Storytelling & Business Communication speakers

Why organisations work with Richard Hammond A face audiences already trust. Two decades on Top Gear and The Grand Tour means a senior room recognises him the moment he walks on, which shortens the warm-up and lifts the agenda. Hosting craft built in live broadcast. Hammond reads a room the way a presenter reads a studio, which is the specific skill awards nights and corporate dinners need. Storytelling drawn from genuine high-stakes experience. The 2006 Vampire crash and the 2017 Rimac crash give him material that lands without rehearsal because it actually happened. Entrepreneurial second act. DriveTribe and The Smallest Cog give Hammond credible commercial experience to draw on when a brief calls for substance beyond hosting, particularly in automotive, media, and brand-building contexts. Comfortable across formats. Awards host, after-dinner speaker, panel moderator, fireside Q and A; he does not need a single staged format to work. Biography highlights Co-presenter, Top Gear, BBC Two, 2002 to 2015, with Jeremy Clarkson and James May. Co-presenter, The Grand Tour, Amazon Prime Video, 2016 to 2024. Author of On the Edge: My Story (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2008) and As You Do (Orion, 2007). Founder of The Smallest Cog, a classic car restoration business in Hereford, opened 2021. Co-founder of DriveTribe, the automotive content platform launched in 2016. Presenter of Brainiac: Science Abuse (Sky One), Total Wipeout (BBC One), and Richard Hammond’s Workshop (Discovery+). Biography Top Gear ran for thirteen years on BBC Two with three presenters who became, between them, one of the most exported television properties in British broadcasting history. Hammond was the smallest of the three on screen and the one audiences most often warmed to first. That recognition is the asset corporate buyers are buying when they put him on a stage. Hosting a room of senior executives is closer to live television than to keynote speaking. The host has to set the tempo, hand off cleanly between segments, recover from a missed cue, and keep the audience with the agenda rather than ahead of it. Hammond has spent more than twenty years doing exactly this work, first across local BBC radio, then across motoring television, and most consistently as one third of the Top Gear and Grand Tour line-up. The 2006 Vampire dragster crash at RAF Elvington gave him a recovery story that has become its own asset. He was travelling at 288 mph when the tyre failed; he spent two weeks in a coma; he wrote about the recovery in On the Edge in 2008. When the brief calls for an after-dinner set with substance behind the laughs, that material is genuinely his. Beyond broadcast, Hammond has a working business in The Smallest Cog, the Hereford classic car restoration workshop he opened in 2021, and a media platform in DriveTribe, which he co-founded with Clarkson and May in 2016 and now runs himself. Both give him commercial ground to stand on when a brief moves from hosting into something closer to a fireside conversation about reinvention, brand, or the economics of motoring media. Key speaking topics Awards hosting and ceremony presenting Corporate after-dinner sets Automotive media and broadcast Recovery and return after the 2006 Vampire crash Building DriveTribe and The Smallest Cog The Top Gear and Grand Tour years Engineering, performance cars, and motoring journalism Ideal for Annual award nights and industry awards ceremonies Corporate dinners, gala evenings and partner events Automotive sector conferences and dealer events Brand activations and customer hospitality with a motoring or engineering audience Audience outcomes An evening that runs on tempo, with a host who keeps the agenda moving without flattening it. A first-hand account of the 2006 crash and recovery that anchors the room when the brief calls for it. A working perspective on automotive broadcast, classic car restoration, and the commercial side of motoring media. The recognition value of a presenter the audience already watches at home.

Why organisations work with Rick Kelsey A working broadcaster, not a hired host. Kelsey is currently on air at Times Radio and BBC Business, which means he interviews real cabinet ministers and CEOs in his day job and brings the same posture to a corporate stage. Twelve years inside BBC newsrooms, including World Service and Newsbeat, plus editorial leadership of the Newscast podcast through the pandemic where audience grew by over 30 percent. Genuine subject command in personal finance and energy. He has written hundreds of BBC articles on mortgages, pensions, interest rates and the green-energy transition, so he can host a finance or sustainability brief without notes. Audience-building credibility outside corporate stages. As a presenter on The Running Channel, a YouTube channel of over 700,000 subscribers, he understands how to keep a non-captive audience listening, which translates directly to internal events. A track record across awards formats that punish weak hosts: the LEAF Awards, RFIx Financial Awards and European Hospitality Awards. Biography highlights Presenter at Times Radio, BBC Business and Spotify, covering personal finance, politics and energy. Twelve years at the BBC across television, radio and online, including World Service and Newsbeat. Edited the BBC’s Newscast podcast through the COVID-19 pandemic, with audience growth of over 30 percent. Co-host of The Running Channel on YouTube, with more than 700,000 subscribers. Author of hundreds of BBC personal-finance articles on mortgages, savings, pensions and energy bills. Hosted the LEAF Awards, RFIx Financial Awards and Gala Dinner, and the European Hospitality Awards. Biography Most corporate stages fail in the same way. The host is too cautious to push, the panel runs to the brief, and the audience leaves with a cleaner version of what they already believed. The fix is rarely a more polished MC. It is someone who interviews for a living and treats the stage as a newsroom. Rick Kelsey is that profile. He presents at Times Radio, BBC Business and Spotify, and spent twelve years on BBC staff across World Service and Newsbeat before leaving in 2022. Through the pandemic he edited Newscast, the BBC’s flagship politics podcast, and is credited with audience growth of more than 30 percent during that period. His specialist territory is personal finance and energy. He has written hundreds of BBC articles on mortgages, savings, pensions, interest rates and the green transition, and has interviewed UK prime ministers across multiple cycles. That base means a financial-services or utilities brief does not need scripting; he can take the room into the substance and out again. Outside the BBC he co-hosts The Running Channel, a YouTube property of more than 700,000 subscribers. Combined with awards-night work for the LEAF Awards, the RFIx Financial Awards and the European Hospitality Awards, the result is a host who can carry a 90-minute live show, keep an executive panel honest, and read when the room needs the next question rather than a longer answer. Key speaking topics Event hosting and panel moderation Awards-night presenting Personal finance and cost of living Mortgages, savings and interest rates Energy transition and renewable energy UK politics and policy Broadcast journalism and media Ideal for Internal communications and brand teams running town halls, leadership offsites and customer events. Financial services and consumer-finance audiences where a host needs to speak the subject fluently. Energy, utilities and sustainability conferences requiring a moderator across solar, wind and hydrogen briefs. Industry awards nights where the host carries the room from open to close. Audience outcomes A live event that holds executive attention from open to close, with crisp transitions and on-time running. Panels that produce something the audience did not already know, because the moderator pushes past the prepared answer. A finance or energy session translated into language a mixed corporate audience can act on. A presenter the audience associates with the BBC and Times brands, lifting the perceived production value of the event.

