translated into French, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish) Co-author of “Retail Doesn’t Cross Borders” (Harvard Business Review, 2012) and “The Promise of Targeted Innovation” (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2019) Research published in Marketing Science, Management Science, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Research; featured in The Economist Creator and director of the INSEAD Storewars senior executive programme for the consumer goods industries Biography The commercial relationship between consumer goods manufacturers and retailers is contested, high-stakes, and widely misread. Marcel Corstjens, Unilever Chaired Professor of Marketing Emeritus at INSEAD, has spent four decades researching where that contest is actually won and lost, and his findings consistently challenge what companies believe about their own growth strategies. His book Store Wars: The Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, co-authored with Judith Corstjens and published by J. Wiley & Sons, introduced the Mindspace and Shelfspace framework: the idea that the strategic contest between manufacturers and retailers is a battle for control of two distinct assets, these being the consumer’s mental availability and the product’s physical presence in store. Translated into five languages and taught through the INSEAD Storewars senior executive programme he created and directed, the framework became the most widely adopted analytical tool for understanding manufacturer-retailer power dynamics in FMCG. His research has repeatedly overturned the conventional logic of large consumer goods companies. Work published in MIT Sloan Management Review with Gregory Carpenter of Kellogg and Tushmit Hasan of UT Austin showed that the biggest FMCG brands (i.e. those investing more than a billion dollars annually in R&D) see no measurable sales return from that outlay. Research published in Harvard Business Review with Rajiv Lal of Harvard Business School demonstrated that retail internationalisation does not reliably improve revenue or profit margins; home market performance is the primary driver. Both findings run counter to assumptions embedded in how most FMCG leadership teams set strategy. Corstjens holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where his doctoral dissertation received first prize from the American Marketing Association. He has been a visiting professor at Cornell and Stanford, and has consulted for Unilever, Heineken, Novartis, Roche, PepsiCo, and Cadbury Schweppes, among others. His research has appeared in Marketing Science, Management Science, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Research, and has been featured in The Economist. Key speaking topics Manufacturer-Retailer Power Dynamics Marketing Strategy in FMCG Innovation Investment and Commercial Return Brand Strategy and Private Label Competition Retail Internationalisation and Global Growth Marketing Resource Allocation Marketing Strategy in the Pharmaceutical Industry Ideal for Chief Marketing Officers and commercial strategy leaders in consumer goods companies Senior executive teams in FMCG and pharmaceutical businesses facing stalled revenue growth Retail leadership teams navigating the competitive dynamics of private label and supplier relationships Executive education programmes for senior FMCG, retail, or pharmaceutical audiences Audience outcomes A clear analytical framework under both Mindspace and Shelfspace for diagnosing where control of the manufacturer-retailer relationship is being lost and what to do about it Evidence-based reappraisal of whether current R&D and innovation investment is actually driving revenue, or consuming capital without commercial return Practical criteria for assessing whether a retail internationalisation strategy is likely to deliver or destroy shareholder value Sharper understanding of how private label competition is reshaping the power balance between retailers and brand manufacturers, and what manufacturers can do to respond A working distinction between “Newtonian” and “Lorenzian” approaches to innovation investment, and which is appropriate at which scale

Key speaking topics Brand leadership and marketing strategy Creative leadership Innovation and creativity in business Global advertising and communications High-performance culture Leadership in complex markets Ideal for CEOs and senior leadership teams Marketing and brand executives Advertising and communications professionals Organisations seeking high-performance culture insights Audience outcomes Clear perspectives on building brands beyond functional differentiation Practical insights into creative leadership at scale Lessons from global advertising and communications leadership Frameworks linking brand strength to business performance Why organisations work with Kevin Roberts Direct experience leading a global advertising network. Proven track record in brand strategy and creative leadership. Published author on brand building and leadership. Experience spanning business, academia, and sports governance. Biography Kevin Roberts is a former CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi who led one of the world’s most recognised global advertising networks and helped shape brand strategy at scale. His leadership experience spans international markets, global clients, and complex commercial environments, making him a sought-after voice on brand building, creativity, and business performance. During his tenure at Saatchi & Saatchi, and through subsequent chair roles within the organisation and its parent group, he operated at the centre of global communications strategy. His perspective combines board-level decision-making with hands-on experience in driving brand relevance and competitive positioning across industries. Roberts is the author of Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands and 64 Shots: Leadership in a Crazy World, and co-author of Peak Performance: Business Lessons from the World’s Top Sporting Organizations. His published work explores the connection between emotional engagement, leadership, and sustained business success. His contribution to business and the wider community was recognised with appointment as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. He has also held honorary professorships in creative leadership, innovation, and leadership at leading universities in the UK and New Zealand, reflecting the practical and academic relevance of his work. Alongside his corporate career, Roberts has held governance roles in international rugby, including board-level and chair positions, further strengthening his insight into high-performance cultures and leadership under pressure. For organisations seeking clarity on brand differentiation, creative leadership, and the commercial impact of marketing at global scale, Kevin Roberts brings senior executive experience, published thought leadership, and cross-sector governance expertise.

