Craig McDonogh is an accomplished marketing executive and AI ethicist with more than 30 years of experience in global B2B software. He has led marketing teams and strategy at companies including ServiceNow, BMC and Perspectium, and more recently at AI-driven organizations such as Forma.ai and Imgix. He is an advisor on AI Ethics to the University of San Francisco Digital Marketing Program, and publishes a daily newsletter on responsible AI at ethicore.substack.com
Craig combines a technical understanding of how AI systems work with deep experience in the ethics of AI, advising on issues such as fairness, transparency, accountability, and sustainability. Recognized as both a SaaS marketing leader and trusted voice on AI responsibility, he helps organizations adopt AI in ways that build trust, minimize risk, and drive long-term value.
Serkan Deveci is a senior leader at Google with two decades of global experience, leveraging a rare and solid combination of leadership roles in both global Sales and strategic HR to drive business success. His career has provided him with a unique perspective, as he hasn’t just observed the disconnect between business imperatives and people leadership; he has operated with distinction on both sides of that executive table.
This dual experience (carrying a P&L and shaping commercial strategy in Sales; guiding workforce planning and defining culture as an HR leader) has given him a deep, firsthand understanding of what it truly takes to align talent with tangible business outcomes. Having led complex, large-scale businesses and substantial sales teams, he brings a commercial acumen to the world of people strategy. His global experience spans EMEA, APAC, the US, and LATAM, giving him a broad view of how these dynamics play out in different cultural and market contexts.
Serkan is a globally recognized keynote speaker, delivering engaging talks on the Future of Work, Leadership Effectiveness, Employee Engagement, and AI in HR. His academic background, including a BA in Economics from Galatasaray University, an MSc in Neuroscience and Psychology from King’s College London, and his current PhD research in Psychology at Warwick University, on leadership and its effects on organizational outcomes, provides a robust, evidence-based foundation for his work.
Serkan has successfully bridged the gap he seeks to close for others. He writes as a practitioner (of both sides — Business Leadership and HR Leadership), who has lived the challenges and developed the solutions he now offers to a new generation of leaders.
Dr Helmut Schuster is a dual Austrian/British citizen who lives in London, UK. He is the former Group HR Director of BP PLC and Chairman of the Board for Ivocar Vivadent. He currently serves on the board of several dynamic start-up businesses including ExpectAI, a Greentech enterprise. Helmut is an active entrepreneur, investor, and frequent contributor to leadership and AFS Cultural programs. He completed his PhD in Economics from the University of Vienna.
Dr David Oxley is a dual UK/US citizen based in Austin, Texas. David started his career as a management consultant before leading major people and corporate restructuring projects for BP PLC across Europe, USA, India, and the Middle East. He worked closely with Reliance Industries in India, one of BP’s partners, as they embarked on their big corporate restructuring. He currently spends his time researching and writing on future career trends for publications around the world including Fast Company, Forbes, Big Think, Reader’s Digest, and HR Today where he also serves as a member of the global advisory board. David was awarded his doctorate in Organizational Change at Cranfield University and his MBA from the University of Notre Dame.
Elena V. Amber is a founder, doctoral researcher, and award-winning author. Bringing over 15 years of international business and startup experience, Amber holds multidisciplinary degrees in social management, biology, executive business administration, and psychology at Master’s level. Her doctoral research blends behavioral psychology and economics with neuroscience, examining factors impacting sustainable consumption at the nexus with impulsive buying behavior.
Drawing on extensive business applications research for sustainability, she provides a fresh perspective on sustainable consumption via lenses of emotional capital and consumer transformation.
A world-class leadership coach with decades of experience, Sally Netherwood attracts extraordinary clients from around the globe: CEOs of major global organizations, radical entrepreneurs re-inventing market sectors, influential activists advancing social justice and gender equality, celebrated artists creating and reflecting cultural change and societal attitudes, non-profit leaders improving the lives of disadvantaged communities, policy-makers, pioneers and innovators.
A catalyst for transformation, Sally brings the gift of clarity to her clients. She cuts through clutter, chaos and contradiction to reveal the simplicity and authenticity of each leader’s passion and purpose, releasing them from the fears that hold them back from even greater accomplishment. Discovering and embracing what Sally describes as their Graceful Power, her clients find an inner strength and external influence that allows them to achieve so much more, with significantly less personal effort.
In Graceful Power, Sally has for the first time distilled her 25 years of coaching expertise and the insights gained from tens of thousands of leadership conversations to create a practical and accessible guidebook for independent leadership transformation. Graceful Power is for anyone who aspires to powerfully positive leadership and a significant role in shaping the world for the better.
For over 30 years Brian Cavanagh has been involved in governance and leadership. He has extensive experience of governance and decision making, including 17 years as a city councillor and 10 years chairing Scotland’s second-largest health authority.
He is the founder and CEO of Calibrate, a mentoring consultancy specializing in strategic leadership, board governance and development across the public and charity sectors in Ireland and the UK.
He also acts a trusted advisor to CEOs and boards of many leading charities, giving him deep insight into how boards operate and what is required to improve the consistency and quality of governance in the charity sector.
Brian currently chairs an SME and understands the onerous responsibility that governing can bring. A passionate advocate of the value of the lay voice on boards, he believes they deserve better to fulfil their governance and leadership responsibilities.
Leanne Hamley is an experienced leader and business coach specializing in behavioural change, leadership development and organizational culture. Having worked across multiple sectors, industries and countries, she understands what makes people and organisations thrive.
Leanne works with organizations to create authentic cultures that put the wellbeing of their people at the heart of the business, cultures where values have real meaning and purpose.
She has set up numerous high-performing Learning & Development functions and has worked on international HR Change programmes for major companies such as DHL and McKesson. Her time in Sri Lanka working on a change programme to integrate child Tamil soldiers into a Sinhalese orphanage helped her understand fully the power of culture for behaviour change.
After volunteering in Manchester and South Africa, Martin Farrell held leadership positions in mental health, criminal justice and youthwork before senior positions at Save the Children and the British Red Cross.
He established his consultancy get2thepoint in 1999. Drawing on a deep understanding of personal and group dynamics, underpinned by his training in psychotherapy and his own experience of personal and professional crisis, he has been engaged by ACEVO since 2002 to coach leaders through crisis.
Since his first international assignment with the UN in 2002, he has been in demand as a group process UK and international facilitator and crisis coach. He was Europe Middle East North Africa Regional Director of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) 2013-16. He is a Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) Emeritus, which is IAF’s top international award, and has written widely, including a regular column for ‘Governance Magazine’ and ‘Third Sector’ and a range of books and articles on civil society.
A former banker and mother of four, Dr Kirsty Reynolds (MA Oxon, DProf) brings a unique and distinctly commercial perspective to the challenge of retaining women after maternity leave. Her doctoral research explored the question of how women can return to work sustainably in high-performance industries, surfacing insights for leaders into what career-focused women want and need if they are to thrive in these systems.
As an experienced executive coach (EMCC Senior Practitioner) and researcher, on the leadership team of a thriving global practice of 55 coaches, Kirsty maintains an ever-current perspective of the challenges leaders in the financial, professional and legal industries face in achieving gender balance.
Alongside coaching and consulting, Kirsty regularly shares her expertise through speaking engagements, at industry bodies such as People in Law, Level 20 and Women in Tax, and at diversity events such as Dive In Festival. She also regularly publishes thought-leadership articles and white papers
