How To Get Paid

Want to get on top of your cash flow? Sharpen your negotiation tactics? Adopt a more confident mindset towards money? This is the workshop for you. Hosted by Nicola Brown, Amy Combrinck and Richard Lane, experts in their fields, this active session will teach you skills to bring more power to your earning, whatever role you’re in.

Migration x Mental health x Creative expression

Through personal stories and shared experiences, this fireside chat will uncover the challenges migrant artists face—cultural displacement, systemic barriers, and balancing survival with self-expression. Expect an open, supportive conversation that highlights diverse voices and offers practical steps for building lasting creative networks.

Futures You Can Feel: A Sensory Signal Workshop

This is a playful, hands-on workshop that rethinks trend-spotting through the six senses (yes, six, there is a wild card). Forget spreadsheets, it will start with people, feelings and everyday rituals. From tasting AI Slop to touching loneliness, this creative reset shows that the future isn’t just analysed—it’s experienced and felt.

The Coven in the Corner Office

From tarot cards to astrology apps, practices once seen as fringe are becoming tools for wellbeing, empowerment, and decision-making among today’s leaders. The talk will unpack the cultural forces driving this shift, its ties to gender equity and workplace wellbeing, and what businesses need to know. Expect fresh insights, practical takeaways—and maybe even a ritual or two.

Who Makes The Map?

Frustrated by the ‘sea of sameness’ in strategy? This is an active dinner party style discussion for the room, unpicking the development of modern strategy talent. Led by concepts and ideas from Rosie Collins, Natasha Szczerb and Jonny Almario; we will seek routes to embracing multi-culture and better reflecting society at large through strategic work.

How To Get Paid

Want to get on top of your cash flow? Sharpen your negotiation tactics? Adopt a more confident mindset towards money? This is the workshop for you. Hosted by Nicola Brown, Amy Combrinck and Richard Lane, experts in their fields, this active session will teach you skills to bring more power to your earning, whatever role you’re in.

Stranger than Fiction

Blending game show and talk, this playful session explores shifting realities—AI companions, psychedelics, traditionalism, and more. Through surrealism, zeitgeist, and sci-fi, it asks: what’s real, what’s fiction, and what future do we want? Equal parts fun, hopeful, and thought-provoking, it challenges creators to design for a world of delusion.

What does AI really look like?

Artist Anna Rose and data expert Jono Hutchison explore the aesthetics of AI, contrasting its sleek, futuristic imagery with the industrial realities of servers, surveillance and labour. They reveal how these visual myths influence behaviour and perception, inviting audiences to reflect on AI’s true nature and their relationship with it.

Communication problems in advertising

The advertising industry struggles to communicate its value—especially to young people. This presentation calls for a rebrand of creativity, reframing it as a vital skill for any profession and a tool to future-proof careers. By unpacking issues around talent, access and opportunity, it explores new ways to champion creative problem-solving.

The Freak Shall inherit the Earth

In a new world where originality is an endangered species, Darren Smith and Sachini Imbuldeniya make the bold (and hilarious) case that being odd isn’t just cool — it’s the one competitive advantage we have over the coming tech-pocalypse. We’ll see how algorithms have flattened culture and why the next wave of innovation, creativity and leadership is going to get weird.

Who Makes The Map?

Frustrated by the ‘sea of sameness’ in strategy? This is an active dinner party style discussion for the room, unpicking the development of modern strategy talent. Led by concepts and ideas from Rosie Collins, Natasha Szczerb and Jonny Almario; we will seek routes to embracing multi-culture and better reflecting society at large through strategic work.

Religion and Belief: The Last Frontier of Inclusion?

Despite shaping the lives of over 84% of people worldwide, faith remains absent from most DEI strategies, leaving many employees unseen. Drawing on award-winning programmes across global agencies, this discussion format will explore why belief is still considered ‘too sensitive’ and how organisations can embed faith inclusion through dialogue, policy, and practice—creating workplaces where everyone feels respected and safe.

How To Get Paid

Want to get on top of your cash flow? Sharpen your negotiation tactics? Adopt a more confident mindset towards money? This is the workshop for you. Hosted by Nicola Brown, Amy Combrinck and Richard Lane, experts in their fields, this active session will teach you skills to bring more power to your earning, whatever role you’re in.

Who Makes The Map?

Frustrated by the ‘sea of sameness’ in strategy? This is an active dinner party style discussion for the room, unpicking the development of modern strategy talent. Led by concepts and ideas from Rosie Collins, Natasha Szczerb and Jonny Almario; we will seek routes to embracing multi-culture and better reflecting society at large through strategic work.

The Freak Shall inherit the Earth

In a new world where originality is an endangered species, Darren Smith and Sachini Imbuldeniya make the bold (and hilarious) case that being odd isn’t just cool — it’s the one competitive advantage we have over the coming tech-pocalypse. We’ll see how algorithms have flattened culture and why the next wave of innovation, creativity and leadership is going to get weird.

