Storytelling & Business Communication

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

Why organisations work with Jinsop Lee He gives commercial teams a usable grading method for sensory experience, the Five Senses framework, that translates design theory into something a marketer, product manager or operator can apply without a design background. His TED Talk on multisensory design has been viewed over 1.6 million times, which means audiences arrive primed for the argument and leave able to recall and reuse it. He has shipped work for LG and Jaguar Land Rover and exhibited at CES, 100% Design London and Light + Building Frankfurt, giving him operating credibility with product and brand functions, not just lecture-circuit credibility. Recognition from Red Dot and Good Design anchors the talk in professional design judgement, not opinion. He pairs serious craft with a comic, story-led delivery, which lands the substance with audiences who would tune out a more academic treatment. Biography highlights TED Global Talent Search winner, TED Long Beach 2013; “Design for All 5 Senses” has over 1.6 million views. Founder of design firm Uncle Oswald Is My Hero. Former Associate Professor of Industrial Design, Kyung-Il University, Korea. Red Dot Design Award and Good Design Award recipient. Work exhibited at CES Las Vegas, 100% Design London, Good Design Tokyo, and Light + Building Frankfurt. BA Industrial Design, Syracuse University; MBA, Yonsei University. Biography Most product categories now look the same across the price ladder. Visual design is solved, and customers have learned to scroll past it. What still separates one product from the next is the texture of the experience itself: the sound a car door makes when it closes, the resistance of a button, the smell of a packaged good when it is opened for the first time. This is the territory Jinsop Lee works in. His Five Senses framework, presented at TED Long Beach in 2013 and viewed more than 1.6 million times since, gives a usable way to grade any product or experience across sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. It is not a designer’s tool. It is a grading sheet that a brand or product team can run through in a meeting. The underlying craft is serious. Lee studied industrial design at Syracuse University, took an MBA at Yonsei, and served as Associate Professor of Industrial Design at Kyung-Il University. His commercial work has shipped through Uncle Oswald Is My Hero, his own design firm, and through engagements with LG and Jaguar Land Rover. His pieces have been shown at CES, 100% Design London, Good Design Tokyo, and Light + Building Frankfurt, and have collected Red Dot and Good Design awards. For commercial audiences, the value is that he can take a senior team through the same grading exercise they will see online from him, then turn it on their own products. Most buyers leave with two or three specific experiences they can no longer evaluate the old way. Key speaking topics Multisensory design Customer experience design Design thinking Creativity and innovation method Product development craft Brand and experience differentiation Ideal for CMOs and brand directors rebuilding around experience rather than awareness Heads of product and product design in consumer goods, automotive, hospitality and retail Innovation and R&D leaders running new product development programmes Customer experience leads in service-led businesses Audience outcomes A working knowledge of the Five Senses framework, applied to a product or experience the audience already owns. Specific examples of multisensory design done well and badly, drawn from familiar consumer categories. A sharper instinct for where current products under-deliver against customer expectation. A shared vocabulary that commercial, design and operations functions can use in the same meeting.

