Kick off Climb26 the right way and fuel up with coffee, croissants and good company ahead of the main event.

We're bringing together a small group of founders to connect over honest conversations about growth, the challenges that come with it, and what's actually happening in their businesses right now. 

Reconnect with some familiar faces or hit the main event with some new friends.

Places are limited so please register quickly to avoid disappointment.

Good intentions are not enough. This session explores how organisations can measure social mobility credibly, communicate progress responsibly and avoid overclaiming impact. 

As social mobility becomes a more visible part of business strategy, the challenge is no longer simply saying the right things. It is about being able to show meaningful progress, measure outcomes credibly and communicate impact in a way that stands up to scrutiny. 

This session will explore how organisations can approach social mobility measurement with greater rigour, what evidence really matters, and how to avoid vague claims that weaken trust. 

It will focus on practical ways to assess progress, build credibility and communicate responsibly without overstating results. 

Who should attend

This session is for impact leads, founders, communications leaders, people leaders and anyone responsible for shaping, measuring or communicating social mobility activity within an organisation. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses that want to strengthen the credibility of their social impact work and avoid the risks of weak or superficial reporting. 

Why it’s relevant

Expectations around social impact are rising, and organisations are under growing pressure to show that their commitments are real, measurable and meaningful. 

In the context of social mobility, that can be difficult, particularly when outcomes are long-term, multi-layered and influenced by factors beyond a single intervention. 

This session is relevant because credibility matters. Weak measurement and overclaiming can quickly undermine trust, while thoughtful evidence and responsible communication can strengthen both impact and reputation. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer approach to measuring social mobility outcomes in a more credible and practical way, including what to prioritise, what good evidence looks like and where organisations often go wrong. 

The session will also offer useful guardrails for communicating impact responsibly, helping leaders avoid superficial claims and build a stronger, more trusted narrative around the work they are doing. 

Idea to Visual Prototype in 60 Minutes Perfect for AI Build Beginners

What it's about: 

A hands-on beginner session where you'll use Google's AI ecosystem to turn a great idea into a beautiful, clickable app prototype - no design or coding skills needed. Using the NoCodeLab PRD Agent, Google Stitch, and Google AI Studio, you'll go from an idea to an interactive demo in just 60 minutes.

Who should attend: 

Anyone with a digital idea and zero technical experience. Business owners, entrepreneurs, consultants, and creatives who want to build without code.

Why you should attend: 

AI has removed the barrier between having an idea and seeing it come to life. This session shows you exactly how.

What you'll leave with: 

A clickable visual prototype of your own idea, built live in the session.

Early-stage success depends on learning fast. This session explores how founders test assumptions, validate customer demand and build evidence of real product-market pull before overcommitting time and resources. 

In the early stages of building a business, the biggest risk is not moving too slowly on delivery, but moving too quickly without real evidence that the problem, customer and proposition are right. 

This session will focus on how founders move from assumption to validation, testing whether the problem is meaningful, whether the buyer is clear, and whether customers are genuinely willing to pay. 

It will explore how early-stage teams can learn quickly, avoid false positives and build evidence that supports stronger product, commercial and fundraising decisions. 

Who should attend

This session is for early-stage founders, startup teams and product leads who are shaping a new proposition, refining their customer focus or trying to build stronger conviction around what the market actually wants. 

It will be particularly relevant for businesses at the point where they need to move beyond instinct and start building evidence. 

Why it’s relevant

At startup stage, speed of learning is often the biggest competitive advantage. Founders who can test assumptions quickly, understand customer behaviour early and gather meaningful evidence are far better placed to build something the market genuinely wants. 

Too many businesses waste time and resource developing products before they have properly validated the problem, the buyer or the value proposition. 

This session is relevant because getting to product-market pull faster can reduce risk, sharpen focus and create a much stronger foundation for growth. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of what useful validation really looks like, and how to distinguish between encouraging feedback and genuine market evidence. 

The session will cover practical ways to test assumptions, design the right early experiments and evaluate whether there is real demand, buyer interest and willingness to pay. 

You will also gain a more structured validation plan that can help turn early ideas into stronger commercial decisions. 

Businesses rarely grow well in isolation. This session explores the value of community, connection and belonging, and how strong networks support founders, leaders, growth businesses and wider ecosystems. 

This session brings together business leaders who have built highly valuable communities around founders, leaders and growing businesses. 

The conversation will explore why community matters, how being part of something bigger can accelerate progress, and the role strong networks play in supporting individual businesses, leadership and the wider ecosystem. 

