Courage to Lead: Building the Future-Ready Organisation

Kelly Grainger ‘The Autistic CEO’, is a powerful and relatable keynote speaker, bringing lived experience of autism and ADHD and over 25 years in corporate environments and now works at the intersection of neurodiversity, inclusive leadership and workplace conflict.

He was diagnosed as autistic and ADHD in his forties after a successful corporate career in senior roles across global organisations including PepsiCo, Merlin Entertainments and News International.

Kelly blends his experience with practical insight to help organisations build workplaces where neurodivergent people and their teams truly thrive. He is co-founder of Perfectly Autistic, a neurodiversity consultancy delivering training, keynotes and advisory work across the UK and Internationally. He has trained thousands of leaders and employees.

A trusted voice in the field, Kelly has spoken at the United Nations Global Compact and works with organisations including Red Bull F1 Racing, TUI, NHS, British Airways and GSK to name a few. His work is particularly valued for its honesty, clarity and ability to translate neurodiversity from theory into lived, practical workplace change.

Faye Bertram, Partnerships Lead and Co-Director at A Brilliant Thing CIC. Faye’s background spans community building, digital platforms and HR consultancy support, giving her an insight into how wellbeing and work intersect across both online and offline environments. Faye works relationally and practically, strengthening networks, facilitating collaboration and communicating the story of our mission in ways that grow trust, visibility and shared momentum. She leads partnership development, host and facilitate sessions, and support teams to connect strategy with everyday practice.

Specialisms

1. Training facilitation and development support for individuals/team
2. Neurodiversity roundtable speaker
3. Online campaign and events management 4. Partnership Network development support

Kerry Tottingham is a design-thinker, mother and maker, as well as a Chartered Management Institute certified (Level 7) Leadership Coach and Mentor.

Her experience marries skills in facilitation, therapeutic approaches, coaching, organisational and community development, design-thinking and grassroots and system experience across charity, NHS, public and private sectors.

Her work recognises the leadership role of governance and of lived experience, and understand the tools and resources needed to support both.

Anissa is a seasoned organisational design practitioner with a passion for helping organisations achieve strategic alignment. With a career spanning over a decade as an external consultant, Anissa has worked across industries in the Netherlands, the UK, the Caribbean, and North Africa, supporting clients in designing and implementing transformative change. She does this with minimal use of powerpoints, and maximum use of getting stuck in partnering with clients, flipcharts, and post-its. Known for her conceptual thinking, collaborative approach, and silly socks, Anissa also enjoins learning from and teaching cohorts on how to do collaborative org design.

• Previous Chair and Trustee of EODF (2021-2025)
• Faculty of Organisation Design Masterclass (OTM and EODF)
• Is a podcast lover and traveling wanderer

Demola is an organisational development (OD) practitioner with a proven track record of designing, managing, and leading complex change programmes across various sectors. His career began in higher education as a lecturer, where he honed his skills in knowledge transfer before transitioning to OD in the early 2000s. Since then, he has made significant contributions across the civil service in Westminster and beyond.

More recently, he has been working as an Independent Consultant in the NHS, International Development Research as well as supporting emerging communities of practice.

Collective Resilience: Balancing What People and Organisations Need

Drawing on Roffey Park’s white paper on collective resilience, this session explores what happens when organisational and human needs collide. Organisations have to deliver and adapt, while people have limits, competing demands and different needs. We will consider how these tensions can be navigated together, and what it means to see resilience as a collective responsibility rather than something individuals are expected to find for themselves.

Why Groups of Smart People Don’t Make Smart Teams and How to Fix It

Collective Intelligence is the capacity of a team to sustain shared thinking in the face of uncertainty, difference, power dynamics and anxiety, and to translate that thinking into effective action in service of its purpose.
 In today’s complexity, courage unlocks that capacity. Courage here isn’t a trait you have or don’t have it’s something you practice in the moment: speaking up, surfacing uncertainty, and challenging the room so the best available picture can emerge and be acted on.
 This session turns that definition into practice. You’ll experience simple, structured ways to navigate uncertainty and difference, include diverse voices, and stay focused on purpose while converting learning into concrete next steps.

OD is an Essential Leadership Competency. What Does That Mean for You?

Drawing on insights from clients currently upskilling in organisational effectiveness, this workshop explores why OD is becoming an essential leadership competency, not just a specialist function. We will consider what leaders are learning about systems thinking, culture, change and collaboration, and what this shift means for OD practitioners who partner with them. Expect practical reflection on evolving Business Partner roles, influence, and how OD can strengthen leadership impact.

AI, Leadership and Takeaway Pizza: Imagining the Future Organisation

Can the future be organised? In a volatile, fast-changing, unpredictable world: no. Organisations and organising will look different as technology evolves and boundaries and resources shift. This session will be an interactive, digitised invitation to explore how we might negotiate the terrain today.

You Are the Change Instrument: Developing Use of Self in OD Practice

If ‘use of self’ lies at the heart of effective OD practice, where does it actually come from? Can it be taught, intentionally developed, or is it formed through experience and reflection? Drawing on ideas at the centre of Roffey Park’s MSc in People and Organisational Development, this interactive session invites you to explore how your own practice has been shaped. The only requirement is that you bring your ‘self’ with you

Make It Visible: From Complexity to Clarity

Bring 1–3 live leadership challenges and work with them in real time using structured, practical methods for externalising thinking. This is a hands-on session for leaders working under pressure, navigating complexity, competing priorities, and uncertainty. You will translate messy, fast-moving situations into something you can see, interrogate, and work with. Using simple graphical approaches, you make thinking visible—surfacing patterns, assumptions, relationships, and blockers that are often missed in conversation alone. This is not about artistic skill, but about sharper judgement, clearer sense-making, and better decisions. You will leave with practical tools you can use immediately in meetings, strategy work, and problem-solving to move from complexity to clearer, more confident next steps.