Storytelling & Business Communication speakers

Why organisations work with Rosie and Mollie Kmita They host with the fluency of working broadcasters. Both co-front Sky Sports’ Barclays Women’s Championship Show and the Broadcast Award-winning show The Dub, and bring the same standard to corporate stages, awards nights, and panels. They built The Powerhouse Project from inside the game. Not a sponsorship vehicle. A working leadership pipeline that has supported more than 60 women through the UEFA B Prep Programme since 2022, with Nike, the FA, and Google Pixel as operating partners. They speak credibly on representation because they are the data point. Rosie’s career as a British Asian professional footballer makes their advocacy specific rather than general. They convert lived industry experience into actionable talking points for HR, ED&I, and brand audiences who are tired of generic diversity content. Biography highlights Co-founders of The Powerhouse Project, a women’s leadership initiative in football and sports media, partnered with Nike, The FA, Football Beyond Borders, and Google Pixel Co-hosts of Sky Sports’ Barclays Women’s Championship Show Hosts of The Dub, the Sky Sports and Snapchat show that won a Broadcast Award Former professional footballers with playing time at Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United, Brighton and Hove Albion, and others Regular contributors to Soccer AM, BBC One’s MOTDx, and Sky Sports News’ The Football Show Brand work with Nike, Google Pixel, FIFA, Pepsi, Expedia, Snapchat, SoccerX Biography Women’s football has changed faster in the last five years than in the previous fifty. The pipeline behind it has not kept pace. Coaching qualifications, broadcast access, media production roles, and senior executive routes remain structurally narrow, particularly for women from ethnically diverse backgrounds. The Kmita twins built The Powerhouse Project to widen that pipeline from inside the industry. Rosie and Mollie grew up in north London and played professionally at Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United, Brighton and Hove Albion, and other clubs across the women’s pyramid. Rosie was one of two existing players retained when West Ham received their FA Women’s Super League franchise in 2018. Both retired into broadcasting and now co-host Sky Sports’ Barclays Women’s Championship Show and The Dub, the Sky Sports and Snapchat show that took a Broadcast Award. The Powerhouse Project, launched in 2021, is the substantive work. The UEFA B Prep Programme run with the FA and Nike has supported more than 60 women coaches since 2022. The Pixel FC Academy, run with Google, develops young women into sports media careers across broadcast, production, and written press. The partners are operating partners, not logo sponsors, and the cohort numbers grow each year. For corporate audiences they bring two things at once. Hosting craft built on national broadcast experience, and a substantive, working point of view on representation, female leadership, and how to actually move people through an industry pipeline rather than just talk about it. Key speaking topics Women’s leadership in sport and media Representation and ethnically diverse pathways in male-coded industries Building leadership pipelines through programme partnerships Female empowerment and career progression Awards hosting, panel moderation, and event facilitation Broadcasting and on-camera presence Ideal for ED&I, HR, and people leaders building representation pipelines beyond awareness campaigns Brand and marketing teams designing women’s sport and youth-facing activations Conference organisers needing a host or moderator with broadcast fluency on women’s leadership and sport panels Internal women’s network events and ERG showcases Audience outcomes A clearer view of what an operating leadership pipeline looks like compared to a sponsorship-led ED&I programme Direct industry perspective on the barriers women from ethnically diverse backgrounds face in sport and media, and what removes them A worked example of building an external initiative alongside a primary career Energy and craft on stage from two practitioners who host professionally for a living

Why organisations work with Ross Reekie He brings primary research material that most engagement speakers do not have: the Fun Jobs Project is a multi-year field experiment in which he personally took on roles from ski instructor to stand-up comedian to test where meaning actually originates at work. He treats meaning as a performance variable, not a wellbeing variable. The argument lands with operating leaders who have stopped believing engagement programmes pay back. His academic base is serious. An Engineering degree from Edinburgh, an MBA and a Master’s in Sustainable Leadership from MGSM Sydney, and PhD-track research at Macquarie give him a credible research spine to sit alongside the field work. He is built for interactive formats. His keynote uses live experiments, props and audience participation rather than slide narration, which suits internal leadership offsites and culture-launch events. He has tested the same content across two continents and across sectors, with named conference platforms including TEDxMonashUniversity, TEDxGlasgowCaledonianUniversity, and the Urban Future Global Conference. Biography highlights Founder of Rise Consulting, Sydney, working with leadership teams on meaningful work and workplace culture. TEDx speaker at TEDxMonashUniversity (2019) and TEDxGlasgowCaledonianUniversity (2019). Creator of the Fun Jobs Project, a live research experiment into the sources of meaning at work. Host of The Meaning of Work podcast, with hundreds of interviews from interns to chief executives. MBA and Master’s in Sustainable Leadership from MGSM Sydney; Engineering degree from the University of Edinburgh; Master’s in Research underway at Macquarie University. Twenty years of consulting work with leadership teams across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. Biography Most organisations have stopped believing their own engagement data. Scores hold steady, but discretionary effort drains away, and the standard interventions of values workshops, recognition platforms and mission refreshes no longer change behaviour. The interesting question is no longer whether people are engaged. It is what they are committing to, and why. Ross Reekie has spent two decades inside that question. He founded Rise Consulting in Sydney to work with leadership teams on meaningful work and workplace culture, building on twenty years of consulting across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. His academic base sits alongside the practice: an Engineering degree from the University of Edinburgh, an MBA and a Master’s in Sustainable Leadership from MGSM Sydney, and Master’s research at Macquarie University on what makes work matter. The Fun Jobs Project