Storytelling & Business Communication speakers

Why organisations work with Mark Franklin He names the specific barriers founders carry into their businesses: not being ready, not being good enough, not having enough time, and fear of failure. Audiences recognise themselves in the language and leave with a vocabulary for what was previously unspoken. His Four Fears framework is trademarked and structured, not improvised motivation. It gives small-business audiences a model they can apply to a stalled product launch, a pricing decision, or a hiring step. Paseda360 Advanced Practitioner credentials, including Havening and Transformational Coaching (ILM Assured), give the work a clinical grounding that ordinary business-mindset talks lack. He uses live drumming as a working metaphor for rhythm, action and recovery in business, which makes the session memorable for audiences who have sat through standard keynotes. Recognition as Highly Commended Rising Star and Finalist for Emerging Coach of the Year at the National Coaching Awards 2025 marks him as a credible voice within the UK coaching profession. Biography highlights Founder of The Four Fears, a trademarked mindset coaching framework for small business owners and creative professionals. Paseda360 Advanced Practitioner, Level One Havening Coach, Level One Limitless Light Practitioner, and Practitioner in Transformational Coaching (ILM Assured). National Coaching Awards 2025: Highly Commended, Rising Star; Finalist, Emerging Coach of the Year. Former Managing Director of Usborne Books at Home, previously Marketing Director. Speaker, coach and emcee, with podcast appearances including The Next 100 Days (Ep. 408) and LiveTrue (Ep. 011). Author of a forthcoming book on the Four Fears of business ownership. Biography Most small businesses do not fail because the market turned. They fail because the owner stopped acting on the things that mattered. Procrastination, perfectionism, imposter feelings and fear of failure are the everyday barriers that quietly drain founders, and they are rarely addressed by ordinary business advice. The Four Fears, Franklin’s trademarked framework, names these four barriers and gives owners a shared language for what is happening inside their own decision-making. The work is built on Paseda360 Advanced Practitioner training, including Havening and Transformational Coaching (ILM Assured), which roots the approach in neuroscience-informed coaching practice rather than generic motivation. His credibility is anchored in two careers. He led Usborne Books at Home as Managing Director after several years as its Marketing Director, which gives him an operator’s read on what running a small enterprise actually feels like. He moved into full-time coaching and speaking and was recognised in 2025 with two National Coaching Awards shortlistings, Highly Commended Rising Star and Finalist for Emerging Coach of the Year. On stage, Franklin works with a drum kit as part of the talk. The drumming is not theatrics; it stands in for rhythm, deliberate action and recovery, the same patterns he asks owners to recognise in their businesses. Audiences leave with a framework, a vocabulary, and an unusually concrete sense of what bravery looks like when applied to a real commercial decision. Key speaking topics Small business mindset and the Four Fears Entrepreneurial procrastination and perfectionism Imposter feelings in founders and creative professionals Action and rhythm in business decision-making Bravery and clarity in self-employment Coaching-led personal development for owner-operators Ideal for Small-business and entrepreneur audiences at conferences, association events and network gatherings Creative professionals, freelancers and independent operators looking for honest mindset content Franchise networks, direct-sales organisations and SME communities running annual or regional events After-dinner and emcee briefs where a speaker also needs to host or moderate the room Audience outcomes A named vocabulary for the four psychological barriers that most often stall small-business owners A practical sense of how to spot which of the four fears is currently in play, in themselves and in colleagues A grounded view of bravery as a working practice in business, not a personality trait Energy and a memorable creative device, the drum kit, that anchors the message after the room empties

Why organisations work with Mark Millar He has run the project management seat on BBC One’s DIY SOS since 2006, including the Swansea build of the UK’s first adapted surf school for people with disabilities, completed in eleven days. That is a specific, televised record of delivery under extreme constraint. He brings the trade voice to corporate audiences. Manufacturers, merchants, installers and developers book him because he speaks the language of the site as well as the boardroom. His Channel 5 presenting work, Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms with Mark Millar and Build Your Dream Home in the Country, makes him a recognisable on-camera host for product launches, awards nights and trade conferences. He runs a working building firm in Bristol with UK and international clients, so the operating advice is current rather than retrospective. Biography highlights Project Manager on BBC One’s DIY SOS, on screen and behind the scenes, since 2006. Presenter of Channel 5’s Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms with Mark Millar (2021) and Build Your Dream Home in the Country (2023). Led the September 2020 DIY SOS and Children in Need build in Swansea of an adapted surf school for people with disabilities, completed in eleven days. Owner of a Bristol-based building firm with UK and international project work. Trained as a carpenter in Northern Ireland through a four-year apprenticeship. Recurring host and guest across BBC and Channel 5 entertainment programming, including Pointless Celebrities and radio appearances. Biography The Swansea adapted surf school went up in eleven days. Mark Millar ran the site as Project Manager for BBC One’s DIY SOS, working with Children in Need on a build that became the first surf school in the UK designed for people with disabilities. That kind of work, where the deadline is fixed by a broadcast date and the brief is emotionally non-negotiable, is the discipline he has spent two decades practising on screen. Mark trained as a carpenter in Northern Ireland and has been the project management voice of DIY SOS since 2006. The role has been editorial as well as practical: he has visited every site and shaped which stories made it to air. The show has accumulated audiences and BAFTA recognition over its run, and Mark is the figure most associated with its delivery rhythm. Channel 5 built two series around him. Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms with Mark Millar (2021) follows homeowners through the rooms they cannot afford to get wrong. Build Your Dream Home in the Country (2023) takes him to self-build projects across the UK. He continues to run a Bristol-based building firm with celebrity and international clients, which keeps the on-screen advice anchored in current site economics. The reason corporate audiences in construction, manufacturing, merchanting and home improvement book him is specific. He is one of the few public figures in UK media who can carry a room of contractors, hold a brand stage, and explain the trade view to a board, without losing any of the three audiences. Key speaking topics Project management on complex builds The realities of running a building firm Trades, training and apprenticeship Television presenting and brand hosting Charity builds and community projects Customer experience in home improvement Ideal for Construction, merchant and manufacturer audiences at trade conferences and dealer events Home improvement and KBB sector brand activations and product launches Corporate hospitality and after-dinner audiences looking for a recognisable TV host Charity and community fundraising events with a build or trade dimension Audience outcomes A clear, on-the-tools view of how complex builds get delivered to fixed deadlines A working perspective on customer trust in trades, told from the contractor’s side Recognisable broadcast presence for awards, panels and product reveals Stories from DIY SOS sites that ground discussion of community impact in specific builds

Why organisations work with Mark Schaefer A connected, multi-book argument about where marketing economics are actually going, from Marketing Rebellion to Belonging to the Brand to Audacious, rather than a single talk track repackaged. A working position at the front of the AI-and-marketing conversation, anchored in his Rutgers “Mini-MBA: Digital Marketing in the Age of AI” and his book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. A serious thesis on community as a marketing asset, with case work on brands like Sephora, that gives CMOs a defensible alternative to paid-media-only growth plans. Direct consulting and keynote experience with global enterprises including Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Air Force, which means examples land for both regulated and consumer-facing audiences. A teaching habit, three years studying under Peter Drucker and an active Rutgers executive education role, that shows up in how he structures sessions: argument, evidence, frameworks leaders can take into a Monday meeting. Biography highlights Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, with consulting work for Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Dell, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. Air Force, and the UK Government. RBS Executive Education Lecturer at Rutgers Business School; teaches the Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing in the Age of AI and graduate marketing classes. Author of twelve best-selling marketing books, including Marketing Rebellion, Belonging to the Brand, KNOWN, The Content Code, Cumulative Advantage, Return on Influence, How AI is Changing Your Customers, and Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. Audacious launched with the first AI-driven Augmented Reality book cover and reached #1 in Amazon’s marketing category. Founder and co-host of The Marketing Companion podcast and publisher of the {grow} marketing blog. Featured commentator and contributor across The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, CBS News, BBC, NPR, Wired, and Harvard Business Review. Keynote speaker at South by Southwest, the Institute for International and European Affairs, Marketing Summit Tokyo, and Social Media Week London; has lectured at Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton. Named the third-most influential digital marketing authority by Brand24 in 2025. Biography The cost of reaching a customer keeps rising while the trust those impressions buy keeps falling. Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins set out the argument that built much of Mark Schaefer’s reputation, that businesses are no longer built on advertising impressions but on human impressions that help customers believe, belong, and find meaning. It is used as assigned reading at more than 70 universities and has been translated into 20 languages. That argument has continued through Belonging to the Brand, which makes the case for community as the next durable marketing strategy, and Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, which examines brands like e.l.f. Beauty, HBO, and Giant Spoon to show how creative nerve, not algorithmic optimisation, captures attention in saturated markets. Audacious reached number one in Amazon’s marketing category and launched with what the publisher described as the first AI-driven Augmented Reality book cover. His authority is grounded in operating credentials, not commentary alone. Schaefer runs Schaefer Marketing Solutions and has consulted for Pfizer, Cisco, P&G, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Air Force. At Rutgers Business School, he is the Executive Education lecturer behind the Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing in the Age of AI, and he has lectured at Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton. He studied under Peter Drucker for three years, and the structural rigour of that lineage is visible in the way his frameworks are built. He also runs the infrastructure most marketing thinkers only write about. The Marketing Companion is one of the longer-running marketing podcasts in the field, and the {grow} blog has been a fixture in the discipline for over a decade. The result, for senior commercial audiences, is a speaker who treats marketing as a system and tests his arguments in public, every week, against an audience that includes practitioners and competitors. Key speaking topics Human-centred marketing strategy Brand community as a growth strategy AI in marketing and creative work Personal branding for executives and professionals Customer trust, loyalty, and the post-advertising buyer Content strategy and influence Cumulative advantage and competitive momentum Ideal for CMOs, brand directors, and heads of marketing rebuilding strategy around community and human connection. CEOs and commercial leaders questioning the ROI of paid-media-led growth plans. Heads of customer experience and digital who need to integrate AI without losing brand distinctiveness. Communications, PR, and corporate marketing leaders in regulated industries facing trust and credibility challenges. Audience outcomes A reframed view of where marketing value now sits: human impressions, community, and creative nerve over paid reach. Concrete case examples, including Sephora, e.l.f. Beauty, HBO, and Giant Spoon, that audiences can map against their own categories. A working position on how to use AI in marketing without becoming indistinguishable from competitors using the same tools. A clearer set of questions to bring back to brand, content, and customer experience teams about what they should stop funding. A vocabulary for talking to boards about brand and community as commercial assets, not soft costs.

