Values-Based Leadership speakers

Why organisations work with Neri Karra Sillaman Her eight-principle longevity framework in Pioneers (Wiley, 2025) is built on original academic research rather than case-study observation – it provides strategic leaders with a testable, applicable structure for long-term competitive positioning, not an anecdote collection. Pioneers was named Thinkers50 Best New Management Book of 2025 and a Financial Times Readers’ Choice – the two most credible independent signals in management thinking, giving buyers a defensible basis for the engagement beyond the speaker bureau description. She runs a manufacturing business with 25 years of partnerships with leading Italian fashion labels, recognised as both a B Corp and a Positive Luxury venture. The argument she makes about sustainable, values-driven longevity is one she has applied and revised under commercial pressure. Her Cambridge doctoral research used her own family business as a primary case study – an insider position on immigrant entrepreneurship that no other management scholar in this space holds, and which is the source of her most counterintuitive findings: that constraint, outsider perspective, and community cohesion function as durable competitive advantages. Her academic research has been published in the Journal of Business Venturing, Strategic Organization, and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, while her practitioner work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and the Financial Times – giving her credibility across board, executive, and academic settings. Biography highlights Professor of Practice and Entrepreneurship Expert at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford PhD from the University of Cambridge; doctoral research on born-global firms and immigrant entrepreneurship Author of Pioneers: 8 Principles of Business Longevity from Immigrant Entrepreneurs (Wiley, 2025) – Thinkers50 Best New Management Book of 2025, Financial Times Readers’ Choice, and Next Big Idea Club Must Read Named to the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024 and recipient of the Thinkers50 Radar Award 2025 Co-founder of Neri Karra, a luxury leather goods brand with 25+ years of manufacturing partnerships with leading Italian fashion labels, recognised as a B Corp and Positive Luxury venture Founder of Moda Métiers, a fashion and luxury business consultancy Academic research published in Journal of Business Venturing, Strategic Organization, and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice Contributed articles to Harvard Business Review and Fast Company; covered by the Financial Times, BBC, CNBC, Newsweek, Monocle, Bloomberg, and Vogue Business Biography The question of why some companies survive for decades while others peak and fade is one of the most commercially consequential questions in strategy – and one of the least rigorously studied. Neri Karra Sillaman spent two decades approaching it through an unusual lens: the immigrant entrepreneurs behind brands including Chobani, WhatsApp, Duolingo, and PayPal, who built iconic and enduring businesses while starting with limited capital, no institutional networks, and no margin for failure. That research, rooted in her Cambridge doctoral work and developed across her faculty career at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, produced Pioneers (Wiley, 2025) – an eight-principle framework for business longevity drawn from the structural choices that explain immigrant entrepreneurial success. The book was named Thinkers50 Best New Management Book of 2025 and a Financial Times Readers’ Choice. She holds roles as both Professor of Practice in Strategy and Entrepreneurship Expert at Oxford, and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024. The practitioner dimension matters here. She is co-founder of Neri Karra, a luxury leather goods business with 25+ years of manufacturing partnerships with leading Italian fashion labels, recognised as a B Corp and a Positive Luxury venture. The principles she applies in the boardroom and lecture hall – around purpose, constraint, community, and sustainable growth – are ones she has had to test, revise, and defend commercially over the same period she was researching them. Her writing appears in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Newsweek. Her academic research has been published in the Journal of Business Venturing, Strategic Organization, and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. She has contributed commentary to the Financial Times, BBC, CNBC, Monocle, Bloomberg, and Vogue Business, and has delivered TEDx talks on creativity, resilience, and entrepreneurship. Born in Bulgaria, she fled as a child refugee to Turkey before making her way through the University of Miami and Cambridge to the research that has defined her career – and which gives her a lived understanding of the very principles she argues make businesses last. Key speaking topics Business longevity and long-term competitive strategy Immigrant entrepreneurship and outsider advantage Sustainable growth and purpose-driven enterprise Fashion and luxury entrepreneurship Iconic brand building and brand durability Creativity and innovation in organisations Resilience as a strategic asset Ideal for CEOs, founders, and boards engaged in long-term strategy and business durability reviews Chief Strategy Officers and senior commercial teams seeking research-grounded frameworks for sustainable growth Fashion, luxury, and consumer goods executives navigating brand longevity, sustainability pressures, and global expansion Executive education and MBA audiences at business schools Audience outcomes A concrete eight-principle framework for what drives business longevity, applicable across sectors not limited to fashion or luxury A reframed understanding of constraint, outsider perspective, and community as structural competitive advantages rather than liabilities Specific strategic principles drawn from the companies behind Chobani, WhatsApp, Duolingo, and PayPal – examined analytically, not biographically Clearer language for board and leadership conversations about the gap between short-term performance and lasting competitive advantage A research-grounded basis for evaluating whether current strategic decisions are building for durability or optimising for the next cycle

Why organisations work with Nicola Green She brings firsthand observation of how power, identity and leadership operate at the highest level, drawn from sustained artistic access to Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Jonathan Sacks. Her work is held in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress and the Obama Presidential Center, which gives any inclusion conversation she leads an authority that consultancy-led sessions cannot match. She treats allyship as a discipline with daily behaviours, not as a values statement, which lands with senior leaders who are tired of slogans and want something they can act on. She founded the Khadija Saye Arts Programme and co-founded the Diaspora Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, so the institution-building she talks about is institution-building she has actually done. Biography highlights Co-founder and director, Diaspora Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale (2017), with David A. Bailey, David Lammy and Peter Clayton. In Seven Days…, her artistic record of the 2008 Obama campaign, is held by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the Obama Presidential Center and the UK Government Art Collection. Encounters, a fifty-portrait series with Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, Justin Welby, Jonathan Sacks, Ali Gomaa and Desmond Tutu, exhibited at St Martin-in-the-Fields; book published by Brepols. Founder, Khadija Saye Arts Programme at IntoUniversity, addressing underrepresentation of Black