is what sets the work apart. After burning out as the meaningful-work expert who had lost meaning in his own work, Reekie ran a live experiment on himself, taking roles from ski instructor to stand-up comedian to opera extra to test where engagement actually comes from. The output is a model of meaning that starts with a playful, exploratory mindset rather than with mission statements, and that treats curiosity and connection as performance inputs. He brings the same material to TEDx stages at Monash and Glasgow Caledonian, to the Urban Future Global Conference, and to private leadership rooms. His keynote runs as a live, interactive session rather than a talk, with props and audience experiments built in. For a senior people or transformation leader trying to revive a tired culture, he gives them a research-grounded argument they can hand to an operating board. Key speaking topics Meaningful work and workplace culture Employee engagement and the social contract of work Purpose and authenticity in leadership Burnout and recovery in senior teams Belonging and team connection Fear as a performance blocker Playful curiosity as a leadership capability Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers rebuilding engagement after a period of flat scores or fatigued change programmes Heads of culture and internal communications launching or refreshing a purpose narrative Leadership teams and executive offsites looking for a working session rather than a talk Conference organisers in the future-of-work, employee experience, and urban or civic-leadership space Audience outcomes A research-grounded view of why meaning at work is a performance question, not a wellbeing question A clear distinction between engagement programmes that move behaviour and those that do not Specific language for the mindset shifts that produce more discretionary commitment at work Practical prompts for leaders to test on their own teams before changing anything organisation-wide A felt experience of a working session, not a lecture, that participants can replicate in their own offsites

Why organisations work with Ryan Serhant He built a brokerage that uses its own studio as the primary lead source, giving sales and marketing leaders a working reference for how content-to-commerce actually operates at scale. He has closed close to ten billion dollars in personal real estate sales while running the firm, including the most expensive home ever sold in Florida, so the methodology comes from a practitioner still in the deal flow. His three books, Sell It Like Serhant, Big Money Energy, and Brand It Like Serhant, sequence a coherent commercial argument from individual sales technique to personal brand as a business asset. He is one of the few operators booked at this level whose audience already knows the work through Netflix’s Owning Manhattan and Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York, which compresses the credibility step at large commercial events. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of SERHANT., a brokerage with an in-house film studio used as its lead-generation engine. Star and executive producer of Netflix’s Owning Manhattan; star of Bravo’s two-time Emmy-nominated Million Dollar Listing New York. Author of Sell It Like Serhant (2018), Big Money Energy (2021), and Brand It Like Serhant (2024). The Serhant Team ranked top sales team in New York by The Wall Street Journal for three consecutive years and Top 5 nationwide. Closed close to ten billion dollars in personal sales, including record-setting transactions in New York and Florida. Founder of SERHANT. Studios and the SELL IT digital education platform. Biography Most brokerages still treat marketing as a cost centre and the salesforce as the engine. SERHANT., the firm Ryan Serhant founded in September 2020, inverts that. The studio is the engine. The agents convert the demand it generates. Owning Manhattan, the Netflix series Serhant produces and stars in, is part of the same flywheel. That model is the reason commercial leaders book him. Serhant has closed close to ten billion dollars in personal real estate sales, including the most expensive home ever sold in Florida, while running the firm. The point on stage is not the listings. It is what an operating model looks like when content production, personal brand, and sales pipeline are run as a single discipline rather than three departments. His three books trace the same argument at different altitudes. Sell It Like Serhant (2018) is a salesperson’s playbook. Big Money Energy (2021) reframes ambition as a discipline that can be coached. Brand It Like Serhant (2024) treats personal and corporate brand as a measurable commercial asset that produces inbound demand. Together they are the spine of his keynote work and the SELL IT education platform that grew out of the first book. The Serhant Team was ranked the top sales team in New York by The Wall Street Journal for three consecutive years before he launched the brokerage. Million Dollar Listing New York, the two-time Emmy-nominated Bravo series, gave the broader audience the character. Owning Manhattan, now in its second Netflix season, gives them the company. Key speaking topics Content-to-commerce business models Sales methodology and pipeline Personal brand as a commercial asset Entrepreneurship and scale-up Customer acquisition and lead generation Founder mindset and commercial ambition Ideal for Chief revenue officers and heads of sales rebuilding pipeline economics around content Chief marketing officers integrating brand, social, and demand generation into one operating function Founders and CEOs of scale-up businesses building category presence Sales conferences, kickoffs, and partner events for high-ticket and brokerage businesses Audience outcomes A working picture of how an in-house content engine can function as the primary acquisition channel A clearer line between personal brand investment and measurable revenue A sales operating logic drawn from a practitioner who is still closing deals at the top of the market Language and frameworks senior leaders can take back to their commercial teams the next morning