Why organisations work with Mark Stevenson Two bestselling books, An Optimist’s Tour of the Future and We Do Things Differently, that don’t theorise innovation but document it on the ground across four continents. Senior leaders get evidence of what already works, not opinions about what should. Operating experience to back up the advice. Stevenson is Director of Strategy and Special Projects at soil health business Oath, writing from inside a venture of the kind he asks boards to study. Cross-domain advisory range from the UK Ministry of Defence on peace and national security, to Médecins Sans Frontières on climate strategy, to GSMA on purpose. Few advisors hold credibility across that spread of rooms. A working stance on uncertainty for leaders who can no longer rely on prediction. The “reluctant futurist” framing names the discomfort buyers feel about boardroom forecasting and offers something more useful in its place. Stagecraft from a comedy and music background that makes serious material land. He gets a sceptical or hostile room engaged without softening the argument. Biography highlights Author of An Optimist’s Tour of the Future (Profile Books, translated into 12 languages) and We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World Director of Strategy and Special Projects at soil health business Oath Co-founder of carbon removals firm CUR8 Global Ambassador for environmental law firm ClientEarth Former strategic advisor on peace, national security and climate change to the UK Ministry of Defence Has advised Médecins Sans Frontières (UK/Ireland) and the GSMA on long-term strategy Co-host of Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts podcast with comedian Jon Richardson and writer Ed Gillespie Biography Most boards still operate on a model of prediction. But the variables that shape strategy now move together and feed each other. Climate, geopolitics, technology and the failures of markets to price risk properly are not separate items on a register. They are aspects of the same problem. Mark Stevenson works the seam where senior leaders have to make confident decisions without the luxury of confident forecasts. His two books, An Optimist’s Tour of the Future and the bestselling We Do Things Differently, are field reports rather than theory. Both document the people and ventures actually rebuilding broken systems in education, energy, healthcare, food and finance. His advisory practice spans governments, NGOs, investors and multinational organisations, and covers ground few in this category can match. He has been strategic advisor on peace, national security and climate change to the UK Ministry of Defence. He is ‘Futurist without Borders’ for Médecins Sans Frontières (UK/Ireland), strategic advisor to the GSMA, and Global Ambassador for environmental law firm ClientEarth. Alongside that, he is Director of Strategy and Special Projects at soil health business Oath, working on systems change from inside a venture rather than commenting on it from the gallery. Some of this is lived. Stevenson’s understanding of leadership under uncertainty is also shaped by his own recovery from Complex-PTSD, an experience of leading through profound personal disorientation. It is part of why his keynotes treat the emotional and relational dimensions of change as seriously as the strategic ones, and why he is unusually direct about what it costs leaders to hold composure when the ground moves. Key speaking topics Systems change and systems literacy Strategic foresight under deep uncertainty Innovation in failing systems Future of technology and society Climate, democracy and market risk as connected challenges Storytelling and stagecraft for serious material Ideal for Senior leadership teams and boards Strategy, innovation and foresight functions Investors and capital allocators making long-horizon decisions Policy makers and public sector audiences Audience outcomes A way to look at climate, geopolitics, technology and trust in institutions as one problem rather than four Specific examples of innovators already rebuilding broken systems at scale, drawn from Stevenson’s own field research A working stance on uncertainty for leaders who can no longer rely on prediction-based planning A sharper view of where their organisation may be committing capital to outdated assumptions about how the world works

Why organisations work with Mark Wilkinson Pairs an operational safety credential, Chartered Member of the Institute of Safety and Health, with personality diversity practice through Equilibria’s E-Colours framework. That combination is unusual on the speaker circuit, where wellbeing voices rarely carry frontline safety standing. Translates personality difference into safety behaviour. The argument that an extroverted risk-taker and a cautious analyst will hear the same toolbox talk in opposite ways gives leaders a concrete way to redesign briefings, supervision and incident review. Lived recovery from collapse, addiction, bankruptcy and depression gives the resilience material first-hand authority. The story is supported by a published book, Life Remixed, endorsed by Bob Proctor and Marci Shimoff. Works comfortably across heavy industry, energy and corporate audiences, including engagements such as Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival, and adapts the same material for a leadership offsite or a frontline safety stand-down. Brings the production craft of a former Ministry of Sound resident DJ into the room. Music, video and live elements are part of the delivery, which lands with audiences who switch off during conventional keynotes. Biography highlights Chartered Member of the Institute of Safety and Health (CMIOSH) and Fellow of the Institute of Leadership (FIoL). Certified E-Colours personality diversity practitioner through Equilibria, working with leadership teams across energy, sport and corporate sectors. Author of Life Remixed: Looking Beyond The Dance To Face The Music, published 2021, with foreword endorsements