Why organisations work with Rikki Arundel A category-defining UK voice on trans and non-binary inclusion at work, with the rare combination of an MSc in Gender Research from the University of Hull and twenty years of lived experience as an openly trans speaker. Inaugural recipient of The Speaker Awards Lifetime Achievement Award (2024) and a PSAE Speaker Hall of Fame inductee, signals that this is a senior practitioner, not a first-person-story booking. Founder and first president of the UK and Ireland Professional Speaking Association, which means a level of platform craft that allows hard subject matter to land with executive audiences without defensiveness. Practical content for managers and ERG sponsors: what to say when someone comes out, how policy holds up under challenge, and where unconscious bias actually shows up in promotion and customer-facing decisions. A track record across police forces, NHS trusts, financial services and government, including Sussex and Surrey Police, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, Fidelity International and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Biography highlights Founder and first president, Professional Speaking Association (UK and Ireland). MSc in Gender Research, University of Hull. PSAE Speaker Hall of Fame, Professional Speaking Association. Inaugural Speaker Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, 2024. Named one of 50 LGBT Icons in the 2017 UK Pride 50th anniversary list. TEDx speaker, including “Why is Gender Identity so Important?” at TEDxFidelityInternational. Biography Most organisations have a trans inclusion policy. Far fewer have managers who know what to do when an employee comes out at work, when a customer files a complaint about pronouns, or when a journalist asks how the company will hold its position. Rikki Arundel’s work sits in that gap between policy language and operational practice. The credibility for that work is unusually layered. Rikki founded the Professional Speaking Association in the UK and Ireland and served as its first president, then publicly transitioned in 2002 and rebuilt a speaking career around gender and inclusion. An MSc in Gender Research from the University of Hull underpins the content, and a PSAE Speaker Hall of Fame induction reflects the platform craft. The substance is practical. Rikki separates sex from gender for non-specialist audiences, walks managers through the moments where inclusion is actually tested, and addresses how policy holds up when challenged externally. The aim is behavioural change inside teams, not awareness for its own sake. Recognition has tracked the work. The Speaker Awards named Rikki the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2024, and Rikki was listed among 50 LGBT Icons during the 2017 UK Pride 50th anniversary. Clients include Sussex and Surrey Police, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, Fidelity International, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and Atalian Servest UK and Ireland. Key speaking topics Trans and non-binary inclusion in the workplace Sex, gender and social identity LGBTQ discrimination and harassment Unconscious bias in recruitment and promotion Inclusive leadership for managers ERG enablement for Pride and LGBT History Month Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads designing inclusion programmes that need to survive external scrutiny. ERG and Pride network sponsors planning LGBT History Month, Pride and Trans Day of Visibility events that have to do more than mark a date. Line managers and people partners in regulated sectors, including policing, healthcare, financial services and government. Boards and executive teams seeking a credible briefing on trans inclusion before a public position is required. Audience outcomes A working separation of sex, gender identity and gender expression that managers can use in real conversations. Specific scripts and behaviours for the moment a colleague comes out as trans or non-binary at work. A clearer view of where unconscious bias actually shows up in hiring, promotion and customer-facing decisions. A framework for ERG leaders to plan inclusion content that is substantive rather than performative.