Hire A Damn Mum

Juggling school runs, chaos, and crises teaches mums to prioritise fast, lead with empathy, and cut through nonsense. They bring real human insight and handle last-minute pressure like pitch rewrites with ease. Motherhood isn’t a slowdown — it’s intense training that produces sharper, more grounded creatives and leaders who know how to get things done while keeping people at the heart of the work.

Guess what, I’ve just been made redundant

This workshop is not just another talk about what’s happening to talent within the industry, it’s a hivemind to have practical discussions and create solutions to one of the biggest problems we’ve all no doubt been affected by in one shape or another – the ‘r’ word. Let's harness our collective power to look out for one another and create opportunities that put humanity back at the heart of our industry.

Making the Workplace Work for Parents

In this roundtable, Victoria Gates-Fleming will explore why balancing career and caregiving remains so challenging—especially in creative industries. She will examine cultural myths, structural barriers, and the invisible load parents carry, while reframing care as shared infrastructure.

Greenwashing, a binary debate

Today’s greenwashing debate is binary. It’s either perfect or an outrage — a banned ad, media pile on and an unmitigated organisational nightmare. This talk holds up a mirror to the advertising community and asks ‘if we are having the wrong arguments around sustainability, what are the right ones’?

An Intergenerational CEO Fireside

A conversation between an established agency leader, Claire Hollands, and a newer founder, Tumisha Balogun, who will look at the traditional agency model and see if it still works in today’s society. How does a legacy offering stack up vs a new supplier? How does a trusted brand rank against a challenger and are they even in competition? Indeed, with innovation coming to the established names, does the industry actually need more new agencies?

A Caregiver Charter

A powerful roundtable tackling how we can better support caregivers and new parents in demanding industries. Expect honest conversation about burnout, overlooked talent, and why we can’t afford to lose these voices. With leaders sharing lived experience and fresh research, the session aims to spark actionable ideas for a more sustainable, inclusive future—where supporting caregivers means strengthening everyone.

Colonial Roots

This session traces advertising’s colonial roots and their lasting impact on identity, representation, and storytelling. Blending presentation with a guided sonic activation, participants will reimagine what communications can look like when restoration is the norm. Instead of fear or performative compliance, the session centres creativity, agency, and responsibility—unlocking more purposeful, expansive, and joyful ways to connect, inspire, and shape the future.

An Intergenerational CEO Fireside

A conversation between an established agency leader, Claire Hollands, and a newer founder, Tumisha Balogun, who will look at the traditional agency model and see if it still works in today’s society. How does a legacy offering stack up vs a new supplier? How does a trusted brand rank against a challenger and are they even in competition? Indeed, with innovation coming to the established names, does the industry actually need more new agencies?

Unlocking new passions from algorithmic exposure

Ever thought about what else the algorithm controls, beyond who sees your posts? In this talk, we discover how it also develops new passions, turning passive curiosities into obsessions. Gone are the days of macro influence; discover the new class of nano-experts, and what it means for our industry.

So what is a junior now?

Agencies are shrinking, DE&I policies are quietly being dropped, entry-level roles are like gold-dust. In this discussion between two experts and mentors, we will explore how we can support junior talent and neurodiverse team members to ensure we are building the scaffolding people need to enter and succeed in our industry.

So what is a junior now?

Agencies are shrinking, DE&I policies are quietly being dropped, entry-level roles are like gold-dust. In this discussion between two experts and mentors, we will explore how we can support junior talent and neurodiverse team members to ensure we are building the scaffolding people need to enter and succeed in our industry.

Men in Media: Changing the narrative

Young men are being left behind and we in the media industry need to play our part in turning that around. Bringing together a decade of crafting a film that shines a light on these issues, as well as the insights from Channel 4’s recent reporting, Emma and Jamie will start a conversation about what we can do to be more authentic in supporting the generations who are being ignored.

Men in Media: Changing the narrative

Young men are being left behind and we in the media industry need to play our part in turning that around. Bringing together a decade of crafting a film that shines a light on these issues, as well as the insights from Channel 4’s recent reporting, Emma and Jamie will start a conversation about what we can do to be more authentic in supporting the generations who are being ignored.

What does AI really look like?

Artist Anna Rose and data expert Jono Hutchison explore the aesthetics of AI, contrasting its sleek, futuristic imagery with the industrial realities of servers, surveillance and labour. They reveal how these visual myths influence behaviour and perception, inviting audiences to reflect on AI’s true nature and their relationship with it.

Live Illustrations

We'll be joined by the scribing spot to capture some of our talks in action, bringing the day to life beyond the camera lens.

DescripHire A Damn Mum

Juggling school runs, chaos, and crises teaches mums to prioritise fast, lead with empathy, and cut through nonsense. They bring real human insight and handle last-minute pressure like pitch rewrites with ease. Motherhood isn’t a slowdown — it’s intense training that produces sharper, more grounded creatives and leaders who know how to get things done while keeping people at the heart of the work.tion goes here