Organizational Agility

Why organisations work with Lord Sebastian Coe He has led, end to end, one of the largest peacetime delivery programmes a UK organisation has ever attempted: the London 2012 bid, build, and Games. Few speakers can talk about institutional execution at that scale from inside the room. As President of World Athletics since 2015, he has run a global federation through doping scandals, Russian sanctions, prize-money reform, and gender-eligibility policy. The case material is contemporary, contested, and useful to any board navigating reputational risk. He moves credibly between elite performance, political office, and institutional governance. That breadth lets him address both the human side of leadership and the structural side without flattening either. He brings a working operator’s view of stakeholder management: IOC, host governments, sponsors, broadcasters, athletes, media. Buyers wrestling with multi-principal accountability get a practitioner, not a commentator. Biography highlights President of World Athletics since 2015; member of the International Olympic Committee since 2020. Chair of the London 2012 bid and of LOCOG, the organising committee that delivered the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Chairman of the British Olympic Association, 2012 to 2016. Conservative MP for Falmouth and Camborne, 1992 to 1997; Chief of Staff to William Hague as Leader of the Opposition; created Baron Coe of Ranmore in 2000. Two-time Olympic 1500m gold medallist (Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984); set twelve world records across middle-distance events. KBE (2006), Companion of Honour (2013); author of Running My Life: The Autobiography (Hodder & Stoughton, 2012). Biography The London 2012 bid was three points behind Paris in the final IOC stretch. The committee changed chairs, brought in a new presentation, and won the host vote in Singapore on 6 July 2005. The work that followed, seven years of build, contracts, security, transport, and ceremony, finished on time and inside its public envelope. That is the institutional record buyers come to hear about. What sits behind it is unusual. Coe was an Olympic 1500m champion in 1980 and 1984 and held twelve world records before he left the track. He then served as a Conservative MP for Falmouth and Camborne, became Chief of Staff to William Hague, and was created a life peer in 2000. By the time he chaired LOCOG he had already worked at close range on how political institutions actually function under stress. Since 2015 he has been President of World Athletics. The federation he inherited was in the middle of the Russian doping crisis and faced an open question about whether its own governance was credible. The decade since has involved sanctions, reform of integrity systems, the introduction of prize money at the Olympic Games, and contested decisions on transgender and DSD eligibility in elite competition. None of those calls were uncontested; all of them were made. He brings to a corporate audience a working knowledge of leadership where the stakeholders are not aligned, the deadline does not move, and the public verdict arrives the same week as the decision. That is the part of the experience that translates. Key speaking topics Leadership of complex institutions under public scrutiny Delivering large-scale programmes against fixed deadlines Governance reform and integrity in international organisations Stakeholder management across political, commercial, and civic principals Building and sustaining high-performance cultures Legacy, reputation, and long-horizon decision-making Transitioning from individual performance to institutional leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams running multi-stakeholder organisations where regulators, governments, and the public are all in the room CEOs and transformation leads delivering large programmes against fixed external deadlines Public-sector and federated bodies facing reform under reputational pressure Senior leadership audiences in sport, broadcasting, infrastructure, and major-event delivery Audience outcomes A working frame for setting and holding direction when stakeholders do not share interests Specific case material from London 2012 and a decade at World Athletics on integrity, reform, and crisis response Sharper sense of how to manage the gap between elite performance and institutional leadership Perspective on legacy, reputation, and the trade-offs that surface late in long programmes A direct read on what high-stakes accountability looks like from the inside of the room

Key speaking topics Future of work Human-AI collaboration Innovation strategy Radical adaptability Leadership in times of change Generative AI and team creativity Ideal for C-suite executives and senior leadership teams Strategy and innovation leaders HR and talent development leaders Organisations navigating AI and workplace transformation Audience outcomes Clear understanding of radical adaptability and its organisational implications Practical perspectives on integrating AI into team workflows Insights into innovation-driven leadership Greater clarity on building trust and collaboration in changing environments Why organisations work with Kian Gohar Combines research, leadership development, and advisory experience Bridges innovation strategy with practical workplace application Brings executive-level experience from global institutions Provides commercially relevant insight on AI and organisational change Biography Kian Gohar works with senior leaders navigating innovation, workplace transformation, and the integration of artificial intelligence into organisational strategy. As founder and CEO of Geolab, he leads a research and leadership development firm focused on helping organisations adapt to structural change, rethink team performance, and compete in a rapidly evolving business environment. His perspective is grounded in executive experience at globally recognised institutions. He previously held executive director roles associated with the XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University, where he worked at the intersection of emerging technology, leadership, and large-scale innovation. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Kian is co-author of Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest, published by Harvard Business Review Press and widely recognised as a Wall Street Journal bestseller. His work explores how organisations build adaptability, integrate generative AI into team workflows, and sustain performance amid disruption. He has also contributed to Harvard Business Review on generative AI and team creativity. A Henry Luce Scholar with a placement in Shanghai and a graduate of Northwestern University, Kian combines global perspective with strategic rigour. He has delivered a TEDx talk examining trust and collaboration in the future, further reinforcing his focus on how organisations build resilient, high-performing cultures in times of change.

