Workforce Transformation

Why organisations work with Tim Ringo A practitioner thesis on productivity, not a survey of the field. Solving the Productivity Puzzle won the HR & Management category at the Business Book Awards because it sets out a specific operating model for connecting engagement, performance and learning, rather than describing the problem. Three decades inside the firms that built the modern HR function: Accenture, IBM and SAP SuccessFactors, including global leadership of IBM’s 1,500-strong Human Capital Management consulting practice and EMEA leadership at SAP SuccessFactors. A rare combination of HR strategy and workforce analytics credentials, evidenced by Calculating Success, his Harvard Business Review Press book on workforce analytics co-authored with Carl Hoffmann and Eric Lesser. Recognised peer authority: named to HR Magazine’s Most Influential HR Thinkers list in 2022, alongside the people the audience is reading. A working point of view on AI in the workplace from someone who has run global HR technology programmes, not a commentator new to the topic. Biography highlights Named to HR Magazine’s HR Most Influential Thinkers, 2022. Author, Solving the Productivity Puzzle (Kogan Page); Category Winner, HR & Management, Business Book Awards. Co-author, Calculating Success (Harvard Business Review Press), on workforce analytics. Former Vice President and Global Leader, IBM Human Capital Management consulting practice. Former Vice President for EMEA, SAP SuccessFactors. Chartered Fellow of the CIPD; BSc, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University. Biography Most large organisations now spend more on HR technology, engagement programmes and learning platforms than at any point in their history. Productivity has not followed. Tim Ringo’s work begins where that gap sits, and treats it as a design problem inside the people function rather than a cultural mood. His 2020 book Solving the Productivity Puzzle, published by Kogan Page, won the HR & Management category at the Business Book Awards. The argument is operational: engagement, performance management and learning have to be wired together, and supported by analytics, before any productivity number moves. His earlier book with Carl Hoffmann and Eric Lesser, Calculating Success, was published by Harvard Business Review Press and helped to define what serious workforce analytics looks like inside an enterprise. The credibility behind the work is built over three decades. Ringo led IBM’s global Human Capital Management consulting practice, with more than 1,500 consultants worldwide, ran SAP SuccessFactors HR advisory across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and spent sixteen years as an executive partner in Accenture’s Human Performance service line. He is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and was named to HR Magazine’s Most Influential HR Thinkers list in 2022. For senior HR audiences, that mix is unusual. Ringo can move from a board conversation about AI in the workforce to a working session on engagement metrics or HR technology investment, and bring the same operating language to both. His view on generative AI at work is a practitioner’s view, formed inside the systems that the rest of the function relies on. Key speaking topics Workforce productivity and engagement Digital HR transformation Workforce analytics Generative AI in the workplace Employee experience and retention Workforce wellbeing strategy HR technology investment Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and HR directors leading productivity, engagement or HR technology agendas Executive teams reviewing return on HR technology and workforce analytics investment HR leadership conferences, CHRO summits and people analytics events Boards considering the workforce implications of generative AI Audience outcomes A clearer view of where productivity is actually lost inside the organisation, and which HR levers move it. A working model for connecting engagement, performance and learning to business outcomes. A practical sense of what good workforce analytics looks like, and what most organisations are still missing. An informed perspective on how to introduce generative AI to the workforce without losing trust or governance.

Why organisations work with Caroline Criado-Perez She built the public evidence base on the gender data gap. Invisible Women sits on the desks of regulators, engineers, and policy teams in more than thirty languages and is the default reference when the question is raised. She has won both the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year for the same work, a combination almost no other author can claim, and one that signals her rigour to both technical and commercial audiences. She translates the gender data problem into concrete operating examples: car crash test dummies, medical dosing, voice recognition, AI training data, urban infrastructure, workplace tools. Audiences leave with examples they recognise from their own organisation. She has actually changed policy. The Jane Austen banknote and the Millicent Fawcett statue are her campaigns; the credibility she brings to a corporate room is built on shifting state institutions, not commentary. Biography highlights Author, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, winner of the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize and the 2019 FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. OBE for services to equality and diversity, 2015. Author, Do It Like a Woman, profiling pioneering women globally. Founder of the campaigns that put Jane Austen on the Bank of England £10 note and Millicent Fawcett’s statue in Parliament Square. Liberty Human Rights Campaigner of the Year, 2013; Finland’s HÄN Honour, 2020; winner of the inaugural Unwin Award, 2025. Honorary doctorates from the University of Lincoln, the University of Westminster, and The Open University. Host of the Visible Women podcast with Tortoise Media; writes the Invisible Women Substack newsletter. Biography The crash test dummy used to certify most cars on the road is modelled on the body of an average male. Medical drug trials, voice recognition systems, office temperatures, and stab vests share a similar history. Invisible Women assembled this evidence into a single argument and made it impossible to ignore. Caroline Criado-Perez wrote the book that did this. It won the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year in the same year, a dual recognition that signals scientific