Why organisations work with Ritula Shah Fifteen years anchoring BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight gives her the editorial reflexes to keep a senior panel honest under time pressure, on the record, without losing the audience. A working seat on the RUSI Advisory Board means she walks into defence, security and geopolitics briefings already inside the conversation, not learning it from a brief. Reporting experience from Guantanamo Bay, China, India, Brazil and Jordan gives her first-hand reference points when a panel drifts into abstraction on foreign policy or human rights. She is one of a small number of UK broadcasters trusted by ministers, regulators and dissenting voices to chair a discussion that needs to be both serious and broadcast-quality. Her ambassadorial work with the British Asian Trust and trusteeship of INIVA make her a credible host for organisations who want representation handled without performance. Biography highlights Lead presenter, The World Tonight, BBC Radio 4 (15 years, to 2023). Former presenter, The Real Story (BBC World Service), Woman’s Hour, The World Today, One to One. Current weekday-evening presenter, Calm Classics, Classic FM. Advisory Board member, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Ambassador, British Asian Trust; trustee, INIVA. Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Warwick (2019). Biography The World Tonight is the BBC Radio 4 programme senior leaders, diplomats and ministers tend to listen to on the drive home. Ritula Shah presented it for fifteen years. That fact alone places her in a small group of UK broadcasters who have spent a working career interrogating finance ministers, foreign secretaries, sanctioned oligarchs, generals and dissidents on the record, in real time, with no second take. The geographical footprint matters here. She has reported from Guantanamo Bay, China, India, Brazil, Jordan, Finland and Germany, and covered the Soviet collapse, 9/11 from New York, multiple US and UK elections and the slow grind of Brexit. When a panel on supply chains, sanctions or political risk drifts into theory, she pulls it back to a place she has actually been. The think-tank work is not decorative. Shah sits on the Advisory Board of RUSI, the world’s oldest defence and security institute, which means she chairs geopolitics and security sessions already inside the institutional conversation rather than reading in. She is also an ambassador for the British Asian Trust, a trustee of INIVA, and an honorary Doctor of Letters of the University of Warwick. For organisations, the practical offer is rarer than a keynote. She is a broadcaster who can take a sensitive board conversation, a regulator panel, a closed-room briefing on China exposure or a high-profile awards ceremony, and run it at the standard of a Radio 4 broadcast. The room hears something true, the recording is usable, and the senior speakers do not feel ambushed. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the multipolar world International affairs and foreign policy Defence and national security News literacy and trust in media Inclusion, identity and belonging in public life Conference, panel and awards moderation Board-level event chairing Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning a geopolitical, sanctions or China-exposure session Defence, security, foreign policy and policy-research convenings Awards ceremonies and flagship annual conferences requiring a broadcast-grade host Regulators, professional bodies and universities running on-the-record panels with public figures Audience outcomes A clearer mental map of where the multipolar world is actually moving, beyond headline framing Better-quality contributions from senior panellists, because the questions are sharper and the chairing is firmer A working sense of how to read news critically in an environment of declining trust and rising misinformation Confidence that a difficult conversation, on geopolitics, identity or institutional reform, can be held in public without becoming theatre

Why organisations work with Robbie Lyle He built the category. AFTV is the largest football fan channel globally, with 1.7 million YouTube subscribers and over a billion views, created without external investment. Most speakers on community-led media describe the trend; he set the benchmark. He owns the commercial reality of audience-first media. GFN turns over more than £1.4 million a year on a self-financed model, which gives him a working answer to the questions boards actually ask: how do you monetise community without breaking trust, and where does the margin sit. He has taken on incumbent broadcasters and won audience share on their core territory. That is a useful perspective for any organisation watching a digital-native competitor erode a category it used to dominate. His ITV documentary Football Fans Under Their Skin and his work on representation in sport give him a serious second register on race, inclusion and who gets heard in mainstream media, beyond the entrepreneurship story. Biography highlights Founder and Group CEO of Global Fan Network, parent company of AFTV and DR Sports. Founded AFTV in October 2012, now the largest football fan channel worldwide with 1.7 million YouTube subscribers and over a billion total views. Host of Channel 4’s The Real Football Fan Show, which premiered in April 2018. Subject of the 2020 ITV documentary Robbie Lyle: Football Fans Under Their Skin, on race and Black supporters in UK football. Speaker at TEDx Warwick and the Oxford Union. Listed in TechRound’s BAME 50 entrepreneurs. Biography Most of the people who broadcast football matches have never paid for a ticket. Robbie Lyle noticed that gap in 2012, borrowed a camera, and started filming Arsenal supporters outside the Emirates after every game. The channel he launched as Arsenal Fan TV is now AFTV: 1.7 million YouTube subscribers, more than a billion views, and the dominant fan media platform in world football. The business case is more interesting than the YouTube numbers. Lyle has never taken external investment. Global Fan Network, the parent company he founded and runs as Group CEO, now houses AFTV alongside DR Sports and a growing roster of fan-led channels, with turnover above £1.4 million reinvested back into the business. He has done what most legacy media companies are still trying to work out: build a direct relationship with an audience, hold it, and make it pay. That gives him a particular kind of authority on community-led commercial strategy. He can describe, from inside, how a fan channel competes with Sky and BT Sport for the same attention, why authenticity is a working business model rather than a marketing line, and what happens to the economics of a category when the most engaged audience decides it would rather watch other supporters than paid presenters. Channel 4 commissioned The Real Football Fan Show off the back of that argument in 2018. ITV’s Football Fans Under Their Skin, in 2020, used the same platform to examine race in English football and the experiences of Black supporters. He speaks at TEDx Warwick and the Oxford Union, and his TechRound BAME 50 listing reflects the entrepreneurial side of the story. The line his work draws is a useful one for any organisation thinking about audience ownership: communities that already exist are worth more than communities you try to build, and the operators who understand that tend to win the next decade of commercial media. Key speaking topics Fan-led media and audience ownership Community as a commercial model Entrepreneurship without external investment Digital disruption of incumbent broadcasters Representation and race in sports media Authentic content and brand trust Building a category-defining platform Ideal for Media, entertainment and sports businesses rethinking direct-to-audience strategy CMOs and brand leaders working on community, loyalty and creator partnerships Founders and commercial leaders scaling content businesses without venture capital DEI and culture leads programming sessions on representation in media and sport Audience outcomes A working view of how a fan-first platform takes audience share from established broadcasters A concrete commercial framework for community-led businesses that do not rely on external investment An honest read on what authenticity costs and earns inside a content business at scale Sharper questions for any organisation trying to convert audience attention into a defensible commercial position A first-hand account of representation in sport and what changes when underrepresented voices control the platform

