Storytelling & Business Communication speakers

Why organisations work with Nina Moghaddam Two decades of live broadcast and corporate event hosting across Super RTL, RTL, RTLZWEI, ProSieben, VOX, Sat.1 and WDR, including current presentation of Lokalzeit OWL and the consumer affairs programme Servicezeit on WDR. Fluent in six languages (German, English, French, Spanish, Farsi and Mandarin), which means she can hold a multilingual room without flipping to translation. Particularly useful for international audiences and for German-Persian programmes. A corporate moderation portfolio across automotive, FMCG, foundation and public-sector clients. Includes Audi, Porsche, MAN, FERRERO, the Liz Mohn Stiftung at Bertelsmann (Zeitenwende on tour) and the City of Cologne (Viva la Green). A personal sustainability practice running back to 2014 (her HappyAndFitDIY YouTube channel, focused on homemade sustainable beauty products), which gives her honest footing on climate-themed agendas without playing the substantive expert. Works as a Moderationstrainerin, coaching others in presentation and moderation craft. For internal events, this means she can prep speakers and panel chairs ahead of the day, not only host the room. Biography highlights Current presenter of Lokalzeit OWL on WDR (since February 2024) and Servicezeit on WDR (since 2025). Two-decade run as a presenter on Super RTL, RTL and RTLZWEI, including Toggo TV, WOW Die Entdeckerzone, Kiddy Contest, Deutschland sucht den Superstar Das Magazin, Das Supertalent Backstage, and Wohnen nach Wunsch Das Haus on VOX. Adolf-Grimme-Preis nominee in 2005 (Spezial category) for her work on Super RTL’s youth programming. Studied Regional Studies East Asia (China focus) at the University of Cologne. Speaks German, English, French, Spanish, Farsi and Mandarin. Corporate event portfolio includes Audi, Porsche, MAN, REWE Group, FERRERO, Vodafone, UNESCO, the Liz Mohn Stiftung at Bertelsmann (Zeitenwende on tour) and the City of Cologne (Viva la Green). Operates the HappyAndFitDIY YouTube channel since 2014, focused on homemade and sustainable beauty products. Also coaches presenters as a Moderationstrainerin. Biography Most corporate sustainability programmes share the same failure mode: a celebrity host who introduces but cannot moderate, and a panel that reverts to talking points by question two. The organisations doing this work seriously want a different kind of room, one where a host knows the territory well enough to ask the right second question. Moghaddam has spent more than twenty years on German live television. She presented Toggo TV, WOW and Kiddy Contest on Super RTL in the early 2000s, work that earned her a Grimme-Preis nomination in 2005. From there she moved to RTL, anchoring the backstage magazines for Deutschland sucht den Superstar and Das Supertalent. She now presents Lokalzeit OWL and Servicezeit on WDR. That broadcast spine carries into a corporate setting. Live television teaches four habits: hold a drifting panel, keep an executive answer crisp, recover from a missed cue, and never let the room feel the strain. Her client list reflects where this lands: Audi, Porsche, MAN, FERRERO, REWE Group, UNESCO and the City of Cologne (Viva la Green). Foundation work includes Zeitenwende on tour for the Liz Mohn Stiftung at Bertelsmann. Her sustainability footing comes from personal practice. She has run the HappyAndFitDIY YouTube channel since 2014, focused on homemade sustainable beauty products, which gives her honest credibility on climate-themed agendas. The booking is for moderation craft. Senior corporate audiences on values-led programmes get a host who has run live television for two decades and works in six languages including Farsi and Mandarin. Key speaking topics Corporate event moderation and hosting Awards ceremonies and gala moderation Sustainability and conscious consumption Climate-themed corporate programmes Multilingual and cross-cultural events Presentation and moderation coaching Ideal for Sustainability summits, ESG awards programmes, climate-themed corporate forums and foundation-led panels needing a moderator with broadcast credibility and topical fluency International or multilingual corporate gatherings with German, English, French, Spanish, Farsi or Mandarin audiences CHRO, Head of Communications, and CSR/Foundation leads commissioning senior-audience programmes where the moderator has to do real work Awards ceremonies, gala dinners and after-dinner programmes for German-speaking corporate audiences Audience outcomes A programme that finishes on time, with senior speakers having said what they came to say Honest panel exchanges that do not drift into talking points, because the moderator pushes when a question gets dodged Broadcast-quality opening and closing that hold the room without feeling like corporate set-piece Content delivered cleanly across language groups, including mixed German-English audiences and wider international rooms

Why organisations work with Oliver Kamm He has lived on both sides of the analyst’s desk. Twenty years at the Bank of England, HSBC Securities and Commerzbank Securities, then sixteen years and counting writing The Times leaders on economics and foreign affairs. He reads the data the way a strategist does and frames it the way an editor does. His weekly Times economics column is a primary reference point for British policy debate, which means audiences are hearing the same analysis Westminster, the City and Whitehall are reading the next morning. Authored Accidence Will Happen, endorsed by Steven Pinker as “a unique and indispensable guide to usage”, a credential that signals the rigour he brings to argument and language as well as numbers. He moves cleanly between keynote, panel moderation and after-dinner formats, which lets a single booking cover macro briefing, on-stage