Why organisations work with Ken Hughes His Blue Dot Consumer framework gives leadership teams a named model for the modern consumer – one who places themselves at the centre of every interaction and expects brands to be instant, personal, and emotionally authentic. It replaces vague customer-centricity language with a concrete diagnostic tool. Taylormaking, his 2025 book, uses Taylor Swift’s 12 studio albums as a structured analytical framework for brand intimacy – demonstrating how emotional loyalty, tribal belonging, and values-led branding operate in practice and what that requires from commercial strategy. A career spanning strategy consulting at Accenture, consumer insight at Nielsen, and 25 years as CEO of Glacier Consulting gives him a rare combination: analytical training in how consumers behave and sustained practical experience of what actually shifts in boardrooms. Named by CX Network among the Top 50 CX Leaders to Follow in 2025 and the Top 50 AI Leaders in CX to Follow in 2026, he brings an externally validated, current perspective on where consumer expectations are heading – not where they have been. His interdisciplinary base – consumer psychology, behavioural economics, digital anthropology, and cyberpsychology – lets him explain brand decisions as outcomes of human behaviour, not just marketing choices. That distinction is particularly valuable in conversations with senior leaders who have grown sceptical of CX as a function. Biography highlights CEO and founder of Glacier Consulting, a consumer insight agency whose clients include Coca-Cola, IKEA, AXA, Unilever, Walmart, Google, Microsoft, and PayPal Former Strategy Consultant at Accenture and Manager of Consumer Insight at Nielsen Part-time lecturer in Consumer Behaviour at University College Cork Author of Taylormaking: A New Era of Modern Branding and Customer Connection (2025), a CX strategy book structured around Taylor Swift’s 12 studio albums TEDx speaker at TEDxUniversityofNicosia; talk has received more than 100,000 online views Named by CX Network among the Top 50 Customer Experience Leaders to Follow in 2025 and Top 50 AI Leaders in CX to Follow in 2026 Biography Customer loyalty has become harder to earn as the expectations of consumers – particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha – have shifted from satisfaction to emotional belonging. Ken Hughes built Glacier Consulting around one persistent question: why do people buy, and what does that mean for how brands should behave? After earlier careers as a strategy consultant at Accenture and a consumer insight manager at Nielsen, he has spent more than two decades embedding behavioural science into commercial practice. His named concept, the Blue Dot Consumer, gives organisations a specific model for the modern customer – one who treats themselves as the centre of every interaction, expecting brands to be instant, personal, and emotionally intelligent. That framework, rooted in consumer psychology, digital anthropology, and behavioural economics, underpins both his consultancy work and his keynote practice across five continents. His 2025 book, Taylormaking, extends that argument into a structured analysis of brand intimacy, using Taylor Swift’s 12 studio albums as a framework for understanding emotional loyalty, tribal community, and values-led leadership. It is a useful index of how Hughes works: making the mechanisms of consumer psychology legible and commercially actionable for leadership audiences well beyond the CX function. A part-time lecturer in Consumer Behaviour at University College Cork and named by CX Network among the Top 50 CX Leaders to Follow in both 2025 and 2026, Hughes speaks more than 80 times annually. His client roster – spanning Coca-Cola, Unilever, Walmart, Google, Microsoft, and PayPal – reflects both the breadth of sectors in which his behavioural arguments apply and the seniority of the audiences he typically addresses. Key speaking topics Consumer psychology and shopper behaviour Customer experience strategy Brand connection and emotional loyalty Generational consumer shifts – Gen Z and Gen Alpha AI and the future of customer experience Creativity and innovation in commercial culture Ideal for CMOs and marketing leaders focused on building brand loyalty in a competitive, AI-influenced landscape Customer experience leaders navigating the shift from transactional to emotionally driven consumer relationships Senior commercial and retail leaders seeking behavioural insight into how younger consumer cohorts make brand decisions Transformation and innovation leads rethinking how brands earn and sustain connection with modern audiences Audience outcomes A named model – the Blue Dot Consumer – for diagnosing how modern consumers make brand decisions and what they expect from every brand interaction Practical understanding of how emotional loyalty differs from satisfaction, and what organisations must do differently to build it Insight into how Gen Z and Gen Alpha are reshaping brand expectations and what that requires from commercial and marketing strategy Clarity on AI’s role in the future of customer experience – where automation strengthens brand connection and where it risks eroding it A framework, drawn from Taylormaking, for building tribal brand belonging through authenticity, community, and values-led leadership

