Topic: Digital Transformation

Craig Oliver

Sir Craig Oliver was the Director of Politics and Communications for the British Prime Minister, David Cameron for six years. He worked at the heart of No 10 Downing Street and was responsible for the Government’s strategy, messaging and campaigns.

During that time Sir Craig was Director of Communications on a number of political teams, including the 2015 General Election – defying the polls and winning an unexpected overall majority.

Famously, he was the Director of Communications for the campaign to keep Britain in the European Union during the Brexit Referendum. Sir Craig wrote a bestselling book about the experience – “Unleashing Demons” – which was the inspiration behind the Channel 4 drama “Brexit: The Uncivil War” depicting Sir Craig and Dominic Cummings as the main protagonists, with Rory Kinnear and Benedict Cumberbatch playing their respective characters.

His day-to-day work inside No 10 included a radical overhaul of government communications, making them fit for the digital age. Digital transformation, communications strategy and leadership are among the themes Sir Craig explores in his work as a Keynote Speaker, reflecting on the challenges in navigating what he’s coined “a 360 degree media world” at a time of extreme change and volatility. He was at David Cameron’s side as they faced a series of crises and offers sharp insights and fascinating anecdotes reflecting the unique position he held at the heart of government and public affairs.

Before working with Mr Cameron, Sir Craig was a multi-award winning journalist, with jobs ranging from editing the BBC’s flagship television news programmes to Controller of BBC Global, responsible for the corporation’s TV, radio and online content around the world. Sir Craig now often finds himself on the other side of the camera as a broadcaster and commentator and is in demand as a moderator and host for events where his expertise enables him to facilitate and augment panel discussions on the full range of issues and challenges faced in the UK and around the world.

Sir Craig is a Partner and Co-Global Head of Strategy and Reputation at FGS Global, working with some of the biggest businesses in the world. He is also a trustee of the Make a Wish charity.

Omar Christidis

Omar Christidis was a first mover and early evangelist in the Middle East digital sector, and has a decade-long track record in driving the conversation around tech and innovation in the region.

Over 12 years, his company, Arabnet, has organized over 30 tech conferences, featuring more than 2,000 global experts, and has issued over a dozen original research reports. Omar is an Advisory Board member of the Strategic Foresights Program at the Middle East Institute (Washington DC), a Faculty Member and Moderator at the Aspen Institute, UK, a Board Member of the Lebanese Exhibitions & Conferences Association (LECA), and a Founding Board Member of the Yale Arab Alumni Association.

Omar possesses expert knowledge in digital disruption, emerging business models, and corporate innovation strategies. His cross-sectoral expertise and industry insight enables him to play an effective role in spotting future trends, identifying gaps in the market, and future-proofing businesses.

Omar has participated in conferences and forums around the globe, including, but not limited to, Smart Cities in New York, Misk Global Forum (KSA), Future Investment Initiative (KSA), Global Entrepreneurship Summit. As a moderator, he regularly interviews global leaders such as Sir Martin Sorrel and Gary Vaynerchuk.

Furthermore, he’s been featured in world renowned publications and cable news channels including Forbes, CNN, CNBC Arabia, and Sky News Arabia to name a few.

Omar is also uniquely positioned as an ideal gateway for global players into the regional market. Through Arabnet, he has supported over 650 startups; he is also Partner and Board Member at Flat6Labs Beirut, a $20 million accelerator and early stage fund with 33 investments in Lebanese startups.

Marc Vidal

An economic analyst and technology communicator considered one of the most influential figures in Digital Economy with over two million followers on his social networks and one of the most sought-after speakers of the moment. He has been selected as TopVoices LinkedIn, Top100 Forbes Influencers, Top100 21st Century Innovative Leaders, and Top100 Most Creative People in Business. As an international consultant, he leads his own consultancy Allrework, working with clients such as Microsoft, IBM, Allianz, Deloitte, Mercedes Benz, Telefonica, Adobe, PWC, CaixaBank, Amazon, and a dozen governments around the world. At the same time, he is an advisor to d-LAB of Mobile World Capital, a board member of the digital business accelerator Conector Startup Spain, and an economic analyst in multiple media outlets worldwide.

He is one of the analysts who predicted the economic crisis before it happened. In 2006, he wrote about what happened years later, but he did so not with alarmism but from a perspective of historical opportunity. For this and other reasons, his blog was awarded the 3rd prize of the EuroBlogs Awards for the best European blog and received one of the mentions for the best blog in Spain. He publishes his books with Planeta publishing house. The most notable ones are 'Against the Culture of Subsidy', 'An Ant in Paris' (translated into several languages and selected as one of the ten essential books by Forbes Magazine). His latest book, 'The Age of Humanity', is already in its tenth edition.