interrogation of a CEO and a sharper closing address. Biography highlights Leader writer and columnist at The Times since 2008, covering economics and international affairs. Twenty-year City career: Bank of England, HSBC Securities (European Equity Strategist), Commerzbank Securities (Head of Strategic Research) and founder of WMG Advisors LLP. Author of Anti-Totalitarianism (Social Affairs Unit, 2005), Accidence Will Happen (W&N, 2015) and Mending the Mind (2021). Regular contributor on Newsnight, The Today Programme, Channel 4 News, The Daily Politics, Radio 5 Live and Sky News. Bylines in The Guardian, Prospect, The New York Times and The Jewish Chronicle. Educated at New College, Oxford and Birkbeck College, University of London. Biography The case for booking a serious economics voice for a senior audience usually comes down to translation. Boards are not short of data. They are short of a credible reader of the data who can take a position without flinching, and explain it in language a non-economist will repeat in a meeting the next day. That is the role Kamm has occupied at The Times since 2008. He writes a twice-weekly economics column and is the paper’s principal leader writer on economics and international affairs, which means his analysis sits inside the daily editorial line of one of the few British newspapers still read across Westminster, the City and Whitehall. Before journalism he spent two decades inside the markets he now writes about. Bank of England, HSBC Securities as European Equity Strategist, Commerzbank Securities as Head of Strategic Research, then WMG Advisors LLP, which he founded in 2004. The City background shapes how he reads policy. Capital flows, currency exposure and the actual mechanics of investment decisions are not abstractions when he speaks about them. He is also a working author outside economics. Accidence Will Happen, his 2015 guide to English usage drawn from his Times “Pedant” column, was praised by Steven Pinker for relying on “scholarship rather than dogma”. Mending the Mind followed in 2021. The range matters: it is the reason he holds a room as moderator or after-dinner speaker as confidently as he does in a macro keynote. Key speaking topics Global economy and macro outlook International politics and policy The British economy and public policy Markets, capital flows and the City Media, journalism and editorial judgement Language, communication and clear writing Ideal for Boards and executive committees taking capital allocation or geographic-exposure decisions under macro and geopolitical uncertainty CFOs, treasurers and risk leads briefing internal audiences on the British and global outlook Conference programme owners needing one person to keynote, moderate the CEO panel and close the dinner Audience outcomes A clear, defensible read of the current macro and geopolitical picture, framed for non-economists A working sense of which signals in financial markets and policy actually matter for the year ahead Sharper questions to ask of internal economics and strategy briefings Confidence in the editorial framing of the company’s own external communication on economics and policy

Why organisations work with Omar Johnson He has a documented commercial result at the scale most marketers will never reach: Beats by Dre from $20 million to $2 billion, acquired by Apple for $3 billion. He is operating, not reminiscing. As founder of Øpus Intelligence, he is currently applying generative AI to cultural relevance for clients including Nissan, the NBA 2K League, and NFL franchises. He built the campaigns marketing teams still study: the 2012 Beats Olympics athlete play that drove a 600% international sales lift, and the “Straight Outta Somewhere” meme generator that reached over a billion people on a near-zero media budget. He gives senior marketing leaders a working model for cultural relevance as a commercial discipline, with named brand cases from Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, and Kraft, rather than agency-side theory. Biography highlights Former Chief Marketing Officer, Beats by Dre, and former Vice President of Marketing, Apple. Led Beats from $20 million to over $2 billion in revenue, culminating in the $3 billion acquisition by Apple in 2014. Founder of ØPUS United and founder of Øpus Intelligence, a generative AI platform for cultural relevance, with clients including Nissan, NBA 2K League, Tennessee Titans, and Minnesota Vikings. Author of “Dear White Corporate America,” following a full-page New York Times open letter on racial equity in June 2020. Named “Brand Genius” by Adweek and one of the “Most Innovative CMOs” by Business Insider. Earlier marketing leadership across Nike (including campaigns with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant), Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and Campbell Soup. MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Biography Beats by Dre grew from $20 million to more than $2 billion in revenue in four years and was acquired by Apple for $3 billion in 2014. Omar Johnson was the third employee through the door and the Chief Marketing Officer who built the brand engine that made the trajectory possible. The case studies have lasted longer than the headphones themselves. At the 2012 Olympics, instead of paying for sponsor rights, Beats put national-flag headphones on athletes through a private lounge, lifting international sales by 600%. In 2015, the “Straight Outta Somewhere” meme generator reached over a billion people on a near-zero media budget. Both built category leadership through cultural participation, not paid reach. After Apple, Johnson founded ØPUS United, a brand management firm, and then Øpus Intelligence, a generative AI platform that productises cultural relevance for marketers. Live clients include Nissan, the NBA 2K League, and