Storytelling & Business Communication speakers

Why organisations work with Tahl Raz The frameworks Raz presents aren’t drawn from his interpretation of others’ research. Rather, he co-constructed them, working directly with the FBI hostage negotiator, the CEO performance researchers, and the business practitioners behind three of the most widely read business books of the past two decades. The CEO Next Door, which Raz co-authored based on analysis of more than 17,000 CEO and C-suite assessments, gives boards and senior leadership teams a data-validated model for identifying and developing executive talent, not one built on anecdote or convention. Never Split the Difference has sold more than five million copies and been translated into over 40 languages, which reflects genuine market validation of the negotiation system Raz helped shape. It is now embedded in corporate training programmes globally. Never Eat Alone is used as a textbook in MBA programmes worldwide, making Raz a source-level contributor to how the next generation of executives is taught to build professional relationships and organisational influence. His background as an award-winning business journalist gives him an ability to take complex behavioural research and make it immediately actionable in a room – a skill that is structurally different from the researchers and practitioners who generated the underlying work. Biography highlights Co-author of Never Split the Difference with former FBI lead hostage negotiator Chris Voss, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, 5 million+ copies sold, translated into 40+ languages Co-author of Never Eat Alone with Keith Ferrazzi, New York Times bestseller, adopted as an MBA textbook in business schools worldwide Co-author of The CEO Next Door with Elena Botelho and Kim Powell, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller; CMI Management Book of the Year 2019; based on analysis of more than 17,000 CEO and C-suite assessments; research published as an HBR cover story Award-winning journalist published in Inc., GQ, Harvard Business Review, and the Jerusalem Post Former CEO of MyGreenLight (online education), Chief Content Officer, and founder and editor-in-chief of Jewcy Media Degree in Philosophy, Vassar College Biography The prevailing models for negotiation and leadership development share a common flaw: they were built on theory, intuition, and case studies drawn from a narrow slice of experience. What changes the conversation is evidence. Evidence from 20 years of hostage negotiation under life-or-death conditions, from a decade of performance data on 17,000 executives, from the social science of how professional relationships actually generate career capital. Tahl Raz has spent his career working at the intersection of that evidence and the people who need to act on it. Raz co-authored Never Split the Difference with Chris Voss, former lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, translating a field-tested system developed in extreme-pressure environments into a framework that business leaders and sales teams now use worldwide. The book has sold more than five million copies and been translated into over 40 languages – a scale of adoption that reflects the practical utility of what the negotiation system actually delivers, not just the appeal of the source material. His work on The CEO Next Door, developed with researchers Elena Botelho and Kim Powell, draws on analysis of more than 17,000 CEO and C-suite assessments to identify the four behaviours that statistically separate executives who reach and sustain top performance from those who plateau. The research – published as a cover article in the May-June 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review – overturns widely held assumptions about pedigree, charisma, and the shape of a successful executive career. The book won CMI Management Book of the Year 2019. Before these collaborations, Raz co-authored Never Eat Alone with Keith Ferrazzi, a study of professional networking and relationship capital that remains in use as an MBA textbook in business programmes globally. His journalism has appeared in Inc., GQ, Harvard Business Review, and the Jerusalem Post. That background – knowing how to extract what is genuinely new in a body of research and make it land for a senior audience – is what distinguishes his platform: he is not interpreting these frameworks from the outside, he helped build them. Key speaking topics Negotiation strategy and behavioural influence Executive leadership behaviours and CEO performance Professional relationship capital and network strategy Storytelling and leadership communication Organisational decision-making under pressure Career development and leadership advancement The future of work and professional influence Ideal for C-suite and senior executive audiences in leadership development or strategic offsites CHROs and talent leaders building executive assessment or succession frameworks Sales leadership and commercial teams focused on high-stakes negotiation Boards and governance teams examining executive performance and leadership pipeline Audience outcomes A working understanding of the negotiation tactics developed in FBI hostage situations and how they apply in commercial and leadership contexts Clarity on the four behaviours; decisiveness, engaging for impact, relentless reliability, bold adaptation which CEO performance data identifies as the genuine predictors of executive success A reframed view of professional networking as a deliberate, structured strategic practice rather than a social variable Practical approaches for improving persuasion, communication, and influence in high-pressure conversations Sharper criteria for evaluating leadership potential – their own or others’ – against evidence rather than convention

Why organisations work with Tamer Hassan His acting career gives him immediate name recognition with audiences, with credits across The Football Factory, Layer Cake, Batman Begins, Kick-Ass, Clash of the Titans, Eastern Promises and Game of Thrones, which is useful for headline slots and mixed-audience events where draw matters. He has built a parallel business career rather than a vanity one, as Director of the NASDAQ-listed Lottery.com since June 2023 and President of Sports.com Studios since June 2025, giving him a live operator’s view of the economics of sport, content and media. The hospitality and nightlife background, including his investment in Karma Sanctum Soho alongside Paul Oakenfold, is the foundation of a reinvention story that is specific, commercial and not sanitised. He brings an unusual mix to panel and Q&A formats: a performer’s comfort in a room, an investor’s view on deal structures, and a sharp commercial instinct sharpened by running hospitality businesses in London. His philanthropic profile, including support for Covid-19 frontline workers and Turkey-Syria earthquake relief, gives him useful credibility in charitable and fundraising contexts where a recognised name is required. Biography highlights British actor of Turkish Cypriot heritage, career spanning 25-plus years in film and television Screen credits include The Football Factory, Layer Cake, The Business, Batman Begins, Eastern Promises, Kick-Ass, Clash of the Titans, Game of Thrones and Snatch Director of Lottery.com Inc. (NASDAQ: LTRY) since June 2023 President of Sports.com Studios since June 2025, leading Lottery.com’s film, docuseries and original programming output Co-owner of Karma Sanctum Soho, the boutique