Purpose-Driven Leadership

Why organisations work with Holly Tucker She built a marketplace that gave more than 5,000 independent businesses a commercial route they could not otherwise access, and can speak directly to what scaled that community and what broke it. Her second act, Holly and Co, is a certified B Corp built around purpose-led small business advice, giving her a live view of what founders are wrestling with now, not a decade ago. As host of Conversations of Inspiration, she has interviewed several hundred founders in long form, which makes her one of the few speakers in the UK with a continuously refreshed sense of what early-stage builders are learning. Her MBE and appointment as a UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador give her credibility on the policy side of small business, not only the operator side. She translates founder thinking into language corporate audiences can use: retail teams, marketing teams and transformation teams leave with a sharper sense of what independent brands do that scale players do not. Biography highlights Co-founder of notonthehighstreet.com (2006), the UK marketplace for independent makers. Founder of Holly and Co (2017), a certified B Corporation supporting small businesses. MBE, 2013, for services to small businesses. UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador for creative small businesses, 2015. Author of Do What You Love, Love What You Do (Virgin Books, 2021), a Sunday Times bestseller; earlier titles with Simon and Schuster. Presenter of ITV’s Be Your Own Boss and host of the Conversations of Inspiration podcast. Biography Notonthehighstreet.com began as a frustration with nowhere to sell handmade Christmas wreaths. Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish turned that frustration into the UK’s defining marketplace for independent brands, and over thirteen years it gave more than five thousand small businesses a route to customers they would not otherwise have reached. That is the operator credential Tucker brings into a room. Holly and Co, founded in 2017 and a certified B Corporation since 2022, is where the second chapter sits. It is a platform, a shop and an advice engine for independent founders, and it is the evidence base for most of what Tucker says publicly about small business. The weekly Conversations of Inspiration podcast now runs into the hundreds of episodes, which gives her a continuously updated read on what founders are actually doing, not what commentators think they are doing. Her public role has extended beyond business. An MBE in 2013 for services to small businesses, and appointment as a UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador in 2015, placed her inside the conversation about how policy shapes independent enterprise. Three books, including Sunday Times bestseller Do What You Love, Love What You Do, turned that experience into written form for founders at earlier stages. Where Tucker is most useful to a corporate audience is on the question larger companies rarely answer well: what exactly do independent brands do that scale players find hard to replicate, and how should a big business think about that when it partners with them, buys from them, or tries to build its own version. She speaks to that from both sides of the relationship. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and the founder mindset Building and scaling marketplaces Independent retail and the creative economy Purpose-led business and B Corp practice Small business advocacy and policy Female founders and enterprise Brand, storytelling and community for consumer businesses Ideal for Retail, consumer and marketplace leadership teams thinking about independent brand partnerships. Marketing and brand leaders who want a grounded view of what small and founder-led brands do that larger ones cannot. Conferences and internal events focused on entrepreneurship, purpose-led growth or the creative economy. Female founder communities and enterprise networks within larger organisations. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what independent founders actually do differently, drawn from a marketplace of more than five thousand small businesses. A practical read on what purpose-led and B Corp businesses look like in operation, not in theory. Fresh founder stories from a podcast library that now spans several hundred interviews. Language for corporate teams to use when they talk about supporting, partnering with or learning from small businesses. A sharper sense of how policy, platform and community interact in the creative economy.

Why organisations work with Danah Zohar She gave the field two of its named ideas. Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) and Quantum Management are her frameworks, not borrowed labels, and they sit on a substantial body of published work. Her management thinking is built on physics and complexity science, not from organisational behaviour. That gives her a different starting point from most leadership voices, and a model that holds up when the operating environment becomes genuinely non-linear. The Haier group in China rebuilt its management system around her concept of “zero distance” between employee and customer, giving her work a named operating reference at one of the world’s largest appliance manufacturers. She brings credentials that are hard to assemble in one speaker: MIT, Harvard, Oxford’s Strategic Leadership Programme, Cranfield, Tsinghua, and induction into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2022. Biography highlights Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, 2022. Named in the 2002 Financial Times Prentice Hall Business Minds anthology of the world’s 50 greatest management thinkers. Teaches in the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme at Oxford University’s Said Business School; Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management. Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management and the China Academy of Art; entrepreneurial mentor at Haier. Author of The Quantum Self, ReWiring the Corporate Brain, SQ: Spiritual Intelligence, Spiritual Capital, The Quantum Leader, and Zero Distance: Management in the Quantum Age. Educated in Physics and Philosophy at MIT, with postgraduate work in Philosophy, Religion and Psychology at Harvard. Biography Newtonian management assumes that organisations behave like machines: predictable parts, fixed structures, control flowing from the top. The physics it is built on was superseded a hundred years ago. Danah Zohar has spent her career arguing that the management model needs to catch up, and showing senior leaders what a quantum and complexity-based alternative looks like in practice. Her two named contributions, Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) and Quantum Management, treat organisations as complex adaptive systems and treat people as carriers of meaning and purpose, not units of labour. The 12 Principles of SQ, set out in SQ: Spiritual Intelligence, the Ultimate Intelligence and developed further in Spiritual Capital, are drawn directly from the properties of living quantum systems. The work has been picked up where it matters. Haier, one of China’s largest industrial groups, restructured its management system around Zohar’s concept of “zero distance” between employee and customer, the basis of Zero Distance: Management in the Quantum Age (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). She teaches in the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme, holds a visiting fellowship at Cranfield, and visiting professorships at Tsinghua and the China Academy of Art. For boards and executive teams, the practical question is how to lead a workforce and a strategy when the old assumptions of stability, hierarchy and pure financial logic no longer carry the weight they once did. Zohar offers a coherent answer, built from physics rather than rhetoric, and tested at scale inside one of the most ambitious corporate reorganisations of the last decade. Key speaking topics Quantum Management and the post-Newtonian organisation Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) and the 12 Principles Spiritual capital and purpose-driven leadership Complex adaptive systems applied to corporate strategy Meaning, motivation and the future of work Sustainable capitalism and the role of business in society Leading transformation at scale, with reference to the Haier model Ideal for CEOs and executive teams are redesigning operating models for higher autonomy and faster customer response Boards and senior leaders working through purpose, values and the social licence of the business Transformation leads and CHROs running culture and structure change in parallel Strategy and innovation leaders looking for a complexity-based alternative to classical planning Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for treating the organisation as a complex adaptive system, with concrete implications for structure, decision rights and information flow. A clearer link between purpose, meaning and commercial performance, beyond statement-of-values exercises. The Haier “zero distance” case as a worked reference for radical decentralisation at scale. Sharper questions for the executive team about where Newtonian assumptions still shape their planning, structure and incentives. An informed view of where Spiritual Intelligence sits alongside IQ and EQ in leadership development.