Why organisations work with Sabrina Faramarzi She has written trend reports for The Future Laboratory, Stylus and Canvas8, three of the most-used forecasting houses in consumer strategy, so brand teams get a forecaster who knows how the foresight industry actually works inside. Her sector range covers travel, beauty, fashion, food and drink, wellbeing, money, tech, retail and media, which means a single speaker can address an audience drawn from several consumer-facing categories without losing specificity. She runs Are We Europe, a cross-border editorial operation, so she brings a pan-European read on culture and audience behaviour rather than a default Anglo-American lens. Her data storytelling practice through Dust in Translation is built for organisations that have research and data assets but cannot make them land with a non-technical audience. Biography highlights Managing Director, Are We Europe, a non-profit pan-European media collective. Founder and Editorial Director, Dust in Translation, a creative data storytelling agency. Co-founder, Feminist Internet, a non-profit advancing internet equality through creative practice. Trend reports written for The Future Laboratory, Stylus and Canvas8. Journalism contributions to The Guardian, Wired, Vice and Vogue Business. BA (Hons) First Class in Trend Prediction and Forecasting, University of East London; MA with Distinction in Journalism, University of the Arts London. Biography Most consumer trend conversations in the boardroom collapse into one of two failure modes. They either treat every TikTok spike as a strategic shift, or they ignore weak signals until a competitor has already built around them. Sabrina Faramarzi works in the gap between those two errors. Her practice is reading consumer and cultural signals well enough to tell a brand team which ones to bet on. She has the technical training for it. A First Class degree in Trend Prediction and Forecasting from the University of East London, an MA with Distinction in Journalism from the University of the Arts London, and a working track record writing trend reports for The Future Laboratory, Stylus and Canvas8. That is the inside of the foresight industry, not a commentator’s view of it. The journalism work runs alongside the forecasting. Bylines in The Guardian, Wired, Vice and Vogue Business cover gender, AI, digital rights and internet culture, and that editorial muscle is what lets her translate research into stories that boards and marketing teams actually use. Through Dust in Translation, her data storytelling agency, she does the same job for organisations sitting on data they cannot make legible. She also runs Are We Europe, a non-profit pan-European media collective, and co-founded Feminist Internet. Both give her something most trend speakers do not have: a structural view of how cultural narratives form and travel across borders, which is the part of trend work that matters most when a category is being reshaped rather than refreshed. Key speaking topics Consumer trend forecasting Data storytelling Internet culture and online communities Futures of consumer-facing industries Gender, AI and digital ethics Cross-border European media and audiences Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and category leads in consumer-facing businesses planning the next 18 to 36 months. Innovation and insights teams looking for an outside read on which signals to commit to. Communications and content leaders who need research and data turned into audience-ready stories. Conferences in travel, hospitality, beauty, fashion, food and drink, retail and media that want a sector-specific futures keynote. Audience outcomes A clearer sense of which consumer signals in their category are durable and which are noise. Working language for telling stories with data so research lands with non-technical audiences. A sharper read on how online communities form, mobilise and shape brand reputation. Sector-specific cues for where to look for the next category shift in travel, beauty, fashion, food, retail or media.

Why organisations work with Sally Bundock BBC News chief presenter, one of nine appointed in London when BBC News and BBC World News merged in 2023. The institutional weight comes built in. Twenty years interviewing CEOs and political figures live on international television. The fluency in how senior people speak and what they actually reveal cannot be borrowed for an event. Covered the World Economic Forum, G7, G20, and EU summits as a working reporter. The geopolitics and macroeconomics in a brief read as familiar ground. Built her early career at Bloomberg, where she created the evening programme Bloomberg Money. Finance is a fluent register for her. Named one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers by Timewise and the Financial Times, and now sits on the judging panel. Useful when the event touches flexible working or the social contract of work. Biography highlights BBC News chief presenter, fronting BBC News on BBC One and the BBC News Channel Has anchored The Briefing, Business Live, Business Today, World Business Report, and Work Life across BBC1, BBC News Channel, and BBC World News Created and presented Bloomberg Money during her tenure at Bloomberg LP from 1996 to 2002 Has reported from the World Economic Forum at Davos, G7 and G20 conferences, and successive EU summits Named one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers on the Power Part Time List compiled by Timewise and the Financial Times. Now sits on the judging panel Radio credits include Wake Up To Money on BBC Radio 5 Live and the business slot on Drive Time with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 2 Biography Live business news at 5am is one of the more demanding seats in international broadcasting. The brief is to interview the right CEO and hold a global audience through the next story. Sally Bundock has done it on the BBC for more than two decades. The credibility came up the long way. She joined Bloomberg in 1996, where she created and presented Bloomberg Money, and moved to the BBC in 2002. Twenty years on Business Live, World Business Report, Work Life, and The Briefing followed. She became one of nine chief presenters in London after the BBC News and BBC World News merger in 2023. Her beat covers the territory most boards now spend their time on: macroeconomics, geopolitics, capital markets, and the politics of trade. She has reported from Davos, from G7 and G20 conferences, and from successive EU summits. The subject matter at most senior events is not new ground. It is a Tuesday morning at work. There is also a second-track expertise. Timewise and the Financial Times named her one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers in 2014, and she now sits on the panel that judges the list. That track sharpens her when an event lands on flexible working or the changing social contract between employee and employer. Key speaking topics Global economy and macroeconomic outlook Geopolitical risk and global affairs Business and finance journalism Leadership interviews and CEO conversations Future of work and flexible working Media trust in the disinformation era Ideal for Boards and executive committees convening on global economic and geopolitical risk CFO, treasury, and capital markets gatherings where the agenda is macro and the speakers are senior CHRO and people leadership audiences on flexible working and the changing social contract of work Industry conferences and high-stakes panels needing a moderator who can press a CEO without losing the room Audience outcomes A panel that lands on substance instead of safe ground, with each contributor’s actual position drawn out A reading of how the day’s macroeconomic and geopolitical story is hitting business The interview craft of a working BBC journalist applied to your senior figures Confidence that the conversation will hold its audience through to the close