rigour and commercial relevance at once. It has been translated into more than thirty languages and is used by policymakers, engineers, and product teams looking for a defensible account of where their data is incomplete. Her credibility with corporate audiences comes from changing institutions, not commenting on them. She ran the campaign that placed Jane Austen on the Bank of England £10 note. She campaigned for the Millicent Fawcett statue in Parliament Square, the first statue of a woman to stand there. An OBE, a Liberty Human Rights Campaigner of the Year award, and the inaugural Unwin Award are the public record of work that altered what the state chose to put in front of its citizens. Her current focus is on the operating consequences of the data gap for businesses making decisions about AI, product design, workforce policy, and customer experience. Through her Invisible Women Substack and Visible Women podcast with Tortoise Media, she continues to surface the specific cases where missing data on women becomes a material business risk. Key speaking topics The gender data gap Bias in AI training data and algorithmic systems Inclusive product and service design Workforce data and policy design Gender bias in medical and safety research Campaigning, influence, and institutional change Ideal for CHROs, chief diversity officers, and people analytics leaders auditing workforce data Heads of product, design, and data science teams in consumer-facing or safety-critical industries AI and machine learning leaders responsible for model bias and training data quality Boards and ESG committees reviewing how the organisation evidences its claims about inclusion Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for naming where the gender data gap shows up in their own products, policies, and decisions A clear view of the commercial and safety risks created by data that under-represents half the customer or workforce base Specific examples from medicine, automotive, technology, and infrastructure that translate the problem into terms their teams will recognise An understanding of how AI inherits and amplifies existing data bias, and what that means for governance A grounded sense of how institutional change actually happens, drawn from campaigns that succeeded

Why organisations work with Oliver Leisse A live trend-research operation behind every keynote. SEE MORE runs ethnographic fieldwork across more than 50 global cities, so the material is observed evidence, not desk-research speculation. A specific point of view on the AI agent shift. His 2024 book “The Age of Agents” with Tim Cortinovis sets out what changes when software stops waiting for prompts and starts acting on goals. A named framework leadership teams can use after the room empties. The Four Metatrends (Commitment, Convenience, Creativity, Connection) and the Consumer Trend Circle give clients a reusable structure for trend triage. Two decades of strategy work for brands including Deutsche Bank, TUI, Henkel, Microsoft, Google, REWE and Deutsche Post. The frame of reference is commercial planning, not academic forecasting. Bilingual delivery in English and German for European audiences who want substance in either language. Biography highlights Founder of SEE MORE, Future Research and Development, Hamburg (2008). Founder of EARSandEYES GmbH (1997), an early online market and trend research institute. Former strategy consultant at DDB, TBWA, BBDO and Springer & Jacoby. Author of “Be prepared” (Haufe Verlag, 2012; 2nd ed. 2014), “So geht Zukunft” (Edel, 2020), “The Age of Agents” (2024), and “Die Zukunft der Gastro” (Deutscher Fachverlag, 2024). Named clients include Deutsche Bank, TUI, Henkel, Microsoft, Google, Deutsche Post, REWE, Burda and AON. SEE MORE conducts qualitative ethnographic research across more than 50 global metropolitan markets. Biography Most futurist content arrives at boards as desk research dressed up in graphics. The signal-to-noise ratio is poor, and the planning horizon is rarely operational. SEE MORE was built to produce something different: ethnographic field observation across more than 50 global cities, fed back into commercial strategy work for organisations that need a defensible view of the next three to five years. The institute’s founder spent the first part of his career as a strategy consultant inside DDB, TBWA, BBDO and Springer & Jacoby. In 1997 he set up EARSandEYES, one of the early online market and trend research firms. SEE MORE followed in 2008. Clients have included Deutsche Bank, TUI, Henkel, Microsoft, Google, Deutsche Post, REWE and Burda. The current centre of gravity is AI agents and what they mean for operating models. The 2024 book “The Age of Agents”, co-written with Tim Cortinovis, argues that the shift from prompted assistants to goal-directed agents changes how work is structured, not just how it is automated. That argument runs through his current keynote material on automation, customer evolution and the future of work. What separates this work from the broader futurist field is the discipline of the underlying method. The Four Metatrends framework (Commitment, Convenience, Creativity, Connection) and the Consumer Trend Circle give leadership teams a reusable structure for triaging weak signals. Both are anchored to observed behaviour in named markets, which is what makes them usable in a planning conversation. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and AI agents Future of work and leadership Customer evolution and consumer behaviour Automation and the operating model Trend research and strategic foresight Generation Z and changing workforce expectations Retail and customer experience disruption Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting three-to-five year strategy under AI and automation pressure CMOs and customer experience leads tracking consumer behaviour shifts across European and global markets HR and transformation leads redesigning work around AI-agent capability Innovation and strategy teams looking for a structured trend-triage method Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and consumer-behaviour signals matter for the next planning cycle, and which can be deprioritised. A working understanding of the Four Metatrends framework and how to apply it to a specific business unit. A specific point of view on AI agents as an operating model question, not a tooling question. Named examples from observed consumer behaviour in global metropolitan markets, drawn from SEE MORE field research.