from Bob Proctor and Marci Shimoff. Host of the Life Remixed podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Former international house music DJ with a Ministry of Sound residency, performances in 65 countries and a UK Top 10 chart entry as part of Dab Hands with the remix of Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love”. Speaker at Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival and across health, safety and leadership programmes for industrial and corporate clients. Biography Behavioural safety has a translation problem. Two people on the same site, given the same briefing, will walk away with different versions of what was said and different views of the risk in front of them. Wilkinson’s working argument is that personality difference is a structural variable in safety and engagement, not a soft factor to be managed around. He works that argument through Equilibria’s E-Colours framework, where he is a certified practitioner, and through his Chartered standing with the Institute of Safety and Health. The combination matters: the diagnostic of human difference is paired with operational health and safety credibility, which is what gives the work purchase in heavy industry and energy clients rather than only in leadership development settings. The personal story sits behind the professional one. A former Ministry of Sound resident DJ with a UK Top 10 chart credit, Wilkinson collapsed at 33 and lost income, home and relationship across an 18-month recovery. He rebuilt through health and safety work and personal development study, and wrote Life Remixed, endorsed by Bob Proctor and Marci Shimoff, as the account of that rebuild. For organisations, that biography is useful because it lets him hold a room of frontline operators and a room of senior leaders with the same material. The safety and personality work gives the talk its operational edge. The recovery narrative gives it the emotional weight that makes the safety message actually stick. Key speaking topics Behavioural safety and human factors Personality diversity in the workplace Resilience and personal recovery Mental wellbeing and mindset Leadership communication across personality types Engagement in high-risk operational environments Ideal for Heads of HSE, safety leadership teams and operational directors in energy, construction, aviation and manufacturing HR and culture leads designing engagement, wellbeing or behavioural change programmes Leadership and learning teams running offsites that need a credible voice on personal resilience Frontline conferences and toolbox events where a conventional academic keynote will lose the room Audience outcomes A working model for why the same safety message lands differently across a workforce and what to change about briefings as a result A vocabulary for personality difference that supervisors and team leads can use without specialist training A first-hand account of recovery from collapse and addiction that opens room for honest conversation about wellbeing A reframe of behavioural safety as a leadership and communication problem, not only a compliance one

Why organisations work with Martin Bayfield A rare first-hand account of operating inside two of England rugby’s most successful sides of the 1990s, including the 1992 Grand Slam squad and the 1993 Lions Test pack, told without sentimentality. Direct insight into how a career-ending neck injury reshapes identity, preparation and decision-making, and what that demands of leaders managing people through forced change. A serving police officer for much of his international career, which gives him a working understanding of accountability, public scrutiny and operating under formal command structures alongside elite sport. Two decades of broadcasting craft on ITV rugby, BT Sport and BBC One’s Crimewatch, which translates into a stage manner that holds a senior room rather than performing at it. One of the few keynote speakers who can move credibly between high-performance team sport, public service and major popular culture, with the Hagrid body-double work in the Harry Potter films sitting alongside the rugby record. Biography highlights 31 caps for England at lock; member of the 1992 Five Nations Grand Slam squad and the 1995 Rugby World Cup squad. Three Test appearances for the British and Irish Lions on the 1993 tour of New Zealand, partnering Martin Johnson in every Test. Club career at Bedford Blues and Northampton Saints; retired in 1998 after a neck injury sustained in a Northampton training session. Police service with the Metropolitan Police from 1985 to 1989, then with Bedfordshire Police. Author of A Very Tall Story, published by Simon and Schuster UK in 2022. Co-presenter of BBC One’s Crimewatch with Kirsty Young from 2012 to 2016; rugby presenter for ITV at the 2007 and 2011 Rugby World Cups, and for BT Sport and TNT Sports; body and stunt double for Hagrid in the Harry Potter films. Biography Most leadership stories about elite sport are told in highlight reel. The more useful version is what happens inside the squad on the days when the plan is failing, the body is hurt and the public verdict has already been written. Martin Bayfield played in that environment for most of the 1990s, winning 31 England caps and three Tests for the British and Irish Lions in New Zealand in 1993 alongside Martin Johnson. He did it while still a serving police officer, first with the Metropolitan Police and then with Bedfordshire Police, which gave him an unusual vantage point on accountability and command. The amateur era forced players to hold two careers at once, and Bayfield speaks about that compression with the directness of someone who lived it rather than the nostalgia of someone who reads about it. His playing career ended in February 1998 when a neck injury in a Northampton Saints training session closed the door overnight. The reinvention that followed is the part that resonates with senior audiences. Broadcasting work for ITV at the 2007 and 2011 Rugby