Why organisations work with Alexandra Cousteau Oceans2050, which she co-founded and leads as President, published the first peer-reviewed global assessment of seaweed carbon sequestration in Nature Climate Change (2025) – giving her ocean restoration arguments a scientific grounding most sustainability voices cannot match. She reframes water security as a material business risk rather than a reputational issue, mapping how freshwater and ocean health are embedded in supply chains, food production, and coastal infrastructure in ways that affect operations, procurement, and investor disclosure. She has testified before the U.S. Congress on water policy and maintains direct relationships with heads of state and senior policy makers, giving organisations a credible connection point at the intersection of science, advocacy, and government decision-making. She pioneered real-time expedition storytelling on social media before it was standard practice – in 2010 she led National Geographic’s first interactive expedition, a five-month journey across North America – making her one of few climate voices who has demonstrably mobilised both institutional and popular attention at scale. As architect of the Blue Cities Alliance through Oceans2050, she connects organisations to a growing network of coastal city governments taking measurable action on ocean restoration, relevant to companies seeking credible local partnerships for their nature-based ESG commitments. Biography highlights Co-founder and President, Oceans2050 – lead organisation behind the first peer-reviewed global study of seaweed carbon sequestration, published in Nature Climate Change (2025), with research funding from WWF and the Bezos Earth Fund National Geographic Emerging Explorer (2008); World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2010) Co-founder, EarthEcho International – youth environmental education organisation reaching more than 2 million people in 146 countries Founder, Blue Legacy International (2008) – produced 100+ award-winning short films on water issues, with expeditions across six continents Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Georgetown University (2016); BA in Political Science (International Relations), Georgetown University Senior Advisor, Oceana; CNN Principle Voices contributor (2008); UN Earth Trustee; U.S. Congress water policy witness Biography The ocean absorbs roughly a quarter of all carbon emitted since industrialisation, yet it remains largely absent from corporate ESG strategy. Alexandra Cousteau, co-founder of Oceans2050 and granddaughter of the legendary oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, has spent two decades building the scientific infrastructure to address that gap. The Oceans2050 study published in Nature Climate Change in 2025 was the first peer-reviewed global assessment of carbon burial beneath seaweed farms, demonstrating sequestration rates comparable to mangroves and seagrasses and establishing the scientific foundation for a new blue carbon market. Cousteau’s consistent argument, advanced across her work with EarthEcho International, Blue Legacy, and Oceans2050, is that water security is not a separate environmental concern but a material business risk embedded in every supply chain, food system, and coastal community. This is grounded in fieldwork across six continents, peer-reviewed science, and direct engagement with heads of state, NGOs, and senior policy makers. She has testified before the U.S. Congress on water policy and served for years as Senior Advisor to Oceana on ocean conservation and governance campaigns. Her credentials span the academic and the field-based. She holds a degree in International Relations from Georgetown University and received an honorary doctorate from the same institution in 2016. National Geographic named her an Emerging Explorer in 2008; the World Economic Forum recognised her as a Young Global Leader in 2010. She co-founded EarthEcho International, now reaching more than 2 million young people in 146 countries, and established Blue Legacy International in 2008, producing over 100 award-winning films on freshwater and ocean issues. The case she makes to organisations is specific: ocean restoration is market infrastructure. As architect of the Blue Cities Alliance and the Oceans2050 seaweed carbon project, she is building the verified frameworks that enable corporate investment in blue carbon at scale. Boards evaluating ESG commitments increasingly need to distinguish credible ocean science from reputational positioning. Cousteau provides that distinction with the rigour to back it up. Key speaking topics Ocean restoration and blue carbon markets Water security as material business risk ESG strategy and nature-based climate solutions Blue economy and sustainable aquaculture Science-based storytelling and public engagement Long-term environmental thinking and intergenerational leadership Ocean policy and governance Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leadership teams evaluating nature-based and ocean-based climate commitments Corporate boards and senior executives with water or coastal supply chain exposure in their risk frameworks Policy forums, international summits, and governmental bodies focused on ocean governance, climate action, and blue economy development Investment and financial audiences engaging with emerging blue carbon and voluntary carbon market opportunities Audience outcomes A clearer framework for distinguishing science-backed ocean and water climate solutions from greenwashing, directly applicable to ESG due diligence and investor reporting A systems-level understanding of how water security – from freshwater access to ocean health – connects to supply chain risk, food production, and community resilience Awareness of blue carbon markets as an emerging investment and risk management tool, including the peer-reviewed science behind seaweed farming as a carbon sequestration mechanism A reframing of ocean ESG commitments from reputation management to material strategic risk, with evidence-based criteria for evaluating corporate action Practical insight into what responsible, evidence-based corporate engagement with ocean conservation looks like, drawn from Oceans2050’s work with WWF, the Bezos Earth Fund, and global seaweed farming communities