London hotel developed with DJ Paul Oakenfold Active in philanthropic fundraising, including Covid-19 frontline worker support and Turkey-Syria earthquake relief Biography A career that began in London amateur boxing and hospitality has ended up, so far, on the board of a NASDAQ-listed company and at the front of a new sports content studio. Tamer Hassan’s reinvention story is the point of the speaking work, and it is specific enough to hold an audience because each stage was paid for by the one before. He was born in New Cross in 1968 to a Turkish Cypriot family and came through the south-east London small-business world before acting. His breakthrough role, as the leader of the Millwall firm in The Football Factory opposite Danny Dyer, set the tone for a 25-year screen career that has since included Layer Cake, The Business, Batman Begins, Eastern Promises, Kick-Ass, Clash of the Titans, Game of Thrones and Snatch. Alongside the acting, he kept building businesses. Karma Sanctum Soho, the boutique Soho hotel he co-developed with Paul Oakenfold, gave him a base in hospitality and a reputation in London’s night-time economy. Since June 2023 he has been a director of Lottery.com Inc. (NASDAQ: LTRY), and in June 2025 he was appointed President of its Sports.com Studios division, leading the company’s new film, docuseries and original programming strategy. For event audiences the draw is the combination. Few speakers can discuss a long screen career and an operator role at a listed company in the same session, with a personal story that runs from London boxing gyms to Turkey-Syria earthquake fundraising. The value is in the trajectory, and in the unguarded way he tends to explain it, rather than in a named intellectual framework. Key speaking topics Reinvention and career change under public scrutiny Entrepreneurship in hospitality, film and media The business of sport and content Brand, profile and personal reputation Philanthropy and the role of public figures in charitable causes Ideal for Corporate leadership conferences and client events looking for a recognisable headline speaker with a commercial story Entrepreneurship and founder-focused forums, particularly in hospitality, sport and media Awards dinners, galas and after-dinner slots where draw and warmth in the room matter more than a technical keynote Charitable and fundraising events seeking a high-profile voice with a track record of personal involvement Audience outcomes A concrete reference case for reinventing a career and brand across industries under public visibility Direct reflections on risk, failure and recovery from someone who has operated in hospitality, film and listed-company environments Insight into how the commercial mechanics of sport, content and media are changing, from an operator inside a new studio The benefit of a recognisable name in the room for audience engagement and post-event conversation

Why organisations work with Tanya Beckett Her banking career at Citibank and Commerzbank means she reads financial and economic data with the fluency of a practitioner, not just a reporter: and audiences notice the difference. Thirty years of front-line international broadcasting with BBC, CNN, Sky News, and CNBC has produced a presenter with genuine command of geopolitical complexity rather than surface-level confidence in it. Her advisory work with the World Bank, EBRD, EIB, ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office gives her direct insight into how trade and policy decisions are actually made, not just reported. She makes complex global dynamics legible for senior audiences without simplifying them, a skill that comes from structuring coverage for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service audiences with a high tolerance for nuance. As a facilitator and panel chair, she brings the interrogative discipline of a seasoned broadcast journalist to conference formats, which produces sharper discussions than a conventional MC approach. Biography highlights BBC broadcaster since 1998, with presenter credits on World Business Report, Working Lunch, Newsnight, Today, Our World, The Inquiry, and Talking Business across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Radio 4, BBC World News, and the BBC World Service Three-year posting to New York as BBC World US Business Anchor, reporting from Times Square and Washington DC Earlier broadcast career at CNBC Europe, Sky News, and CNN International (1993–1998) Career began in journalism at the Financial Times Former investment banker at Citibank (London, Credit Analysis) and Commerzbank (Frankfurt, Capital Markets Division) Advisory and facilitation work for the World Bank, EBRD, EIB, ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office, among other multilateral and government bodies Degree in Metallurgy and Materials Science, Pembroke College, Oxford; fluent German and French Biography Tanya Beckett started her career not in a newsroom but on a trading floor. Her years in investment banking at Citibank in London and Commerzbank in Frankfurt gave her a working understanding of capital markets, credit risk, and cross-border financial transactions before she ever picked up a microphone. When she moved into journalism, starting at the Financial Times and then building her broadcast career at CNBC Europe, Sky News, and CNN International, that foundation travelled with her. At the BBC, where she has worked since 1998, she has presented across the full range of the corporation’s business and economics output: World Business Report, Newsnight, Today on Radio 4, Our World, Working Lunch, and The Inquiry, the BBC World Service’s weekly current affairs documentary. Her three-year posting to New York as BBC World US Business Anchor placed her at the centre of transatlantic financial and political coverage during a period of sustained global market volatility. What distinguishes her from most journalists who move into the conference circuit is the institutional depth behind the broadcast profile. She has worked with the World Bank, the EBRD, the EIB, the ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office on matters of trade and communication, giving her direct exposure to how policy is shaped and where geopolitical risk is actually concentrated, not just how it is narrated. For organisations hosting high-stakes leadership events, that combination – thirty years of international broadcast experience, a banking foundation, and access to the institutions that shape global economic policy – produces a facilitator and keynote voice whose grasp of the material is substantive rather than performative. Key speaking topics Global economic trends and financial markets Geopolitical risk and international trade International institutions and multilateral policy Business communication and economic literacy for leaders Transatlantic business and US–Europe dynamics Current affairs in context: interpreting global risk Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership conferences requiring substantive economic and geopolitical framing Financial services organisations hosting client, leadership, or regulatory briefings International trade and policy forums needing a credible facilitator with institutional fluency Global corporates running town halls or leadership summits with a geopolitical or macro-economic agenda Audience outcomes A clearer framework for interpreting current global economic and geopolitical developments, anchored in how those events are shaped by international institutions Confidence engaging with financial and trade data without requiring an economics background Practical context for how major macroeconomic shifts – in trade policy, financial markets, or geopolitical realignment – translate into business risk and opportunity Greater precision in the questions leadership teams ask when briefed by economists or policy advisers

