Purpose-Driven Leadership speakers

Why organisations work with Kian Bakhtiari Direct primary-source insight from a live community of 2,000+ Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha contributors across 50+ markets, rather than the lagged trend reports most boards are working from. A published, practitioner argument on purpose-led marketing through Kogan Page’s “Marketing for Social Change”, giving commercial teams a framework for purpose that survives the backlash cycle. Strategic credibility across two registers: the agency boardroom (former Head of Strategy at Dentsu Aegis Network) and the multilateral institution (WEF Agenda Contributor, UNFCCC advisor). Operating experience with consumer-facing brands that have to convert Gen-Z, including Adidas, Unilever, Diesel, L’Oreal, Danone, Innocent Drinks, Pentland Brands and Speedo. A Financial Times Top 50 Future Leaders listing, which gives a buyer external validation that the perspective is taken seriously by the business press. Biography highlights Founder of The People, a Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha cultural intelligence consultancy with contributors across 50+ markets. Author of “Marketing for Social Change: How to Turn Purpose Into Business and Social Impact”, Kogan Page (2024). Named in the Financial Times “Top 50 Future Leaders” for contributions to marketing. Agenda Contributor to the World Economic Forum; Advisor to UN Climate Change (UNFCCC). Forbes contributor on Gen-Z, brand and consumer culture; featured in Campaign, The Drum, Vogue Business and Rolling Stone. Former Head of Strategy at Dentsu Aegis Network; TEDx Brighton speaker on imagination and innovation. Biography Marketing teams have been trying to “reach Gen-Z” with the tools of the previous cycle: panels, focus groups, agency trend decks. The cohort itself has moved on, and most of the commercial signals reaching the boardroom are already a generation late. Kian Bakhtiari built The People to close that gap, running a live network of Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha contributors across 50+ markets that feeds primary cultural intelligence directly into client work. His background is unusually balanced for the field. Former Head of Strategy at Dentsu Aegis Network, he understands what the commercial brief looks like inside a holding company. As Agenda Contributor to the World Economic Forum and Advisor to UN Climate Change, he sees how the same generational questions land in policy and multilateral settings. The Financial Times named him in its Top 50 Future Leaders for marketing, an external read on where his work sits in the discipline. His book, “Marketing for Social Change” (Kogan Page, 2024), is the practitioner argument behind the consultancy. It sets out how brands can embed purpose into the operating substance of the business rather than the campaign layer, and how to avoid the backlash that hits when the two diverge. Clients he has worked with on this terrain include Unilever, L’Oreal, Diesel, Adidas, Danone, Innocent Drinks, Pentland Brands, Speedo and the BBC. What he gives a senior team is a route into a consumer base they cannot read with their existing tools, and a defensible position on purpose that holds up when scrutinised. That sits at the centre of how commercial strategy is now being rewritten for younger consumers and workers. Key speaking topics Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha consumer behaviour Purpose-led marketing and brand activism Cultural intelligence and foresight Marketing for social change The future workforce and generational diversity Brand communities and the creator economy Innovation, imagination and creativity Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and consumer insight leads recalibrating their approach to Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha audiences Chief Strategy Officers and growth leads in consumer-facing categories where younger cohorts decide the next decade of revenue Boards and executive committees stress-testing purpose, ESG and brand positioning against a more sceptical, more political consumer base CHROs and culture leads working on multigenerational workforces where Gen-Z is reshaping engagement and retention Audience outcomes A sharper picture of what Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha actually want from brands, employers and institutions, drawn from a live primary-source network rather than syndicated research. A practical test for whether a brand’s purpose can survive contact with the operating business, and where it most often breaks. A view of the commercial cost of getting generational signals wrong, and the categories where that cost is already showing up. Specific examples of brands that have moved purpose from campaign to product, and what made the difference.