Why organisations work with Kian Gohar Brings primary research, not commentary. The Ferrazzi-Gohar study of 2,000 leaders during the pandemic and his Stanford-partnered four-company experiment on AI-assisted brainstorming give boards an evidence base for decisions, not anecdote. Co-author of a Wall Street Journal bestseller, “Competing in the New World of Work” (Harvard Business Review Press, translated into seven languages), with a working framework for high-return team practices that leaders can apply directly. Operational track record from inside XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University, where he ran innovation programmes for Fortune 500s and helped design corporate moonshot work, so the advice connects to how large organisations actually execute. Published in Harvard Business Review on the failure modes of generative AI in team creativity, with specific guidance on how to redesign ideation workflows so AI raises output rather than flattening it. Speaks five languages and has built innovation programmes across the US, Europe, and China, which translates into sharper sessions for global leadership teams than a US-only perspective offers. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Geolab, a research lab on Human-AI collaboration, future of work, and innovation. Co-author with Keith Ferrazzi of “Competing in the New World of Work” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), a Wall Street Journal bestseller in seven languages. Co-author of “Don’t Let Gen AI Limit Your Team’s Creativity,” Harvard Business Review, March-April 2024, with Jeremy Utley of Stanford. Former Executive Director, XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University. Member, Council on Foreign Relations; Henry Luce Scholar in Shanghai; alumnus of Northwestern, London School of Economics, and Harvard Business School. Research and commentary featured in the Financial Times, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal. Biography Most teams adopted hybrid work and generative AI inside the same eighteen months, and most leaders are still guessing at what good looks like. Kian Gohar’s research sits in that gap. With Keith Ferrazzi he interviewed more than 2,000 leaders during the pandemic; the resulting book, “Competing in the New World of Work” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), became a Wall Street Journal bestseller and was translated into seven languages. His more recent work moves the same lens onto AI. With Jeremy Utley of Stanford, he ran a four-company experiment on AI-assisted brainstorming and published the findings in Harvard Business Review in 2024. The headline is uncomfortable for vendors: teams using generative AI produced only modestly more ideas, and several underperformed. The article gives leaders a specific diagnosis of why and what to change in the ideation workflow. Before Geolab, Gohar was Executive Director of the XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University, where he built corporate moonshot and innovation programmes for Fortune 500 leadership teams. That operational background is why his keynotes carry weight in boardrooms; the advice is grounded in running real programmes, not modelling them. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Henry Luce Scholar, and a graduate of Northwestern, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Business School. For a senior team trying to work out how to make hybrid actually productive and how to introduce AI without quietly degrading creativity, Gohar offers a rare combination of evidence and operating instinct. Key speaking topics Radical adaptability and high-return team practices Human-AI collaboration in knowledge work Generative AI and team creativity Hybrid and remote workplace design Innovation strategy and corporate moonshots Future of work and workforce transformation Leadership through structural change Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers redesigning hybrid operating models Chief strategy and chief innovation officers integrating generative AI into team workflows Executive teams running enterprise-wide transformation programmes Boards and senior leadership groups setting an AI and future-of-work agenda Audience outcomes A clear read on what 2,000 leaders learned about hybrid work that actually raises team performance. Specific reasons teams underperform with generative AI and the workflow changes that reverse it. A working vocabulary for radical adaptability that senior teams can use to evaluate their own practices. Concrete examples from XPRIZE moonshot work showing how ambitious goals get organised inside large companies. A sharper sense of which AI and future-of-work investments will compound, and which will not.

Why organisations work with Sue Black A sitting computer science professor who has also run a social enterprise that retrains women into tech roles at scale, so the talent argument is grounded in operational evidence, not advocacy. Author of the Saving Bletchley Park campaign and book, a working case study in using social media to mobilise public, political and corporate support around a single goal. Founded BCSWomen in 2001 and TechUPWomen in 2019, giving her two decades of named programmes to draw on when discussing pipeline, retention, and reskilling. OBE for services to technology, FBCS CITP, FRSA; the credentials boards expect when commissioning a technology keynote, without the corporate-speaker generic register. Bridges technical authority and lived experience. Left school at 16, returned through adult education to a PhD in software engineering, which gives the talent and inclusion argument personal weight that lands with mixed audiences. Biography highlights Professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist, Durham University. OBE for services to technology, 2016 New Year Honours. Founder, BCSWomen (2001), the UK’s first online network for women in technology. Founder, #techmums (2013) and TechUPWomen (2019), retraining women into tech careers. Author, Saving Bletchley Park (Unbound, 2015), Amazon UK bestseller and record-setting Unbound crowdfund. First recipient of the BCS John Ivinson medal; Lovie Awards Lifetime Achievement winner, 2018. Biography The technology talent gap is not principally a recruitment problem. It is a pipeline problem, an inclusion problem and a retraining problem, and most organisations are not structured to address any of the three. Sue Black has spent twenty-five years building the practical answers in public, on national platforms, and inside the British computer science establishment. She is Professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist at Durham University, where her academic work sits alongside the operational delivery of TechUPWomen, the retraining programme she founded in 2019. TechUPWomen reports nearly 600 women retrained into technology careers with an average salary uplift of around GBP 6,000, a rare instance of a tech-inclusion initiative reporting measurable economic outcomes for participants. Her track record on mobilisation is equally specific. Between 2008 and 2011 she led the Saving Bletchley Park campaign, which used early social media to recruit politicians, journalists and corporate sponsors behind the restoration of the WWII codebreaking site. Her account of the campaign, Saving Bletchley Park, became the fastest-funded title on Unbound and an Amazon UK bestseller. She founded BCSWomen in 2001, served as its chair until 2008, and was the first recipient of the BCS John Ivinson medal. She holds an OBE for services to technology, is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and Chartered IT Professional, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. The 2018 Lovie Awards recognised her career with a Lifetime Achievement award, and she has been invited to address the United Nations on women’s rights twice. The credentials are unusual in combination: a sitting academic chair, a national campaigning record, and two operational social enterprises with named outputs. Key speaking topics Women in technology and the future tech workforce Digital skills and reskilling at scale Diversity and inclusion in computer science Social media as a tool for organisational and public campaigns The history and legacy of Bletchley Park Future of technology and digital transformation Personal reinvention and adult learning into tech careers Ideal for CHROs and heads of talent rebuilding the technology pipeline beyond traditional graduate channels Technology and digital transformation leaders accountable for diversity, retention and reskilling targets DEI and ERG sponsors who need an evidenced voice on women in tech rather than a motivational one Conferences in technology, financial services and public sector seeking a senior keynote with academic and operational credibility Audience outcomes A clearer view of what works in retraining women into technology roles, drawn from named programmes with reported outcomes A grounded picture of the UK technology pipeline and where corporate intervention has measurable effect A working example, Bletchley Park, of how a small team can mobilise public and corporate support around a single objective using digital channels Personal credibility for the reskilling case: an academic who reached a chair through adult education herself Confidence to challenge the standard “women in tech” narrative with evidence rather than aspiration