It will also reflect the importance of inclusive communities, including the role of women in business networks and the value of diversity in shaping stronger, more connected growth. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, business leaders, ecosystem builders, investors, partners and anyone interested in growth through relationships, networks and collaboration. 

It will be particularly relevant to those looking to expand their reach, strengthen their support network, build partnerships, or create more inclusive and connected business environments. 

Why it’s relevant

Too many businesses try to grow in isolation. In practice, progress is often faster and more sustainable when people are connected to the right communities, conversations and opportunities. 

Strong business communities can open doors, create trust, share knowledge and generate momentum that would be difficult to achieve alone. 

They also play an important role in improving representation, creating space for underrepresented voices and making ecosystems stronger, fairer and more effective. 

What you’ll take away

You will hear practical insight into how successful business communities are built, what makes people want to engage, and how communities create value for members, organisations and the wider economy. 

The discussion will also explore the importance of inclusion, the role of women in business communities, and how diverse networks can strengthen innovation, leadership and growth. 

A panel discussion and Q&A on how to prepare your company for early-stage investment and beyond, from legal, corporate finance, tax, founder, and investor perspectives.

Who should attend

Founders and management teams either looking for investment or already on the investment journey.

Why it’s relevant

Securing investment is a competitive endeavour, and being “good enough” may not be sufficient without adequate preparation. It will assist founders and management teams in understanding what investors actually expect, reducing the risk of delays, failed rounds or poor deal terms.

What you’ll take away

Gain practical, real-world insight into what investors look for and how to position your business to secure funding. Develop an understanding of the legal, financial, and tax foundations that make a company “investment-ready,” and hear directly from founders and investors about common pitfalls and how to avoid them. Learn how to structure your business and shape your story to maximise value and credibility at every stage. Leave with clear, actionable steps to strengthen your readiness for early-stage investment and beyond.

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

Early traction is not the same as repeatable revenue. This session explores how startups sharpen their ICP, test routes to market and build a pricing approach that supports sustainable growth. 

One of the biggest challenges for early-stage businesses is turning early activity into revenue that can be repeated and built on. It is not enough to have interest in the product or a handful of early customers. 

Founders need to understand who really buys, why they buy, what channels consistently reach them and how pricing supports both conversion and value. 

This session will explore how startups find their first repeatable growth loop by sharpening their ideal customer profile, testing the right routes to market and building a pricing approach that works in practice rather than only on paper. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders and first sales or marketing hires who are working out how to turn traction into a more structured commercial model. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses still refining their customer focus, experimenting with channels or trying to find a pricing approach that supports sustainable growth. 

Why it’s relevant

Many early-stage businesses stay busy but struggle to build real momentum because they are trying to reach too many types of customer, spreading effort across the wrong channels or pricing without enough clarity or confidence. 

Without focus in these areas, activity can look promising without translating into repeatable revenue. 

This session is relevant because getting the right combination of customer, channel and pricing is often what turns an early proposition into a commercially viable business. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a practical framework for identifying and refining your ideal customer profile, testing which channels are most likely to drive effective acquisition, and iterating pricing in a way that reflects both customer willingness to pay and the value you create. 

The session will help founders think more clearly about the building blocks of a repeatable revenue engine and how to strengthen them in the early stages of growth. 

Who should attend

Why it’s relevant

What you’ll take away

Ambition drives founders, but it is rarely examined properly. This session explores how ambition shapes decisions, sacrifices and success, and what becomes possible when that force is consciously directed. 

This is a conversation with Hugo Brooks, serial entrepreneur and author of Ambition: Redefining Success for a Restless Age. 

Hugo makes the case that ambition, the desire to make tomorrow better than today, is the most powerful and least understood force in most founders’ lives. Unexamined, it drives you forward on autopilot. Consciously directed, it becomes one of the most dynamic assets you can own. 

This is a conversation about the force underneath the business, not just the business itself. It will explore what ambition really is, how it shapes founder behaviour, and why understanding it can be as important as any tactic, framework or growth strategy. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders and entrepreneurs at any stage who have achieved something significant and are asking what comes next. 

It will be especially relevant for those who sense that the drive that got them here may now be taking them somewhere they have not consciously chosen. 

Why it’s relevant

Most founder content focuses on tactics, funding and scale. This conversation goes one layer deeper, to the force that drives every decision, every sacrifice and every ambition. 

Many successful founders spend years being driven by ambition without ever stopping to examine what it is pointing towards. That can create progress, but it can also lead to drift, restlessness or success that does not feel as meaningful as expected. 

This session is relevant because it asks a question many founders have not been asked directly: what is your ambition really serving? 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a genuinely different way of thinking about what drives you as a founder, and why examining that force matters more than any single business framework. 