Why organisations work with Leah Williamson She has captained the same team to two consecutive major international titles, a result that puts her in a category of one in English senior football and gives her a direct view of how a leadership group sustains performance across cycles, not just peaks. Her leadership story is built around a specific event with a public outcome: the Euro 2022 final at Wembley and the Euro 2025 final in Switzerland. She can talk about preparation, pressure, and decision-making with reference to moments the audience watched. She has led through serious setback, including a long-term ACL injury that ruled her out of the 2023 World Cup. The recovery and return to captaincy is a credible reference point on resilience that most sports speakers cannot match. Her platform extends beyond the pitch into authorship and advocacy. Her book “You Have the Power” with Pan Macmillan and her public stance on social issues during Euro 2022 give her a broader voice than a standard athlete keynote. She holds an OBE and a CBE for services to football, recognition from a credible national honours body that anchors her credibility outside the sport itself. Biography highlights Captain of the England senior women’s team since 2022, lifting the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 and Euro 2025 trophies. Named in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 Team of the Tournament, leading the competition for ball recoveries and completed passes. Arsenal Women defender since her senior debut in 2014, with FA Women’s Super League and multiple domestic cup honours. Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), 2023 New Year Honours; Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), 2026 New Year Honours. Author of “You Have the Power: Find Your Strength and Believe You Can,” published by Pan Macmillan with co-writer Suzanne Wrack. Long-term Nike athlete, with brand partnerships that include Gucci and Mastercard. Biography The Euro 2022 final at Wembley was the moment English women’s football changed its commercial and cultural standing. Leah Williamson was the captain who lifted the trophy, and three years later she was the captain who lifted it again in Switzerland at Euro 2025. No other England senior football captain, women’s or men’s, has done that. What sits underneath the result is more useful to a corporate audience than the result itself. Williamson took the armband from Sarina Wiegman in 2022 having spent more than a decade inside Arsenal’s system, from the Centre of Excellence at age nine to the senior squad in 2014. Her leadership is built on a long apprenticeship and a clear professional standard, not on charisma alone. The story is not a clean line. An ACL rupture in 2023 ruled her out of a World Cup that England reached the final of, and the comeback to fitness, form, and captaincy is the reference point she draws on when the topic is resilience under public scrutiny. Her advocacy work, from the rainbow armband at Euro 2022 to her writing for younger readers in “You Have the Power” with Pan Macmillan, places her in a small group of athletes who use the platform deliberately rather than reactively. For a senior audience, the value is specific. Williamson can describe how a captaincy group sets standards, how a team holds its nerve in the back half of a tournament, and how a leader recovers personal authority after a setback that takes them out of the room. Her two OBE and CBE honours sit alongside the trophies as a public marker that the contribution is taken seriously beyond the sport. Key speaking topics Captaincy and team leadership under pressure Building and sustaining a winning team culture Resilience and recovery from setback High-performance preparation Women in sport and the business of women’s football Purpose and platform in elite sport Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and leadership-team development sessions All-hands events tied to a major performance moment, transformation milestone, or annual kick-off Audiences focused on team culture, captaincy, and high-performance habits, including HR, talent and L&D leaders Events centred on women in leadership, sport, or business Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a captaincy group prepares for, and holds together through, the highest-pressure moments of a tournament. A credible reference point on returning to leadership after a serious setback, drawn from her ACL recovery and return to the England captaincy. A clearer view of what separates a high-performing team culture from a high-talent group that underdelivers. A view of how a public-facing leader uses platform with intent, including the choices behind her advocacy work.

Why organisations work with Lewis Pugh He has helped secure formal protection for more than two million square kilometres of ocean, including the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area, the largest in the world. That is a track record on environmental policy outcomes very few private-sector advisors or speakers can match. He brings a working maritime lawyer’s grasp of treaty, sovereign negotiation, and multilateral process. His framing of climate and ocean commitments is grounded in how rules actually move, which lands with boards wrestling with regulatory and ESG risk. As the UN’s first Patron of the Oceans, he carries institutional weight inside the system most companies are now being judged against, including UNEP, COP processes, and national governments. He converts physical expeditions into specific decisions about preparation, team selection, and changing course under hostile conditions. Audiences leave with a usable account of how leaders behave when the plan stops working, sourced from the North Pole, Mount Everest, the Red Sea, and Antarctica. Biography highlights UN Patron of the Oceans, appointed by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2013. Founder of The Lewis Pugh Foundation, established in 2015 to drive the creation of Marine Protected Areas worldwide. First person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world; first across the North Pole, the length of the English Channel, the Red Sea, and around Martha’s Vineyard. Maritime lawyer trained at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Cape Town; former practitioner at Ince and Co in the City of London; former Reservist in the British SAS. Author of Achieving the Impossible (Simon and Schuster, 2010) and 21 Yaks and a Speedo (2014); twice a TEDGlobal speaker. Awarded South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga (Gold Class); named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame; named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. Biography The Ross Sea Marine Protected Area, off Antarctica, is the largest protected ocean reserve on the planet, larger than the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy combined. Lewis Pugh swam in its near-freezing waters in a Speedo to push 25 nations, including Russia, into signing the agreement that created it. Few advocates working on the ocean and climate file have that kind of policy outcome attached to their name. Pugh trained as a maritime lawyer at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Cape Town, and practised at Ince and Co in the City of London. During those years he served as a Reservist in the British SAS. The combination matters for the work he now does. The legal training shapes how he reads treaties, jurisdiction, and sovereign behaviour. The military background shapes how he plans expeditions and assembles teams. The endurance swimming is the public-facing instrument that pulls governments to the table. In 2013 the UN appointed him as its first Patron of the Oceans. In 2015 he founded The Lewis Pugh Foundation, dedicated to Marine Protected Areas, the ocean equivalent of national parks. Through that work he has helped secure protection for more than two million square kilometres of marine ecosystem, an area the size of Western Europe, and is campaigning for 30 percent of the world’s oceans to be formally protected by 2030. His books, Achieving the Impossible (Simon and Schuster) and 21 Yaks and a Speedo, sit alongside two TEDGlobal talks that TED’s editors describe as the work of a “master story-teller”. For corporate audiences, the substance is not the swimming. It is the working method behind it: how a small team prepares for hostile conditions, how an advocate moves sovereign signatories, and how leaders decide when to keep going and when to change course. Key speaking topics Ocean and climate policy Sustainability and ESG commitments at board level Marine Protected Areas and treaty negotiation Resilience and leadership in hostile conditions Team preparation and decision-making under pressure Purpose-driven leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, ocean, and ESG strategy Sustainability leaders, chief sustainability officers, and ESG committees Senior leadership offsites focused on resilience, preparation, and decision-making under pressure Public-sector and multilateral audiences working on environment and oceans policy Audience outcomes A clearer view of how high-level environmental commitments are converted into binding agreements and protected areas. A working account of how small teams plan for, and recover from, conditions where the original plan fails. A direct line of sight into the UN, COP, and Marine Protected Area processes that increasingly shape corporate disclosure and risk. A sharper sense of what credible, evidenced advocacy looks like, drawn from named expeditions and named outcomes.