Why organisations work with Sharon Gai She offers a working model for redesigning teams and reporting lines when agentic AI absorbs the work middle management was paid to do. Her book How to Do More with Less (Wiley, 2026) maps the shift from task-based to capability-based org structures, with named roles for what humans do once execution is automated. Most AI adoption speakers describe what is happening to organisations from the outside. As Head of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba’s Tmall, Sharon worked inside the operating core of one of the world’s most AI-integrated commercial platforms. The vantage gives her authority on AI’s organisational effects that advisers and analysts cannot manufacture. Her practitioner depth on China’s ecommerce ecosystem, built into Ecommerce Reimagined (World Scientific, 2022), gives commercial and transformation leaders a primary source on consumer-to-manufacturer models and AI-integrated logistics via Cainiao. For European boards looking five years ahead, this is the live case study Western markets are still catching up to. Her “Culture Fluid” framework gives leadership teams a way to address the human side of AI adoption without falling into change-management cliché. It explains why two organisations with the same technology stack will get different results. Her client list spans UBS, Deloitte, Nestlé, Walmart, LVMH, and Lenovo, with platform exposure on Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, TechCrunch, and Wired. Recognised as a LinkedIn Top AI Voice (2026) and a RETHINK Retail Top AI Leader. Biography highlights Author of How to Do More with Less: Future-Proofing Yourself in an AI-Driven Economy (Wiley, 2026) and Ecommerce Reimagined: Retail and Ecommerce in China (World Scientific, 2022) Former Head of Global Key Accounts at Tmall, Alibaba’s core commerce pillar, led omnichannel and ecommerce strategy for major international accounts including Adidas, P&G, H&M, and Xiaomi Selected for the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, the internal programme designed to globalise Alibaba’s business units MS in Information & Knowledge Strategy, Columbia University; Honours BA in International Development, McGill University Former Global Shaper, World Economic Forum Named in AAE’s Top Keynote Speakers 2023; recognised as a RETHINK Retail Top AI Leader, LinkedIn Top Voice (2024), and LinkedIn Top AI Voice (2026) Media appearances on Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, TechCrunch, Wired, CBC, and CCTV; keynote clients include UBS, Deloitte, Nestlé, Walmart, LVMH, and Lenovo Biography The work middle management was paid to do is moving into systems. Reporting, status tracking, summarisation, performance feedback, project oversight: agentic AI now performs each of these to the standard a competent manager would have delivered five years ago. The org chart that organisations grew up with is becoming structurally redundant, and most leadership teams do not yet have a working model for what replaces it. That question is the centre of Sharon Gai’s recent work. Her book How to Do More with Less (Wiley, 2026) maps the shift from task-based org structures to capability-based ones, naming what concentrates in humans once execution is automated: judgement, taste, theory of mind, original problem definition. The book sits within an active body of writing on what she calls the Org Chart of the Future, drawing on the live restructures already underway at Meta, Microsoft, and others. Her authority on these questions comes from operational experience few AI speakers can claim. As Head of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba’s Tmall, she worked inside one of the world’s most AI-integrated commercial platforms, leading omnichannel and ecommerce strategy for Adidas, P&G, H&M, and Xiaomi. Selection for the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy, the internal programme tasked with globalising Alibaba’s business units, deepened that vantage. Her first book, Ecommerce Reimagined (World Scientific, 2022), remains the only practitioner account of China’s ecommerce ecosystem written from within Alibaba, examining how consumer-to-manufacturer models and AI-integrated logistics via Cainiao function inside the company. Her “Culture Fluid” framework addresses the parallel internal question: how to build the agility to compete across simultaneous cultural and technological shifts. The work connects the structural argument of the Org Chart of the Future to the human capability conditions that make any redesign executable. Without the second, the first remains an idea on a slide. Key speaking topics The Org Chart of the Future: AI-era team and role design AI adoption at organisational scale: from pilots to operating model The disappearing middle: agentic AI and management layers Future-proofing in an AI-driven economy China’s AI-integrated commerce ecosystem Culture Fluid: organisational agility across cultural and technological shifts Consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) models and AI-integrated supply chains Ideal for CHROs, COOs, and transformation leads designing the operating model and workforce for an AI-augmented organisation Boards and executive committees confronting the structural implications of AI on management layers, headcount, and capability planning Chief Commercial Officers and heads of digital in retail, FMCG, luxury, and consumer brands looking at AI’s effect on platform commerce Leadership development programmes where AI adoption needs the perspective of someone who has worked inside an organisation operating at AI saturation Audience outcomes A structural model for redesigning teams and reporting lines when agentic AI absorbs the work middle management was paid to do Operating clarity on which AI use cases produce advantage and which produce vendor revenue A view of how China’s AI-integrated commerce platforms actually function, drawn from inside Alibaba, and what is genuinely replicable in Western markets A direct answer to the question of where human capability concentrates in an AI-driven organisation: judgement, taste, theory of mind, original problem definition A shared language, through the Culture Fluid model, for the human side of AI adoption

