Theme: KALEIDOSCOPE

Kalos. Eidos. Skopeo.

Beauty. Shape. Examine.

Together, these three words form kaleidoscope —
the observation of beautiful forms.

The TEDxLondon Business School conference invites you to pick up your kaleidoscope and view the world through a new lens. Accompany us on this journey of ideas as with each twist of our kaleidoscope we explore, reflect, and transform to bring you new colours and perspectives.

Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
1 Kensington Gore
London, London, City of, SW7 2AR
United Kingdom

Adam Carroll

Adam Carroll is quickly being recognized as one of the top transformational trainers in the country. Having presented at over 500 colleges and Universities nationwide, hundreds of leadership symposiums, and countless local and regional organizations, Adam Carroll’s message of Building A Bigger Life, Not a Bigger Lifestyle has been heard by over 200,000+ people. In early 2014, Adam successfully crowd-funded a documentary on student loan debt, raising nearly $70,000 in 45 days. The film, Broke Busted & Disgusted is due out in early 2015 and is already garnering critical acclaim. The mission of the film is to start a national debate about changing the way we fund college and not crippling 20 somethings with mountains of debt. Adam’s core message is we are all after the same thing – to relentlessly pursue our passions, live simply and happily, and make a difference to those around us.

Adam Carroll

Adam Carroll is quickly being recognized as one of the top transformational trainers in the country. Having presented at over 500 colleges and Universities nationwide, hundreds of leadership symposiums, and countless local and regional organizations, Adam Carroll’s message of Building A Bigger Life, Not a Bigger Lifestyle has been heard by over 200,000+ people. In early 2014, Adam successfully crowd-funded a documentary on student loan debt, raising nearly $70,000 in 45 days. The film, Broke Busted & Disgusted is due out in early 2015 and is already garnering critical acclaim. The mission of the film is to start a national debate about changing the way we fund college and not crippling 20 somethings with mountains of debt. Adam’s core message is we are all after the same thing – to relentlessly pursue our passions, live simply and happily, and make a difference to those around us.

Alex Edmans

Alex Edmans is a Professor of Finance at London Business School. Alex graduated top of his class from Oxford University and then worked for Morgan Stanley in investment banking (London) and fixed income sales and trading (New York). After a PhD in Finance from MIT Sloan as a Fulbright Scholar, he joined Wharton, where he was granted tenure and won 14 teaching awards in six years.

Anant Singh

Anant Singh is one of South Africa’s pre-eminent film producers, with over 80 films to his credit, including the Oscar-nominated Yesterday. Most recently, he produced Long Walk to Freedom, a film on late South African president Nelson Mandela. “He is a producer I respect very much… a man of tremendous ability,’’ Mandela had said in an interview, after giving Singh the film rights to his autobiography. Born and raised in Durban, Singh got into movies at the age of 18, when he left his studies to buy a movie rental store. He then ventured into video distribution and finally production in 1981.

Ash Judd

Ash Judd served as an officer in the Australian Army for 9 years. After completing an honours degree in economics from the University of Sydney he decided on a dramatic career change and attended the Royal Military College-Duntroon to gain his commission as an officer in the infantry. Ash commanded a Platoon of approximately 50 men on combat operations in Southern Afghanistan for 9 months in what was the proudest, hardest and most formative experience of his life. He learned about leadership, grace under pressure and that Tabasco Sauce is pivotal in making dehydrated food edible. He was awarded the Commendation for Distinguished Service for leadership in action as a result of his performance in combat. Ash’s first passion is advocating for veteran’s health, particularly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Close behind are travelling with his wife, Eliza, rugby, football, cricket and just generally being around and in the ocean.

Crystal Ruff

Crystal is a keen investigator in the field of regenerative neuroscience and translational health research, with a proven track record of academic and performance excellence. Currently, she is a MBA2016 Candidate at the London Business School. Professionally, Crystal’s expertise lies in stem cell therapies and their transition from the lab to the clinic, in order to help commercialize these strategies and get the best treatments out to the public. As a Postdoctoral fellow in the Fehlings lab, she spearheaded the stem cell therapy for Cerebral Palsy animal initiative in association with $20 million NeuroDevNet NCE and $10 million Ontario Brain Institute initiatives. Her work in knowledge translation of regenerative medicine involves several internationally-distributed documents, as well as information packages produced for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy working group and CTV news.

Edwina Dunn

Edwina is perhaps best known as the Founder and Chief Executive of dunnhumby. Edwina set up dunnhumby with her husband and former colleague Clive Humby in 1989 in their West London home. The business focused on the application of customer data to understand and predict consumer trends and behaviours. At that time, customer data was not valued or stored but simply discarded following a transaction. Edwina joined Starcount as the COO. Starcount is a global social media discovery engine where fans can be rewarded for their loyalty and engagement. It tracks 1.7 billion people across 12 major global social networks. Edwina is also an an investor in Purple Seven which is the UK's largest Theatre Analytics Company, managing some 19 million consumers; in addition Edwina runs a not-for-profit platform around women's perception that seeks to amplify their voices and self confidence called the What I See Project.

Gareth Cliff

Founder and President of CliffCentral.com, and host of “The Gareth Cliff Show”, Gareth Cliff is one of South Africa’s most prominent media personalities with a personal Twitter following of 900,000+ followers and 500,000+ on Facebook. In 2003 Gareth accepted an offer on SABC’s 5FM where he remained for ten years, hosting the breakfast show for the last seven years before launching CliffCentral.com. Gareth has won numerous awards over the years for best radio and television personality and presenter, and regularly hosts events both as an MC, speaker and a conference facilitator. Beyond the public eye, Gareth has demonstrated his commitment to his audience and passion about South Africa by generously giving of his time to causes that are close to his heart. He regularly gives motivational talks at schools and universities and has been the ambassador of several education initiatives.