Why organisations work with Taryn Southern She produced the first solo-artist pop album composed with AI in 2018, when most organisations were still asking whether generative tools could ship anything usable. The lessons on creative workflow integration are now several years ahead of most enterprise practice. She runs storytelling and external communications at Blackrock Neurotech, an implantable BCI company, which gives her a working view of the next technology layer beyond generative AI. Her documentary work, including «I AM HUMAN» at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, gives her a rare ability to translate frontier neurotechnology into language a non-technical board can use. She has keynoted SXSW, Web Summit, the World AI Summit, and NY Times Future of Work, and has been booked by Google, Salesforce, Deloitte, and Gartner. Senior tech audiences treat her as a peer, not a populariser. Biography highlights Chief Storytelling Officer at Blackrock Neurotech since 2021, leading story strategy for funding rounds totalling over $230M led by Thiel Capital, Apeiron, and Tether Released «I AM AI» in 2018, the first solo-artist pop album composed and produced with AI tools including Amper, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta, and AIVA Directed and produced «I AM HUMAN,» premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival; subsequent awards include Best Director at Oslo Film Fest Three-time Streamy Awards nominee; 2018 Geena Davis Award recipient for innovative female filmmaking Keynote speaker at SXSW, Web Summit, World AI Summit, Google’s AI Summit, VidCon, The Next Web, NY Times Future of Work Featured in Vanity Fair, Billboard, Fast Company, Wired, Forbes, Psychology Today, and Harvard Business Review Biography The first solo-artist pop album composed with AI was released in September 2018, before most enterprises had finished their first ChatGPT briefing note. «I AM AI» used Amper, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta, and AIVA, with the lead single «Break Free» reaching the Top 100 radio charts. The interest, for a serious audience, is not the novelty. It is what the project showed about how a working creative integrates these tools into a production workflow that ships. That production credibility is the spine of the work Taryn Southern now does with senior teams. She has produced more than 1,500 videos across more than a decade of digital media, advised early product teams at YouTube, Google VR, and Snapchat, and directed an award-winning Google VR series. The vantage point is unusual: she has built original commercial product with generative tools at every stage of their maturity. Since 2021 she has been Chief Storytelling Officer at Blackrock Neurotech, the implantable brain-computer interface company. She launched what the company describes as the world’s first BCI museum, oversaw a corporate rebrand and the formation of a BCI Ethics Advisory board, and led communications strategy for funding rounds totalling over $230M, with investors including Thiel Capital, Apeiron, and Tether. The role gives her a working view of the technology layer that arrives after generative AI, and the regulatory and ethical questions a board will be asked to take a position on within the next decade. Her directorial debut, «I AM HUMAN,» premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and followed three of the first patients to receive implantable brain-computer interfaces. The film is the practical bridge in her work with corporate audiences: it shows what the next frontier of human-machine technology looks like in a hospital, in a home, and in the conversations a serious organisation will need to have about it well before the technology becomes commonplace. Key speaking topics Generative AI in creative production AI-augmented workflows and creative practice Brain-computer interfaces and human-machine integration Frontier neurotechnology and ethics Storytelling for emerging technology companies The future of human and artificial intelligence Ideal for Boards and leadership teams setting AI strategy beyond initial pilots Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Communications Officers, and creative leadership integrating generative tools into production Innovation, R&D, and strategy leaders tracking neurotech and the post-AI technology stack Senior leadership conferences in technology, media, healthcare, and life sciences Audience outcomes A working understanding of how generative AI tools function inside a real production workflow, drawn from a practitioner who has shipped commercial product A grounded view of brain-computer interface technology, what it currently does, where it is going, and the questions boards will face A sharper sense of which categories of creative and knowledge work are most exposed to generative AI, and which remain durably human An informed perspective on the ethical and governance terrain emerging at the intersection of AI and neurotechnology

Why organisations work with Thomas Erikson A four-colour behavioural vocabulary that a 200-person sales team or a board can adopt in a single session and use in the next meeting, with no consultancy follow-up required. One of the highest-recognition author brands in European business: “Surrounded by Idiots” alone is one of Sweden’s best-selling non-fiction titles ever, with the series at over seven million copies in more than 70 languages. Direct application across the hardest interpersonal terrain leaders actually face: difficult bosses, narcissistic colleagues, manipulative behaviour, conflict in cross-cultural and hybrid teams. More than two decades inside companies such as IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA, with roughly 120 keynotes a year keeping the material tested against live corporate audiences. A communicator first: the material is built for retention by non-specialists, so the language survives the journey from the keynote room into Monday-morning behaviour. Biography highlights Author of the “Surrounded by” series, including Surrounded by Idiots, Surrounded by Psychopaths, Surrounded by Bad Bosses and Lazy Employees, Surrounded by Narcissists, Surrounded by Setbacks, Surrounded by Energy Vampires and Surrounded by Liars. More than 12 million books sold across the series, translated into over 70 languages; one of the most translated living Swedish authors. Delivers approximately 120 keynote lectures per year to executive and corporate audiences across Europe. Has mentored executives and run sessions at companies including IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA Motors. Twenty-plus years specialising in communication, personality dynamics and interpersonal behaviour in professional settings. Built his keynote material on the colour-coded DISC framework (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue), used to map how people decide, communicate and react under pressure. Biography Most workplace tension is not philosophical. It is two competent people reading the same situation in incompatible ways and deciding the other one is the problem. The “Surrounded by Idiots” series turned that observation into a vocabulary that millions of readers now apply at