Why organisations work with Blaire Palmer She brings a BBC journalist’s instinct for the question leaders are avoiding, then makes the boardroom answer it in plain language. Her book Punks in Suits gives organisations a shared vocabulary for why old management habits, not strategy, are the real brake on growth. She has coached boards and executive teams across Airbus, Roche, Mattel, Santander, The FA, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, so the challenge lands with commercial credibility. She runs That People Thing as her own consultancy, which means the keynote is the leading edge of a deeper body of work on leadership transformation, not a standalone act. Biography highlights Chief Executive and founder of That People Thing, a leadership consultancy working with boards and executive teams on culture and change. Author of four books including Punks in Suits: How to Lead the Workplace Reformation (Rethink Press, 2024) and What’s Wrong with Work? (John Wiley and Sons, 2010). Former producer on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, where she spent a decade in UK news and current affairs. Trained as one of Europe’s first accredited executive coaches after leaving the BBC. Named clients include Airbus, Roche, Mattel, Santander, The FA, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Govia Thameslink Railway, and Centre for Army Leadership. Regular contributor to Medium and Authority Magazine on leadership and the future of work. Biography Most organisations are not structured to change. They are structured to protect the habits that made them successful, and the people defending those habits are often the most senior in the room. Palmer’s work starts from that observation and builds out. She spent a decade as a producer on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, interrogating ministers and chief executives at eight minutes past seven in the morning. The habit of asking the uncomfortable question did not leave her when she moved into coaching at 29. It became the method. Since then she has spent more than two decades advising boards and executive teams at Airbus, Roche, Mattel, Santander, The FA, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She founded That People Thing to house that work. Her fourth book, Punks in Suits: How to Lead the Workplace Reformation, published by Rethink Press in 2024, sets out the argument that entrenched management orthodoxy, not competitive pressure, is what stalls most organisations trying to evolve. What a senior team gets from her is rare in the category. She has the reporter’s ability to cut through executive language, the coach’s patience to stay with a difficult conversation, and a published thesis specific enough to be argued with. That makes the keynote a starting point for a real internal debate rather than a motivational interval. Key speaking topics Leadership behaviour and change Workplace reformation and culture Trust and candour in senior teams Future of work Decision-making under pressure Leadership myths and orthodoxies Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing a culture or performance inflection point. CHROs and chief people officers leading leadership development at scale. CEOs integrating acquisitions or navigating a strategic reset. Leadership conferences for senior management populations. Audience outcomes A clearer view of which leadership habits are acting as a ceiling on organisational performance. A specific argument, drawn from Punks in Suits, that senior teams can take back into their own decision forums. Language for the conversations leaders have been avoiding with peers and direct reports. Recognition that culture and strategy move together, and a concrete starting point for aligning them.

Why organisations work with Brian Keating His argument about incentive systems is not borrowed from management theory. He conceived a Nobel-contending experiment, experienced a public retraction, served as a Nobel nominator, and co-founded the Simons Observatory: a $100M project involving 380+ scientists across 40+ institutions. The authority is operational. Losing the Nobel Prize (W.W. Norton, 2018) makes a specific structural case that endorsers including Brian Greene and reviewers in Nature, Science, and Scientific American have engaged with seriously: the systems organisations use to reward individuals actively prevent the inclusive, rigorous, collaborative work that produces real discovery. Into the Impossible (2021) draws from first-person conversations with 11 Nobel laureates to identify the specific mental habits (disciplined curiosity, tolerance for failure, sustained collaboration), that distinguish people who achieve genuine breakthroughs from those who optimise for recognition. He gives boards and senior leaders a precise structural vocabulary for why innovation programmes underperform: not insufficient ambition or budget, but reward architecture that was never designed for collaborative, long-horizon work. As co-director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for the Human Imagination at UC San Diego, he bridges frontier scientific thinking and the broader question of how organisations cultivate the conditions for original thought. Biography highlights Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics, Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences, University of California San Diego Principal Investigator and co-founder, Simons Observatory – a four-telescope array in Chile’s Atacama Desert involving 380+ scientists and engineers from 40+ institutions, with approximately $100M in funding raised Inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) telescope; co-leads the POLARBEAR2 and Simons Array experiments Author of Losing the Nobel Prize (W.W. Norton, 2018), reviewed in Nature, Science, and Scientific American, and endorsed by theoretical physicist Brian Greene Author of Into the Impossible (2021) and Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner (2025), drawing on first-person interviews with Nobel laureates across physics, economics, and beyond U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers; Fellow of the American Physical Society; Buchalter Cosmology Prize; 2022 Legend of Flight, International Air & Space Hall of Fame Host of the Into the Impossible podcast – long-form conversations with Nobel laureates, scientists, and technologists – with more than 200,000 subscribers Biography Organisations that fund innovation but reward speed tend to get neither. The dynamic is structural, not cultural: when recognition flows to individuals who move fast and announce loudly, the slow, rigorous, collaborative work that genuine breakthroughs require becomes a career liability. Brian Keating has spent more than two decades inside that tension. Not observing it from the