Why organisations work with Jeremy Heimans His intellectual authority is built on a named thesis. New Power, co-authored with Henry Timms, was shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, featured as the “Big Idea” in the Harvard Business Review, and accompanied by a TED talk viewed over 1.5 million times. The operating credentials are rare. As co-founder of GetUp!, Avaaz and All Out, and CEO of Purpose, he has built some of the most successful campaigning organisations and social movements of the last two decades, so he reasons about participation from live product experience. His framework, (Product + Purpose) × Participation, gives brand and marketing leaders a concrete equation rather than a worldview, which makes it easier to translate into campaign design and consumer engagement strategy. His recent work on AI participation, autonomous agents and governance scaffolding brings the New Power thesis into the question most executive teams are now actually wrestling with, how to build legitimacy around AI systems that are already in the building. The institutional recognition, Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, Chair of its Global Agenda Council on Civic Participation, the Ford Foundation’s 75th Anniversary Visionary Award, means he opens doors for the organisations he speaks to as well as the audiences he addresses. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of Purpose, a public-benefit corporation building social movements for brands, NGOs and philanthropies Co-founder of GetUp!, Avaaz and All Out Co-author of New Power with Henry Timms (Penguin Random House); FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year shortlist; HBR Big Idea feature TED talk on new power with over 1.5 million views World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; Chair of the WEF Global Agenda Council on Civic Participation; Ford Foundation 75th Anniversary Visionary Award Educated at the University of Sydney and Harvard; earlier career at McKinsey Biography Power has changed shape. The argument that Jeremy Heimans built over two decades of campaigning and writing is that the organisations, brands and leaders who will matter in this century are the ones who understand participation as a structural force, not a communications channel. New Power, his book with Henry Timms, turned that argument into one of the most cited frames in contemporary leadership thinking, shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, featured as the Big Idea in Harvard Business Review, and anchored by a TED talk now viewed over 1.5 million times. The credibility behind the frame is operational. Heimans co-founded GetUp! in Australia in 2005, a political organisation that grew to more members than all of Australia’s political parties combined, and was a co-founder of the global campaigning platforms Avaaz and All Out. His company, Purpose, is the public-benefit corporation he built to carry that expertise into brands, NGOs and philanthropies, helping them design the participation models that command-and-control marketing no longer produces. Academically, he is a McKinsey alumnus with degrees from the University of Sydney and Harvard. Institutionally, he has been recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, chaired its Global Agenda Council on Civic Participation, and received the Ford Foundation’s 75th Anniversary Visionary Award. His framework, (Product + Purpose) × Participation, is the simplest expression of what his advisory work delivers for consumer brands. The current edge of the work is artificial intelligence. Heimans’ thesis on how participation builds legitimacy is increasingly being applied to AI deployment, autonomous agents and the governance scaffolding companies are building for large-scale AI use. For leadership teams trying to work out how to retain brand trust, employee commitment and regulatory standing as AI reshapes their operating model, he is one of the few commentators whose framework was already built for this shift. Key speaking topics New power and the shift from broadcast to participation AI, autonomous agents and the governance of participation Brand building and consumer engagement under (Product + Purpose) × Participation Movement design for organisations, NGOs and advocacy Leadership and influence in hyperconnected systems The future of work and distributed authority Ideal for CEOs, CMOs and communications leaders redesigning brand and stakeholder strategy for a participatory environment Chief AI officers, governance leads and executive committees building legitimacy around AI systems NGO and philanthropy leadership teams scaling movements and civic participation programmes World Economic Forum, public affairs and policy forums where civic and corporate power converge Audience outcomes A working grasp of the New Power frame and how it changes marketing, leadership and governance decisions Concrete examples of brands, movements and platforms that have applied (or failed to apply) new power mechanics A clearer view of how participation can be designed into AI deployment and governance rather than retrofitted Practical models for civic, employee and customer engagement that work with the grain of hyperconnected systems