Why organisations work with Robert Cialdini His Seven Principles of Influence – Reciprocity, Commitment and Consistency, Social Proof, Authority, Liking, Scarcity, and Unity – are the most widely referenced persuasion framework in business, grounded in peer-reviewed experimental research rather than practitioner observation. No comparable model carries equivalent scientific credibility. Pre-Suasion introduced a counterintuitive and commercially actionable argument: the moment before a message is delivered determines whether it will be received. That gives leaders, negotiators, and commercial teams a lever – the deliberate management of attention and context – that most organisations have never systematically deployed. His research has been applied across contexts from US presidential campaign strategy to national energy conservation policy, demonstrating that the principles are not industry-specific – they describe universal mechanisms of human decision-making. Influence is listed in Fortune’s “75 Smartest Business Books” and CEO Read’s “100 Best Business Books of All Time”; Pre-Suasion was a Financial Times Best Business Book of 2016. The durability of both titles means organisations are reinforcing, not introducing, a framework that their people already partially know – which accelerates adoption. The Society for Personality and Social Psychology has named a prize in his honour – a signal of the field’s verdict on the quality and societal relevance of his research, not merely its commercial reach. Biography highlights Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University; visiting scholar at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Ohio State, and the Annenberg School of Communications Author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984) and Pre-Suasion (2016) – combined sales of over seven million copies in more than 44 languages Pre-Suasion was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller; named a Financial Times Best Business Book of 2016 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2018) and the National Academy of Sciences (2019) Described by Harvard Business Review as “the foremost expert on effective persuasion”; Influence listed in Fortune’s “75 Smartest Business Books” and CEO Read’s “100 Best Business Books of All Time” President and CEO of INFLUENCE AT WORK; holds honorary doctorates from Georgetown University, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Wroclaw), and the University of Basel Biography Robert Cialdini’s foundational research did not begin in a laboratory. He spent three years working undercover inside the professions of compliance – car dealerships, fundraising organisations, telemarketing firms – observing how influence actually operates in real commercial settings. That methodology produced Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, published in 1984. The Six Principles it identified – Reciprocity, Commitment and Consistency, Social Proof, Authority, Liking, and Scarcity – became the most applied persuasion framework in business, referenced from sales training programmes to business school curricula to the annual letters of Berkshire Hathaway. More than thirty years later, Cialdini returned with a second argument. Pre-Suasion proposed that the persuasive moment does not begin when a message is delivered – it begins before. The conditions set in the moments prior to communication determine whether an audience is receptive. Changing minds, he argued, requires changing states of mind first. Pre-Suasion became a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, and a Financial Times Best Business Book of 2016. It also introduced the seventh principle – Unity – based on the finding that shared identity is among the most powerful drivers of influence. The commercial applications are direct and cross-functional. Sales and marketing teams use the principles to structure offers and sequence communications. Leaders apply them to change management and stakeholder alignment. Negotiators use the Pre-Suasion concept to set the conditions before a position is stated. Harvard Business Review has described Cialdini as “the foremost expert on effective persuasion.” Richard Thaler, co-author of Nudge, has said no psychologist’s research has been applied more often or more successfully. Cialdini is Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and has held visiting scholar appointments at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and the Annenberg School of Communications. He has been elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Society for Personality and Social Psychology has named a prize in his honour – awarded for research that demonstrates societal relevance through field methods, which is precisely the standard his own work set. Key speaking topics The Seven Principles of Influence Pre-Suasion and the psychology of attention Ethical persuasion in leadership and negotiation Behavioural science in sales and marketing Social proof and organisational decision-making The Unity principle and collaborative alignment Science-based communication strategy Ideal for CMOs, sales directors, and commercial leadership teams seeking evidence-based frameworks for customer and stakeholder communication C-suite and board-level audiences navigating change, alignment, or strategic persuasion challenges Heads of marketing, brand, and communications responsible for message design and audience receptivity Negotiation, procurement, and business development professionals Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Seven Principles of Influence – including Unity – and how each applies in commercial, leadership, and negotiation contexts A clear grasp of the Pre-Suasion concept: how to shape audience receptivity before a message is delivered, and why this is distinct from refining the message itself A framework for distinguishing ethical influence from manipulation – and a practical understanding of why the distinction matters commercially as well as reputationally Specific, research-grounded adjustments to the sequencing, framing, and context of communication that improve persuasive effectiveness Confidence to apply the principles immediately across sales, leadership, and change management settings without requiring institutional change first