Jean-Pierre Benoît

Jean-Pierre Benoît is Professor of Economics at London Business School. Prior to that, he was Professor of Economics and Professor of Law at New York University, and Professor of Economics at Columbia Business School. He has a PhD in economics from Stanford University and a BA in math and economics from Yale University. Professor Benoît is an expert in microeconomics, game theory, industrial organization, and law and economics. His research has been published in leading Economics, Political Science, and Law journals and encompasses a range of subjects, including auctions, voting theory, dynamic competition, entry deterrence, affirmative action, and overconfidence. He consults for and has given specialized talks to businesses and universities throughout the world.

Jessica Butcher

Jessica is an entrepreneurial business leader and experienced marketing professional with 15+ years in senior commercial and marketing roles within fast-growth environments – including as Business Development lead for Alibaba.com EMEA during their launch year into Europe. One of the co-founders of Blippar – the world’s leading mobile visual browser – she manages external communications and brand, driving the every-growing global awareness of the powerful new verb ‘to blipp’. Named as one of the BBC’s international list of ‘100 Women’ in 2014, Fortune Magazine’s ‘Top 10 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs’ in 2012 and winner of the Iris (tech) at the Natwest EveryWoman awards amongst other accolades.

John Mullins

John Mullins is an Associate Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School. An award-winning teacher and scholar and one of the world’s foremost thought leaders in entrepreneurship, John brings to his teaching and research 20 years of executive experience in high-growth retailing firms, including two ventures he founded and one he took public. John’s newest book,The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance or Grow Your Business with Your Customers’ Cash, (Jersey City, Wiley 2014), was named one of five “not-to-be-missed books” for 2014 by Fortune magazine. It challenges the widely held assumption that among an entrepreneur’s first and most important tasks is that of raising investment capital.

Karl Lokko

Karl is a 25 year old former gang leader who has now turned his life around. He has managed to harness his life experiences which has propelled and uniquely situated him as an activist/influencer within the U.K. Karl is a gifted orator with an ability to connect with people on a human level, granting him undoubtedly the role of a bridge, bridging worlds and uniting community. Karl Lokko’s oratory capacity came into the light through the unfortunate and unsettling 2011 riots, where he was called upon to speak and express the hard to articulate feelings of the community in which he lives in.   Karl Lokko is an ambassador for Kids Company, a ‘Big Changer’ and consultant for Big Change, a tireless community worker and campaigner working to reform gang culture in the U.K, currently doing the ground work to establish this country’s first therapeutic community gang rehabilitation centre whilst at the same time affecting policy around the issue.

Melissa Reiner

Melissa Elena Reiner brings her unique musical sensibilities to a wide variety of professional endeavours. Classically-trained as a violinist since the age of three, she received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA). Melissa has performed with many of the world’s most famous musicians, including Adele, Andrea Bocelli, Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman and Justin Timberlake. With a passion for all music besides her first love of classical, Melissa pursued a less-traditional path than most violinists, beginning her career in Los Angeles recording for shows like “Family Guy”, the Grammy Awards and American Idol. After relocating to London four years ago, she continues to perform and record in a variety of mediums including: “Phantom of the Opera” in the West End, at the BBC Music Awards with Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding, and on films like “The Theory of Everything” and “The Hobbit”.

Robert Diamond

After 13 years in the retail data space, in 2001 Robert founded what became emnos – the leading provider of ‘customer centric’ services and decision-support tools. Clients included top retailers (Target, Walgreens, Morrisons, Waitrose, Boots, Co-operative Group) and their FMCG suppliers. The business was sold to Palamon Private Equity in 2007 and sold on to American Express in 2011. Robert now divides his time between an executive role at RAC Motoring Services and a series of Retail advisory & investment roles. Outside of this Robert advises the boards of several leading retailers on data-driven customer centric marketing. Robert is an elected member of the Young Presidents Organisation and frequent media contributor on the use of customer data. He lives in the UK and US with his wife and four children.

Sherry Coutu

Sherry is an Entrepreneur, Non-Exec Director, Investor and Advisor to Companies, Universities and Charities. As an entrepreneur, Sherry has founded a number of businesses and charities in the past. As a Non-Exec Director, Sherry has decades of experience in the technology and education sectors which include serving as a non-executive member of the University of Cambridge (Finance Board), Raspberry Pi, The Royal Society (Translation Committee), The London Stock Exchange Group and Linkedin (Advisory Board). As a philanthropist, in addition to Founders4schools, she is a supporter of the Crick Institute. Sherry was honoured with a CBE for “Services to Entrepreneurship” from HM Queen in 2013, serves as an ambassador for London and the YourLife Campaign and is the author of ‘The Scale-up Report’ on UK economic growth.

Udayan Goyal

Udayan is a keen proponent of technology driven reformation in banking and financial services and has exceptional domain expertise in this space. He is the Founder and co-Managing Partner of Apis Partners LLC, a $250m private equity fund focussed on investing in financial services companies in Africa and South Asia. He is a Founder Partner at Anthemis Group and is a prolific investor, having had seed investments in (Bank)Simple, Azimo, Ininal, IOCS, Huddlebuy and Earthport. He serves as a Board Director with Moven and Zyfin and also advises several digital financial startups, including those in the Anthemis Group portfolio. He has led a number of innovation projects including, most recently, Zapp, the UK mobile payments system sponsored by Vocalink and being adopted by the UK banks. Udayan is a much sought after commentator on digital finance and curates the very popular “Future of Money” annual session at Innotribe, SIBOS.