Why organisations work with Lizzie Carr She has built and runs an operating environmental non-profit, not a campaign. Planet Patrol’s app turns volunteer activity into structured pollution and water-quality data, which is a usable model for any organisation thinking about citizen-led evidence gathering. Her record-setting expeditions (England’s waterways solo, the English Channel, the Hudson) gave the work its primary dataset. The endurance story is inseparable from the environmental method, which makes for a sustainability talk that actually contains a method. A cancer diagnosis at 26 sits behind the whole trajectory. That gives audiences a credible voice on personal resilience and reinvention without it being a separate, bolted-on talk. Recognition from the Crown (MBE, 2021) and from the Prime Minister’s Points of Light award gives the profile institutional weight that bureau-built activist profiles often lack. Authored Paddling Britain (2018) and hosts the Earth Shakers podcast, with regular media presence on BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 and national newspapers. The platform is real. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Planet Patrol; nearly 500,000 pieces of litter recorded by volunteers across 113 countries. MBE, 2021, for services to environmental work and activism. First person to paddleboard England’s connected waterways solo and unsupported (400 miles, 22 days). First woman to solo paddleboard the English Channel; also crossed the Hudson River (170 miles, 8 days). Author, Paddling Britain (Bradt, 2018); host, Earth Shakers podcast. Named in Top 10 Female Climate Activists lists by Stylist, Marie Claire and Glamour; Stylist Inspiration of the Year, 2020. Biography Most environmental campaigners describe a problem. Carr built a tool that measures it. Planet Patrol began as one woman with a paddleboard and a phone, plotting every piece of plastic she could see along England’s 400 miles of inland waterway, and has become a citizen-science platform with volunteers in more than 100 countries logging pollution and water-quality data into a single app. The origin matters because the method does. Carr was diagnosed with cancer at 26 and took up paddleboarding during recovery. Three world firsts followed, each a research expedition as much as an endurance feat. The English waterway crossing produced over 20,000 plastic data points. The English Channel and Hudson River crossings extended the platform internationally. The expeditions gave the non-profit its data, its public profile and its operating logic. That logic is what makes the talk land in a corporate room. The argument is that environmental action becomes credible when it produces evidence, that citizen science is a legitimate route to that evidence at scale, and that personal conviction holds up when it has a measurement framework underneath it. Carr’s MBE in 2021, the Prime Minister’s Points of Light award, and her place in the Stylist, Marie Claire and Glamour lists of leading climate activists are recognitions of an operating contribution, not just a story. She is the author of Paddling Britain (Bradt, 2018), hosts the Earth Shakers podcast, and writes and broadcasts regularly across UK national press and television. Audiences leave with a story they remember and, more usefully for a sustainability or purpose programme, a working example of how community action becomes data and how data becomes accountability. Key speaking topics Citizen science and environmental data Plastic pollution and freshwater health Sustainability leadership and purpose Building and scaling a non-profit Personal resilience and reinvention after illness Adventure, endurance and mental performance Activism without perfectionism Ideal for Sustainability and ESG leads designing employee or community engagement programmes with measurable outcomes. CSR, foundation and purpose teams looking for a credible activist voice with operating substance. Leadership and culture programmes wanting a resilience and reinvention narrative with verifiable proof points. Conferences and offsites where a sustainability or wellbeing keynote needs a memorable lead voice. Audience outcomes A clear example of how citizen-led data collection translates environmental concern into evidence organisations can use. A working model for turning a single expedition or campaign into a long-term operating platform. A vivid case for personal reinvention after a serious health setback, told without sentiment. Language and arguments senior leaders can take back into their own sustainability and purpose conversations.