Why organisations work with Jim Al-Khalili He is an active research physicist with a publication record in quantum biology and nuclear theory, which means his account of quantum computing, sensing, and adjacent technologies comes from inside the field, not summarised from press coverage. As presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific since 2011, he has interviewed several hundred working scientists, which gives him a rare cross-disciplinary read on where genuine breakthroughs are forming and where they are not. Co-author of Life on the Edge with Johnjoe McFadden, the book widely credited with bringing quantum biology to a mainstream readership and shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize. Holds a Chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey, and has built a career-long discipline of translating technical material for non-specialist senior audiences without losing precision. Recognised by his peers as much as by the public: Royal Society Michael Faraday Medal, Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, OBE and CBE for services to science. Biography highlights Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics, University of Surrey, with a PhD in theoretical nuclear physics from Surrey (1989). Fellow of the Royal Society (2018); Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific since October 2011. Author or co-author of more than a dozen popular science books, including Life on the Edge, The World According to Physics, and The Joy of Science (Princeton University Press). Royal Society Michael Faraday Medal, Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal, IOP Kelvin Medal, Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. OBE (2007) and CBE (2021) for services to science; past President of the British Science Association. Biography The hardest scientific decisions facing senior leaders today are the ones the leaders themselves are least equipped to make. Quantum computing, AI, synthetic biology, and the next wave of physics-driven technology demand a level of judgement that confident vendor decks cannot provide. What organisations need is someone who can read the underlying science, place a claim in context, and tell them where the field actually is. That is the role Jim Al-Khalili has built across forty years. A theoretical physicist with a PhD from the University of Surrey and now Distinguished Professor Emeritus there, he has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers in nuclear reaction theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum biology. With Johnjoe McFadden he co-authored Life on the Edge, the book that did more than any other to bring quantum biology into mainstream scientific conversation, shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize. Since 2011 he has presented The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4, conducting hundreds of interviews with working scientists across every discipline. Few people in the UK have a sharper sense of where genuine breakthroughs are forming and where the noise outpaces the substance. His books with Princeton University Press, including The World According to Physics and The Joy of Science, frame how non-specialists can think clearly about evidence, uncertainty, and modern physics. Recognition from his peers tracks the public profile: Fellow of the Royal Society, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society Michael Faraday Medal, Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, OBE and CBE for services to science. He has chaired the British Science Association and continues to advise government, industry, and the public on the science that will shape the next decade of technology. Key speaking topics Quantum mechanics and the science behind quantum computing Quantum biology and the frontiers of life science Scientific reasoning and rational decision-making The history and future of physics Science communication for senior audiences Public trust in science and technology Ideal for Boards and executive teams making capital allocation decisions on quantum, AI, or deep-tech ventures R&D leaders, CTOs, and CSOs who want a credible outside read on where the science actually stands Conferences in pharma, finance, technology, and energy where audiences need a serious scientific keynote rather than a vendor pitch Awards, gala evenings, and high-profile panels needing a hosting or moderating presence with genuine scientific authority Audience outcomes A clearer view of what quantum technologies can plausibly deliver in the next decade and what remains speculative The vocabulary and mental models to question scientific claims without becoming dismissive Exposure to the live debates inside physics and biology that will reshape adjacent industries A renewed sense of why scientific thinking, not just scientific findings, matters for leadership judgement

Why organisations work with Jeff Moody A working CGTN anchor based in Beijing, which is a rare credential for a UK-available conference host and immediately useful for any agenda that touches China, trade, or cross-border media. Three decades of live broadcast experience across ITN, BBC, Channel Five, ITV Meridian, and now GB News, meaning he can hold a room when an agenda slips, a speaker drops out, or a Q&A goes off script. Equally credible on consumer affairs, business, and current affairs material, having reported across all three at network level in the UK. Comfortable with the format demands of corporate work, including after-dinner sets, on-stage interviews, awards hosting, and tightly produced multi-camera shows. Biography highlights News anchor at CGTN, Beijing, hosting the network’s flagship English-language discussion programming and co-presenter of the Chinese Terminology series. Began at Independent