Sales & Customer Acquisition speakers

Why organisations work with Nikhil Desai A signature programme on stress management, “Achieving Excellence Thru Stress Management”, that has been delivered to executives across more than 2,000 organisations and refined over three decades. A trainer’s instinct for behaviour change at scale, built through 250,000-plus participants across 42 countries, not a single keynote act. Direct operating credibility from building eight businesses in eight years across Indian textile and automobile manufacturing after his US MBA. A practical blend of corporate yoga practice and MBA discipline that lands well with mixed audiences in Asia, the Gulf, and beyond. Biography highlights Director of The Centre For Excellence, the corporate training firm he founded in 1991 in the year of India’s economic liberalisation. MBA from a US university where he graduated first in his class, followed by a period working in New York. Built and ran manufacturing operations across the Indian textile and automobile sectors before moving full time into training. Programmes delivered to more than 250,000 participants across 300-plus cities in 42 countries. Recipient of the Global Iconic Motivational Speaker Award (Leadership & Excellence Awards 2021) and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World HRD Congress. Author of the forthcoming book “9 Habits Of Super Successful People”. Biography The Centre For Excellence opened its doors in 1991, the year India dismantled its old industrial controls and a generation of managers had to learn a new commercial language. Nikhil Desai had already lived both sides of that shift. He had taken an MBA in the United States, graduating first in his class, then worked in New York before returning to India to build manufacturing businesses across textiles and automobile components. That operating background matters because it shapes what he teaches. He grew one business into eight in eight years, which gave him a working view of how middle managers actually behave under cost pressure, missed deadlines, and family obligation pulling in opposite directions. His signature programmes, “In Pursuit Of Excellence” and “Achieving Excellence Thru Stress Management”, are designed around that lived friction rather than a textbook model of motivation. The reach is large by any standard for the corporate training market. More than 250,000 participants across 300 cities in 42 countries have been through his programmes over three decades. He works in English and Gujarati, runs sessions from Mumbai to Muscat, and is one of a small number of Indian trainers regularly booked into multinational programmes in the Gulf, South Africa, and South East Asia. What he is not is a strategy speaker. The work sits in personal effectiveness, stress resilience, communication, and team behaviour, which is its own discipline and one most senior leaders quietly know their organisations are weakest at. The Lifetime Achievement Award from the World HRD Congress reflects that. His forthcoming book, “9 Habits Of Super Successful People”, continues the same line. Key speaking topics Stress management and personal resilience Personal effectiveness and time management Motivation and excellence in the workplace Leadership and team performance Communication and presentation skills Customer care and sales behaviour Train the trainer programmes Ideal for HR and L&D leaders commissioning company-wide capability programmes Sales and customer-facing teams under sustained delivery pressure Middle managers stepping up into leadership roles for the first time Indian and Gulf-based organisations with mixed-language workforces Audience outcomes Practical techniques for managing stress without disengaging from the work Sharper personal time management habits that survive the week after the session A clearer view of what excellence looks like in their specific role Communication and presentation skills that hold up in front of internal and external audiences Greater confidence in handling difficult customers, colleagues, and team dynamics

Why organisations work with Nirmalya Kumar He has run group strategy inside one of the world’s largest conglomerates. As a member of the Tata Sons Group Executive Council from 2013 to 2016, he was responsible for group-level strategy and customer centricity across Tata’s operating companies. His Marketing as Strategy thesis, published by Harvard Business Press, is the reference text for CEOs and CMOs trying to elevate marketing from a campaign function to a profit-and-loss instrument. Brand Breakout, co-authored with Jan-Benedict Steenkamp, codifies eight specific routes by which emerging-market brands take share from Western incumbents, including the Asian tortoise route and B2B-to-B2C migration. It is one of the few books on the subject grounded in named cases rather than generic globalisation theory. Private Label Strategy gives executive teams a worked playbook for competing with retailer brands, an issue that returns to the boardroom every time a downturn compresses margins in consumer goods. Thinkers50 Hall of Fame induction in 2017, the AMA Mahajan Award in 2021, and roughly twenty thousand Google Scholar citations place his work in the upper tier of academic marketing thinkers actively booked by industry. Biography highlights Lee Kong Chian Professor of Marketing, Singapore Management University; Distinguished Fellow, INSEAD Emerging Markets Institute. Member, Group Executive Council of Tata Sons (2013 to 2016), reporting to Chairman Cyrus Mistry, with responsibility for group strategy. Former Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Aditya Birla India Centre at London Business School (2003 to 2013). Author of eight books, including Marketing as Strategy and Private Label Strategy, both Harvard Business Press; and Brand Breakout (Palgrave Macmillan). Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame (2017); awarded the Thinkers50 Global Village Award (2011); awarded the AMA Mahajan Award for Lifetime Contributions to Marketing Strategy (2021). Board service across ACC, Bata India, Tata Chemicals, UltraTech Cement, and Zensar. Biography Marketing inside large organisations has been losing strategic ground for two decades, and the cost is now visible at the top line. CEOs see commoditisation, retailer power, and emerging-market competitors moving faster than their own brand portfolios. Kumar’s central argument, set out in Marketing as Strategy (Harvard Business Press, 2004), is that the answer is not better campaigns but a redefined role for marketing as the architect of customer-driven growth across the organisation. His subsequent work develops that argument against specific commercial pressures. Private Label Strategy, co-authored with Jan-Benedict Steenkamp at Harvard Business Press, addressed the structural rise of retailer brands. Brand Breakout, published as Western incumbents woke up to Tata, Lenovo, Haier, and Mahindra, mapped eight named routes by which emerging-market brands cross into global markets. Clash, on Amazon versus Walmart, examined the platform-versus-retail confrontation now defining consumer business. The work is reinforced by an operating record. From 2013 to 2016 Kumar sat on the Tata Sons Group Executive Council under Cyrus Mistry, leading group strategy across one of the most diversified industrial portfolios in the world. He has held faculty positions at London Business School, IMD, and Kellogg, and currently holds the Lee Kong Chian Chair at Singapore Management University. The recognition follows from the substance: Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2017, the Global Village Award in 2011, the AMA Mahajan Award for Lifetime Contributions to Marketing Strategy in 2021, and a citation record above twenty thousand on Google Scholar. For boards weighing how to make marketing pay back its budget, his work is the operating manual. Key speaking topics Marketing as strategy Private label and retailer power Brand-building from emerging markets Competing with low-cost rivals Customer centricity in conglomerates Strategy and innovation in India Platform versus retail competition Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders seeking to position marketing as a P&L discipline CEOs and boards of consumer goods, retail, and industrial groups facing margin compression from private label or emerging-market entrants Executive teams in Indian and Asian conglomerates planning international brand strategy Strategy and corporate development leaders working on portfolio decisions and customer-centric reorganisation Audience outcomes A working definition of what marketing must control inside the organisation to drive profitable growth, beyond the campaign function A framework of named routes by which emerging-market brands take share from incumbents, with worked cases A practical view of when to fight, partner with, or build a private label, drawn from the Harvard Business Press study A Tata-scale account of how group strategy and customer focus get implemented across diversified portfolios A sharper read on the Amazon-versus-Walmart structural shift and what it means for consumer companies

Why organisations work with Noah St. John He owns a named, trademarked methodology, AFFORMATIONS, that gives leadership audiences a concrete cognitive tool rather than abstract mindset language. His Power Habits framework targets the unconscious patterns behind executive decision-making, an angle most leadership content treats as out of scope. He is one of very few authors with books carried by HarperCollins, Hay House, Simon and Schuster, Mindvalley, and Nightingale-Conant, a catalogue that reflects sustained editorial credibility across mainstream, business, and personal development publishing. He has built a body of work specifically for leaders trying to translate self-awareness into changed behaviour, which is the gap most senior development programmes leave open. Biography highlights PhD in Pastoral Counseling Psychology; founder and CEO of SuccessClinic.com since 1997. Creator of AFFORMATIONS, a trademarked questioning-based method, and the Power Habits System. Author of 27 books translated into 18 languages, including Power Habits (Nightingale-Conant), The Book of Afformations, and Get Rid of Your Head Trash About Money. Published by HarperCollins, Hay House, Simon and Schuster, Mindvalley, Nightingale-Conant, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher. TEDx speaker: «Done with Head Trash: A New Way to Think About Thinking» (TEDxMizner, Boca Raton). Media appearances and features across ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Parade, SUCCESS Magazine, and Entrepreneur. Biography Most leadership development assumes the bottleneck is knowledge. Senior leaders almost always know what good looks like. The harder problem is that decisions, energy, and recovery under pressure run on internal scripts that were never deliberately chosen, and rarely change through more information. Noah St. John has spent nearly three decades inside that gap. In 1997 he coined AFFORMATIONS, a method that replaces traditional affirmation with empowering questions designed to bypass the brain’s habitual rejection of unearned positive statements. The technique is now trademarked and forms the spine of his Power Habits System, a framework aimed at the unconscious patterns that govern how high performers behave when stretched. His written work spans 27 books in 18 languages, with editorial homes at HarperCollins, Hay House, Simon and Schuster, Mindvalley, Nightingale-Conant, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher. Power Habits, his Nightingale-Conant title, sets out the operating model. Get Rid of Your Head Trash About Money applies it to the financial decisions and self-talk that quietly shape leader behaviour. He holds a PhD in Pastoral Counseling Psychology and runs SuccessClinic.com as its founder and CEO. His TEDx talk, «Done with Head Trash: A New Way to Think About Thinking,» compresses the argument: knowledge alone does not change behaviour, but a better question often does. Key speaking topics AFFORMATIONS and the cognitive science of empowering questions Power Habits for executive performance Self-talk, decision quality, and the unconscious mind Sales mindset and revenue performance Leadership under pressure and personal resilience Mindset and the human side of AI adoption Ideal for CEOs, founders, and senior operators looking to translate self-awareness into changed behaviour Sales leadership and high-performing revenue teams Leadership development programmes that want a behavioural-change tool, not another conceptual framework Conferences seeking a peak-performance keynote with a named, owned methodology Audience outcomes A working knowledge of AFFORMATIONS as a daily cognitive practice, with the mechanics for applying it A clearer view of which unconscious habits are driving current decisions and results Specific shifts in self-talk language that audiences can take into the next week of work A sharper read on the gap between what they intend as leaders and how they actually behave under load