Previously, he founded the digital consultancy Cink, which was acquired by the multinational Llorente y Cuenca years later. He was also the creator and director of the Postgraduate Degree in Digital Network Strategy for IL3 at the University of Barcelona, a member of the New Economy Research Group at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, and the first director of the now-defunct Westinghouse New Economy magazine.

He currently resides in Madrid but has lived in a dozen countries. His favorite music is performed by Frank Sinatra, Noel Gallagher, or Lana del Rey, his go-to movies are Solaris and Metropolis, and his favorite writers are Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke.

Sunnie J. Groeneveld

Sunnie J. Groeneveld is the Managing Partner of the consultancy Inspire 925 and co-founder of its two spin-off companies LunchLottery and Inspire 529. She serves as the Associate Dean of Studies at the HWZ University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration in Zurich, where she is responsible for the EMBA in Digital Leadership. She is also a board member of the engineering company HHM, the media group Galledia, the insurance company Sympany and the agency Jung von Matt/Limmat.

Past engagements include serving as the first managing director of digitalswitzerland, the nation’s largest cross-industry initiative on digital transformation. She authored the book “Inspired at Work” (Versus Verlag) and graduated in Economics from Yale -University.

Danilo McGarry

Digital transformation, Ai, Innovation and future of work are the most important topics in any company today. Every board, C level and decision maker is grappling how to lead and run such initiatives. Danilo McGarry is a speaker that can add significant value in relation to these topics.

Danilo McGarry is not just a speaker, he has circa 2 decades of designing, delivering and scaling numerous global technology & operational board level critical initiatives through effective enterprise-wise digital vision and strategy. He has ran some of the largest and most respected Transformation, Ai, Data and Innovation programs in market leading blue-chip companies (such as Citigroup, UnitedHealth Group) in multiple countries and industries. Danilo also has proven board & advisory level experience as well as Public and Private (listed & unlisted) experience. Extensive technical and global people management experience.

Danilo’s work has been published in The Financial Times, The Times, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Computer Weekly – who have coined him as an industry thought and practitioner leader. Danilo is ranked as the 20 most influential people in Ai in the world, top 10 in the world by research and consultancy firms in various other tech domains such as Innovation, Digital Transformation, CRS and Data. He is also hyper connected in tech circles due to active involvement with tech & advisory companies, with whom he develops synergised digital strategy and digital ecosystems.

Danilo’s approach drives and builds a culture of unparalleled efficiency, drastically improved services, new and improved revenue streams and products. He is a digital leader that is technically able but with an entrepreneurial mind set. His speeches are well known for delivering real impact and value, where everyone can walk away from what he delivers wiser and with up-to-date market insights in how to lead and run their technology initiatives better.

Silvina Moschini

An award winning serial entrepreneur, international speaker and author, Silvina Moschini has established herself as one of the foremost experts on the digital economy, the future of money, and how Web3 blockchain technologies and token-based economics are transforming and disrupting wealth-creation.

She is the President and Co-founder of Unicoin, a next-generation coin from the producers of Unicorn Hunters, that is equity-backed and designed to be profitable and stable. Unicoin solves for volatility, the greatest challenge of traditional crypto, by offering its holders inherent value through equity positions in high-growth companies.

Silvina is the executive producer of Unicorn Hunters, a platform that democratizes wealth by connecting high-growth companies looking for funding to hit the coveted $1B “unicorn” valuation with people around the world who are seeking lucrative investment opportunities. She stars in the show as a Circle of Money cast member, alongside Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and Rosie Rios, 43rd Treasurer of the United States.

She is also the co-founder of solutions that harness the cloud to connect businesses and on-demand talent, including TransparentBusiness software-as-a-service, a remote workforce management platform and the Founder and CEO of SheWorks!, an innovative platform that leverages technology to close the gender gap.

With a unique perspective on technology’s influence on business and social impact, Silvina was the only featured entrepreneur for W20 Argentina, the G20’s advisory group on gender-inclusive economic growth, was an invited participant at the Global Entrepreneur Summit 2022 and in 2019 she led the Innovation panel at the President’s Summit of the Americas, a gathering of leading CEOs and Chiefs of States.

She is a regular contributor to CNN en Espanol, the World Economic Forum’s Agenda blog and her expertise is sought after by national and international media including CNBC, CCTV and Forbes. In 2020, she received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from Women in Tech® and was named “Woman of the Decade” by the Women Economic Forum, which also recognized SheWorks! with the “Iconic Companies Creating a Better World for All” award for its efforts in creating equality for women. In 2019, Silvina received the Equals In Tech Award, the global initiative of the United Nations that recognizes projects with the greatest impact to close the digital gender gap.