Why organisations work with Will Hutton Three decades of macro-economic analysis tested in public, from The State We’re In in 1995 through This Time No Mistakes in 2024, so the framework is not a recent rebrand. A working seat inside the institutions that shape British policy: the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector, the Commission on Creative Industries, the EU Kok Commission, and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. A genuinely structural argument on corporate purpose through The Purposeful Company, used by boards rethinking governance, executive pay and stakeholder accountability. Editorial and broadcast judgement built over years as Editor-in-Chief of The Observer and Economics Editor at Newsnight, which makes him unusually clear on which economic stories matter and which do not. Equally credible on China, Europe and the United States, so a board worrying about exposure across all three gets one coherent analysis rather than three partial ones. Biography highlights President of the Academy of Social Sciences. Principal of Hertford College, Oxford, 2011 to 2020. Co-chair of The Purposeful Company; co-founder and chair of the Big Innovation Centre. Former Chief Executive of The Work Foundation; former Editor-in-Chief of The Observer; former Economics Editor of BBC Newsnight and The Guardian. Author of seven books on political economy, including The State We’re In (1995) and This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain (2024). Chair of the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector (2010 to 2011) and the Commission on Creative Industries (2007); rapporteur to the EU Kok Commission (2004). Biography The State We’re In sold more copies than any British political-economy book since 1945. It set the terms of a debate, on short-termism, on the costs of financialised capitalism, on what serious institutional reform would look like, that the country has been having ever since. Thirty years later, This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain returns to the same argument under new conditions and was reviewed in the Financial Times, the LSE Review of Books and the Literary Review. What sits behind both books is an unusually wide working footprint. Hutton has been Editor-in-Chief of The Observer, Economics Editor at Newsnight and The Guardian, Chief Executive of The Work Foundation, and Principal of Hertford College, Oxford. He chaired the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector for the Coalition government and the Commission on Creative Industries for the Labour government, and was rapporteur to the EU Kok Commission. The current focus is institutional. As co-chair of The Purposeful Company he works with boards and asset managers on what corporate purpose, governance and executive pay should look like if shareholder primacy is no longer the working assumption. As President of the Academy of Social Sciences and chair of the Big Innovation Centre, he sits across the British social science and innovation policy systems. For senior audiences, the value is in the synthesis. Hutton reads China, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom as one connected system, and his Observer column is the long-running test bed. A board trying to make capital, governance and political-risk decisions in that environment gets a single coherent reading from a single voice with thirty years of public track record. Key speaking topics The British and European political economy Corporate purpose, governance and executive pay China, the United States and the future of the global economy Stakeholder capitalism and institutional reform The future of work and the social contract Innovation policy and industrial strategy Fairness, inequality and public sector reform Ideal for Boards and executive committees of UK and European corporates assessing geopolitical and macro exposure Asset managers, pension funds and institutional investors recalibrating governance and stewardship expectations Government, regulator and think-tank audiences working on industrial strategy, public sector reform or corporate governance Senior leadership programmes at business schools and professional services firms Audience outcomes A working map of how the British, European, Chinese and US economies now connect, and where the pressure points sit A clear view of what corporate purpose and stakeholder governance mean in practice for board agendas, pay and stewardship An informed reading of how UK political and policy shifts feed through to corporate operating conditions A sharper sense of which economic news is structural and which is noise

Why organisations work with Wayne Hemingway Built one of Britain’s best-known fashion labels from a Camden Market stall and sold it to Pentland in 1999, then converted that experience into a 25-year design consultancy advising developers, local authorities, retailers, and cultural institutions. Operates across categories most speakers do not: fashion, mass-market housing, public-realm regeneration, festival creation, and second-hand retail, all anchored in delivered projects rather than commentary. Founded Festival of Thrift and Charity Super.Mkt, turning sustainability and circular consumption into commercially viable consumer experiences rather than awareness campaigns. Brings an unusually direct view on what makes places, products, and brands resonate, formed by working with Wimpey, TfL, Shelter, the National Trust, Girlguiding, the Southbank Centre, and more than forty local authorities. Biography highlights Co-founder of Red or Dead; won British Fashion Council Streetstyle Designer of the Year three consecutive years, 1996 to 1998; brand sold to Pentland Group in 1999. Co-founder of HemingwayDesign, the multi-disciplinary studio behind the 760-home Staiths South Bank development in Gateshead, awarded Housing Design Awards, Best Housing-Led Regeneration Project by Building Magazine, and Building for Life. Co-founder of Festival of Thrift, the UK’s first large-scale festival of sustainable living, launched in 2013 and now a permanent fixture in the North East cultural calendar. Co-founder of Charity Super.Mkt with TRAID’s Maria Chenoweth; pre-loved fashion concept that launched at Brent Cross in January 2023 and has since traded in Westfield, Bond Street, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oxford, Bluewater, and Bristol. MBE, 2006, for services to the design and fashion industries; Professor of Built Environment at Northumbria University; honorary doctorates from Wolverhampton, Lancaster, and Stafford. Author of “Just Above the Mantelpiece: Mass-Market Masterpieces” (Booth-Clibborn, 2000). Biography Red or Dead started on a Camden Market stall in the early 1980s and ended in 1999 as a Pentland Group acquisition, with three consecutive British Fashion Council Streetstyle Designer of the Year awards along the way. That trajectory, market trader to multi-million-pound exit, is the foundation Wayne Hemingway has been building on for twenty-five years. HemingwayDesign, founded with his wife and business partner Gerardine in 1999, was set up explicitly around affordable and social design. The studio’s signature project, Staiths South Bank in Gateshead, was the practical answer to Hemingway’s “Wimpeyfication and Barrattification” critique of British mass house-building. 