Why organisations work with Keely Cat-Wells She has built and sold the category. C Talent, the agency she founded in 2018, was acquired by Whalar in 2022 and remains the largest exit of a Disabled-led talent business in the sector. Her current company, Making Space, gives leaders an operating model rather than a manifesto: an employer-backed training and acquisition platform with reported lifetime earnings gains of more than $1.1M per learner. She speaks from inside the boardroom conversation, not next to it. As a Presidential Leadership Scholar, Obama Leader USA, and Forbes contributor, she carries credibility with executive audiences who are tired of generic DEI framing. She connects representation in media to talent strategy in the workforce, drawing on a roster that has placed Disabled creators in projects including The Last of Us, Avatar, and The Hunger Games. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Making Space, a venture-backed talent acquisition and learning platform for Disabled professionals. Founder of C Talent, acquired by Whalar in 2022. Co-founder, Making Space Media, with a first-look deal at Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. 2025 Presidential Leadership Scholar, 2025 Obama Leader USA, inaugural Gloria Steinem Fellow. L’Oreal Paris 2025 Women of Worth, Forbes 30 Under 30, Diana Award, One Young World Entrepreneur of the Year 2022. Forbes contributor on disability, entrepreneurship, and inclusive workforce strategy. Biography The Disabled talent pool is one of the largest underused labour markets in the global economy. Most companies do not have a working strategy for reaching it. Keely Cat-Wells builds the infrastructure that closes that gap. She founded C Talent in 2018 after disability discrimination ended an early career in performing arts. The agency grew into the most prominent home for Deaf and Disabled creators in entertainment, placing talent in The Last of Us, Avatar, and The Hunger Games before being acquired by Whalar in 2022. It remains the largest exit of a Disabled-led talent business in the industry. Making Space, founded in 2023, is the operator-led answer to a different question: how do enterprise employers actually hire and retain Disabled professionals at scale. The platform pairs employer-backed training with talent acquisition, and closed a $2M pre-seed round led by Beta Boom in 2024. Its Ascend program reports projected lifetime earnings gains of more than $1.1M per participant. Cat-Wells writes for Forbes, sits on disability-focused boards, and was named the youngest Presidential Leadership Scholar in the program’s history. Her recognitions include the Diana Award, Forbes 30 Under 30, L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth, and Gloria Steinem Fellow. The credentials matter, but the harder evidence is the line item her work creates on a hiring scorecard. Key speaking topics Disability and workforce strategy Hiring and retaining Disabled professionals Inclusive talent acquisition platforms Representation in media and entertainment Building and scaling mission-led ventures Hidden disabilities in the workplace Founder experience in inclusive entrepreneurship Ideal for CHROs and heads of talent acquisition rebuilding disability hiring strategy Chief diversity and inclusion officers moving from awareness work to operational outcomes Boards and ELTs reviewing workforce, ESG, and human capital reporting Media, entertainment, and creative leaders accountable for on-screen and off-screen representation Audience outcomes A clearer view of where disability inclusion programmes break in practice and what to fix first. Specific tactics for sourcing, onboarding, and retaining Disabled professionals at enterprise scale. A founder’s view of how to translate inclusion strategy into measurable economic outcomes. Language and evidence senior leaders can use with their own boards on disability as a workforce issue.

Why organisations work with Anne-Marie Imafidon She has run the experiment at scale. Stemettes has engaged more than 60,000 young women and non-binary young people across the UK, Ireland and Europe since 2013, giving her a live evidence base on what moves technical participation and what does not. Her technical credibility is not borrowed. Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science from Oxford at 20, Honorary Fellow of Keble College, and guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown for 60 episodes, so technical audiences engage her as a peer rather than an advocate. She sits inside the UK policy conversation on digital skills. Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work, 2022-2023 President of the British Science Association, and DSIT Women in Tech Envoy, which gives leaders a direct line to how regulation and industrial strategy are likely to land. She has a published thesis. She’s In CTRL (Transworld, 2022) argues that women need to take back tech as users, builders and decision-makers; that frame is portable into strategy conversations about product, customer and workforce. She is comfortable in front of non-technical boards. Her broadcast work and Chancellorship of Glasgow Caledonian University mean she translates between technical reality and senior decision-maker vocabulary without losing either. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of Stemettes, social enterprise founded in 2013 that has reached 60,000+ young women and non-binary young people across the UK, Ireland and Europe. Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Oxford, aged 20; Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. Appointed MBE in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to young women and STEM. Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University; 2022-2023 President of the British Science Association; Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work. Author of She’s In CTRL: How Women Can Take Back Tech (Transworld, 2022). Guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown across 60 episodes (2021-2022), first Black woman to take the Countdown board; voted Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Woman in UK Tech (2020); Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech. DSIT Women in Tech Envoy, co-chairing a UK government Taskforce with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (2025). Biography Stemettes was set up in 2013 after its co-founder returned from the Grace Hopper Celebration in 2012 and decided the UK needed its own infrastructure for girls in STEM. More than 60,000 young women and non-binary young people have passed through its programmes since, across the UK, Ireland and Europe. That operating record is the spine of Anne-Marie Imafidon’s authority on technology talent. The technical credentials are unusual. Imafidon took her Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science at Oxford at 20, is an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, and was the guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown for 60 episodes in 2021 and 2022, the first Black woman to run the Countdown board. She was appointed MBE in 2017 for services to young women and STEM. Her public roles put her inside the UK conversation on digital skills and industrial strategy. She is Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University, Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work, served as President of the British Science Association in 2022-2023, and in 2025 was appointed the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Women in Tech Envoy, co-chairing a Taskforce with the Secretary of State. Her book She’s In CTRL, published by Transworld in 2022, argues that women should treat technology as something to take control of, not just consume or be represented within. For senior leaders it reframes the DEI-in-tech conversation as a product and capability question: who builds the tools, who governs them, and whose problems they get designed to solve. Key speaking topics Women and underrepresented groups in STEM Technology talent pipelines and digital skills Future of work and AI Inclusive product and technology design Social entrepreneurship at scale UK digital policy and industrial strategy Responsible and inclusive AI Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and heads of talent building technology hiring pipelines beyond the usual funnel. CTOs, CDIOs and engineering leaders under pressure to improve retention and representation in technical teams. Boards and ExCos setting policy on AI, digital skills and workforce strategy, particularly in regulated sectors. Corporate foundations, ESG leads and public-sector partners designing STEM and social mobility interventions. Audience outcomes A sharper read on why conventional diversity-in-tech programmes under-deliver and where the real intervention points sit. A working vocabulary for discussing inclusive AI and technology design at board level without defaulting to platitudes. Concrete examples, drawn from Stemettes and UK policy work, of what moves technical participation and retention. A reframe of women-in-tech as a product, governance and capability issue, not only a hiring issue. A sense of how UK digital skills policy and regulation are likely to shape talent strategy over the next cycle.

