The G&T Sessions

Ronan Dunne Ronan is EVP & Group CEO of Verizon Consumer. He leads the teams responsible for providing wireline voice, data and TV products and services and wireless connected experiences to more than 100 million consumers every day. In addition, his teams are helping to build the first 5G technology network that will redefine how customers live, work and play. Prior to this, Ronan was executive vice president and president of Verizon Wireless, responsible for all aspects of Wireless’ strategy, product development, marketing, operations, customer care and digital operations. He led the teams that provide products and communications services for consumer, business and government customers on the nation’s largest and most reliable network. Before coming to Verizon, Ronan was chief executive officer of Telefónica UK (O2). While leading O2 UK, the largest wireless operator in the United Kingdom, he significantly improved market leadership across brand, customer satisfaction and loyalty. Ronan was previously O2’s chief financial officer in the UK, and prior to that, served as head of finance and deputy to the group chief financial officer of O2. Prior to joining O2 in 2001, Ronan held senior positions in banking with Banque Nationale de Paris and in the corporate sector with Exel plc. and Waste Management International plc. He is a fellow and former council member of the Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI) and a fellow of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT). Ronan is a Counsellor for the One Young World charity that brings together young leaders from around the world and empowers them to make lasting connections to create positive change. Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Ronan and his wife Elaine now reside in New Jersey, USA. He is an avid sports fan and enjoys soccer, rugby, field hockey and traveling with his family. This was a great Episode with Ronan and for him to share his journey and advice for anyone on their journey today. Enjoy !

With over three decades of experience and a proven track record at leading global corporations, Ziad Matar is a digital native, leader in emerging technologies, 5G, entrepreneurship, and a firm believer that the right talent powers innovative businesses. As the founding partner of Meditari, a digital advisory network, Ziad’s expertise helps bridge the gap between global innovation and local opportunities. He is the Executive Chairman at Coconut an online social recruitment community for the hospitality industry that offers an extensive portfolio of candidates for client facing positions. Ziad is a Board Member of Potential.com, a leading EdTech platform and President of the Dubai Chapter of TiE, a worldwide organisation fostering entrepreneurship since 1992. Known for his strategic mindset, extensive regional network and driven personality, he remains at the forefront of change as a sought-after thought leader and true global citizen. Ziad’s previous professional experience spans a sales and technology-focused stint at Ericsson, before he moved to Qualcomm and led strategic business development across the MEA region. With so many hats in the ring, Ziad is a globally recognised intellectual, professional moderator and active participant in the World Economic Forum and shares his learnings in the field of IoT, 5G, advanced technologies and entrepreneurship. He is driven to support and build the region’s innovation ecosystem as a true believer in the power of the digital era. When he’s not out advancing the digital world through innovative solutions, Ziad is a casual photographer, an accidental athlete, and most importantly, unanimously appointed Chief BBQ Officer. The ultimate all-rounder. Very enjoyable episode with Ziad and he also has launched his own podcast, Wirelessly Yours...Enjoy ! LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/wirelessly/ Twitter https://twitter.com/wirelessly Website https://www.wirelessly-yours.com/about-ziad-matar

Dominique is currently a Solutions Engineer at HashiCorp. Being passionate about music, technology and giving back to the community, she prides herself in being a keen learner, solver of problems and connector of dots and people. Always interested in more efficient ways of doing things and helping others to do the same. Aside from having been an active part of the DevOps Community in London since 2016, these are some of the cool community things she is doing or has done; Docker Community Leader for the London ChapterDocker London Meetup Organiser (http://docker.london/getinvolved)Cloud Native London Co-OrganiserContainer Camp Super Meetup Co-OrganiserDevOpsDays London 2019 / 2020 OrganiserDevSecOps Days London 2020 OrganiserCo-Founder and Ambassador of Teck Camp (formerly known as Meetup Mates)Ambassador for Menta (ismenta.com)Emcee’d the 1st ever HashiConf Digital EU, June 2020Ambassador for OpenUK (openuk.uk) This was a lively episode with Domi as she is legendary on London Tech Community scene and always helping people to do great things. Enjoy ! LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiquetop/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/devopsdom 