The session will help you reflect on the role ambition plays in your decisions, identity and future direction. 

You will also gain insight into what becomes possible when ambition is consciously directed rather than simply pursued. 

In 2017, Volker spoke about AI and the future of work before the current wave of AI broke into the mainstream. Now he returns to explore what comes next: context, physical AI and how real-world intelligence may reshape business, work and society. 

In 2017, Volker gave a TEDx Manchester talk entitled AI and the Future of Work, three months before the publication of the transformer paper Attention Is All You Need, which helped unlock the present wave of AI. 

Over the past two years, many of the ideas that once felt distant have started to play out in the mainstream. Generative AI is now part of everyday business conversation, reshaping how people think about work, productivity, creativity, decision-making and competitive advantage. 

This session, Context Is All You Need, looks beyond the current wave. It will explore how AI may move from text, prompts and digital tools into systems that better understand context, environment and the physical world. 

The talk will examine the emerging field sometimes referred to as physical AI, where real-world data, embodied systems, sensors, robotics and intelligent infrastructure start to bring AI closer to the environments in which people, businesses and machines actually operate. 

It will also ask what might come after that, and what leaders should be thinking about now as AI moves from digital capability to more context-aware, real-world intelligence. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, investors, technologists, innovation leaders and anyone trying to understand where AI may go next. 

It will be especially relevant for people looking beyond today’s AI tools and wanting a clearer view of how future developments could affect business models, work, productivity, automation, infrastructure and competitive advantage. 

It will also appeal to leaders in sectors where AI may increasingly interact with the physical world, including manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, transport, energy, construction, robotics, smart infrastructure and advanced technology. 

Why it’s relevant

The current AI wave has already changed how businesses think about productivity, knowledge work and digital capability. But the next shift may be even more significant. 

As AI becomes more context-aware and starts to connect more deeply with the physical world, its impact could extend far beyond chat interfaces, content generation and software workflows. 

For leaders, the challenge is to understand not only what AI can do today, but what it may make possible next. Businesses that can anticipate this shift will be better placed to adapt, invest, experiment and build advantage as the technology evolves. 

This session is relevant because it connects the present AI moment to the next frontier, helping attendees think beyond current applications and start considering how context, embodiment and real-world intelligence could shape the future. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer view of what may come after the current wave of AI, and why context could become one of the most important ideas in the next stage of development. 

The session will provide insight into physical AI, how real-world data and environments may become part of intelligent systems, and what this could mean for businesses, sectors and society. 

You will also gain a more strategic perspective on how leaders should think about AI beyond today’s tools, including the opportunities, risks and questions that may define the next phase of adoption. 

From Brilliant Science to Big Business brings together pioneering life sciences founders who have successfully transformed cutting-edge research into thriving companies. In this engaging panel, speakers will share their journeys from discovery to commercialisation, offering real-world insights into scaling innovation, navigating challenges, and unlocking market potential. Whether you're an academic, entrepreneur, or investor, this session will provide valuable perspectives on turning breakthrough science into impactful, high-growth venture

Busk Your Business turns pitching into a live festival moment. Instead of formal applications or closed judging rooms, founders can step up, take the mic and pitch their business on the spot to whoever is in the audience at that moment. 

It’s open, fast-paced and unpredictable - designed to create energy, visibility and real engagement in the middle of the event. A judging panel tracks pitches across the festival and selects a winner at the end, but the real value is in the experience itself. 

For founders, it’s a chance to test your message live, build confidence and get your business in front of an active audience. For everyone watching, it’s one of the most dynamic ways to discover new ideas and connect with the people behind them.

This focused roundtable, hosted by Wendy Popplewell, Director of Core Services at Barnsley Council brings together leaders from across the tech, investment, and policy landscape to explore how we accelerate the progression of women across the full tech and funding pipeline. The roundtable will examine the opportunities that supporting women in tech presents and explore how best to reduce the persistent barriers.

TECH SY’s Women in Tech and Investment Taskforce focuses on three strands of work - The FoundHERy (Business support programme), support for women working in tech, and a TECH SY X Lifted Ventures Angel Academy (supporting more women to be angel investors in the region). The roundtable discussion will draw on these three areas of work, regional insight and national perspectives to examine access to finance, representation in leadership, and the role of ecosystems in supporting female founders and investors. 

Participants will share practical experiences, identify systemic challenges, and explore how public and private sector partners can take collective action. A particular focus will be placed on how places like South Yorkshire can lead by example. 