Why organisations work with Sally Hogshead She brings a diagnosis, not a theory. The Fascination Advantage assessment gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for what each person and each brand actually does best, drawn from data on more than a million respondents. Her commercial credibility is built on practice, not commentary. She wrote campaigns at Crispin Porter and Bogusky and her own agencies for MINI Cooper, Nike, Godiva and Harley-Davidson before turning that craft into a research-based system. Two New York Times bestsellers, Fascinate and How the World Sees You, give her arguments a published spine that internal teams can return to after the keynote. She translates the science of attention into work an executive can act on: how a sales team positions itself in nine seconds, how a leader is perceived in the first meeting, how a brand earns memory in a crowded category. Hall of Fame induction by the National Speakers Association places her in the top tier of professional speakers, measured by sustained client demand, not single-event reception. Biography highlights New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of How the World Sees You and Fascinate, the latter translated into more than twelve languages. Creator of the Fascination Advantage assessment, used by over a million professionals to identify communication and brand differentiation traits. Inducted into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame by the National Speakers Association. Former managing and creative director who opened the Crispin Porter and Bogusky Venice office in 2001 and previously co-founded Robaire and Hogshead. Built campaigns for MINI Cooper, Nike, Godiva, Coca-Cola and Harley-Davidson; advertising work held in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Frequently featured by Fortune 500 teams and C-suite leadership groups to apply Fascinate research directly to brand and team positioning. Biography Most markets are not short of communication. They are short of memorable communication. The discipline of identifying what makes one brand, one team, or one senior leader stand out in a category where everyone sounds competent is where Sally Hogshead has spent twenty years of practice and research. Hogshead came up through the advertising industry as a copywriter at Fallon, Wieden and Kennedy, and The Martin Agency, then co-founded Robaire and Hogshead in 1998 before opening the Venice, California office of Crispin Porter and Bogusky in 2001 as managing and creative director. The campaigns she wrote for MINI Cooper, Nike, Godiva, Coca-Cola and Harley-Davidson hang in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. By the end of that decade, she had won close to every major international advertising award on record. The work since then has been about turning that craft into a system. Her two New York Times bestsellers, Fascinate and How the World Sees You, set out the research behind the Fascination Advantage assessment, a tool used by more than a million professionals and Fortune 500 teams to map how they are actually perceived rather than how they intend to be perceived. The distinction matters in commercial settings, where positioning is decided by the audience, not the speaker. Her induction into the National Speakers Association CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame placed her among fewer than 200 inductees since 1977. Senior teams hire her when they need to move from generic differentiation language to a specific account of why their organisation, product, or leadership team is the one a customer chooses to remember. Key speaking topics Brand differentiation and positioning Persuasion and attention in saturated markets Personal brand and executive presence Customer experience and marketing Sales communication and pitch effectiveness Team communication and perception Storytelling and business communication Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams Sales leaders and customer-facing organisations are rebuilding pitch and positioning CHROs and executive development leads are working on senior leader presence Founders and partners in professional services firms competing on differentiation Audience outcomes A specific, named view of where their brand or leadership team is currently differentiated, and where it is interchangeable A working vocabulary from the Fascination Advantage framework that teams can apply to pitches, profiles and internal communication Concrete examples drawn from MINI Cooper, Nike and other brands of how differentiation is constructed, not asserted A sharper assessment of what their customers and colleagues actually find memorable about them Editorial discipline on cutting filler messaging that is competent but forgettable

Why organisations work with Sam McAlister She is the negotiator who landed the 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew on the Epstein scandal, after almost a year of patient access work with Buckingham Palace. Few speakers can teach reputational negotiation from inside a case at that altitude. She teaches negotiation as a Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice at the LSE Law School, which gives the methodology academic structure, not just war stories. Her book Scoops, published by Oneworld in 2022, was adapted as the Netflix film Scoop in 2024 with Billie Piper. The material has been stress-tested by film, television and law school audiences. Two careers, criminal defence at 25 Bedford Row and a decade as a Newsnight booker, mean her toolkit covers cross-examination, hostile interview preparation, and the negotiation tactics that actually work when the counterparty has every reason to walk away. Biography highlights Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice, London School of Economics Law School, teaching negotiation. Former BBC Newsnight interviews producer for approximately ten years; left in 2021 after voluntary redundancy. Trained criminal defence barrister, 25 Bedford Row chambers, London. Author of Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews (Oneworld Publications, 2022). Subject of the 2024 Netflix film Scoop, portrayed by Billie Piper. Secured the 2019 BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew on the Epstein scandal; the programme received a 2020 BAFTA Television Award nomination for News Coverage. Biography The BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew aired in November 2019 and ended his public life. The booker who spent close to a year negotiating that access was Sam McAlister, then a producer on the programme and previously a criminal defence barrister at 25 Bedford