Four workshops. One leadership journey.
The Eden Smith LAB - Leaders Advisory Board - launched a new People, Data & AI Leadership Series for 2026. This is a collaboration between Eden Smith & our community of experts - helping business leaders build confidence, innovate and embed transformation. Feedback has been incredible with an average event score of 4.7/5. Join one of our free half day workshops or combine multiple sessions for deeper impact.
LAB: People, Data & AI Transformation
Leadership Series
Who is this for?
Audience:
- CEOs & Founders
- Chief Data & AI Officers
- CMO's & heads of customer strategy
- CIOs & CTOs
- HR & People Directors
- Transformation & Strategy Leaders
Duration: 9am - 1pm
Format: Half-day workshop & networking
Location: The Chamberlain Hotel, Tower Hill
Date: Wednesday 3rd June
Delivery: This event is in-person with active and collaborative learning opportunities. We will create a safe space with a non-technical, strategic & human-first approach.
Facilitators: Global leaders from across the functions offer modernist & forward-thinking perspectives.
See HOW this workshop will help you plus register to reserve your space!
People, Data & AI Transformation
Leadership Series - session 2:
"Leading Transformation Through Data, AI and the Customer"
The Programme
Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI:
Aligning the Customer, Decisions & Delivery
Wednesday 3rd June | The Chamberlain Hotel, Tower Hill | 9am-1pm | Arrival drinks at 9am for a 9:20 start
What You’ll Leave With
- A practical diagnostic lens for stalled transformation
- A human-centred AI execution framework
- A coaching model to remove bottlenecks
- Clear leadership behaviours that scale performance
- A network of cross-functional leaders navigating similar challenges
WORKSHOP 1:
Learnings from a Complex Transformation Journey - Virgin Media O2
Shruti Ahuja
In this session, we’ll explore the realities of navigating a large-scale transformation programme within a complex, post-merger environment. Bringing together Virgin Media and O2 has meant more than combining systems - it has required a fundamental shift in how data, technology, and people come together to create value.
From integrating legacy platforms to evolving shared language and ways of working, this journey highlights the challenges and opportunities of embedding data and AI into a newly formed organisation. We’ll touch on how teams have aligned around common goals, rethought processes, and built more customer-centric approaches in the face of scale and complexity.
WORKSHOP 2:
The Choreography of MarTech and Data Stack and their Components: Delivering the CMO's Strategy - the UK National Lottery
Nader Hosni
A practitioner’s perspective on stitching together the full commercial data ecosystem - CDP, campaign management, clickstream, personalisation engines, CRM, social listening, and self-service BI - into a single, coherent stack that actively delivers against CMO objectives, rather than operating as parallel silos.
Anchored in the UK National Lottery case study, where Nader led this end-to-end across a five-year transformation, the session explores the tangible outcomes achieved, including digital revenue uplift and expanded campaign reach.
Expect an honest view on the decisions that really matter - architectural, organisational, and the often-overlooked trade-offs that don’t make it into vendor decks.
WORKSHOP 3:
The Impact of AI on the Consumer Journey in CPG
Naureen Mohammed
AI is fundamentally reshaping how consumers discover, engage with, and purchase products across the CPG landscape - transforming what was once a linear journey into a dynamic, data-driven experience.
From AI-powered product discovery and personalised marketing to predictive insights and intelligent supply chains, brands are increasingly able to understand and respond to consumer behaviour in real time. This shift is enabling more relevant, frictionless experiences - while raising new questions around trust, transparency, and the role of automation in decision-making.
We’ll look at how organisations are using data to drive deeper engagement, adapt to changing expectations, and compete in an increasingly AI-mediated marketplace - alongside the practical challenges of scaling these capabilities across complex CPG ecosystems.
PANEL Q&A:
Aligning the Customer, Data & AI that Drives Deeper Engagement & Loyalty
We conclude with an interactive executive panel connecting the themes:
1. From fragmented to connected: What it really takes to integrate CDPs, MarTech, data platforms and AI into a coherent ecosystem that delivers commercial outcomes.
2. Rewiring the consumer journey with AI: How AI is reshaping discovery, engagement, and loyalty - and what “personalisation at scale” actually looks like in practice.
3. Architecture vs. organisation: Balancing platform decisions with operating model, governance, and ways of working to enable real change.
4. From insight to activation: Closing the gap between data, decision-making, and execution - turning analytics into measurable impact.
5. The realities of transformation: Lessons from complex environments (mergers, legacy estates, regulated sectors) and the trade-offs that don’t make the decks.
Note: Spaces are limited and your place isn’t guaranteed. We will be in touch to confirm your space.
Speakers
Every session is led by a diverse range of insight leaders who want to share their voice, insights and experiences with the community. Our guest speakers talk around key themes that impact business leaders encouraging shared knowledge and topical debate.
If you have a story to share, please get in touch.
Shruti Ahuja
An experienced data leader with over 15 years’ experience, Shruti has led analytics, optimisation and insight functions across both B2B and B2C environments, supporting commercial, marketing and digital decision-making in complex organisations.
She specialises in embedding data into how businesses operate - shaping C-suite strategy, driving prioritisation, and delivering measurable performance improvement across CRO, personalisation and customer engagement.
Having built and led multi-disciplinary teams of up to 45+, she focuses on making insight actionable; connecting customer behaviour, operational performance and financial outcomes to unlock growth. Her experience spans regulated industries including telecoms, financial services and energy, alongside global consumer and digital sectors.
Nader Hosni
Nader is a Data and AI transformation executive with over 20 years’ experience across regulated organisations, PE-backed businesses, and scale-up environments. A true “build-and-operate” leader, he bridges strategy and execution - designing the platforms that deliver measurable business outcomes.
He is Co-Founder and CDAIO at IllumiFi, a cloud-native Analytics-as-a-Service platform serving UK mid-market clients, and also takes on fractional CDO and Head of AI roles for organisations navigating complex transformation.
Previously, as Director of BI, Analytics and MarTech at Allwyn (The UK National Lottery), he scaled the function significantly and delivered an AI-enabled platform driving personalisation, growth, and player protection. Nader has also held senior roles at LSEG, IBM, Deloitte, and Accenture.
Naureen Mohammed
Naureen Mohammed is the founder of CMO Growth Partners and has spent more than 30 years where consumer brands, technology and commercial growth meet.
Her career spans Unilever, Beiersdorf, Johnson & Johnson, Meta and Pinterest, across the UK, EMEA and the Middle East. She has sat on both sides of the table: building brands from the inside and helping shape the platforms that now influence how consumers discover them.
Today, she helps CPG and consumer businesses tackle one of the biggest shifts in modern brand-building: AI and social are changing not just media, but how brands are found, judged and chosen.
Four workshops. One leadership journey.
This is the first of four quarterly sessions across 2026, culminating in an end of year:
- ½ Day Cross-Functional Leadership Conference
- Winter Leadership Party & Networking Reception
Each session builds toward a practical playbook for transformational leadership in the age of AI.
Take action today
Note: Spaces are limited and your place isn’t guaranteed. We will be in touch to confirm your space.