760 homes were built with Wimpey on a Homezone model that re-thought streets, parking, and play, and the scheme won Housing Design Awards, Building Magazine’s Best Housing-Led Regeneration Project, and Building for Life. The same instinct, identify a category that has stopped trying and rebuild it with design at the centre, runs through everything that followed. Festival of Thrift, co-founded in 2013, made sustainability a free family weekend rather than a guilt trip. Charity Super.Mkt, launched at Brent Cross in January 2023 with TRAID’s Maria Chenoweth, turned charity-shop fashion into a destination format and reported £3 million in pre-loved sales inside two years. The wider HemingwayDesign client list runs from Transport for London and the National Portrait Gallery to more than forty local authorities working on town-centre and coastal regeneration. For organisations the value is specific: a designer-entrepreneur with the credentials of a fashion founder and the track record of a public-realm developer, who can talk credibly to boards about brand, to operators about retail, and to leadership teams about why design-led businesses outlast design-decorated ones. He is an MBE, a Professor of Built Environment at Northumbria, and an author, but the argument is the work itself. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and design-led business building Brand and creative direction Sustainability and the circular economy Place-making, regeneration, and the future of the high street Affordable housing and mass-market design Retail futures and pre-loved consumer behaviour Festivals, culture, and community-led commercial models Ideal for Founders, CEOs, and creative directors of consumer brands. Property developers, housebuilders, and local authority leadership teams responsible for placemaking and regeneration. Retail and hospitality leaders rebuilding propositions for second-hand, sustainable, and experience-led formats. Cultural organisations, charities, and festival operators looking to commercialise purpose without losing it. Audience outcomes A working view of how Red or Dead and HemingwayDesign turned design instinct into commercial categories that lasted. A clearer sense of where sustainability becomes a viable consumer business rather than a marketing position. Specific lessons from Staiths South Bank, Festival of Thrift, and Charity Super.Mkt on building new categories from a standing start. Direct, plainly spoken provocations on brand, place, and the social value of design that audiences leave talking about.

Why organisations work with Stuart Rose He has run a defensive takeover at the highest level in British retail. M&S beat Sir Philip Green’s bid in 2004 with Rose as chief executive, three weeks into the job. He turned Arcadia around and sold it for over £800m, then took on the M&S turnaround the same decade. Two CEO-led recoveries in adjacent businesses, a year apart. He authored the 2015 Better Leadership for Tomorrow review for the Department of Health, the standing reference document on why NHS hospital leadership underperforms and what to do about it. Plan A at M&S was the first time a FTSE retailer treated sustainability as a board strategy with capital attached, not a CSR report. Rose committed £200m and signed his top suppliers in private before launch. Sits in the House of Lords as Baron Rose of Monewden and chaired Ocado Group from 2013 to 2021. Buyers get a perspective shaped by both governance and operating accountability. Biography highlights Former Chief Executive (2004 to 2008) and Executive Chairman (2008 to 2011) of Marks & Spencer. Former Chairman of Ocado Group (2013 to 2021) and Chairman of Asda (2021 to 2024), with day-to-day executive leadership at Asda from September 2024. Former Chief Executive of Arcadia Group, Argos, Booker plc and Burton Group. Author of the 2015 NHS leadership review commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health, Better Leadership for Tomorrow. Knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours for services to retail and corporate social responsibility. Conservative life peer: Baron Rose of Monewden, created 2014. Biography Marks & Spencer was three weeks into a hostile bid from Sir Philip Green when Stuart Rose was appointed chief executive in May 2004. The defence held. What followed was a six-year programme that restored profit, rebuilt the supply base, and put sustainability at the centre of the operating plan rather than the CSR report. Plan A launched in 2007 with 100 commitments across climate, waste, raw materials, fair partnership and health. The framing was deliberately blunt: there is no Plan B. £200m of capital was committed up front, and the largest M&S suppliers were briefed privately before launch so the public commitment was already operationally backed. The retail track record runs deeper than M&S. As chief executive of Arcadia from 2000, he led the turnaround that culminated in the £800m sale of the group in 2002. Earlier, he ran Argos, Booker plc, where he engineered the merger with Iceland to form the Big Food Group and the Burton Group. The 2015 NHS leadership review for the Department of Health applied the same operating discipline to a non-commercial setting, with 19 recommendations on talent, accountability and visible frontline leadership. He chaired Ocado Group from 2013 to 2021 and took the chair at Asda in November 2021, stepping into executive responsibilities in September 2024 to stabilise the business. He sits in the House of Lords as Baron Rose of Monewden. Key speaking topics Turnaround leadership in large consumer businesses Defended takeover bids and board response Sustainability as an operating strategy Public sector reform and NHS leadership Corporate governance and the chair role UK retail and the future of the high street Ideal for Boards and chairs of large consumer or retail businesses are going through performance recovery Public sector leadership audiences responsible for hospital, trust or system reform CEO and CFO offsites where the agenda is restoring investor and workforce confidence Sustainability and ESG forums where the audience is past narrative and into capital allocation Audience outcomes A working account of how a defended takeover changes board behaviour and the CEO calendar in the first 90 days. The decisions behind Plan A, including how Rose secured supplier alignment before public launch. A clear view of why NHS leadership underperforms and which of the 2015 review recommendations still apply. The chair’s perspective on when to intervene executively and when to hold back, drawn from the Ocado and Asda chairmanships.