outside, but navigating it at the frontier of experimental cosmology. Keating is the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California San Diego and Principal Investigator of the Simons Observatory, a four-telescope array in Chile’s Atacama Desert that he co-founded in 2016. The project grew to involve more than 380 scientists and engineers from over 40 institutions, with Keating raising approximately $100 million in funding from the Simons Foundation. Keating teaches undergraduate quantum mechanics at UC San Diego in the same weeks he records long-form conversations with Nobel laureates on the Into the Impossible podcast. Guests have included Roger Penrose, Frank Wilczek, Sara Seager, and Andrei Linde. Active experimental research alongside sustained engagement with the field’s most consequential thinkers is the working basis from which he addresses two questions senior audiences are now asking him directly: what AI does to the scientific method, and what is happening to the research university as a credentialing and funding institution. Managing that collaboration across disciplines, institutions, competitive pressures, and high-stakes scientific uncertainty is the practical foundation on which his speeches rest. That argument appears explicitly in Losing the Nobel Prize (W.W. Norton, 2018). Keating, who conceived the original BICEP telescope and was closely involved in the BICEP2 collaboration whose findings made global headlines before being retracted, uses the experience to make a case that extends well beyond physics: the Nobel Prize, as structured, rewards individual speed and competition while punishing the inclusive, methodical, collaborative work that real discoveries require. Reviewed in Nature, Science, and Scientific American, and endorsed by physicist Brian Greene, the book gives senior audiences a precise structural vocabulary for a problem most organisations recognise but struggle to name. The follow-up volumes, Into the Impossible (2021) and Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner (2025), draw on first-person interviews with Nobel laureates across physics and economics to identify the working habits that distinguish genuine breakthrough thinkers from those who optimise for recognition. Keating is also co-director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for the Human Imagination at UC San Diego, a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a 2022 Legend of Flight inductee at the International Air & Space Hall of Fame. His podcast, also titled Into the Impossible, has reached more than 200,000 subscribers and has hosted over 11 Nobel Prize winners. Key speaking topics Incentive systems, innovation culture, and the structural conditions for breakthrough Large-scale scientific collaboration and high-stakes research leadership AI and the future of scientific discovery, peer review, and the research workflow The structural future of higher education and the research university Cosmology, the cosmic microwave background, and the science of the early universe The culture of ambition and discovery in high-performance environments Failure, resilience, and the creative habits of exceptional thinkers The future of curiosity-driven research in an era of AI and data Ideal for Chief Innovation Officers, R&D leaders, and boards wrestling with why innovation programmes underdeliver Senior executive teams in science- and technology-intensive industries (pharma, aerospace, deep tech, energy) where collaboration at scale is a strategic challenge University presidents, provosts, and trustee boards addressing the AI-driven restructuring of higher education and the legitimacy questions facing research institutions Foundations, philanthropic funders of science, and policy bodies designing the next generation of research grants, prizes, and incentive structures Audience outcomes A clear structural diagnosis of why incentive systems that reward individual speed and visibility tend to suppress the collaborative, rigorous work that genuine breakthroughs require Practical examples – drawn from one of the most ambitious scientific projects of the past decade – of how large, distributed collaborations can be designed and sustained under uncertainty A set of mental habits and working practices, sourced from conversations with Nobel laureates, that distinguish breakthrough thinkers from those who optimise for recognition A more precise vocabulary for discussing innovation culture with boards and leadership teams – one grounded in evidence, not aspiration Perspective on how organisational ambition can be redirected from visible short-term wins toward the patient, inclusive work that produces durable results

Key speaking topics Leadership development Organisational culture Purpose-driven business Workplace wellbeing Leadership capability for business transformation HR strategy and leadership Ideal for Senior leadership teams HR and people leaders Learning and development professionals Boards and executive committees Audience outcomes Greater clarity on the link between leadership and organisational culture Practical perspectives on embedding purpose into leadership practice Insight into aligning wellbeing with business performance Understanding of leadership capability in large, complex organisations Why organisations work with Tim Munden Direct experience leading global leadership development in a multinational organisation Insight grounded in senior HR and executive-level responsibility Academic affiliation with a leading sustainability institution Cross-sector perspective from consulting with diverse industries Biography Tim Munden works at the intersection of leadership, culture and organisational performance, advising senior leaders on how to build purpose-driven, high-performing workplaces. He is a Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, contributing to leadership thinking within a globally recognised sustainability institution. Alongside this, he leads his own consulting practice, supporting executive teams across technology, consumer products, financial services, pharmaceuticals and professional services. Munden previously served as Chief Learning Officer at Unilever, where he was responsible for leadership capability in a large, complex, multinational organisation. He also held the role of HR Vice President for Unilever UK & Ireland, overseeing people strategy within a significant national business unit. His experience spans enterprise-wide leadership development, organisational culture, purpose-led business and workplace wellbeing. He works with boards, executive committees and senior HR leaders seeking to align leadership capability with business transformation and long-term organisational resilience. In addition to his advisory and academic roles, he serves as a Director of INCHIGO UK LIMITED.

