Storytelling & Business Communication

Why organisations work with Mark Barton The instinct to know when a speaker is avoiding the question comes from 10,000+ live interviews with central bankers, finance ministers, and CEOs. That is not something a professional facilitator acquires through facilitation training. A moderator who anchored Bloomberg Television’s coverage of six US elections, six UK general elections, the global financial crisis, and Brexit can challenge an economist or minister with authority rather than deference. For executives facing media scrutiny, Barton is among a very small group of coaches who can genuinely recreate the pressure of a live news anchor interrogation: because he spent 23 years on that side of the camera. He has chaired forums for Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute; organisations that expect substantive interrogation of the room’s most senior participants, not event management. As one of the five journalists who built Bloomberg Television’s European operations from the ground up in 1995, he brings an institutional relationship with the world of global finance and markets that most conference professionals simply do not have. Biography highlights One of five founding journalists, Bloomberg Television’s European operations, London, 1995 23-year Bloomberg TV anchor; hosted Countdown, First Word On Money, European Market Report, Bloomberg Markets, and The European Close Covered six UK general elections, six US elections, the global financial crisis, and Brexit across Bloomberg’s flagship prime-time programming Radio broadcaster: Daybreak Europe (Bloomberg Radio); financial bulletins on NPR, LBC Radio, Jazz FM, and Riviera Radio Conference host at the World Media Awards and The AIBs; moderator at the Horasis Global Meeting and Zurich Global Risk Management Summit Post-Bloomberg clients include Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute University of London, history Biography Bloomberg Television launched its European operations in London in 1995 with five journalists. Mark Barton was one of them. Over the next 23 years, he anchored the channel’s flagship programming: Countdown, European Market Report, Bloomberg Markets, The European Close. Those two decades built the editorial instincts and financial market depth that define his work today. His coverage record is specific. Six UK general elections. Six US elections. The global financial crisis. Brexit. More than 10,000 live interviews with world leaders, finance ministers, central bankers, and chief executives, including Bill Gates, Jean-Claude Trichet, and Shimon Peres. The experience of managing live, unscripted conversations with the world’s most guarded public figures is not one that transfers through conventional facilitation training. Beyond television, Barton presented Daybreak Europe on Bloomberg Radio and delivered financial market bulletins on NPR, LBC Radio, Jazz FM, and Riviera Radio. He also trained dozens of Bloomberg journalists in on-air communication: work that forms the basis of the media coaching he now delivers to business leaders preparing for public scrutiny. Since leaving Bloomberg in 2018, he has moderated for organisations including Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute. At the 2019 Horasis Global Meeting, he chaired a plenary on global governance featuring the former Prime Ministers of Romania and Belgium and the former President of Slovenia. The consistent thread: rooms that require a moderator with the credibility to hold their most senior participants to account. Key speaking topics Global financial markets and economic trends Geopolitical risk and international affairs Conference hosting and high-stakes panel moderation Executive media and communications coaching Live broadcast journalism and interviewing Business and financial crisis coverage Presentation skills under pressure Ideal for Boards and senior leadership teams commissioning high-profile forums on global economic risk, geopolitics, or financial markets Conference producers and event directors requiring a moderator with genuine domain authority, not just facilitation skills Chief Communications Officers and communications teams preparing executives for live media exposure C-suite leaders undergoing media training ahead of investor events, public testimony, or broadcast interviews Audience outcomes A moderated panel or forum with the editorial discipline and intellectual challenge of a live news broadcast Executives with a clearer understanding of how to communicate complex positions under real media pressure – not simulated conditions A more productive leadership dialogue: one that surfaces genuine disagreement rather than managing it toward pre-approved consensus Practical techniques for live interview performance, grounded in the experience of 10,000+ actual broadcast interviews Increased confidence in high-stakes public settings, drawn from observing how the world’s most scrutinised figures handle live questioning

Why organisations work with Marco Tempest He works inside the technology he talks about. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, MIT Media Lab and ETH Zurich Space are his day-to-day environments, not credentials borrowed for the stage. He treats perception as the strategic variable. Audiences leave with a sharper sense of how attention, framing and trust are engineered, which is the part of technology adoption most leadership conversations skip. His material is built with the tools clients want to understand: drones, robots, augmented reality, generative systems. The demonstration is the explanation. Seven TED talks and keynotes at SIGGRAPH, Davos, Cannes Lions and IBC give him a tested vocabulary for translating complex systems into language a board can act on. He has the rare standing to brief a NASA mission team in the morning and headline a Fortune 100 leadership offsite in the evening, and to make the same argument in both rooms. Biography highlights Director’s Fellow, MIT Media Lab. Creative Technologist and Consultant, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; NASA Honor Award recipient. Director, Pi Innovation Hub, ETH Zurich Space. Founder and Director, MagicLab, New York. Seven-time TED speaker; SIGGRAPH 2020 keynote. Merlin Award for Best Contemporary Magician (2010); World Magic Award for Best Contemporary Magic (2009); Mandrakes d’Or (1994); Special Fellowship, Academy of Magical Arts. Biography A drone swarm performing in formation looks like a technology demo until you watch how an audience reacts to it. The