Why organisations work with Simon Sinek The Golden Circle gives leadership teams a named, diagrammatic model for examining whether their communication and strategy starts from purpose or defaults to product; concrete enough to run a board session around, not just a concept to absorb from a stage. The Infinite Game framework reframes how organisations think about competition: the argument that most organisations are playing a finite game in an inherently infinite one gives senior leaders a precise diagnostic for why short-termism is corroding their culture and decision-making. His work on the Circle of Safety – drawn from military and organisational research – gives leaders a specific language and accountability structure for psychological safety, distinguishing it from vague “culture” conversations. Three consecutive Thinkers50 appearances (2017, 2019, 2021), including the Future Thinker award, position him inside the recognised canon of serious management thinking – relevant where senior buyers are evaluating credibility, not just popularity. His reach into the US Armed Forces, the United Nations, and the US Congress alongside global corporate work gives his frameworks a cross-sector validation that most leadership speakers cannot match. Biography highlights Author of five books on leadership and purpose, including Start with Why (global bestseller, over one million copies sold in the US alone), Leaders Eat Last (New York Times bestseller), and The Infinite Game (New York Times bestseller); published by Portfolio/Penguin and Penguin Random House Creator of the Golden Circle framework, one of the most widely adopted models in leadership communication and organisational purpose TED Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” (2009) is the third most-watched talk on TED.com, with over 60 million views Named to the Thinkers50 ranking three consecutive times (2017, 2019, 2021); recipient of the Thinkers50 Future Thinker Award Adjunct staff member, RAND Corporation (since 2010); former instructor in Strategic Communications, Columbia University Founder of The Optimism Company, a leadership learning and development platform, and Optimism Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House; has spoken at the United Nations, US Congress, and across senior US military leadership Biography Most leadership conversations begin in the wrong place. They start with what an organisation does or how it does it – and never reach the question that actually determines whether people are engaged, aligned, and willing to give discretionary effort: why. The inability to answer that question convincingly is not a branding gap; it is a leadership gap, and Simon Sinek has built one of the most recognised frameworks in contemporary management thinking to address it. His Golden Circle model – introduced in Start with Why (2009) and subsequently the subject of the third most-watched TED Talk in history – provides organisations with a structured means of diagnosing whether their leadership, communication, and strategy is purpose-led or merely product-led. The argument is grounded in the biology of decision-making: people do not respond primarily to logic and features, but to belief and identity. The practical implication for leadership is significant, and it is why the framework has moved from conference rooms into board strategy sessions, culture programmes, and military leadership curricula. His later work extends the argument. The Infinite Game (2019, New York Times bestseller) identifies a structural problem in how most organisations compete: treating an inherently infinite game – business, leadership, institutional relevance – as if it has a finish line. Leaders operating with a finite mindset optimise for short-term metrics and burn through the trust, culture, and purpose that actually determine longevity. This is not motivational language; it is a specific claim about strategic error, and it gives senior leaders a framework for examining decisions that are degrading their organisations from the inside. Sinek’s affiliations reflect the range at which his work operates. As an adjunct staff member at the RAND Corporation since 2010, advising on military innovation, and having spoken at the United Nations Global Compact Leaders Summit and directly to senior leadership across every branch of the US Armed Forces, he brings institutional credibility that extends well beyond the corporate speaker circuit. Three consecutive Thinkers50 appearances, including the Future Thinker Award, confirm his standing within the serious canon of management thinking. Key speaking topics Purpose-driven leadership and the Golden Circle Organisational trust and psychological safety Finite vs. infinite mindset in strategy and leadership Leadership culture and the conditions for engagement Long-term organisational performance and decision-making Inspiring communication for leaders and teams Values, identity, and organisational alignment Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership development programmes where the strategic case for culture and purpose needs to be made at an executive level CHROs and People directors working on engagement, trust, and the conditions under which employees perform at their best Transformation leads and strategy teams examining how short-term competitive pressures are eroding long-term capability Senior leadership conferences requiring a speaker with both mass-market name recognition and a defensible intellectual framework Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary – Golden Circle, Circle of Safety, Infinite Game – that gives leadership teams a common reference point for conversations about purpose, trust, and strategy A framework for diagnosing whether their organisation’s leadership and communication starts from why or defaults to what A reframe of competitive strategy: the finite vs. infinite mindset distinction as a diagnostic tool for identifying decisions that are weakening organisational resilience Greater clarity on the specific leadership behaviours – protection, consistency, accountability – that build psychological safety and sustain discretionary effort A practical case for why culture and purpose are strategic variables, not HR programmes

Why organisations work with Roger Federer He brings a counterintuitive statistical framework that reframes how leaders think about failure: in winning nearly 80% of career matches, he won only 54% of points – a figure that challenges any organisation confusing short-term setbacks with structural decline. His argument that “effortless is a myth” gives boards and executive teams a rigorous, credible case against talent mythology – and for the disciplines of preparation that happen before performance becomes visible. He is one of the few athlete speakers whose post-competition record strengthens rather than dilutes his authority: co-founding TEAM8, co-creating the Laver Cup as a sanctioned ATP property, and reaching Forbes billionaire status in 2025 gives him standing in commercial and entrepreneurial conversations that purely competitive athletes cannot match. The Roger Federer Foundation – reaching over 3.1 million children and more than 59,000 teachers across six African nations and Switzerland – demonstrates that his stated commitment to purpose and long-term impact is operational, not rhetorical. Five Laureus World Sportsman of the Year awards across 14 years, not clustered at a career peak, make the case for sustained excellence in a way a single extraordinary season cannot. Biography highlights 20 Grand Slam men’s singles titles; 310 weeks ranked ATP world No. 1, including 237 consecutive weeks – both Open Era records Eight-time Wimbledon singles champion – the Open Era record Five-time Laureus World Sportsman of the Year (2005–2008, 2018); also won the Laureus Comeback of the Year award in 2018 Co-founder of TEAM8 sports and entertainment agency (2013) and co-creator of the Laver Cup, now a sanctioned ATP Tour event Founder and President of the Roger Federer Foundation: over 3.1 million children and 59,000+ teachers reached across six African countries and Switzerland since 2003 Honorary doctorate and commencement speaker, Dartmouth College, 2024 Named to Forbes World Billionaires list (2025); one of a small number of athletes ever to reach that threshold Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year Award (2006 and 2013); UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Biography Roger Federer held the world No. 1 ATP ranking for 310 weeks, won 20 Grand Slam singles titles across 24 years of professional competition, and remains the most successful men’s singles player in Wimbledon’s Open Era. Those are the competitive facts. The more useful question for organisations is not what he achieved but how he maintained it – across generations of rivals, repeated major injuries, and a career long enough to have been written off and recovered from multiple times. At his 2024 Dartmouth commencement address – where he received an honorary doctorate – Federer offered a precise answer to that question. In winning nearly 80% of career matches, he won only 54% of the points played. The insight he draws from that data is direct: high performance is not about avoiding failure, it is about learning not to compound it. The mental discipline he calls “it’s only a point” is both a competitive practice and an organisational philosophy – one with clear application to how leadership teams manage quarterly reversals, strategic miscalculations, and the pressure of sustained expectation. His post-competition record extends that credibility into commercial and institutional territory. In 2013, Federer co-founded TEAM8 with agent Tony Godsick – a boutique sports and entertainment company that also created the Laver Cup, now a sanctioned ATP Tour event. His Roger Federer Foundation, which he founded in 2003 at the age of 22, has reached over 3.1 million children and trained more than 59,000 teachers across six African nations and Switzerland. In 2025, Forbes recognised him as a billionaire – one of the smallest group of athletes in history to reach that threshold. For senior leadership audiences, what Federer offers is structural rather than motivational: three documented frameworks, a statistical foundation for how he thought about failure, and a body of work – competitive, entrepreneurial, philanthropic – broad enough to make the argument that sustained excellence is a design choice, not an accident of talent. Key speaking topics Sustained high performance and career longevity Resilience and recovery under competitive pressure The psychology of preparation and deliberate practice Failure as a structural component of peak performance Purpose, legacy, and leadership beyond the primary mission Athlete-led entrepreneurship and institutional building Philanthropic strategy and long-term impact at scale Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite audiences seeking a substantive framework for sustained organisational performance, not motivational content CHROs and talent directors building high-performance cultures over extended time horizons Chief executives navigating competitive reversal, strategic reset, or the pressure of multi-year performance expectations Global corporate events requiring a speaker of rare international standing who can anchor a serious conversation about excellence, resilience, and purpose Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of resilience as designed-in preparation, not post-failure recovery The “54% of points” framework for separating short-term setbacks from long-term performance trajectory – applicable to individuals, teams, and organisations Specific, named principles for sustaining excellence across decades rather than individual seasons or peaks A credible case study in building purpose-driven institutions alongside – and after – a career at the highest competitive level Perspective on the transition from individual elite performance to entrepreneurial and institutional leadership

Why organisations work with Robert Holden His Be Happy programme is one of the few wellbeing interventions to have been independently tested by academic scientists on national television, giving HR and culture leaders a credible, evidence-grounded answer to the “is any of this real” question from finance and the board. Twenty years of corporate work with Dove on the Real Beauty Campaign and Unilever on brand purpose across 400 brands means he speaks to wellbeing and purpose as commercial, not pastoral, conversations. Success Intelligence reframes high performance for senior teams who have hit their targets and are quietly running on empty, an audience that generic resilience speakers do not credibly reach. A back catalogue of 14 books with Hay House and Penguin Random House, two BBC documentaries, two TEDx talks and a long Oprah association gives him cultural recognition that lifts an internal event out of a routine wellness slot. Biography highlights Ph.D. in psychology and spirituality; founder of The Happiness Project (1994), originally NHS-sponsored. Subject of two BBC documentaries, The Happiness Formula and How to Be Happy, shown in 20 countries to more than 30 million viewers. Be Happy programme was independently tested by Professor Michael Argyle (Oxford) and Professor Richard Davidson (University of Wisconsin-Madison) for the BBC QED science strand. Appointed team coach to the leaders of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign in 2005; later led brand-purpose work with Unilever across its 400 brands. New York Times bestselling author of 14 books, including Happiness NOW!, Authentic Success, Loveability, Life Loves You (with Louise Hay) and Higher Purpose. Two TEDx talks (Destination Addiction, The Tea Meditation); featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and PBS. Biography The Happiness Project began in 1994 as an NHS-sponsored clinic in west London, treating happiness as a clinical question rather than a self-help category. Two years later, the BBC built a QED science documentary around its eight-week programme, with Oxford’s Michael Argyle and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Richard Davidson measuring outcomes. The documentary reached more than 30 million viewers in 20 countries and gave Robert Holden a platform other wellbeing voices have struggled to match. From that base, Holden built Success Intelligence, a consulting practice working with senior teams on the version of high performance that does not quietly burn people out. In 2005 he was appointed team coach to the leaders of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, and the brand-purpose work that followed extended into Unilever’s broader portfolio. His books, fourteen of them across Hay House and Penguin Random House, sit on the same line of inquiry: Happiness NOW!, Authentic Success, Loveability, Life Loves You with Louise Hay, and Higher Purpose. Two TEDx talks and a long association with Oprah have kept the audience wide. What organisations get from Holden is a serious, non-corporate voice on questions HR and senior teams now have to answer in commercial language: why people commit, what purpose actually means inside a P&L, and why happiness, properly defined, is closer to a leadership variable than a benefit. Key speaking topics Happiness and wellbeing at work Success Intelligence and authentic success Purpose-led leadership and brand purpose Resilience and burnout in senior teams Creative thinking through change Coaching and personal development Mental health and positive psychology Ideal for CHROs and heads of culture rebuilding wellbeing strategies that have to land with finance and the board. Senior leadership offsites where high-performing teams are quietly fatigued and need a different framing of success. Brand and marketing leadership working through purpose, authenticity and customer trust. Conferences on the future of work, employee engagement, and mental health in the workplace. Audience outcomes A clearer, evidence-backed view of what happiness at work actually is, and what it is not. Language to talk about wellbeing and purpose with commercial credibility, not pastoral softness. Practical inquiries from Success Intelligence that senior leaders can apply to their own working patterns. A sharper account of why purpose work succeeds inside some organisations and fails inside others. Permission, particularly for senior audiences, to take the question of meaning at work seriously.

