A Meeting of Minds: Introducing Masters’ Speakers
What does it take to create value in a rapidly changing world? This November, MASTERS by inVOYAGE brings together four academics from King’s Business School and a strategist from McLaren Automotive to challenge conventional thinking and explore what gives businesses a competitive edge. Here's a closer look at who’s in the room, and the expertise they’ll be bringing with them…
Winning Hearts, Minds & Markets:
Dr Gillian Brooks
Kicking off the programme with an opening keynote on the Science of Influence is Dr Gillian Brooks.
Associate Professor of Marketing and Director of the Executive MBA Programme at King's Business School, Dr Gillian Brooks has spent the majority of her career studying why some voices cut through and others do not in the world of influencer marketing and digital media. Her work has been published in the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Psychology, and her commentary has appeared everywhere from The Economist to the BBC. Before academia, she worked as a publicist for a global media relations firm in Toronto, so she has seen the practical side of persuasion too.
In The New Science of Communication and Influence: Winning Hearts, Minds and Markets, she lifts the lid on what really drives attention, trust and action when audiences are more fragmented than ever. Expect cutting-edge research alongside real-world examples, with plenty that applies to anyone who pitches, presents or persuades for a living.
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A sharper understanding of how people are persuaded, and how to use it in your next client presentation, proposal or pitch.
Gillian returns later in the day with a hands-on workshop, Developing a Leadership Brand That Inspires Trust, Attracts Talent and Wins Clients. The aim is to leave with a clear sense of your own leadership reputation, how to communicate with more clarity and influence, and how to lead with authenticity at a time of rapid change.
Could AI Make Every Client Experience Feel Personal? Professor Ko de Ruyter
Few people have spent longer thinking about what makes customers loyal than Professor Ko de Ruyter.
Ko is Professor of Marketing at King's Business School, with research published in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Consumer Research and Management Science. In his role, he frequently advises key decision-makers across the private and public sectors, and his contribution to the field has been recognised with a lifetime achievement award from the American Marketing Association. With market places rapidly changing, Ko has become increasingly passionate about bringing practical relevance to his research, looking at how new technology changes the way organisations serve their customers, and how that translates into real business performance.
His masterclass, Unlocking Value Through Augmented CX, tackles one of the biggest questions in the industry right now. With AI moving beyond automation and productivity into insight, engagement, personalisation and execution, where does that leave the human touch? And how do you work alongside AI to build trusted relationships and brand strength?
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A fresh way of thinking – particularly in how technology can lift the client experience, and where it should step aside.
Ko also joins the fireside chat on day two, exploring the role of AI in accelerating marketing performance.
Marketing to Machines: Dr Andrés Gvirtz
The future is closer than you think. Explore what it means to win when your first audience is a machine.
Few speakers are better placed to explain how AI is changing the way people choose than Dr Andrés Gvirtz - Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Technology and Behaviour at King's Business School and Research Affiliate at King's Institute for Artificial Intelligence. A psychologist by training, with a PhD from the University of Cambridge and a Visiting Fellowship at Harvard, he studies how generative AI is changing personalisation, and how to use micro and macro level information to understand and influence consumer behaviour. Alongside his research, Andrés advises technology start-ups and routinely collaborates with companies such as Nokia Bell Labs.
His masterclass, Marketing to Machines: How to Win the AI-Powered Event Buyer, asks what it takes to be chosen when AI moves from search tool to decision-maker. How do clients now discover, compare and choose agencies, destinations, venues and experiences? And what does winning look like when the first audience is an algorithm?
Expect a practical look at visibility, credibility, content, data, differentiation and trust.
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A clearer view of how AI is changing the way your clients, and your competitors, are found, and what to do about it.
Why the Ultimate Luxury May Be Slowing Down: Dr Katharina Husemann
In a world obsessed with speed, there is a growing appetite for the opposite.
Dr Katharina Husemann, Reader in Marketing at King's Business School, has built her career on understanding why. Her research explores how people experience a globalised, accelerated and digitalised consumer culture, from sustainable consumption to time, spirituality and digital life. She spends time with the people she studies using ethnographic methods*, which means her insights come from real behaviour rather than assumptions. Her work has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research and Harvard Business Review, and has featured in The Sunday Times and The Telegraph.
In Selling Slowness: Responding to Consumers' Increasing Desire to Decelerate, she draws on research from Craigberoch's Business Decelerator to explore how slower experiences can lead to deeper connection, lasting transformation and new business opportunities.
For anyone designing incentives, retreats and leadership programmes, this one is hard to resist. What would a programme look like if the most valuable thing it offered was time?
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New ideas for building space, stillness and meaning into luxury programmes, and a research-backed way to pitch them.
*A research method that involves a researcher immersing themselves in a group or community's natural environment to study their culture, behaviors, and social interactions from an insider's perspective
Where Brand Meets Performance:
Eliot Salandy Brown
Behind one of the world’s most coveted performance brands sits a question every luxury business faces: what comes next?
Eliot Salandy Brown is Director of Creative Strategy at McLaren Automotive, where he leads global brand and design strategy for one of the world's most recognisable performance names. Over 20 years, he has led strategy projects for Google, Ford, LEGO, Eli Lilly, Adidas and Accor, helping leaders define future products, experiences and growth opportunities. A social scientist trained at the London School of Economics, he specialises in turning shifts in customer behaviour, culture and technology into new brands and offerings. Most recently, he ran the AI division at Native Design before joining McLaren.
At MASTERS, he joins Ko de Ruyter and Gillian Brooks for the fireside chat, The Role of AI in Accelerating Marketing Performance. It is a rare chance to hear academic research tested against the realities of running a premium brand.
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A view from the inside of a luxury brand on how AI, creativity and distinctiveness work together.
Put it All to Work: The Experience Lab
Ideas are only as good as what you do with them, which is why day two brings a challenge.
In The Experience Advantage Lab: Building a Defensible Premium Position in Your Market, teams step into the role of senior leadership at a premium experience business. Using an MBA-style case from the King's approach to executive education, they diagnose the challenge, navigate the trade-offs and build a strategy that protects differentiation while still driving profitable growth. Then they present their recommendations.
It happens alongside senior leaders from the luxury experience sector, so delegates can test their thinking with people who face these decisions every day.
To find out more about MASTERS by inVOYAGE and how you can get involved next year, get in touch with the inVOYAGE team or visit invoyage.net/events