and minority ethnic communities in the creative industries. Principal Artist on The World Reimagined, a UK-wide public art project on racial justice and the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. Co-founder and Chair, Sophia Point Rainforest Research Centre, Guyana. Biography Allyship has become one of the most used and least understood words in the workplace. Many leaders have signed up to it in principle while still being unsure what it asks of them in practice. Green’s work begins in that gap. Drawing on a decade of direct access to the figures who define modern leadership and faith, she treats allyship as something senior leaders do, not something they declare. Her portrait series In Seven Days… documented Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign from the Democratic Convention through to the inauguration. Sets are held by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress and the Obama Presidential Center. A second body of work, Encounters, sat her across the table from Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Justin Welby and Jonathan Sacks. The accompanying book, Encounters: The Art of Interfaith Dialogue, was published by Brepols. Beyond the studio, Green has built institutions for the conversation she leads on stage. She co-founded the Diaspora Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, featuring twenty-two artists from culturally diverse backgrounds, and founded the Khadija Saye Arts Programme at IntoUniversity in memory of her mentee, the artist Khadija Saye, who died in the Grenfell Tower fire. As Principal Artist on The World Reimagined, she created public work confronting the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade across the UK. For senior teams, the value is that Green has spent twenty years studying how leaders actually behave around questions of identity, power and faith. She does not arrive with a framework borrowed from elsewhere. She arrives with primary observation, recorded in works that now sit inside the national collections of two countries. Key speaking topics Allyship as leadership practice Identity, race and power in organisations Inclusive leadership Visual storytelling and narrative change Diversity in the creative industries Representation and institution-building Interfaith dialogue and leadership Ideal for Chief executives, CHROs and DEI leads rebuilding inclusion strategy after the post-2020 backlash. Boards and executive committees setting tone on identity, representation and culture. Senior leadership conferences in financial services, professional services, media and the public sector. Cultural institutions, universities and faith-based organisations working on representation and access. Audience outcomes A clearer working definition of allyship, expressed as behaviours leaders can hold each other to. A direct view of how high-stakes leaders, political and religious, handle identity and power in practice. A sharper sense of how visual culture and representation shape what an organisation looks like from the outside. Practical reference points for inclusion work that has stalled or lost credibility internally.

Why organisations work with Princess Rym Ali She has reported on a major conflict from inside it. Her Baghdad coverage for CNN during the 2003 invasion gives her an editorial instinct for how facts, narratives, and reputations move under pressure that few corporate communicators ever develop. She built a working institution, not a campaign. The Jordan Media Institute is a functioning Arab journalism school she founded in 2007, which gives her practical authority on how educational and editorial standards actually take hold in a region. She leads the Anna Lindh Foundation across 42 Euro-Mediterranean member states. The role gives her a working brief on intercultural dialogue at scale, including how to convene parties who fundamentally disagree. Her credentials are issued by named bodies, not bureaus: a Columbia Journalism Award, France’s Legion of Honour, and a Coventry University honorary doctorate. Buyers can verify each. Biography highlights Founder, Jordan Media Institute (2007), the first Arab non-profit centre of excellence for journalism education. President, Anna Lindh Foundation (since 2021), succeeding French politician Elisabeth Guigou. CNN Baghdad correspondent, 2001 to 2004; previously with BBC, UPI, Bloomberg TV, Dubai TV, and Radio Monte-Carlo Moyen-Orient. Knight of the French Legion of Honour; Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Award (2011); Ischia International Journalism Award for Best International Journalist (2011); Coventry University honorary doctorate (2013). Master’s in Journalism, Columbia University; DEA in Political Science, Sciences Po Paris; MA English Literature, Sorbonne. Board of Commissioners, Royal Film Commission of Jordan, since 2005; President, Amman International Film Festival, since 2017. Biography Most organisations underestimate how much of their credibility depends on the information environment around them, not the messages they send into it. Princess Rym Ali has worked on both sides of that environment, first as a CNN correspondent reporting from Baghdad during the 2003 invasion, then as the founder of an Arab journalism school built to raise the editorial standards leaders eventually have to operate inside. The Jordan Media Institute, which she founded in 2007, is the part of her record that explains the rest. It is a functioning institution, not a campaign or a foundation grant. Building it forced her to make decisions about ethics, curriculum, and editorial independence that most commentators on media only describe. That practical grounding is what shapes her view on how trust is built and lost in an organisation. Since 2021 she has been President of the Anna Lindh Foundation, the Euro-Mediterranean intergovernmental body whose 42 member states span a fault line of contested politics, religion, and migration. The role puts her in the middle of conversations that most leaders only see in summary, and gives her a working method for convening people who disagree without collapsing into platitudes. Her credentials are issued by serious institutions: Columbia University, Sciences Po, the Sorbonne, the French Republic. The argument behind them is what matters. She has done the editorial work, built the institution, and now runs the convening platform. For a board navigating reputation, cross-cultural risk, or the civic dimensions of its operating context, that combination of editorial judgement and institutional discipline is rare. Key speaking topics Media credibility and organisational reputation Information literacy in fragmented environments Freedom of expression and editorial responsibility Intercultural dialogue across the Euro-Mediterranean Values-based leadership under public scrutiny Higher education and civic culture Women’s leadership in media and public institutions Ideal for Boards and executive committees managing reputation across regulatory, political, and cultural lines. Heads of communications, corporate affairs, and public policy responsible for credibility in contested information environments. Leadership audiences in media, education, philanthropy, and international institutions. Convenings on cross-cultural strategy, particularly involving the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. Audience outcomes A sharper read on how editorial decisions, algorithmic curation, and platform incentives shape what audiences treat as fact. A working sense of what intercultural dialogue at institutional scale actually requires, drawn from the Anna Lindh Foundation’s 42-member-state remit. A concrete view of how a regional educational institution is built and sustained, taken from the Jordan Media Institute case. Honest framing of the limits of communications strategy when the underlying information environment is fragmented.