reaction is the product. That is the lens Tempest brings to every emerging technology conversation: not what the system can do, but what it does to the person watching. He holds the working credentials to make that argument seriously. He is a Director’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, a Creative Technologist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory with a NASA Honor Award for his contribution to COVID-19 ventilator work, and director of the Pi Innovation Hub at ETH Zurich’s Space division. He also runs MagicLab, a New York consortium that prototypes illusion and digital technology together. The performance work is the testing ground for the ideas. Seven TED talks and keynotes at SIGGRAPH, Davos, Cannes Lions and IBC have used robots, AR, drones and generative systems as live material, not slideware. The Merlin Award, World Magic Award and Mandrakes d’Or sit alongside the academic and engineering affiliations because the discipline is the same one: engineering perception with precision. For executive audiences, the value is specific. Tempest gives leadership teams a working model of how attention, trust and belief actually behave around new technology, drawn from the labs where that technology is being built. A board that has heard him is better equipped to ask the second-order questions about adoption, narrative and human response that strategy decks routinely miss. Key speaking topics Emerging technology and human perception Robotics, drones and autonomous systems Augmented and mixed reality Generative AI and creativity Innovation storytelling Space technology and exploration The psychology of attention and trust Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI, robotics or XR strategy CTO, CIO and chief innovation leaders shaping emerging-technology roadmaps Marketing and brand leadership rethinking customer attention in saturated channels Leadership offsites and innovation summits where the technology argument needs to land with non-technical executives Audience outcomes A working mental model for how attention and trust shift when new technology enters a customer relationship Specific examples, drawn from NASA JPL, MIT Media Lab and live performance, of how robots, drones, AR and generative systems behave in front of real audiences Sharper questions to put to internal technology and innovation teams about adoption and human response A reframing of innovation storytelling as a discipline with rules, not a soft skill

Why organisations work with Lars Sudmann He brings Fortune 500 operating weight to leadership work. A former P&G CFO and Business Unit Strategy Leader speaks to executive committees in their own language. His self-leadership framework, drawn from his TEDx talk that has crossed 1.9 million views, gives senior leaders a usable model for the personal habits that determine whether strategy actually lands. The Spaghetti Principle, the thesis of his book on innovation, gives organisations a structured way to run more experiments without losing strategic discipline. He is a 6-time Belgian and 2-time European Champion of Public Speaking. Executive presence and communication craft are not a sideline; they are a discipline he can teach. As Council Director at The Conference Board, he convenes CFOs and strategy leaders across Europe and the Gulf, so the room he walks into is one he already understands. Biography highlights Former CFO Belgium and Business Unit Strategy Leader at Procter & Gamble. Principal of Sudmann & Company, advising Fortune 500 leadership teams on strategy execution and change. Council Director at The Conference Board (Strategy & Transformation, Finance Transformation, Gulf councils). Lecturer on leadership and innovation at RWTH Aachen, Braunschweig University, and Lüneburg University. Author of “Innovation that Sticks: Reach Success as a Leader in your Field with the Spaghetti Principle”. Multiple TEDx talks on self-leadership and innovation, with combined viewership in the millions. 6-time Belgian and 2-time European Champion of Public Speaking. Featured in BBC, Fast Company, Inc., The Washington Post, and Manager Magazin. Biography Most leadership content treats execution as a structural problem. Sudmann treats it as a personal one. His TEDx talk on self-leadership, now past 1.9 million views, argues that the daily behaviour of senior leaders is what determines whether strategy moves through the organisation or stalls in the slide deck. The argument carries weight because of the chair he sat in. Sudmann was CFO Belgium at Procter & Gamble and led business unit strategy inside the same group. He has run the numbers, owned the plan, and watched what actually happens when a leadership team is asked to change while still hitting the quarter. That experience now shapes Sudmann & Company, his consulting and training practice, and his role as Council Director at The Conference Board, where he convenes strategy and finance leaders across Europe and the Gulf. He lectures on innovation and leadership at RWTH Aachen, Braunschweig, and Lüneburg, and his book “Innovation that Sticks” sets out the Spaghetti Principle: a disciplined way to run small experiments and keep only what holds. The communication craft is its own credential. Six Belgian and two European public speaking titles mean a Sudmann keynote is not a polished version of corporate decks. It is built to land, with senior audiences, on the first hearing. Key speaking topics Self-leadership and executive habits Strategy execution under pressure Change leadership in complex organisations Innovation discipline and the Spaghetti Principle High-performance leadership teams Executive communication and presentation craft Ideal for Executive committees and senior leadership teams entering a major strategic shift. CFOs, strategy leaders, and transformation leads accountable for execution. Boards and leadership development programmes seeking a credible voice on self-leadership and high-performance behaviour. Conferences with audiences of senior corporate leaders across finance, strategy, and operations. Audience outcomes A working model of self-leadership that senior leaders can apply on Monday morning. A sharper read on why their current strategy is or is not moving through the organisation. The Spaghetti Principle as a method for running more disciplined innovation experiments. Concrete language and structure for executive communication, drawn from competitive speaking craft. A vocabulary for leadership behaviour their team can adopt collectively, not just individually.