NFL franchises, with a 2025 partnership with Sundial Media (parent of ESSENCE, Refinery29, AFROPUNK) extending the model further into culture media. His earlier career across Nike, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and Campbell Soup gave him the inside view of large brand systems; his post-Apple work gives him the operator’s view of what is breaking in them now. Adweek named him a Brand Genius. Business Insider named him one of the Most Innovative CMOs. His 2020 New York Times open letter, “My Open Letter to White Corporate America,” became the book “Dear White Corporate America.” Key speaking topics Brand building and category leadership Marketing strategy and growth Cultural relevance as a commercial discipline Generative AI in marketing and brand management Customer experience and brand authenticity Storytelling and creative campaign design Ideal for CMOs, brand directors, and senior marketing leadership teams CEO and executive committee offsites where growth depends on brand strength Consumer, retail, sports, media, and entertainment audiences Innovation, creative, and customer experience functions exploring AI in marketing Audience outcomes A working definition of cultural relevance that can be applied to a brand plan, not a slogan Named campaign cases (Beats Olympics, Straight Outta Somewhere, Nike commercials with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant) used to illustrate how cultural participation beats paid reach A current view from inside a generative AI marketing platform on what the technology actually changes for brand teams A direct provocation to senior leaders on authenticity, representation, and the commercial cost of getting either wrong

Why organisations work with Padma Lakshmi Her seven-year documentary project across immigrant and Indigenous communities in America (the foundation of both Taste the Nation and the 2025 Knopf cookbook Padma’s All American) gives her argument about diversity and belonging an evidential weight that most cultural voices cannot offer. Her DEI perspective is not theoretical: she co-founded an organisation that passed state legislation and helped establish the first interdisciplinary gynepathology research centre in the US, at MIT, demonstrating what sustained, policy-level advocacy actually produces. As UNDP Goodwill Ambassador and ACLU Artist Ambassador, she operates at a level of formal institutional credibility that separates her from celebrity advocates; she has testified, lobbied, and built coalitions, not just spoken. She offers one of the few genuinely non-confrontational pathways into difficult conversations about immigration, identity, and women’s health – using food as the entry point makes these subjects accessible in rooms where they are otherwise contested. Named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People and recipient of the UNCA Advocate of the Year Award, she brings independent, multi-sector validation that extends well beyond the entertainment industry. Biography highlights Host and executive producer of Bravo’s Top Chef for 19 seasons; four-time Emmy nominee as Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program Creator, host, and executive producer of Hulu’s Taste the Nation; James Beard Foundation Award winner, Visual Media – Long Form (2022) Author of Padma’s All American (Knopf, 2025), named a Best Cookbook of 2025 by the Washington Post and Boston Globe; New York Times bestselling author of memoir Love, Loss, and What We Ate and children’s book Tomatoes for Neela Co-founder, EndoFound; instrumental in establishing the first US interdisciplinary gynepathology research facility (Harvard Medical School and MIT joint project) and passing New York State Senate legislation on teen health education Visiting scholar, MIT Center for Gynepathology research UNDP Goodwill Ambassador; ACLU Artist Ambassador; TIME 100 Most Influential People (2023); UNCA Advocate of the Year (2021) Biography When organisations talk about inclusion, the conversation often stalls at the data. Padma Lakshmi has spent two decades building a different kind of argument; one that begins at the dinner table. As creator and host of Hulu’s Taste the Nation, she spent seven years embedded in immigrant and Indigenous communities across America, documenting how culinary traditions carry identity, history, and a sense of belonging that policy language rarely captures. The 2025 Knopf cookbook Padma’s All American, named a Best Cookbook of the year by the Washington Post and Boston Globe, extends that fieldwork into a mainstream cultural and business conversation: that diversity is not a management challenge to be solved but a generative force that shapes every aspect of how people live and work. Her advocacy has produced verifiable institutional outcomes. In 2009 she co-founded EndoFound, which helped establish the first interdisciplinary gynepathology research facility in the US – a joint Harvard Medical School and MIT project – and successfully drove legislation through the New York State Senate on teenage health education. She holds a visiting scholar appointment at MIT’s Center for Gynepathology Research. As UNDP Goodwill Ambassador and ACLU Artist Ambassador, she operates at the intersection of cultural influence and formal policy rather than occupying the softer territory of celebrity activism. For leadership teams where DEI initiatives have plateaued, or where women’s health and workplace wellbeing require a more credible and personal voice, Lakshmi’s combination of documentary rigour, scientific partnership, policy track record, and media reach offers something genuinely difficult to replicate. Key speaking topics Cultural identity and immigrant experience in America Diversity, equity, and inclusion through lived narrative Women’s health advocacy and public health policy Food, storytelling, and