Rory is an accomplished Managing Director with over 30 years’ international experience with sector leading organisations in Healthcare, Technology, FMCG, Executive Education and Organisation Consulting sectors. His career has evolved from a corporate background, having been on the regional board of Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) and has held several leadership positions in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Over the past 20 years, Rory’s focus and expertise has been working with senior executives and organisations on leadership, strategy and change, where his work received a Silver Class Award at the highly acclaimed Management Consulting Awards (UK). 

As the Associate Dean and Head of Sport and High-Performance Business at Hult Ashridge Executive Education (UK), a Premier Executive Leadership Coach with the J&J Human Performance Institute (USA) and an Advanced Neuroscientific High-Performance Coach. Rory works extensively with Boards and Executive team leaders, focusing on achieving peak performance in challenging and complex environments. 

His work in this area is informed by his research into the high-performance parallels between executive business and elite sports teams, highlighted in his TEDxTalk ‘The Reality of Winning’.

Rory earned an MBA from City University, London, during which time he led a project team for the globalisation of GlaxoSmithKline’s nutritional healthcare division, and holds an MSc in Organization Consulting and Change, where he researched into accelerated development processes for senior leaders. He is also the External Examiner for the MSc in Sports Leadership at Cardiff Metropolitan Universities, School of Sport.

Dr. Belisa Marochi is faculty at Hult International Business School Dubai. Additionally, she has held positions at universities in Denmark, Sweden, US and UK. Her research focuses on sustainable development, diplomacy and gender-based agendas. Her experience includes consulting for companies such as Airbus, Kraft Heinz and Procter & Gamble and governments in the GCC, Europe and US. Dr. Marochi holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Roskilde University in Denmark and other degrees in Business Administration and Political Science from IE, Brown University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of California at Santa Barbara.

Larry Mayers joined the Emirates Group in August 2022, as leadership and talent lead. In this role he is responsible for a number of Group wide, Global executive leadership development interventions.  

Prior to joining the Emirates Group he had a variety of roles, including Director of People development at Avolon, a global Aircraft Leasing company, based in Dublin. He has also run his own leadership and organisational development consultancy, where he serviced clients from industries as diverse as Sugar manufacturing, Steel Casting and  personal electronic device development. He built his career based on 10 years at Global Boutique Leadership development house, YSC. Here, as Director, he looked after clients such as British Airways and Shell. He is registered Organisational Psychologist. He is currently a PhD. candidate in politics.

John Whelan is a Director at Corporate Research Forum. Formerly UK HR Director of BAE Systems, the FTSE 100 defence, security, and aerospace company, John’s experience and strengths lie in business and HR Transformation, Organisation Development and Employee Relations. Prior to joining BAE, he held a variety of HR roles in engineering, technology and manufacturing businesses across the telecommunications and semi-conductor industries including Matra-Marconi Space where he was HR Director for the UK and, latterly, Group HRD.