Neurodiversity

Why organisations work with Clare Kenny Her role as Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry, responsible for a strategy covering 9,000 employees globally, gives her credibility with CHROs and operational leaders alike. She built the business case for wellbeing investment at scale, not just the human one. Prior career at YSC Consulting (part of Accenture) and MindGym grounds her frameworks in leadership psychology and behavioural science, not wellness trends or personal experience alone. Her TEDx talk reframes addiction as a spectrum behaviour present in most high-performance cultures, shifting the conversation from individual stigma to a risk organisations are actively creating through their own culture. Her work on ADHD and neuroinclusion moves beyond awareness. She helps organisations identify the specific leadership and structural conditions that enable neurodivergent talent to perform, and the ones that quietly prevent it. She moves wellbeing from a programme organisations fund to a behaviour leaders practise. That shift is what determines whether culture actually changes. Biography highlights BSc in Psychology, University of Manchester Former Global Wellbeing Lead, Burberry: led the global wellbeing strategy for a 9,000-person workforce Former Head of Client Operations (Europe), YSC Consulting (part of Accenture), leadership advisory Former Client Executive, MindGym, behavioural science learning and development consultancy TEDx speaker on rethinking addiction as a spectrum issue present in high-performance environments Clients include Warner Bros Discovery, KPMG, Ministry of Justice, Channel 4, Specsavers, Fidelity International, Avanade, and HSBC Biography At Burberry, the global wellbeing strategy covered 9,000 employees across multiple continents. Building that infrastructure required a specific kind of credibility; part organisational psychology, part leadership consultancy experience, and a willingness to name what most organisations actively avoid. Clare Kenny holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Manchester and built her professional foundations at MindGym, a behavioural science learning and development consultancy. She moved into leadership advisory at YSC Consulting (part of Accenture), running client operations across Europe. That sequence; psychology, behavioural science, leadership consulting, shapes how she approaches wellbeing as an organisational systems problem, not a personal one. Her most defining role was Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry, where she designed and ran the company’s wellbeing strategy across its global workforce. That experience directly informs her current work with organisations including KPMG, Warner Bros Discovery, Channel 4, and the Ministry of Justice, where her focus is on psychological safety, neuroinclusion, and the leadership behaviours that create or undermine mentally healthy cultures. Clare also speaks from personal experience of ADHD, addiction, anxiety, and grief. Her TEDx talk reframes addiction as a spectrum behaviour recognisable in most high-performance environments: not a personal failing confined to a few. That willingness to name what organisations routinely avoid is what makes her work function as more than awareness-raising. It becomes a credible basis for sustained culture change. Key speaking topics Psychological safety and workplace mental health Neuroinclusion and ADHD at work Sustainable leadership under pressure Addiction and numbing behaviours in high-performance cultures Wellbeing strategy and culture transformation Leadership resilience Ideal for CHROs and people directors designing or resetting a wellbeing strategy Senior leaders and executive teams navigating burnout or culture health HR and organisational development teams in professional services, media, financial services, and retail Organisations building neuroinclusive cultures or addressing gaps in psychological safety Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of why wellbeing strategies fail to shift culture – and what actually changes leader behaviour Practical tools for recognising and responding to psychological safety issues at team level A reframed understanding of neurodivergence and addiction as organisational conditions, not individual ones Confidence to have honest leadership conversations about mental health in high-performance settings Specific practices for sustaining performance without burning people out

Why organisations work with Helen Lawal Clinical credibility that few wellbeing speakers match: 15 years as an NHS GP, MRCGP, and a postgraduate qualification in nutrition, so the science in the room is hers, not borrowed. A rare specialism in ADHD and AuDHD in women, shaped by a private practice focused on nutrition and sustainable behaviour change for this group. Named ambassador for ADHD UK and trainer on the National Autism Training Programme, so the neurodiversity content is informed by advocacy and training work, not a topic pick-up. Television presenting experience on Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped and How to Lose Weight Well, which translates into a speaker who can hold a large room and explain science without losing it. Lived experience as a late-diagnosed AuDHD woman, which grounds the work in something buyers trust more than a deck. Biography highlights NHS GP with 15 years of clinical experience, MRCGP, MBBS (Hull York Medical School), BSc Sport and Exercise Science (University of Leeds), DFSRH, MNutr. Celebrity Ambassador for ADHD UK (charity number 1188365). Trainer on the National Autism Training Programme. Presenter on Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped; co-presenter of How to Lose Weight Well with Dr Javid Abdelmoneim. Runs a private practice supporting ADHD and AuDHD women with nutrition, eating habits, and sustainable health behaviour change. Media contributor across BBC, ITV’s This Morning, Steph’s Packed Lunch, and BBC Radio Leeds on women’s health, nutrition, and neurodiversity. Biography Most corporate wellbeing content still assumes a neurotypical employee. For the quarter of any workforce that is neurodivergent, and especially for the women diagnosed in their thirties and forties after years of being told they were simply disorganised, the standard advice lands badly. That gap is where Dr Helen Lawal’s work sits. She came to it through clinical practice. Fifteen years as an NHS GP, MRCGP-qualified, with a medical degree from Hull York Medical School and a first degree in sport and exercise science from Leeds, gave her the grounding. A postgraduate qualification in nutrition and a specialism in ADHD turned it into a defined practice area. She now runs a private service for ADHD and AuDHD women focused on eating, energy, and sustainable behaviour change, the areas where standard GP time runs out. The public-facing side has been built in parallel. She presents Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped and co-presents How to Lose Weight Well, work that has trained her to explain food science and weight management to a mainstream audience without losing the evidence base. She is a Celebrity Ambassador for ADHD UK and a trainer on the National