World Cups, BT Sport and TNT Sports rugby coverage, four years co-presenting BBC One’s Crimewatch with Kirsty Young, and a parallel screen career that includes serving as Robbie Coltrane’s body and stunt double for Hagrid across the Harry Potter films. The 2022 memoir A Very Tall Story, published by Simon and Schuster, sets out the same material in his own voice: the shambolic last days of amateurism, the two Grand Slam squads, the players around him from Will Carling to Brian Moore, and what a sudden ending teaches about identity. For senior leadership audiences, that is the substance behind the talk. Key speaking topics High-performance team dynamics in elite sport Leadership under public scrutiny Career-ending change and personal reinvention Accountability inside high-trust groups Lessons from the British and Irish Lions and international rugby Communication and presence on camera Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and board strategy days focused on team performance under pressure Sales kick-offs and major customer events where a keynote also needs stage authority and humour After-dinner and conference dinner slots at gala formats where senior audiences expect substance with delivery Audience outcomes A specific account of how the 1993 Lions and Grand Slam-era England squads built trust and held discipline when results were in doubt. A grounded perspective on accountability drawn from playing and policing alongside one another. A useable frame for thinking about identity and reinvention after a forced career change. A senior-room reset on what high-performance teamwork actually looks like up close, separated from the cliches.

Why organisations work with Martin Brooks He has taught body language to leaders at Henley Business School, London Business School and Judge Business School, giving the content a teaching-grade structure that most communication coaches lack. His sales-leadership background means the work lands with commercial audiences who tend to dismiss communication coaching as soft skills. His Body Language Decoder gives delegates a reference artefact that travels back into the business after the session, not just a one-day boost. Broadcasters book him to analyse political and corporate figures live on air (BBC2, LBC, Discovery, The Times), which is a useful proxy for how quickly he can read a room. Clients including IBM, PwC, KPMG, Procter & Gamble and the Financial Times have used him for executive coaching, pitch preparation, and leadership development. Biography highlights Author of Body Language Decoder (Laurence King / Hachette, 2021). Teaches “Body Language for Leaders” at Henley Business School. Course Director at the Chartered Institute of Marketing since 2008. Founder of his communications consultancy in 2002, after a career in sales and sales leadership. Media commentator on body language for BBC Radio, LBC, BBC2 election coverage, Discovery Channel and The Times. Clients include IBM, PwC, KPMG, Procter & Gamble and the Financial Times. Biography Most leaders prepare what they will say in a high-stakes meeting and almost nothing about how they will appear while saying it. The asymmetry shows. Boards, investors and senior peers form judgements on credibility within seconds, and the data they use is mostly nonverbal. Martin Brooks works in that gap. He has run his own communication consultancy since 2002, after a career in sales and sales leadership where the cost of looking uncertain in front of a buyer was immediate and personal. That commercial origin shapes how he teaches. The work is not theatre training and not motivational, it is operator instruction on what hands, eyes, voice, and posture are doing while a leader argues a point. The teaching has institutional weight behind it. Brooks delivers “Body Language for Leaders” at Henley Business School and has taught at London Business School and Judge Business School. He has been a Course Director at the Chartered Institute of Marketing since 2008. His Body Language Decoder, published in 2021 by Laurence King, sits as a 50-card field reference that delegates use after the session. Broadcasters use him as the in-studio analyst for politicians and corporate leaders under pressure. He provided live analysis on Discovery Channel of Mark Zuckerberg’s US Senate testimony, has covered UK general elections on BBC2, and contributes to BBC Radio, LBC and The Times. For a senior buyer, that body of live, on-record reading is the best available evidence that what he teaches in the room actually works under fire. Key speaking topics Body language for senior leaders Executive presence and credibility on stage Nonverbal communication in high-stakes meetings Pitch and presentation coaching Reading political and business figures in real time Ideal for Executive committees and senior leadership teams preparing for investor, board or town-hall communication CEOs and C-suite leaders stepping into more public-facing roles Sales leadership and pitch teams running competitive bids Leadership development and high-potential programmes Audience outcomes A vocabulary for what their own body is signalling while they speak The ability to read confidence, hesitation and disagreement in a room before words confirm it Concrete adjustments to posture, gesture and eye contact that they can use the same week A reference artefact (the Body Language Decoder cards) for ongoing use post-session Sharper judgement on how political and corporate figures are performing under pressure

