After the AI Hype

Rachel Wells is a Senior Forbes Contributor and the Founder and Host of Work 2.0.

Daniel Hulme is the Chief AI Officer at WPP, the world's largest marketing and communications group, where he leads AI strategy across the entire organisation.

He founded Satalia, a research-led AI company acquired by WPP in 2021 for a reported $100M, and co-founded Conscium, the world's first commercial research organisation exploring machine consciousness.

With a PhD in AI from UCL, where he's now Computer Science Entrepreneur-in-Residence, he's been recognised as one of the top ten Chief AI Officers globally and one of AI Magazine's top 25 AI leaders.

Michael created one of the most widely referenced social media playbooks of the past decade. His work at Ryanair shifted industry-wide expectations of how brands behave on social platforms. Under his leadership, Ryanair's social reach grew by ~6 times — all with zero paid media — and the TikTok account amassed over 2.5 million followers.

His signature approach is blending self-deprecating humour, rapid-fire reactivity, and a "low cost, high reach" philosophy . It redefined what corporate social media could look like, inspiring (and being imitated by) brands across industries. Today Michael is the founder of Slice, a social-first creative agency.

Annabelle Cordelli is a global marketing and commercial leader with experience across travel, FMCG, toys and luxury in founder-led and PLC businesses. She brings customer focus and commercial discipline, putting brand and marketing at the heart of enterprise growth. Her broader leadership perspective connects market understanding, business strategy and modern marketing capability to build demand and create sustained value.

At Virgin Atlantic, Annabelle led the Global Brand and Marketing team and created 'See the World Differently', the airline's first global brand platform, which translated directly into brand equity and commercial growth.

Earlier roles at Britvic PLC, Pernod Ricard UK and Mattel Inc. saw her build and grow iconic brands, including Pepsi, Tango, Perrier-Jouët, G.H. Mumm, Barbie and Hot Wheels. She is Co-chair of The Marketing Academy Fellows Council and serves on the Advertising Week Europe Advisory Board.