James Averdieck’s Background He built the brand with passion and sold it for £32 million. James is compelling and unique as a keynote speaker, as he delivers the message that at the heart of entrepreneurialism lies the idea, the journey, not the exit strategy, and not the final sale price. The entrepreneur, conveys a strong message about the value of loving your business. Speaking from experience, he shares his innovative ideas about entrepreneurship; simplifying business and using creative agility to make your dreams achievable. He shares the ups and downs of running a business with a raw candour, offering a true insight into the rocky road to success. The combination of James’ credibility and transparency, mean important and real lessons can be learned from his keynote speeches. Charismatic, intelligent and thoughtful, James is an ideal speaker for the business circuit. Born in Yorkshire in 1965, James was educated at Uppingham School before studying Economics at Durham University. Following University, James joined the graduate programme at strategy consultants Arthur D. Little, where he learnt about the key drivers to a successful business, this sparked a fire within him to learn more. James spent 9 years in the Food industry working for Safeway and St Ivel and learnt about Sales and Marketing and running businesses. With St Ivel he moved to Belgium and became a convert to Belgian gastronomy and, as he says, ‘went native on the chocolate front’. It was in Brussels that the seed was sown for his UK chocolate venture. James saw the opportunity of marrying high-quality chocolate patisserie with efficient UK supermarket distribution. Spotting a gap in the market, James saw that consumers wanted artisanal products and there was a backlash forming against mass produced big brands. He wanted to deliver high-quality products using the best raw materials. Gü, the brand, is about chocolate extremism – evoking nostalgic memories and magical smells of baking with chocolate. The brand was embraced with love by the supermarkets, launching first in Sainsburys and Waitrose with the others following apace. James has turned his attentions now to a healthier brand, The Coconut Collective, a non-dairy based brand. As a speaker, James’ knowledge combined with natural story-telling makes him an ideal choice for any audience looking to be inspired. James Averdieck is the man who built and sold Gü! A master entrepreneur who realised his dream, harnessed his strengths and pioneered a leading brand, his bumpy journey means he has invaluable lessons to impart.

Why organisations work with Igor Beuker He has built, scaled and exited agencies from the inside. LaComunidad was acquired by GroupM, so the advice comes from an operator, not a commentator. He co-founded IAB Netherlands and chaired it in the formative years of digital advertising in Europe. That gives him a structural read on where the industry compensates and where it is still broken. He advises CMOs at Nike, Amazon, L’Oreal and Unilever on marketing innovation, which means the room he is speaking to usually recognises the problems he names. He has juried Cannes Lions and the Webby Awards, which gives him a defensible position on what actually separates work that moves a brand from work that wins a press release. He writes for Rolling Stone’s Culture Council, so his read on culture is not a keynote flourish. It is published and tested in front of a consumer-facing audience. Biography highlights Founder of LaComunidad, acquired by GroupM (WPP) in 2008. Co-founder and former chairman of IAB Netherlands. Founder of ViralBlog and SocialMedia8. Jury member, Cannes Lions and the Webby Awards. Member and published contributor, Rolling Stone Culture Council. Advisor to consumer brands including Nike, Amazon, L’Oreal and Unilever. Biography LaComunidad was a Dutch interactive agency that most of the global holding companies missed. GroupM did not. In 2008, WPP’s media arm acquired it, and the founder stayed on in a senior role to help integrate the thinking into a global network. That founder is Igor Beuker. Before the acquisition he had already co-founded IAB Netherlands and served as its chair through the years when the European digital advertising market went from fringe to structural. That combination, an operator who built inside the industry and a convenor who helped shape its rules, is what most CMO-facing speakers do not have. His work since has kept the same center of gravity. He advises consumer brands on where marketing and media are moving, with Nike, Amazon, L’Oreal and Unilever among the names that recur. He juries Cannes Lions and the Webby Awards, which keeps him close to the work itself rather than to the theory of the work. He writes for Rolling Stone’s Culture Council on how culture, technology and commerce intersect. The argument he brings to a room is commercial. Advertising wins quarters. Innovation in how a brand shows up, sells, and earns cultural permission is what compounds over a decade. For a CMO trying to defend a marketing budget to a CFO, that distinction is the conversation. Key speaking topics Marketing innovation Brand strategy in the digital economy Trend forecasting for consumer brands Media and advertising transformation Purpose-driven brand building Customer experience and engagement Commercial creativity Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leadership at consumer brands Digital, media and brand teams inside global advertisers Boards and executive teams reviewing the return on marketing investment Agency leadership and industry associations Audience outcomes A sharper read on which marketing and media shifts are structural and which are noise. A working argument for why brand and innovation investment outperforms short-term activation over a cycle. Named examples from inside global consumer brands, not abstract case studies. A clearer view of where culture, technology and commerce are converging and what that means for the next planning cycle. A vocabulary a CMO can take into the CFO conversation.