Television News (ITN) in London and went on to present Channel Five News (Breakfast and Entertainment) and BBC’s Liquid News. Consumer Correspondent at ITV Meridian Tonight. Currently reports for GB News from the South West of England. Wrote and directed a UK touring theatrical production in 2013. Earlier career includes radio in San Francisco and ownership of a hotel, restaurant, and wedding venue before returning to broadcasting. Biography Most non-Chinese journalists describe China from outside it. Jeff Moody describes it from a desk in Beijing. He is the only non-Chinese anchor hosting CGTN’s flagship discussion shows and co-presents Chinese Terminology, the network’s regular explainer of language, policy, and cultural concepts. For an event that needs a chair able to handle a China-related agenda without reaching for cliche, that working position matters. The broader career is a thirty-year arc through British broadcast news. ITN in London first, then Channel Five News as a Breakfast and Entertainment presenter, BBC’s Liquid News and Wish You Were Here, and ITV Meridian as Consumer Correspondent. He still reports in the UK, currently for GB News covering the South West of England. The mix means he can switch register: hard news at one end, consumer and lifestyle at the other. There is also a non-broadcast chapter. He stepped out of the media for several years to run a hotel, restaurant, and wedding venue, and returned in 2013, the same year he wrote and directed a touring theatre production. That history sits behind the on-stage manner: someone who has run a room as an operator, not only presented from one. For a corporate buyer, the practical case is straightforward. He chairs panels, moderates discussions, presents awards, and hosts after-dinner sessions, with the bench depth that comes from live news experience and a current vantage point inside Chinese state broadcasting that few peers can offer. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and on-stage interviewing Awards hosting and after-dinner presenting China and the UK media perspective Brexit and international news context Consumer affairs Corporate event hosting Ideal for Communications, public affairs, and external relations leads briefing audiences on China-related topics Conference organisers seeking a senior broadcaster to chair multi-session agendas Awards programmes and gala dinners requiring a polished on-stage host Internal leadership events that need a broadcast-grade interviewer for executive Q&A Audience outcomes A conference that runs to time, with sessions threaded into a coherent narrative rather than running as isolated talks. Panels that produce sharper material because the chair pushes back, redirects, and follows up. An after-dinner or awards segment that lands tonally for a senior corporate room. For China-adjacent agendas, framing from a host who works daily inside the Chinese broadcasting system rather than commenting on it from outside.

Why organisations work with Jay Baer He has built first-party research, not opinion, into the link between speed and revenue, including the finding that customers will pay up to 50% more to avoid waiting. He treats complaints as a growth channel, with a working method (Hug Your Haters) used by service and CX teams inside large consumer and B2B brands. He gives marketing and CX leaders a named framework for engineering word of mouth on purpose, drawn from Talk Triggers and case studies including DoubleTree, Five Guys, and The Cheesecake Factory. He has advised more than 700 companies through Convince & Convert, including roughly 30 of the FORTUNE 500, so the boardroom examples are first hand, not borrowed. He is one of a small group of speakers in this category to hold both CSP and CPAE Hall of Fame recognition from the National Speakers Association, which is a useful signal for buyers booking high-stakes general sessions. Biography highlights Founder of Convince & Convert, a customer experience and marketing strategy firm advising 700+ brands since 2008. Author of seven business books, including the New York Times bestseller Youtility, Hug Your Haters, Talk Triggers, and The Time to Win. Inducted into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame by the National Speakers Association, holds CSP designation. Clients cited across his consulting and advisory work include Nike, Oracle, Salesforce, Caterpillar, Allstate, and the United Nations. Author of the proprietary Time to Win research on customer responsiveness, including the finding that customers will pay up to 50% more to avoid waiting. Co-founder and editor of The Tequila Report, with a subscriber base above 50,000 and a substantial second-career media presence. Biography Most companies still treat customer service as a cost centre and word of mouth as a happy accident. Both assumptions are wrong, and both are expensive. The work that defines Jay Baer’s career has been to convert each of them into something a leadership team can actually manage. Through Convince & Convert, the strategy firm he founded in 2008, Baer has advised more than 700 companies on customer experience and marketing, including around 30 of the FORTUNE 500. Named clients include Nike, Oracle, Salesforce, Caterpillar, and the United Nations. The books carry the same operating logic into a wider audience: Youtility on help-as-marketing reached number three on the New York Times business list, Hug Your Haters reframed complaints as a retention asset, and Talk Triggers, written with Daniel Lemin, set out a structured method for engineering word of mouth using case studies from DoubleTree, Five Guys, and The Cheesecake Factory. His most recent book, The Time to Win, is the sharpest expression of the argument. It is built on proprietary research showing that two thirds of customers now rate speed