Autism Training Programme, which keeps the neurodiversity content anchored in advocacy and training, not marketing. For an organisation, the value is a speaker who can talk credibly to HR, DEI, and wellbeing leads about what actually helps neurodivergent employees, particularly women, and who can do it in a register that works for an all-staff audience as well as a clinical one. Key speaking topics ADHD and AuDHD in women Neurodiversity in the workplace Nutrition and eating behaviour Women’s health and hormones Sustainable weight management Neuroaffirming health and wellbeing Health communication and behaviour change Ideal for HR, DEI, and wellbeing leads designing neuro-inclusive programmes Employee networks and ERGs focused on women’s health, neurodiversity, or both Healthcare, pharma, and insurance organisations briefing clinicians and communicators Conferences and internal events that need a clinician who can present to a non-clinical audience Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how ADHD and AuDHD present in women, and why late diagnosis is common Specific, evidence-based guidance on nutrition and eating behaviour for neurodivergent adults Language and framing for neuroaffirming conversations at work A realistic view of what sustainable behaviour change looks like, separate from diet-industry claims Practical signals managers and HR can use to support neurodivergent colleagues

Why organisations work with George King A first-hand account of decision-making at lethal stakes, not borrowed from sport or special forces analogy. King climbed The Shard at 19 without ropes; the consequence of error was death, not a missed target. A specific reframe of ADHD that audiences with neurodivergent colleagues or family members find usable. The argument is that hyperfocus and risk tolerance are trainable assets, not deficits the workplace must tolerate. Public credibility through the Channel 4 documentary “The Boy Who Climbed The Shard” and presenting work for the channel’s extreme sports output, which gives the booking immediate recognition with general audiences. A profile that travels well to younger and external-facing audiences: 1.6 million YouTube views on the documentary, an active public following, and a story that lands in the room before he speaks. Biography highlights First person to free-solo climb The Shard, July 2019, age 19. Subject of the 2020 Channel 4 documentary “The Boy Who Climbed The Shard”. Channel 4 presenter on extreme sports specials. Free-solo ascents of Lotte Tower, Seoul, and Stratosphere Tower, with BASE-jump descents. Featured in Time magazine, the Architects’ Journal, and Times Live. Speaks publicly about ADHD and fear management on platforms including the Minter Dial podcast. Biography In July 2019 a 19 year old climbed The Shard with no ropes, no safety equipment, and no permission. The ascent took 45 minutes. The legal aftermath took longer, ending in a custodial sentence at HMP Pentonville. George King was the climber, and the story is the foundation of every keynote he gives. What makes the talk useful to corporate audiences is not the climb itself but the preparation behind it. King describes fear as a system that can be trained, with named techniques he applies before each ascent: visualisation, breath control, and the specific mental routines that hold composure when the consequence of a mistake is fatal. The frame is recognisable to anyone who has briefed a board on a high-stakes decision, but the stakes are concrete rather than figurative. He also speaks openly about ADHD, which he treats as the cognitive asset that makes the climbs possible. His position is direct: hyperfocus, risk tolerance and pattern attention are not deficits requiring medication, they are trainable capabilities that produce performance when properly channelled. That argument has earned him a following among neurodivergent audiences and the parents and managers around them. King has presented two extreme sports specials for Channel 4 and was the subject of the channel’s 2020 documentary “The Boy Who Climbed The Shard”, which has passed 1.6 million views on YouTube. His climbs since The Shard include Lotte Tower in Seoul and the Stratosphere Tower, both with BASE-jump descents, and both covered in international press. Key speaking topics Fear management under high-consequence conditions ADHD and neurodiversity as performance Mental preparation and visualisation Risk assessment in extreme environments Resilience after public failure Peak performance Ideal for Internal employee events on neurodiversity and inclusion, particularly where the audience includes line managers of neurodivergent staff Sales kick-offs and motivational set-pieces where the brief is composure under pressure Youth-facing, education and apprentice audiences where reach and recognition matter as much as content Wellbeing and mental performance programmes looking for a non-clinical voice Audience outcomes A named set of techniques for managing fear before a high-stakes event, drawn directly from the climber’s own pre-ascent routine A reframe of ADHD that audiences can take back to neurodivergent colleagues, children or themselves A first-hand account of decision-making where the cost of error is final, useful as a reference point for less extreme corporate risk conversations A memorable headline story that gives the wider event a centrepiece audiences will retell

Why organisations work with Robin Ince Sixteen years co-hosting The Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox gave him a working method for translating serious ideas into language a general audience can act on. Few speakers have practised that craft at that scale. His account of late-diagnosed ADHD in Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal is one of the most widely read first-person treatments of adult neurodiversity from a recognisably high-functioning public figure. That makes him useful to leadership audiences who do not see themselves in standard neurodiversity training. He brings genuine comedy timing to material that is usually delivered flat. Boards and senior leadership offsites can absorb difficult content from him that they would resist from a clinical speaker. He carries credentials that survive scrutiny in any room: Honorary Fellow at UCL, honorary doctorate from Royal Holloway, Fellow of the British Science Association, Booksellers Association Author of the Year. Biography highlights Co-host of BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox, 2009 to 2025; the show won the 2011 Sony Gold Award for Best Speech Programme. Honorary Fellow of University College London and honorary Doctor of Science of Royal Holloway, University of London. Author of I’m a Joke and So Are You, The Importance of Being Interested, Bibliomaniac, and Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity; co-author with Brian Cox of How to Build a Universe. Booksellers Association Author of the Year, 2022; Time Out Outstanding Contribution to Comedy, 2006; multiple Chortle Awards including Best Compere. Co-founder of the Cosmic Shambles Network and creator of Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People, the annual science variety show that has run since 2008. Public advocate on adult ADHD and neurodiversity following his own late diagnosis, anchoring his current touring show The Universe and the Neurodiverse. Biography The Infinite Monkey Cage ran on BBC Radio 4 for sixteen years and won the Sony Gold Award for Best Speech Programme along the way. Robin Ince co-presented it with the physicist Brian Cox throughout, and the working method he developed there sits at the centre of what he now offers organisations: serious science, philosophy and literature delivered in language a general audience will actually use. That method has produced four solo books and one co-authored with Cox. The Importance of Being Interested and Bibliomaniac established him as a writer on curiosity and reading culture. Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, published by Macmillan in 2025, did something different. Following his own late ADHD diagnosis, he wrote a first-person account of adult neurodiversity that has been unusually well received by readers who do not see themselves in standard workplace material on the subject. The credentials behind the work are real. He is an Honorary Fellow of University College London and an Honorary Doctor of Science of Royal Holloway. He is a Fellow of the British Science Association and was Booksellers Association Author of the Year in 2022. He co-founded the Cosmic Shambles Network and has curated the Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People science variety show every December since 2008. For corporate audiences the proposition is specific. He is useful when a leadership team wants to talk seriously about neurodiversity and curiosity without flattening either into HR language, and he is one of very few speakers who can take a room from a research finding to a usable insight to a genuine laugh in the same minute. Key speaking topics Adult neurodiversity and late ADHD diagnosis Scientific curiosity as a habit of mind Communicating complex ideas to non-specialist audiences Humour and humanity Reading culture and the value of attention Science, music and comedy as a single conversation Ideal for Leadership teams and HR directors building neurodiversity work that goes beyond policy Boards and senior offsites looking for substantive content delivered with comedy timing Innovation, R&D and learning functions who want to reset what curiosity looks like in practice Conference organisers programming a science, culture or curiosity strand Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for talking about adult ADHD and neurodiversity in senior settings A clearer sense of why attention, not information, is the scarce resource in their organisation Specific examples from sixteen years of putting scientists in front of general audiences, with the lessons that translate Permission to be more interested in their own work, which most leaders need more than they admit

Why organisations work with Duena Blomstrom She names a specific, measurable liability most boards do not currently track. Human Debt sits underneath stalled transformations and lets a leadership team see why their roadmap keeps slipping for non-technical reasons. Her argument lands with engineering and product audiences who tune out conventional wellbeing language. Framing safety as a debt that compounds against velocity gives operators a vocabulary they will actually use. She built the diagnostic, not just the theory. PeopleNotTech turns the framework into measurement, which means a keynote can connect to real follow-on team data rather than ending at inspiration. Three books across Palgrave Macmillan, Bloomsbury Business, and Kogan Page give her argument continuity from FinTech culture (Emotional Banking) through team safety (People Before Tech) to enterprise transformation (Tech-Led Culture). She speaks publicly as a neurodivergent founder, which gives substance to inclusion conversations that are otherwise abstract for senior audiences. Biography highlights Author of Emotional Banking (Palgrave Macmillan), People Before Tech (Bloomsbury Business), and Tech-Led Culture (Kogan Page). CEO and co-founder of PeopleNotTech, a psychological safety measurement platform. Originator of the Human Debt concept and the Emotional Banking framework. LinkedIn Top Voice on leadership and psychological safety with a large newsletter readership. Former Forbes contributor; host of the “people AND tech” and “Tales from the FinTech Crypt” podcasts. Background spanning C-level roles in startups and major technology companies before founding PeopleNotTech. Biography Most digital transformation programmes do not fail on the technology. They fail on whether the team running them can disagree, recover from a bad decision, and tell the truth about a slipping deadline. That is the territory Duena Blomstrom has spent the last decade making operational. Her central concept, Human Debt, reframes psychological safety as a balance sheet item. Teams accrue interest every time a candid conversation is avoided, every time a senior leader rewards optics over honesty, every time fatigue is left unaddressed. Tech debt gets the spreadsheet. Human Debt rarely does, and the cost shows up in stalled roadmaps, attrition, and AI rollouts that never reach production. She built three books out of this argument. Emotional Banking (Palgrave Macmillan) treated culture as the missing variable in retail banking transformation. People Before Tech (Bloomsbury Business) made the case for safety as a precondition of high performance. Tech-Led Culture (Kogan Page) extended the work into enterprise change. Alongside the writing, she co-founded PeopleNotTech to turn the diagnosis into measurement, so the conversation about team health does not stop at the keynote. Audiences also get a founder who writes openly about being neurodivergent and what that means for leadership in practice. That makes inclusion a substantive thread in her work rather than a section header. Key speaking topics Psychological safety as a measurable team capability Human Debt and the hidden cost of low-trust teams Culture inside digital and AI transformation FinTech, retail banking, and Emotional Banking Neurodiversity and inclusive leadership Future of work and agile team practice Ideal for CHROs, chief people officers, and heads of organisational development running culture or engagement programmes alongside major technology change. CIOs, CTOs, and transformation leads whose roadmaps depend on team behaviour, not just delivery capacity. Banking, FinTech, and financial services leadership teams working through digital and AI rollouts. Boards and ExCos commissioning a serious conversation about why transformation programmes are underperforming. Audience outcomes A working definition of Human Debt that a leadership team can apply to its own organisation the next morning. A clearer line between team-level psychological safety and the commercial outcomes a board cares about. A vocabulary that lands with technical audiences who normally resist culture conversations. Specific signals to look for in teams where transformation, AI adoption, or restructuring is in flight. A frank account of what gets lost when neurodivergent leaders are managed for compliance rather than contribution.