work without having to read a textbook to use it. The series, beginning with Surrounded by Idiots, has sold more than 12 million copies across more than 70 languages, with subsequent titles extending the framework to psychopaths, narcissists, bad bosses, setbacks, energy vampires and liars. The books rest on the colour-coded DISC model, mapping behaviour onto four types (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue) that describe how different people make decisions, give feedback and behave under pressure. The keynote work has run in parallel for over two decades, with roughly 120 corporate lectures a year. Audiences have included IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA Motors. The session is built to leave a room of 50 or 500 with the same shared language, so the colour-coding survives into the next sales call, the next performance review and the next conflict between two senior people who quietly cannot stand each other. What is unusual is the reach. Most communication frameworks live inside training departments. This one has crossed into mass-market reading culture, which means a leadership audience often arrives already half-fluent. The job of the keynote is to turn that recognition into something the organisation can actually use. Key speaking topics Behavioural styles and the DISC colour model Communication across different personality types Difficult colleagues, manipulation and narcissism at work Leadership and how to read your team Sales and the behaviour of the buyer Conflict, feedback and tough conversations Resilience and managing setbacks Ideal for Leadership teams that want a shared language for behaviour and communication Sales and customer-facing organisations whose results depend on reading the other side of the table HR, L&D and culture leads designing development around feedback, conflict and team dynamics Cross-cultural, hybrid and matrix teams where misreads between colleagues compound quickly Audience outcomes A shared four-colour vocabulary the whole audience can use to describe colleagues and clients within the same week A clearer read on their own default style and how it is experienced by people who do not share it Practical adjustments for handling the colleague, boss or client they currently find hardest to deal with A working frame for recognising manipulation, narcissism and other high-cost behaviours before they damage the team A common reference point that survives the keynote and shows up in the next round of meetings, reviews and sales calls

Why organisations work with Tim Bouverie A prize-winning historian whose two books, Appeasing Hitler and the Duff Cooper Prize-winning Allies at War, sit on exactly the questions boards now face: when to confront, when to compromise, and how to hold a fragile coalition together. Trained as a political journalist at Channel 4 News under Michael Crick, so the material is delivered as argument and narrative, not lecture. Brings a specific, named angle on negotiation: the Big Three at Tehran and Yalta as a working case study for M&A, joint ventures and competitive collaboration. Comfortable in serious rooms. Has interviewed George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson on stage at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and lectures regularly across the UK and US, including at the Hoover Institution. An Oxford-trained historian (Christ Church, Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony’s) whose readership includes Max Hastings, Antony Beevor and Margaret MacMillan, all of whom have publicly endorsed the work. Biography highlights Author of Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War (Bodley Head, 2019), Sunday Times bestseller, Orwell Prize shortlist. Author of Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler (Bodley Head), winner of the 2026 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize. Christ Church, Oxford. 2020-21 Alistair Horne Visiting Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford. Political journalist at Channel 4 News, 2013-2017, working with Michael Crick on Dispatches and covering two general elections, the Scottish referendum and the EU referendum. Regular contributor of book reviews on history and politics to the Spectator, the Observer and the Daily Telegraph. Speaker and interviewer at the Chalke Valley History Festival and at the Hoover Institution, with public sessions alongside George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson. Biography The diplomatic record of the 1930s is one of the best-documented examples of senior decision-makers misreading a hostile counterparty. It is also one of the most relevant to today’s boardroom. Tim Bouverie’s first book, Appeasing Hitler, took that record apart in detail, working from cabinet papers, private diaries and Foreign Office files to show how a generation of competent, well-informed leaders talked themselves into a strategic disaster. The book became a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. His second, Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler, drew on more than a hundred archives to reconstruct the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin coalition as the brittle, mistrustful negotiation it actually was. It won the 2026 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, one of the most credited awards in narrative non-fiction. The training behind the work matters to a corporate audience. Bouverie read history at Christ Church, Oxford, and held the 2020-21 Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s College. Before the books, he spent four and a half years as a political journalist at Channel 4 News, working with Michael Crick across two general elections and the Scottish and EU referendums. The combination shows up in the keynotes: archival depth, delivered with a working journalist’s instinct for argument. On stage he is a fluent interviewer as well as a lecturer, having questioned George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and presented at the Hoover Institution and at festivals across the United States. The signature talks pull directly from the books: appeasement as a study in strategic miscalculation, and the Big Three as a working manual on how to negotiate inside an alliance you cannot afford to walk away from. Key speaking topics Lessons from appeasement and strategic miscalculation Alliance management and coalition negotiation Leadership decisions under geopolitical pressure Diplomatic history of the Second World War The fragility of the rules-based order Negotiation in M&A, joint ventures and competitive collaboration Narrative history and archival research Ideal for Board and ExCo offsites focused on geopolitical risk and long-horizon strategy CEO and senior leadership audiences negotiating major partnerships, alliances or M&A Heads of strategy, government affairs and corporate affairs working on sanctions, China exposure and political risk After-dinner audiences at industry conferences where intellectual seriousness is part of the brief Audience outcomes A sharper read on how senior leaders misjudge hostile counterparties, with named historical examples that stick. Specific lessons from the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin alliance applicable to coalition negotiations today. A historical frame for current debates on the rules-based order, sanctions and Western unity that goes beyond the news cycle. A model for how to use evidence and narrative together when communicating high-stakes decisions internally.