Why organisations work with Hunter Tura His “22nd Century Brand” framework, developed publicly through DesignSingapore Council, gives leadership teams a precise vocabulary for what brand investment is actually supposed to deliver, reframing brand from a static identity asset to a dynamic participation platform that drives commercial affiliation. He has built and run design businesses at CEO level, which means his counsel on brand strategy is not advisory abstraction. Rather, it is the same kind of operational decision-making he is asking leadership teams to make. His client portfolio spans luxury (Prada, Chanel, Tiffany), cultural institutions (Victoria & Albert Museum, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), aviation (Changi Airport), and technology (Netflix, GE, Samsung) providing a level of cross-sector pattern recognition that a single-sector brand consultant cannot offer. His formation in architecture under Rem Koolhaas at Harvard GSD gives him a systems-thinking approach to brand that most strategists, who are trained in marketing or communications, lack. It shows in how he diagnoses problems others misread. His work at Entro on experiential branding and the built environment addresses a dimension of brand strategy – how physical spaces communicate and shape participation – that is almost entirely absent from the mainstream brand conversation, but increasingly urgent for property, hospitality, aviation, and cultural sectors. Biography highlights Chief Creative Officer, Entro Communications (appointed November 2025); previously President & CEO, Bruce Mau Design (2010–2019) and CEO, The Creative Organization Client work spanning Netflix, Samsung, GE, Unilever, Audi, Lululemon, Changi Airport Group, Lucid Motors, and the Victoria & Albert Museum Curator, Canada Pavilion, 2018 London Design Biennale; juror, Presidential Design Awards Singapore (2017) and Florence Design Biennale (2019) Commentator, “Design Canada” (2017 documentary) Creator of “The 22nd Century Brand” – a conceptual series produced with DesignSingapore Council and the National Design Centre, reframing brand evolution as a strategic and societal imperative March, Harvard University Graduate School of Design (thesis directed by Rem Koolhaas); Supermentor, Harvard Business School Field X/Y programme; Alumni Council, Harvard GSD Biography The organisations that use brand to create durable competitive advantage treat it as a design discipline, not a marketing function. Hunter Tura has spent 25 years at that boundary, running Bruce Mau Design as President & CEO for nine years, founding SYNDICATE X and The Creative Organization, and now serving as Chief Creative Officer at Entro Communications, where he leads creative strategy across experiential branding, wayfinding, and built-environment design at an international scale. His client work crosses sectors that rarely share a diagnostic framework: luxury goods (Prada, Chanel, Tiffany), cultural institutions (the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), aviation and hospitality (Changi Airport, Marina Bay Sands), and technology (Netflix, GE, Samsung). The common strategic problem is consistent: how does an organisation make its brand do genuine commercial work rather than simply look credible? That question has a specific intellectual architecture in Tura’s hands. His “22nd Century Brand” framework traces how brand has evolved from static trademark to dynamic participation platform. The organisations ahead of their competitors have designed brand as a system. The ones falling behind have commissioned a refresh. Tura holds an MArch from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where his thesis was supervised by Rem Koolhaas, and a BA from Haverford College in the Growth and Structure of Cities. He has served on the Harvard GSD Alumni Council, is a Supermentor at Harvard Business School, and was curator of the Canada Pavilion at the 2018 London Design Biennale. He also appeared as a commentator in the 2017 documentary Design Canada. Key speaking topics Brand strategy as a driver of competitive growth Design-led business transformation Experiential branding and the built environment The evolution of brand from identity to participation platform Building and leading creative organisations at scale Cross-sector brand innovation The commercial case for design thinking Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leadership managing significant brand investment with unclear ROI CEOs and boards navigating brand repositioning, post-merger integration, or market repositioning Senior leaders in property, hospitality, aviation, and cultural sectors where physical environment is central to brand experience Executive education cohorts in innovation, design strategy, or competitive differentiation Audience outcomes A diagnostic framework for identifying why brand investment is not producing competitive returns – with named examples from luxury, tech, and cultural sectors A clear distinction between communications-led and design-led brand strategy, and what each produces Practical language for commissioning, evaluating, and challenging brand strategy work at leadership level An understanding of how experiential and environmental design is reshaping brand expectations across sectors Exposure to cross-sector patterns from a practitioner who has made CEO-level brand decisions across more than twenty years and four distinct industry categories