Why organisations work with Raphael Rowe His story is not a metaphor. He served close to twelve years in prison for a 1988 murder he did not commit, as part of the M25 Three case, before the Court of Appeal ruled the convictions unsafe in 2000. His broadcast credentials are substantial in their own right: host of Netflix’s Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons since season two, BBC Panorama reporter, and a track record on BBC Radio 4’s Today, BBC One’s Six O’Clock News and Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago. The Panorama investigative work, including on the Barry George case, places him inside the British public-interest journalism tradition rather than on the margin of it. The Raphael Rowe Foundation, his own organisation focused on prison health, education and rehabilitation, gives him a platform on institutional accountability that is active, not historical. He is comfortable on any stage that wants the full range of his experience, from a resilience keynote to a main-stage moderator role to an in-depth session on justice, media and institutional failure. Biography highlights Presenter of Netflix’s Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons since 2018 BBC Panorama reporter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme, BBC One Six O’Clock News, Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago (BBC Two) Investigative work including the wrongful conviction of Barry George in the Jill Dando murder case Author of autobiography Notorious Founder of the Raphael Rowe Foundation, working on prison health, education and rehabilitation Served close to 12 years wrongly imprisoned as part of the M25 Three case; convictions ruled unsafe, 2000 Biography The M25 Three case is one of the most-cited miscarriages of justice in modern British legal history. Raphael Rowe is one of the three men at the centre of it. Convicted in 1990 for a 1988 murder and a series of aggravated robberies, he spent close to twelve years in prison before the Court of Appeal ruled the convictions unsafe in July 2000. That experience is the reason he speaks with authority on institutional accountability, resilience and the cost of being wrong, and the reason he chose to spend the second half of his working life investigating the same systems from the outside. Since his release, Rowe has built a career in BBC and international broadcast journalism. He has reported for and presented BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, BBC One’s Six O’Clock News and BBC Panorama, where his investigations included the wrongful conviction of Barry George for the murder of Crimewatch presenter Jill Dando. Outside the newsroom, he presented Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago for BBC Two, a format that allowed him to explore questions of meaning and resilience at long form rather than in soundbites. The Netflix commission is the title that most audiences now know him by. Since 2018 he has hosted Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons, the series that has taken him into maximum-security facilities in more than 20 countries, with a perspective no other presenter in the category has: he is the only host who has served time on the other side of the bars. The advocacy work sits alongside the broadcasting. He founded the Raphael Rowe Foundation to work on health, education and rehabilitation inside prison systems, and his autobiography Notorious is his first-person account of the conviction, imprisonment and rebuild. For corporate audiences, Rowe offers a resilience keynote that cannot be recreated, a host with Netflix-level recognition, and a credible voice on institutional failure when the brief calls for it. Key speaking topics Resilience and rebuilding after catastrophic adversity Criminal justice, wrongful convictions and institutional accountability Investigative journalism and the public interest Prison reform, health, education and rehabilitation Ethics and accountability inside institutions Media craft: hosting, long-form journalism and broadcast storytelling Ideal for Corporate audiences and leadership events looking for a first-person resilience keynote with substance Legal, justice and compliance audiences engaging with institutional accountability and miscarriage of justice Media, communications and PR organisations wanting an investigative-journalism perspective Events requiring a Netflix/BBC-grade host or moderator with a high-recognition public profile Audience outcomes A grounded account of what resilience looks like after a decade inside a system most audiences only study A clearer view of how and why institutions make catastrophic errors, and what breaks that cycle A specific set of examples from Netflix’s Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons and BBC Panorama investigative work Reference points on institutional accountability that are usable in legal, corporate and public-sector contexts The benefit of a recognised Netflix and BBC name in the room for audience engagement and post-event conversation

Why organisations work with Rashmi Airan She has lived the failure she now teaches against. A Columbia-trained lawyer who went to federal prison for fraud tied to the housing crisis is a different category of voice on judgement under pressure than a consultant or compliance trainer. Her Clarity Loop gives leadership teams a four-question, sixty-second discipline they can actually run inside a real decision, not a values poster they nod at and forget. She names the specific mechanisms that erode judgement, rationalisation, normalisation, silence, group pressure, and urgency, from the inside, because they are the ones that took down her own career. Her work connects judgement, resilience, and mental health, which makes her relevant to leaders under sustained strain rather than only to the compliance function. Biography highlights Columbia Law School graduate, with honours; undergraduate degree from UNC-Chapel Hill; former Wall Street investment banker. Served six months in federal prison for fraud tied to the US housing crisis, after a conspiracy conviction as a closing attorney. Creator of the Clarity Loop, a four-question decision framework, and the RISE Through It® process for recovering judgement after setback. Author of ALL RISE: A Lawyer’s Evolution from Prison to Purpose, endorsed by Marshall Goldsmith. TEDx speaker, Against the Slippery Slope (TEDxGreenville), on ethical blind spots and decision-making under pressure. Has delivered keynotes for leaders at Deloitte, Coca-Cola, Merck, Comcast, Cardinal Health, and Medtronic. Media appearances on ABC, PBS, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal; board director, Overtown Youth Center and Alonzo Mourning Foundation. Biography Most damaging decisions in business are not made by reckless people. They are made by capable, experienced leaders under pressure, one reasonable-seeming compromise at a time. Rashmi Airan knows the pattern from the inside. A Columbia Law School graduate and former Wall Street