Why organisations work with Rose Eskafi Combines an MSc in Mindfulness and Compassion with a BSc in Psychology, so the work is grounded in clinical evidence, not generic wellness language Brings trauma-informed practice into corporate settings, which most workplace wellbeing providers are not trained to do Has built and run wellbeing for a working organisation as Head of People and Wellbeing at gal-dem, so understands the operational reality of HR teams, not just the content Track record delivering for consumer brands including LUSH, Snapchat, and Nike, where workforce demographics, creative pressure, and identity questions all sit on the table at once Biography highlights Founder, Still Chill, a workplace wellbeing consultancy focused on mindfulness, compassion, and trauma-informed culture Former Head of People and Wellbeing, gal-dem MSc in Mindfulness and Compassion; BSc in Psychology Delivered programmes for LUSH, Snapchat, and Nike Teaches in line with the UK Network for Mindfulness-Based Teachers’ good practice guidelines Listed expert with Canvas8 Biography Most workplace wellbeing offers are pitched at the wrong layer. They sit between perk and content and rarely touch the conditions that produce burnout, disengagement, or attrition. Rose Eskafi’s work starts at that deeper layer, where stress regulation, identity, and culture meet. She is the founder of Still Chill, a consultancy that designs mindfulness, compassion, and trauma-informed programmes for corporate teams. Clients have included LUSH, Snapchat, and Nike. The approach pairs an MSc in Mindfulness and Compassion with a BSc in Psychology, so the practical tools are anchored in clinical evidence rather than wellness language. Before Still Chill, she was Head of People and Wellbeing at gal-dem, where she ran the people function for a working organisation rather than consulting from the outside. That operating background shapes the work. Programmes are designed to fit how HR and people teams actually deliver, not as set-piece talks that leave the room when the speaker does. She teaches in line with the UK Network for Mindfulness-Based Teachers’ good practice guidelines and is trained in self-compassion and racial trauma, which gives her a clearer line on the questions corporate wellbeing usually avoids: how identity, pressure, and belonging interact for the people sitting in the room. Key speaking topics Workplace mindfulness and stress regulation Self-compassion and emotional regulation Trauma-informed approaches to corporate wellbeing Authentic and mindful leadership Neuroinclusion and neurodiversity at work Imposter syndrome and the inner critic Culture, identity, and belonging in organisations Ideal for CHROs and Heads of People building or re-platforming a wellbeing programme that has lost credibility DEI and ERG leads where identity, belonging, and mental health intersect Founders and creative leadership teams in consumer, media, and design organisations Learning and development leads commissioning content for high-pressure or high-attrition functions Audience outcomes A clearer working definition of wellbeing that goes beyond perks and resilience training Practical mindfulness and self-compassion tools usable inside the working day A frame for how trauma-informed practice changes the way managers run conversations Language for talking about identity, belonging, and pressure without defaulting to compliance scripts A sharper view of where the organisation’s current wellbeing offer is doing real work and where it is not

Why organisations work with Yonah Welker Direct line into the European policy machinery shaping AI rules, through working group contributions to the EU AI Code of Practice, DG CNECT’s digital and critical infrastructure work, and EU ICT and standardisation programmes. Published, citable expertise on how AI systems treat disability, neurodiversity, and other designated groups, with frameworks and a MOOC catalogued by OECD.AI, a specialism few governance advisers can match. Cross-institutional fluency across OECD, UN, UNESCO, and WHO governance processes, useful for organisations whose AI strategy now has to answer to several overlapping frameworks at once. Practical command of how governance applies to AI in physical and public deployment, including robotics and assistive systems, where compliance obligations under the EU AI Act and emerging harmonised standards are least settled. A practitioner-policy bridge rather than a pure academic, with hands-on evaluator and rapporteur roles across EU Horizon and EIT/EIC programmes, which is the lane most boards and compliance leads now need filled. Biography highlights AI expert listed in the OECD.AI community directory; visiting lecturer and evaluator affiliated with MIT collaborative work, and contributor to OECD.AI’s Wonk blog. Contributor to the EU AI Code of Practice (working Groups 2 and 3), DG CNECT digital and critical infrastructure programmes, and EU ICT standardisation work. Contributor of input to OECD (G7 Hiroshima AI Process), UN (ITU and IGF), UNESCO, NIST (Risk Management Framework), and White House PCAST processes. Lead author and coordinator on the forthcoming UNESCO/UN AI Science Report, and co-author of the MIT AI Safety Repository. Evaluator, rapporteur, and quality controller across EU Horizon, StandICT, and EIT Health, Deeptech, and Creativity programmes; member of the EDPB expert pool on embodied AI privacy. Former curator of the Global AI Summit, and speaker at the AI Action Summit (Paris/Sorbonne), Sciences