Why organisations work with Lucy Bloom She has run mission-driven organisations through real turnarounds, including a $7 million fundraising programme at Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia and a model shift from orphanage to community development at Sunrise Cambodia. Her leadership material is drawn from those decisions, not from theory. She is one of a small number of Australian leaders to appear on the global Top 30 #SocialCEOs list, which gives her credibility with audiences that care about purpose translated into delivery. She combines a long commercial career, two decades running a boutique advertising agency, with senior charity leadership. That cross-sector range lets her speak credibly to both corporate and not-for-profit rooms. As a HarperCollins-published author and frequent contributor to ABC, Sky News, the Australian Financial Review and CEO Magazine, she has the public communication craft to hold a senior audience for a full keynote. Biography highlights Founding CEO, Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia); raised over $7 million for hospitals and a midwifery school in Ethiopia. CEO, Sunrise Cambodia; led the transition from orphanage model to community-first programmes. First and only Australian named to the global Top 30 #SocialCEOs list. Two-time finalist, Telstra Business Woman of the Year Awards. Author of three books across three genres, including the HarperCollins memoir Get the Girls Out (2019). Speaking and writing platform spanning ABC, Sky News, Today, the Australian Financial Review, CEO Magazine and Australian Vogue. Biography Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia is a women’s health charity working in one of the most demanding operating environments in the world. It needed money, a credible Australian operation, and a leader who could hold both the cause and the donor relationships. Lucy Bloom was the founding CEO. Over a few years the Australian arm raised more than $7 million for hospitals and a midwifery school in Ethiopia. She was then headhunted by Sunrise Cambodia, a children’s charity that needed to move away from the orphanage model toward community-first development. She led that transition. She is the first and only Australian on the global Top 30 #SocialCEOs list, a recognition that tracks operating substance rather than profile. Before the charity sector she spent two decades building and running a boutique advertising agency. That commercial track record is why her material lands in corporate rooms as well as not-for-profit ones. Clients she has spoken to include Deloitte, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, JP Morgan, Amazon Web Services, McDonald’s and Tourism Australia. She is the author of three books across three genres, including the HarperCollins memoir Get the Girls Out, and a regular contributor and interviewee in Australian national media. The throughline across the work is straightforward: how leaders convert conviction into results when the resources are tight and the stakes are real. Key speaking topics Creative leadership Values-based leadership and kindness at work Purpose-driven organisations Resilience and reinvention Storytelling and business communication Change leadership in mission-driven settings Ideal for CEOs and executive teams in mission-driven and purpose-led organisations Boards and leadership teams in not-for-profits and foundations Corporate leadership audiences working on values, culture and purpose Conferences with a women-in-leadership or social-impact track Audience outcomes A working account of how a charity CEO raises seven figures and rebuilds an operating model under constraint. Specific examples of values-based decisions made in real conditions, not as theory. A reframed view of creative leadership as a discipline that produces commercial and social results, not a personality trait. Practical communication craft from a published author and broadcast contributor.

Why organisations work with Marga Hoek She has run the institutions she now advises on. As founder and CEO of De Groene Zaak, the Dutch Sustainable Business Association, she built the policy-side organisation that pushed Dutch business onto a sustainability footing, then took the same argument to the supervisory boards of Aegon, SUSI Partners and Earth Capital. Her three books have set a sequence: New Economy Business (2014) framed shared value, The Trillion Dollar Shift (2018) mapped the SDGs as a business opportunity, Tech For Good (2023) translated Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies into specific corporate use cases. Both later books carry Axiom Business Book Awards. She speaks with operating credibility on sustainable capital, which is rare. Most ESG voices come from academia or activism. Hoek sits on the supervisory boards of institutions allocating billions into the energy transition, infrastructure and real estate. Her argument that “Business for Good is Good Business”, coined in 2014, has aged into the dominant board framing for ESG. She is one of the people who put it there. Biography highlights Three-time CEO across private and public sectors, including Thunissen (Dutch construction) and the Municipality of Haarlemmermeer. Founder and CEO of De Groene Zaak, the Dutch Sustainable Business Association, from 2009 to 2017. Author of three Routledge titles: New Economy Business (2014), The Trillion Dollar Shift (2018) and Tech For Good (2023). Gold Axiom Business Book Awards for The Trillion Dollar Shift (2019) and Tech For Good (2024). Thinkers50-recognised; featured on the Thinkers50 podcast. Supervisory and advisory board roles at Aegon Nederland, SUSI Partners, Redevco, ArcTern Ventures and Earth Capital. Media coverage in Financial Times, MIT Technology Review, Forbes and Fortune. Biography The argument that sustainability is good business is now uncontested in principle and unevenly applied in practice. Marga Hoek has spent fifteen years closing that gap from inside the institutions that allocate the capital. As founder and CEO of De Groene Zaak, the Dutch Sustainable Business Association, she built the body that pushed corporate Netherlands onto a sustainability footing between 2009 and 2017. That operating background is what differentiates her work. She sits on the Supervisory Board of Aegon Nederland, the Supervisory Board of SUSI Partners, the International Advisory Council of Redevco, and advisory boards at ArcTern Ventures and Earth Capital. Each of these is a vehicle for capital flowing into the energy transition, sustainable infrastructure or climate technology. She is not describing the shift, she is helping govern it. Her three Routledge books form a sequence. New Economy Business (2014) won Management Book of the Year and established shared value as a commercial argument. The Trillion Dollar Shift (2018) mapped the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals as named market opportunities and won the Gold Axiom Business Book Award in 2019. Tech For Good (2023) translated artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics and other Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies into specific corporate applications against climate, biodiversity and inequality, and won Gold Axiom in 2024. Thinkers50 recognises her, and the Financial Times, MIT Technology Review, Forbes and Fortune have covered the work. The reason senior buyers commission her is more specific. She has the rare profile of an operator who has been responsible for sustainability decisions at executive level, an author whose frameworks have been adopted by boards, and a non-executive sitting on the capital side of the transition. Key speaking topics Sustainable business and capital ESG and the Sustainable Development Goals Energy transition and climate finance Purpose-driven leadership Technology for good and the Fourth Industrial Revolution Sustainable investing and capital allocation Board governance of ESG Ideal for Boards and supervisory boards setting or reviewing ESG and net zero commitments CEOs, CFOs and Chief Sustainability Officers translating commitments into operating decisions Asset managers, institutional investors and family offices allocating into the transition Financial services, real estate and infrastructure leadership teams Audience outcomes A clearer view of where ESG narrative is failing to convert into capital allocation, and where it is. Named examples of companies and investors who have made the commercial case for sustainability work. A framework for using Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies against specific sustainability outcomes rather than as generic transformation. A board-level vocabulary for distinguishing substantive ESG progress from disclosure activity.