Why organisations work with Pamela Barnum Field-tested credibility on trust and deception. Her techniques were developed making hundreds of undercover drug buys and prosecuting the resulting cases, not derived from lab studies. Two operating perspectives in one speaker: the covert practitioner who had to read a room to stay safe, and the federal prosecutor who had to read witnesses to win convictions. Practical decoding tools that transfer directly into negotiations, sales calls, performance conversations, and board meetings. Academic grounding that backs the stories: a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Public Administration from the University of Western Ontario, and graduate work in corporate negotiations. A point of view on trust as a measurable leadership behaviour, not a culture slogan, anchored in the TEDxCollingwood talk “What Drug Dealers Taught Me About Trust.” Biography highlights Twenty-year career in Canadian criminal justice across undercover policing and federal prosecution. Eight years deep undercover in the Drug Enforcement Section, with hundreds of buys at street and multi-six-figure level. Federal prosecuting attorney with the Federal Crown, specialising in drug trafficking cases. Bachelor of Laws and Master of Public Administration, University of Western Ontario. Two TEDx talks, “What Drug Dealers Taught Me About Trust” (TEDxCollingwood) and “How Empathy Empowered an Undercover Cop” (TEDxRyersonU), both hosted on TED.com. Co-host of the CTV series Building Bad, and a featured media contributor on trust and nonverbal communication Keynote work for corporate, association, and law enforcement audiences across the United States, Canada, and Australia. Biography Trust is read in seconds, by people who often cannot articulate what they just saw. For most of Pamela Barnum’s first career, getting that read wrong carried physical risk. Eight years undercover in the Drug Enforcement Section meant building rapport with people whose business depended on detecting outsiders, then walking back into court rooms as a federal prosecutor and reading witnesses for credibility under cross-examination. That dual experience is the spine of her speaking work. She studied law at the University of Western Ontario while still serving as a full-time undercover officer, later adding a Master of Public Administration and graduate study in corporate negotiations. The result is a speaker who can connect a specific nonverbal cue to a specific commercial outcome, not just a story. Her keynote material translates field practice into decisions leaders actually make. How to enter a difficult negotiation without leaking intent. How to deliver a restructuring message that retains belief in the sender. How to spot the signals that a senior hire, supplier, or counterparty is hedging. The TEDxCollingwood talk “What Drug Dealers Taught Me About Trust” condensed the core argument into three working trust hacks now used widely across her corporate audiences. What makes her unusual on the leadership communication circuit is the source material. Trust as practised by undercover operators and prosecutors is observable, repeatable, and tied to consequence. That is what travels into a sales kickoff, an executive offsite, or a board preparation session, and that is what senior leaders take away. Key speaking topics Trust as a leadership behaviour Nonverbal communication and body language Deception detection in business contexts Negotiation under pressure Executive presence and credibility High-stakes communication Sales communication and influence Ideal for Sales leadership and revenue organisations preparing for high-value negotiations Executive development programmes focused on presence, credibility, and difficult conversations HR and culture leaders rebuilding trust after restructure or major change Associations and law enforcement audiences, including licensed professions (fraud, risk, insurance, real estate) seeking accredited continuing-education content Audience outcomes A working method for reading trust signals in real conversations, not in theory Specific nonverbal cues that indicate hedging, deception, or disengagement Sharper preparation for negotiations, performance conversations, and board interactions A clearer sense of how their own body language is being read by others Concrete techniques to project composure and authority under pressure

Why organisations work with Patrick Renvoise A tested, codified persuasion framework. NeuroMap® is a four-step model SalesBrain has applied in client engagements since 2002, turning cognitive science research into specific decisions about messaging and value proposition design. Co-author of two of the earliest commercial books on neuromarketing. The Persuasion Code (Wiley, 2018) received an Axiom Business Book Award and builds directly on the work of Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler. Authority earned in enterprise sales before brain science. He sold multi-million-dollar supercomputers at Silicon Graphics and LinuxCare to clients including NASA, Boeing, Airbus and Shell. The framework is shaped by what closes deals in real B2B selling. Recognition from named bodies that buyers respect: an American Marketing Association Next Big Thing in Marketing award (2009) and three Advertising Research Foundation Innovation in Research Awards (2011, 2014, 2015). Trained more than 100,000 executives across 24 nationalities at companies including PayPal, Microsoft, Hitachi, Siemens and GE, giving sales and marketing teams a shared scientific language for messaging decisions. Biography highlights Co-founder and Chief Neuromarketing Officer of SalesBrain, the first dedicated neuromarketing agency, founded in 2002. Developer of NeuroMap®, a four-step persuasion framework used in SalesBrain’s advisory and training programmes. Co-author of The Persuasion Code: How Neuromarketing Can Help You Persuade Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime (Wiley, 2018) and Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Button in Your Customer’s Brain (2007). Recipient of the American Marketing Association “Next Big Thing in Marketing” award (2009), three Advertising Research Foundation Innovation in Research Awards (2011, 2014, 2015), and a Vistage “Above and Beyond” speaker award (2008). Former senior business development executive at Silicon Graphics and LinuxCare, where he sold multi-million-dollar supercomputers to NASA, Boeing, Shell, Airbus, BMW and Canon. TEDxBend speaker (“Is There