Speakers

1. 

   Rahaf Harfoush

   NYT best-selling author | Digital anthropologist

   Leadership was once relatively straightforward. The leader (without assigning historical guilt to anyone: at the time far more men than women, let alone anyone outside that binary) knew best, and the rest followed. Decisions were made in boardrooms. Success was measured in hours, output and control. Those days are behind us. To navigate the new professional landscape, we are fortunate to have a reliable guide: Rahaf Harfoush. She is a digital anthropologist, strategist and New York Times bestselling author. She studies how technology is fundamentally reshaping the way we work, lead and collaborate — and what that means for people of flesh and blood. Today, she is Executive Director of Red Thread, a think tank that helps organisations navigate complexity, and Professor of Innovation & Emerging Business Models at Sciences Po Paris. Rahaf combines academic rigour with real-world experience. She has written influential books such as Yes We Did (on the role of social media in the Obama campaign), The Decoded Company (on human-centred organisations) and Hustle & Float, a call for creativity and focus in a world that is permanently “on”. She is a sought-after speaker on international stages such as the Nordic Business Forum and Gartner’s Reimagine HR, and is, not by coincidence, one of Peter Hinssen’s favourite speakers. Because she dares to articulate what many feel: that leadership today is less about having the answers, and more about providing direction, creating space and building trust.

1. 

   Jonah Berger

   Professor at Wharton

   Yes, popular influencers have a talent for capturing our attention. But if you really want to understand why ideas take hold, why people say “yes”, and why certain messages stick and strengthen brands, you need to look beyond them. That is exactly what Jonah Berger does. Should you address him as “Professor Berger” — or is “Jonah” just fine? Jonah teaches marketing and is a leading expert in influence and the psychology behind ideas and products that break through. An academic, certainly, but not a smooth talker reciting fashionable theories from an ivory tower. A practitioner at heart, one who has spent more than a decade dissecting how influence works, how behaviour changes, and which words make the difference between ignoring and sharing, between scrolling and buying. On top of that, he has been voted the most popular professor at Wharton, the business school of the University of Pennsylvania (US). His books are global bestsellers. Contagious, Invisible Influence, The Catalyst and Magic Words have been translated into more than 35 languages and sold millions of copies. They sit on the bedside tables of marketers, entrepreneurs and leaders around the world. (If you are not falling asleep with Berger just yet, you now know what to do.) Jonah’s voice resonates from Silicon Valley to Stockholm — from SXSW and the Nordic Business Forum to the Cannes Lions. Hardly surprising when you consider that brands such as Apple, Google, Nike and Amazon rely on his insights to sharpen their messaging.

1. 

   Katrien De Bauw

   Global CEO at TBWA/Media Arts Lab

   Care to bet that you will leave this UBA Trends Day with a new role model? Her name is Katrien De Bauw — and chances are you have not heard of her before. All the more reason to give yourself a gentle slap on the wrist, because for years now Katrien has been helping to build one of the most iconic brands in the world: Apple. The Antwerp native does so with international flair and an unshakeable belief in the power of creativity. Katrien is Global CEO of TBWA/Media Arts Lab, the agency that works exclusively for Apple worldwide. In this role, she leads an international network responsible for the brand’s long-term strategy — for a brand that manages to be instantly recognisable worldwide while remaining locally relevant. For Katrien, creativity is the engine of sustainable growth. Her international career is impressive. She began in Belgium, made her name in London, and went on to hold key roles such as Managing Director at Fallon London and COO at Saatchi & Saatchi. At TBWA/Media Arts Lab, she plays a pivotal role in shaping Apple’s creative and strategic direction, recognised with awards such as a Cannes Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness. In 2025, Apple was named Creative Marketer of the Year at Cannes — an acknowledgement of its consistent, long-term brand building. At a time when agencies are under increasing pressure, Katrien De Bauw stands out as a shining example of visionary creative leadership — and of the conviction that strong brands need bold, surprising ideas. That she did not hesitate for a second to take the stage at our UBA Trends Day says it all: “I want to give back to my country.”

1. 

   Christopher Sanderson

   Co-founder & CEO at The Future Laboratory

   Every barfly knows that predicting the future is a piece of cake. Understanding the future, by contrast, is quite another matter. That is where Christopher Sanderson makes the difference. Christopher is CEO and co-founder of The Future Laboratory, a globally renowned consultancy specialising in forecasting, trend analysis and innovation. For more than twenty years, he has helped brands, governments and cultural institutions not only to see what is changing, but — more importantly — why it is changing and what that means for how we live, eat, travel, shop and think. His client list is impressive: Louis Vuitton, Design Hotels, Women’s Wear Daily and even the Australian Department of Tourism rely on his insights to shape their strategic direction. Christopher is known for his ability to bring together culture, consumer behaviour, technology, and aesthetics into a single, coherent vision of the future. Interpreting future trends was not a starting point in Christopher’s career — which makes his intellectual foundation all the richer. Trained as a theatre director and designer at Goldsmiths, University of London, he worked across the cultural sector, the fashion world and the media. Today, he helps define global trends. And yet he is no Monsieur Soleil, nor does he rely on a crystal ball. What he does instead is read signals that others have yet to notice.

