Brian McBride

As CEO of Amazon UK from 2006-11 and then Chairman of ASOS PLC from 2012-18 Brian has been one of Europe’s foremost digital disruptors over the past 12 years.

As CEO of Amazon UK from 2006-11 and then Chairman of ASOS PLC from 2012-18 Brian has been one of Europe’s foremost digital disruptors over the past 12 years. He has just been appointed Chair Designate of Trainline PLC after its recent £1.6bn IPO. He has also served on the Boards of AO PLC, The BBC, Celtic FC PLC, Huawei’s Advisory Board, the UK Government’s digital Advisory Board, Kinnevik AB. He is a Senior Adviser at Lazard, and also Scottish Equity Partners.

In his Executive career Brian held senior global roles at IBM, Dell, Lucent and was CEO of T Mobile UK. He has led businesses that are all very customer -focussed and who have used digital and technology to delight those customers and disrupt the competition. He has Exec and Board experience across the global digital world, from China and Japan to US and Germany. He has experience across tech, digital, broadcast, media and sport, as well being a UK Government Adviser.

Brian talks about the forces that brought this disruptive era about, from the Internet and PCs, to the mobile era and social media. He talks about the big giants who didn’t read Darwins Theory of Evoltuion, who couldn’t change sat enough and who died along the way, DEC, Compaq, Kodak, Nokia, Blackberry. And he talks about the importance of leveraging AI and machine learning in you to anticipate and deliver what customers want today and tomorrow. And he’ll forecast what industries and companies are under threat. The retail industry , and media, entertainment, travel and banking to mention a few will need to transform or they will die, and quickly. Standing still is not an option. You have to evolve – or die.

Brian then concludes by saying that mastering the above is important, but it is leadership culture and behaviour that will determine who wins. He compares from personal experience the different leadership styles and culture of the new digital giants, contrasting it with the IBM,/Dell/ T-Mobile style of companies, having worked with both. He talks about what good leadership looks like in the modern, disruptive digital world. He talks about Amazons leadership principles, and about John Adair’s ‘Characteristics of Great Leaders’.

Brian has delighted audiences across the world, including events in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Dubai, Russia, USA, Brazil, Czech, Romania, Spain, France, Holland, Portugal, Germany, and of course all over the UK.