investment banker, she built a successful legal career before a conspiracy conviction tied to the housing crisis sent her to federal prison. That collapse became the subject of her work rather than a footnote to it. For more than a decade she has studied how speed, incentives, and the stories leaders tell themselves quietly bend judgement, and how to interrupt that drift before it hardens into damage. Her central idea is that integrity needs infrastructure: strong values are necessary but not sufficient under real pressure. The practical answer she teaches is the Clarity Loop, a four-question pause that takes about sixty seconds and forces a leader to name the pressure, examine their incentives, find the blind spot, and check the decision before acting. Her longer RISE Through It® process, Reframe, Identify, Surrender, Evolve, addresses the harder climb back after a setback. She has brought both to leadership teams at Deloitte, Coca-Cola, Merck, Comcast, Cardinal Health, and Medtronic. She is the author of ALL RISE: A Lawyer’s Evolution from Prison to Purpose, and her story has been covered by ABC, PBS, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. She serves on the board of the Overtown Youth Center and the Alonzo Mourning Foundation and is an ambassador for The Key Clubhouse, work rooted in mental health and second-chance opportunity, the ground she had to rebuild on herself. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Values-based leadership Resilience after professional setback Decision drift and the conditions for ethical lapse Behavioural science and judgement Mental health and senior leadership Risk awareness for boards and executive teams Ideal for Boards, general counsel, and compliance leadership setting the ethical operating standard for the organisation. Partner groups in law, accounting, banking, and professional services where individual judgement carries firm-wide risk. Senior leadership development programmes inside Fortune-scale companies focused on decision quality and resilience. Women’s leadership forums and emerging-leader cohorts where authority, voice, and self-knowledge are central. Audience outcomes A four-question method, the Clarity Loop, they can run inside a real decision before they act. The vocabulary to name decision drift as it happens in their teams, rather than after the damage. A more honest account of how pressure, incentives, and culture combine to bend capable people’s judgement. Permission to treat mental health, fear, and self-doubt as leadership issues rather than private weakness. A first-person reference point that leaders carry back into their own teams when the pressure starts to rise.

Why organisations work with Roger Delves Two decades inside one of Europe’s most established executive education faculties, teaching senior leaders in London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and across Europe. Co-author of The Top 50 Management Dilemmas (Pearson) and co-editor of Inspiring Leadership (Bloomsbury), so his content is tested against the everyday tensions managers actually face, not theoretical models. A practitioner background that runs through advertising board directorship and founding Ireland’s first international advertising agency. Leadership content built from operator experience, not academic distance. Multiple-time Hult Professor of the Year, voted by MBA and EMBA cohorts. He earns the trust of the audiences senior buyers want him in front of. Biography highlights Professor of Leadership Practice and Dean of Qualifications, Hult Ashridge Executive Education Director of the Ashridge MBA and Ashridge Masters in Management Co-author, The Top 50 Management Dilemmas (Pearson, 2013) with Sona Sherratt Co-editor, Inspiring Leadership: Becoming a Dynamic and Engaging Leader (Bloomsbury, 2017) with Dr Kerrie Fleming Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; MA, English, St Catherine’s College, Oxford Multiple-time Hult Professor of the Year, voted by MBA and EMBA students Biography Most leadership content tells senior leaders what good looks like. Very little of it survives contact with a fatigued team, a contested decision, or a quarter when the strategy is not landing. Delves’s teaching is built for that gap. His subject matter is the practical content of authenticity, emotional intelligence and integrity when leaders are under real pressure, not the language of values when conditions are calm. That perspective comes from a hybrid career. He spent his early years in advertising, reaching UK board director at DMB&B, then founded Ireland’s first international advertising agency, serving Mars Masterfoods and Procter & Gamble. He moved into executive education through Cranfield’s Centre for Customised Executive Education before joining Ashridge, where he is now Professor of Leadership Practice and Dean of Qualifications across the MBA and Masters in Management. The published work reflects the same orientation. The Top 50 Management Dilemmas, co-authored with Sona Sherratt for Pearson, takes the recurring tensions managers describe in the room and works through them as decisions rather than concepts. Inspiring Leadership, co-edited with Dr Kerrie Fleming for Bloomsbury, brings together faculty perspectives on what actually develops leaders rather than what merely describes them. He has been voted Hult Professor of the Year by MBA and EMBA students on multiple occasions, and teaches across London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Europe. What organisations get from him is a serious examination of how leaders make defensible decisions when the data is incomplete and the audience is watching. He treats authenticity as a discipline, not a slogan, and he is comfortable saying so in front of senior cohorts who have heard most of it before. Key speaking topics Authentic leadership Emotional intelligence in senior leadership Leadership decision-making under pressure Transformational leadership and change Values, ethics and integrity in management Team engagement and follower psychology Leadership in uncertain conditions Ideal for Senior leadership programmes for executive committees, divisional MDs, and high-potential cohorts Heads of leadership development and CLOs designing flagship leader interventions CHROs and CPOs commissioning content for engagement and culture programmes MBA, EMBA and partner cohorts within corporate universities Audience outcomes A sharper read on where their own leadership credibility comes from, and where it leaks Working language for emotional intelligence that is usable in a leadership team, not a workshop Specific tests for whether a decision is authentic or merely consistent A diagnostic for the everyday management dilemmas that erode trust if handled badly Confidence to lead through ambiguity without retreating into process