cross-cultural connection Using platform and media for social and civic impact Representation and belonging in public life Ideal for CHROs and people leaders seeking a non-confrontational, narrative-led entry into DEI at company-wide events Boards and executive teams navigating the political and cultural dimensions of workforce diversity Consumer, hospitality, or media brands whose audiences span diverse cultural communities Organisations with active women’s health or workplace wellbeing commitments seeking credible, policy-informed voices Audience outcomes A reframing of diversity from institutional obligation to cultural asset – grounded in specific, documented community experience rather than theory Deeper understanding of how immigrant and Indigenous communities shape the cultural contexts organisations operate in Practical perspective on what sustained advocacy – from grassroots education to legislative success – actually requires Greater awareness of women’s health as a workplace issue with measurable productivity and retention implications A model for using storytelling and platform to make complex social arguments land with mainstream audiences

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 Paolo Petrocelli He runs a flagship cultural institution and can speak to the operating discipline behind cultural ambition, not the slogan version. His work in cultural diplomacy is recognised by named bodies that buyers respect: the World Economic Forum, the Italian Republic, the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, UNESCO. He bridges Europe and the Gulf at a moment when both regions are rewriting their cultural and economic positioning, and he has executive experience inside that bridge. He is a credible voice on how youth, talent, and creative capital flow internationally, with a track record of building institutions that move those flows in practice. Biography highlights Head of Dubai Opera since 2023. Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum, Class of 2023. Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Founder and President of EMMA for Peace; co-founder of Opera for Peace. PhD, IULM Milan; Executive MBA, SDA Bocconi; Oxford Executive Leadership Programme, Said Business School. Author of The Evolution of Opera Theatre in the Middle East and North Africa, Cambridge Scholars Publishing; research affiliate at metaLAB at Harvard; Forbes contributor and TEDx speaker. Biography Dubai Opera is the kind of asset a city builds when it wants to be taken seriously on the international stage. Running it is closer to running an embassy than running a theatre. The person commissioning a season is making decisions about national positioning, talent attraction, and the symbolic capital of a place. Petrocelli took over the institution in 2023, after building EMMA for Peace into one of the better-known music-diplomacy platforms operating between Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader the same year. His earlier book on the evolution of opera theatres in the MENA region, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, is one of the few serious surveys of cultural infrastructure across a region now investing heavily in it. The credential set is unusual. A PhD in cultural economics from IULM Milan and an Executive MBA from SDA Bocconi sit alongside an Oxford Executive Leadership certificate from Said Business School and a research affiliation at metaLAB at Harvard. He has held cultural diplomacy roles for the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates and within UNESCO-aligned youth structures. The Italian state has knighted him in the Order of Merit. What makes him commercially distinctive is the combination of operating responsibility and diplomatic standing. Most cultural strategists write about soft power from outside it. He runs one of its more visible instruments while sitting on the platforms that shape policy around it. Key speaking topics Cultural diplomacy and soft power Leadership of mission-driven cultural institutions Culture, creative industries and global development The Gulf, Europe and the new geography of cultural capital Music and the arts in international relations Youth, talent and the future of cultural leadership Cultural strategy for nations, cities and corporates Ideal for Government and city leaders working on cultural positioning, place branding, or soft-power strategy Boards and CEOs of foundations, sponsors, and corporates with serious cultural portfolios Heads of public affairs, communications, and brand who treat culture as strategy rather than sponsorship Senior leaders in international organisations and diplomatic services working on cultural cooperation Audience outcomes A clearer view of why culture has become a strategic asset for nations, cities and major brands A working sense of how cultural institutions actually run, and where ambition fails in execution Specific examples of soft power and music diplomacy as instruments of international standing A read on where the centre of gravity in global culture is shifting, and what it means for talent, capital, and policy