Andrew Wilson

A veteran presenter of live television programmes and an award-winning foreign correspondent, Andrew Wilson is a leading news and communications professional.

Andrew’s is an experienced conference moderator and event host. He is also an expert interviewer having hosted his own current affairs show on Sky for ten years. Those skills have been deployed in any number of corporate productions including a series of International CEO sit-down interviews around the world for Reuters and thought leadership exchanges at the WEF in Davos.

For ten years Andrew worked on the news front line as a foreign correspondent bureau in Moscow, Jerusalem and then Washington DC. He covered conflicts and breaking news, reporting live and presenting programmes from Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, Chechnya, Haiti, the Asia Tsunami, Ukraine, Egypt, Africa, Lebanon and Iraq. He covered three US elections, two in Israel, two in Russia and any number in the UK.

On his return to the UK his program, Live at 5 on Sky News won best RTS best news program in 2016. He was also awarded numerous international awards for his coverage overseas.

Ever since he covered the first Earth Summit in Rio, Andrew has harboured a special interest in environmental stories. He presented a series of live shows from the Amazon jungle ahead of COP 15 in 2009 and has moderated environmental and business conferences in the City as well as hosting numerous Virgin Formula E events in New York and Paris.

Andrew is an experienced media and skills trainer and regularly works with news presenters and reporters. He works with the John Schofield Trust to mentor young journalists and is a contributor to the Westminster Foreign Affairs think tank Global Strategy Forum and a member of BAFTA.

Jaqueline Weigel

A strong believer in transcendent universal futures, Jaqueline defines herself as an evolving spiritual human who is committed to helping the transformation of others and of the world. Her main personality traits are leadership and innovation, features which have driven her to think ahead of her time since an early age.

Throughout her professional life, both as a strategic coach and as a futurist thinker, her business partners, coachees and audiences have underlined her remarkable power to transform people and realities. Such gift has helped people as well as corporative clients to organize their thoughts, conceptions and ideas, making them into clearer plans. As an enthusiastic Futurist lecturer, Jaqueline is highly skilled at making complex themes simpler to learn.

CEO of W Futurism, which she founded in 2006, Jaqueline is a Global Futurist, a strategist, specialist in Foresight and Futures Studies, in Human Behavior and Positive Change Management. She does research on futures in the world’s leading futures schools. At the same time, she is a Post & Neo Humanist scientist who studies the evolution of our species in the face of new universal future possibilities.

Jaqueline has a wide experience with top management leaders and executives, change-seeking organizations and groups, and future studies. Apart from her expertise in coaching, she is a business strategist specialized in developing skills for change in companies and organizations. Her customers work in large Brazilian and global corporations. She also works in the mentorship of CEOs all over the world both in Portuguese and in English, and has a large experience with global scenarios.

During the period she worked as a coach, from 2005 to 2015, she had extremely positive  results in all the processes she applied by guiding her corporate clients throughout an instigating and challenging dance, so that they can unveil their potential in all areas.

Her main goal at W Futurism is to train future thinkers through the courses and lectures on global Foresight methodologies. She is intent on making preferred futures a reality by resenting people with the new dimensions of the world, by organizing information and learning about the future, and by strengthening corporate leaders’ decision-making in the present. Her mission is to make Brazil a respected place in the Foresight World and to contribute to the preparation of the human species for the new life of the planet.

Jaqueline graduated in People Management from FGV-SP, and is currently a researcher in Foresight methodologies at the FFRC, Finland Futures Research Center, Finland, Metafuture and CLA Method by Dr Sohail Inayatullah, Australia. She attended Singularity University, USA, specializing in Exponential Leadership. She also studied Leading Changes and Organizations at MIT Sloan, and Neuroleadeship at the David Rock Institute. She is a guest speaker at The Futures Agency, Switzerland, a writer at The Journal of Futures Studies and is part of the UNESCO community on Futures Literacy.

She is also a renowned author in Brazil, having written several articles on the topics of the future of leadership and business, among them Neo Human Futures, Exponential Leadership and Cultural Transformation.

Paul Daugherty

Paul Daugherty is a leading authority on the technology innovations shaping the future of business and society. In his role as Accenture’s Group Chief Executive – Technology and Chief Technology Officer, Paul predicts the future, sets Accenture’s technology strategy and directs its technology research and development, ventures and ecosystem relationships to incubate the next wave of technology businesses. As the founder of Accenture’s businesses in Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and other emerging technologies, Paul advises the world’s top business and technology leaders on how to apply technology to reimagine and reinvent their organizations’ futures.

Paul studied computer engineering at the University of Michigan in the early 1980s, and became hooked on AI when he took a course with Douglas Hofstadter on cognitive science and psychology. Since then, he has spearheaded pioneering research, including research on the AI and the Future of Economic Growth and Accenture’s annual trends report, Accenture Technology Vision.