Why organisations work with Marverine Cole She has anchored live news under pressure for Sky News, 5 News, ITV and the BBC, and brings that discipline to stage hosting where the running order changes in the moment. Her Mind Media Award for Journalist of the Year, won for the BBC Radio 4 documentary Black Girls Don’t Cry, gives her standing to chair sessions on mental health, race and representation without sounding rehearsed. An honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University and a four-year stint running its undergraduate journalism courses mean she can interview senior leaders and academics on equal footing. As Britain’s first Black female accredited beer sommelier and BBC Good Food columnist, she opens unusual commercial routes for brand and consumer events where culture, lifestyle and gender intersect. Biography highlights Newsreader on ITV1’s Good Morning Britain; previous news anchor roles at Sky News (World News and Business Report), 5 News, BBC Midlands Today and ITV Central News Journalist of the Year, Mind Media Awards 2019, for the BBC Radio 4 documentary Black Girls Don’t Cry Honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University; former Director of Undergraduate Journalism courses, Birmingham School of Media (2018 to 2022) Britain’s first Black female accredited beer sommelier; resident beer columnist for BBC Good Food magazine Co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live; presenter on Classic FM; contributor to BBC Radio 1Xtra and BBC 5 Live Contributing essayist to Sir Lenny Henry’s 2021 book Black British Lives Matter; board member of Birmingham Royal Ballet and The Student View Biography Live broadcast craft is a narrow skill, and it sits at the centre of what flagship corporate events still need. Cole has spent more than two decades inside that craft, presenting news for Sky News, 5 News, ITV Central, BBC Midlands Today and now ITV1’s Good Morning Britain. Sky News audiences watched her front a five-hour overnight World News and Business Report bulletin, including coverage of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The journalism is not a sideline. Her BBC Radio 4 documentary Black Girls Don’t Cry, on the disproportionate mental health pressures facing Black women, won Journalist of the Year at the Mind Media Awards in 2019. She has produced and presented further work for BBC Radio 4 and BBC 1Xtra on female gambling addiction and on women in UK rap, and contributed an essay to Sir Lenny Henry’s Black British Lives Matter in 2021. Birmingham City University, where she trained as a broadcast journalist, brought her back as Director of Undergraduate Journalism courses from 2018 to 2022 and later awarded her an honorary doctorate. That academic spell shows in her interviewing: she frames questions for senior leaders without losing the audience in the room. The off-news work fills out the brief. She is Britain’s first Black female accredited beer sommelier and BBC Good Food magazine’s resident beer columnist, presents on Classic FM, and co-presents Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 with Reverend Richard Coles. For event organisers, that range translates into a host who can move from a board panel on workplace mental health to a brand showcase to a closing-night cultural conversation without changing register. Key speaking topics Event hosting, moderation and on-stage interviewing Awards ceremony presentation Mental health and Black women’s experience Race, representation and inclusion in media Women in broadcast journalism Consumer culture, lifestyle and the beer industry Birmingham, the Midlands and regional creative industries Ideal for Conference organisers commissioning a senior host for live, multi-track main-stage programmes DEI, wellbeing and ERG leaders running flagship internal events on race, mental health or women in the workplace Brand and consumer marketing teams hosting product launches, awards or media events Cultural and arts organisations seeking a credible chair for public conversations and panels Audience outcomes A live programme that holds energy through agenda changes, technical hitches and difficult guests Sharper, more candid contributions from senior panellists prompted by a journalistically trained interviewer A session on mental health or representation that lands with substance, drawn from her own reported work rather than secondhand framing A consistent on-brand voice across a multi-day event run by a single experienced anchor

Why organisations work with Maryam Moshiri She runs a room the way she runs a live bulletin: tight cues, sharp follow-ups, and the composure to absorb a technical fault or an off-script answer without the audience noticing. Sixteen years on BBC business programmes means she can hold her own with a CFO, a regulator or an aviation chief, and ask the second question that other moderators miss. As anchor of The World Today, she works daily across geopolitics, markets and policy, so she arrives briefed on the macro context a board audience already has in mind. She is interview-trained on senior business figures including Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings and Willie Walsh, which translates directly into chairing fireside sessions with the C-suite. Her register sits between BBC news authority and conversational warmth, which travels well across investor audiences, ministerial panels and internal leadership events. Biography highlights Chief Presenter, BBC News channel; one of five Chief Presenters appointed in 2023 to anchor the merged UK and international service. Lead presenter, The World Today with Maryam Moshiri, the BBC’s flagship international news programme since February 2024. Sixteen years as Lead Business Presenter on BBC News across World Business Report, Talking Business and Business Briefing. Royal Television Society nominee, Best News Presenter, 2017. BA Italian, University College London; postgraduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism, London College of Communication. Has interviewed Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings and Willie Walsh, and reported live across the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit and the pandemic. Biography The hardest moment in any corporate event is the unscripted one: a guest goes off message, a feed cuts, a minister gives a non-answer. Maryam Moshiri spends her working life in that moment. As a Chief Presenter on the BBC News channel, she anchors live international news for hours at a time, and