Po, Technical University of Munich, AI Safety Korea, and the Delphi Economic Forum; jury and peer reviewer for the MIT Global Competition, NeurIPS, and IEEE journals. Biography The EU AI Act, the OECD framework, UNESCO’s ethics recommendation, and the G7 Hiroshima Process now govern the same operating decisions, and they do not line up neatly. The people who work inside several of these processes at once, rather than reading them from outside, are few. Welker is one of them. He has contributed to the EU AI Code of Practice working groups and to DG CNECT’s critical infrastructure work. He sits on the EDPB expert pool examining embodied AI privacy, and is lead author and coordinator on the forthcoming UNESCO/UN AI Science Report. His input has also fed NIST and White House PCAST processes. His distinctive angle is a lens few governance specialists share. His work centres on how AI systems treat designated groups: people with disabilities, neurodivergent users, and others where an algorithm can quietly grant or deny access. That question is now moving into robotics, assistive systems, and AI that acts in public space, where the frameworks are thinnest. The disability-centred AI MOOC catalogued in the OECD.AI tools repository is one concrete marker of it. For senior leaders, the value is operational. He can set out what an EU AI Act audit will actually examine, and what a defensible accessibility claim looks like in a deployed system. He can also show how the OECD, UN, and EU layers connect to a decision a general counsel or risk committee faces next quarter. Key speaking topics AI governance and the EU AI Act Algorithmic accountability and AI audit Disability-centred and accessibility AI policy Neurodiversity and inclusive AI design Sovereign AI and critical digital infrastructure AI safety and responsible deployment Public sector AI and citizen-facing systems Ideal for General counsel, chief compliance officers and CTOs preparing for EU AI Act enforcement Heads of AI, responsible AI leads and digital ethics committees Public sector and intergovernmental bodies designing AI policy Boards reviewing AI risk exposure across accessibility, bias and public-trust dimensions Audience outcomes A clearer map of how the EU AI Act, OECD framework and UN/UNESCO instruments interlock for their organisation Specific questions to put to vendors, internal teams and audit committees on algorithmic accountability A working definition of what disability-centred and accessibility AI obligations look like operationally Sharper instinct for where reputational and regulatory risk concentrates in current AI deployments A view of where European AI policy is heading next, drawn from inside the working groups shaping it

Why organisations work with Aquayemi-Claude G. Akinsanya He brings first-hand experience of being denied SEN provision in the UK system and has translated that into a named legislative campaign, The Claudes SEN Law, that gives inclusion conversations real political and personal weight. His advocacy is documented through founder roles, not commentary alone: Garnetts Clothing Brand & Range on sustainable fashion and The Claudes SEN Law Campaign on disability rights and inclusive education. He sits inside the awards and rankings ecosystem that boards recognise: Forbes Under 30 nominee, ForbesBLK contributor, and Effie Awards Europe 2026 jury member, giving him credibility with marketing and brand-led audiences. He speaks credibly across young-leader and SDG platforms, including YOUNITE 2024 on SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), making him relevant to organisations that have signed up to global goals and need authentic voices to back the commitment. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Garnetts Clothing Brand & Range, a sustainability-focused fashion venture Founder, The Claudes SEN Law Campaign, an advocacy initiative calling on UK Parliament to reform Special Educational Needs legislation Forbes Under 30 (2024) nominee and ForbesBLK member Jury member, Effie Awards Europe 2026 Speaker at YOUNITE 2024 on UN Sustainable Development Goal 10 (Reduced Inequalities) Author of The Truth Behind Self Isolation and this Crazy Climate of Lockdown Biography Inclusion is one of the most contested terms in corporate language. Boards have signed off on statements, training cycles and reporting frameworks. Many still struggle to explain what changes in everyday practice for a neurodivergent or disabled employee. Aquayemi-Claude G. Akinsanya works in exactly that gap. He was denied Special Educational Needs provision as a young person in the UK system, and built The Claudes SEN Law Campaign in response, pushing UK Parliament for a statutory framework that recognises neurodiversity and extends support beyond age 25 for those with Education, Health and Care Plans. The campaign has been documented through Change.org, his own publishing platform, and bureau profiles. He also founded Garnetts Clothing Brand & Range, a sustainability-led fashion venture, and contributes to the marketing and brand world through ForbesBLK and an Effie Awards Europe 2026 jury seat. That second track matters: it places him in front of senior commercial audiences and gives him a vocabulary that connects sustainability and inclusion to brand and consumer strategy, not just to compliance. For organisations under real scrutiny on whether their DEI claims have substance, his value is specific. He carries the experience of the people DEI policy is meant to serve, the founder discipline of