Why organisations work with Maria Conceicao A first-person account of running a registered charity in Bangladesh for twenty years while financing it through endurance feats few professional athletes attempt. A specific lens on resilience as a long horizon discipline, drawn from summiting Everest and K2, completing the Explorers Grand Slam, and running ultramarathons across seven continents. Concrete material on starting with nothing: from working as a cleaner in Portugal to building an education programme that has served more than 600 children in Dhaka’s slums. A voice that lands with mixed corporate audiences, with keynote appearances at Harvard Alumni events, Mindvalley, and the John C. Maxwell annual event. A founder’s perspective on social impact that is operational, not aspirational. The Maria Cristina Foundation is registered in three jurisdictions and supports active enrolment in Dhaka schools. Biography highlights First Portuguese woman to summit Mount Everest (2013) and K2 (2024). First Portuguese person and 17th woman globally to complete the Explorers Grand Slam (2024). Ten Guinness World Records across ultramarathon, Ironman and endurance disciplines (2014 to 2023). Founder of the Maria Cristina Foundation, established 2005, registered in the UK, USA and Portugal. Author of A Woman on Top of the World (2022), Butterfly Stories Vol 1 and 2 (2023), Altered Path (2023) and The World Needs Superheroes (2024). Keynote speaker for Harvard Alumni events, Mindvalley summits and the John C. Maxwell annual event. Biography A routine layover in Dhaka in the early 2000s set the trajectory. Maria Conceicao was working as an Emirates flight attendant when she walked into the slums of Bangladesh. Within months she had sold her belongings, cancelled a planned trip and returned to set up a school. The Maria Cristina Foundation followed in 2005 and has supported more than 600 children since. Funding a registered charity from a flight attendant’s salary was never going to scale, so the endurance work began. She had no athletic background. She learned to climb, run and swim well enough to set ten Guinness World Records, summit Everest and K2, ski to both poles, and complete the Explorers Grand Slam as the first Portuguese person and the seventeenth woman in the world to finish it. The commercial proposition for corporate audiences is the discipline underneath those numbers. Twenty years of running a foundation in Dhaka through every cycle of regional disruption. Ten records earned without sponsorship infrastructure most professional athletes rely on. Four published books, all written while training and fundraising. Keynote appearances at Harvard Alumni events, Mindvalley and the John C. Maxwell annual event. Her early life is part of the credibility, not a footnote. She lost her adoptive mother Cristina at nine, worked as a cleaner in Portugal as a young woman, and built every credential from there. The foundation is named for Cristina. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained pressure Self-leadership and composure Purpose-driven leadership Humanitarian entrepreneurship Endurance and goal setting Founder-led social impact Ideal for CHROs and people leaders rebuilding engagement after periods of fatigue or restructure Senior leadership offsites focused on resilience and self-leadership Conferences for purpose-led organisations, foundations and ESG functions Female leadership networks and emerging leader programmes Audience outcomes A first-hand account of decision-making at altitude, where margins are physiological and consequences are immediate. A working definition of resilience as a twenty-year practice, not a coping technique. Specific examples of operating a registered charity across three jurisdictions while funding it through personal endurance challenges. A reframing of what is possible from a starting point of no resources, no network and no formal training.