Why organisations work with Chris Roebuck He designed and ran the leadership programme for UBS’s top 500 that is now taught at Harvard Business School as UBS: Towards the Integrated Firm. Few speakers can point to a live HBS case as evidence that their approach works at scale. He coined the corporate application of entrepreneurial leadership and has spent twenty years refining it in banks, government, healthcare, and the military. The Wikipedia entry on entrepreneurial leadership cites his definition. He operates as a practitioner first and a speaker second: former British Army officer, Head of Management Development at HSBC Investment Bank, Global Head of Leadership at UBS, Head of Culture Change at London Underground. The credibility in a boardroom is built in. HR Magazine named him one of HR’s Most Influential Thinkers ten times between 2009 and 2021, and inducted him into the HR Hall of Fame in 2025. That is the longest sustained recognition of any thinker on the list. Biography highlights Global Head of Leadership and Talent, UBS (2004 onward), leading the development programme for the bank’s top 500 leaders that became Harvard Business School case UBS: Towards the Integrated Firm Honorary Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership, Cass Business School (2009–2021, the institution later rebranded Bayes) Inducted into the HR Hall of Fame by HR Magazine, July 2025; named one of HR’s Most Influential Thinkers ten times between 2009 and 2021, a record on the list Author of five leadership books, including Lead to Succeed (2014) and Strategic Leadership Development, co-authored with Professor Colin Carnall Expert panel member for the UK Government’s Engaging for Success review (2009), and author of The King’s Fund report on NHS leadership (2011) Contributor to Newsweek; quoted on leadership and organisational performance in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and Harvard Business Review China; 350+ television interviews across BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Sky, and Al Jazeera Biography UBS between 2002 and 2006 is a useful place to start. A newly integrated global bank, 70,000 staff, a top team of 500 whose behaviour had to shift if the merger was going to hold. Chris Roebuck was the person, as Global Head of Leadership and Talent, who designed and ran the programme that got that behavioural shift. The work is now a Harvard Business School case study, UBS: Towards the Integrated Firm, and it is where the concept of entrepreneurial leadership, taking the behaviours of successful entrepreneurs and transplanting them into a large corporate, was first systematically applied in the corporate world. That practitioner record sits behind everything he now says from a stage. Before UBS, he was Head of Management Development at HSBC Investment Bank and ran culture change at London Underground during the partial privatisation. After UBS, he was commissioned by The King’s Fund to report to the UK Government on leadership in the NHS, and sat on the expert panel behind Engaging for Success, the UK Government’s review of employee engagement. He was Honorary Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership at Cass Business School, now Bayes, from 2009 to 2021. The argument Roebuck brings to senior audiences is a hard one, because it refuses the usual levers. He tells leaders that the performance they are looking for is not hiding in a new strategy, a new tech stack, or a restructure. It is hiding in the way their top 200 people behave on a Tuesday morning. His Accelerate Your Success approach is built to make that behavioural gap visible, then close it, with the bottom line as the test. HR Magazine has named him one of its Most Influential Thinkers ten times; in July 2025 it inducted him into the HR Hall of Fame. The rare thing he does is connect that leadership argument to hard numbers. He is a trained economist, not a behavioural coach; he served as an officer in the British Army before moving into business; he has run programmes inside a global bank, the UK Civil Service, and a 1.4-million-person healthcare system. When he says ten percent of organisational performance is sitting unused, the claim is backed by work done at UBS, in the NHS, and at KPMG rather than by a slide deck. Key speaking topics Leadership during integration, transformation, and culture change Entrepreneurial leadership in large organisations Senior team behaviour and executive performance Talent identification and leadership pipelines Employee engagement as an organisational lever Leadership in conditions of uncertainty Human leadership in the AI era Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and C-suite teams running integrations, post-merger transformations, or major operating model change CHROs and Chief People Officers building a leadership and talent strategy that senior business leaders will take seriously Board and executive committee offsites where the subject is how top leadership needs to behave differently for the organisation to perform Public sector and military audiences looking at leadership reform in large, complex institutions Audience outcomes A clear view of where performance is being lost inside their own organisation, and which leadership behaviours are causing it The specific mechanics of how entrepreneurial leadership was built at UBS, and which elements transfer to their own sector A short set of actions senior leaders can take in the weeks after the session, tied to business outcomes rather than general development A more useful language for talking about leadership with their board, their HR function, and their top 100

Why organisations work with Neil Martin He built the probabilistic strategy modelling systems now used by more than half the current Formula One grid – not a commentator on F1 decision-making, but the person who changed how the sport models decisions under uncertainty. Two specific, named race outcomes are directly attributed to his calls: Red Bull Racing’s first Formula One win at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix, and Räikkönen’s win at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix – both the product of real-time probabilistic reasoning under extreme competitive pressure. He translates a specific, working methodology – Monte Carlo simulation and game theory applied to real-time competitive decisions – into frameworks organisations can use when multiple futures must be weighed against each other with no time to wait for certainty. His experience spans the full decision chain: building the analytical models, leading the strategy team live in the race, and managing the operational culture of teams working against non-negotiable deadlines with global coordination demands. As Co-Founder of PACETEQ GmbH, he continues to build and deploy competitive analytics tools across motorsport, which means his perspective is operational and current rather than retrospective. Biography highlights BSc in Mathematics with Computer Science and MSc in Operational Research, University of Southampton; MSc project on optimal pit-stop and refuelling strategies secured a full-time role at McLaren Racing Pioneered the application of Game Theory and Monte Carlo simulation to F1 race strategy at McLaren from 