Arne GAST

Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company

Arne Gast is McKinsey's global leader of their change, culture and leadership offerings. He is also the cofounder and current chair of Aberkyn, McKinsey's specialized change leadership facilitation group.

Over the last 25 years, Arne has lead organization and change work in Europe, Middle East and Asia – living in Southeast Asia and The Netherlands. He works across diverse sectors such as retail platforms, financial institutions, telecommunications, energy, airlines, and public services. He focuses on shaping positive transformation programs that shift purpose and strategy, boost performance, and improve organizational health.

Arne was part of the teams that wrote "Deliberate Calm," "Beyond Performance," "Reorg," "Mobilizing Minds," and "Blue Ocean Strategy." He regularly publishes in the McKinsey Quarterly and shares his ideas through podcasts and guest lectures.



Passionate about education, Arne founded leerKRACHT Foundation, collaborating with teachers in over 1000 Dutch schools to improve student outcomes. He serves on the board of UWC Maastricht, played a role in launching a school for gifted children, facilitated at the Dutch Moroccan Leadership Institute, and assisted multiple universities in shaping their strategy.

Thomas KOLSTER

"Mr. Goodvertising", Post Purpose Preacher, Marketing & Sustainability Advisor, International Keynote Speaker and Author

Thomas Kolster is a frontrunner and one of the most recognised thinkers globally where marketing, business and sustainability meet. He has written two books Goodvertising (Thames & Hudson 2012) and The Hero Trap (Taylor and Francis, 2020). With his first book Kolster popularised the term Goodvertising to describe advertising delivering positive environmental or societal benefits. With his second book he forewarned about a post-purpose market, where people don't buy your values or your "why", but rather who you can help them become. He continuously challenges the status-quo with his vocal, and often provocative, views on values, purpose, and leadership.

Thomas is an international keynote speaker who has featured in over 80 countries for companies like Meta, adidas, P&G, and IKEA, to conferences like TEDx, SWSW and Advertising Week. As the founder of the Goodvertising Agency, he advises Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, non-profits and governments on more creative strategic approaches to brand and business impact. His pen rarely rests as he writes for the likes of The Guardian, Ad Age, and Adweek. Monthly, Thomas joins Adage's podcast Purpose Hits and Misses taking a critical look at global purpose campaigns. Together with climate solutions platform, We don't have time, he runs a streaming show called Climate Punk, where he interviews diverse people in the climate space.

Thomas continues to drive industry change through his active participation in leading forums, such as The International Advertising Association's Sustainability Council, D&AD's Impact Council and Act Responsible. He helps to promote best practice as go-to judge of top award shows such as Cannes Lions and D&AD.

Thomas is also an eager entrepreneur and has launched impact platforms such as Projector, WhereGoodGrows and ImpactPimp because his belief is simple: Change begins with you!