Sustainability Speakers

Dame Inga Beale

After working in senior global leadership roles in some of the world’s largest insurance companies, Inga took over the helm of the 330-year-old City financial institution. Taking on many of the traditions that had held the organisation back, Inga expanded their global markets, and introduced strategies including the Lloyd’s Innovation Lab, and the Dive In Festival, an industry-wide, international diversity and inclusion event. She considers the balance struck between history and modernisation when implementing change, the vital importance of inclusion in the workplace, and co...

Professor A.C. Grayling

Anthony is one of the most influential thinkers of the age. He believes in applied ethics - philosophical debate on everyday issues from leadership to profit to technology. In his speeches Anthony explores ‘the lessons of war for the business of life.’ He also considers the different forms of wealth, and how to achieve and use them: “Wealth of any kind (material, moral or intellectual) is pointless unless it’s applied.”

Dr Chadden Hunter

Producer and director Chadden has worked on some of the best-known natural history series of recent times, including Wild Arabia, Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and Seven Worlds, One Planet. He reveals the huge challenges of making these spectacular series that combine detailed planning, technical excellence, personal risk and a lot of patience. With stunning images and never-before-seen footage he looks at lessons in creative thinking, problem-solving and working in a team as well as inspiring yet cautionary examples of the fragility of the natural world.

Professor Suzie Imber

Associate Professor of planetary science, Suzie has climbed some of the world’s highest and most challenging mountains, programmed supercomputers, helped develop space tourist training programmes, and won the BBC’s search for a future astronaut. Covering everything from satellites to teamwork, the future of science to dealing with risk, she looks at the lessons from all aspects of her work.

Leo Johnson

Combining consulting, research, and presenting BBC programmes including Future Proofing and Hacking Capitalism, Leo explores change and how we respond to it. He argues that disruptive events from pandemics to new technologies give us the opportunity (even the duty) to consider, with a new perspective, environmental, social and capital imbalances. In doing so, leaders will often understand the imperative to change strategy, but will also experience the intense difficulty of realising transformation. Leo delivers a practical understanding of why change is hard and what to do about it.

Fernando Machado

Cited as one of the most creative and original marketers working in consumer brands today, Fernando considers where businesses sit in a world of trust, values, ethics and media saturation. Acclaimed for his original campaigns that often combine creativity with social and political issues, he looks at strategy, narratives, and how to embody company values in a brand.

Baroness Manningham-Buller

As Head of the Security Service, Eliza dealt with the wake of 9/11 and a growing threat from Al-Qaeda. As Chair of the Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest charitable funders of medical research, she oversaw an organisation that both predicted and led work tackling the Covid-19 pandemic and its long-term effects. With insights and lessons on leadership from throughout her career, Eliza explains that leaders' priorities must change in order to keep pace with the constant emergence of new, often unimagined challenges, from existential threats such a...

Yaw Nsarkoh

Yaw has broad experience from executive and management positions in Unilever in Africa, Asia, and Europe. His areas of expertise include business development, strategic leadership, marketing and branding, corporate governance, and organisational strategy and leadership.

Lewis Pugh

Lewis is the first to complete long distance swims in each of the world’s oceans. He has also swum in Arctic and Antarctic waters, and the length of the Channel. His aim is to raise global awareness of a fragile maritime environment – one with retreating glaciers and increasing levels of plastic pollution – and he has negotiated official protected status for over two million square kilometres of ocean (equivalent to the size of Western Europe). As well as highlighting the urgent plight of the world’s seas, Lewis also reflects on his mindset and the vision, prepara...

Professor Joseph Stiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz chaired President Clinton’s Council of Advisors and served as Chief Economist at the World Bank. A critic of the way in which the banks were bailed out, he sees a programme of public investment strengthening the US economy. To address the future debt burden, he believes spending must yield new assets in human capital, technology and infrastructure. He is also a strident critic of international financial institutions and globalisation policies.