Why organisations work with Paris Norriss The Grit Code gives organisations a repeatable method for developing resilience: not a motivational moment, but a structured framework built from both extreme first-hand experience and interviews with more than 50 documented high performers. It can be applied, not just felt. His source material is verified broadcast content. The adventures Paris describes are not anecdotes: they are documented on productions distributed via Amazon Prime and Apple TV. When the Pacific storm or the 40-foot wave hits, no one questions whether the stakes were real. He draws a distinction most resilience speakers do not: between teams that perform well when conditions are manageable and teams that hold when those conditions break down. The gap between the two is where most organisational performance is actually lost. His career spans investment banking, media production, and extreme endurance sport, which means he can translate the mechanics of sustained performance directly into commercial and operational terms, without forcing the adventure metaphor. His speaking record runs from the US Military in Hawaii to DHL in Athens to COP28 in Dubai. The breadth of context is itself evidence that The Grit Code’s framework transfers across sector, culture, and seniority level. Biography highlights Creator of The Grit Code, a structured resilience framework built from extreme endurance experience and research with more than 50 high performers Rowed 4,800km across the Pacific Ocean (California to Hawaii) with the Brothers N Oars team over 39 days (2023), raising funds for the Blue Marine Foundation and the Invictus Games Completed the World Marathon Challenge: 7 marathons on 7 continents in 5 days and 21 hours (2025), having previously run a single marathon Host and Executive Producer of “Guy in Dubai” and “Guy in the Sky,” distributed on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, OSN, and Emirates Airlines across more than 120 countries Founder of Blazing Sand Studios (formerly GID Media Production), an Abu Dhabi-based production company established in 2017 Regular contributor to Dubai Eye radio; business columnist for The National MA (Hons), Business Studies (Finance), University of Edinburgh; earlier career in investment banking and private equity Biography Most organisations discover they have a resilience problem not during planning but when things go wrong. A skilled, well-resourced team will perform competently under normal conditions. Whether that same team can sustain judgement, cohesion, and output when conditions break down is a different question: and one that most leadership development programmes never directly test. Paris Norriss has spent a decade answering it under conditions where the cost of failure was not theoretical. In 2023 he rowed 4,800 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean with the Brothers N Oars team over 39 days: navigating two storms, 40-foot waves, and a near-collision with a cargo ship. In 2025, having previously run a single marathon, he completed the World Marathon Challenge across seven continents in 5 days and 21 hours. The experiences are not the argument. The argument is what they required: a decision-making framework that holds when resources, morale, and conditions are all working against you. The Grit Code is that framework. Structured from both Paris’s own extreme experiences and interviews with more than 50 high performers, it gives organisations a repeatable method for developing the mental durability that sustains performance under real pressure. Paris has applied it across audiences spanning the US Military, DHL, Nokia, and COP28; contexts with little in common except the fundamental challenge of keeping a team functional when nothing is going to plan. His parallel career as founder of Blazing Sand Studios and executive producer of “Guy in Dubai” and “Guy in the Sky”, distributed on Amazon Prime and Apple TV across more than 120 countries, separates him from other speakers working in the same space. He has not merely survived extreme experiences; he has spent a career converting them into narrative form for mass audiences. That capacity to distil high-stakes experience into something transferable and usable is precisely what The Grit Code delivers in an organisational setting. Key speaking topics Mental resilience and performance under pressure Team cohesion in high-stakes environments Leadership in adversity Decision-making under stress The Grit Code framework for building organisational resilience Visual storytelling and narrative in business Adventure filmmaking and destination media Ideal for Leadership and senior management teams preparing for high-pressure transformation, restructuring, or sustained competitive pressure Sales, operations, and commercial teams where consistent output under difficult conditions is a performance priority HR and L&D leaders looking to embed resilience as a systemic organisational capability rather than a wellbeing initiative Conference organisers serving Gulf, Middle East, and international markets seeking a speaker with verified regional credibility and global media distribution Audience outcomes A working definition of grit as a learnable, structured capability – not a fixed personality trait Practical tools for identifying the internal motivational triggers that determine how individuals perform under sustained adversity A clear framework for distinguishing teams that hold under pressure from teams that only perform when conditions are favourable Insight into the mechanics of leadership and decision-making during the specific period when resources, morale, and conditions are all depleted simultaneously Understanding of how internal purpose and motivational alignment sustain team output beyond the point where conventional incentives and management techniques lose traction

