Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School, dean of the school in the years 2009-2017. Former Head of the Government Accountancy Service, Managing Director of the Financial Management, Reporting and Audit Directorate of HM Treasury and its Principal Finance Officer. Apart from his knighthood he holds four honorary degrees.

As CTO and Senior Vice President of Innovation for Samsung Electronics, Dr. Luc JULIA led the company’s vision and strategy for the Internet of Things and is now focusing on making these machines smarter. Previously, Luc directed Siri at Apple, was Chief Technologist at Hewlett-Packard and cofounded a number of start-ups in the Silicon Valley. He holds 38 patents and is the bestselling author of the book “There is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence”.

Simon “Pete” Worden, (Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret., PhD) is the Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation  Prior Dr. Worden was Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. He has held several positions in the United States Air Force and was research professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona. 

Prof. Yves Pigneur – professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Lausanne since 1984, known for his work on the business model canvas with Alexandre Osterwalder. He is considered a “mastermind” among business strategics, his canvas have been used by numerous companies such as P&G, Amazon, Lokhead Martin and Tesla.

Vice President for Global Innovation Policy and Communications at Amazon. Paul is an engineer, attorney, and inventor named in three patents. Prior to his current role, in which he explains and advocates Amazon’s culture and methods of customer‐obsessed innovation, Paul founded Amazon’s public policy operations and served as the company’s Vice President for Global Public Policy. Paul holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University and a JD from George Mason University School of Law.

Sramana Mitra is the founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), the world’s first and only global virtual incubator/accelerator. Its goal is to help a million entrepreneurs globally reach a million dollars in annual revenue, build a trillion dollars in global GDP, and create 10 million jobs.
Since its founding in 2010, 1Mby1M has become a powerful platform for democratization of entrepreneurship education, incubation, and acceleration, embracing a community of over half a million people. Sramana’s weekly online mentoring sessions have had over 100,000 participants. CEOs around the world have found in her a trusted thought partner who is consistently able to offer strategic guidance that is easy to grasp and immediately actionable.

Rita McGrath is a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. Rita is one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth and is one of the most regularly published authors in the Harvard Business Review. She is consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world and was ranked #1 for strategy by Thinkers50.  Rita is the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Her new book is Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Follow Rita on Twitter rgmcgrath. For more information, visit RitaMcGrath.com.

Vice President for Innovation, Lausanne University of Technology (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne – EPFL), Professor at the College of Management of Technology and Head of the Department of Enterprise and Commercialization of Technology. Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ) – the most renowned scientific journal in the field of management in the world.

Martin Kern was the Interim Director and Chief Operating Officer at the EIT since 1 August 2014 until his appointment as Director by the EIT Governing Board on 23 August 2019. Prior to joining, he worked at the European Commission for 15 years in a variety of posts, mainly in the area of enlargement policy and with financial assistance to support economic and social development programmes. Working for the EU, he held a variety of positions, the latest being Head of Operations at the EU Delegation to Serbia where he coordinated the programming and implementation of EU funds to bring Serbia closer to EU accession and among many issues, he led the EU’s rapid response following the disastrous floods in Serbia in May 2014.

Edward Roussel is Chief Innovation Officer at Dow Jones, responsible for identifying areas of new opportunity, with a focus on startups and relations with Silicon Valley companies. Edward joined Dow Jones in June 2013 as head of digital product development, overseeing projects including the redesign of The Wall Street Journal’s website and apps. Before joining Dow Jones, Edward worked at the Telegraph Media Group in London for seven years. As Executive Editor, Digital, he headed the Telegraph’s website and mobile products,  playing a central role in reorganizing the newsroom to place digital journalism at its core. Edward worked at Bloomberg from 1992 to 2004, playing a key part in the company’s rapid editorial expansion. He oversaw global financial coverage, leading a team of more than 130 journalists. In earlier roles at Bloomberg, Edward was bureau chief in Brussels, Paris and London.