as important as price, that more than half hire the first company to respond, and that customers will pay up to 50% more to avoid waiting. For CX and commercial leaders, the implication is direct: response time is a pricing variable. Recognition tracks the substance. Baer was inducted into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame by the National Speakers Association in 2018 and holds the CSP designation, two credentials held simultaneously by a small minority of working speakers. The practical consequence for buyers is reliability under pressure: he is one of the relatively few keynote choices in this category that large general sessions and senior leadership audiences both tend to find credible. Key speaking topics Customer experience strategy Customer responsiveness and speed to revenue Word of mouth as a managed marketing discipline Complaint handling and customer retention Practical AI for customer-facing teams Marketing as customer help, not interruption Ideal for Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Customer Officers, and Chief Experience Officers setting CX or growth agendas Sales, service, and contact-centre leaders being asked to convert responsiveness into commercial outcomes Franchise, hospitality, retail, and B2B brands where word of mouth is a material growth lever Annual conferences and leadership offsites that need a senior keynote with general-session range Audience outcomes A defensible position on why response time should be treated as a commercial metric, not a service KPI A working method for converting customer complaints into a retention and acquisition channel A repeatable approach to engineering word of mouth, with named operational examples to adapt A clearer view of where AI plausibly belongs inside customer-facing workflows, and where it does not Specific, named case studies the audience can quote in their own internal conversations the next week

Why organisations work with James Chau He runs the room when the speakers are Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma or Bill Gates. Very few moderators on the circuit have repeated reps at that level of principal. As President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, he sits inside the working architecture of US-China dialogue rather than commenting on it from the sidelines. His credential stack on global health is institutional, not rhetorical: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the SDGs, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador. The China Current gives him a live interview record with Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Christine Lagarde, Ban Ki-moon and Jane Goodall. The editorial muscle is current, not historic. He reads a room built from heads of state, Nobel laureates and corporate chiefs the way a senior editor reads copy. The diplomatic temperature of a session is managed in real time. Biography highlights President, China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), Hong Kong. World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Goals and Health (appointed 2016). First UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador for China (appointed 2009). Host of The China Current, a global-affairs interview and storytelling platform. Former main English-language news anchor at China Central Television; guest presenter, BBC World News. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; U.S. National Press Foundation Fellow; Harvard Kennedy School executive education. Biography The room was Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma, Laura Bush. James Chau was chairing. That is the kind of session he has been asked to run for more than a decade, and the reason organisations book him is not broadcast gloss. It is the ability to keep a hard conversation productive when the participants are principals with careful positions. Chau is President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong-based NGO that convenes official-track and track-two dialogue between the two countries. The role places him inside the working machinery of one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world, not adjacent to it. That access shapes how he chairs: he knows where the lines are, and when to press. Before CUSEF, he spent years as the main English-language news anchor at China Central Television and a guest presenter on BBC World News. The interview record from The China Current, his own platform, runs through Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Christine Lagarde, Jane Goodall and Ban Ki-moon. His work on global health is formal: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals and Health since 2016, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador from 2009. He was educated at Cambridge, King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Music, with executive education at Harvard Kennedy School. For a corporate summit, a multilateral plenary, an awards evening or a closed-room dialogue where the speakers are sensitive and the questions matter, Chau is a moderator whose standing is set by the company he keeps on stage. Key speaking topics US-China relations Global health and the Sustainable Development Goals China and the global economy International development and multilateralism Media, storytelling and public diplomacy High-level event hosting and moderation Ideal for Global summits and multilateral convenings where the principals on stage are heads of state, Nobel laureates or Fortune 100 chief executives CEO and board dialogues on China strategy, US-China risk and global health policy Awards ceremonies and flagship corporate events where a broadcast-grade host is required Foundations, NGOs and policy institutes working on the SDGs, HIV/AIDS and global public health Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the US-China relationship actually sits, from someone inside the dialogue A working framing of how global health policy, the SDGs and corporate strategy intersect A session that keeps pace and holds weight when the speakers are senior and the brief is sensitive A clearer view of how China is reported, mis-reported, and understood in international media