Row. That career sequence matters. Cross-examination teaches a particular discipline: prepare the question for the answer you actually want, do not flinch when the room shifts, do not concede the frame. Booker work at a national news programme adds a second discipline, the patient, repeated conversation with a reluctant counterparty who can leave the table at any moment. McAlister now teaches that craft formally. She is a Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice at the LSE Law School, where her remit is negotiation. Her 2022 memoir Scoops, published by Oneworld, became the source material for the 2024 Netflix film Scoop, with Billie Piper in the lead. The Newsnight programme that anchors both was nominated at the 2020 BAFTA Television Awards in the News Coverage category. What this gives a corporate audience is rare: a working method for the conversations leaders most often delegate or duck. How to keep a reluctant counterparty in dialogue. How to prepare for an interview where every answer is reputationally live. How a calm, prepared, well-briefed presence wins access that money and seniority cannot. Key speaking topics High-stakes negotiation Crisis communication and reputational risk Persuasion and influence Media interviews and executive preparation Composure under public scrutiny Access and relationship-building with reluctant counterparties Ideal for CEOs, board chairs and general counsel facing reputational scrutiny or media exposure Heads of corporate affairs, communications and investor relations Senior leaders preparing for hostile interviews, regulatory hearings or contested negotiations Women’s leadership programmes and executive development cohorts focused on persuasion under pressure Audience outcomes A working frame for negotiating access and agreement when the counterparty has every reason to refuse. A practical method for preparing executives for high-pressure interviews, including the questions they hope no one asks. A read on what reputational risk looks like from the journalist’s side of the table, before it lands on yours. Tools for staying composed and on-message when the room turns adversarial.

Why organisations work with Samantha Johnson Few presenters have actually conducted the FIFA World Cup Final Draw. Samantha has done it twice, including the 2026 ceremony at the Kennedy Center alongside Rio Ferdinand. She holds dual credibility across two registers organisations rarely find in one person: marquee sports broadcasting and substantive global current affairs. The same week she fronts a federation event, she can moderate a policy discussion at the United Nations. As the creator and presenter of Al Jazeera English’s Game Theory, Now You Know and Centre Stage, she runs her own editorial. She does her own research and writes her own questions. A British-Jamaican woman fronting the FIFA World Cup draw signals to a global audience that the organisation has actually changed who occupies authority on its biggest stage. That representation is part of what an organisation buying global visibility is actually paying for. Biography highlights Conductor of the Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026 alongside Rio Ferdinand, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC. Member of the conducting team for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Final Draw in Doha, and presenter at The Best FIFA Football Awards 2022 in Paris. Presenter and producer at Al Jazeera Media Network, where she created and hosts Game Theory, Now You Know and Centre Stage. Former Sports Anchor at TRT World in Istanbul, fronting flagship programme Beyond the Game across seven years. Past on-air roles with Sky Sports News, beIN Sports, Eurosport and Chelsea TV. Moderator for United Nations policy discussions, including the launch of UN Women’s ‘Awake Not Sleeping’ initiative. Biography The Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026 was conducted at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC, in front of heads of state and a global broadcast audience. Samantha Johnson was the broadcaster on stage with Rio Ferdinand, leading the procedure that revealed the group-stage matchups for the first 48-team tournament. Few presenters have ever been trusted with that role. Even fewer have done it twice. The 2026 ceremony followed her work on the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Final Draw in Doha and The Best FIFA Football Awards in Paris. Outside FIFA, she moderates UEFA conferences, anchors policy discussions at the United Nations, and hosted the launch of UN Women’s ‘Awake Not Sleeping’ initiative. The pattern is consistent. Federations and institutions that need a live moment to land at the level their audience expects come back to her. At Al Jazeera English she has built a body of work that runs deeper than presenting. Game Theory examines the politics, power and economics shaping world sport, from betting scandals in the NBA to Africa’s investment in football infrastructure. Now You Know is the network’s vodcast amplifying women’s voices across health, sport and technology. Centre Stage carries her long-form interviews with global change makers, including a recent conversation with Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo. Born in Birmingham to a British-Jamaican family, she has built her career across London, Istanbul and Doha, where she now lives. Before Al Jazeera, she spent seven years anchoring TRT World’s flagship Beyond the Game programme, after starting out at Chelsea TV and moving through on-air roles with Sky Sports News, beIN Sports and Eurosport. The composure that comes from doing live television in three languages and three time zones is what makes her a natural choice for a federation board, an awards stage or a United Nations convening. Key speaking topics Live event hosting and moderation Diversity, representation and women’s voices Sport, politics and power Global storytelling and communication Cultural intelligence in international media Women in sport and broadcasting Ideal for Federations, awards bodies and global brands seeking a credible host for high-profile live moments DEI and Women’s Network leads commissioning conversations on representation and visibility International conferences requiring a moderator who can hold senior speakers and multilingual audiences Media, sport and policy organisations staging events where substance and signal both matter Audience outcomes A view from inside the highest-stakes moments in live global broadcasting, told by someone who has had to deliver them. A perspective on representation in sport and media built from doing the job on stage in front of millions. An honest account of working as a journalist across cultures, from London to Istanbul to Doha. Specific material on how senior figures get interviewed for global broadcast: the editorial preparation, the question design, the on-air control.