Soumitra Dutta is a Professor of Management and the former founding Dean of the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University, New York. Previously, he was the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of the Johnson Graduate School of Management. Prior to joining Cornell in 2012, he was on the faculty of INSEAD, a leading international business school with campuses in France and Singapore.
Soumitra Dutta is an authority on innovation in the knowledge economy, with a refreshing global perspective. Throughout his distinguished career, he has focused on how to drive business innovation and growth through the right combination of innovative people and technology. He is the co-editor and author of the Global Information Technology Report, published by the World Economic Forum and the Global Innovation Index, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization – two influential reports in technology and innovation policy.
Dean Dutta is on the board of two listed firms Sodexo (a food services and facilities management multinational), Dassault Systemes (the world leader in 3D experience systems) and is a member of the Shareholder Council (Board) of ZS Associates (a global management consultancy focused on healthcare). He is currently the Chair of the Board of the Global Business School Network (a Washington DC based not-for-profit focused on building management capacity in Africa and other frontier markets) and is on the advisory boards of several business schools including HEC Montreal and ESADE (Spain). Previously he was the Vice Chair and Chair of AACSB International, the leading accreditation body for business schools worldwide. He a member of the privileged “Davos Circle” group of participants who have been invited to the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos for more than 10 years. He has co-founded two firms, including Fisheye Analytics which, WPP group acquired.

Vivek Wadhwa is a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and a Distinguished Fellow and professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering. He is the author of four best-selling books: Your Happiness Was Hacked; The Driver in the Driverless Car; Innovating Women; and The Immigrant Exodus. He has been a globally syndicated columnist for The Washington Post and held appointments at Duke University, Stanford Law School, Emory University, and Singularity University. Vivek is based in Silicon Valley and researches, speaks, and writes about advancing technologies that are transforming our world. These advances – in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, computing, synthetic biology, 3D printing, medicine, and nanomaterials – are making it possible for small teams to do what was once possible only for governments and large corporations to do: solve the grand challenges in education, water, food, shelter, health, and security.

Itay Talgam is an orchestral conductor turned into ‘conductor of people’ – be it in in government, academia, business, education, therapy – anywhere the creation of human harmony through cooperation is desired. He teaches leadership to Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits and universities, and at conferences around the world, including TED, Google’s Zeitgeist, and the World Economic Forum at Davos.
Itay’s talks, based of continuous dialogue, has been experienced either directly or on-line by millions of participants and viewers. His first book, The Ignorant Maestro, is published in May 2015 by Portfolio / Penguin.
Itay sees himself as a disciple of his great teacher, Leonard Bernstein. His international conducting debut took place in 1987, when he was chosen and presented by Maestro Bernstein in a special concert, conducting the Orchestre de Paris, Bernstein himself conducting the second half of the same concert. Since that highly successful performance, Talgam conducted many orchestras in Europe, being the first Israeli conductor to perform with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Leipzig Opera house. He also conducted and recorded with all of Israel’s major orchestras, including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. A native of Tel-Aviv, Itay Talgam received his Artist Diploma in conducting from the Jerusalem Rubin Academy. He then studied in France, Italy, and the US. He is also a graduate of General Philosophy studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Solomon Darwin has broad leadership experience in corporate management and academia. He is an international speaker recognized by peers, executives, and students with numerous awards for his innovative leadership and passion for teaching. He inspires students from both business and engineering disciplines in his courses for open innovation, business models, smart cities, scalable smart villages, IBM Watson and business models for emerging economies.
As an expert in “open innovation” and “open business models,” he is an adviser to senior executives of multinationals and government leaders in the emerging world. The list includes Google, Genentech, HP, Health Net, J&J, Toyota, NHS of UK, UCSF, Royal Caribbean, Autodesk, Nestle and government entities in Mexico, China, Russia, India, Colombia and Europe. He directs and moderates international innovation conferences and forums, and chairs quarterly Chief Innovation Officer round tables in Silicon Valley.

Prior to joining Berkeley Haas in 2005, he was an Associate Professor for nine years at University of Southern California. His progressive corporate leadership experience covers a span of 14 years as a Senior Executive Officer at Bank of America, First Interstate Bank, and Glendale Federal Bank and Motorola.

During summers, Darwin regularly teaches in executive programs at prominent international universities and institutions. He has conducted workshops and programs in over 18 countries. He also serves as honorary professor at several universities in Europe, China, and India. His current project, “Building Scalable Smart Villages,” was commissioned by the government of India.