Why organisations work with Kevin Kelly His Xceptional Execution methodology is not motivational scaffolding – it is a documented framework built from original case study research with high-growth entrepreneurs across the globe, making the argument that execution, not vision, is the real driver of commercial success. Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution was endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence, as the book Peters himself had always wanted to write – a specific, named validation from one of the most cited figures in management literature. The Triple A (Attention, Awareness, Authentic Action) and Storytelling frameworks give teams named, repeatable tools for immediately improving how they earn attention, structure conversations, and close in markets where buyers are already sceptical before a call begins. His cross-industry track record is verifiable: rated the highest-performing speaker at Microsoft’s World Partner Conference (92.5% satisfaction score, ahead of five other speakers on the programme) and a repeat keynote speaker at the Million Dollar Round Table – two of the most commercially exacting professional audiences in technology and financial services. His starting point is always the specific failure mode that sales leaders recognise – the knowing-doing gap – rather than generic motivation; audiences leave with a named diagnosis and specific tools, not energy that fades by the following Monday. Biography highlights Founder of Advanced Marketing, established in Ireland in 1990 following a career breaking sales records across construction and manufacturing sectors in Ireland and internationally Author of five business books, including Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution, endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence How? When You Don’t Know How sold 15,000 copies in Ireland – a bestseller for an independent Irish author on a first title Developed the Xceptional Execution Video Series for Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Community; rated top speaker at the 2015 Microsoft World Partner Conference with a 92.5% audience satisfaction score Repeat keynote speaker at the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), one of the most selective annual platforms for financial services professionals globally Has addressed audiences across more than 35 countries, with named corporate clients including GE Healthcare, KPMG, Hologic, Hang Seng Bank, Lane Crawford, and ICON Clinical Research Biography The central problem in most commercial teams is not a shortage of knowledge. It is a shortage of consistent execution. Kevin Kelly, founder of Advanced Marketing, has built a 30-year methodology on that distinction: the argument that competitive advantage in sales and leadership is won not by the team with the most insight, but by the team that acts on ordinary ideas with extraordinary discipline. His framework, Xceptional Execution, emerged from structured research with entrepreneurs and executives across the globe: people who achieved outsized commercial results not through original thinking, but through repeatable, disciplined action. Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution captured this research and was endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence, as the book Peters himself had always wanted to write. The frameworks Kelly uses in his sessions: Triple A (Attention, Awareness, Authentic Action) and Storytelling, are designed to be immediately applicable by sales and leadership teams returning to their desks the next morning. At Microsoft’s World Partner Conference he was rated the highest-performing speaker on a six-speaker programme, with a 92.5% audience satisfaction score. He has since delivered keynotes for the Million Dollar Round Table and for commercial audiences across more than 35 countries spanning financial services, healthcare, technology, and professional services. Based in the west of Ireland, Kelly holds a marketing degree and began his career breaking sales records in construction and manufacturing before founding Advanced Marketing in 1990. His first book, How? When You Don’t Know How, sold 15,000 copies in Ireland. His subsequent body of work (five books in total) returns repeatedly to the same conviction: that performance, at the individual and organisational level, is almost always a question of execution rather than ambition. Key speaking topics Sales performance and commercial execution Attention and persuasion in distracted markets Xceptional Execution methodology and frameworks Storytelling and business communication Leadership, engagement, and team performance Entrepreneurship and growth through disciplined action Communication and influence in multicultural environments Ideal for Sales directors and commercial leaders seeking to close the gap between sales training and sustained field performance CEOs and senior executives accountable for execution culture across distributed or international teams Partner and channel organisations – particularly in technology and financial services – where performance depends on enabling third-party sales behaviours Associations and conference organisers serving entrepreneurial, financial services, or sales professional audiences (including MDRT-type communities) Audience outcomes A named framework (Triple A and Storytelling) for structuring sales conversations and earning attention from overloaded, sceptical buyers A shift in perspective from sales as persuasion to sales as disciplined execution – with specific practices that distinguish knowing from consistently doing Practical storytelling tools for making commercial messages stick in distracted, multicultural, and low-trust environments Clarity on the specific behaviours and mindsets that separate average teams from those that execute consistently under pressure Approaches to converting disengaged employees and resistant prospects into active advocates – grounded in the Xceptionalists research from Do!