Why organisations work with Samantha Simmonds She has spent more than two decades reading live news on Sky News and BBC News, so a live audience, a faulty autocue or a delayed senior speaker does not move her off the agenda. She has interviewed Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel and Nobel laureate Juan Manuel Santos in fireside format, which is the part of the job most hosts cannot do: keeping a global leader on the substance without flattening the conversation. She works at the top of UK corporate hosting, with named clients including the UK Government, Deloitte, London Stock Exchange Group, Sainsbury’s, Hewlett Packard, British Business Bank and Manpower Group. She compered the Qatar-UK business investment forum alongside both the British and Qatari Prime Ministers and chaired an innovation forum for the King of Bhutan, both of which require protocol judgement on top of presenting craft. When she keynotes in her own name, the material is grounded in something specific: how a live news anchor stays composed, frames the question, and reads the room when the script breaks. Biography highlights BBC News presenter, currently hosting Politics London on BBC One. Sky News main anchor from 2005 to 2016, covering UK general elections, the EU referendum, the murder of Jo Cox MP and the Royal Wedding from Buckingham Palace. Earlier presenter on BBC Breakfast and BBC London News, producer on Channel 5 News. Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism, City University London; BA, University of Liverpool. Co-host of the podcast It’s a Grown Up Life with journalist Lauren Libbert. Named conference and awards hosting credits include the UK Government, Deloitte, London Stock Exchange Group, Sainsbury’s, Hewlett Packard, British Business Bank and Manpower Group. Biography Live news anchoring is closer to senior corporate hosting than most buyers realise. Both require holding a room, reading the agenda live, asking a useful question of someone who would rather stay on message, and recovering quickly when the running order breaks. Samantha Simmonds has done one for more than two decades and now does the other at the top end of the UK corporate market. Her on-air career runs from local radio in Yorkshire through Channel 5 News, BBC Breakfast and BBC London, into more than a decade as a main anchor at Sky News from 2005 to 2016. She returned to the BBC in 2017 and currently presents for BBC News and hosts Politics London on BBC One. The Sky years covered UK general elections, the EU referendum, the Royal Wedding live from Buckingham Palace and the murder of Jo Cox MP. The corporate work sits on top of that. She has hosted conferences, awards and fireside chats for the UK Government, Deloitte, London Stock Exchange Group, Sainsbury’s, Hewlett Packard, British Business Bank and Manpower Group. Her named fireside subjects include Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos, and she has compered the Qatar-UK business investment forum alongside both Prime Ministers and chaired an innovation forum for the King of Bhutan. She also writes and podcasts. It’s a Grown Up Life, her podcast with journalist Lauren Libbert, covers the working and personal lives of midlife women. When she keynotes in her own name, the material is drawn from the anchor chair: how to ask better questions, how to keep composure when the autocue dies, and how to read a room of senior people in real time. Key speaking topics Conference hosting and moderation Fireside chats with senior leaders Awards ceremony hosting Interviewing technique under pressure Composure on the live stage Women, work and midlife UK political and current affairs context Ideal for Corporate annual conferences, leadership offsites and investor days needing a senior host. Awards ceremonies and gala dinners requiring an experienced presenter on stage. CEO, chair or political-leader fireside chats where the interviewer needs to hold the room and the substance. Government, financial services and professional services events with a UK political or current affairs frame. Audience outcomes A stage that stays on time, on agenda and on tone for the duration of the event. Senior-leader interviews that go beyond pre-approved talking points without becoming combative. A host who can absorb a last-minute running order change, speaker no-show or live technical failure without the audience noticing. For keynote bookings, a working account of how live broadcasters prepare for, and recover from, things going wrong on air.