running ventures with social objectives, and the platforms (Forbes, YOUNITE, Effie) that make boards take the conversation seriously. Key speaking topics Neurodiversity and Special Educational Needs in education and work Disability inclusion and advocacy Sustainability and social impact in brand strategy Social entrepreneurship and purpose-led ventures Mental health and resilience in young leaders Campaign building and movement leadership Ideal for CHROs and heads of DEI seeking authentic voice rather than process-led inclusion narratives Brand and marketing leaders integrating sustainability and inclusion into commercial strategy Social impact and ESG teams working against SDG-aligned reporting commitments Youth, education and graduate audiences exploring purpose-led careers Audience outcomes A sharper view of how invisible disability and neurodivergence are experienced in education and employment, and why current policy frameworks fail Direct exposure to a founder building inclusion and sustainability into commercial ventures rather than describing them in policy terms A framework for connecting brand, social impact and SDG commitments without falling into surface-level signalling Renewed energy in younger audiences considering social entrepreneurship as a route to both commercial and civic contribution

Why organisations work with Daniel Chappell A first-hand account of raising significant early-stage capital with no trading history, which is the situation most internal innovation teams quietly find themselves in when pitching new ventures to their own boards. A working operator’s view of UNTIL, a business that pairs physical premises in Soho, Liverpool Street and Marylebone with a digital membership model. Useful for any leadership team thinking about hybrid product-and-place propositions. An unusually honest voice on neurodiversity from a founder who runs a company while managing dyslexia and dyspraxia, rather than a clinical or HR-led perspective. A high-performance sports background that translates the language of marginal gains, recovery, and team standards into the running of a commercial business, without leaning on tired sporting metaphor. Biography highlights Co-founder of UNTIL, a members business for freelance health, wellness and medical practitioners operating from three central London sites. UNTIL counts Steven Bartlett among its investors and co-founders, following a high-profile early funding round. MSc in Strength and Conditioning, Cardiff Metropolitan University. BSc in Sports and Exercise Science, St Mary’s University, Twickenham. Over a decade working inside high-performance sporting environments before launching his own ventures. Speaks publicly about dyslexia and dyspraxia, and treats neurodiversity as part of his founder identity, not a sidebar. Biography Service industries built on individual practitioners tend to share the same problem. The talent is excellent and the business model is fragile. UNTIL, the London business Daniel Chappell co-founded, was built around that gap: a members club and workspace that lets freelance health, wellness and medical professionals operate from premium premises in Soho, Liverpool Street and Marylebone without carrying the cost of their own. The route in matters. More than a decade inside high-performance sport gave Daniel an instinct for how elite practitioners work, what they need around them, and where their time is wasted. An MSc in Strength and Conditioning from Cardiff Metropolitan University and a BSc in Sports and Exercise Science from St Mary’s University, Twickenham sit behind that view. The transition from working with athletes to building a company for the people who work with athletes is the spine of the story. UNTIL has since attracted Steven Bartlett as an investor and co-founder, and has built a community of more than 300 practitioners across more than 40 disciplines. For a buyer, the value of the talk is not the milestone list. It is what the talk reveals about persuading investors with no trading history, building a founding team that can scale, and running a young company in public. Daniel is also open about managing dyslexia and dyspraxia as a founder, and speaks to neurodiversity from the inside of a working business. That perspective is useful in any leadership conversation about how organisations actually get the best out of people whose minds are wired differently from the average hire. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and founding-team dynamics Early-stage fundraising and investor relationships Building a business in the health and wellness sector High performance applied to commercial environments Neurodiversity in leadership and at work Team culture in young companies Resilience and personal performance for founders Ideal for Leadership offsites for scale-ups and founder-led businesses Corporate innovation, ventures and intrapreneurship teams HR and people leaders building practical neurodiversity programmes Wellbeing, benefits and employee-experience conferences Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what early-stage investors actually respond to when there is no trading history to point at. A practical framing of how a young founding team divides work, makes decisions, and survives the first eighteen months. A working model for treating neurodiversity as a commercial asset inside a team, with examples from a live business. Language for translating high-performance habits into a corporate or scale-up context without resorting to sports cliché.