Why organisations work with Howard Schultz He is one of the only major executives to have led a full crisis turnaround at the same global company twice. That longitudinal experience produces a very different quality of insight than a single transformation story. His 2011 number-one New York Times bestseller “Onward” presents a specific and testable argument: recovering a business means restoring what people came for, not restructuring around it. Within three years of his 2008 return to Starbucks, the stock had risen more than five times from its crisis low. His case for employee investment is built on commercial evidence, not values rhetoric. Starbucks under Schultz was among the first U.S. companies to extend healthcare to part-time workers and to offer equity participation to hourly employees. He presents attrition, service quality, and customer loyalty as the direct outputs. Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011 and included in Time’s “Time 200” most influential people, he holds ethics recognition from Columbia Business School, Notre Dame’s Mendoza College, and UCLA Anderson – providing academic validation of a practical executive record. As co-founder of Maveron, a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management, he brings pattern recognition on consumer brand durability well beyond the Starbucks story. Biography highlights Chairman and CEO of Starbucks across three leadership periods (1986-2000, 2008-2017, 2022-2023), growing the company from 11 stores to 28,000 locations across 77 countries Took Starbucks public in 1992; oversaw nearly $100 billion added to the company’s market capitalisation between 2008 and 2017 Author of four books including “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” (2011), a number-one New York Times bestseller Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011; included in Time magazine’s “Time 200” most influential people Ethics and leadership awards from Columbia Business School (Botwinick Prize), Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business (Hesburgh Award), and UCLA Anderson (John Wooden Global Leadership Award) Co-founder of Maveron (1998), a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management and early investments including eBay and Zulily Biography The most destructive leadership decisions at scale are rarely made during crises. They accumulate during the growth years, when speed and efficiency gradually crowd out the cultural foundations that made a business worth building. Howard Schultz experienced this from the inside, as the architect of Starbucks’ global expansion and the executive who had to reverse the damage when it became visible. His 2008 return as CEO is documented in “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul,” a number-one New York Times bestseller. The argument at the centre of the book is precise: the path back to financial health ran directly through culture, not around it. Employee retraining, the restoration of the in-store experience, and a deliberate recalibration of what Starbucks stood for came before the financial metrics recovered. Within three years of his return, the stock had risen more than five times from its crisis low. His approach to employees follows the same logic. Starbucks under his leadership was among the first U.S. companies to extend healthcare benefits to part-time workers, and it offered equity participation to hourly employees through a programme called Bean Stock. Schultz presented these not as social obligations but as commercial decisions: loyalty, retention, and service quality are measurable outputs of how people are treated, not side effects of good intentions. Named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2011 and included in Time magazine’s “Time 200,” Schultz holds ethics recognition from Columbia Business School, Notre Dame’s Mendoza College, and UCLA Anderson. As co-founder of Maveron, a consumer-focused venture capital firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management, he has extended this analysis of brand durability well beyond the Starbucks story. His perspective reaches audiences navigating growth, crisis recovery, and the sustained tension between operational efficiency and cultural health. Key speaking topics Values-based leadership at scale Crisis leadership and organisational recovery Brand culture and long-term commercial performance Global consumer brand strategy Employee investment as competitive strategy Entrepreneurship and growth Corporate responsibility and business ethics Ideal for CEOs and executive leadership teams navigating rapid scaling decisions or organisational turnaround Chief People Officers and HR leadership examining employee value proposition at scale Brand, marketing, and commercial leadership in consumer-facing organisations Boards and senior leaders weighing cultural priorities against short-term commercial pressure Audience outcomes A tested framework for treating culture and commercial performance as mutually reinforcing, not competing priorities Concrete, sequenced lessons from a live turnaround at global scale – what decisions were made, in what order, and why A reframe of employee investment from a cost line to a commercial variable with traceable outcomes Perspective on how a brand’s identity is preserved or eroded through the decisions made at pace and scale Practical insight into leading across multiple organisational phases, including growth, institutional crisis, and recovery