Why organisations work with Marlo Clarke He gives employees a working language for purpose and fulfilment that is concrete enough to use on a Monday morning, built around named frameworks like the Cycle of Success through Intentional Action and the Spectrum of Joy. He treats setbacks as feedback to be evaluated, not motivation to be hyped past, which makes his content usable for teams under real pressure rather than after-dinner inspiration. His range is unusually wide for the format: the same content has landed with corporate audiences in the United States and United Kingdom and with rural community programmes in South Africa, which forces the ideas to be portable rather than context-dependent. Two TEDx talks at the University of Chester and the University of York give a public, watchable proof of how his material plays to a serious audience. Biography highlights Two-time TEDx speaker: TEDxUniversityofChester and TEDxUniversityofYork Former international rugby player for Barbados Has worked as a strategic and programme director across the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa Led U.S. federally funded youth and community development programmes in the American Midwest Conducted a year-long research project across 13 European countries on fulfilment and career meaning Currently runs volunteer development programmes in rural South Africa Biography Most workplace conversations about purpose end up too abstract to act on. Clarke’s work starts in the opposite place. He teaches people to answer one specific question at the end of a working day, then builds outward from that into how individuals define success, evaluate feedback, and decide what to do next. The material is shaped by an unusual working life. Born in Barbados, Clarke played international rugby for the country, then spent years running development programmes in the American Midwest funded by U.S. federal grants, working as a strategic director in the United States and United Kingdom, and leading volunteer programmes in rural South Africa. A year-long research project took him through 13 European countries interviewing people about what made their lives and careers feel worthwhile. Out of that came a small set of named frameworks: Define, Strive, Achieve, Share as the broad arc; the Cycle of Success through Intentional Action for the day-to-day; the Spectrum of Joy for what to do with achievement once it arrives. The frameworks are the spine of two TEDx talks, “What Now? What Next?” at the University of Chester and “How was your day today?” at the University of York. For an organisation, the value is practical. Clarke gives employees and leaders a way to talk about intention, setbacks and fulfilment that sits inside the working day rather than alongside it, and a vocabulary that holds up whether the audience is a corporate summit in the United States or a rural classroom in South Africa. Key speaking topics Self-defined success Intentional action Navigating uncertainty Feedback evaluation Personal fulfilment at work Cultural competency and cross-context storytelling Purpose and engagement Ideal for HR, learning and development leaders designing engagement and purpose programmes Internal conferences and leadership offsites focused on resilience and renewal Early- and mid-career talent populations being invested in by their employer Mission-driven organisations and NGOs working across cultural contexts Audience outcomes A short, repeatable daily checklist for evaluating progress against self-defined goals A working method for treating setbacks as feedback rather than failure Language for distinguishing between bliss, happiness and contentment, and why that matters at work A framework, Define / Strive / Achieve / Share, that maps onto how employees actually move through goals Renewed intent to act, grounded in two equations Clarke teaches: Passion plus Intention equals Purpose; Time plus Energy plus Money equals Purpose

Why organisations work with Matt Davies He has built positioning work for both regulated giants and founder-led companies, including Nestle, Boots, Specsavers, Virgin, Nikon and Capital One, so the methods have been tested across categories rather than refined inside one. His Brand Strategy Triangle gives executive teams a single shared structure for four arguments they usually have separately: why we exist, who we serve, how we show up, and what we offer. He pushes back hard against generic purpose statements. His “Purpose Fatigue” argument is built for boards tired of green and social washing being mistaken for strategy. He sits inside the practitioner conversation, not above it. Co-hosting the JUST Branding podcast with over 500,000 downloads means the frameworks he brings into a room have been pressure-tested against the working strategists who use them. Operator credibility: he founded, scaled and sold a branding agency, then ran an in-house creative function at Capital One UK. He has been on the buyer’s side of brand work, not only the consultant’s. Biography highlights Author of Storyategy, a six-step process for building a brand strategy on story foundations. Co-host of the JUST Branding Podcast with Jacob Cass; 500,000-plus downloads, guests including Marty Neumeier, David Aaker, Denise Lee Yohn and Chris Do. Named Top 50 UK Advisor by Enterprise Nation in 2019, 2020 and 2021, in the branding and design category. Certified Level C Brand Specialist, Strategist and Architect; Silver Star recipient in the 2020 LEVEL C Metaskills Challenge. Founder of Matt Davies Consultancy Ltd; advisory and fractional roles at Newfound, Motto and ikon. Earlier career: founder of Attitude Design (2008 to 2017, acquired); Creative Department Manager at Capital One UK, where he established the in-house Creative Studio. Biography Most companies do not have a positioning problem. They have a clarity problem. The leadership team cannot agree, in plain language, on the answer to why we exist, who we serve, how we show up and what we sell. Marketing fills the gap with purpose statements that could belong to any competitor in the category. That is the gap Matt Davies works in. His Brand Strategy Triangle reduces a year of internal debate to four questions a board can actually answer in a room together. His book Storyategy sets out the six-step process behind it, built on the argument that a brand is a story an organisation has to live, not a statement it has to write. The credibility comes from having sat in every seat. He founded the branding agency Attitude Design in 2008, ran it for nine years and sold it. He then built and led the in-house Creative Studio inside Capital One UK, learning what brand work looks like inside a regulated business with operational constraints. Today he advises CEOs, CMOs and founders through his consultancy and fractional strategy roles at Newfound, Motto and ikon, with named clients including Nestle, Boots, Specsavers, Virgin, Nikon, Fred Perry and Experian. He also keeps one foot inside the practitioner debate. The JUST Branding podcast he co-hosts with Jacob Cass has passed 500,000 downloads and put him in conversation with Marty Neumeier, David Aaker, Denise Lee Yohn and most of the working canon of brand strategy. Enterprise Nation has named him a UK Top 50 Advisor for three consecutive years in branding and design. Key speaking topics Brand positioning and category differentiation Story-led brand strategy