Why organisations work with Patrick Chappatte He has spent thirty years drawing on deadline for serious newspapers, including a two-decade run for The New York Times International Edition. That gives audiences a reading of global affairs that almost no other speaker can offer: not commentary about journalism, but the work itself, performed live. He is the only non-American to win the Overseas Press Club of America’s Thomas Nast Award, and he has won it three times. That is the senior credential in his field and it is verifiable from a named external body. He chairs the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, founded with Kofi Annan and Jean Plantu. That places him at the centre of the international press freedom conversation in a way few keynote speakers can match. His live-drawing format gives a room something it rarely has: an unrepeatable visual record of the conversation, produced in real time. It works as keynote, as conference closer, and as graphic facilitation of a leadership meeting. He brings firsthand graphic reportage from Gaza, Nairobi, Central America, death row in the United States, and Silicon Valley. The material is specific, not generic, and gives a corporate audience an honest view of issues it normally only reads about. Biography highlights In-house editorial cartoonist for The New York Times International Edition, 2001 to 2019. Three-time winner of the Overseas Press Club of America Thomas Nast Award (2011, 2015, 2018); the only non-American to have done so. Current publications include The Boston Globe, Le Canard enchaine, La Tribune Dimanche, Le Temps and NZZ am Sonntag. Honorary Doctorate from EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), awarded 2022. Named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2006. Chairs the Geneva-based Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, which awards the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award. Two TED talks: “The power of cartoons” (2010) and “A free world needs satire” (2019). Biography The New York Times stopped running political cartoons in its international edition in 2019. Patrick Chappatte had drawn there twice a week since 2001. He used the moment to argue, in a TED talk that has since been viewed millions of times, that a free press needs satire, and that the retreat from cartooning is one of the quieter signals of where public discourse is heading. That argument is grounded in three decades of work on serious deadlines. Chappatte’s drawings appear in The Boston Globe, Le Canard enchaine, La Tribune Dimanche, Le Temps, and NZZ am Sonntag. He has won the Overseas Press Club of America’s Thomas Nast Award three times, in 2011, 2015 and 2018, the only non-American to have done so. EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2022. He is also a pioneer of graphic journalism. Since 1995 he has produced long-form comics reportage from Gaza, the Nairobi slums, Central American gang territory, death row in the United States, and Silicon Valley. His 2009 work on cluster munitions in southern Lebanon became an animated documentary that aired on Swiss and French television. The Inside Death Row series, produced with the journalist Anne-Frederique Widmann for the Times in 2016, remains one of the most cited examples of the form. Chappatte chairs the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation in Geneva, founded with Kofi Annan and the French cartoonist Jean Plantu. The foundation awards the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award. For senior audiences, he draws live, in real time, against the conversation in the room, and uses that work as the basis for an argument about why visual thinking, satire, and free expression matter to organisations that operate in contested public space. Key speaking topics Press freedom and the corporate stake in free expression Visual thinking and graphic journalism Satire as a method for engaging contested issues Live-drawing keynotes and conference closers Global affairs through the lens of a working editorial cartoonist Democracy, polarisation and the limits of public discourse Ideal for Annual conferences and leadership offsites looking for a closing keynote that produces a visible record of the day Editorial, communications and brand leadership teams working through reputational risk on contested public issues Boards and senior groups examining geopolitics, democratic backsliding, and the limits of corporate speech Media, publishing and creative organisations engaging with the future of journalism Audience outcomes A clearer view of why satire and visual journalism still matter inside serious organisations, drawn from a working practitioner A live visual record of the session that can be used afterwards as a communication asset A sharper feel for how global affairs read from outside an American or Anglo-Saxon frame A grounded argument for why free expression is now a corporate risk question, not only a civic one

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 Paula Stone Williams A first-person comparative account of professional life as a senior man and a senior woman, drawing on lived experience that almost no other speaker can offer at the executive level. A memoir published by Simon & Schuster (As a Woman, 2021), four TED talks with combined viewership over nine million, and sustained coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR and CNN. Substantive content on the mechanics of allyship for male leaders, framed as a practical capability rather than a values statement. A speaker who can address gender equity and LGBTQ+ inclusion in the same keynote without flattening either, useful to organisations where these conversations are usually held in separate rooms. Biography highlights Author of As a Woman: What I Learned About Power, Sex, and the Patriarchy After I Transitioned (Simon & Schuster, 2021), optioned by Cannonball Productions for a limited series. Co-author of She’s My Dad with her son Jonathan Williams. TED, TEDWomen, TEDSummit and TEDxMileHigh speaker; four talks with combined viewership over nine million. Featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN, ABC Primetime News, Good Morning America, People Magazine and Red Table Talk. Pastor of preaching and worship at Left Hand Church, Longmont, Colorado. Pastoral counselor with RLT Pathways; doctorate in counseling. Biography Most workplace gender equity programmes are designed by people who have only ever held authority inside one set of expectations. Paula Stone Williams has held senior roles as both a