Nordic Business Forum 2025 Speaker

Speakers > Angela Ahrendts

Angela Ahrendts

Angela Ahrendts, DBE, was most recently the Senior Vice President at Apple Retail based in Cupertino, CA. During her five years in the role, she integrated Apple’s physical and digital businesses to create a seamless customer journey for over a billion visitors a year. Under her leadership, she redesigned the stores and recrafted the roles of 70,000 employees globally. She also reimagined the retail experience with the launch of a transformative educational program focused on coding, music creation, and the arts.

Angela is currently on the Board of Ralph Lauren Corporation, Airbnb, Inc., and WPP plc. She is also on the non-profit Boards of charity: water and the HOW Institute for Society. In January 2021, she became Chair of the Board of Save the Children International. Additionally, she is a member of the Global Leadership Council of the Oxford University Saïd Business School and the British American Business Advisory Board, showcasing her experise and commitment to purpose-driven leadership.

3 Reasons to Learn from Angela

Lead with Purpose and People First

As the former CEO of Burberry and SVP of Retail at Apple, Angela transformed two iconic brands by prioritizing human connection, company culture, and customer experience—key lessons for leaders aiming to build brands with purpose.

Bridge the Digital and Physical Worlds

Angela revolutionized retail by integrating digital innovation with in-store experiences, proving that businesses must blend technology and human interaction to thrive in the modern economy.

Drive Transformation with Emotional Intelligence

Her leadership style is rooted in empathy, vision, and storytelling—qualities that help leaders navigate change, unite teams, and build organizations that people love to work for.

Adam's keynote at Nordic Business Forum 2024

The Science of Achievement and Surfacing Hidden Potential

Adam will take the stage to share invaluable insights on how leaders can unlock their own as well as their team’s full potential and achieve greater things.

  • How to navigate change with confidence and agility
  • Cultivate a culture of innovation and continuous growth
  • Transform challenges into opportunities for unparalleled success

Adam Grant’s keynote will take place on 25 September 2024 in Helsinki, Finland.

Adam Grant

Simon Sinek & Nordic Business Forum

Simon Sinek at NBF 2015

Leaders Eat Last: Sinek awed the crowd with his humanistic approach to leadership based on evolutionary biology.

Simon Sinek at NBF Sweden & Norway 2019

Capitalism, as Adam Smith envisioned it, is broken. Short-term finite thinking is to blame, leadership expert Simon Sinek declared during his keynote address at the Nordic Business Forum Sweden 2019. The result is the culmination of theories which claim that a company’s purpose is to maximize profits within the limits of the law and to prioritize shareholder value over customer and employee welfare.

Why We Chose Simon Sinek

"The latest Thinkers50 Ranking tells the whole story: Adam Grant is on the top of the world when it comes to the science of management and he has been able to continually produce relevant and fresh insights. Besides that, he is just excellent on the stage."
Ville Saarikalle
Ville Saarikalle
Head of Speakers Relations, Nordic Business Forum
NBF 2025

Join Europe's Largest Business & Leadership Event

24-25 September 2025 | Messukeskus, Helsinki