Why organisations work with Tim Calkins A practical authority on defensive strategy, a discipline most marketing teams do not formally teach. Defending Your Brand was named 2013 Marketing Book of the Year by Expert Marketer Magazine and remains one of the few named texts on how incumbents respond to competitive attack A decade of operating credibility at Kraft Foods running brands including Miracle Whip, DiGiorno, Taco Bell and A.1. Steak Sauce, with responsibility for more than two dozen new product launches A teaching record that boards take seriously: twice-winner of Kellogg’s Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, one of six faculty to do so in its 40-plus year history Direct, current consulting work with Abbott, Amgen, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and Kraft Heinz through Class 5 Consulting, which keeps the frameworks tested against live commercial pressure A specialism in biomedical and healthcare marketing that makes him useful to pharmaceutical and medtech leadership teams that find generic brand keynotes irrelevant Biography highlights Clinical Professor of Marketing and Associate Chair of the Marketing Department, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University Almost 11 years at Kraft Foods leading brands including Miracle Whip, DiGiorno, Taco Bell, Parkay and A.1. Steak Sauce; responsible for more than two dozen new product launches Author of Defending Your Brand (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Breakthrough Marketing Plans (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 2012); co-editor of Kellogg on Branding (Wiley, 2005) and Kellogg on Branding in a Hyper-Connected World (Wiley, 2019) How to Wash a Chicken: Mastering the Business Presentation (Page Two, 2018) won Top Business Book at the IndieReader Discovery Awards and the Gold Prize for Business and Economics at the Foreword Indies Two-time winner of Kellogg’s Lawrence G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award (2006, 2013); also recipient of the Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award and the Kellogg-WHU Top Professor Award Founder of Class 5 Consulting, advising Abbott, Amgen, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, Kraft Heinz and Hearst on brand and growth strategy BA History (cum laude), Yale; MBA, Harvard Business School Biography Most marketing teams are trained to launch and to build. Very few are trained to defend. That asymmetry is what Tim Calkins has spent two decades teaching against, first as a brand operator at Kraft Foods, then at Kellogg, where he holds the Associate Chair of the Marketing Department and is Clinical Professor of Marketing. His book Defending Your Brand (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) is one of the few named texts on how incumbents respond to a credible competitive attack. Expert Marketer Magazine called it the 2013 Marketing Book of the Year. The thinking sits on top of close to 11 years inside Kraft, running brands including Miracle Whip, DiGiorno, Taco Bell and A.1. Steak Sauce, and launching more than two dozen new products. Through Class 5 Consulting, his current clients include Abbott, Amgen, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, Kraft Heinz and Hearst, work that keeps his frameworks tested against live margin and share pressure. At Kellogg he teaches Marketing Strategy, Strategic Marketing Decisions, Biomedical Marketing and Marketing Strategy for Growth and Defense, and co-edited the school’s flagship branding texts, Kellogg on Branding (Wiley, 2005) and Kellogg on Branding in a Hyper-Connected World (Wiley, 2019). His standing inside the school is itself a credential. He is one of only six faculty in the 40-plus year history of Kellogg’s Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award to have won it twice, in 2006 and 2013. His later book, How to Wash a Chicken: Mastering the Business Presentation (Page Two, 2018), took Top Business Book at the IndieReader Discovery Awards and the Gold Prize for Business and Economics at the Foreword Indies, and is read inside Fortune 500 communications and commercial teams as a practical text on how senior executives lose, and win, the room. Key speaking topics Brand strategy and brand building Defensive strategy and competitive response Marketing planning and growth strategy Brand portfolio management Healthcare and biomedical marketing Business presentations and senior executive communication Lessons from Super Bowl advertising Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and category leaders inside established consumer, healthcare and B2B brand businesses Pharmaceutical, medtech and biotech commercial leadership teams running launch or defence on a regulated product Senior executives preparing for high-stakes internal and external presentations Executive education and leadership programmes inside Fortune 500 marketing and commercial functions Audience outcomes A working framework for defending a brand position against a credible competitive attack, drawn from Defending Your Brand A clearer view of how to allocate marketing investment across the brand portfolio under pressure on margin Specific, named tactics for sharper marketing plans, applicable inside the audience’s own planning cycle Practical correction on the recurring failure modes of senior executive presentations, drawn from How to Wash a Chicken Sector-specific application for healthcare and biomedical audiences, where most generic brand content does not land

Why organisations work with Tim Collins He has commanded under live fire. The lessons on composure, communication, and accountability are drawn from running the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment Battle Group in Iraq, not a leadership model. His eve-of-battle speech is one of the most studied pieces of leadership communication of the last twenty years, hung in the Oval Office and quoted in business schools. Few speakers can talk about leadership communication from that position. Eight years as an officer in 22 SAS, including as Operations Officer, gives him a vocabulary on small-team performance, selection, and trust that very few corporate speakers can match credibly. He builds the talk around the audience’s actual leadership tension. The military stories are evidence, not the point. Biography highlights Commanded the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment Battle Group during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Eight years as an officer in 22 SAS, including service as Operations Officer. Appointed OBE in 2003 for service in Iraq. Author of Rules of Engagement: A Life in Conflict (Headline, 2006). Co-founder and Chairman of New Century Consulting, an intelligence-led security services firm working with government clients since 2006. Regular media commentator and columnist on defence and security, with bylines in the Telegraph and other UK national press. Biography The eve-of-battle address to the Royal Irish