man and a woman, and her keynote work is built on the comparative material that produced. The argument is empirical rather than rhetorical: the same person, the same competence, two markedly different professional experiences. Her memoir As a Woman: What I Learned About Power, Sex, and the Patriarchy After I Transitioned was published by Simon & Schuster in 2021 and has been optioned by Cannonball Productions. Her TED, TEDWomen, TEDSummit and TEDxMileHigh talks have together passed nine million views. The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN, Good Morning America and People Magazine have covered her work. Alongside the keynote practice she is a pastoral counselor with RLT Pathways and pastor of preaching and worship at Left Hand Church in Longmont, Colorado. The counseling background shapes how she handles the room, which matters in this subject area; audiences leave with material they can act on rather than only feelings they have processed. The most useful thing she gives a corporate audience is a precise account of how allyship behaves in practice. Male leaders who want to support women and LGBTQ+ colleagues are often unsure what the substantive ask actually is. Williams names it directly, with examples, and treats it as a capability that can be learned. Key speaking topics Workplace gender equity LGBTQ+ inclusion in corporate environments Allyship as a practical capability for senior leaders Authority, voice and credibility across gender Storytelling and narrative communication Resilience through identity and career change Bridging cultural and religious divides Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads designing substantive inclusion work after initial awareness programmes. Senior leadership offsites where male executives are the intended audience for an allyship conversation. Women’s leadership networks and ERGs commissioning an external voice on workplace parity. Universities, professional services firms and faith-adjacent institutions navigating LGBTQ+ inclusion under public scrutiny. Audience outcomes A first-person frame of reference for how authority is extended differently to men and women in the same senior role. A concrete vocabulary for what allyship looks like inside a meeting, a hiring decision and a promotion conversation. A view of LGBTQ+ inclusion grounded in lived experience rather than abstract policy language. Material that male leaders, in particular, can repeat back to their teams without feeling they are reciting a script.

Why organisations work with Pellegrino Riccardi His TEDxBergen talk on cross-cultural communication has been viewed nearly two million times – giving him a level of pre-built credibility and independent reach that few speakers in this space can point to before they walk on stage. He does not study cultural difference from the outside. Born in the UK to Italian parents and living in Norway since 1995, he has navigated three distinct cultural systems from the inside – a quality of embedded perspective that changes what his audiences trust him to know. His “Six Basic Human Needs” framework gives leadership teams a diagnostic for why motivation and engagement falter in multicultural environments – not a generalisation about national character, but a universal human model applied precisely to the point where cultural difference becomes organisational friction. He makes the Nordic workplace model legible and actionable for global organisations – addressing a specific and growing gap for multinationals operating in, entering, or partnering with Scandinavian markets. Named Norwegian Speaker of the Year by Talerlisten in 2020, selected from more than 600 national nominees, and a finalist in both 2021 and 2022 – a competitive national award that reflects consistent delivery rather than a single strong appearance. Biography highlights Norwegian Speaker of the Year 2020 (Talerlisten); finalist 2021 and 2022 – selected from a field of more than 600 national nominees Three TEDx talks; TEDxBergen cross-cultural communication talk approaching two million views Two Master’s degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oslo; additional qualifications in psychology, NLP, and pedagogy Author of Drowning Quietly: Memoir of a Man’s Shortcomings (Greenleaf Book Group, 2022) Regular commentator on Norwegian national television on culture and immigration Client work spans Merck, Skanska, DNB, IKEA, IBM, BP, ExxonMobil, and the European Commission Biography Most cross-cultural training starts with the other culture. Pellegrino Riccardi starts with you. His central argument – that misunderstanding in multicultural teams rarely begins with ignorance of another culture, but with the unchecked assumptions you carry about your own – has reached nearly two million people through his TEDxBergen talk alone. It is not an academic position. It is a practitioner’s diagnosis, sharpened over three decades of working with organisations where the gap between cultural intent and daily reality was costing them real performance. Riccardi was born in the UK to Italian immigrant parents and has been based in Norway since 1995. He is not a consultant who has studied these three cultural systems – he has lived inside all of them. That distinction is audible in the room. His definition of culture, “a system of behavior that helps us act in an accepted or familiar way,” is deliberately simple: it is designed to move the conversation from observation to self-examination, fast. For senior leaders who have sat through cultural awareness sessions and left unchanged, the shift in entry point matters. His frameworks give organisations something to work with after the session. The Six Basic Human Needs – which he describes as the human batteries that determine whether people bring their full energy to work – and the Three Human Drives give teams a shared