Charlie Leadbeater

Key Note speaker Charlie Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and strategy, and is one of the most influential creative people in the world. He is author of several acclaimed books; Living on Thin Air, a guide to living and working in the new economy; Up the Down Escalator, an attack on the culture of public pessimism accompanying globalisation and In Search of Work which was one of the first books to predict the rise of more flexible and networked forms of employment.

He has also written extensively and influentially on the case for more personalised, participative approaches to education, most recently a report entitled What’s Next? 21 Ideas for 21st Century Education. He has advised a long list of organisations on innovation strategy, including the BBC, Vodafone, Microsoft, Cisco and Accenture.

In 2002 he was listed by GQ magazine as one of the Most Powerful Men in the UK. The New York Times anointed Charlie’s idea, The Pro-Am Revolution, as one of the biggest global ideas of 2004.