Why organisations work with Richard Reed He built Innocent from a £500 stall at a London music festival to Europe’s number one smoothie brand and a Coca-Cola exit valued at over half a billion dollars. He ran every stage of that growth as co-CEO of the brand side of the business. JamJar Investments has backed Deliveroo, Tony’s Chocolonely, Babylon Health and Tails.com. The portfolio gives him a live investor view of what is working in consumer brands today, beyond any retrospective Innocent story. He pioneered “wackaging”, the on-pack conversational copy that built Innocent’s brand voice. Other UK consumer brands copied the device for more than a decade, which is unusually long-lived evidence of a marketing mechanic that travels. Innocent committed 10% of profits to charity through the Innocent Foundation from day one, and Reed kept that operating model intact through every funding round and the Coca-Cola sale itself. Purpose at scale is something he has actually operated, not theorised. His book “If I Could Tell You Just One Thing” (Canongate, 2016) collected single pieces of advice from Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama and Sir David Attenborough among others. He brings that breadth of access into the room with senior audiences. Biography highlights Co-founder of Innocent Drinks (1998); grown from £500 of fruit at a London music festival to Europe’s number one smoothie brand Sold Innocent to The Coca-Cola Company in 2013, in a transaction valued at over half a billion dollars Co-founder of JamJar Investments, the consumer-focused early-stage venture firm whose portfolio includes Deliveroo, Tony’s Chocolonely, Babylon Health and Tails.com Author of “If I Could Tell You Just One Thing…” (Canongate Books, 2016), with interviews including Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama and Sir David Attenborough Appointed CBE in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the food industry and to charity Founder of Art Everywhere; co-founder of the Innocent Foundation; presenter of BBC Three’s “Be Your Own Boss” Biography Innocent Drinks started with £500 of fruit at a London music festival in 1998, and a sign asking passers-by whether the founders should give up their day jobs. Fifteen years later, Coca-Cola paid over half a billion dollars for the company. Richard Reed was one of three Cambridge graduates who took it that distance, running the brand side of the business as co-CEO from market stall to category leader. What set Innocent apart at scale was discipline about what to keep. The brand voice, the on-pack “wackaging” copy that competitors imitated for over a decade, and the 10% of profits committed to charity through the Innocent Foundation all stayed intact. They survived every funding round and the eventual Coca-Cola sale. By 2010, Innocent held roughly three-quarters of the UK smoothie market. Since 2013, Reed has invested in the next wave of consumer founders through JamJar Investments. The portfolio reads as a working hypothesis about where consumer brand power is going: Deliveroo, Tony’s Chocolonely, Babylon Health, Tails.com. He carries the operator’s view of what scales and what does not into every deal. Beyond the day job, he authored “If I Could Tell You Just One Thing” for Canongate Books in 2016. The book drew single pieces of advice from Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama, Sir David Attenborough and forty-odd others, with author’s profits donated to mentoring and social inclusion charities. He was appointed CBE in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the food industry and to charity. Key speaking topics Building consumer brands from start-up to category leader Brand voice, marketing innovation and the wackaging mechanic Social purpose as operating model, not communications layer Scaling under competitive pressure and corporate ownership Early-stage investing in consumer businesses Founder mindset and entrepreneurial discipline at scale Customer conviction and brand love in commodity categories Ideal for Founders and founder-CEOs scaling a consumer-facing business through the awkward middle stages Marketing, brand and customer-experience leaders working on customer conviction inside large organisations Boards and corporate development teams making capital decisions on consumer brands or considering an acquisition of one ESG, sustainability and purpose leads moving social commitments out of communications and into the operating model Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what scaling a consumer brand demands at each stage, from market stall to category leader to corporate exit Specific examples of how Innocent built brand voice, wackaging and category share, and what survived corporate ownership versus what did not A live investor-side read on which consumer-brand bets are paying off, drawn from JamJar’s positions in Deliveroo, Tony’s Chocolonely, Babylon Health and Tails.com A grounded argument for why social purpose works commercially when it is built into the operating model, with the Innocent Foundation as the worked example

Why organisations work with Reed Paget He has built a sustainability brand from a blank sheet, including the UK’s first compostable corn bottle and a working carbon neutral supply chain, so he can speak to climate ambition with operating evidence rather than slide-deck targets. He hard-wired a charitable mission into a commercial business by directing 100% of Belu’s net profits to WaterAid, a model that informs how purpose can be structured into a P&L without becoming marketing decoration. His Schwab Foundation award and UK Cabinet Office ambassadorship give him a policy-level fluency that sits behind the entrepreneur story, useful for boards balancing regulator pressure with commercial reality. Through One Earth Innovation and Ecocap, he has worked across compostable plastics, recyclable packaging, and low-energy products, so he can talk innovation portfolio rather than single-product anecdote. Biography highlights Founder of Belu Water in 2002, positioned as the UK’s most eco-friendly bottled water brand and the world’s first carbon neutral bottled water. Launched the UK’s first compostable plastic bottle made from corn in 2006. UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2008, awarded by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Social Enterprise Ambassador for the UK Cabinet Office between 2007 and 2010. Founder of One Earth Innovation, a green product incubator, and founder of Ecocap Ltd., which patented a more recyclable bottle cap design. Award-winning documentary maker whose film Amerikan Passport won Best Documentary at Slamdance 1999. Biography Belu was launched in 2002 as a bottled water company built around an environmental thesis the rest of the category had not yet taken seriously. The business committed 100% of net profits to clean water projects through WaterAid, made the UK’s first