Why organisations work with Rory Cowlam His 2020 book The Secret Life of a Vet (Hodder & Stoughton) makes a specific structural argument: that mental health breakdown in demanding professions is driven by systemic design – appointment length, absence of emotional processing time, cultural silence – not individual weakness. This gives audiences a framework, not just a story. As Clinical Director and co-founder of Pickles Vets, he has built a wellbeing-first practice model from the ground up, which means his arguments about workplace culture come with operational proof, not just principles. His own experience of dyslexia – sustained across a high-stakes clinical career – gives him a credibility on neurodiversity that is qualitatively different from speakers who come to the topic from coaching or consultancy. His platform as Blue Peter’s resident vet and regular contributor to BBC Breakfast and ITV’s Lorraine demonstrates an unusual ability to translate clinical complexity into plain, accessible language – directly relevant for organisations communicating sensitive topics to broad internal audiences. As a co-founder of VidiVet, a digital platform designed to extend veterinary access and reduce pressure on overstretched clinical teams, he brings a practical, innovation-oriented lens to workforce sustainability. Biography highlights Clinical Director and co-founder, Pickles Vets, Fulham, London – an RCVS-registered, wellbeing-first membership veterinary practice Graduate of the Royal Veterinary College, London (BVetMed PgCert MRCVS), qualified 2015 Author of The Secret Life of a Vet (Hodder & Stoughton, 2020) – Amazon bestseller addressing mental health in clinical professions Lead talent and presenter, The Pets Factor, CBBC; resident vet, Blue Peter (BBC, since 2019); regular contributor to BBC Breakfast and ITV’s Lorraine Ambassador, British Dyslexia Association and StreetVet; RSPCA ambassador Co-founder, VidiVet – a digital veterinary advice platform designed to improve access and reduce workload pressure on clinical teams Nominated, Vet of the Year, Animal Star Awards (2018 and 2019) Biography The veterinary profession has one of the highest rates of burnout and mental health difficulty of any skilled workforce in the UK. Rory Cowlam has been arguing, publicly and with clinical authority, that this is not a coincidence – and not a personal failing. It is what happens when a system is designed around throughput rather than people. His 2020 book The Secret Life of a Vet, published by Hodder & Stoughton and an Amazon bestseller, made that argument in direct, first-person terms. It did not frame mental health as a welfare footnote; it placed it at the centre of what makes or breaks professional culture in high-pressure environments. As Clinical Director and co-founder of Pickles Vets in London, Cowlam has since built a practice model that tests those arguments in practice – longer appointments, staffed-to-capacity teams, and transparency on pricing as foundations for a working environment that retains talented clinicians rather than burning them out. His own dyslexia, navigated through a demanding clinical training and a broadcast career spanning The Pets Factor (CBBC), Blue Peter, BBC Breakfast, and ITV’s Lorraine, gives him a lived, professionally grounded perspective on neurodiversity that organisations rarely encounter from a speaker. He does not speak about dyslexia as a historical obstacle overcome; he speaks about it as a continuing factor in how he works, leads, and communicates. A graduate of the Royal Veterinary College and co-founder of VidiVet, a digital platform extending veterinary access, Cowlam sits at a distinctive intersection: practising clinician, published author, broadcast communicator, and operational founder. For organisations wrestling with retention, neurodiversity inclusion, and the gap between wellbeing policy and workplace reality, he offers something specific – a structural diagnosis, not a motivational remedy. Key speaking topics Mental health and burnout in high-pressure professions Neurodiversity and dyslexia in professional environments Wellbeing by design – structural approaches to workforce sustainability Veterinary practice and the realities of clinical leadership Communicating complex expertise to public audiences Animal welfare, charity engagement, and purpose at work Ideal for CHROs and people directors in healthcare, clinical, and high-pressure professional services organisations Wellbeing leads and occupational health teams Early careers and graduate development audiences in clinical and technical professions Diversity and inclusion leads focused on neurodiversity strategy Audience outcomes A reframing of mental health from individual issue to structural design question – with practical implications for how teams are built and managed Clearer language for discussing neurodiversity in professional settings, grounded in lived clinical experience rather than theory An understanding of what a wellbeing-first workplace model looks like operationally, drawn from Cowlam’s own practice at Pickles Vets Greater confidence in communicating specialist expertise to non-specialist audiences – a skill Cowlam models directly in his broadcast work Honest perspective on what high-pressure career paths actually demand, useful for early careers programmes and talent retention conversations

Why organisations work with Adele Bates Her classroom experience covers every major UK school setting: mainstream primary and secondary, pupil referral units, alternative provision, and special schools. School leaders can bring her to a mixed-audience CPD day knowing the examples hold up across every context in the room. Her approach is informed by funded comparative international research. In 2019, she received a full grant to research Finland’s inclusive education system. Research in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica followed. What she recommends draws on documented practice from functioning systems across three countries. Her book, published by Corwin/SAGE, has been used by headteachers to rewrite whole-school behaviour policies from scratch. It provides a structured, chapter-by-chapter framework that school leaders can put to immediate institutional use. She writes for TES, SecEd, and Headteacher Update, reaching school leaders at scale. Audiences in her sessions often arrive knowing her work, which changes the quality of the conversation. Her TEDx 2020 talk and BBC Radio 4 appearances as the network’s expert on teenagers and behaviour give her name recognition well beyond the education conference circuit. Biography highlights Author, “Miss, I Don’t Give A Sh*t”: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools (Corwin/SAGE) TEDx 2020 speaker BBC Radio 4 expert on teenagers and behaviour Trainer for the National Education Union and Amnesty International Education WeAreTheCity Rising Star Award, Education category Funded international researcher in behaviour and inclusion: Finland (2019), Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica Biography Behaviour policies give teachers a sequence of steps. They rarely explain what to do when those steps stop working. For more than 20 years, Adele Bates taught in