a Buy Button Inside the Brain?”) and trainer of more than 100,000 executives at companies including PayPal, Microsoft, Hitachi, Siemens, Facebook and GE. Biography In 2002, the discipline of neuromarketing did not exist as a commercial practice. Patrick Renvoise and Dr. Christophe Morin co-founded SalesBrain that year to build it. Their premise was that two decades of cognitive science research could be translated into a working method for sales and marketing teams whose campaigns were not delivering. Most marketing assumes buyers can articulate what they want. Two decades of brain research suggest otherwise. The bulk of purchasing decisions are made by what Daniel Kahneman called System 1, the part of the brain that does not respond to logical argument or feature lists. SalesBrain’s NeuroMap® is a four-step framework. The steps are diagnose the pain, differentiate the claims, demonstrate the gain and address the primal brain. It translates cognitive science into specific decisions about messaging and value proposition design. Renvoise’s path to brain science came through enterprise sales. At Silicon Graphics and LinuxCare he sold multi-million-dollar supercomputers to NASA, Boeing, Shell, Airbus, BMW and Canon. After watching what worked and what did not in those rooms, he spent two years researching how the brain processes commercial messages. The result was published in 2007 as Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Button in Your Customer’s Brain. The expanded second book, The Persuasion Code, followed in 2018 from Wiley, building directly on the System 1 and System 2 work of Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler. The methodology has earned recognition from named bodies that buyers respect. The American Marketing Association named NeuroMap its Next Big Thing in Marketing in 2009. The Advertising Research Foundation followed with three Innovation in Research Awards. The Persuasion Code received an Axiom Business Book Award. SalesBrain has now trained more than 100,000 executives across 24 nationalities at companies including PayPal, Microsoft, Siemens, Hitachi, Facebook, GE and Airbus. Key speaking topics Neuromarketing The science of persuasion Sales messaging and value proposition design Brain science applied to decision-making Marketing strategy and effectiveness Complex B2B and enterprise sales Customer communication and influence Ideal for Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Revenue Officers accountable for marketing and sales return. Sales leaders and B2B teams selling complex or high-value solutions where messaging is a competitive differentiator. Marketing and brand teams responsible for messaging, value proposition and campaign performance. Founder-led companies whose growth depends on the persuasiveness of their commercial communication. Audience outcomes The six stimuli that trigger the brain’s primal decision-making system, and why most traditional messaging fails to reach it. The four steps of NeuroMap®, applied to their own messaging during the session. A clearer view of why customer surveys produce misleading data, and what to use instead. Specific changes to make to current marketing materials and sales conversations.

Why organisations work with Peter Cross He has held the customer experience seat at one of the UK’s most service-known retailers. As Customer Experience Director at the John Lewis Partnership, he was responsible for the customer agenda across both John Lewis and Waitrose at a moment of acute pressure on British retail. His thinking is now codified in book form. Start with the Customer, published by Pearson in 2025 and called “the essential text on customer experience” by The Grocer, gives audiences a usable framework, including a “lexicon of customer needs” that distinguishes transactional, interactional, core and higher-level requirements. As Vice President of the Institute of Customer Service, he sits at the centre of the national conversation about service standards, with sight of how the issue plays out across sectors rather than inside a single company. His career holds two seats most operators never combine: ten years inside the Mary Portas consultancy that worked on the 2011 Portas Review, and eight years inside the John Lewis Partnership. He has built the strategy and lived with the consequences. Biography highlights Former Customer Experience Director at the John Lewis Partnership, with the brief extended to cover Waitrose Co-author of Start with the Customer (Pearson, 2025), called “the essential text on customer experience” by The Grocer Vice President of the Institute of Customer Service Ambassador for the Retail Trust and Leader in Residence at Leeds University Business School Ten-year business partnership with Mary Portas at her retail agency Earlier senior roles at L’Oréal, Burberry and Alfred Dunhill Biography Between 2017 and 2021, two of Britain’s most service-known retailers, John Lewis and Waitrose, were pressured by pure-play online players and a public mood shifting hard toward speed. Holding their character through that period was the customer experience brief, and it sat with Peter Cross. Before John Lewis, he spent ten years as business partner to Mary Portas at her retail agency. Their work together included charity-shop reinvention and the 2011 Portas Review of the British high street, commissioned by government. Earlier still came senior marketing roles at L’Oréal, Burberry and Alfred Dunhill. He has occupied both the operator’s chair and the advisor’s chair. Start with the Customer, his 2025 Pearson book co-written with Institute of Customer Service CEO Jo Causon, was called “the essential text on customer experience” by The Grocer. The book argues that service has been quietly reduced to process, and that technology cannot substitute for the cultural work of building a service organisation from the CEO’s desk down. He now serves as Vice President of the Institute of Customer Service, Ambassador for the Retail Trust, and Leader in Residence at Leeds University Business School. The thinking he brings to senior teams centres on a framework from his book: the “lexicon of customer needs,” which separates requirements into transactional, interactional, core and higher-level categories. The standards he asks organisations to meet are ones he held himself, for eight years, on the customer agenda at the John Lewis Partnership. Key speaking topics Customer experience strategy Service culture The lexicon of customer needs Customer behaviour and expectation Leadership in customer-facing organisations Employee engagement and frontline empowerment The future of retail Ideal for Boards and CEOs setting the customer agenda for the next strategic cycle CMOs, Chief Customer Officers and Customer Experience Directors making the case for cultural investment alongside technology spend Retail and consumer-facing leadership teams under pressure from online competitors HR and people leaders responsible for service culture and frontline engagement Audience outcomes A vocabulary for the different types of customer need (transactional, interactional, core, higher-level) and where each one surfaces across the customer journey The case, evidenced through John Lewis and Mary Portas-era examples, for treating service culture as a board-level discipline A way to test whether technology investment is enabling service or quietly substituting for it The “golden rules and cardinal sins” of service that separate brands customers stay with from brands they leave