1998, replacing deterministic planning with stochastic models that could account for uncertain events in real time Team Leader of Operational Research at McLaren Racing; Chief Strategist at Red Bull Racing; Head of Operations Research and Strategy at Scuderia Ferrari (2011-2015) Strategic calls directly credited with Red Bull Racing’s first-ever Formula One win at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix and Räikkönen’s victory at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix Co-Founder of PACETEQ GmbH, an AI-powered motorsport analytics business; software originating from his work in active use across more than half the Formula One grid Covered in the Financial Times; featured speaker at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit Biography Neil Martin joined McLaren Racing in 1996 to solve a specific problem: race strategy was being built on deterministic models that assumed a single most-likely future. He replaced those models with stochastic ones, applying Game Theory and Monte Carlo simulation to uncertain events. Traffic patterns, overtake probabilities, safety car timing – these could now be modelled, and strategy built around a range of probable outcomes rather than one. That shift produced verifiable results at the highest level. At the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix, Martin sent an email from McLaren’s Woking base instructing Räikkönen to stay out under a safety car; the call won the race. At the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix, as Red Bull Racing’s Chief Strategist, he kept both cars out in wet conditions when almost every competitor pitted. It was the team’s first-ever Formula One win – a 1-2 finish built on asymmetric risk reasoning under pressure. Martin joined Scuderia Ferrari in 2011 as Head of the newly created Operations Research department, brought in alongside Pat Fry to rebuild the team’s race operations. He left in 2015. Since then, he has founded Random Logic and co-founded PACETEQ GmbH, an AI-powered analytics business whose tools now run on more than half the current Formula One grid. For senior leaders, the argument is direct. Performance under pressure is not determined by the quantity of data available. It is determined by the quality of the frameworks used to act on it. Martin’s career is a proof of concept for what that discipline looks like when competitive stakes are at their highest. Key speaking topics Decision-making under uncertainty Probabilistic risk modelling Data-driven competitive strategy High-performance operations Risk management in live environments Marginal gains and continuous improvement Analytics-led performance optimisation Ideal for C-suite and senior strategy leaders making high-stakes decisions with incomplete data and competitive time pressure Risk, analytics, and data science functions seeking to operationalise probabilistic thinking across the organisation Boards and executive teams benchmarking their decision culture against elite performance environments Corporate conferences in financial services, technology, and professional services where data-driven decision-making is a strategic priority Audience outcomes A named conceptual shift: from deterministic “most likely scenario” planning to probabilistic mapping of multiple futures and their associated likelihoods Clarity on the conditions under which data produces better decisions, and the organisational habits that close the gap between having information and acting on it with confidence Specific, race-derived examples of asymmetric risk reasoning applicable to resource allocation, market entry, and competitive response decisions Practical understanding of how high-performance teams coordinate under non-negotiable deadlines without sacrificing analytical discipline A benchmark for what genuinely data-driven operational culture looks like when competitive stakes leave no margin for deterministic thinking

Key speaking topics High-performance sport and elite competition Formula One and global motorsport Leadership and decision-making under pressure Motorsport governance and regulation Innovation in racing and automotive technology Media, broadcasting and sports analysis International sport and commercial motorsport operations Ideal for Corporate leadership teams Automotive and mobility sector organisations Sports industry conferences Organisations exploring performance culture and governance Audience outcomes Insight into the realities of competing at Formula One level. Understanding of decision-making in high-pressure environments. Perspective on the commercial and governance structures of global motorsport. Greater clarity on the relationship between performance, technology, and regulation in elite sport. Why organisations work with Karun Chandhok First-hand experience of Formula One competition and global motorsport. Combination of elite sporting background and broadcast analysis expertise. Board-level governance experience within UK and international motorsport. Ability to translate complex sporting and regulatory environments into clear, structured insights for business audiences. Biography Karun Chandhok brings together elite Formula One experience, international endurance racing, and senior motorsport governance to offer organisations a rare perspective on high-performance sport and complex regulatory environments. As one of only two Indian drivers to compete in Formula One, he raced in 11 Grands Prix with Hispania Racing and Team Lotus, operating at the highest level of global motorsport. His career spans multiple international championships, including the FIA World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as participation in the inaugural season of Formula E with Mahindra Racing. This breadth of competition across traditional and electric racing formats gives him first-hand insight into performance, technology, and innovation in a rapidly evolving industry. Alongside his driving career, Karun has established himself as a respected motorsport broadcaster and analyst, working with Sky Sports F1 and other networks. His media work reflects an ability to break down complex technical and strategic issues for broad audiences while retaining depth and accuracy, an approach that translates effectively to corporate environments. Karun also holds influential governance roles within the sport. He serves on the Board of Directors of Motorsport UK and has been a member of the FIA Drivers’ Commission, contributing to the regulatory and strategic direction of international motorsport. In addition, he works with Williams as a Heritage Driver, testing and demonstrating historic Formula One cars at major events. Beyond competition and governance, he has supported the operational delivery of the Indian Grand Prix with Formula One Management and the Jaypee Group, and has been involved in Nissan’s GT Academy activity in India. Through his annual Karting Carnival, he also supports charitable fundraising focused on education for underprivileged children in India. Combining top-tier racing experience, broadcast analysis, and board-level oversight, Karun Chandhok offers senior leaders a practical understanding of performance, risk, regulation, and innovation in one of the world’s most demanding competitive arenas.