Simon Scott-Nelson joins us for today's Episode. Simon is Founder at Wellity, was recently a finalist in the Great British Entrepreneur 2020, a regular Public Speaker and proudly the Mental Health & Wellbeing Leader at ISM Simon's first sales business was started in the property industry in 2009 which grew to two offices, included four business acquisitions and a successful exit in 2017. Simon realised that what he has really enjoyed over 20 years in business and corporate leadership across various industries is creating a rewarding environment for people, motivating teams and helping everyone on in their careers. He realised there must be a way to improve the sales industry’s approach to mental health and wellbeing and this is now his burning passion. Following a period in his life where he experienced burn-out, he also gained a healthy appreciation for mental health, which in turn, through resilience, led to the birth of Wellity. Wellity now helps organisations from all across the world, unite, learn and normalise the conversation around their Mental Health and wellbeing. Wellity is a network of wellbeing experts and partners that provides a community for people to craft the best versions of themselves. Wellity ethos - Success comes in the form of changing habits, making small steps and having at least one eye on health and wellbeing. Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by actions. Simon is also delighted to be Chair of the ISM Mental Health and Wellbeing Committee, collaborating with the world’s leading experts to bring the best wellbeing advice to organisations around the world. Given the continuing challenges we all face in 2020 I hope you enjoy this episode and learn from Simon and it helps you think about your own lives. All the best Simon can be contacted Website – www.be-wellity.co.uk Facebook / Twitter / Instagram - @BeWellity LinkedIn / You Tube – Wellity Email – ssn@wellity.co.uk

Mary Senkowska, is CEO of My Creative Brain and a Leadership coach, originally from the Netherlands but today joining the show from New York, USA. Mary is passionate about inspiring leaders to become unstoppable in creating positive and sustainable change in their organisations. Her approach is distinguished by a modern, transformative approach to leadership of the future. She is an alumni of Heidrick & Struggles, working on global executive search and leadership consulting, was the youngest PCC certified coach in the world and shortlisted as one of the most promising minds in the digital space in the Netherlands. She’s delivered coaching and intercultural communication training across 40+ countries and executive coaching to executives across many industries. Now bringing My Creative Brain to the world to help everyone realise their potential. Great episode with Mary and would love your feedback. Enjoy. https://www.linkedin.com/company/mycreativebrain/ https://www.instagram.com/my_creativebrain/ https://twitter.com/m_creativebrain https://www.facebook.com/creativebrainacademy/ www.mycreativebrain.eu

Shaun Sharkey operates in the Investment Team at Crowdcube. His role is to source the U.K's hottest startups for the Crowdcube platform. He assists those startups to raise investment from the crowd, which enables them to unlock the power of community-driven growth. This was an entertaining discussion about Startups, Scale-ups and how Shaun helps Founders, Co-Founders to make their dreams come true through crowd funding. This phenomenon was pioneered by Crowdcube who've helped organisations such as Monzo, Brewdog, Revolut, Perkbox and more recently what3words and Moneybox plus many other's to get support and access to capital to scale their idea. Since this episode was recorded a huge announcement that Crowdcube and Seedrs, have agreed to merge, in a move that will accelerate their shared plan to create the world’s largest private equity marketplace and further democratise investment. We also delve into Shaun's love of history and football and confirm his favourite team is Liverpool F.C. Enjoy the episode. Twitter: @sshrkey  Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaun-sharkey/ Email: shaun.sharkey@crowdcube.com

Travis Fox has been Architecting lives, cultures and stages for 30 years, holding doctorates in both psychology and clinical hypnotherapy. Reaching beyond the common conscious & subconscious models. Travis has perfected a step-by-step program designed for those who are ready to transform their lives and wake up from the hypnosis of the day to day boredom. Travis’ online training program allows anyone, anywhere to unwind their mind’s thoughts to redefine and refine their habits, processes, interrupt negative thoughts and arrive with skills to Architect not only their lives, but their lifestyle. Travis has been named by Yahoo Finance as a top 20 entrepreneurs for 2020 and even more recently Top 20 Instagram Influencers by BuzzFeed. Travis has been on radio shows, podcasts and television programs across the country. Some of which include "The Dew Sweepers”' on XM Radio Saturday mornings, as well as the Sigurd Vedal, Travis Chappel and more. From television programs like ABC's "One Life to Live '', The Nashville network and Resorts Networks to name a few. He also has most recently appeared in such documentary films “Beyond The Secret-The Awakening,” (March 2020) the long awaited sequel to “The Secret,” as well as “How Thoughts Become Things” (April 2020). Coming from the world of movies and entertainment makes all of his interviews no matter the platform a truly one of a kind entertaining, educational experience. Facebook, Twitter & Instagram @TravisFox360 Linkedin, YouTube Travis Fox - Architects of BEing®