Why organisations work with Peter Nelson He has run the same flagship influence programme at Henley Business School for over fifteen years, which means executive cohorts arrive at a method that has been stress-tested across hundreds of senior leaders, not a workshop assembled for the brief. He pioneered the use of professional actors in corporate influence and pitching training, and built the rehearsal-led methodology now common across UK executive education before it was standard practice. His client base spans law firms, asset managers, oil majors, professional services, the European Commission and Army HQ, which gives him a working vocabulary for influence in highly regulated, technically complex and politically sensitive environments. He works at the level of behaviour and live performance, not frameworks: leaders rehearse the actual conversation, board moment or client pitch they will face, with feedback in the room. Biography highlights Executive Fellow, Henley Business School; lead faculty on the “Influence and Impact” programme for over 15 years. Member of the Executive Faculty, Southampton Business School. Works with Cambridge Judge Business School, Warwick Business School and Duke Corporate Education on senior executive development. Pioneered the use of professional actors in business roleplay for influence and pitching training in the 1990s. Client roster includes Man Group, BP, BMW, Motorola, Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie, Barclays, Deloitte, ING, McLaren, the NHS, the European Commission and Army HQ. Signature programmes: Influence and Impact, Influencing and Negotiating, Business Pitching, Client Relationship Management, Team Effectiveness. Biography Most executive education on influence stops at the framework. Leaders leave with a model of stakeholder mapping or persuasion archetypes, then walk into a board meeting and revert to slides. The gap between knowing the theory and behaving differently in the room is the practical problem of senior communication, and it is the problem Peter Nelson has spent more than three decades working on. At Henley Business School, where he is an Executive Fellow, Nelson has led the “Influence and Impact” programme for over fifteen years. The same method now runs across Cambridge Judge Business School executive clients, Warwick Business School corporate cohorts, Duke Corporate Education and Southampton Business School, where he sits on the Executive Faculty. Cohorts include senior partners in global law firms, asset managers, professional services boards and policy leaders inside the European Commission and Army HQ. The methodology is distinctive in its mechanics. Nelson brought professional actors into corporate influence and pitching training in the 1990s, before it was standard, so leaders rehearse the actual conversation they will face: the regulator briefing, the new business pitch, the board update, the difficult client renewal. Feedback is delivered live, in the moment, on behaviour rather than theory. The result is a body of practice rather than a body of writing. Clients include Man Group, BP, BMW, Motorola, Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie, Barclays, Deloitte, ING and McLaren, and Nelson is most often booked when an organisation has identified that its senior people are technically excellent and commercially under-converting in the moments that matter. Key speaking topics Influence and persuasion at senior levels Executive presence and leadership impact High-stakes business pitching Negotiation skills Senior client relationships Presentation skills for leaders Team effectiveness Ideal for Partners and senior leaders in law, professional services and asset management preparing for client pitches and renewals Executive committees and boards developing presence and senior communication capability Sales, business development and relationship management leaders selling to sophisticated buyers HR and L&D heads commissioning executive development on influence, negotiation and leadership impact Audience outcomes A concrete sense of how senior audiences read presence, and what to change in the next conversation that matters Sharper command of the pitch, the board update and the negotiation set-piece, rehearsed against live feedback rather than discussed in abstract Specific tools for moving from technical credibility to commercial conversion in client-facing moments A working vocabulary for coaching their own teams on influence and impact after the session

Why organisations work with Peter Siljerud Engineering training combined with twenty years in trend analysis and futures work. His AI commentary runs deeper than headline level into how machine learning and neural networks behave, and what that means for deployment risk. Author of AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, 2023, foreword by Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University), with case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus. One of the few futurists with substantive applied work on public-sector AI. Co-author of Supertrends (ProSales Institute, English edition 2020), a framework of fifty structural shifts in commercial strategy. The book is built for sales and marketing leaders running real planning cycles. Long-running client work with Nordea, ICA, the Church of Sweden, LRF, SPP, and Teracom. The LRF programme reached 12,000 people across a two-year external-analysis curriculum. Biography highlights CEO and founder of Futurewise, a Stockholm-based trend research firm operating since 2008 Author of four books: 100 trender (2011), Bryt normerna (2015), Supertrenderna (2018), and AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, 2023) Two books nominated for Marketing Book of the Year by Sveriges Marknadsförbund (Swedish Marketing Federation) Named one of Sweden’s most creative people by media group IDG in 2012 Former future strategist at Kairos Future and world analyst at Intel Clients include Nordea, ICA, the Church of Sweden, LRF, SPP, and Teracom Biography Sweden’s public-sector AI investment sits at around three percent of national AI spending. The figure is small enough to embarrass policymakers and large enough to matter. Peter Siljerud’s 2023 book AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, foreword by Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University) is the practical response: case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus, written for the leadership teams making the actual deployment decisions. That instinct, work backwards from organisational reality, has shaped twenty years of his practice. He trained as a civil engineer before moving into futures work as a strategist at Kairos Future and a world analyst at Intel. Futurewise, the firm he founded in 2008, helps leadership teams turn external-analysis signals into specific budget and capability calls. The earlier books trace the same arc. 100 trender (2011) was nominated for Sweden’s Marketing Book of the Year and mapped structural shifts hitting Swedish business. Bryt normerna (2015) attacked the assumption that the working day and the employment contract are settled categories. Supertrenderna (2018), co-authored with Henrik Larsson-Broman and Markus Ejenäs of the ProSales Institute, distilled fifty shifts in commercial strategy into operating advice for sales and marketing leaders. What separates him from the broader futurist circuit is the engineering instinct. The talks press past signal identification into what the audience should do next quarter. AI is treated as a specific technology with specific behavioural patterns that leadership teams need to understand at working level. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and generative AI Strategic foresight and trend analysis Future of work Future of sales and marketing AI in the public sector Consumer behaviour and retail trends Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams in Nordic and European businesses making AI investment decisions Public-sector leadership in regions, municipalities, and central agencies working out where AI investment pays back Heads of marketing, sales, and customer experience facing structural change in how customers buy Boards and executive committees in mature industries (real estate, retail, financial services) where trend response is overdue Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of AI development that goes past press-cycle headlines A short list of trends worth genuine board attention this cycle, separated from the noise Specific case studies from Nordic public and private sector AI deployments, including Bolagsverket and Hallands sjukhus A method for translating external signals into capital and capability decisions Ideas they can put into a board paper inside a fortnight

Why organisations work with Philip Hesketh A behavioural framework, the Seven Drivers of Motivation, published by Wiley and built specifically for sales, pricing, and client conversations, not generic influence theory. Direct operator credibility: he ran a 150-person advertising agency with clients including the BBC, Nestle, Disney, and HSBC, so the case studies come from his own P&L. A specific, repeatable answer to the pricing question. His “How to hold high prices and fees” session is built around what makes buyers concede on value rather than discount. Two Amazon number-one books on persuasion, giving the speaker a public reference point the audience can revisit, share with their teams, and use as a working text. Biography highlights Founder and managing partner of Advertising Principles, Leeds, grown over 17 years to £48m in billings with 150 staff and clients including the BBC, Nestle, Disney, and HSBC. Author of two Amazon UK number-one bestsellers on persuasion, “How to Persuade and Influence People” and “Persuade”, both published by Capstone/Wiley, and a third book, “The Golden Rules for a Happy Life”. Psychology graduate of Newcastle University and former Procter & Gamble salesperson, named P&G Salesman of the Year. Vistage UK “Outstanding Performer” and “Most Requested Speaker”; TEC Australia “Overseas Speaker of the Year” 2009. Visiting Fellow of Newcastle University. Has delivered keynote and training programmes for sales, professional services, and leadership audiences across more than 20 countries. Biography Most pricing pressure does not come from competitors. It comes from how sales and account teams handle the conversation when a client pushes back. The behavioural science of why people say yes, why they concede on value, and why they stay loyal sits at the heart of that conversation, and it is the territory Philip Hesketh has worked in for two decades. Hesketh is a Newcastle University psychology graduate who started in sales at Procter & Gamble, where he was named Salesman of the Year. In 1986 he founded Advertising Principles in Leeds and built it over 17 years into a £48m agency with 150 staff and clients such as the BBC, Nestle, Disney, and HSBC. The frameworks he now teaches were developed inside that business, not bolted on afterwards. His two Wiley books, “How to Persuade and Influence People” and “Persuade”, set out the Seven Drivers of Motivation: a working model of what moves buyers, decision-makers, and colleagues to act. Both reached number one on Amazon UK in their categories. The model is built for commercial use, with direct application to pricing, negotiation, and client relationship work. Vistage UK named him “Outstanding Performer” and “Most Requested Speaker”; TEC Australia named him “Overseas Speaker of the Year”. Beyond the awards, the practical proof is repetition: chief executive groups book him back, which only happens when the content moves the conversations leaders are actually having about value, fees, and customers. Key speaking topics Psychology of persuasion and influence Pricing and value negotiation Client acquisition and retention Sales performance and conversion Behavioural drivers of buyer decisions Customer experience and loyalty Ideal for CCOs, sales directors, and revenue leaders facing margin compression Professional services partners and client-facing leaders in agencies, law, accountancy, and consulting Account management and key client teams in B2B environments Leadership audiences at Vistage, YPO, EO, and similar peer-group settings Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the seven psychological drivers behind buyer decisions Specific techniques for holding price and defending fees in negotiation A sharper read on why clients defect, and what conversations keep them Practical questions and conversational moves teams can put to work the next day A clearer separation between price objections that are real and price objections that are tested