Regiment Battle Group, delivered in Kuwait on 19 March 2003, was extemporised and recorded in shorthand by a single journalist. President George W. Bush later had a copy hung in the Oval Office. It is now a fixture on leadership reading lists, taught for what it does in five minutes: set the moral frame, give the team something to hold onto, and accept the weight of command without flinching. The speech is not why senior leaders book Collins, but it explains what they get. He commanded a battalion in combat, with all that implies for accountability, communication, and the long shadow that command throws over a career. He came back to allegations of war crimes, cleared his name, and was promoted to colonel. That sequence, command, scrutiny, recovery, is the substance of what he teaches. Before Iraq, Collins served eight years in 22 SAS, including as Operations Officer, and led troops through Northern Ireland, the Falklands, and Cyprus. The earlier work shapes how he talks about selection, small-team trust, and what actually holds a unit together when the plan fails. His memoir Rules of Engagement (Headline, 2006) is the long-form version. Since retiring from the army in 2004 he has built New Century Consulting, an intelligence-led security firm working largely with government, and become a regular commentator on defence and security in the UK national press. The corporate keynote work draws on all of it: the command experience, the public scrutiny, the second career building a business with a payroll and contracts. Key speaking topics Command leadership under pressure Leadership communication in high-stakes moments Small-team performance and trust Decision-making with incomplete information Accountability and the weight of command Resilience after public scrutiny Lessons from operational command for civilian leaders Ideal for CEOs, executive committees, and divisional MDs preparing teams for high-stakes operational moments Leadership development programmes for newly senior leaders taking on command-level accountability Sales and operations conferences where the central leadership question is composure under pressure Board offsites focused on crisis readiness, succession, or the human side of restructure Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what leadership communication actually does in the moment that counts. Practical handles on composure, accountability, and team trust, drawn from command experience rather than theory. A more honest reading of what holds a team together when the plan changes. A reference point, the eve-of-battle speech, that audiences carry back into their own leadership conversations.

Why organisations work with Tim Harford Translates economic and statistical research into commercial decisions, drawing on a Financial Times column that has run for nearly two decades and a body of ten published books. Brings credibility on numbers that very few speakers can match: Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and OBE for services to economic understanding. Reframes innovation as an evidence-based discipline grounded in adaptation and failure, the central thesis of “Adapt” and “Messy”, rather than the usual creativity rhetoric. Equips senior audiences to interrogate their own data culture using the rules from “How To Make The World Add Up”, a practical antidote to misleading statistics inside organisations. Trusted as a host, moderator and after-dinner speaker by serious audiences because his radio craft on “More or Less” and “Cautionary Tales” carries directly into the room. Biography highlights Senior columnist, Financial Times, writing “The Undercover Economist”. Presenter, BBC Radio 4’s “More or Less”, the long-running statistics-in-the-news programme. Host of “Cautionary Tales”, a Pushkin Industries podcast, and creator of “Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy”. Author of ten books, including “The Undercover Economist”, “Adapt”, “Messy”, “How To Make The World Add Up” and “The Truth Detective”. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and of Brasenose College, Oxford; Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford. OBE for services to Improving Economic Understanding; winner of the Bastiat Prize (twice), the Wincott Journalist of the Year award, and the Royal Statistical Society award for journalistic excellence. Biography Most organisations claim to be evidence-led. Few are. Decisions are framed in numbers but driven by narrative, and innovation programmes routinely refuse to learn from the failures that contain the most useful information. Harford’s work, across the Financial Times column, ten books and two long-running BBC and Pushkin productions, has been built around exactly that gap. His books map the intellectual territory leaders care about. “The Undercover Economist” reframed everyday markets through the lens of price, scarcity and incentive, and has sold more than 1.5 million copies in thirty languages. “Adapt” and “Messy” argue that progress depends on disciplined trial, error and tolerance for disorder, a more honest account of innovation than most corporate playbooks allow. “How To Make The World Add Up” gives senior audiences a practical method for testing the numbers they are asked to act on. The credentials behind that work are unusual. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Associate Member of Nuffield College Oxford, an OBE for services to economic understanding, and a body of awards from the Bastiat Prize to the Wincott. As presenter of BBC Radio 4’s “More or Less”, Harford has spent years publicly stress-testing the statistics that shape policy and business commentary, which makes him one of the few speakers who can hold a senior room on data culture without resorting to platitudes. For boards and leadership teams, the value is concrete. Sharper questions about innovation portfolios, a working method for separating signal from noise, and a more honest model of how organisations actually learn. The recent “Cautionary Tales” series, which dissects high-profile organisational failures, has become a reference point for leaders thinking seriously about how decisions go wrong. Key speaking topics Behavioural economics in commercial decision-making Innovation, adaptation and learning from failure Statistical literacy and data culture in organisations Economic forces shaping business and policy Creativity, disorder and team productivity Cognitive bias and judgement under uncertainty Ideal for Boards and executive committees confronting decisions where the numbers are contested Strategy, innovation and R&D leaders building portfolios under uncertainty CFOs and finance functions reviewing how evidence is presented and challenged internally Senior leadership offsites where the brief calls for serious intellectual content with broad relevance Audience outcomes A working method for interrogating statistics and management dashboards before acting on them A clearer model of innovation as managed trial and error, with practical implications for portfolio choice Sharper recognition of the cognitive errors that recur in senior decision-making Concrete references from “Cautionary Tales” and “More or Less” that audiences can use to reframe their own debates