the settings where that gap matters most: mainstream primary and secondary schools, pupil referral units, alternative provision, and special schools. Her book, “Miss, I Don’t Give A Sh*t”: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools, is published by Corwin/SAGE. It gives school leaders a structured framework for rebuilding behaviour culture from the ground up. Headteachers have used it to rewrite their school’s behaviour policy from scratch. In 2019, she received a full grant to research Finland’s inclusive education system, observing classes and interviewing teachers across several schools. She has since carried out school-based research in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. Those visits inform how she frames what is achievable, with reference to systems that have solved problems UK schools are still working through. She is BBC Radio 4’s expert on teenagers and behaviour and gave a TEDx talk in 2020. She writes regularly for TES, SecEd, and Headteacher Update. She trains for the National Education Union and Amnesty International Education. School leaders who book her often know her work before she arrives. Key speaking topics Inclusive behaviour in schools Social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) in education Trauma-informed practice Whole-school behaviour culture and consistency Pupil engagement and relationship-led teaching Equality, bias, and inclusion in education Staff confidence and wellbeing in schools Ideal for Headteachers and senior leadership teams in mainstream and specialist schools Classroom teachers and subject leaders seeking practical behaviour frameworks Multi-academy trust (MAT) CPD and professional development leads National education organisations and education conference organisers Audience outcomes A clearer account of why SEMH-driven behaviour does not respond to sanctions, and what the evidence suggests actually works Practical strategies for rebuilding positive relationships with disengaged pupils, applicable from the next lesson A framework for evaluating whether a school’s behaviour policy is built to support or to separate A sharper understanding of how equality, bias, and inclusion connect to behaviour patterns across a whole school Tools for strengthening staff confidence and consistency in challenging classroom situations

Why organisations work with Chris Griffiths He brings a named, tested method. GRASP and the Solution Finder process, published across The Creative Thinking Handbook and GRASP The Solution, give teams a four-step route from problem to decision that can be run again without him in the room. He has built the tooling, not just the theory. OpenGenius turned the mind mapping method into Ayoa, a commercial platform used across Pfizer, the NHS, the European Commission and the State Bank of India, which gives his frameworks an operating record outside the keynote. He treats neurodiversity as a creative asset. Through the Inspire Genius Foundation and Ayoa’s neuroinclusive design, he connects creative thinking to the way neurodivergent minds actually work, giving leaders a practical angle on inclusion that is tied to output rather than compliance. He has run the playbook at scale. With Tony Buzan he built a global network of more than 1,000 licensed instructors operating inside Sony, the Ministry of Defence and the NHS, which is unusual evidence that his method transfers beyond the author. His work has been stress-tested in serious rooms. He facilitated a Nobel Laureate brainstorm at the Petra Nobel Conference convened by HM King Abdullah II of Jordan, and has coached senior teams at the European Commission. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of OpenGenius, the company behind the Ayoa mind mapping and productivity platform. Author of The Creative Thinking Handbook (Kogan Page), GRASP The Solution, and Mind Maps for Business (with Tony Buzan), with titles translated across more than 15 countries. Co-creator, with Tony Buzan, of the ThinkBuzan Licensed Instructor Course, a global network of more than 1,000 accredited mind mapping instructors. Founder of start-ups that have ranked in the Deloitte European Fast 50 and The Sunday Times Fast Track 100. Facilitator of a brainstorming session with Nobel Laureates at the Petra Nobel Conference, hosted by HM King Abdullah II of Jordan. Contributor and cited expert in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company, BBC, The Telegraph and GQ. Biography Creativity inside most organisations is still treated as a talent rather than a process. Chris Griffiths has spent nearly three decades arguing the opposite, and building the books, frameworks and software to prove it. His published work sets out a specific method. The Creative Thinking Handbook, published by Kogan Page and now available in more than ten languages, lays out the Solution Finder model. GRASP The Solution distils a four-step process that teams can run on any live business problem. Mind Maps for Business, co-authored with Tony Buzan, remains a standard text on applied visual thinking. The frameworks have a commercial track record attached. As founder and CEO of OpenGenius, he turned the method into Ayoa, a mind mapping and productivity platform used inside Pfizer, the NHS, the European Commission and the State Bank of India. With Tony Buzan he built the ThinkBuzan Licensed Instructor Course into a network of over 1,000 accredited instructors operating inside Sony, the Ministry of Defence and the NHS, a rare piece of evidence that the method works without the author in the room. His businesses have ranked in the Deloitte European Fast 50 and The Sunday Times Fast Track 100. He has facilitated a Nobel Laureate brainstorm convened by HM King Abdullah II of Jordan at the Petra Nobel Conference, and through the Inspire Genius Foundation he funds young neurodivergent entrepreneurs, the group Ayoa’s neuroinclusive design was built around. Key speaking topics Applied creative thinking in business Systematic innovation and problem solving Mind mapping for leadership and strategy AI as a creative partner for human teams Productivity and focus for knowledge workers Neuroinclusive approaches to innovation Entrepreneurship and venture building Ideal for CEOs, founders and senior leadership teams who want a shared method for problem solving across the executive group. Chief Innovation Officers, Heads of Strategy and transformation leads tasked with making innovation repeatable rather than episodic. L&D and People leaders building creative-thinking capability and neuroinclusive practice across the workforce. R&D, product and commercial teams preparing for a specific planning cycle, offsite or innovation sprint. Audience outcomes A named four-step process (GRASP) that leaders can apply to a live business problem the day after the session. A working grasp of the Solution Finder model from The Creative Thinking Handbook and how to run it with a team. A practical introduction to mind mapping as a decision tool, not a sticky-note exercise. A view of where AI fits alongside human creativity, drawn from the design choices inside Ayoa. A clearer read on how neurodivergent thinkers contribute to creative output and how to design sessions that use that.