Purpose, meaning and the limits of purpose marketing Customer experience and brand alignment Leadership vision and internal brand Culture and brand as one strategic asset Brand-led growth for founder and scale-up businesses Ideal for CEOs, founders and MDs leading a repositioning, a rebrand, or a category shift CMOs and brand directors are trying to land a single positioning argument across a leadership team Boards and ExCos are tired of generic purpose statements and are looking for a more commercial alternative Marketing and design leaders inside large or regulated organisations who need their work to be understood as strategy, not decoration Audience outcomes A working answer to the four questions of the Brand Strategy Triangle, applied to the audience’s own business A sharper view of where the company’s positioning is generic and where it is genuinely defensible A clearer language for talking about brand inside the leadership team, beyond logos and taglines A practical critique of purpose-driven messaging and a workable alternative built on customer-centric ideas Confidence that brand strategy is a commercial growth tool, not a marketing afterthought

Why organisations work with Matthew Gitsham Two decades of research focused on what CEOs of named multinationals actually do on sustainability, not what they say in annual reports. Direct experience advising the UN Global Compact, Business in the Community and corporates including Unilever, IBM, HSBC, GSK, De Beers, Cemex and Pearson on sustainable development strategy. Thinkers50 Radar recognition and the Aspen Institute Rising Star award give boards external validation when commissioning content on a contested topic. His Rio+20 report “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World” shaped how the UN framed corporate leadership on sustainable development, evidence that his frameworks travel beyond the classroom. Research on corporate modern slavery leadership, conducted with the Ethical Trading Initiative, gives him operating substance on supply chain ESG that most academic voices lack. Biography highlights Professor of Business and Sustainability, Hult Ashridge Executive Education. Director of the Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability. Thinkers50 Radar, Class of 2021. Cited as “global expert on CEOs and sustainability.” Aspen Institute and Academy of Business in Society European Faculty Pioneer Award, Rising Star category. Hult International Business School Researcher of the Year, 2016 to 2017. Lead author of “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World,” referenced at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Biography Most ESG conversations stop at the disclosure framework. The harder question, which Gitsham has spent twenty years researching, is what CEOs of Unilever, IBM, HSBC, GSK and similar companies actually do with sustainability once it leaves the sustainability report. His work tracks the decisions boards take on capital allocation, supplier governance and public policy advocacy when sustainability stops being narrative and starts being operating substance. That research base is what earned him Thinkers50 Radar recognition in 2021, with Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove naming him a “global expert on CEOs and sustainability.” His Rising Star award from the Aspen Institute and the Academy of Business in Society European Faculty Pioneer Awards reflects the same point. He is not a commentator on sustainability. He is one of the few academics with sustained, named access to CEOs of large multinationals on the subject. At Hult Ashridge, he directs the Centre for Business and Sustainability and teaches across the MBA and executive education programmes. His report “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World” was used to inform debate at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Current research partnerships include Business Fights Poverty on corporate SDG embedding and the Ethical Trading Initiative on corporate leadership on modern slavery, giving him an operating view of supply chain ESG that bridges academia and practice. His work appears in The Economist, Financial Times and Harvard Business Review. His corporate clients span Tesco, Bayer, Rolls Royce, Swarovski, Marks & Spencer and Pearson, alongside the UK Senior Civil Service. The throughline across all of it is the same question: how do leaders of large organisations make defensible sustainability decisions when the stakes are now financial, political and reputational at once. Key speaking topics Corporate sustainability and ESG strategy CEO leadership on sustainable development The UN Sustainable Development Goals and corporate practice Modern slavery and supply chain governance Business and public policy advocacy Climate action in commercial strategy Executive development for sustainability Ideal for Boards and executive committees translating sustainability commitments into capital allocation and operating decisions Chief Sustainability Officers, CFOs and General Counsels handling ESG scrutiny and regulatory exposure Senior teams in companies with exposed supply chains are addressing modern slavery and human rights Corporate affairs and public policy leaders shaping CEO advocacy on climate, SDGs and sustainable development Audience outcomes A clearer view of what CEOs of large multinationals do differently when sustainability moves from narrative to operating substance. Named research evidence on corporate SDG embedding, modern slavery leadership and CEO public policy advocacy. A defensible framing for board conversations on ESG that withstands investor, regulatory and political scrutiny. Practical reference points from Unilever, IBM, HSBC and other named corporates, not generic sustainability case studies.

Why organisations work with Max Lenderman He wrote the founding text of experiential marketing. Experience the Message (2005) put the category on the map. Twenty years on, his thinking is the underlying logic most brand-experience practice still draws from. He has run the experiential function at the agencies that shape global brand work: founder of the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, former CEO of School, current Chief Experience Officer at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing. He moves brands from broadcasting purpose to operating on it. His “invertising” approach starts inside the organisation, with employees, and makes brand purpose a commercial driver rather than a campaign line. He has been working on web3, NFTs, and the digital-physical convergence since 2021, before most CMOs had a position on any of it. His Adweek “Into the Metaverse” column is one of the longer-running serious treatments of the territory. He has built campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Absolut, and DaimlerChrysler. The case material in the room is from inside the work, not observed from outside it. Biography highlights Author of Experience the Message: How Experiential Marketing Is Changing the Brand World and Brand New World: How to Reach Billions, Not Millions Chief Experience Officer at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing, the world’s largest experiential marketing agency Founder of the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky; former CEO of School (Project Worldwide) Founding member of the International