Ruth Rogers was born in New York City in 1948.  She was educated at The Colorado Rocky Mountain School, Bennington College, and the London College of Printing.

Ruth worked in the art department of Penguin books with David Pelham and later at Piano and Rogers Architects in Paris.

Ruth and Rose Gray opened The River Cafe in 1987. The restaurant has been awarded the ‘Best Italian Restaurant of the Year’ and a Michelin Star in 1997, which they have retained ever since.

In 1995 Ruth published her first cookbook with Rose Gray, The River Café Cookbook, and presented a 12-part series for Channel 4, The Italian Kitchen. They published a further 10 cookbooks, all of which have been on the best seller list.

In 2010, Ruth was awarded an MBE. She is on the panel of the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award and is a trustee for the charities Refuge and Index on Censorship. Ruth also supports Maggie’s, The Dyslexia Institute and Democrats Abroad.

Robert Falck is the CEO and founder of Einride, a tech start-up bent on the sustainable transformation of the transportation industry, developing an intelligent road freight system based on all-electric, autonomous trucks, or “T-pods”. Before founding Einride in 2016, Mr. Falck was a director of manufacturing engineering assembly at Volvo GTO Powertrain. A serial entrepreneur, he is a co-founder of Vnu, a nightclub business intelligence solution, The Great Wild, a hunting app, and Keyflow, an event service platform.

Mr. Falck holds a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, a B.Sc. in Economics and finance, and a B.Sc. in Business.

Peter invests in deep technology and science to help solve the world’s biggest problems. He is a partner at Vitruvian; a venture partner at BlueYard and LocalGlobe; an advisor to Entrepreneur First and Future Positive Capital; and a Trustee of Frazzled Cafe, Doteveryone, StrongMinds, and the Oxford Mindfulness Centre. He is an angel investor/advisor in over 100 tech startups.

Patrick Spence is the Chief Executive Officer and serves on the Board of Directors for Sonos.

Patrick joined Sonos as Chief Commercial Officer in 2012. He has played a central role in the development and launch of some of the company’s most successful products. Patrick has also led the company’s expansion into new territories including China, France, Australia, and Mexico.

Prior to joining Sonos, Patrick spent over 14 years at RIM/BlackBerry in a variety of roles, including overseeing sales channels and country marketing operations in various regions including North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, ultimately becoming the Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. During Patrick’s time at RIM/Blackberry, the company grew from $50 million in revenue to more than $20 billion, and from 150 people to more than 17,000.

In 2007, Patrick was named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40, a national program to celebrate leaders of today and tomorrow and to honor Canadians who have reached a significant level of success.

Patrick holds an Honors Degree in Business and Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

Brilliant Minds aims to convene the bold visionaries who don’t just consume culture but produce it. Ozwald doesn’t only shape beautiful designs, he shapes new identities and beautiful souls. His designs move us. They have Rhythm, splendor of sentiment, texture, melody, visual beauty, and unsentimental soulfulness.

Born in London to Ghanaian parents, Ozwald Boateng has been a prominent figure on the international menswear scene and the founder of Made in Africa, a foundation set for the future of Africa’s development.

Entirely self taught he began tailoring at the age of 16. His skills led him to set up a design studio on London’s famous Portobello Road, in his early twenties and in 2005 named the Men’s Creative Director at Givenchy. With a client list that ranges from business leaders to Heads of State, Royalty and celebrated figures from music, film and entertainment. He has designed and created wardrobe pieces for some of the most iconic television shows and blockbuster movies the most recent being Marvel’s epic Black Panther. Most recently Ozwald showcased his new Collection ‘AI’ at the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem, which celebrated Authentic Identity and Artistic Intelligence.

Boateng has had a transformational impact on menswear fashion for almost three decades, and we can’t wait to listen to him speak about his art and activism on stage!

Othman Laraki is founder and CEO of Color, the world leader in genetics-driven personalized care delivery systems. Othman spent several years at Google, where he worked on Google’s performance infrastructure and client-side software, including the Google Chrome browser. Following Google, he co-founded MixerLabs, which was acquired by Twitter in 2009. At Twitter, Othman was the Vice President of Product, helping create the company’s first revenue products and grow the user base from 50 to 200 million users. Othman holds degrees in computer science and management from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Othman is a long-time tech investor and advisor to over 80 companies, including Pinterest, AngelList, Slack, Instacart and others.