Why organisations work with Rachel Sheerin Speaks to burnout as a performance problem, not a wellness problem, which lets senior teams act on it without rebranding it as HR theatre. Behavioural-analyst training underpins the work, so the content has a diagnostic spine rather than relying on personal-story keynote tropes. TEDx talk “How to Burnout and Be Successful” reached a wide audience and gives the topic a recognisable hook for internal marketing of an event. Hospitality and sales operating background means she reads the room of a client-facing workforce accurately, including Ritz-Carlton, Marriott and SHRM audiences. Doubles as a tested conference emcee, which is useful when the buyer wants a single voice to anchor a multi-day programme rather than a one-off keynote. Biography highlights Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst. TEDx speaker: “How to Burnout and Be Successful,” TEDxPuntaCanaWomen. Author, “Better All The Time” (2024) and “BETTER: How to live, lead and succeed” (Hawthorn Road Press, 2023). Named NACE Speaker of the Year, 2019. Featured in Inc. Magazine; host of the podcast “F THIS S with Rachel Sheerin.” Clients include The Ritz-Carlton, Marriott International, Walmart, Freddie Mac, Berkshire Hathaway, SHRM and the James Beard Foundation. Biography Burnout has become the workforce conversation that organisations cannot afford to keep handling at the edges. The cost shows up first in the highest performers, the people whose output the rest of the operation is built on. Standard wellbeing benefits do not move that needle. Rachel Sheerin works in that gap. A Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst with a former career in hospitality and events sales leadership, she treats burnout as a behavioural and operational problem rather than a feelings problem. Her TEDx talk “How to Burnout and Be Successful” framed the territory for a wide audience and remains the most-cited entry point into her work. Her two books, “BETTER: How to live, lead and succeed” (Hawthorn Road Press, 2023) and “Better All The Time” (2024), set out a practical method for high performers who keep over-extending themselves. The same content reaches a recurring audience through the podcast “F THIS S with Rachel Sheerin” and through coverage in Inc. Magazine. She was named Speaker of the Year by NACE in 2019, and now works regularly with clients including The Ritz-Carlton, Marriott International, Walmart, Berkshire Hathaway, Freddie Mac, SHRM and the James Beard Foundation. The audiences are typically sales, service and operating leaders inside organisations that depend on people performing at a high level in customer-facing roles. Key speaking topics Burnout prevention and recovery Self-leadership and energy management Employee engagement High-performer psychology Sales authenticity and motivation Workplace culture and wellbeing Conference emcee and event hosting Ideal for CHROs, heads of people and chief wellbeing officers in service, hospitality and sales-driven organisations Sales leadership audiences in client-facing industries Annual conferences for associations and franchises that need a keynote plus emcee in a single voice Post-merger or post-restructure events where the workforce is visibly fatigued Audience outcomes A clearer read on where burnout is showing up inside the team and what is driving it Practical language for talking about workload, energy and recovery in a working environment Tools high performers can apply without giving up the standard they hold themselves to Renewed engagement and focus in audiences entering a demanding quarter or season

Why organisations work with Ramon Ray He has built and exited three of his own companies and runs two active media platforms, so the advice is operator-tested, not theorised from the outside His Celebrity CEO framework gives founders a step-by-step way to build local and category authority, not generic personal-brand advice He has interviewed every Shark Tank investor and President Obama, and shares platforms with Seth Godin and Simon Sinek, which gives him an unusually wide read on what works across founder archetypes He has been invited to the White House and the US Congress on small-business and personal-branding topics, which gives the work institutional weight beyond the usual marketing-conference circuit He is a high-energy event host as well as a keynote speaker, and is regularly hired by Entrepreneur magazine and similar publishers to anchor their flagship conferences Biography highlights Founder of SmallBizTechnology.com and Smart Hustle Media, two long-running platforms serving small-business owners Author of The Celebrity CEO, Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing (Wiley), Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses, and two further titles Conducted the first live Google Hangout interview with President Barack Obama Member of the US Delegation to India led by Ivanka Trump for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit Invited expert witness to the US Congress and speaker at the White House on personal branding Contributor to Inc., Entrepreneur, PC World, Small Business Trends, and Allbusiness.com; co-founder of the Small Business Influencer Awards Biography Most small-business owners do not lose to better products. They lose to better-known competitors. The Celebrity CEO thesis takes that observation seriously and treats personal brand as a growth instrument with measurable outputs: leads, referrals, pricing power, retention. The book is the public face of two decades of work with founders trying to compete against larger rivals. The author of that thesis, Ramon Ray, is a five-time entrepreneur who has built and exited three companies, including SmallBizTechnology.com and Smart Hustle Media. He has written five books across technology, marketing, and personal brand, and his journalism appears in Inc., Entrepreneur, PC World, and Small Business