Experiential Marketing Association (IXMA) Columnist for Adweek and Campaign magazines, including the “Into the Metaverse” column Speaker at SXSW, Consensus, Forbes CMO Summit, Advertising Week, and X-Prize Biography Experience the Message was published in 2005. It is the book that put the phrase “experiential marketing” into the advertising vocabulary, and the thesis behind it, that the brand is what the customer experiences, not what the brand says about itself, is now treated as common sense by most serious CMOs. The author wrote it from inside the work, not as a theorist looking on. Max Lenderman has spent the last two decades building the function he named. He launched the global experiential practice at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, served as CEO of School, the purpose-led consultancy inside Project Worldwide, and now holds the first Chief Experience Officer post at Omnicom’s GMR Marketing. The client list, Tommy Hilfiger, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Absolut, DaimlerChrysler, NASCAR Canada, gives him operating ground in categories where brand experience moves revenue. Two ideas anchor his current work with senior marketers. The first is “invertising,” the argument that brand purpose has to be operationalised through employees before it can be sold to customers, and that the financial return on purpose is measurable when treated this way. The second is the “phygital” frontier, where digital and physical experiences are designed as a single product rather than as a campaign with a digital extension. His Adweek column “Into the Metaverse” has tracked this territory since 2021. What he gives a senior marketing audience is the founding logic of the category and twenty years of inside work applying it. He cites a PwC finding that 86% of US buyers will pay more for a better brand experience, then shows what that figure actually requires of a brand operating model. Key speaking topics Customer experience and brand operating reality Experiential and “phygital” marketing Brand purpose as commercial driver Web3, NFTs, and the metaverse for marketers AI as creative amplifier in marketing Sports marketing and live brand experience Marketing innovation and emerging consumer behaviour Ideal for CMOs, CBOs, and brand directors rethinking the role of marketing in commercial strategy Customer experience and brand experience leads inside large consumer businesses Agency leaders and creative directors briefing on web3, AI, and digital-physical integration Sports, entertainment, and live-event sponsors building brand experience programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of brand experience that separates it from communications and advertising A view of brand purpose as an internal operating commitment, not a campaign theme A sharper read on where web3, NFTs, and the metaverse have commercial traction for marketers, and where they do not A direct argument for treating AI as a creative amplifier inside marketing teams Case material from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, School, and GMR Marketing applied to the audience’s own brand questions

Why organisations work with Michael Yaziji He wrote the standard reference on NGO–corporate relations. NGOs and Corporations: Conflict and Collaboration (Cambridge University Press) carried cover endorsements from the chairmen of Nestlé, Unilever, Shell, and PepsiCo. He holds doctorates in both analytic philosophy (University of California) and management strategy (INSEAD), a combination that brings serious ethical reasoning into his work on AI governance and corporate ownership design. His leadership work draws on the world’s largest survey tying psychological drivers and psychological safety to organisational performance, giving him empirical depth most speakers in the field do not have. He co-directs IMD’s Stakeholder Management for Boards programme and has trained boards and executive teams at Microsoft, Shell, PepsiCo, Ericsson, and Maersk. He thinks ahead of the consensus: his 2008 Harvard Business Review piece on the structural flaws of shareholder capitalism predated the mainstream stakeholder capitalism debate by close to a decade. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Leadership at IMD, Lausanne Co-Director of IMD’s Stakeholder Management for Boards programme Author of NGOs and Corporations: Conflict and Collaboration (Cambridge University Press), endorsed at publication by the chairmen of Nestlé, Unilever, Shell, and PepsiCo Two doctorates: analytic philosophy (University of California) and management strategy (INSEAD) Published in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review Gold Award, 2024 Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Awards (Excellence in Executive Education) for IMD’s Sprint programme with Bayer Biography Regulation and activist coalitions now shape more corporate outcomes than many of the competitive moves around which strategy frameworks are built. This nonmarket terrain is what Michael Yaziji has spent two decades mapping. He argues that political dynamics and stakeholder pressure are core variables of corporate strategy and should be treated as such by senior leaders. His training is unusual: a doctorate in analytic philosophy from the University of California, and a second in management and strategy from INSEAD. Both disciplines show up in the work. Yaziji treats ethical reasoning and institutional theory as practical tools, applied to live executive questions like AI governance and corporate ownership design. At the centre of his published work is NGOs and Corporations: Conflict and Collaboration (Cambridge University Press, 2009), co-authored with Villanova’s Jonathan Doh. The book carried cover endorsements from the chairmen of Nestlé, Unilever, Shell, and PepsiCo. It remains a standard reference for executives dealing with activist NGOs and contested social licence. His current research extends this work to artificial intelligence: who sets the rules, and who carries the cost of weak governance. He co-directs IMD’s Stakeholder Management for Boards programme. An executive education programme he co-led for the pharmaceutical group Bayer trained more than 12,000 leaders across ten months and won Gold at the 2024 Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Awards. Key speaking topics Nonmarket strategy and political risk NGO and stakeholder engagement Stakeholder management for boards AI governance and corporate strategy Corporate ethics and ownership design Psychological safety and organisational performance Sustainability and competitive advantage Ideal for Boards and chairs facing scrutiny on ESG and political risk C-suites in regulated or politically exposed industries (energy, pharma, financial services, extractives, technology platforms) Chief sustainability officers and corporate affairs heads building integrated nonmarket strategy Executive teams designing AI governance and stakeholder policy in large organisations Audience outcomes A working method that turns regulation and NGO pressure into variables leaders can shape Sharper thinking on how AI governance creates strategic risk and opportunity for their organisation Confidence in reading share ownership and stakeholder governance shifts as strategic variables A more direct vocabulary for talking to investors and regulators about the company’s social licence