Why organisations work with Robin Ince Sixteen years co-hosting The Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox gave him a working method for translating serious ideas into language a general audience can act on. Few speakers have practised that craft at that scale. His account of late-diagnosed ADHD in Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal is one of the most widely read first-person treatments of adult neurodiversity from a recognisably high-functioning public figure. That makes him useful to leadership audiences who do not see themselves in standard neurodiversity training. He brings genuine comedy timing to material that is usually delivered flat. Boards and senior leadership offsites can absorb difficult content from him that they would resist from a clinical speaker. He carries credentials that survive scrutiny in any room: Honorary Fellow at UCL, honorary doctorate from Royal Holloway, Fellow of the British Science Association, Booksellers Association Author of the Year. Biography highlights Co-host of BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox, 2009 to 2025; the show won the 2011 Sony Gold Award for Best Speech Programme. Honorary Fellow of University College London and honorary Doctor of Science of Royal Holloway, University of London. Author of I’m a Joke and So Are You, The Importance of Being Interested, Bibliomaniac, and Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity; co-author with Brian Cox of How to Build a Universe. Booksellers Association Author of the Year, 2022; Time Out Outstanding Contribution to Comedy, 2006; multiple Chortle Awards including Best Compere. Co-founder of the Cosmic Shambles Network and creator of Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People, the annual science variety show that has run since 2008. Public advocate on adult ADHD and neurodiversity following his own late diagnosis, anchoring his current touring show The Universe and the Neurodiverse. Biography The Infinite Monkey Cage ran on BBC Radio 4 for sixteen years and won the Sony Gold Award for Best Speech Programme along the way. Robin Ince co-presented it with the physicist Brian Cox throughout, and the working method he developed there sits at the centre of what he now offers organisations: serious science, philosophy and literature delivered in language a general audience will actually use. That method has produced four solo books and one co-authored with Cox. The Importance of Being Interested and Bibliomaniac established him as a writer on curiosity and reading culture. Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, published by Macmillan in 2025, did something different. Following his own late ADHD diagnosis, he wrote a first-person account of adult neurodiversity that has been unusually well received by readers who do not see themselves in standard workplace material on the subject. The credentials behind the work are real. He is an Honorary Fellow of University College London and an Honorary Doctor of Science of Royal Holloway. He is a Fellow of the British Science Association and was Booksellers Association Author of the Year in 2022. He co-founded the Cosmic Shambles Network and has curated the Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People science variety show every December since 2008. For corporate audiences the proposition is specific. He is useful when a leadership team wants to talk seriously about neurodiversity and curiosity without flattening either into HR language, and he is one of very few speakers who can take a room from a research finding to a usable insight to a genuine laugh in the same minute. Key speaking topics Adult neurodiversity and late ADHD diagnosis Scientific curiosity as a habit of mind Communicating complex ideas to non-specialist audiences Humour and humanity Reading culture and the value of attention Science, music and comedy as a single conversation Ideal for Leadership teams and HR directors building neurodiversity work that goes beyond policy Boards and senior offsites looking for substantive content delivered with comedy timing Innovation, R&D and learning functions who want to reset what curiosity looks like in practice Conference organisers programming a science, culture or curiosity strand Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for talking about adult ADHD and neurodiversity in senior settings A clearer sense of why attention, not information, is the scarce resource in their organisation Specific examples from sixteen years of putting scientists in front of general audiences, with the lessons that translate Permission to be more interested in their own work, which most leaders need more than they admit

Why organisations work with Robyn Dwyer Two decades anchoring business news for BBC, ITN, Sky and TalkTV translates directly to the stage: she can interview a CEO with the editorial discipline of a newsroom rather than the deference of a corporate compere. She works fluently in French and English, which makes her a practical choice for Paris-based forums, pan-European leadership meetings and bilingual customer events without a second host. Her live anchoring at CGTN keeps her sharp on the running stories executives are being asked about, including energy, retail, China exposure and sustainability, so she chairs from current information rather than a briefing pack. She has interviewed business figures from Sir Richard Branson to the head of Citroen, alongside political leaders and bankers, which is the relevant proof point for boards putting their own leadership on stage opposite her. Biography highlights Presenter for CGTN, anchoring live news programmes, documentaries and special events. Former anchor of TalkTV’s flagship evening news programme. Business news experience at BBC, ITN, Sky and CGTN spanning more than two decades. Conceived and presented a US elections programme for TRT World. Radio news credits at Classic FM, Magic Radio, Smooth Radio, Absolute Radio, LBC and Share Radio. Fluent in French, with on-air work across Istanbul, Paris, Sydney and London. Biography Conferences are where leadership teams expose themselves in front of customers, regulators and their own people. The person chairing the day decides whether that exposure becomes useful tension or polite filler. Robyn Dwyer has spent more than twenty years on the working side of that question, first as a business journalist for the BBC and ITN, then as an anchor for Sky and TalkTV’s flagship evening news programme. Her current seat at CGTN keeps her in daily contact with the live agenda boards are wrestling with: energy markets, retail conditions, China exposure, the sustainability transition. Hosts who only emerge for events tend to drift into generic moderation. Dwyer chairs from a newsroom, which is a different discipline. The interviewee list is the relevant proof. Sir Richard Branson, the head of Citroen, political leaders, bankers and environmental stakeholders have all sat opposite her on air. That experience reads on stage. Senior executives are interviewed properly rather than handed a microphone, and the panel does not collapse into talking points. A working command of French, plus on-air experience in Istanbul, Paris, Sydney and London, makes her a practical pick for European and bilingual programmes that would otherwise need two hosts. The differentiator is straightforward: a journalist who chairs, not a presenter who reads. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and panel chairing Live business interviews with senior executives Bilingual French and English event hosting Sustainability and the energy transition Retail, consumer and finance briefings China business and politics UK news and political context for international audiences Ideal for CEO, CFO and CMO led customer forums and partner conferences that need a credible business interviewer on stage. Boards and investor relations teams running flagship results events, capital markets days and AGM-adjacent forums. Communications, marketing and event leads at European and bilingual French-English organisations. Sustainability, energy and retail sector convenings where the chair needs to handle technical executives without losing the room. Audience outcomes A flagship event held to time, with senior executives interviewed in a way the audience trusts. Panels that produce a usable point of view rather than a round of position statements. Bilingual French and English programming covered by a single host without quality drop-off. Q and A handled with newsroom judgement on which questions to take, redirect or close. A chair record the comms team can point to when the next sponsor or board member asks who is hosting.

