The Future of Business

This JLA Speakers Breakfast looked at how business will change in the years to come with three different perspectives on innovation, disruption and the future of everything. A millennial CEO, a former Google exec turned fintech investor, and a science and technology broadcaster considered the challenges every sector will face and how business will evolve.

Josh Valman

From competing in Robot Wars to starting his own engineering consultancy at the age of 15, Josh now runs an international company helping businesses to become agile and innovative. He and his company RPD International develop prototypes and new processes that would usually take businesses months or even years to test for clients from Vodafone to Unilever. He considers how businesses need to streamline decision-making, tackle problems collaboratively, and become innovative in every aspect of their operation.

Dan Cobley

Dan was in charge of Google’s UK and Ireland operations, and previously its marketing business in the EMEA regions. Combining his tech experience with his time at Capital One he’s now an investor and advisor in the burgeoning fintech sector. Dan looks at how every aspect of banking, finance and payments are being subjected to disruption and the lessons all businesses can learn from how the sector is having to adapt.

Timandra Harkness

As the co-host of Radio 4’s Futureproofing Timandra examines what the future has in store for everything from food to war to language. She’s made science and technology not just accessible but also entertaining with various live shows, and examined the truth and lies behind big data in her book Big Data: Does size matter? Incorporating everything from AI to biotech, but also the social, the commercial and the historical, Timandra considers what will happen to business, whether it really is unprecedented, and what it might all mean to us as workers and consumers.