Why organisations work with Barbara Oakley Her “focused mode/diffuse mode” framework gives L&D teams a named, neuroscience-backed model for redesigning how training is structured, not just what it covers. It establishes that structured recovery and retrieval practice matter as much as instruction time, a claim with direct implications for how organisations budget and sequence learning investment. “Learning How to Learn,” co-created with Salk Institute neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski, has been taken by over 4 million people on Coursera. That scale of real-world adoption gives her frameworks empirical grounding that no controlled study can fully replicate. Her personal trajectory from U.S. Army linguist to engineering professor, achieved through deliberate adult retraining, is the primary evidence for her central argument that capability can be built at any career stage. For organisations running reskilling programmes, that is more persuasive than theory from a researcher who has never made the journey themselves. “A Mind for Numbers” (Penguin, 2014), a New York Times bestseller translated into 13 languages with over 1 million copies sold, means her frameworks already have traction well beyond corporate learning circles. Audiences often arrive familiar with her work, reducing the credibility gap that typically slows training adoption. The 2023 Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education, administered through the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and widely considered the field’s most prestigious award, recognised Oakley as the inaugural winner in a new Lifelong Learning category – independent confirmation that her contribution to continuous capability development is field-defining. Biography highlights Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Oakland University; Ramón y Cajal Distinguished Scholar of Global Digital Learning, McMaster University Inaugural winner of the 2023 Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education (Lifelong Learning category), administered through the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education Co-creator (with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski, Salk Institute) of “Learning How to Learn” on Coursera – over 4 million enrolled, one of the most widely taken courses in the history of online education Author of “A Mind for Numbers” (Penguin, 2014), a New York Times bestselling science book translated into 13 languages with over 1 million copies sold; subsequent titles include “Mindshift” (2017), “Uncommon Sense Teaching” (2021), and “Learn Like a Pro” (2021) Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal; Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year (2018) Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering; Coursera’s inaugural “Innovation Instructor” Former U.S. Army Captain; recognised as Distinguished Military Scholar Biography In 2014, a Coursera course called “Learning How to Learn” attracted over 300,000 students in its first three runs. It now has over 4 million enrolled, making it one of the most widely taken courses in the history of online education. That appetite reflects a gap most organisational training does not close: a practical understanding of how capability is actually built. Barbara Oakley created that course with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute. She came to the research through direct experience: a former U.S. Army Captain trained as a linguist, she retaught herself mathematics and engineering entirely as an adult. Her own career transition is the most direct demonstration of her central argument – that capability is genuinely malleable, and that the brain can acquire new domains of expertise at any career stage. Her “focused mode/diffuse mode” framework, named in “A Mind for Numbers” (Penguin, 2014), gives organisations a practical model for how concentration, structured recovery, and retrieval interact in the learning process. The book reached New York Times bestseller status and has been translated into 13 languages. Subsequent titles including “Mindshift,” “Uncommon Sense Teaching,” and “Learn Like a Pro” extend the framework into career reinvention, teaching design, and AI-era learning. In 2023, she received the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education, the most prestigious award in the field, as inaugural winner in a newly created Lifelong Learning category. She is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University and holds a concurrent appointment as Ramón y Cajal Distinguished Scholar of Global Digital Learning at McMaster University. Key speaking topics The neuroscience of effective learning and skill retention Workforce reskilling and adult capability development Learning frameworks for the age of AI Building organisational learning culture Career reinvention and professional mindset The science of effective training design Cognitive performance and focus at work Ideal for CHROs and L&D directors designing or auditing workforce capability programmes CEOs and executive teams navigating AI-driven workforce transition and reskilling investment Corporate universities and internal learning academies benchmarking training effectiveness Boards and transformation leads sponsoring large-scale reskilling or career transition initiatives Audience outcomes A named neuroscience framework (focused vs. diffuse mode) for understanding how attention, structured recovery, and retrieval interact in the learning process Evidence-based techniques (retrieval practice, spaced repetition, the Pomodoro method) that individuals and teams can apply immediately to improve learning retention A reframe of learning ability from fixed trait to trainable skill, with direct implications for how organisations identify, develop, and retain talent Clarity on why conventional training approaches consistently underdeliver, and what research-supported alternatives look like in practice A grounded argument for why adult capability development is achievable at any career stage, drawn from both neuroscience and the speaker’s own documented transition