Why organisations work with Tim Kröger Two Whitbread Round the World podiums (1993/94 second, 1997/98 third) and a Mumm 36 World Championship give him direct, named experience of multi-week competitive performance, not generic adventure narrative. Author of Ich bin wir, das Crew-Konzept (Delius Klasing, 2013), a published thesis on how international crews are built and held together, which he uses as the spine of his corporate sessions. Two America’s Cup challenger campaigns (Le Defi Areva and Shosholoza) give him operating experience inside multinational, multilingual professional teams under heavy sponsor and media scrutiny. Holds a working coaching role with the German Sailing Association on the Olympic Mixed Offshore discipline, so the material is current, not retired-athlete reminiscence. Awarded the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt in 1983 alongside the German Admiral’s Cup team, anchoring credibility at national level rather than only within sailing circles. Biography highlights Whitbread Round the World Race: second place 1993/94 aboard Intrum Justitia, third place 1997/98 aboard Swedish Match. Admiral’s Cup winner with the German team, 1983; recipient of the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt the same year. Mumm 36 World Champion, 1995, aboard Corum. America’s Cup challenger campaigns with Le Defi Areva (France) and Shosholoza (South Africa). Author of Ich bin wir, das Crew-Konzept (Delius Klasing, 2013) and Abgerechnet wird im Ziel (2001). Trainer for the Mixed Offshore Olympic discipline with the German Sailing Association; Race Crew Manager in J Class yacht programmes. Biography The Whitbread Round the World Race runs nine months. A crew sails roughly 32,000 nautical miles, much of it in the Southern Ocean. Tim Kröger has finished it twice on the podium: second on Intrum Justitia in 1993/94 under Lawrie Smith, third on Swedish Match in 1997/98 as watch captain. That is the operating environment his corporate work draws from. In 1993 he became the first German to make professional offshore sailing his primary career. The decade after produced a Mumm 36 world title aboard Corum in 1995 and two America’s Cup challenger campaigns: the French Le Defi Areva syndicate from 2001 to 2003, and the South African Shosholoza programme from 2005 to 2007. Both involved running the operational seam between sailors, shore crew, designers and sponsors. His book Ich bin wir, das Crew-Konzept, published by Delius Klasing in 2013, sets out how a crew is actually built and held together: who decides, how watches hand over, how mistakes are handled while the boat is still moving. The argument carries because the crews he describes are named ones he sailed in, not composite illustrations. He continues to work as a trainer for the German Sailing Association in the Mixed Offshore Olympic discipline and as Race Crew Manager in J Class yacht programmes. The Admiral’s Cup win in 1983 brought him the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt, Germany’s highest sporting honour, awarded by the Federal President. Key speaking topics High-performance team dynamics Leadership under sustained pressure Decision-making in offshore racing Communication across multinational crews Accountability inside small expert teams Resilience and recovery on long campaigns Building and managing elite crews Ideal for Executive teams and ExCos preparing for sustained operational pressure (transformations, integrations, restructures) Leadership offsites where the brief is team behaviour, not strategy content Sales and operations conferences seeking a credible narrative anchor with serious substance behind it After-dinner and incentive audiences in DACH and international corporate settings Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for how elite crews hold decision quality when conditions deteriorate Specific techniques for handover, watch discipline and post-error recovery, drawn from named campaigns A clearer view of what accountability looks like in practice inside small expert teams A reframed sense of what sustained pressure does to communication, and what disciplined crews do about it

Why organisations work with Tim Sebastian Most geopolitical commentary tells leaders what to think. Sebastian built his career on asking the questions political leaders didn’t prepare for – and brings that same interrogative discipline, along with the preparation that goes with it, directly into corporate forums. As founder of both The Doha Debates (BBC World News, 2004–2012) and The New Arab Debates (Deutsche Welle, 2011–2015), he designed and chaired globally broadcast forums on the most contested political and social issues of those years – a structural model directly applicable to executive events dealing with divided stakeholder views. His field experience – covering the Solidarity revolution in Warsaw, reporting from Moscow until the Soviet authorities expelled him in 1985, then Washington through the end of the Cold War – means his reading of political risk is grounded in how authoritarian and transitional political systems actually behave, not in how they present themselves. Where panels typically produce managed consensus, Sebastian’s approach – documented in testimonials from the World Bank, the Open Government Partnership Global Summit, and the Sharjah International Government Communications Forum – consistently surfaces real disagreement and genuine answers from senior participants. Biography highlights Original presenter of HARDtalk, BBC World, March 1997 to March 2007; subjects included US Presidents Clinton, Carter and Trump, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lee Kuan Yew, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu Founder and chairman of The Doha Debates (Qatar Foundation / BBC World News, 2004–2012) – the highest-rated weekend programme on BBC World News during its run Founder of The New Arab Debates (Deutsche Welle, 2011–2015); currently hosts Conflict Zone, Deutsche Welle’s flagship political interview programme BBC foreign correspondent in Warsaw (covering the Solidarity revolution), Moscow and Washington; expelled from the USSR by Soviet authorities in 1985 BAFTA Richard Dimbleby Award (1981); Royal Television Society Television Journalist of the Year (1982); RTS Interviewer of the Year (2000 and 2001) BA Honours, Modern Languages, New College Oxford; Fellow Commoner, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, 2015–16 Author of eight novels and two non-fiction books; contributor to the Mail on Sunday, Sunday Times and New York Times Biography Political leaders rarely say what they mean in public. The gap between declared position and actual intent is where strategic risk lives – and where most corporate