compostable corn-based plastic bottle in 2006, and was positioned as the world’s first carbon neutral bottled water brand. That is the kind of operating evidence boards now need behind sustainability claims. The gap between a net zero announcement and the supply chain decisions that deliver it is where most ESG narratives lose credibility, and a founder who has worked through compostable materials, packaging redesign, and a charitable profit structure is talking from inside that problem rather than around it. The wider track record stretches the same instinct across products and policy. One Earth Innovation works as a green product incubator across compostable plastics, sustainable horticulture, and eco-friendly consumer goods. Ecocap, separately, patented a more recyclable bottle cap design. Recognition from the Schwab Foundation as UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008, and a three-year Social Enterprise Ambassador role with the UK Cabinet Office, give the commercial story a policy-level frame. Before the eco-entrepreneur chapter, Paget was a journalist and filmmaker, directing Amerikan Passport, a documentary shot across war zones at the end of the Cold War that won Best Documentary at Slamdance 1999. That earlier instinct, going where most cameras did not, runs through the later environmental work. Key speaking topics Sustainable product design and packaging Carbon neutral supply chains Social enterprise business models Green consumer marketing Climate-led innovation portfolios Mission-driven fundraising and investor relations Ideal for Boards and ExCos translating ESG commitments into operating decisions Heads of Sustainability, Packaging, and Supply Chain in consumer goods and FMCG Founders and investors building or backing impact-led ventures Marketing and brand leaders working on credible green positioning Audience outcomes A clearer view of where sustainability ambitions break against product, packaging, and supply chain realities. Specific examples of how a charitable purpose can be structured inside a commercial P&L without becoming marketing varnish. A sharper read on what investors, regulators, and consumers will actually credit as substantive environmental progress. Practical reference points from a founder who has shipped first-of-kind sustainable products at commercial scale.

Why organisations work with Peter Fischer Brown He brings an operator’s view of brand strategy. Years inside Orange Business and KPMG mean he reads brand as a P&L and procurement question, not a marketing artefact. He teaches B2B value creation at Esade Business School, so the frameworks he uses in the room have been pressure-tested with MBA and executive cohorts who push back hard. His membership of the Medinge Group gives him a serious intellectual home for “brands with a conscience” arguments, separate from the agency circuit that usually owns the topic. He works in English, German and Spanish across Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, which makes him useful for groups whose brand and culture questions cross those markets. His coaching qualification from Henley and his executive coaching practice mean he can move between keynote framing and small-group leadership work in the same engagement. Biography highlights Founder of FischerBrown, an international brand and corporate strategy consultancy. Former Director of Strategy for Orange Business and Ambassador of Strategic Branding for the Orange Group; former Manager and Consultant at KPMG. Academic Collaborator at Esade Business School, Barcelona, teaching MBA and Executive programmes on B2B value creation and leadership with conscience. Member of the Medinge Group; contributing author on the Slow Food Movement in “Brands with a Conscience” (Medinge Group, 2016). Contributor to the Radix think tank on European centre-ground politics and democratic participation. MA in Modern Languages and Literature and MPhil in International Relations, both University of Cambridge; Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching, Henley Business School. Biography Most “purpose” programmes break the moment they hit procurement, pricing or a difficult supplier decision. The brand line survives in the campaign and disappears in the operating model. Peter Fischer Brown works at exactly that seam, where a values-led brand position has to be defended in B2B negotiations, capital allocation and the everyday behaviour of senior leaders. He spent the formative part of his career inside the operating side of two demanding environments. At KPMG he advised on corporate and marketing strategy. At Orange he was Director of Strategy for the B2B business and Ambassador of Strategic Branding for the wider France Telecom group, running brand and strategy across European, Middle Eastern and Latin American markets. That history is why his brand frameworks read as commercial first and editorial second. Today he runs FischerBrown and teaches at Esade Business School in Barcelona, where his MBA and Executive sessions focus on B2B value creation and on leadership with conscience. The Medinge Group, of which he is a long-standing member, gives him a serious intellectual home for the latter; his chapter on the Slow Food Movement in the group’s 2016 book “Brands with a Conscience” is a worked example of how a values-led proposition can become a category position. The work that sits outside the brand spine sharpens it. As a Radix contributor he writes on the “radical centre” in European politics; he is a qualified executive coach through Henley; his linguistic and musical training (Cambridge, Trinity College London) feeds the cross-disciplinary keynotes he gives on cosmopolitanism and the art of business. Senior teams book him when they need someone who can argue brand and purpose in the same register as a CFO, and then sit with the leadership team afterwards. Key speaking topics Brand and corporate strategy Brands with a conscience and purpose-led positioning B2B value creation Leadership with conscience Sustainability and the brand promise Cosmopolitanism and cultural identity as competitive advantage The art of business: learning from the creative and performing arts Ideal for CMOs and brand directors in B2B and consumer businesses under pressure to make a purpose claim operational CEOs and strategy leads working through a brand or positioning reset Boards and leadership teams wrestling with ESG and purpose credibility HR and executive development leads commissioning leadership-with-conscience programmes for senior cohorts Audience outcomes A sharper view of where brand sits in the operating model, not only in marketing A vocabulary for discussing purpose in front of a sceptical CFO or procurement audience Specific examples of values-led brands that have held up commercially, and ones that have not A clearer framing of leadership credibility when a business is being asked to behave consistently across markets