Why organisations work with Julian Treasure He has run an operating consultancy, The Sound Agency, advising global brands on retail, office and public-space sound for two decades. The work has commercial outcomes attached, not theory. His TED catalogue is one of the most viewed of any speaker on any subject, which gives senior audiences a shared starting point before he steps on stage. He treats listening as a leadership capability with a teachable structure, and his book How to Be Heard sets out the model in detail. He covers the rarely combined territory of personal communication craft and the sonic design of physical workplaces, so he is credible with HR, brand and facilities audiences in the same room. Awards from Toastmasters International and the International Listening Association place him inside the formal communication and listening professions, not just the speaker circuit. Biography highlights Founder and chairman of The Sound Agency, audio branding consultancy Five TED talks; combined views above 160 million; “How to Speak So That People Want to Listen” is TED’s sixth most-viewed talk Author of Sound Business (2014), How to Be Heard (2017) and Sound Affects (2025) Toastmasters International Golden Gavel Award; International Listening Association Special Recognition Award Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Marketors Founded and sold UK customer magazine publisher TPD Group; former chairman of the UK Association of Publishing Agencies; PPA Chairman’s Award (2002) Biography Sound is the most underused operating variable in most organisations. Retailers play music chosen by the manager on shift. Offices design for visual brand and acoustic accident. Leaders speak without ever auditing how they are heard. The financial cost is real and the cultural cost is larger. The Sound Agency was built around that gap. Founded by a former publisher and musician with a Cambridge economics degree, the consultancy has spent two decades advising global brands on retail soundscapes, office acoustics and audio identity, with measurable effects on sales, wellbeing and behaviour. The argument is that sound is a commercial system, designed or accidental, and most organisations choose accidental. The communication work is the second half of the same proposition. Three books, Sound Business, How to Be Heard and Sound Affects, set out a structured model for speaking and listening as leadership skills rather than soft attributes. The TED catalogue, five talks above 160 million combined views, has made the speaking talk one of the most watched pieces of business communication content ever recorded. The Toastmasters Golden Gavel and the International Listening Association Special Recognition Award place him inside the formal disciplines, not adjacent to them. For senior teams, he offers something specific: a working theory of how attention, voice and environment shape commercial and cultural outcomes, and the operating experience to back it up. The Royal Society of Arts fellowship and the Worshipful Company of Marketors livery are part of a wider institutional footprint that signals durability rather than novelty. Key speaking topics Conscious listening as a leadership skill Powerful speaking and executive voice Audio branding and sonic identity Sound design in workplaces and retail environments Communication and engagement in distracted organisations Wellbeing effects of sound and noise Trust and credibility in senior communication Ideal for CMOs and brand leadership rethinking customer experience beyond the visual HR, internal communications and culture leads working on listening and engagement Retail, hospitality and property leadership designing customer-facing environments Senior leaders preparing for high-stakes speaking, board, investor or media Audience outcomes A working model for listening as a measurable leadership capability Specific techniques for executive voice, structure and presence in high-stakes settings A new lens on the commercial and cultural cost of accidental sound in workplaces and retail A shared vocabulary for communication quality across HR, brand and facilities functions Concrete next steps that connect personal communication craft to organisational outcomes

Why organisations work with Juan Senor Co-edits the WAN-IFRA Innovation in News Media report and the FIPP Innovation in Magazine Media report, the two annual reference works on what is actually working commercially across global publishing. Has advised hundreds of news organisations on every continent on the parallel work of rebuilding the news product and rebuilding the business model that funds it. Speaks with authority on disinformation, AI slop, and platform dependency from inside the industry, not as an outside commentator. Hosts the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the Reinvention Festival, with moderating credits at Money20/20 and the World Economic Forum, which means a senior commercial audience already knows him on stage. Biography highlights President and Principal Partner, INNOVATION Media Consulting Group, London. Co-editor of the annual Innovation in News Media World Report (WAN-IFRA) and the Innovation in Media report (FIPP). Former visiting fellow, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. Former foreign affairs and defence reporter, PBS’s MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour; team recipient of a DuPont-Columbia Journalism Award and Emmy nomination for interviews with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. Former presenter and correspondent for CNBC Europe, EBN/Wall Street Journal TV, and International Herald Tribune Television. Long-running host of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity; moderator at the World Economic Forum, Money20/20, and the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress. Biography Most news organisations are now wrestling with two structural problems at once. Their commercial model has been hollowed out by platform dependency. Their editorial product is competing for attention against AI-generated content produced at industrial scale, much of it designed to mimic real journalism. Juan Senor has spent two decades inside that problem. As President of Innovation Media Consulting Group, he has advised hundreds of news and media organisations across every continent on the parallel work of rebuilding the news product and the business model that funds it. He co-edits the WAN-IFRA Innovation in