Key speaking topics Organisational simplification Innovation strategy Reducing workplace complexity Challenging the status quo Leadership and ways of working Creating space for meaningful work Ideal for Senior leadership teams Strategy and transformation leaders Innovation and change teams Corporate conference audiences Audience outcomes Clear understanding of how complexity limits innovation Practical approaches to simplifying processes and priorities Tools to challenge outdated practices and assumptions Greater clarity on creating space for higher-value work Why organisations work with Lisa Bodell Combines leadership experience with published research and practical frameworks. Brings a clear focus on simplification as a driver of innovation and performance. Experienced in working with large organisations across sectors. Provides structured thinking that supports strategic change initiatives. Biography Lisa Bodell works with organisations that want to remove unnecessary complexity and create the conditions for meaningful innovation. As founder and CEO of FutureThink, she advises and speaks to senior leaders on how to simplify strategy, streamline ways of working and unlock higher-value performance. Her work centres on challenging entrenched practices and helping organisations rethink how decisions are made, how time is spent and how priorities are set. Through keynote presentations and advisory engagements, she equips leadership teams with practical approaches to reducing friction and focusing on what matters most. Bodell is the author of Kill the Company and Why Simple Wins, both published by Routledge, where she explores how organisations can escape the complexity trap and build cultures that encourage innovation and accountability. Her ideas on simplification and change have reached global audiences, including through her TEDx talk on how simplification drives meaningful transformation. In addition to her books and speaking engagements, she writes as a Forbes contributor on topics including innovation, leadership and organisational effectiveness. She works with large organisations across sectors, supporting leaders who are navigating growth, transformation and the need to modernise how work gets done.

Why organisations work with Diana Renner Her book Not Knowing (CMI Management Book of the Year, translated into 15+ languages) makes a specific, counterintuitive argument: that the pressure to project expertise and have answers actively impairs leadership in genuinely complex situations. This is a diagnosis most leadership development programmes avoid, and a conversation senior leadership teams rarely have with rigour. She works at the intersection of three distinct bodies of knowledge – adaptive leadership, adult development theory, and process oriented psychology – a combination that addresses not only what organisations need to do differently, but how leaders must develop as people. This is not available from single-discipline practitioners. Her guest faculty roles at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the University of Texas LBJ School of Government confirm that her frameworks hold up in rigorous, peer-reviewed executive education settings alongside practitioner application. Through the Uncharted Leadership Institute and programme partnerships with Melbourne Business School, Monash Business School, the University of Adelaide, and the Australian Institute of Police Management, she has built and tested leadership development approaches across commercial, government, and community contexts at scale. Her personal biography – leaving Romania in 1987, professional reinvention across law, refugee advocacy, and leadership development – gives the Not Knowing framework lived authority that purely academic treatments of the same topic cannot match. Biography highlights Co-author of Not Knowing: The Art of Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity (LID Publishing) – CMI Management Book of the Year 2015; translated into 15+ languages Co-author of Not Doing: The Art of Effortless Action (LID Publishing, 2018) Director and co-founder, Uncharted Leadership Institute (est. 2016); creator, Not Knowing Lab Senior Lecturer, Monash University; adjunct lecturer, University of Adelaide; associate, Melbourne Business School Guest faculty, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and University of Texas LBJ School of Government 2017 Monash University Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award (Global Challenges Honours Program teaching team) Biography Diana Renner’s book Not Knowing: The Art of Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity, co-written with Steven D’Souza, won the Chartered Management Institute’s Management Book of the Year in 2015. Its thesis is direct: the pressure to project expertise and certainty is often what makes complex adaptive challenges harder to navigate, not easier. Translated into more than fifteen languages, it has become a reference for leadership development practitioners and senior teams working with genuine strategic uncertainty. The book draws on a distinction most leadership frameworks collapse: technical problems can be solved with existing expertise, while adaptive challenges require new thinking and development. Renner’s work through the Uncharted Leadership Institute, which she co-founded in 2016, is built around helping senior leaders recognise which they are facing – and develop the capacity to engage productively with the latter. Her practice draws on three distinct disciplines: adaptive leadership, adult development theory, and process oriented psychology. Together, these address not only what organisations need to do differently, but how leaders need to develop as people to lead well in conditions of genuine uncertainty. Programme partnerships with Melbourne Business School, Monash Business School, the University of Adelaide, and the Australian Institute of Police Management have tested these frameworks across commercial, government, and community contexts. Renner holds a Senior Lectureship at Monash University and has served as guest faculty at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the University of Texas LBJ School of Government. Her second book, Not Doing: The Art of Effortless Action (2018), extends the Not Knowing argument into the territory of executive effectiveness – examining how excessive busyness and compulsive doing undermine the quality of leadership in complex environments. Key speaking topics Adaptive leadership in uncertainty and complexity Not Knowing – leading beyond expertise Not Doing – effortless action and the limits of busyness Distinguishing adaptive from technical challenges Adult development theory and leadership growth Deliberately developmental organisational cultures Complexity theory and strategic resilience Ideal for CEOs and C-suite executives leading organisations through complex change or strategic inflection points CHROs and heads of leadership development designing senior leadership programmes Senior executives and leadership teams in government and public sector organisations Board-level strategy and scenario planning forums Audience outcomes A clear distinction between technical problems and adaptive challenges, with practical language for applying it in real organisational conversations Greater self-awareness about how the pressure to have answers shapes individual leadership behaviour and team dynamics Practical frameworks from Not Knowing and Not Doing for leading through uncertainty without forcing premature resolution A more explicit understanding of how adult development theory applies to the daily practice of leadership Approaches to building team and organisational cultures that can hold complexity and sustain productive engagement over time

Why organisations work with Deborah Rowland Her 2015/16 global research, conducted through Behavioural Event Interviews with senior leaders across industries, quantified that leader inner capacities account for over half the success or failure of large complex change – a finding that directly challenges how most organisations design transformation programmes. The Still Moving framework and Change Vitality model give organisations a specific diagnostic language for the leadership dimension of change: eight interconnected skills with a clear evidence base, not another generic competency framework. She spent the first half of her career inside the systems she now advises, as VP of Organisational and Management Development at PepsiCo, Change Lead at Royal Dutch Shell, and People Director at BBC Worldwide. She understands the constraints of the position, not just its theory. Four Wiley-published books, articles in the Harvard Business Review and LSE Business Review, and papers accepted at the Academy of Management give her frameworks independent credibility beyond the consulting relationship. Her most recent book, From Ought to Is (Wiley, 2025), applies the Still Moving thinking directly to polarisation and systemic inertia – relevant to organisations managing post-merger integration, contested cultural change, or restructuring in divided environments. Biography highlights Author of Still Moving: How to Lead Mindful Change (Wiley, 2017, bestseller) and From Ought to Is: Catalysing Change and Movement in a Polarised World (Wiley, 2025); co-author with Professor Malcolm Higgs of Sustaining Change: Leadership That Works (Wiley, 2008) Named on Thinkers50 Radar 2017; ranked 31st on HR Magazine Most Influential Thinkers list 2021 Contributor to Harvard Business Review and LSE Business Review; original research accepted at the 2016 Academy of Management and 2019 European Academy of Management Former VP of Organisational and Management Development at PepsiCo; Change Lead at Royal Dutch Shell; People Director at BBC Worldwide; earlier senior roles at Gucci Group Founder of Still Moving change consultancy; advisory clients include RWE, GlaxoSmithKline, Rolls-Royce, Diageo, Unilever and De Beers Faculty contributor at Henley, Imperial, Tuck and Bath business schools; Advisory Board member, International Institute for Leadership and Safety Culture Double First in Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University Biography Most large-scale transformation programmes fall short not because the strategy is wrong, but because the leaders running them revert to familiar patterns when complexity peaks. Deborah Rowland has devoted three decades to studying that specific failure mode. Her research, conducted through Behavioural Event Interviews with senior leaders across industries and geographies, found that four inner capacities of the leader – staying present, responding intentionally, tuning into the system, and acknowledging the whole – explained over half the reason why big complex change either succeeds or fails. That research was not produced from the outside. Rowland spent the first half of her career as a practitioner, serving as VP of Organisational and Management Development at PepsiCo, Change Lead at Royal Dutch Shell, and People Director at BBC Worldwide, with earlier senior roles at Gucci Group. She has led major restructurings from within, and understands directly the conditions under which change leaders default to unhelpful patterns. That experience is embedded in every practical element of the Still Moving framework she subsequently developed. The intellectual architecture behind the framework spans four published Wiley books. Sustaining Change (2008, with Professor Malcolm Higgs) identified four external practices of effective change leadership. Still Moving (2017) showed that four inner capacities must precede those practices – and that this inner dimension accounted for over half the variance in change success. From Ought to Is (2025) extends the argument to address polarisation and systemic inertia as the specific obstacles leaders now face. Named on the Thinkers50 Radar in 2017 and a contributor to the Harvard Business Review and LSE Business Review, she has also taught at Henley, Imperial, Tuck and Bath. She holds a Double First in Archaeology and Anthropology from Cambridge University – a training in systemic observation that continues to shape how she reads organisations and the people leading them. Key speaking topics Large-scale organisational transformation The inner capacities of change leadership The Still Moving framework and Change Vitality model Systemic change approaches Leading through polarisation and organisational inertia Culture change and movement Executive leadership development in complex environments Ideal for Executive leadership teams and boards sponsoring or overseeing major transformation programmes CHROs and senior HR leadership communities Leaders at the top of organisations navigating post-merger integration, major restructuring, or contested cultural change Business school executive education participants on leadership and change programmes Audience outcomes A clear understanding of why leader inner state – not change methodology – is the primary driver of transformation success or failure Practical exposure to the Still Moving eight-skill framework and Change Vitality model as a leadership diagnostic tool Ability to identify specific leadership behaviours that correlate with success in large and complex change Approaches for leading systemic change without defaulting to controlling or directive patterns under pressure A more honest assessment of personal leadership habits that may be slowing organisational change