Why organisations work with Roger Steare His Ethicability framework was adopted by BP into its 2011 Code of Conduct after Deepwater Horizon, and the programme was later recognised by the US Department of Justice in BP’s US$20.8 billion Consent Agreement. Few decision frameworks have been stress-tested at that scale. The MoralDNA psychometric, co-designed with psychologist Pavlos Stamboulides, has profiled more than 200,000 people across 200 countries. It gives boards a measurable language for ethical culture rather than a values poster. He has built ethical leadership programmes for Barclays, BP, Citigroup, HSBC, and Nationwide, and advised the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Reporting Council, and the Serious Fraud Office. His client list is the regulator and the regulated, which is rare. He writes for the Financial Times and Director magazine, and reported for the Chartered Management Institute on the link between moral character and organisational performance. The argument is empirical, not aspirational. He brings the same ethical reasoning to AI governance that he applied to banking and energy. Boards confronting AI deployment get a method, not a moral panic. Biography highlights Designer of BP’s global ethical leadership programme for 4,000 leaders following Deepwater Horizon; framework cited in BP’s US Department of Justice Consent Agreement Co-designer of MoralDNA, the moral-values psychometric used by more than 200,000 people in over 200 countries Author of Ethicability, now in a new edition, and of The MoralDNA of Performance for the Chartered Management Institute Associate Professor of ethical decisions at Headspring, the Financial Times and IE Business School executive development venture in Madrid; formerly Corporate Philosopher in Residence at Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School, City, University of London Commissioner on the Institute of Directors Commission, “Business, a Force for Good?” Columnist for the Financial Times and Director magazine; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts Biography Most ethics work in large organisations is theatre. Codes of conduct sit on intranets, e-learning modules are completed quickly, and the actual decisions get made the same way they always were. The MoralDNA work, built with psychologist Pavlos Stamboulides and now profiling over 200,000 people across 200 countries, was designed to interrupt that pattern. It measures how people actually reason about right and wrong, not what they say they value. The Ethicability framework took the same logic into operational decision-making. After Deepwater Horizon, BP incorporated it into the 2011 Code of Conduct and rolled an associated programme out to 4,000 leaders. In 2016 the US Department of Justice cited that programme as part of BP’s US$20.8 billion Consent Agreement. It is one of very few ethical decision tools stress-tested under genuine regulatory and reputational fire. The wider client list spans Barclays, BP, Citigroup, HSBC, and Nationwide, and he has advised the regulators as well: the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Reporting Council, and the Serious Fraud Office. As Associate Professor of ethical decisions at Headspring, the Financial Times and IE Business School venture, he teaches the same material to senior leaders, and he sat as a Commissioner on the Institute of Directors inquiry into whether business is a force for good. His columns for the Financial Times and Director magazine, and his Chartered Management Institute report The MoralDNA of Performance, argue that moral character correlates with measurable organisational outcomes. That argument now extends to AI. The questions a board faces about model deployment, accountability, and bias are not new ethical questions, they are old ones in faster machinery. The work he brings to AI governance is the same reasoning he brought to banking after 2008 and to oil after 2010: a tested method for deciding what is right when commercial, legal, and moral answers diverge. Key speaking topics Values-based leadership and ethical decision-making AI ethics and responsible technology governance Organisational culture and integrity Trust and the social contract of business Moral reasoning at board level Ethics in financial services and regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing ethical or reputational exposure Chief Risk Officers, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officers shaping culture beyond compliance Senior leaders in regulated sectors: financial services, energy, healthcare, defence Heads of AI, Chief Data Officers and technology leaders setting deployment standards Audience outcomes A tested method (the Ethicability framework) for making decisions when commercial, legal, and ethical pressures conflict A common language for ethical culture grounded in the MoralDNA evidence base A clearer account of why values-based leadership is correlated with organisational performance A practical framing for AI governance questions that boards can act on

Why organisations work with Baroness Ruth Hunt She ran the organisation that most large UK employers used as their inclusion benchmark, which means her advice to a C-suite team carries direct operational memory, not theory. She has spent the years since Stonewall inside the House of Lords as a Crossbench peer, watching how legislation, regulation and public mood shape the room a CEO walks into. Her consultancy Deeds and Words is built around collective leadership and humble inquiry as practical methods, giving executive teams a way to make inclusion an operating discipline rather than a statement. She edited The Book of Queer Prophets for William Collins, which gives her a public intellectual register useful when boards want a serious conversation, not a training module. She is comfortable on contested ground. Boards facing trans policy, religious freedom or campaign-group pressure get an adviser who has lived inside the argument from the inside of a national institution. Biography highlights Chief Executive, Stonewall, 2014 to 2019; led campaigns including Rainbow Laces with the Premier League and the No Bystanders schools programme. Crossbench peer, House of Lords, since October 2019, as Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green. Member, UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, focusing on democracy and youth participation. Co-founder and Director, Deeds and Words, advising C-suite teams on collective and inclusive leadership. Visiting Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge, elected 2023. Editor, The Book of Queer Prophets: 24 Writers on Sexuality and Religion, William Collins, 2020. Named No. 1 on the Independent Pride Power List, 2019; speaker platforms include the Oxford Union, the NHS and Talks At Google. Biography Stonewall under Ruth Hunt’s leadership became the standard against which large UK employers measured their own inclusion work. The Workplace Equality Index moved inclusion from charity advocacy into employer practice, which is why her audience for serious leadership conversations is now the C-suite, not the diversity function. Since leaving Stonewall in 2019 she has taken a Crossbench seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green, the youngest Crossbench peer at the time of her appointment. She also sits on the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. That work keeps her read on the operating environment current, particularly on the contested edges of equality policy. Through Deeds and Words, the consultancy she co-founded with Caroline Ellis, she works with senior teams on collective leadership and humble inquiry as practical methods. The argument is that inclusive leadership is a way of running an organisation, not an HR position, and that the leaders who treat it as the latter tend to lose ground when the politics gets harder. Her published work runs alongside the advisory practice. She edited The Book of Queer Prophets for William Collins in 2020, a collection of 24 essays on sexuality and religion that signalled an interest in difficult ground rather than safe ground. In 2023 she was elected a Visiting Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, where she has spoken on faith, identity and public leadership. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership in a contested political environment Collective leadership and humble inquiry as executive practice Building credible culture change in large organisations LGBTQ+ rights, politics and the new culture wars Allyship as a workplace discipline Faith, identity and public life Ideal for CEOs and executive committees who need to take a credible position on inclusion under public and political pressure Chief People Officers and Chief Diversity Officers moving from advocacy framing to operating discipline Board directors handling reputational risk on equality, faith or values-based policy Public sector and uniformed service leaders managing inclusion in hierarchical, mission-led organisations Audience outcomes A sharper read on why the inclusion consensus of the 2010s has fractured and what that means for leadership decisions A working definition of collective and inclusive leadership that a senior team can actually use the following week A clearer view of where allyship adds operating value and where it becomes performance A more confident position on how to hold contested ground without retreating into corporate neutrality

Why organisations work with Sacha Romanovitch She has actually done what most purpose-led leadership talks describe. As CEO of Grant Thornton UK she capped her own pay at 20 times the firm’s average salary, introduced firm-wide profit sharing, and gave 4,500 staff a stake in how the partnership was run. She left Grant Thornton having grown it past £500m in revenue and finished her tenure in the Glassdoor Top 50 CEOs with a 94% approval rating, two places behind Tim Cook. Boards listening to her hear an operator, not an advocate. She built Fair4All Finance from a standing start into the UK’s recognised body on financial inclusion, working across HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, regulators, lenders, and the voluntary sector. Few speakers can demonstrate cross-sector convening at that scale. She is willing to discuss the political and partner-level backlash she faced for refusing to back down on shared enterprise. That candour is rare from former CEOs and unusually useful to boards anticipating their own pushback. Biography highlights First woman to lead a major UK accounting firm, as CEO of Grant Thornton UK LLP from 2015 to 2019. OBE awarded in 2020 for Services to Business, recognising her work on financial wellbeing through Fair4All Finance. Founding CEO of Fair4All Finance, the UK financial inclusion body backed by dormant assets funding, from September 2019. Member of the UK Government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council from February 2022, leading the Social Infrastructure working group. Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford; Honorary Doctorate, University of York; Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Independent Non-Executive Director of the Association of British Insurers; Non-Executive Director, LeapFrog Investments; inaugural Chair of Access Accountancy. Biography In 2015 the partnership at Grant Thornton UK voted in a CEO who told them their pay should be capped, profits should be shared with every employee, and the firm should drop clients whose work it could not defend. By the end of her tenure the firm had grown past £500m in revenue, was sitting in the Glassdoor Top 50 CEOs ranking with a 94% staff approval rating, and the same partnership that elected her had fractured over the cost of what it had agreed to. That tension is the substance of Sacha Romanovitch’s leadership work. She is one of the few senior UK operators who has put a recognisable shared enterprise model inside a major professional services firm and then absorbed the partner-level resistance it produced. Boards that say they want a purpose-led culture often have not faced the moment when their senior earners discover what purpose costs them. She has, and she will discuss it directly. Since 2019 she has been building Fair4All Finance, the body set up under the Dormant Assets Scheme to extend access to affordable credit, insurance, and savings for people in vulnerable financial circumstances. Under her the organisation has become the convening point for the financial services sector, HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, and the voluntary sector on financial inclusion. She co-chairs the Inclusive Economy Partnership and served on the Government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council from 2022, leading its Social Infrastructure working group. The thread across both roles is the same. Values claims are tested by the decisions a leader takes when those values cost something. Romanovitch is unusually credible on that test because she has been on both sides of it: as the CEO who held the line at Grant Thornton, and as the founding chief executive who has had to make the case for financial inclusion to commercial lenders, regulators, and ministers in turn. Key speaking topics Purpose-led leadership in commercial organisations Shared enterprise and employee ownership models Financial inclusion and the social contract of financial services Inclusive leadership in regulated and professional services sectors Cross-sector partnership between government, business, and civil society Social mobility and access to professional careers Leading change against partner-level or shareholder resistance Ideal for Boards and ExCos in professional services, financial services, and partnership-structured firms reviewing their culture and ownership model CEOs and CHROs designing reward, voice, and stake structures for purpose-led strategies Financial services leaders, regulators, and policy audiences working on financial inclusion and consumer vulnerability Industry social mobility programmes and DEI sponsor groups setting concrete targets rather than statements Audience outcomes A direct account of what shared enterprise looks like when it is operating, costing, and contested inside a major firm A working model for testing whether a stated value will hold under commercial pressure before it is publicly committed to A clear picture of how financial inclusion gets built in practice across regulators, banks, fintechs, and the voluntary sector An honest reading of the partner-level and shareholder dynamics that derail purpose-led change, and the moves that protect it A sense of what the next decade of financial services accountability looks like from inside the policy conversation