Why organisations work with Amy Cappellanti-Wolf She has held the CHRO seat at Dayforce, Cohesity, Symantec and Silver Spring Networks, including taking Silver Spring Networks public on the NYSE in 2013. Her HR career runs from Frito-Lay and The Walt Disney Company through Sun Microsystems and Cisco, so she can speak credibly to consumer, entertainment and enterprise tech leadership teams in their own language. At Dayforce she runs people strategy at an HR technology vendor and acts as “Customer Zero” for the company’s AI-powered HR releases, which gives her an unusually concrete view of where AI lands in real HR operations. She works at board and committee level on talent and rewards, currently as Compensation Committee Chair at Softchoice and as a director or advisor at D-Wave Quantum, Betterworks and Wellist. Recognised externally on people and tech leadership: National Diversity Council Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology, Silicon Valley Business Journal Women of Influence, and the Forbes Human Resources Council. Biography highlights EVP and Chief People Officer, Dayforce, since April 2024. Former CHRO at Cohesity, Symantec and Silver Spring Networks; led people strategy through Silver Spring Networks’ 2013 IPO. Earlier senior HR roles at Cisco Systems (2001 to 2009), Sun Microsystems, The Walt Disney Company and Frito-Lay (PepsiCo). Compensation Committee Chair at Softchoice (TSX: SFTC); board and advisory roles at D-Wave Quantum, Betterworks and Wellist. Forbes Human Resources Council member since 2018; National Diversity Council Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology. Inducted into the Roll of Distinguished Alumni, WVU’s John Chambers College of Business and Economics, in 2019. Biography Few CHROs have stood in the room for a Cisco-era leadership build, a Disney creative organisation, a Symantec security business and a Silver Spring Networks IPO. Amy Cappellanti-Wolf has. That cross-section is what gives her practical authority on what culture and talent actually take when a company changes shape. Her current seat sharpens the point. As EVP and Chief People Officer at Dayforce, she runs people strategy inside an HR technology vendor and uses Dayforce’s own platform as “Customer Zero” for AI-powered HR releases. That gives her a working view of where AI lands in payroll, performance and workforce planning, not as a forecast but as a live deployment. Boards use her where rewards, governance and people risk meet. She chairs the Compensation Committee at Softchoice, sits on the board at D-Wave Quantum, and advises Betterworks and Wellist. Her recognition track record, Forbes HR Council, the National Diversity Council Top 50 in Technology, Silicon Valley Business Journal Women of Influence, sits alongside the operating record, not in place of it. For senior buyers, the practical value is specific. She can talk credibly to a CHRO planning an IPO, a CEO integrating an acquisition, an HR team rebuilding engagement after a restructure, or a board asking what AI in HR really changes. The answers come from having done it, not from observing it. Key speaking topics People strategy through IPO, M&A and divestiture AI in HR and the future of the people function High-performance culture in scaling tech companies Diversity, equity and inclusion as an operating discipline Leadership and talent for enterprise transformation The CHRO as a board-level voice on people risk Ideal for CHROs and senior HR leaders preparing for IPO, M&A or large-scale restructure CEOs and boards weighing the people implications of AI deployment in core operations Compensation and talent committees considering rewards, succession and culture risk Technology, consumer and entertainment leadership teams running concurrent transformations Audience outcomes A clear sense of how to sequence people priorities through IPO, integration and restructure A practical view of where AI changes HR operations now, drawn from a live enterprise deployment Sharper questions for boards and executive teams on culture, rewards and talent risk Concrete language for inclusion outcomes that survive a politically contested environment

Why organisations work with Sir Stuart Hampson He chaired the John Lewis Partnership from 1993 to 2007 through one of the most significant modernisation programmes in UK retail, including the Oxford Street and Sloane Square refurbishments, extended trading hours and the launch of John Lewis Direct and Ocado, with pre-tax profit reaching £319 million in 2006. As President of the Employee Ownership Association, he carries both the operator’s and the sector advocate’s view of employee ownership, rather than a textbook one. The public-office record, including chairmanship of The Crown Estate from 2010 to 2016, a CVO and a Deputy Lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire, gives him credibility in front of public-sector and regulated-industry audiences that most business speakers cannot match. His career trajectory, from the UK Civil Service to John Lewis and back into public office, allows him to speak fluently to audiences on both sides of the public-private divide. He has been on the corporate speaking circuit since 2009 and delivers sessions in English and French, useful for pan-European events. Biography highlights Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, 1993 to 2007; joined the Partnership in 1982 Knighted for services to retailing, 1998; Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, 2016 Non-executive Chairman and First Commissioner of The Crown Estate, 2010 to 2016 President of the Employee Ownership Association; founding Deputy Chairman of London First Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford; honorary doctorate in Business Administration, Kingston University Earlier career in the UK Civil Service, rising to Assistant Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry Biography Britain’s most-cited example of employee ownership is the John Lewis Partnership, and the chairman who led it through its transition into the modern retail economy is Sir Stuart Hampson. He joined the Partnership in 1982, became Chairman in 1993, and held the role for fourteen years, through the refurbishment of the flagship Oxford Street and Sloane Square stores, extended trading hours, the expansion of the product range and the creation of John Lewis Direct and Ocado. By 2006 the Partnership was reporting pre-tax profits of £319 million, 27 per cent up on the previous year. His route into the role was unusual. He began his career in the UK Civil Service in 1969 at the Board of Trade and rose to Assistant Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry before moving to John Lewis. That grounding informs how he thinks about governance, employee voice and the relationship between public purpose and commercial return. The knighthood in 1998 recognised the retailing side of that work. A Commander of the Royal Victorian Order followed in 2016, the year his term chairing The Crown Estate came to an end, a role he had held since 2010. The advocacy role has been consistent throughout. He is President of the Employee Ownership