Why organisations work with Cathy O’Dowd Her central argument that internal team dynamics, not the external environment, are the primary source of failure in high-performing groups, is drawn from specific, documented expeditions and maps directly onto the decisions senior leadership teams are already wrestling with. The 1996 South African Everest expedition provides one of the most detailed public case studies of a high-performing team collapsing through ego and power-play, then recovering to reach the summit. That arc of breakdown, diagnosis and recommitment is the substance of the work. Her participation in the 2012 Mazeno Ridge expedition on Nanga Parbat (a first ascent of a 10-kilometre ridgeline that had defeated ten previous international expeditions) provides a tested model for executing ambitious objectives when the plan meets an unpredictable environment and must adapt in real time. She makes a specific, counterintuitive claim: that most failures in extreme environments are self-created. This challenges how many organisations locate and manage risk, and gives leaders a different set of questions to ask of their own teams. As a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland and recipient of its highest honour, the Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, she brings the structural rigour of a career speaker to content that has been tested in front of senior corporate audiences across 46+ countries. Biography highlights First woman to summit Everest from both its south (1996) and north (1999) sides – an unmatched record in mountaineering history First South African to summit Everest; member of the First South African Everest Expedition (1996) Fourth woman to climb Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain (2000) Participant in the 2012 Mazeno Ridge expedition on Nanga Parbat – a first ascent of one of the last major unclimbed lines on an 8,000-metre peak; the summit pair were awarded the 2013 Piolet d’Or Author of Just for the Love of It; co-author of Everest: Free to Decide Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland; recipient of the Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, the PSA’s highest honour Master’s degree in Journalism, Rhodes University; former university lecturer Professional speaker for 27+ years; presented to organisations in 46+ countries on six continents Biography Most teams of ambitious, capable people contain the seeds of their own failure. Not because the external environment defeats them, but because the competition between high-performers: the very drive that brought them to the room, erodes the collaboration they need to succeed. Cathy O’Dowd watched this happen in real time, at altitude, with lives in the balance. O’Dowd became the first woman to summit Everest from both its south and north sides, completing the south-side ascent in 1996 and returning for the north in 1999. What formed her thinking was not the summits but the crisis that preceded the first: the in-fighting, power-plays, and near-disintegration of a team that had every credential to succeed. Her analysis of that expedition: what broke, what was rebuilt, and how the team reached the top despite itself, is the foundation of her corporate work. Her second major case study is the 2012 Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat, a 10-kilometre Himalayan ridgeline that had repelled ten previous international expeditions. The six-person team committed to a first ascent with no existing blueprint and had to adapt in real time as the plan met a complex, unforgiving environment. Two teammates completed the ascent and were awarded the 2013 Piolet d’Or, mountaineering’s most prestigious prize. O’Dowd uses this expedition as a model for executing ambitious objectives when certainty is unavailable and the original plan cannot hold. A Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland and recipient of its Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, she has presented in 46+ countries over 27 years. She holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from Rhodes University, where she also lectured. Her presentations are built not on inspiration but on diagnosis: specific, transferable analysis of why high-performing groups succeed and fail under pressure. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme pressure High-performance team dynamics Leadership in high-stakes environments Executing ambitious plans under uncertainty Resilience, failure, and recovery Risk, responsibility, and the limits of control Adapting strategy when execution meets reality Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating high-stakes decisions under uncertainty Organisations running ambitious transformation, innovation, or change programmes Leadership conferences centred on team performance and organisational resilience Boards and executive committees examining risk, accountability, and decision-making frameworks Audience outcomes A specific diagnostic framework for understanding why high-performing teams fail from within, not from outside Practical analysis of how ego, competition, and communication breakdown manifest under pressure, and how to interrupt those patterns A case-study model for adapting ambitious plans when execution meets an unpredictable environment A reframed understanding of organisational risk: internal dynamics as a primary variable, not just external conditions Greater clarity on what leadership under genuine uncertainty looks and feels like, drawn from real decisions with irreversible consequences