language for diagnosing disengagement that does not reduce to personality or politics. He holds two Master’s degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oslo, with further qualifications in psychology, NLP, and pedagogy, and appears regularly on Norwegian national television as a commentator on culture and integration. In 2020 he was named Norwegian Speaker of the Year by Talerlisten from a field of more than 600 national nominees – a recognition he followed with finalist standings in both 2021 and 2022. His memoir Drowning Quietly (Greenleaf Book Group, 2022) extends his examination of human identity and behaviour beyond the professional context. His organisational client list includes Merck, Skanska, DNB, IKEA, IBM, BP, ExxonMobil, and the European Commission. Key speaking topics Cross-cultural communication and workplace dynamics Corporate culture and culture transformation Nordic workplace values and leadership mindsets Employee motivation and human engagement Multicultural team performance Change, uncertainty, and organisational resilience Storytelling as a driver of business culture Ideal for CHROs and People & Culture leaders managing globally distributed or multicultural workforces Leadership teams of multinationals operating in, entering, or partnering with Nordic markets Organisations navigating culture change, post-merger integration, or rapid workforce diversification Senior leaders seeking to move beyond cultural awareness programmes to measurable change in team communication and trust Audience outcomes Why good people misunderstand each other at work, and the invisible assumptions that drive it A working definition of culture that changes how leaders recognise the source of cross-cultural friction The Six Basic Human Needs framework, and a sharper read on why unmet needs surface as quiet disengagement rather than open dissatisfaction How Nordic communication norms (silence, economy of language, psychological safety) read to outsiders, and what global teams need to do differently Practical ways to build trust and create the kind of conversations people actually feel safe having

Why organisations work with Perry McCarthy He brings a first-person account of operating inside a Formula One team that was actively working against its own driver, including being sent out at Spa with a broken steering component pulled from his teammate’s car. The lesson lands because the stakes were physical. His route into F1 ran through fourteen-hour shifts on North Sea oil rigs to fund the seat. Audiences hearing about resilience from him are hearing it from someone who priced it. The Stig role gives him a cultural hook into rooms that would not normally book a motorsport speaker, which makes him a strong choice for sales conferences, kick-offs, and after-dinner slots that need energy without losing substance. He is a working media commentator on Sky News and BBC News, not a retired driver reading off a script. The delivery is current and the timing is built for live audiences. Biography highlights Drove for Andrea Moda Formula in the 1992 Formula One World Championship. Tested for Williams and Benetton F1 teams. Competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on five occasions between 1996 and 2003. Original black-suited Stig on BBC’s Top Gear across the first two series. Author of “Flat Out, Flat Broke: Formula 1 the Hard Way!” (2002), with a foreword by Damon Hill. Regular motorsport contributor on Sky News and BBC News. Biography Reaching Formula One as a privateer is a financial problem before it is a sporting one. McCarthy worked fourteen-hour shifts on North Sea oil rigs to fund his junior career, then arrived at the 1992 world championship with Andrea Moda Formula, a team owned by an Italian shoe businessman that was, by any honest reading, set up to fail. He never made the grid. He also never crashed the car, which at one point was sent out at Spa with a broken steering component lifted from his teammate’s car. What he did get from that season was a working knowledge of how to keep operating when the people around you are not. He went on to test for Williams and Benetton, then built a career in sports cars that included five appearances at the 24 Hours of Le Mans between 1996 and 2003. In 2002, a chance meeting with Jeremy Clarkson at the launch of his autobiography “Flat Out, Flat Broke” led to the role that made him recognisable outside motorsport. He was the original Stig on BBC’s Top Gear, the black-suited version, across the first two series. His identity was exposed by a Sunday newspaper in early 2003. The speaking work is built on the same material. Damon Hill’s line about him still travels: “I have constant admiration on how he turns a no hope situation into some sort of triumph.” For a corporate audience, that is the asset. McCarthy can describe, with specifics, what it takes to keep performing when the equipment is wrong, the support is missing, and the result is no longer in your hands. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Resilience and recovery from setback Self-leadership in hostile conditions Team performance and trust Risk and decision-making Motorsport as a business analogy Ideal for Sales conferences and annual kick-offs needing high-energy keynote opening or close After-dinner audiences at corporate hospitality, awards, and partner events Leadership offsites focused on composure and persistence under pressure Automotive, motorsport-adjacent, and engineering brand events Audience outcomes A vivid, first-person account of operating inside a Formula One team that was actively against its own driver A practical reframe of resilience as a daily working habit rather than a slogan The cultural payoff of hearing the Top Gear Stig story directly from the original Stig Energy and humour that sets the tone for the rest of the agenda