Why organisations work with Rohit Bassi Three decades of cross-cultural coaching across 21 countries, with named engagements at the World Bank, Oracle, Honeywell, PwC, Bank of America, Canon, and Emirates NBD. A named method, Speak Like A W.I.S.E. CEO, that maps four bearings to four disciplines: words with courage, intention with clarity, silence with conviction, and energy with compassion. It gives leaders a repeatable structure for the specific conversation in front of them. A Gulf-based perspective on executive presence that translates between Western corporate norms and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian leadership cultures, useful for organisations with distributed senior teams. A practitioner record spanning keynote speaking, sales communication coaching, and authorship of Living Through Self Compassion, which lets him work credibly with commercial leaders and people leaders in the same organisation. Biography highlights Founder of ROI Talks, the coaching and training practice he established in Dubai. Creator of the Speak Like A W.I.S.E. CEO framework for high-stakes communication. Author of five books including Beyond Words on mindful public speaking, Soul of Sales on ethical selling, and Living Through Self Compassion, plus contributing author of Success Mastery alongside Jack Canfield. TEDx speaker, “The Miracle of Compassion” (TEDxCCQ), hosted on the TED platform. Executive Contributor at Brainz Magazine, and member of the National Academy of Best-Selling Authors. Three decades of speaking, coaching, and training across more than 21 countries, with named engagements including the World Bank, Oracle, Honeywell, PwC, Bank of America, Canon, and Emirates NBD. Biography Most leaders are not promoted for how they communicate. They are promoted in spite of it, and only at senior level does the cost surface, in a board that loses patience or a deal that quietly stalls. ROI Talks, the practice Rohit Bassi founded in Dubai, was built for that gap. His method, Speak Like A W.I.S.E. CEO, rests on four bearings. Words carry courage, intention carries clarity, silence carries conviction, and energy carries compassion. Drawn from a long study of mindfulness, it applies to the situations leaders face: executive presence, persuasion under pressure, conflict that has turned organisational, and the daily habits that build or erode trust. He has worked across more than 21 countries with named clients including the World Bank, Oracle, Honeywell, PwC, Bank of America, Canon, and Emirates NBD. His writing runs along the same lines as the coaching. Beyond Words sets out his approach to mindful public speaking, Soul of Sales makes the case for trust-based selling, and Living Through Self Compassion tells the personal story behind the method, a return from depression and self-sabotage. He is also a contributing author of Success Mastery alongside Jack Canfield, and his TEDx talk, The Miracle of Compassion, sits on the TED platform. Known to clients as The Communication Wizard, he coaches senior leaders across Western, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian cultures, and writes as an Executive Contributor for Brainz Magazine. For organisations with leadership teams spread across those regions, that cross-cultural read on executive presence is rare in the category. Key speaking topics Leadership communication and executive presence Persuasion and influence in high-stakes conversations Mindful communication and emotional intelligence Sales communication for senior leaders Conflict, difficult conversations, and trust repair Resilience and self-leadership under pressure Public speaking for executives Ideal for CEOs and business unit heads preparing for board, investor, or all-hands communication, including investor pitch coaching Sales leadership and commercial teams running high-stakes, value-based B2B conversations Heads of L&D, talent, and executive development commissioning leadership communication programmes Senior leadership teams in multinational and Gulf-based organisations with cross-cultural workforces Audience outcomes The four bearings of the W.I.S.E. compass in language they can use in the next difficult conversation Specific handling for high-stakes moments: persuasion, conflict, trust repair, and assertive listening A read on what each high-stakes conversation puts at stake: financial value, time, risk exposure, and the authority carried into the next room A working approach to composure under pressure that applies the next working day

Why organisations work with Rohit Bhargava He brings a decade of annual trend research, distilled into the Non-Obvious and Megatrends book series, into a board or strategy off-site as a working method, not a slide deck. The SIFT framework gives marketing, innovation and strategy teams a shared language for separating durable shifts from passing noise, which most trend keynotes leave unresolved. His client list (NASA, Disney, World Bank, Intel, American Express) signals a track record with organisations that have to make capital decisions on long horizons, not just generate quarterly campaigns. Beyond Diversity, co-authored with Jennifer Brown, gives him a credible second register on inclusion as a commercial and cultural question, useful when a single keynote needs to cover both growth strategy and people. He works as a trained marketer (15 years at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett), which means innovation and trend content lands with sales, brand and customer leaders rather than staying at the level of abstract foresight. Biography highlights 3-time Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of ten books, including #1 WSJ bestseller Non-Obvious Megatrends. Adjunct professor of marketing and storytelling at Georgetown University. Co-founder of Ideapress Publishing and founder of the Non-Obvious Company. Co-author of Beyond Diversity with Jennifer Brown (Simon & Schuster / Ideapress); WSJ bestseller. Keynote and workshop work for NASA, Disney, Intel, American Express, World Bank, Coca-Cola, Microsoft. Featured speaker at five SXSW events; keynote at SXSW Sydney 2023, the first SXSW outside the United States. Biography Trend forecasting is crowded. Most of what circulates inside large organisations is a recycled version of the same six themes: AI, sustainability, hybrid work, generational change, geopolitics, the