Elvin Turner is an award-winning consultant, TEDx speaker and associate professor of innovation, entrepreneurship & creativity at several business schools. Elvin has coached and facilitated hundreds of strategy and innovation programmes around the world for companies including Universal, Telefonica, Cisco, O2, Santander and Accenture. Elvin's work spans consulting, facilitation, conference speaking, leadership development and coaching.  His experience extends from working with new and disruptive technology start-ups, through to seasoned leadership teams inside conservative, global institutions. His free "Innovation Essentials" training course, based on his MBA teaching, consulting experience and "Be Less Zombie" can be accessed at: www.elvinturner.com/ie-access Elvin's TEDx talk, "The Secret Life of Great Ideas" can be viewed at http://bit.ly/TEDSLGI Social links Be Less Zombie website: www.belesszombie.com Amazon link to Be Less Zombie: getbook.at/BLZ w: www.elvinturner.com l: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elvint Twitter: @elvinturner  Contact elvin@elvinturner.com  

Chris is the World's No.1 Personal Branding & LinkedIn Marketing Expert with over 1,600 LinkedIn Recommendations, Four x No.1 International Best Selling Books about LinkedIn and Personal Branding, He is an Official Forbes Contributor on the subjects of LinkedIn and Personal Branding, an Official LinkedIn Power Profile and has been enabling Leaders, Entrepreneurs, CEO's and Founders to become LinkedIn Rock Stars since 2013 through his company Black Marketing where he's CEO and Founder. Chris love's to share his uncensored, authentic and sometimes polarising thoughts on a variety of business topics on LinkedIn and he's infamously known as "The Only CEO With A Mohawk", recognised globally by his notorious mohawk! Prior to Chris's current mission, he created 5 marketing firms and exited 4 of them in Europe and Asia Pacific. He love's Singapore so much that he renounced his UK citizenship and is now a fully fledged and very proud and passionate Singaporean citizen. Chris has had 4 x No.1 International Bestselling Books, "Personal Branding Mastery For Entrepreneurs", "LinkedIn Mastery For Entrepreneurs" and "Social Selling Mastery For Entrepreneurs" and my 4th best selling book “How To Become a LinkedIn Rock Star”. Chris is an Official LinkedIn Power Profile, have one of the world's most viewed and searched LinkedIn profiles with 58,000 followers, have won "Social Media Entrepreneur of the Year", "Asia's Most Influential Digital Media Professional"​ and "B2B Social Media Influencer of the Year". Chris's firm, Black Marketing, is the World's Most Recommended LinkedIn Marketing Firm and has been going for 8 years. Black Marketing can make you a LinkedIn Rock Star to achieve all of your professional goals through a personal branding strategy on LinkedIn, content marketing strategy on LinkedIn, company branding through your personal profile on LinkedIn and social selling strategy on LinkedIn. Contact Chris directly on LinkedIn or Chris@BlackMarketing.com or WhatsApp +65 9026 1966 As his Grandad used to say "It's who you know, not what you know". This was a very enjoyable episode and we went rather off-piste but was great fun. And Chris holds the record for the earliest wake-up call in all my guests so far. 3.30am Singapore time. Enjoy !

Eva Dimitrova is someone who gets things done on time, every time. An infinite learner, equipped with a strong sense of duty and an aptitude for problem solving, she can transform a simple proof of concept into a marketable product in even the tightest schedules. A two-times startup founder and a Founder Institute chapter Director, Eva is an entrepreneur by heart. During the last 9 years she has helped international startups and companies like Vodafone, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM launch their innovative tech products and services. More than 30 on the last count. Before that she was a sports medalist in downhill mountain bike, karate, kick box and volleyball. She freely speaks three languages and understands four more. This was a great episode to understand more about the steps when you have created your product and how you achieve product/market fit and traction. Eva dedicates most of her time these days, helping founders, co-founders create traction and long term success. Enjoy the episode. Social and links: Website: https://www.evadimitrova.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evadimitrova/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evadimitrova9/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evadimitrovacom/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/EveDimitrova  Email: eva@evadimitrova.com