1. 

   Rozemarijn Koppenaal

   Executive Director Marketing at Rituals

   Rituals is one of the most fragrant and more importantly, one of the fastest-growing lifestyle brands in the world. Behind its international expansion lies not a blind pursuit of growth, but a carefully crafted story built on experience, meaning and consistent brand choices. One of the co-authors of that story is Rozemarijn Koppenaal. Rozemarijn is Executive Director of Marketing at Rituals and plays a key role in shaping the Dutch brand’s global brand and customer experience strategy. Working at the intersection of brand, commerce and culture, she helps Rituals achieve double-digit growth without reducing the brand to a sales machine. Before joining Rituals, Rozemarijn held senior marketing and e-commerce roles at Coty, where she served as Global Vice President of E-commerce, and at Procter & Gamble, where she spent ten years working on iconic brands. Her final role there was Global Marketing Leader for the mass retail fragrance portfolio. Growth at Rituals is not only about scale, but also about values. The brand invests structurally in experience, places a strong emphasis on customer relationships, and commits to a clear social purpose: each year, 10 per cent of net profit is donated to charitable causes. For Rozemarijn, this is an integral part of how to build a relevant brand today.

1. 

   Duncan Wardle

   Former Head of Creativity & Innovation at The Walt Disney Company

   Creativity is often seen as a talent: something you either have or you do not. Duncan Wardle takes a radically different view. For him, creativity is not a mystery, but a skill. And innovation is not a lucky accident emerging from some R&D department, but a process. For many years, Wardle was Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney, where he and his team helped unlock creative firepower across powerhouses such as Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Imagineering and the Disney Parks. His mission: how do you prevent creativity from getting stuck in structures, success formulas and endless meetings. Especially in an organisation that has been producing global hits for decades, this is a tough challenge. After his adventures at Disney, Duncan devoted himself fully to sharing his insights. He developed practical tools and methods that make innovation tangible, even for people who consider themselves “not creative.” His recent book, The Imagination Emporium, brings these insights together in a hands-on guide to creative growth. Duncan teaches innovation and creativity at Yale and Harvard and is a much sought-after (TEDx) speaker on international stages. In 2023, he was ranked number four in the global Top 50 of the most inspiring leaders, alongside names such as Simon Sinek, Tony Robbins and Arianna Huffington.

1. 

   Meredith Whittaker

   President at Signal

   AI is here to stay. Whether you like it or not. What lies under the bonnet? More data, more automation, more power. But who decides how that technology is deployed, and for whose benefit? That is the question that keeps Meredith Whittaker awake at night. And after UBA Trends Day, hopefully you too (though we would not wish you any sleepless nights). Meredith is President of the Signal Foundation, the organisation behind Signal, the world’s most widely used private messaging app. She is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative voices globally on the ethical use of technology and artificial intelligence. In 2023, TIME Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in AI. She spent thirteen years at Google, where she led product and engineering teams, founded Google’s Open Research Group, and helped build M-Lab into the world’s largest open data source on internet performance. Meredith later chose a different role: that of critical thinker and doer. At New York University, she co-founded the AI Now Institute, an influential research centre-without-blinkers, dedicated to exposing the societal impact of AI. Meredith does not march in step with the “Magnificent 7” — the dominant Big Tech giants (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla) that currently set both the pace and the direction of technological development. On the contrary. She openly challenges their business models, their concentration of power and their approach to data. It is this stance that makes her such a distinctive, and controversial voice.

Moderator

1. 

   Steven Van Belleghem

   Customer experience enthusiast & Co-founder at Nexxworks

   Steven is the author of several international bestsellers, including When Digital Becomes Human, Customers the Day After Tomorrow, The Offer You Can’t Refuse, and most recently, A Diamond in the Rough. His passion is to inspire people about the customer experience of the future. Steven believes that entrepreneurs can only truly connect with their customers' hearts by approaching them with empathy and as fellow human beings. This can be achieved by playing the long-term game and using new technology with common sense. Success naturally follows from this approach. As an international keynote speaker, Steven has delivered over 1,500 presentations in 45 different countries. At the UBA Trends Day, Steven will be your moderator.