Meet The BEYOND Keynotes & Speakers!

We are delighted to introduce you to some of our 40+ speakers, including experienced and renowned names as well as new voices from across the creative industries. BEYOND Conference runs from 20-21 October, online and in Belfast, with a schedule packed full of discussions, panels, fireside talks and more.

Browse our speaker page to discover more about the exciting talent that will be joining us in Belfast to share their thoughts, ideas and expertise.

Welcoming Our BEYOND Keynote Speaker: Sir Peter Bazalgette

Sir Peter Bazalgette will be opening BEYOND on Tuesday 20th October with a keynote reflecting his thoughts on the conference theme of Creative Places. Sir Peter is non-executive Chair of ITV and also Chairs online retailer, LoveCrafts. He has been a Non-Executive Board Member of UKRI and from 2013 to 2017 was Chair of Arts Council England. He has halso been a Non-Executive Director of DCMS and Channel 4, as well as President of the Royal Television Society and Chief Creative Officer of Endemol.

Angela Chan: Head of Inclusion & Doctoral Researcher at StoryFutures, Royal Holloway University

Angela Chan will be joining us at BEYOND to chair the Augmenting Places: AR for the People session, which will be exploring the responsibilities that AR makers have to place and the communities that live in those places. Angela has worked across the UK television industry for over twenty years in documentary and commissioning roles. Most recently she was Head of Creative Diversity for C4 and has held similar roles at the BBC and Pact.

Sinead O'Sullivan

Sinead O’Sullivan: Senior Researcher at Harvard Business School

Sinead O’Sullivan is a Senior Researcher working with Prof. Michael E. Porter at Harvard Business School, focusing on strategy and competitiveness. Her research into technology and governance has taken her previously to the European Space Agency, NASA, Harvard & MIT.


At BEYOND, Sinead will be moderating ‘The City: A Legacy System?’ session, which will investigate how the long-standing trend towards digital presence at work, massively accelerated by our experience of lockdown, is changing how we manage creativity and innovation and the place of cities in our working lives.

Parag Khanna: Leading Global Strategy Advisor, World Traveler, & Best-Selling Author

Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author as well as being Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap. He will be joining Sinead O’Sullivan in The City: A Legacy System?’ session alongside Dr. Mark Lutter and welcoming back Professor Alex McDowell, a keynote at BEYOND 2018 in London, as they discuss how our traditional notions of cities – and nations – and how we inhabit them, are being challenged.

Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.”

We have all of the above and so much more lined up for this years’ BEYOND Conference. Our schedule and speaker pages are now live on the website for those who would like more detail of events taking place in Belfast, 20-21 October.

Tickets are on sale now and don’t forget that there are extra special events taking place on the 19th and 22nd October for those who attend the conference in person.

See you at BEYOND!