consumer. The harder question for a senior team is which of those headlines actually changes how they should allocate capital next year, and which signals further out are not yet on anyone’s deck. That gap is the work Rohit Bhargava has built a decade-long research practice around. His Non-Obvious book series, published annually from 2015 and culminating in the WSJ and USA Today #1 bestseller Non-Obvious Megatrends in 2020, reached more than a million readers. The follow-up, The Future Normal, co-authored with Henry Coutinho-Mason and launched at SXSW in 2023, covers thirty shifts shaping the next decade, from generative AI to biophilic design. The 2024 book Non-Obvious Thinking, written with Ben duPont, formalises the SIFT method, a four-step habit for curating ideas that audiences can take into their own teams. Before becoming a full-time author and speaker, Bhargava spent 15 years in brand strategy roles at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett, advising consumer brands on behaviour and storytelling. He teaches marketing and storytelling at Georgetown University as an adjunct professor, and writes a monthly column for Inc. on books that matter. With Jennifer Brown he co-authored Beyond Diversity, a Wall Street Journal bestseller published by Simon & Schuster and Ideapress, which examines inclusion across twelve domains including workplace, leadership and technology. The client list, NASA, Disney, the World Bank, Intel, American Express, Microsoft, signals where the work lands hardest: organisations that need to translate cultural and technological signals into product, capital and brand decisions on multi-year horizons. The point is not to predict the future but to teach a working team to spot it earlier than the competition. Key speaking topics Trend forecasting and the non-obvious method Innovation as a research discipline Marketing and brand in low-trust markets AI and the future of trust The Future Normal: thirty shifts reshaping commerce Inclusive growth and Beyond Diversity Storytelling for senior leaders Creative thinking and curation as a managed habit Ideal for Chief marketing officers, brand teams and customer experience leads navigating attention and trust in saturated markets Chief strategy officers, innovation leads and corporate development teams setting multi-year direction Boards and executive committees commissioning a sharper view of how cultural and technological shifts will hit their category Sales and partner kickoffs where a strategy team wants a working method, not a trend slide Audience outcomes A working knowledge of the SIFT method and how to use it inside a team A named set of cultural and commercial shifts that are relevant to the audience’s specific industry, not generic trend lists A shared vocabulary for separating durable signals from passing noise Practical examples of how organisations including NASA, Disney and World Bank have translated trend research into operating decisions Confidence that trend work can be a repeatable internal habit, not a one-off external report

Why organisations work with Rory Cowlam His 2020 book The Secret Life of a Vet (Hodder & Stoughton) makes a specific structural argument: that mental health breakdown in demanding professions is driven by systemic design – appointment length, absence of emotional processing time, cultural silence – not individual weakness. This gives audiences a framework, not just a story. As Clinical Director and co-founder of Pickles Vets, he has built a wellbeing-first practice model from the ground up, which means his arguments about workplace culture come with operational proof, not just principles. His own experience of dyslexia – sustained across a high-stakes clinical career – gives him a credibility on neurodiversity that is qualitatively different from speakers who come to the topic from coaching or consultancy. His platform as Blue Peter’s resident vet and regular contributor to BBC Breakfast and ITV’s Lorraine demonstrates an unusual ability to translate clinical complexity into plain, accessible language – directly relevant for organisations communicating sensitive topics to broad internal audiences. As a co-founder of VidiVet, a digital platform designed to extend veterinary access and reduce pressure on overstretched clinical teams, he brings a practical, innovation-oriented lens to workforce sustainability. Biography highlights Clinical Director and co-founder, Pickles Vets, Fulham, London – an RCVS-registered, wellbeing-first membership veterinary practice Graduate of the Royal Veterinary College, London (BVetMed PgCert MRCVS), qualified 2015 Author of The Secret Life of a Vet (Hodder & Stoughton, 2020) – Amazon bestseller addressing mental health in clinical professions Lead talent and presenter, The Pets Factor, CBBC; resident vet, Blue Peter (BBC, since 2019); regular contributor to BBC Breakfast and ITV’s Lorraine Ambassador, British Dyslexia Association and StreetVet; RSPCA ambassador Co-founder, VidiVet – a digital veterinary advice platform designed to improve access and reduce workload pressure on clinical teams Nominated, Vet of the Year, Animal Star Awards (2018 and 2019) Biography The veterinary profession has one of the highest rates of burnout and mental health difficulty of any skilled workforce in the UK. Rory Cowlam has been arguing, publicly and with clinical authority, that this is not a coincidence – and not a personal failing. It is what happens when a system is designed around throughput rather than people. His 2020 book The Secret Life of a Vet, published by Hodder & Stoughton and an Amazon bestseller, made that argument in direct, first-person terms. It did not frame mental health as a welfare footnote; it placed it at the centre of what makes or breaks professional culture in high-pressure environments. As Clinical Director and co-founder of Pickles Vets in London, Cowlam has since built a practice model that tests those arguments in practice – longer appointments, staffed-to-capacity teams, and transparency on pricing as foundations for a working environment that retains talented clinicians rather than burning them out. His own dyslexia, navigated through a demanding clinical training and a broadcast career spanning The Pets Factor (CBBC), Blue Peter, BBC Breakfast, and ITV’s Lorraine, gives him a lived, professionally grounded perspective on neurodiversity