Why organisations work with Hunter Tura His “22nd Century Brand” framework, developed publicly through DesignSingapore Council, gives leadership teams a precise vocabulary for what brand investment is actually supposed to deliver, reframing brand from a static identity asset to a dynamic participation platform that drives commercial affiliation. He has built and run design businesses at CEO level, which means his counsel on brand strategy is not advisory abstraction. Rather, it is the same kind of operational decision-making he is asking leadership teams to make. His client portfolio spans luxury (Prada, Chanel, Tiffany), cultural institutions (Victoria & Albert Museum, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), aviation (Changi Airport), and technology (Netflix, GE, Samsung) providing a level of cross-sector pattern recognition that a single-sector brand consultant cannot offer. His formation in architecture under Rem Koolhaas at Harvard GSD gives him a systems-thinking approach to brand that most strategists, who are trained in marketing or communications, lack. It shows in how he diagnoses problems others misread. His work at Entro on experiential branding and the built environment addresses a dimension of brand strategy – how physical spaces communicate and shape participation – that is almost entirely absent from the mainstream brand conversation, but increasingly urgent for property, hospitality, aviation, and cultural sectors. Biography highlights Chief Creative Officer, Entro Communications (appointed November 2025); previously President & CEO, Bruce Mau Design (2010–2019) and CEO, The Creative Organization Client work spanning Netflix, Samsung, GE, Unilever, Audi, Lululemon, Changi Airport Group, Lucid Motors, and the Victoria & Albert Museum Curator, Canada Pavilion, 2018 London Design Biennale; juror, Presidential Design Awards Singapore (2017) and Florence Design Biennale (2019) Commentator, “Design Canada” (2017 documentary) Creator of “The 22nd Century Brand” – a conceptual series produced with DesignSingapore Council and the National Design Centre, reframing brand evolution as a strategic and societal imperative March, Harvard University Graduate School of Design (thesis directed by Rem Koolhaas); Supermentor, Harvard Business School Field X/Y programme; Alumni Council, Harvard GSD Biography The organisations that use brand to create durable competitive advantage treat it as a design discipline, not a marketing function. Hunter Tura has spent 25 years at that boundary, running Bruce Mau Design as President & CEO for nine years, founding SYNDICATE X and The Creative Organization, and now serving as Chief Creative Officer at Entro Communications, where he leads creative strategy across experiential branding, wayfinding, and built-environment design at an international scale. His client work crosses sectors that rarely share a diagnostic framework: luxury goods (Prada, Chanel, Tiffany), cultural institutions (the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), aviation and hospitality (Changi Airport, Marina Bay Sands), and technology (Netflix, GE, Samsung). The common strategic problem is consistent: how does an organisation make its brand do genuine commercial work rather than simply look credible? That question has a specific intellectual architecture in Tura’s hands. His “22nd Century Brand” framework traces how brand has evolved from static trademark to dynamic participation platform. The organisations ahead of their competitors have designed brand as a system. The ones falling behind have commissioned a refresh. Tura holds an MArch from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where his thesis was supervised by Rem Koolhaas, and a BA from Haverford College in the Growth and Structure of Cities. He has served on the Harvard GSD Alumni Council, is a Supermentor at Harvard Business School, and was curator of the Canada Pavilion at the 2018 London Design Biennale. He also appeared as a commentator in the 2017 documentary Design Canada. Key speaking topics Brand strategy as a driver of competitive growth Design-led business transformation Experiential branding and the built environment The evolution of brand from identity to participation platform Building and leading creative organisations at scale Cross-sector brand innovation The commercial case for design thinking Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leadership managing significant brand investment with unclear ROI CEOs and boards navigating brand repositioning, post-merger integration, or market repositioning Senior leaders in property, hospitality, aviation, and cultural sectors where physical environment is central to brand experience Executive education cohorts in innovation, design strategy, or competitive differentiation Audience outcomes A diagnostic framework for identifying why brand investment is not producing competitive returns – with named examples from luxury, tech, and cultural sectors A clear distinction between communications-led and design-led brand strategy, and what each produces Practical language for commissioning, evaluating, and challenging brand strategy work at leadership level An understanding of how experiential and environmental design is reshaping brand expectations across sectors Exposure to cross-sector patterns from a practitioner who has made CEO-level brand decisions across more than twenty years and four distinct industry categories