Vittorio Cretella is P&G’s chief information officer, responsible for every aspect of P&G’s ongoing IT and digital transformation. He is an experienced IT leader who is passionate about driving technology change to deliver business value.

In his 26-year career with Mars, Inc. where he held the global chief technology officer and global chief information officer positions, Vittorio led and transformed the IT function by developing talent and capabilities, consolidating and streamlining the organisation, and adopting cloud and agile to increase flexibility and speed.

He led numerous waves of digital transformation throughout a diverse and global business, championing the concept of data as an essential asset for future growth, while leading the IT dimension of several large-scale mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring initiatives.

Vittorio served as advisor to Fortune 500 global companies on digital transformation roadmaps and evolution of IT capabilities. He is a member of the board of directors at NPower, and serves on the growth advisory board of Tricentis.

Beatrice York founded By – Eq limited in 2022, an advisory organisation focused on adding more exceptional emotional intelligence in an age of artificial intelligence. She holds advisory roles at Afiniti technologies, Scale AI and Liontree Asset Management.

Beatrice is a trustee and co-founder of The Big Change Charitable Trust, which identifies and supports charitable projects throughout the UK, reimagining education. Beatrice is a champion of women in leadership and has worked and spoken at a range of events across the world working to promote role models for positive leadership development. She is dyslexic and as such, is a champion for neurodiversity in the workplace as well as a supporter of a range of organisations working with dyslexia. Beatrice is also a patron and on the board of various charities in the education and young person space including 20:40 a next Generation Leadership body.

Dušan Šenkypl has joined Groupon as interim chief executive from Pale Fire Capital, Groupon’s largest shareholder that holds nearly 22% of shares outstanding. Pale Fire is an entrepreneurial investment firm with ~$1 billion in AUM and two established investment strategies in technology private equity and a global macro hedge fund. Its private equity portfolio includes ~30 B2C and marketplace companies. Dušan co-founded Pale Fire Capital in 2015 and serves as chairman and chief executive.

Dušan is an entrepreneur by trade. Prior to Pale Fire, Dušan created several global ecommerce and technology projects used by more than 250 million users. He built ePojisteni.cz and NetBrokers Holding, a dominant fintech player with more than 500 employees, which was bought by a German media group, Bauer Media, in 2018. He enjoys sports and dedicates a portion of his time to non-profit projects.

Valeriya Ionan is the Deputy Minister for Eurointegration at the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. The Ministry, established in 2019, aims to implement the “State in a Smartphone” vision, an essential part of President Zelenskyy’s Election Program. Valeriya, at the age of 28, joined the Ministry from its beginning, making her one of the youngest Deputy Ministers in the Ukrainian government. Her responsibilities within the Ministry include supervising the national program for the development of digital literacy, advocating for digital transformation among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), enabling regional digital transformation, and leading both the Eurointegration and international relations teams.

Pierre-Yves is chief digital officer of Pernod Ricard, the international group, the group that owns +240 premium wine & spirit brands like Jameson, Chivas, Absolut or Havana Club. With an engineering background, Pierre-Yves joined the Pernod Ricard group in 2003 and served as chief information officer and then as managing director of several subsidiaries in Latin America. He has been chief digital officer of the Pernod Ricard group since September 2018 and leads business innovation programs and the large-scale deployment of innovative data and AI solutions.

Dan Shapero is the chief operating officer at LinkedIn. He is responsible for helping companies around the world grow their business and build winning teams through the value LinkedIn delivers. In this role, he oversees global sales, operations, as well as member and customer success. Since joining LinkedIn in 2008, Dan has held various leadership roles managing global teams across sales and product management, most recently as chief business officer. Prior to LinkedIn, Dan was a management consultant at Bain & Company and a startup entrepreneur. Dan holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BS in Applied Mathematics from Johns Hopkins.

Naina Bhattacharya is the chief information security officer of danone, a Paris headquartered food and beverages company. In her role she is responsible for cybersecurity strategy and transformation across the organisation globally. She has transformed the cyber function by delivering on a three year strategy, developing skills and deploying key technologies for cyber defence. For her work she has won several awards including UK Security Leader of the Year, 2022 in the Women in IT Awards and a Yale Cyber Leadership Forum fellowship. She is passionate about inclusive diversity and was the global winner of the 30% Club Women in Leadership scholarship for 2020 for her essay on allyship. She also serves on the advisory board of Crossword Cybersecurity PLC.