scenario-planning stops. Tim Sebastian has spent four decades on the other side of that gap. As the original presenter of HARDtalk from 1997 to 2007, Sebastian established the template for rigorous political accountability on international television. His subjects included Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lee Kuan Yew and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The preparation was meticulous. The questions were the ones nobody else was asking. Before the studios, there was the field. Sebastian reported for the BBC from Warsaw during the Solidarity revolution, was stationed in Moscow until Soviet authorities expelled him in 1985, and covered Washington through the final years of the Cold War. That direct experience of political systems under pressure – their vulnerabilities, their rhetorical strategies, their relationship to transparency – underpins everything he subsequently built. In 2004, he founded The Doha Debates under the Qatar Foundation: a globally broadcast forum for contested political and social issues that became the highest-rated weekend programme on BBC World News. When the Arab Spring began in 2011, he launched The New Arab Debates in Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan. For organisations navigating politically complex strategy across markets where regulatory intent, diplomatic tension and conflict risk are live variables, Sebastian’s value is structural as much as analytical. He knows how leaders behave when held to account in public. He knows how to design forums that produce real answers rather than prepared ones. He currently hosts Conflict Zone on Deutsche Welle, and has moderated major events for the World Bank, the Open Government Partnership and the Sharjah International Government Communications Forum. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and international affairs Political leadership and accountability Structured debate and forum design Conflict, diplomacy and international security The Middle East and Arab world politics Global power dynamics and strategic risk Media scrutiny and leadership communication Ideal for Senior leadership and board-level conferences where geopolitical context is central to strategy Government, policy and international affairs audiences Organisations operating in or expanding into politically complex or high-risk markets Events requiring a moderator for high-stakes, multi-stakeholder panels or debates Audience outcomes A clearer framework for reading political intent behind public positions – from governments, regulators and international actors Direct exposure to how political leaders respond under structured, uncompromising questioning – and what that reveals about how decisions are actually made Practical understanding of how structured debate can surface genuine strategic disagreement rather than managed consensus Greater confidence in treating geopolitical risk as a board-level strategic variable, with tools for interrogating it rather than simply monitoring it

Why organisations work with Tim Smith Two decades on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2 is rehearsal time most corporate hosts do not have. He arrives on stage already knowing how to read a room of strangers in real time. He has built a working production relationship with FTSE-scale internal communications teams through podcast series for BAE Systems, Network Rail, BT, Jaguar Land Rover, Diageo, UK Power Networks and McVitie’s. He understands what a regulated employer can and cannot put into a sponsored programme. He interviews senior leaders, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair on the Steve Wright Show, without losing the audience or the executive. That craft transfers directly to fireside chats and keynote interviews at corporate events. His current weekday morning slot on Magic Classical and continuing radio practice keep his interview rhythm sharp. Buyers are not booking a former broadcaster; they are booking someone still on air every week. Biography highlights Co-presenter on Steve Wright in the Afternoon, BBC Radio 2, from 1999 to 2022. Presenter of the UK Top 20 Chart Show on BBC World Service for 13 years, succeeding Paul Burnett. Weekday morning presenter on Magic Classical from June 2025. Corporate podcast presenter for BAE Systems, Network Rail, BT, Jaguar Land Rover, Diageo, UK Power Networks and McVitie’s. Sony Award-nominated for Picture Show on BBC GLR. Covered the 2000 Open Golf Championship at St Andrews and Wimbledon for official broadcast platforms. Biography The hardest part of a corporate set piece is rarely the strategy on the slide. It is the twelve seconds after the host introduces the CEO, when the audience decides whether to listen. A broadcaster trained on live national radio knows how to fill those twelve seconds. Most corporate MCs do not. Tim joined BBC Radio 2 in 1999 as co-presenter on Steve Wright in the Afternoon and stayed for 23 years, alongside Janey Lee Grace and Joyce Frost. Before that he had presented on BBC Radio 1, on BBC GLR where Picture Show earned a Sony Award nomination, and the UK Top 20 Chart Show on BBC World Service for 13 years. The corporate work runs in parallel. He presents podcast series for BAE Systems, Network Rail, BT, Jaguar Land Rover, Diageo, UK Power Networks and McVitie’s, working inside the editorial and compliance constraints that internal communications teams in regulated industries actually operate under. From June 2025 he also presents the weekday morning show on Magic Classical. For a buyer, the proposition is narrow and clear. He is not a subject-matter speaker on a business theme. He is a host with two decades of live national broadcast behind him, hired to make a conference, awards night, town hall or branded podcast sound like something the audience wants to keep listening to. Key speaking topics Conference and awards hosting Keynote interviews and fireside chats with senior leaders Corporate podcast presenting and production Internal town hall and all-hands hosting Panel moderation Live broadcast craft for corporate events Ideal for Internal communications and employee experience leads commissioning town halls, all-hands events and leadership broadcasts Marketing and brand teams running awards programmes, conferences and customer events Corporate affairs teams producing branded podcast series for employee or external audiences Event producers and agency partners briefing on plenary and panel hosting Audience outcomes A plenary that runs to time, with senior speakers introduced and handled without dead air. A keynote interview that draws the answer the audience came to hear, not the answer the executive rehearsed. A panel that moves, with questions sharp enough that the panellists have to respond rather than recite. An awards night with pace, where category presentations land and the room is still engaged at the final award. A podcast episode that sounds like national broadcast quality rather than a recorded internal meeting.