Kiari Kendrell Cephus known professionally as Offset is a rapper, songwriter and member of the hip-hop trio, Migos. Hailing from Lawrenceville, Georgia, the father of four made his solo debut this year, topping the charts with his authentic and vulnerable storytelling. Touching on themes of family and community, Offset has established himself as one of our generation’s leading voices and a cultural icon. The business mogul is an investor in MUZIK and is working on a number of product and content initiatives with the Company.

In 2009, Nicole Avant was sworn in as the 13th U.S. Ambassador to The Commonwealth of The Bahamas after a unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate. She is the youngest person and first African-American woman to hold the office where she served until 2011.

During her tenure, she focused on six key initiatives: economic and small business development, education, women’s empowerment, bringing an end to human trafficking, alternative energy, and raising awareness for the challenges facing people with disabilities. Her push beyond traditional diplomacy led to her nomination for the State Department’s prestigious Sue M. Cobb Award. This admiration led a group of Bahamian business leaders to form The Ambassador Nicole Avant Scholarship Foundation to provide academic scholarships to students throughout the islands.

Ambassador Avant is an active board member for A Sense of Home and is a current Trustee at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Ambassador Avant was a leading business executive serving as VP of Interior Music Publishing from 1998-2008.

As the CEO of Brilliant Minds Foundation, an initiative focused on bringing together traditional, long-term business families and the newest disruptors to debate the convergence of humanity and technology. The Brilliant Minds Foundation focuses on scaling Swedish values and shining a light on the innovation ecosystem.

Natalia Brzezinski also serves as CEO for Brilliant Minds annual two-day leadership summit in the creative setting of Stockholm. Because she believes that innovation is borderless and one of the few things everyone can unify around in the post-modern era. She works to connect and activate the new leaders of tomorrow who will be creators, builders and artists, to challenge conventional thinking in business and society, as well as identify new drivers, incentives and components of innovation.

Natalia is an experienced moderator, journalist, and communications strategist focused on building dynamic dialogue across numerous sectors and cultures. She has held cutting-edge roles in the U.S. Senate Press Office for Senator John Kerry, to The Huffington Post, to the U.S. Embassy in Sweden focusing on the intersect of digitalization and diplomacy, innovation and leadership.

Natalia is the host of the podcast series, The Brilliant Minds Podcast, a Spotify original in collaboration. She holds open and honest conversations with leading entrepreneurs, politicians, artists and disruptors that share a passion for leveraging creativity for social impact.

She is a Global-Editor-at-Large at Thrive, the new lifestyle and media platform launched by Arianna Huffington.

Naomi Campbell is without doubt one of the most prolific and influential profiles of contemporary culture today. One of the five original supermodels, Naomi was the first black model to appear on the cover of TIME magazine, French and Russian Vogue as well as the first British black model to appear on the cover of British Vogue.

Naomi’s most prominent work is with the continent of Africa which began in 1993, when she met the late Nelson Mandela who went on to name her his “Honorary Granddaughter” for her endless activism. 2018 saw the continuation of her work in South Africa when she co-hosted Global Citizen’s NY Festival, and co-produced the organization’s benchmark event, Mandela 100, in SA.

In 2019 Naomi was the keynote speaker at the Forbes Africa Women Summit in Durban, SA. Naomi’s next endeavor will aim to integrate African and international luxury markets- bringing storied retailers to different countries as well as introducing African artists to global audiences. In partnership with the UN, Naomi has supported the International Women’s Day’s Peace March which aims to end violence against women. As an advocate for HIV/AIDS research, Campbell is a longtime partner of UNAIDS where in 2018, she visited Lesotho to tour a hospital/adolescent center designed to offer youth friendly sexual health services and launched The Lesotho HIV and Health ‘Situation Room’ alongside the Deputy Prime Minister.

Naomi has also founded her own non-profit Fashion For Relief and since its inception in 2005, the organization has raised millions of dollars for various global crisis.