Why organisations work with Samira Ahmed More than three decades in senior British journalism, including current presenting roles on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and BBC One’s Newswatch, give her the instinct to read a room and the standing to hold it. Her January 2020 equal pay tribunal win against the BBC gives her direct, lived authority on workplace fairness that few moderators can claim. She has chaired panels for the British Museum, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the United Nations, the Cabinet Office and KPMG, and handles contested material without flattening it into talking points. Stonewall Broadcaster of the Year in 2009 and a current trustee of the Centre for Women’s Justice, she brings a journalistically tested base in equality and gender topics that few corporate hosts can claim. Biography highlights Presenter, Front Row, BBC Radio 4, and Newswatch, BBC One and BBC News Channel. British Broadcasting Press Guild Audio Presenter of the Year, 2020. Stonewall Broadcaster of the Year, 2009, for Channel 4 News reporting on the “corrective” rape of lesbian women in South Africa. Brought and won the landmark equal pay tribunal against the BBC, January 2020. Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford; honorary doctorates from City University of London, the University of East Anglia, Kingston University and the University of Winchester. Trustee, Centre for Women’s Justice; former Channel 4 News presenter and correspondent and former BBC Los Angeles correspondent. Biography In January 2020, an employment tribunal in central London ruled that Samira Ahmed had been paid less than a male colleague for the same broadcasting work. The judgment set a new reference point in British equal pay law and triggered pay reviews across the BBC. That case sits inside more than three decades of senior British journalism. It also explains why organisations book her to chair the conversations they cannot easily host themselves. She has been the named subject in a public fight over pay and gender, where most professional moderators have only commented from outside. She presents Front Row on BBC Radio 4 and Newswatch on BBC One. Before that came eleven years at Channel 4 News, plus an earlier BBC posting to Los Angeles to cover the OJ Simpson trial. Her honours include the 2020 British Broadcasting Press Guild Audio Presenter of the Year. A Stonewall Broadcaster of the Year award followed in 2009 for her Channel 4 News reporting on “corrective” rape in South Africa. She has chaired live discussions for the British Museum, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the British Film Institute, the United Nations and the Cabinet Office. She presented the Civil Service Awards for five consecutive years. In April 2023, on Front Row, she announced the earliest known complete recording of a Beatles concert in Britain. The tape was made by a fifteen-year-old pupil at Stowe School in 1963 and is now held by the British Library. Key speaking topics Equal pay and workplace fairness Gender equality and women’s rights Public trust in journalism and institutions Cultural intelligence in public discourse Senior conference chairing and panel moderation Diversity and representation in public life Ideal for Award ceremonies, leadership summits and AGMs requiring a credible senior chair CHROs and pay equity committees hosting public discussions on workplace fairness DEI leads, communications directors and ESG officers running events on gender equality and fair pay Cultural institutions and public-sector bodies briefing audiences on contested or sensitive material Audience outcomes A direct, journalist-trained perspective on equal pay and workplace fairness, drawn from her own landmark BBC tribunal A working understanding of how the BBC weighs editorial trust and audience scrutiny, from the presenter of Newswatch A discussion that keeps its substance when the material is sensitive, with senior contributors tested rather than handled A model of senior public chairing where the room is led with authority and contested material given space to land

Why organisations work with Sandi Toksvig She did not simply comment on gender equity: in 2015 she resigned one of the most prominent chairs in British broadcasting to co-found a political party around it. That choice gives her a credibility in the room that no consultant or commentator can acquire. Forty years in live, contested broadcast formats, chairing political satire, hosting mass-audience television, moderating fast-moving intellectual debate, represent a specific and rare capability: keeping a complex, high-stakes conversation moving with precision and warmth. Her TED Talk on structural gender representation and her play Bully Boy (Nuffield Theatre; West End, 2012), which examines moral ambiguity and institutional culture, demonstrate that her engagement with social complexity goes well beyond commentary. As President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and a Cambridge-educated author of 20-plus books across fiction, non-fiction, and drama, she brings genuine intellectual depth to conversations about communication, culture, and representation, not just platform authority. She has held the room at every level, from broadcast audiences of millions to TED stages, making serious arguments about inclusion, accountability, and change both rigorous and accessible to a leadership audience. Biography highlights First-class degree in archaeology and anthropology, Girton College, Cambridge; received two academic prizes; performed in the first all-woman Cambridge Footlights show, alongside Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Emma Thompson Co-founder, Women’s Equality Party (2015), with journalist Catherine Mayer; left BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz – a role she held for ten years – specifically to do so; covered by the New York Times; TED Talk on gender representation and political mobilisation Host, BBC Two’s QI (from 2016, succeeding Stephen Fry); co-presenter, Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off (2017-2020); chair, BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz (2006-2015) Playwright: Bully Boy premiered at Nuffield Theatre, Southampton (2011); transferred to launch the debut West End season of St James Theatre, London (2012) – the first new West End theatre in 30 years OBE for services to broadcasting (2014 New Year Honours); Chancellor, University of Portsmouth; Honorary Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge President, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (from 2019); author of more than twenty books for adults and children Biography The gap between organisations that declare commitment to gender equity and those that actually change their leadership pipelines is well documented. Sandi Toksvig entered this conversation at measurable personal cost – resigning as chair of BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz in 2015 to co-found the Women’s Equality Party with journalist Catherine Mayer. A TED Talk on gender representation and political mobilisation followed. The decision established Toksvig’s standing not as a commentator on inclusion but as someone who had tested her convictions against institutional consequence. Her broadcast career provides a different order of evidence. Four decades in live, contested