Why organisations work with Hamish Taylor Operator authority across three unrelated industries at CEO level: aviation brand at British Airways, cross-border rail at Eurostar, and retail banking at Sainsbury’s Bank, all reached before he turned 40. A specific innovation method, not a generic call to think differently. The “Masterthief” approach pairs a defined business problem with an unrelated sector that has already solved a structurally similar problem, then translates the mechanism back. Concrete cross-sector transfers he can talk through end to end: yacht interior designers brought into British Airways cabin design, Disney queue management applied to airport experience, rugby refereeing brought into banking risk and compliance. Senior advisory standing that matches the room. Chairs the EMEA advisory board for Emory University, Non-Executive Director of Chartered Brands, Trustee of the Robert T Jones scholarship, and recipient of Emory’s Sheth Distinguished International Alumnus Award. Works the full audience range, from board and CEO level to frontline operating staff, with the same material translated for each layer rather than a single fixed deck. Biography highlights Former CEO of Eurostar Group, having joined as Managing Director of Eurostar (UK) Ltd in 1997 with a remit to reverse heavy losses. Former CEO of Sainsbury’s Bank, the joint venture between J Sainsbury plc and the Bank of Scotland. Former Head of Brand Management at British Airways, responsible for First, Club World, Club Europe, Concorde and Shuttle, including the introduction of flat beds. Rail Professional Business Manager of the Year, 1998, for results at Eurostar. Sheth Distinguished International Alumnus Award, Emory University; Chair of Emory’s EMEA advisory board. Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport. Biography Eurostar was three years old and losing money heavily when Hamish Taylor took over as Managing Director of the UK business in 1997. Within two years he was running the Eurostar Group across the UK, France and Belgium, and had been named Rail Professional Business Manager of the Year. At 36, he had already been Head of Brand Management at British Airways, where the relaunch of Club World, Club Europe and First Class included the introduction of flat beds. By the end of 1999 he had moved again, this time to run Sainsbury’s Bank as CEO, the joint venture between J Sainsbury and the Bank of Scotland. Three industries, three CEO-level remits, all before he turned 40. The pattern across them was the same: an organisation that had stopped looking outside its own sector for answers, and a customer proposition that had drifted from what the customer actually valued. That pattern is the basis of his current work. The Inspired Leaders Network titled him “Masterthief” for the way he runs innovation as a translation exercise. Yacht interior designers helped redesign aircraft cabins. Disney’s queue management informed airport experience. Rugby refereeing logic was applied to banking risk and compliance. Each transfer was a structural match between a problem and a sector that had already solved something equivalent. Today he advises corporations and governments on innovation, customer focus and people leadership, chairs the EMEA advisory board for Emory University, sits as a Non-Executive Director of Chartered Brands, and is a Trustee of the Robert T Jones memorial scholarship. Emory has recognised the work with its Sheth Distinguished International Alumnus Award. Key speaking topics Cross-sector innovation and idea transfer Customer-led business transformation Brand strategy and customer proposition design Leadership of organisational change Service innovation in regulated industries Growth strategy after a turnaround Ideal for CEOs and executive committees rebuilding a customer proposition after a structural shift in their market CMOs, brand and customer experience leaders translating strategy into operating reality Innovation, transformation and strategy leads who need a working method, not a culture talk Boards in regulated sectors looking for an external operator’s view on customer and growth Audience outcomes A specific technique for sourcing innovation from outside the sector, with worked examples from aviation, rail and banking. A clearer view of where their organisation’s customer proposition has drifted from the customer’s actual definition of value. Concrete language to describe the difference between sector benchmarking and structural problem matching. Reference cases from BA, Eurostar and Sainsbury’s Bank that translate into their own context rather than sit as anecdotes.