News Media report and the FIPP Innovation in Magazine Media report, the closest the industry has to a running ledger of what audiences are willing to pay for. His authority on the editorial side comes from the desk. He spent seven years as a war and conflict reporter for PBS NewsHour, where the team’s coverage won a DuPont Award and his own work earned an Emmy nomination. He went on to present for EBN-Wall Street Journal TV and CNBC Europe and served as London correspondent for International Herald Tribune Television. He is a former Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, and is quoted regularly in The Economist and The Financial Times. He has also hosted the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for fourteen years and the Reinvention Festival for a decade, with moderating credits at Money20/20 and the World Economic Forum. That hosting work places him in front of the same senior commercial audience whose business problem he is now advising on. Key speaking topics Business model innovation in news and magazine media Paid content, subscription, and reader-revenue strategy Newsroom transformation and product strategy Digital disruption and the platform economy The future of journalism and trust in media Media leadership and editorial commercial alignment Ideal for Publisher CEOs, editors-in-chief, and chief product officers in news and magazine media CMOs and brand leaders rethinking owned-content and editorial strategy Industry associations, media congresses, and creative festivals needing a credible main-stage host or keynote Boards of content-driven businesses navigating subscription, advertising, and platform shifts Audience outcomes A current read on which paid-content models are working, with named publishers and live revenue figures A clearer view of what editorial leaders should stop doing, not only what to start Frameworks for aligning newsroom, product, and commercial teams around a single paid-content thesis A working language for board-level conversations about media disruption, drawn from the WAN-IFRA report

Why organisations work with Jonathan Edwards A world record that has stood since 1995 gives him a rare authority on what it actually takes to perform at the top of a discipline, not a generic story about effort. He is a working broadcaster, not a retired athlete reading from cue cards. His BBC and Eurosport background carries directly into hosting awards nights, conferences and panel discussions with credibility on camera and on stage. His career arc covers Olympic gold, Olympic silver, a long stretch of injury and doubt, and a full second career in media. That gives him real material on the difference between winning once and staying competitive. He has worked at the centre of major institutional sport, from the LOCOG board for London 2012 to his current ambassador role with The R&A, which makes him comfortable in front of senior, formal audiences. Biography highlights Olympic triple jump gold medallist, Sydney 2000, and Olympic silver medallist, Atlanta 1996. World Championship gold, Gothenburg 1995, where he broke the world record twice in a single competition. Triple jump world record holder at 18.29m, set on 7 August 1995, still unbeaten three decades later. BBC Sports Personality of the Year 1995. CBE in 2001, MBE in 1996. BBC athletics commentator and presenter, anchoring the BBC’s athletics coverage at the London 2012 Olympic Games before joining Eurosport. London 2012 Olympic Ambassador and athletes’ representative on the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Global Development Ambassador for The R&A, with an active public role around The Open Championship. Biography The triple jump world record fell twice in twenty minutes at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg. Both jumps were Jonathan Edwards’s. The second, 18.29m, has not been beaten in more than thirty years and is one of the longest-standing records in track and field. What sits underneath that mark is more useful for a business audience than the mark itself. Edwards spent years as a quietly talented British triple jumper who refused to compete on Sundays on religious grounds and seemed unlikely to convert that talent into titles. The breakthrough came late, sustained execution came later still, and Olympic gold in Sydney arrived in 2000, five years after the world record. The arc from talent to record to gold was not a straight line, and he is direct about that. The second career matters as much as the first for the way organisations use him. As a BBC athletics commentator he anchored the corporation’s coverage of London 2012, and his broadcasting work has continued at Eurosport. That experience translates directly into the hosting, moderating and on-stage interviewing brief that most clients book him for. He is comfortable in front of a live, senior audience because he has done it for two decades on television. He has also held formal roles at the centre of British and global sport. He sat on the LOCOG board as the athletes’ representative for London 2012, served as an Olympic Ambassador for the Games, and currently works as a Global Development Ambassador for The R&A around The Open Championship. The result is a speaker who carries the weight of an undefeated world record, the polish of a working broadcaster, and the institutional credibility of long service inside major sporting bodies. Key speaking topics Peak performance under pressure Mental approach to competition Sustained excellence across a career Hosting and moderating major business events Awards presenting and after-dinner speaking Olympic and elite sport insight Resilience through setback and reinvention Ideal for Corporate awards nights, gala dinners and conferences needing a recognisable host with broadcast experience. Leadership offsites and sales kick-offs that want a credible peak performance keynote rather than a generic motivational slot. Boards and senior teams looking to interview a world-class performer on stage, with a moderator who can carry the room. Audience outcomes A clear sense of what world-class performance actually demands, told through one of athletics’ most-studied careers. Concrete language for talking about pressure, preparation and the gap between training and competition. A useful frame for thinking about long careers, where the second act often matters more than the first. A polished, professionally hosted event when he is engaged in a moderating or presenting capacity.