Trends. His access to the top of the founder market is unusual. He conducted the first live Google Hangout with President Obama, joined the US Delegation to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, and has been invited as an expert witness to Congress and as a speaker at the White House on personal branding. He has interviewed every Shark Tank investor and shared stages with Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Deepak Chopra. What makes the work commercially useful is the operator’s eye behind it. Ramon co-founded the Small Business Influencer Awards with Anita Campbell, anchors Entrepreneur magazine’s flagship conferences as host, and runs an active mastermind for founders applying the Celebrity CEO playbook. The advice is not theoretical; it is what he is doing for himself in public, in real time. Key speaking topics Personal brand as a growth engine for founders Small-business marketing and customer acquisition Community building and category authority Social media for entrepreneurs Digital tools and technology for small business Entrepreneurial mindset and resilience Ideal for Founders and CEOs of small and mid-sized businesses Franchise networks, dealer councils, and independent business associations Marketing and growth leaders inside larger organisations who serve SMB customers Diversity-in-business and youth-entrepreneurship programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of what a Celebrity CEO is, and what it takes to become one in their market A simple model for turning customer relationships into a referral and retention engine Specific tactics for showing up consistently on social platforms without burning out Renewed conviction that being visible is part of the job, not a vanity project A short list of next moves they can act on the same week

Why organisations work with Rich Mulholland He runs a working AI agency, Too Many Robots, alongside a presentation business, so the advice on staying relevant in an AI-saturated market comes from someone deploying the tools, not commenting on them. Legacide gives him a precise argument that flips the standard innovation conversation: the constraint is not new ideas, it is the old behaviour that keeps surviving every restructure. Here Be Dragons codifies “storyselling” as a discipline for commercial teams, useful for sales leaders trying to move buyers without resorting to feature lists or discounting. Missing Link has shaped the presentation craft of corporate leaders across South Africa and beyond for over two decades, which means he speaks to senior executives about communication as someone who has trained the room rather than just spoken in it. Biography highlights Founder of Missing Link, described by multiple sources as South Africa’s largest presentation and communication training firm. Founder of Too Many Robots, an AI agency advising clients on practical AI deployment. Co-founder of 21Tanks, a problem-identification consultancy positioned as South Africa’s first perspective lab. Author of four books: Legacide, Boredom Slayer, Here Be Dragons, and Relentless Relevance. Guest lecturer at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and the Gordon Institute of Business Science. TEDx speaker at TEDxJohannesburg and TEDxCapeTown; has delivered keynotes in 50 countries across six continents. Biography Innovation programmes rarely fail at the idea stage. They fail at the legacy stage, where the existing way of doing things absorbs the new initiative and digests it back into business as usual. This is the territory Rich Mulholland has spent two decades working in, first through Missing Link, the South African presentation and communication firm he founded, and then through the writing that made Legacide a reference point for executives trying to understand why their change programmes keep stalling. His thesis is direct. Innovation does not happen when an organisation starts doing something new. It happens when it stops doing something old. That distinction reframes the senior team’s job from generating ideas to clearing space, and it is the spine that connects his work across innovation, sales, and communication. In Here Be Dragons he applies the same logic to commercial teams, treating storytelling not as a soft skill but as the operating discipline that decides whether a deal moves. The AI dimension is the more recent layer. Through Too Many Robots, the agency he founded to help clients deploy AI tactically rather than rhetorically, Mulholland has been working inside the question that most boards are still asking from the outside: what remains a human advantage when expectation, attention, and execution can all be automated. His answer, set out in the Humanity’s Unfair Advantage keynote, is that relevance is the perpetual play, not a position you achieve once. He is a guest lecturer at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and at GIBS, has spoken in 50 countries across six continents, and has appeared on TEDx stages including TEDxJohannesburg and TEDxCapeTown. Before any of this he was a touring roadie running lights for Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, and Bon Jovi, which is where the obsession with what makes a room respond actually started. Key speaking topics Relentless relevance and the discipline of staying useful to customers Legacy thinking as the silent constraint on innovation Storyselling and persuasion for commercial teams Humanity’s unfair advantage in an AI-driven market Leadership communication and executive presence Strategy for autonomous and purpose-driven organisations Ideal for Chief commercial officers, chief revenue officers, and sales leadership audiences working on storytelling and buyer persuasion Innovation leads, transformation heads, and strategy teams trying to dismantle legacy behaviour rather than add new initiatives Executive communicators and senior leaders preparing for high-stakes platforms, investor days, and town halls Boards and leadership teams scoping where AI substitutes human work and where human relevance still holds Audience outcomes A working definition of what legacy thinking looks like inside their own organisation, and where it is absorbing innovation effort A sharper framing for sales and commercial narratives that moves beyond feature lists into customer-centred story A clearer view of which parts of their work AI will eat and which parts depend on human relevance A practical standard for what a senior executive presentation should do, drawn from someone who has trained presenters for two decades