Alex Drummond is responsible for the company’s medium-to-long term enterprise-wide strategy, running the company’s long-range planning process and ensuring alignment between the enterprise, business unit, and M&A strategies. Alex also serves as chairman of the board of American Express Carte France, American Express’ French legal entity.

Prior to joining American Express, Alex was a managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) with deep experience in payments. He led Payments and Transaction Banking for North America and was part of BCG’s global payments management team. In this role, Alex covered card issuers, networks, merchant acquirers, payment infrastructure players, and fintechs.

During his time at BCG, Alex also led payments projects in growth strategy, large scale cost transformation, customer journey reimagination efforts, cobrand negotiation and turnaround, and strategic due diligence for both North American and European financial institutions.

Alex holds an MBA from INSEAD in Singapore and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Université Catholique de Louvain. Prior to joining BCG, he spent over four years working in the technology sector.

Alex is an avid soccer fan and lives in Manhattan with his wife and two sons.

Mark has worked at Diageo for over 25 years, starting as a graduate trainee, and during his career with the company he has gained a wealth of experience across both emerging and developed markets.

Mark was appointed chief innovation officer in 2022 responsible for Diageo’s innovation strategy, research and development, and sustainability.

Prior to his current role, Mark ran a number of global brands in Diageo including Guinness, Baileys, Smirnoff & Captain Morgan. Mark also spent time leading the scotch category in Asia, based in Singapore, and as marketing director of Russia & Eastern Europe based in Moscow.

Mark is a third generation Guinness worker: his father worked for 43 years in the brewery in London and his grandfather was the doctor for the brewery prior to that.

Since February 2018 Katja Busch has been responsible for the sales organisation “DHL Customer Solutions & Innovation” (CSI) as chief commercial officer & head of CSI at Deutsche Post DHL Group. From January 2013 – January 2018 Katja Busch was chief sales officer (CSO) DHL Parcel Germany in the Post – eCommerce – Parcel division. Prior to this she was divisional board member for DHL Parcel for over six years in the Mail division at Deutsche Post AG responsible for domestic sales including customer service for Parcel. 

Appointed CSO of DHL Parcel Germany in 2013, Busch assumed overall responsibility for customer service for both Mail and Parcel business units, including 22 call centres operated by Deutsche Post Customer Service GmbH. From March 2014 – January 2018 she headed international customer service for the Group’s Post – eCommerce – Parcel division. In August 2016 she also assumed responsibility for the newly created Global eCom* Key Account Management unit. 

Following an education in natural sciences, Busch spent seven years in various sales roles at TNT Express Germany before moving to Deutsche Post DHL Group in 1997. After serving as service branch head and business department head, she was appointed Head of Marketing & Sales in January 2004 at DHL Express Austria based in Vienna. In March 2006 she was appointed Divisional Board Member for DHL Parcel Germany. Katja Busch was born September 15, 1969.

Scott is currently chief marketing officer for E.ON UK leading the brand, marketing and sponsorship efforts to drive business growth and position the company for continued success in the coming years.

Through its marketing efforts and initiatives the company has seen strong results in shifting brand perception, improving NPS drivers, increasing traffic and ultimately supporting stronger commercial results.

These core marketing activities across owned, earned and paid channels are helping to build and accelerate E.ON’s transformation to a sustainable organisation truly focused on its customers and renewable energy.

This has and continues to be during a period of unprecedented cost of living challenges for consumers and amidst changes in a sector that consistently faces the highest levels of public, media and political scrutiny as it addresses challenges affecting people’s daily lives and big global issues such as the climate crisis.

Scott speaks regularly at leading marketing and business events across multiple themes but in particular on the connections companies need to create with consumers to protect and improve their reputation through engaging storytelling and creative strategies.

Prior to joining E.ON he built his career in integrated brand and marketing agencies working on behalf of a range of clients in many different sectors.

Kerry is head of AI policy for a UK Government AI Regulation Taskforce.

Recognised in the UK and globally for innovation leadership and the development and application of technologies, including AI, Kerry was formerly head of service development and innovation where she designed and worked on implementation of new organisational and service models (digitisation, automation, AI, upskilling and culture change).

A trained machine learning developer, and also working on the non-tech side of AI development and implementation, Kerry is an award-winning innovator. Kerry was a finalist for the AI-Conics AI for Implementer of the Year, a strategic advisor to the Alan Turing institute on the development of its latest 5 Year Strategy and is listed in the top 100 women in AI Ethics globally.

Kerry is a member of the International Data Science Foundation and the Responsible AI Institute.