Why organisations work with Jonah Goldberg A primary-source read on the modern American right from the journalist who spent two decades inside National Review and now runs his own conservative newsroom. Author of Liberal Fascism, a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, and Suicide of the West, which argues that liberal democracy is sustained only by deliberate effort and is the through-line of his policy work. Holds the Asness Chair in Applied Liberty at the American Enterprise Institute, giving briefings rooted in scholarship rather than punditry. Built and runs The Dispatch as a subscription business, so he speaks about the media economy and political information markets from inside the operating chair, not as an observer. A reliable read for audiences that want intellectual honesty over partisan reassurance, including rooms that disagree with him. Biography highlights Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Dispatch, the center-right subscription publication launched in October 2019 with Stephen F. Hayes and Toby Stock. Asness Chair in Applied Liberty and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Author of Liberal Fascism (No. 1 New York Times bestseller), The Tyranny of Cliches, and Suicide of the West (New York Times bestseller). Weekly opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times and nationally syndicated columnist. Host of The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, one of the most listened-to conservative-leaning interview podcasts. Twenty-one years at National Review, where he was a senior editor and founding editor of National Review Online; political commentator for CNN. Biography The American right has fractured into camps that no longer share a definition of conservatism, and most analysis of it gets the factions wrong. Goldberg has spent thirty years inside the argument, first at National Review and now at The Dispatch, and writes about it with the access of an insider and the distance of someone who has lost friends in the fight. Suicide of the West sets out the through-line of his work. Liberal democracy and free markets are recent and unnatural achievements, sustained only by institutions and habits that are easy to lose and hard to rebuild. Liberal Fascism, his No. 1 New York Times bestseller, traced how progressive politics borrowed from European movements that were anything but liberal in the classical sense. The Tyranny of Cliches went after the lazy phrases that pass for political thought. The Asness Chair at the American Enterprise Institute gives that work an institutional base. The Dispatch gives it a newsroom. Co-founded with Stephen F. Hayes after the closure of The Weekly Standard, it now runs on subscriptions, which means Goldberg is also the operator of a media business and can speak credibly about how information markets shape American politics. For corporate audiences his usefulness is specific: a candid, non-partisan read on Washington from a conservative who broke with his own side over Trump, resigned from Fox News on principle in 2021, and still speaks fluently to readers across the spectrum. Key speaking topics US political risk and the 2025 to 2028 cycle The realignment of American conservatism Liberal democracy and the defence of liberal institutions Populism, nationalism and identity politics The future of the American media economy Free markets and applied liberty Constitutional government and the administrative state Ideal for Boards, investment committees and CIO offices stress-testing US political assumptions. Public affairs, policy and government relations leaders briefing executives on Washington. Financial services and asset management forums sizing political and regulatory risk. Conferences focused on media, democracy and the health of civic institutions. Audience outcomes A clearer map of the factions inside the American right and what each one wants. A sharper sense of which Washington signals matter for business and which are noise. A working argument for why liberal democratic institutions are worth defending in commercial terms, not only moral ones. An understanding of how the subscription media economy is reshaping political information. The intellectual ammunition to push back on lazy framings from the left and the right inside their own organisations.

Why organisations work with Johnny Herbert A first-person account of returning to elite competition six months after doctors at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup debated amputating his foot, told without sentimentality and grounded in specific decisions. One of a small number of drivers to have won both the Le Mans 24 Hours and a Formula 1 Grand Prix, which gives credibility across endurance, sprint and team-strategy framings of high performance. Ten years of Sky Sports F1 punditry from 2012 to 2022 trained him to read a room, host live, and translate technical detail into clean narrative for non-specialist audiences. Seven F1 teams across a career: Benetton, Tyrrell, Lotus, Ligier, Sauber, Stewart and Jaguar. He has lived inside winning cultures and broken ones, and speaks to both honestly. Comfortable as awards host, Q&A guest, panel voice and after-dinner speaker, which makes him a flexible booking when the brief is engagement and presence rather than a fixed keynote. Biography highlights Three Formula 1 Grand Prix wins: 1995 British Grand Prix, 1995 Italian Grand Prix, 1999 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. Winner, 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours, with Mazda in the rotary-engined 787B alongside Bertrand Gachot and Volker Weidler. 161 Formula 1 starts across seven teams between 1989 and 2000, with seven podiums and 98 career points. British Formula 3 Champion 1987 with Eddie Jordan Racing. British Junior Karting Champion 1978. Le Mans Endurance Series Champion 2004 and Sebring 12 Hours winner 2002, both with Audi. Sky Sports F1 expert pundit and co-commentator, 2012 to 2022. Author of “What Doesn’t Kill You… My Life in Motor Racing”, published by Transworld. Biography The crash happened at Pilgrim’s Drop, Brands Hatch, on 21 August 1988. Herbert’s Reynard hit a bridge parapet, then a steel barrier. The medical team at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup discussed amputation. They told him his racing career was over. Six months later he was on the grid of the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix in a Benetton, and finished fourth, eleven seconds behind Nigel Mansell. He could barely walk. The story of the next decade in Formula 1, including wins at Silverstone, Monza and the Nurburgring, sits inside that gap between the medical verdict and the result in Rio. The wider career is unusual in shape. Herbert raced for Benetton, Tyrrell, Lotus, Ligier, Sauber, Stewart and Jaguar across 161 Grand Prix starts. He won Le Mans for Mazda in 1991 in the 787B, the only Japanese car ever to take the overall victory, then went back and won the Le Mans Endurance Series for Audi in 2004 and Sebring in 2002. Few drivers have credibility across both the sprint and the endurance side of the sport. After racing, Sky Sports F1 hired him as a pundit from 2012 to 2022, a decade of live broadcasting on qualifying, races and analysis. The platform sharpened a public voice that had always been direct. His autobiography, “What Doesn’t Kill You… My Life in Motor Racing”, covers the team-mates, rivals and crashes in his own register: dry, specific, occasionally very funny. Key speaking topics Resilience and performance after serious injury Formula 1 strategy, drivers and team culture Endurance racing and the Le Mans 24 Hours High-pressure decision-making in motorsport Behind-the-scenes Formula 1 punditry and broadcasting After-dinner and awards hosting on motorsport themes Ideal for Corporate after-dinner audiences and awards evenings looking for a recognisable F1 name with broadcasting polish. Leadership and sales conferences using sport as an anchor for resilience, comeback and team-culture themes. Automotive, motorsport sponsor and engineering events where technical and team detail land with credibility. Q&A formats and on-stage interviews where the host wants a guest who can carry a room without a scripted keynote. Audience outcomes A specific, first-person account of returning to elite sport from career-ending injury, drawn from Herbert’s own experience rather than borrowed examples. Insider perspective on Formula 1 team cultures across seven different constructors, including Benetton in its title-winning years. Stories of racing alongside Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Damon Hill, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, with named context rather than generic anecdote. A read on how live broadcasting shapes how a sport is understood, drawn from a decade inside the Sky Sports F1 commentary team.