the discipline she brings on stage is the same discipline a live gallery demands. Moshiri spent sixteen years as Lead Business Presenter on BBC News, fronting World Business Report, Talking Business and Business Briefing. She covered the economic aftermath of 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic, and interviewed business figures including Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings and Willie Walsh. That track record is what gives her credibility with finance, aviation and policy audiences. In February 2023 she was named one of five BBC Chief Presenters chosen to launch the corporation’s merged UK and international news channel. A year later she became the lead anchor of The World Today, the BBC’s flagship international evening programme, working daily across geopolitics, markets and culture. For corporate clients, the value is practical. She has chaired ministerial panels, C-suite summits and awards stages. She prepares like a journalist, not a host: research the brief, find the second question, give the audience a reason to stay in the room. Key speaking topics Conference and event hosting Panel moderation Awards nights and gala hosting Fireside interviews with senior leaders Internal leadership and town hall facilitation Business and economics commentary Geopolitics and international affairs Media training and on-camera coaching Ideal for Annual conferences, investor days and customer summits that need a chair who can hold a senior business audience. Awards ceremonies and gala dinners that want a recognised broadcaster on the main stage. Ministerial or policy panels that benefit from a journalist who can press, time and balance the room. Internal leadership events, town halls and CEO fireside formats. Audience outcomes A live event paced and controlled to the standard of a BBC bulletin. Senior guests interviewed past their talking points, with the room learning something new. Panels that move, with airtime distributed across speakers rather than dominated by one voice. Awards stages held together cleanly across hours of running order. A house-style of credibility that travels across business, policy and culture audiences.

Why organisations work with Matt Barbet A current Sky News anchor who can chair a CEO panel, run a town hall or moderate a board offsite at the standard of a national broadcast interview. Inside view from Freuds, where he advised executives and global figures on storytelling and on managing crises in real time, not in theory. Two decades of frontline reporting across BBC, ITV and Channel 5, including coverage of elections, conflict and natural disasters, which gives him a credible voice on how reputations break and recover. A second keynote on artificial intelligence that focuses on human judgement and authentic communication as the variables that matter when AI takes over routine output. Biography highlights Sky News anchor, hosting the Sunday 10am to 2pm programme since February 2024. Partner at Freuds, the London public relations firm, since 2018. Former anchor of Channel 5’s 5 News flagship 17:00 programme and co-presenter of ITV Breakfast’s Daybreak. Reporting career across BBC News, BBC Radio 1, ITV News and Channel 5 spanning more than twenty years. Covered major international stories including the 2010 Haiti earthquake and embedded reporting in Afghanistan. Cardiff University and Cardiff School of Journalism graduate. Biography A reputational crisis used to be a press office problem. It is now a board problem, with a clock measured in hours and an audience that includes regulators, investors, customers and staff watching the same feed at the same time. The leaders who navigate this well tend to share one quality, the ability to think clearly and communicate plainly while the noise is at its loudest. This is the territory Matt Barbet has worked in from both sides. As a Sky News anchor, and previously across BBC News, ITV and Channel 5, he has spent more than twenty years interviewing senior figures during the moments that define their organisations. As a partner at Freuds since 2018, he has sat on the other side of the table, advising executives and high-profile clients on how to prepare for those moments and how to recover from them. The dual vantage point is what makes him useful to a serious audience. He can describe what a newsroom sees during a developing story, what makes a spokesperson credible on camera, and where leaders most commonly lose control of a narrative. The reporting gives him the field examples. The Freuds work gives him the language of strategy and reputational risk. For most clients the commercial product is hosting. Barbet chairs conferences, moderates panels of senior executives and runs awards ceremonies and town halls at broadcast standard. The keynote material on crisis communications and on artificial intelligence sits alongside that work, anchored in the same craft of listening carefully and speaking clearly under pressure. Key speaking topics Crisis communications and reputational risk Leadership communication under media scrutiny Storytelling for senior executives Artificial intelligence and the human side of communication Conference hosting and panel moderation Frontline journalism and how news is made Ideal for CEOs, CCOs and communications directors preparing for reputational incidents Senior leadership teams running town halls, conferences or investor events that need broadcast-quality hosting Boards and executive committees commissioning a moderator for high-stakes panel sessions Awards ceremonies and flagship industry conferences Audience outcomes A clearer view of how a newsroom processes a developing story, and what that means for the speed of a corporate response. Specific examples of how senior figures hold or lose credibility on camera. A practical sense of how communications, legal and operational decisions interact during a live crisis. A point of view on where AI raises the value of direct human communication rather than reducing it.