Kerry is a member of the AI Advisory Group at the Confederation of British Industries, supports the British Standards Institute develop global AI Standards and provides Board-level counsel on AI to businesses, organisations, AI start-ups, including in the UK and Africa.

Kerry is a passionate advocate of social mobility in AI and provides free coaching to those from under represented communities, those who need a hand up, and with upskilling.

Thomas is The Economist‘s global business correspondent. He covers cross-industry shifts in the business world. Prior to The Economist, he worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company, advising clients across a range of sectors. During his time there, he also led research for the firm’s global think tank, Bain Futures. He studied economics at the University of Sydney.

Lesley Salmon was appointed senior vice-president, chief digital & information officer, Kellanova, previously Kellogg Company, in February 2019. She is a member of Kellanova’s executive committee.

Ms. Salmon joined Kellogg in 2014. She served as the European chief information officer, with geographic coverage of all European countries, plus Russia, Egypt and UAE and had regional accountability for information technology, global business services and the european enterprise PMO. She played a key role in operational, tactical and strategic execution across all areas of the business, driving growth initiatives and delivering multi‐million-dollar savings.

Prior to Kellogg, Ms. Salmon had more than two decades of experience in the consumer packaged goods industry.

She began her career with United Biscuits, spending 13 years working on major IT projects, moving through the ranks from junior business analyst to IT controller. Following that, Ms. Salmon moved to Premier Foods where she led the end‐to‐end SAP program and supported the integration of a major acquisition.

Ms. Salmon then moved across industries for five years, leading a major transformation of the IT function within Galaxy Optical, the largest Optical Manufacturer in the U.K.
Throughout her career, she has been a passionate leader and ally in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I). She believes in creating teams and a culture where everyone feels they belong; amplifying her voice to support the advancement of women in technology. Lesley is the executive sponsor of the K Pride and Allies Business Employee Resource Group (BERG) which advocates for equality for LGBTQ+ communities around the world.

Ms. Salmon resides in Wigan, a small town in the North West of England.

Thomas is The Economist‘s global business correspondent. He covers cross-industry shifts in the business world. Prior to The Economist, he worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company, advising clients across a range of sectors. During his time there, he also led research for the firm’s global think tank, Bain Futures. He studied economics at the University of Sydney.

Arjun Ramani is The Economist’s global business & economics correspondent. He joined the paper as a Marjorie Deane intern and has written covers on venture capital (“Adventure Capitalism”) and economic policy (“Enter Third Wave Economics”). Before that he worked on an emerging markets trading desk at Citadel. Arjun’s economics research on the “Donut Effect” of Covid-19 on America’s largest cities has been covered by Bloomberg, The Washington Post and The Economist among other papers. He graduated with honours from Stanford University where he studied economics and computer science and was a Kennedy Prize winner for best undergraduate thesis.

Jeremy Kingsley is global lead for strategic foresight at Economist Impact and regional practice lead for technology and innovation within Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He helps corporations, foundations, governments and non-profit organisations navigate and shape complex issues in technology and innovation policy. Prior to this Mr Kingsley was technology editor at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). He joined The Economist Group in 2017 from Nesta, an innovation foundation, where he oversaw the Challenges of Our Era research programme. He has 15 years’ experience covering technology, innovation and business issues as a journalist, researcher and consultant at WIRED, The Economist, EIU, Financial Times, Slate and the Future Laboratory.

John is the head of Economist Impact’s New Globalisation practice. He is responsible for leading and developing the practice across different geographies and sectors, including both public and private organisations. As the global economy is being transformed by multiple forces including geopolitics, technological progress and climate change, the practice works with clients to navigate these structural shifts and lead conversations towards global progress.

A frequent public speaker, his delivery style helps to provide context to many global issues in an insightful and accessible way, supported by his 15 years in policy and economic analysis.

Most recently, as Director of Macroeconomics, he was responsible for guiding The EIU’s global economic analysis across 200 countries. Prior to this, he was Director of Country Analysis and Global Forecasting. John holds a Master’s degree in International Economics from Sussex University where he specialised in macroeconomics and trade, and an Honours degree in Psychology from the Australian National University.

Dexter Thillien is lead technology and telecoms analyst at the EIU. He has been an analyst since 2008 and joined the EIU in September 2021. Mr Thillien’s areas of expertise include regulation, the intersection between technology and industries as well as between technology and geopolitics, and the strategy of big tech companies. He was recently the lead writer for reports on 5G and cyber-security. Mr Thillien has presented at several telecoms-specific trade conferences, including events organised by the European Commission, and has produced webinars for a wide range of clients.