Most recently, Paul co-authored Human + Machine, a seminal book providing a much-needed management playbook to the business of AI. Human + Machine which has been praised by Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft), Arianna Huffington (CEO of Thrive Global), Marc Benioff (Chairman and CEO of Salesforce), Doug McMillon (President and CEO of Walmart), and many more.

A frequent speaker and writer on the future of technology innovation and its implications for business and society, Paul is regularly featured in a variety of media outlets, including The Financial Times, The Economist, MIT Sloan Management Review, Forbes, Fast Company, USA Today, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Cheddar financial news network, Bloomberg Television, Fox Business and CNBC. In 2019, Paul was named to Retail Week’s Tech 100, a list of the most influential leaders shaping the future of commerce through technology and digital innovation. He accepted the FASPE Award for Ethical Leadership in 2019 for Accenture’s work in applying ethical principles to the development and use of artificial intelligence and other innovative 21st century technologies.He was named as one of Computerworld’s Premier 100 Technology Leaders for 2017 for his extraordinary technology leadership.

Paul is a passionate advocate for equal opportunity, inclusion, and diversity in technology. He serves on the board of directors of Girls Who Code and is a strong advocate and sponsor of Code.org. He was also recognized with an Institute for Women’s Leadership award, honoring business leaders who have supported diversity in the workplace and the advancement of women.

In addition, Paul served as chairman of the board of Avanade, is on the board of trustees of the Computer History Museum, and is on the advisory board for Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Paul lives in Maplewood, New Jersey, with his wife.

Richard Florida

Richard Florida is the Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, Global Research Professor at New York University, and the founder of the Creative Class Group, which works closely with governments and companies worldwide, Richard Florida is perhaps the world’s leading urbanist.

Combining in-depth analysis, cutting-edge trends, compelling personal stories and a touch of humor, it is no wonder Richard Florida is one of the world’s most sought after speakers, alongside luminaries such as Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor.

As a leading public intellectual, Esquire Magazine named him one of their Best and Brightest. Richard has also been appointed to the Business Innovation Factory’s Research Advisory Council and recently named European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation.

Florida is the author of several global best sellers, including the award-winning The Rise of the Creative Class (“one of the best business books of all time”—800-CEO-READ), and is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he co-founded and serves as Editor-at-Large for Atlantic Cities, the world’s leading media site devoted to cities and urban affairs. Florida appears regularly on CNN and other news broadcasts and is a regular contributor to the op ed pages of major newspapers and magazines.

TIME magazine recognized his Twitter feed as one of the 140 most influential in the world. Florida previously taught at Carnegie Mellon and George Mason University, and has been a visiting professor at Harvard and MIT. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Ted Souder

Ted Souder has witnessed history for the past 25 years as an early employee at groundbreaking companies like America Online & Google and in the boardroom at leading institutions such as 1871, the World’s #1 Private Business Incubator, and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

One of Google’s earliest employees, Ted spent 20+ years helping write one of the greatest business stories of all time. From its origin as a fledgling Search engine trying to find its footing after the “dot com” crash in 2000 to becoming one of the largest and most influential companies in the world, Google helped define an era. During his time at Google, Ted held many different leadership roles both in Chicago and in Paris, France, ultimately leading to his dual roles as the founder of the Google CFO Forum and Head of Industry, Retail.

Now, as an advisor to VC funds, start-up founders, Chambers of Commerce, and more, Ted helps tomorrow and today’s leaders apply lessons straight from the Google Playbook to help them reach efficiency and scale as quickly as possible. Ted is also a part-owner of the Monthly Barometer based in Chamonix, France. The Monthly Barometer is a content platform and advisory boutique that provides its members with

high-quality macro analysis combined with in-person, global community gatherings that sit at the intersection of Economics, Geo-Politics, Environment, Technology & Society.

Ted’s vast global tech and entrepreneurship experience give him a unique perspective on how organizations and governments today can benefit from the positive impact digitalization can have on your business, community, and life.

Charlie Ang

Charlie Ang is an Exponential Keynote Speaker, Business Futurist, Disruption Advisor, and Innovation Strategist. As a Business Futurist, he analyses, imagines and explains the future, especially on how technology will impact, disrupt and empower industries, professions and economies. As an Innovation Strategist, he inspires, advises and speaks to organisations and leaders to innovate and transform in the 4th Industrial Revolution. He is the Founder of Everything40.com, a future-readiness agency, Ambassador of SingularityU Singapore, the local chapter of Singularity University and Adjunct Advisor at IDC. Charlie is also the Regional Judge of the IDC Asia-Pacific Digital Transformation Awards and on the steering committee and judging panel for Singapore Human Resources Awards 2018.