that organisations rarely encounter from a speaker. He does not speak about dyslexia as a historical obstacle overcome; he speaks about it as a continuing factor in how he works, leads, and communicates. A graduate of the Royal Veterinary College and co-founder of VidiVet, a digital platform extending veterinary access, Cowlam sits at a distinctive intersection: practising clinician, published author, broadcast communicator, and operational founder. For organisations wrestling with retention, neurodiversity inclusion, and the gap between wellbeing policy and workplace reality, he offers something specific – a structural diagnosis, not a motivational remedy. Key speaking topics Mental health and burnout in high-pressure professions Neurodiversity and dyslexia in professional environments Wellbeing by design – structural approaches to workforce sustainability Veterinary practice and the realities of clinical leadership Communicating complex expertise to public audiences Animal welfare, charity engagement, and purpose at work Ideal for CHROs and people directors in healthcare, clinical, and high-pressure professional services organisations Wellbeing leads and occupational health teams Early careers and graduate development audiences in clinical and technical professions Diversity and inclusion leads focused on neurodiversity strategy Audience outcomes A reframing of mental health from individual issue to structural design question – with practical implications for how teams are built and managed Clearer language for discussing neurodiversity in professional settings, grounded in lived clinical experience rather than theory An understanding of what a wellbeing-first workplace model looks like operationally, drawn from Cowlam’s own practice at Pickles Vets Greater confidence in communicating specialist expertise to non-specialist audiences – a skill Cowlam models directly in his broadcast work Honest perspective on what high-pressure career paths actually demand, useful for early careers programmes and talent retention conversations

Why organisations work with Rosanna Lockwood She has anchored live business news for CNBC International, MSNBC, NBC and Bloomberg TV, so she can chair a CFO, a central bank governor and a sanctions analyst in the same hour without losing the thread. Her brief is built where the audience expects it to be tested: Downing Street, the Singapore Strait, Istanbul, Dubai. That field record carries weight with senior delegates who can spot a host briefed only from a deck. She has moderated for COP, the World Economic Forum and LEAP, formats where the chair has to manage geopolitical sensitivity and named-company exposure in real time. She holds her own opposite Nobel laureates, central bank governors and CEOs without ceding the room, which is the actual job when the panel includes a sitting minister and a sceptical buy-side audience. Biography highlights Anchor on CNBC International, presenting Squawk Box and Street Signs from London and Singapore, with European markets reporting for CNBC US, MSNBC and NBC. Host of Prime Time with Rosanna Lockwood on TalkTV, and Piers Morgan’s stand-in on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Earlier broadcasting roles with Bloomberg TV, Reuters in Dubai, the BBC, LBC and ITN. Moderator at COP, the World Economic Forum and LEAP, plus conferences and summits in London, Paris, New York, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Singapore. BJTC-accredited Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism, London College of Communication; BA English Literature and Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London. Senior Fellow of the John Schofield Trust, mentoring early-career journalists. Biography Live business news is unforgiving territory. The anchor has minutes, sometimes seconds, to read a central bank statement, frame the implication for markets and put the right question to the next guest. Lockwood spent over a decade in that seat, anchoring Squawk Box and Street Signs for CNBC International in London and Singapore and reporting European markets for CNBC US, MSNBC and NBC. That work shaped a specific kind of moderator. She is fluent in the vocabulary of monetary policy, corporate strategy and geopolitical risk because she has had to translate it on air, in real time, with a Nobel laureate, a CEO or a finance minister opposite her. Earlier roles at Bloomberg TV, Reuters in Dubai, the BBC, LBC and ITN extended that range across foreign policy, defence, sustainability and energy. The conference work follows the same logic. Lockwood has chaired and moderated for COP, the World Economic Forum and LEAP, and across summits in London, Paris, New York, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Singapore. The brief in those rooms is concrete: keep a senior panel honest, surface the disagreement that matters, and leave the buy-side or board audience with a signal they can act on. She qualified through a BJTC-accredited Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism at London College of Communication, after a BA in English Literature and Drama at Royal Holloway. As a Senior Fellow of the John Schofield Trust, she mentors early-career journalists in the UK. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and panel chairing Investor day and AGM hosting Business and finance interviewing Geopolitics and foreign policy Sustainability and energy transition Macroeconomics and central bank policy Defence and security Ideal for Boards, IR teams and CFO offices commissioning chairs for capital markets days, AGMs and investor summits Sustainability, public affairs and ESG leads convening regulator-facing or COP-adjacent conversations Heads of communications and event leads at banks, asset managers and energy companies running flagship summits Government and multilateral programme leads at WEF, COP and LEAP-tier convenings Audience outcomes Senior speakers handled with the discipline of a live news desk, including the unscripted moments Sharper questions in the room, including the ones panellists would prefer to skip A chair who can connect a macro print, a corporate decision and a policy shift inside a single panel Confidence that sensitive geopolitical territory will be navigated without diplomatic damage A through-line for the audience, so the day reads as one argument rather than a sequence of sessions