formats – hosting BBC Two’s QI, co-presenting Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off, chairing political satire on Radio 4 – demonstrate a specific capability: keeping complex, high-stakes conversation moving with precision, wit, and authority. She holds a first-class degree from Girton College, Cambridge, where she also performed in the first all-woman Cambridge Footlights show. Her range extends beyond broadcasting. As a playwright, her Bully Boy – a work on moral ambiguity, institutional authority, and the human cost of political decision-making – premiered at the Nuffield Theatre and transferred to launch St James Theatre’s debut West End season. She has served as President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, and has published more than twenty books across fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature. For organisations working to close the distance between stated values and visible change on inclusion and representation, Toksvig brings something precise: four decades of live broadcast authority, the civic credibility of having acted on her convictions, and the capacity to hold a difficult room without losing it. Key speaking topics Gender equity and leadership representation Storytelling and political communication Cultural intelligence and cross-cultural perspective Civic activism and democratic accountability Satire, comedy, and public discourse Inclusive organisational culture Writing, publishing, and creative practice Ideal for CHROs and People & Culture leaders hosting executive summits or leadership conferences on inclusion, representation, and cultural change Boards and senior leadership teams working to move DEI commitments from policy to practice Awards ceremonies, after-dinner engagements, and conference programmes requiring an anchor voice combining intellectual authority with wit Professional associations in media, publishing, law, or higher education seeking a credible voice on representation, communication, and civic responsibility Audience outcomes A clear frame for why gender equity stalls despite broad agreement – and what it takes to make the argument land in a room Understanding of how communication style and conviction, not data alone, drive cultural change in organisations Perspective on the relationship between satire, public discourse, and institutional accountability A model of what sustained, costly commitment to inclusion looks like – beyond declarations and frameworks Confidence in approaching contested conversations about representation with authority and without defensiveness

Why organisations work with Sarah Begum First-hand experience of the climate impact on indigenous communities. Her Cannes-premiered film Amazon Souls came out of two weeks living with the Huaorani people in Yasuní National Park, where oil exploitation and rainforest loss are present conditions, not projections. Most corporate audiences get this material from researchers. She was there. Brings a broadcast journalist’s discipline to sustainability talks. Before climate became her primary topic, she was presenting news in Caracas during the Venezuelan crisis and reporting features for GHOne TV in Ghana. That training shapes how she handles a corporate room, with concrete stories and the pacing of a working journalist. Connects indigenous climate stories to practical sustainability strategy. As a STEM Ambassador and host of Spaced Out!, where she interviews NASA scientists and space entrepreneurs, she brings the technology side of ESG, from satellite data to climate monitoring, into corporate conversations about climate action. Credibility that holds up on both sides of the room. Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society and the Captain Scott Society’s Spirit of Adventure Award (2014) place her inside the exploration establishment. The Guardian’s San Miguel Rich List 2016 named her one of the world’s top 17 trailblazers, alongside her BAFTA-recognised short for Nespresso Talents 2018. Biography highlights Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society Director of Amazon Souls (2013), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and distributed worldwide Broadcast journalist: presented news from Caracas during the Venezuelan crisis and reported features for GHOne TV in Ghana Host of Spaced Out!, a podcast and TV series on the space industry featured on Space Channel Winner of the Captain Scott Society’s Spirit of Adventure Award (2014); finalist for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship 2014 Named one of The Guardian’s top 17 trailblazers in the San Miguel Rich List 2016 Biography Yasuní National Park, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. It also sits above some of South America’s largest untapped oil reserves. The Huaorani people, who have lived in Yasuní for generations, have been the ones negotiating that collision. Sarah Begum spent two weeks living with the Huaorani in 2010. She was 21, studying television and film, and funded the expedition herself. The documentary she brought back, Amazon Souls, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 and was distributed worldwide, endorsed by rainforest organisations including Rainforest Alliance, Sky Rainforest Rescue and Rainforest Foundation. Her work since has followed the same method: travel to places most people will never go, and report back in terms corporate and general audiences can use. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, she has presented news from Caracas during the Venezuelan crisis, reported features for GHOne TV in Ghana, interviewed Jane Goodall for BBC Focus magazine, and directed the BAFTA-recognised short Who Would Have Thought… for Nespresso Talents 2018. The Captain Scott Society awarded her its Spirit of Adventure Award in 2014 for the Darien Gap expedition. Her talks carry this method into boardrooms. A STEM Ambassador and host of the space-industry series Spaced Out!, she reports on how satellite data and space-based research now underpin corporate sustainability strategy, drawing on interviews with NASA scientists and space entrepreneurs. Key speaking topics Climate justice and indigenous communities ESG strategy and corporate sustainability Women in STEM and exploration The space sector and Earth sustainability Immersive journalism and cultural storytelling Climate action and frontline impact Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of ESG, and Corporate Responsibility teams looking to move past reporting frameworks International Women’s Day, DEI, and employee resource group events where frontline storytelling anchors the conversation Conferences on sustainability, climate action, and the space sector where a primary-source perspective adds weight Leadership programmes and awaydays seeking to reconnect senior teams to the human stakes of their climate commitments Audience outcomes What oil exploitation and rainforest loss actually look like for the communities on the frontline, told by someone who has spent time with them A human frame for ESG reporting, drawn from indigenous advocacy, international journalism, and space-sector research A model for how first-hand reporting can be translated into storytelling that changes internal conversations about sustainability Named examples of how the space sector contributes to climate data and corporate sustainability strategy