Why organisations work with Sam Silverstein A 30-year body of work that treats accountability as an operating system, not a virtue. Buyers get a structured method, not a motivational reset. Founder of The Accountability Institute and creator of the Certified Accountability Advisor designation. The frameworks are productised, taught, and used inside client organisations long after the keynote. Author of 13 books on the subject, anchored by No More Excuses and The Accountability Advantage. Senior teams can verify the substance before they commission the talk. CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame inductee and past President of the National Speakers Association. The peer recognition is from people who book and brief speakers for a living. Practitioner credibility: built and sold a manufacturing business to a Fortune 500 acquirer before turning to the topic full-time. The room reads him as an operator who later became an author. Biography highlights Founder of The Accountability Institute and the Certified Accountability Advisor programme. Author of 13 books, including No More Excuses, The Accountability Advantage, No Matter What, Non-Negotiable, and Pivot!. CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, inducted by the National Speakers Association in 2021. Past President of the National Speakers Association (2008). Named one of the World’s Top 30 Organisational Culture Professionals by Global Gurus. Former owner of manufacturing and distribution companies with combined sales over $100 million, including a successful exit to a Fortune 500 company. Biography Most organisations treat accountability as a tone of voice. Silverstein treats it as a structure. His work, developed over three decades and codified through The Accountability Institute, defines accountability as the willingness to keep commitments to others. That definition is operational, not motivational, and it changes how leaders are expected to behave when no one is watching the dashboard. The frameworks sit inside thirteen books, beginning with No More Excuses and built out through The Accountability Advantage, No Matter What, Non-Negotiable, and the Certified Accountability Advisor designation that licenses the method to practitioners. Clients use them to address the problems culture decks usually skirt: turnover that erodes margin, change programmes that lose energy after launch, and senior leaders who carry decisions that should live closer to the customer. The credentials are equally serious. The National Speakers Association inducted him into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame in 2021, and he previously served as the association’s President. Global Gurus has named him among the world’s top thirty organisational culture professionals. The peer recognition matters because it comes from the part of the industry that watches speakers under pressure. Before any of this, he built and ran manufacturing and distribution companies with combined sales above $100 million and sold one of them to a Fortune 500 acquirer. That history is why the room reads him as an operator first. The accountability argument lands harder because the person making it has been the one writing the cheque for the consequences of weak execution. Key speaking topics Accountability as a culture operating discipline Organisational culture and retention Values-driven leadership Change adoption and resistance Trust and team commitment Disengagement and turnover reduction Ideal for CHROs and people directors facing retention and engagement pressure COOs and operating leaders translating strategy into consistent execution CEOs leading culture or values resets after restructure, merger, or rapid growth Leadership development and L&D teams building behavioural standards across the management layer Audience outcomes A working definition of accountability that separates it from blame, compliance, or performance management A clear view of where commitments break down inside their own organisation Specific behaviours that leaders can adopt to model accountability without micromanaging A vocabulary for culture that the senior team can use in operating meetings, not just engagement surveys A defensible answer to “what would change if we actually did this?”

Why organisations work with Seyi Akiwowo She built Glitch from a personal campaign in 2017 into a working UK charity on online gender-based violence, which gives her a different register from consultants who study the issue from outside. Her Penguin Life book How to Stay Safe Online is one of the few mainstream titles that treats online harm as a serious workplace and leadership concern, not a parenting issue, and gives executive audiences a reference text. She served as an elected councillor in Newham at 23 and addressed the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council, which means she is comfortable in regulated, scrutinised, formal rooms, not just activist spaces. She has held trust and safety advisory roles with major platforms including TikTok, which gives her direct read on how the largest platforms handle abuse, moderation, and policy. She declined an MBE publicly in 2022. That decision and the way she framed it gives her unusual credibility with audiences who are sceptical of inclusion as institutional theatre. Biography highlights Founder of Glitch, the UK charity addressing online abuse and online gender-based violence, established out of the 2017 #FixTheGlitch campaign. Author, How to Stay Safe Online, Penguin Life, 2022. Elected councillor for Newham, East London, at the age of 23, the youngest Black woman councillor in the UK at the time. Speaker at the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council on online gender-based violence; Amnesty International Human Rights Defender (2018). Digital Leader of the Year (2019); Marie Claire Future Shaper (2019); WIRED Changemaker cover (2021); TEDxLondon speaker (2019). Trust and safety advisory roles with platforms including TikTok; bachelor’s degree in social policy, London School of Economics. Biography In 2017, a recording of a speech delivered at the European Parliament went viral. The reaction was a flood of racist and misogynistic abuse, more than seventy reports filed with the platforms, and almost no response from them. The campaign that emerged from that experience, #FixTheGlitch, became the charity Glitch. Glitch is now a recognised voice on online abuse and online gender-based violence in the UK. It works with women, marginalised communities, parliamentarians, and platforms, and its evidence has been part of the policy conversation around the UK Online Safety Act. The work is operational, not theoretical: training, casework, lobbying, partnerships with platforms including TikTok where Akiwowo has held trust and safety advisory roles. Her credibility predates Glitch. At 23 she was elected a Labour councillor for Newham, the youngest Black woman councillor in the UK. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social policy from the London School of Economics. She has addressed the 38th session of the UN Human Rights Council on online gender-based violence and was named an Amnesty International Human Rights Defender in 2018. Penguin Life published How to Stay Safe Online in 2022. It is the rare mainstream book that treats online harm as a serious leadership and workplace concern. In the same year she was offered an MBE and chose not to accept it, a decision she explained publicly. For corporate audiences thinking about inclusion, employee safety, and values-based leadership, that combination, an elected politician’s record, an operating charity, a Penguin book, and a refused honour, is the substance she brings into the room. Key speaking topics Online safety as a workplace duty of care Online gender-based violence and digital harm Values-based and inclusive leadership Digital self-care and resilience for senior leaders Platform accountability and trust and safety Inclusion in a contested political climate Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers and Heads of DEI rebuilding the inclusion case for sceptical executive audiences Heads of internal communications, employee experience, and risk responsible for staff wellbeing in public-facing roles Trust and safety, policy, and product leaders inside platforms and regulated technology businesses Senior women’s networks, employee resource groups, and leadership development programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of online harm as a workplace and leadership issue, not a personal coping problem A direct read on how platforms actually respond to abuse, drawn from advisory work with companies including TikTok Practical content from the Penguin Life book How to Stay Safe Online that audiences can use the next day A confident position on inclusion and values-based leadership that holds up in the current political climate A senior voice that has chosen difficult institutional decisions, including declining an MBE, and can speak credibly about leadership under public scrutiny

Why organisations work with Shela Gobertina von Trapp She brings twenty years of sustainability operating experience to a story most people only know from the screen: founding partner of the Circular Electronics Partnership and a decade leading corporate sustainability at Office Depot across the US and Europe. She gives boards and leadership teams a usable frame for decisions whose payoff sits well beyond the current leadership’s tenure, which is the practical problem behind most long-term commitments. She is the one speaker who can connect a globally recognised family legacy directly to corporate questions of brand stewardship and long-term value, which makes the argument land rather than feel borrowed. In her previous role at the Global Electronics Council, managers of the EPEAT ecolabel, she worked inside the procurement standards and circular-economy roadmaps that large buyers actually use. Biography highlights Founder of Celebrity Legacy, including its advisory practice von Trapp Consulting, and co-founder of the Georg & Agathe Foundation, home to the heritage project vonTrapp.org and vonTrapp.art, an e-commerce initiative supporting cultural heritage Founding partner of the Circular Electronics Partnership (CEP), the cross-industry roadmap toward a circular electronics value chain by 2030 Former Director of Global Relations & Partnerships at the Global Electronics Council, managers of the EPEAT environmental ecolabel Roughly a decade in corporate sustainability at Office Depot, a Fortune 500 company, across the United States and Europe Master’s in Energy and Environmental Analysis from Boston University, with a Bachelor’s in Environmental Analysis and Policy awarded Magna Cum Laude Great-granddaughter of Captain Georg von Trapp and Agathe Gobertina Whitehead, and granddaughter of Johanna von Trapp, portrayed as Marta in The Sound of Music Biography Most companies plan in quarters and report in years. The choices that shape a brand compound over decades, long after the leaders who made them have gone. Sustainability lives in that gap, judged on short cycles and paid for over much longer ones. Shela Gobertina von Trapp spent two decades working that gap from inside large organisations. At Office Depot, a Fortune 500 company, she led corporate sustainability across the United States and Europe. At the Global Electronics Council, managers of the EPEAT ecolabel, she became a founding partner of the Circular Electronics Partnership, an industry roadmap toward a circular electronics value chain by 2030. What makes her perspective unusual is its source. She is a great-granddaughter of Captain Georg von Trapp and Agathe Gobertina Whitehead, and a granddaughter of Johanna von Trapp, portrayed as Marta in The Sound of Music. She has spent years researching how that family held its identity through war, exile, and reinvention, and what allowed the name to outlast the people who carried it. She now puts the same question to companies in commercial terms: how does a brand earn the right to last? Drawing on the family archive and her sustainability work, she helps boards treat reputation and environmental commitment as assets that are stewarded across generations, the way the von Trapp name was. Key speaking topics Corporate sustainability and the circular economy Long-term value and legacy thinking Brand longevity and stewardship Heritage and historical preservation Leadership lessons from the von Trapp family Values-based and purpose-driven leadership Sustainable procurement and electronics circularity Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG teams moving from reporting cycles to long-term substance Boards and family businesses weighing brand stewardship and succession across generations Heritage brands and organisations whose long-term reputation is itself a core asset Leadership and culture programmes wanting a substantive story about values that outlast their founders Nonprofit leaders, foundations, and cultural institutions balancing mission with long-term stewardship Audience outcomes A way to test today’s decisions against their consequences decades out, not just the current cycle A concrete account of how one family held its name through war and exile, and why that matters for institutions that want to last Sustainability reframed as a long-horizon asset that boards steward, illustrated with circular-economy examples from the electronics industry Reputation and brand understood as inheritances, built deliberately or eroded by default