Yancey Strickler

Kickstarter has become synonymous with crowdfunding; enabling ordinary people to fund creative projects they care about. As well as disrupting a range of industries, Kickstarter is also a model of how to combine business with social responsibility. Yancey speaks about lessons from taking Kickstarter from idea to a global, game-changing company. He explains his four lessons for leading an innovative, disruptive organisation, and takes a determinedly optimistic view of the the commercial, social and political effects of the tech sector and business more broadly.

Dr Leyla Acaroglu

Combining design and creative thinking with sustainability and insights into behaviour and social conventions, Leyla explores some of the assumptions around sustainability and questions how we can do things better by doing things smarter. By asking the right questions and being innovative, she considers how design-thinking can help solve the most complex and urgent of problems.

James Alexander

Co-founder and former CEO of Zopa, James was a pioneer in peer-to-peer lending. Putting those with a small amount to invest in front of reliable borrowers has proved a successful business model, creating what is now globally £100bn sector. James is now helping organisations make more informed strategic choices and deliver more impactful innovation as part of Future Agenda, the world’s largest open foresight programme and advisory in foresight, strategy and innovation. James tells a powerful founder story as a bridge into discussing and sharing practical approaches for disruption, innovat...

Duncan Bannatyne

It all started with one ice-cream van for the hard-hitting dragon from Glasgow and he’s been whipping companies into shape ever since. Now Duncan owns hotels, health clubs and bars. He motivates budding entrepreneurs with his rags to riches story.

Baroness (Minette) Batters

Minette was the first woman to lead the National Farmers' Union. During her six years at the helm, she worked with four different Prime Ministers to represent the views of 47,000 farmers. She did so during a period of extreme turbulence, which ranged from the aforementioned political upheaval, to the fallout from Brexit, Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Professor Mike Berners-Lee

A leading mind on carbon metrics, and on climate change and sustainability more broadly, Mike looks at how both individuals and organisations can play their part in keeping the planet habitable. In his speeches, as in his books, he looks at the big picture on climate change, the small details around the effects of small everyday items (even a Google search), and the effect of the underlying political and economical dynamics surrounding the world's biggest challenge.

Karen Blackett

The UK country manager for the global advertising giant WPP, Karen also serves as CEO of Group M, WPP's media investment arm. With over 20 years at the forefront of the media and advertising industry she is one of the most influential figures in the sector. She considers how to realise creative, vibrant cultures within organisations, combining growth with motivative, engaged and diverse teams. Karen is also a non-executive board member of the Cabinet Office and a non-exec director of Creative England.

Rt Hon Baroness Camilla Cavendish

The FT columnist and Extra Time author headed the No.10 Policy Unit and devised the sugar tax. She considers the consequences of AI and automation, the future of work, the ageing population, and how we manage workplaces spanning five generations. Camilla foresees a fourth stage of education, a career ‘lattice’ in place of a ladder, and doctors needing more EQ than IQ.

Mike Coupe

When Mike took control, 5% of Sainsbury’s sales were online. He acquired Argos and the Nectar scheme, and saw online rise to 44%. Looking at challenges facing retailers, including the supply chain, Mike remains confident in the high street. Leaders must decentralise, stay close to the front line, and communicate relentlessly. We must also learn to act before the picture is entirely clear.

Ann Daniels

With no experience of extreme sport, Ann found herself applying to join a polar expedition. She has since ski-ed to both Poles, completed more than 10 expeditions and spent over 400 days on the ice. She has also led scientific expeditions to study the changes in the Polar regions. Ann describes how she's endured the harshest of climates and most unpredictable of circumstances with lessons and insights into leadership, teamwork, planning and belief.

Grace Dent

As a columnist, Grace wrote weekly columns for The Independent and The London Evening Standard until she took on the role of restaurant critic for The Guardian, for which she won the Guild of Food Writers' Food Writing. She also appears on MasterChef, and hosts the hugely successful podcast Comfort Eating, where she chats to celebrity guests about food.