Association, a founding Deputy Chairman of London First, a former President of the Royal Agricultural Society of England and a former Prince of Wales Ambassador for Economic Renewal. The academic link is through St John’s College, Oxford, where he studied and is now a Fellow, and Kingston University, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1998. For leadership teams, remuneration committees and HR functions looking at employee ownership, engagement and the commercial case for a partnership model, Hampson brings the rarest thing in the field: a first-hand account of what it looks like to run the institution that every UK executive cites when they use the phrase. He has been on the speaking circuit since 2009, delivering sessions in English and French. Key speaking topics Employee ownership and engagement at scale Culture and commercial performance in retail Governance in employee-owned businesses Leadership transitions and executive succession Public-private leadership: lessons from civil service and commercial roles Modernisation of long-established institutions Ideal for Boards and chief executives considering, defending or reforming an employee-ownership or partnership model CHROs, remuneration and engagement leaders looking to ground their strategy in a named, credible reference case Retail, consumer-goods and services leadership teams managing cultural transformation alongside modernisation Public-sector leaders and institutional boards seeking an experienced chair perspective on governance and purpose Audience outcomes A practitioner’s view of how employee ownership and engagement connect to commercial performance, drawn from fourteen years chairing the John Lewis Partnership Reference cases on the Oxford Street and Sloane Square modernisations and the launch of John Lewis Direct and Ocado A clearer framing of the governance trade-offs inside partnership and ownership models Perspective on the civil-service-to-commercial-leadership transition that is useful to organisations at the regulator-private sector boundary

Why organisations work with Seth Mattison His book The War at Work, co-authored with Joshua Medcalf, frames the cultural and structural tension between the traditional hierarchy and the emerging network, which is the underlying shape of most workforce disputes leaders are now managing. As a Strategic Partner at BridgeWorks, the firm that helped define generational diversity consulting, he works inside the practitioner tradition rather than commenting on it from the outside. His client list is unusual in its breadth: MasterCard, Microsoft, AT&T, PepsiCo, Morgan Stanley, Berkshire Hathaway, Dow, Disney and the Dallas Cowboys, which means his material has been calibrated across consumer, technology, financial services, industrial and entertainment audiences. He is a main-stage speaker first, with an Editors’ Picks Speaker to Watch selection and published quotes in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur and The Globe and Mail, which is useful for all-hands, sales kick-offs and customer conferences. He combines data-heavy content on workforce trends with a storyteller’s register, which keeps Gen Z and boomer audiences in the same session without patronising either. Biography highlights Co-Founder and CEO of Luminate Labs; Strategic Partner at BridgeWorks Co-author of The War at Work with Joshua Medcalf Expert on generational workforce dynamics, future of work and talent management Published and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur and The Globe and Mail Named clients include MasterCard, Microsoft, AT&T, PepsiCo, Morgan Stanley, Berkshire Hathaway, Dow, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, IBM and the Dallas Cowboys Editors’ Picks Speaker to Watch Biography Four generations are now working alongside each other in most major organisations, and the assumptions each has brought to the table about loyalty, hierarchy and flexibility are pulling in different directions. Seth Mattison has spent almost two decades working on that gap. As Co-Founder and CEO of Luminate Labs and a Strategic Partner at BridgeWorks, the consulting firm that helped define the generational-diversity category, he works with senior leaders on the specific changes that multi-generational and post-hierarchical workplaces require. The War at Work, co-authored with Joshua Medcalf, is the most accessible expression of his argument. Written as a fable, it lays out the tension between the traditional hierarchy and the emerging network inside modern organisations, and the unwritten rules leaders need to understand to manage both. The book is widely used in leadership programmes, and it is the same argument his keynotes are built on. The client list runs across industries that rarely share a training vendor: MasterCard, Microsoft, AT&T, PepsiCo, GE Energy, Cisco, Morgan Stanley, Berkshire Hathaway, Dow, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, IBM and the Dallas Cowboys. His work has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur and The Globe and Mail, and he has been selected as an Editors’ Picks Speaker to Watch. For CHROs, chief talent officers and executive committees trying to build a leadership pipeline that spans Gen Z through boomers, Mattison offers something most generational speakers do not: a main-stage performer backed by a consulting practice and a published book, with a client footprint that shows the argument holds up across sectors. Key speaking topics Generational dynamics and the multigenerational workplace Future of work and the shift from hierarchy to network Talent management and high-performance culture Sales and leadership in the new workforce Next-generation leadership development Change and transformation in the people system Ideal for CHROs, chief talent officers and HR leadership teams designing multigenerational workforce strategy Sales, revenue and commercial leadership teams adapting to new buyer and workforce dynamics All-hands, kick-offs and customer or partner conferences where a main-stage future-of-work voice is needed Leadership programmes and corporate universities running high-potential and next-generation cohorts Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the tension between hierarchy and network inside their own organisation A clearer view of what drives and derails each generational cohort at work, drawn from BridgeWorks practice and Mattison’s own research Specific prompts for updating leadership, sales and talent practices for a post-hierarchical workforce Case material from named Fortune 500 engagements usable as reference cases in the audience’s own context