Why organisations work with John Sergeant Thirty years inside Westminster reporting for the BBC and ITN, including the 1990 Thatcher leadership broadcast that won the British Press Guild Award for most memorable broadcast of the year. He reads a political moment the way a correspondent reads it, not the way a commentator does. Hosting craft built on live political broadcasting, not entertainment. He has chaired Have I Got News for You and hosted the inaugural Royal Television Society Programme Awards for Northern Ireland, and he carries that range into corporate moderation, awards and after-dinner work. A public profile that travels beyond the political audience. Strictly Come Dancing, Have I Got News for You, QI, Parkinson and The One Show give him cross-generational name recognition that most political journalists of his vintage do not have. Published authority on the Thatcher era and the modern British political class through Give Me Ten Seconds and Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy, both reviewed in the national press. Biography highlights Chief political correspondent, BBC News, 1992 to 2000 Political editor, ITN, 2000 to 2002 British Press Guild Award, Most Memorable Broadcast of the Year, 1990 (Thatcher in Paris) Author, Give Me Ten Seconds (Pan Macmillan, 2002) and Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy (2005) Co-starred with Alan Bennett in On the Margin, RTS Comedy of the Year Twice chaired Have I Got News for You; finalist on Strictly Come Dancing series six Biography Margaret Thatcher pushed past a BBC reporter outside the British Embassy in Paris in November 1990 to announce she would fight a second ballot for the Conservative leadership. The reporter held the microphone, kept his composure, and finished the broadcast. That reporter was John Sergeant, and the broadcast won the British Press Guild Award for the most memorable broadcast of the year. It is also the moment that explains what he brings to a room: a journalist’s reflexes, applied live. He joined the BBC as a radio reporter in 1970 after a spell on the Liverpool Echo, and spent the next three decades inside its newsroom. Foreign assignments in Vietnam, Israel and across more than two dozen countries gave way to Westminster in 1981, then to the role of chief political correspondent from 1992 to 2000, then to political editor at ITN until 2002. He covered every major shift in British political life across that period, from the end of Thatcherism through Blair and the early years of devolution. His published work matters because it is built on access, not analysis at distance. Give Me Ten Seconds, his memoir, sits inside the lobby and the broadcast van. Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy is a working journalist’s reading of how Thatcher’s premiership shaped the politics that followed, and it was reviewed in The Independent and the Sunday Times on those terms. Both are still in print with Pan Macmillan. The second half of his career has been about range. Comedy with Alan Bennett at the start, sketch writing, then a return to entertainment as a chair of Have I Got News for You, a Strictly Come Dancing finalist who walked away on his own terms, and a fixture on Question Time, QI and Parkinson. That mix is the reason he works as a corporate host and moderator: a senior audience that has spent two days listening to executives speaks more honestly to a journalist who has spent a career making politicians do the same. Key speaking topics British politics and Westminster Political leadership and the prime ministerial role Media, journalism and political communication Conference and awards hosting Panel moderation and political interviewing After-dinner speaking on a political life Ideal for Annual conferences and dinners with senior corporate audiences Awards ceremonies and gala evenings Board offsites and leadership dinners seeking political and current-affairs context Panel discussions on politics, media and public affairs requiring an authoritative chair Audience outcomes A first-hand read of how British politics actually works inside Westminster, drawn from three decades reporting it Stories from the Thatcher, Major and Blair years told by a journalist who was in the room A panel or interview chaired by someone trained to ask the next question, not the prepared one An evening anchored by a recognisable broadcaster whose presence settles the room rather than competes with it

Why organisations work with John Pienaar Reads UK politics with lobby-level judgement built across nearly three decades at the BBC and a continuing daily Times Radio platform. Brings the seniority of a former BBC Deputy Political Editor and host of Pienaar’s Politics on Radio 5 Live into the room with leadership teams and clients. Operates as an interviewer first, which makes him a strong moderator for boards, panels and high-stakes Q and A formats where the audience expects pressure and clarity in equal measure. Sits on the judging panel for the Orwell Prize for Journalism, a peer signal that his analysis carries weight with the field he covers. Biography highlights Deputy Political Editor of BBC News, 2015 to 2020. Chief Political Correspondent at BBC Radio 5 Live from 2002, and presenter of the weekly Westminster round-up Pienaar’s Politics. Drive-time presenter on Times Radio since the station’s launch in June 2020, and host of Pienaar and Friends. Co-host of Question Time Extra Time with Stephen Nolan and stand-in presenter on BBC Two’s Daily Politics. Earlier political reporting at The Independent and the Press Association, with court reporting at the South London Press and the Old Bailey. Judge for the Orwell Prize for Journalism, awarded by the Orwell Foundation. Biography UK politics has stopped being a side-room topic for senior leadership. Tax, trade, regulation, energy and labour now move on the timetable of the Commons and the lobby. Pienaar has reported that lobby for the BBC and Times Radio for more than thirty years. He joined the BBC as a political reporter in 1992, became Chief Political Correspondent at Radio 5 Live in 2002, and served as Deputy Political Editor of BBC News from 2015 to 2020. Pienaar’s Politics, his weekly Westminster round-up on Radio 5 Live, became one of the recognisable fixtures of the political week. Since June 2020 he has presented Times Radio’s drivetime programme, the slot the station built at launch, alongside Pienaar and Friends. He earlier reported for The Independent, the Press Association and the South London Press, including a stint as Old Bailey correspondent. The Orwell Foundation has appointed him a judge of the Orwell Prize for Journalism. What an audience gets is not commentary at one remove. It is a read of the people, the rooms, the timetable and the next move from someone the political class talks to, and from someone whose primary craft is the live interview. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster Government, Whitehall and the lobby Political risk and policy Election analysis Media and political communication Live political interviewing and moderation Current affairs Ideal for Boards and executive teams briefing on UK political risk Public affairs, government relations and corporate communications leads Conference organisers seeking a senior moderator or interviewer for political and policy sessions After-dinner audiences in financial, professional services and membership-body settings Audience outcomes A clearer read of the live state of UK politics from someone with current daily access to it. A sense of which Westminster signals matter for business decisions and which do not. Sharper questions for their own public affairs, regulatory and government relations work. An interview, panel or Q and A handled with the discipline of a senior broadcaster.