Why organisations work with Matt Bishop He has run reputation for two of the most-watched teams in global sport, including through the spygate-era recovery at McLaren and the high-profile relaunch of Aston Martin F1 in 2021. Few comms leaders have operated at that level of public exposure. He brokered Sebastian Vettel’s BBC Question Time appearance on climate, the first time a Formula 1 World Champion debated sustainability on the programme. That is a worked example of using a star principal to advance a contested corporate position without losing either. As founder ambassador of Racing Pride, set up with Stonewall in 2019, he has translated DEI from policy language into action inside an industry that historically resisted it. His advocacy is operational, not declarative. He spent over a decade as a senior journalist, including eleven years editing F1 Racing magazine. He understands the room he is briefing because he sat in it. His current firm Diagonal Communications was built specifically for crisis, reputation and DEI counsel in high-stakes commercial environments, which is the lens he brings to a corporate audience. Biography highlights Chief Communications Officer, McLaren Racing, 2008 to 2017 Chief Communications Officer, Aston Martin F1 Team, 2021 and 2022 seasons Editor of F1 Racing magazine, 1996 to 2007, with monthly worldwide circulation around 1.25 million copies Founder ambassador of Racing Pride, established 2019 in collaboration with Stonewall Founder, Diagonal Communications, 2023, advising automotive and motorsport clients Author of the novel The Boy Made the Difference (2020) and co-author of Emerson Fittipaldi’s autobiography Emmo: a Racer’s Soul (2014) Biography A driver, a sponsor and a regulator can each move within hours of the same press conference. In Formula 1 the gap between reputation event and commercial consequence is unusually short, and the leaders inside the team have to make calls in that gap. Matt Bishop ran communications through that environment for almost fifteen years. He joined McLaren Racing as Chief Communications Officer in 2008 and stayed until 2017, a period that included some of the most contested reputational moments in the team’s modern history. He then took on the launch communications for W Series, the all-female single-seater championship, before returning to F1 in 2021 as Chief Communications Officer of the relaunched Aston Martin team. There he worked closely with Sebastian Vettel on climate advocacy, including arranging Vettel’s appearance on BBC Question Time in 2022. Before McLaren, Bishop edited F1 Racing magazine for eleven years, growing it to a monthly worldwide circulation of around 1.25 million copies and serving as Editorial Director of Haymarket Motorsport Publications. The journalism background matters because it shapes how he counsels principals: he has been on the receiving end of corporate communications and knows when it is working and when it is not. His advocacy work runs in parallel. In 2019 he co-founded Racing Pride with Stonewall to advance LGBTQ+ inclusion in motorsport, and his 2020 novel The Boy Made the Difference draws on his volunteering at London Lighthouse during the HIV/AIDS crisis. In 2023 he founded Diagonal Communications, a consultancy focused on crisis, reputation and inclusion counsel for automotive and motorsport clients. Key speaking topics Communications leadership in elite sport Crisis communications and reputation management LGBTQ+ inclusion in traditionally closed industries Diversity, equity and inclusion in motorsport Working with high-profile principals on contested issues Sustainability communication and climate advocacy Media strategy under public scrutiny Ideal for Chief Communications Officers, Heads of Corporate Affairs and CMOs facing high-stakes reputation events CHROs and DEI leads in industries where inclusion has historically been resisted Boards and executive teams briefing public-facing principals on contested topics Sponsorship, partnership and brand teams operating in or alongside elite sport Audience outcomes A clear view of how reputation decisions get made under live public pressure, drawn from inside two F1 teams A working sense of how to brief a high-profile principal on a contested issue without losing the principal or the position Specific examples of inclusion moving from policy to practice in an industry that resisted it A sharper read on the relationship between media operations, sponsor expectation and team performance Language and structure for crisis communications that can be used the same week

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