Why organisations work with John Nichol A first-hand account of decision-making under conditions most leaders will never face, drawn from capture, interrogation and 47 days as a prisoner of war. A Sunday Times bestselling literary catalogue, including Tornado Down, Spitfire, Lancaster and Tornado, that gives the speaking work documented depth rather than a single anecdote stretched across an hour. Sustained broadcasting authority on military affairs across Newsnight, BBC News, CNN, ITN and Sky News, which signals to senior audiences that the analysis behind the story is taken seriously by serious editors. A speaker who refuses the heroic frame. Nichol describes himself as an ordinary person who found himself in extraordinary circumstances, which lands more credibly with corporate audiences than the conventional military keynote. One book, Medic, co-written with Tony Rennell, was shortlisted for the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, evidence that the writing is held to a literary standard, not a souvenir-of-service standard. Biography highlights Royal Air Force Tornado navigator, 1981 to 1996, Flight Lieutenant rank, with operational service in the Gulf War, Bosnia and the Falkland Islands. Shot down on 17 January 1991, the first low-level daylight raid of the Gulf War, captured and held as a prisoner of war at Abu Ghraib. Co-author of Tornado Down with pilot John Peters, a Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller. Author of Spitfire, Lancaster and Tornado, all Sunday Times bestsellers, plus The Unknown Warrior, Eject! Eject!, Tail-End Charlies, Home Run and The Last Escape. Medic, co-written with Tony Rennell, shortlisted for the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize. Presenter and consultant for Newsnight, The One Show, BBC News, CNN, ITN and Sky News, with journalism in The Times, The Mail on Sunday, The Observer and The Guardian. Biography On 17 January 1991, the first low-level daylight raid of the Gulf War, a Tornado GR1 was hit by a surface-to-air missile over Iraq. The crew ejected. Within hours the navigator, Flight Lieutenant John Nichol, was on Iraqi television, his face one of the defining images of the conflict. He spent 47 days as a prisoner of war at Abu Ghraib. What followed is the part organisations book him for. Nichol turned the experience into Tornado Down, co-written with pilot John Peters, a Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, and then into a long writing career: Spitfire, Lancaster, Tornado and The Unknown Warrior, all serious works of military history with national readerships. Medic, co-written with Tony Rennell, was shortlisted for the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize. The broadcasting work runs in parallel. Nichol has presented and contributed to Newsnight, The One Show, BBC News, CNN, ITN and Sky News, and writes for The Times, The Mail on Sunday, The Observer and The Guardian. He is one of the UK’s most quoted commentators on military affairs. The speaking proposition is more specific than resilience. Nichol talks about what actually happens to judgement, fear and identity when control disappears, and what carries a person through. He is direct about the limits of his own example, describing himself as an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances. That framing, paired with the literary and broadcasting record, is why his work is taken seriously by audiences that would dismiss a more conventional military keynote. Key speaking topics Resilience under extreme pressure Decision-making in fear and uncertainty Camaraderie and team cohesion Recovery from adversity Military history and remembrance After-dinner storytelling for corporate audiences Ideal for Leadership and sales conferences seeking a serious counterweight to corporate motivational content Senior leadership programmes addressing performance under sustained pressure Corporate events and after-dinner audiences who want a substantive speaker rather than a celebrity booking Remembrance and commemorative events tied to military history Audience outcomes A clearer view of how composure, judgement and team trust hold up when external conditions remove control Specific reference points for decision-making under fear, drawn from a documented event rather than a leadership model A reset on what resilience actually requires, separated from the language used in workplace wellbeing material A respect for the difference between professionally trained response to crisis and improvised response, with implications for how organisations prepare their own people