The roundtable will feed into ongoing programme development and future activity, including the Northern Tech Summit and wider regional efforts to build a more inclusive, connected and investment-ready tech ecosystem.

The TECH SY Women in Tech and Investment Taskforce is funded through the Barnsley Council Tech Town status awarded by the Department of Science and Technology, as well as South Yorkshire's Mayoral Combined Authority and the British Businesses Bank.

Scaling brings complexity. This session explores what starts to break inside growing businesses, from decision-making and accountability to delivery and alignment, and what leaders can do to fix it fast. 

Scaling can look like momentum from the outside, but inside the business it often creates a new level of strain. Systems that worked at an earlier stage begin to creak, communication becomes harder, accountability becomes blurred, and decision-making can slow just when speed matters most. 

This session will explore the points at which scaleups commonly start to lose pace and control. Rather than focusing on theory, the discussion will draw on real operational, commercial and organisational challenges, and the practical interventions strong operators use to address them. 

Who should attend

This session is designed for scaleup founders, CEOs and senior operators navigating the realities of growth. It will be particularly relevant for COOs, CFOs, CROs and other leaders responsible for delivery, structure, performance and commercial execution as the business becomes larger, more complex and harder to manage through instinct alone. 

Why it matters

Many businesses reach a stage where growth itself becomes the source of new problems. Teams expand, reporting lines multiply, customer expectations rise, and processes that once felt agile start to create friction. These challenges are common, predictable and often fixable, but only if leaders recognise them early and know where to intervene. For scaleups trying to maintain momentum, this is often the point where leadership quality and operating discipline matter most. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of the most common breakpoints that emerge as businesses scale, from decision-making and accountability to forecasting, delivery and cross-functional alignment. 

The session will provide a practical diagnostic lens to help leaders identify where pressure is building in their own business, along with a focused set of interventions that can be applied over the next quarter to restore pace, clarity and control. 

A candid, operator-led session on the predictable breakpoints that emerge as businesses scale, and the practical fixes that help leadership teams restore pace, clarity and control. 

Different capital sources play different roles. This session explores how founders can use grants, angels and institutional investment in the right sequence to de-risk growth, build evidence and prepare for stronger future rounds. 

For early-stage businesses and spinouts, access to capital is rarely about one funding source alone. The real challenge is knowing how to combine grants, angel investment and institutional capital in a way that supports progress without narrowing future options. 

This session will explore how founders think strategically about funding sequence, using non-dilutive capital to build evidence and momentum, while preparing for equity investment at the right time and on stronger terms. 

It will look at how different forms of capital can work together, where founders can get stuck, and how to avoid creating a strategic dead-end through poor sequencing or unrealistic assumptions. 

Who should attend

This session is for spinouts and early-stage founders who are navigating the funding journey from idea to growth. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses considering grant support, angel funding or their first institutional round, and for founders trying to understand how different sources of capital fit together over time. 

Why it’s relevant

Funding sequence can have a major impact on the future of a business. Used well, grants can help de-risk innovation, build evidence and strengthen readiness for equity. 

Used poorly, they can delay commercial focus, distort priorities or leave businesses struggling to bridge to the next stage of capital. The same is true of angel and institutional investment. 

This session is relevant because founders often focus on accessing capital in the moment, rather than thinking carefully about the order, purpose and implications of different funding routes. Getting that sequence right can improve flexibility, strengthen investor confidence and lead to better long-term outcomes. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer roadmap for how grants, angel investment and institutional capital can be sequenced to support growth more effectively. 

The session will highlight common traps, including timing issues, dependency on non-dilutive funding, weak transition planning and misalignment between funding type and business stage. 

It will also give founders a more practical framework for thinking about the right capital at the right time, and how to build towards future rounds without limiting their strategic options. 

AI is moving quickly, but many businesses are still unsure how to turn the opportunity into practical value. This session explores where to start, how to identify useful AI applications, how to manage risk and how to embed AI into real business processes. 

AI is becoming a practical business tool that can improve productivity, decision-making, customer service, marketing, sales, operations and product development. 

But many founders and business leaders are still asking the same questions: where do we start, what should we use it for, how do we manage the risks, and how do we move from experimenting with tools to creating real business value? 

This session will explore how businesses can implement AI in a practical, responsible and commercially useful way. It will look at how leaders identify the right use cases, prepare their teams, choose tools, protect data, manage change and measure impact. 

The focus will not be on AI theory or technical jargon. It will be about how founders and business leaders can make AI work inside real businesses, with real people, real processes and real commercial priorities. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders who want to understand how AI can support growth, productivity and competitiveness, as well as CEOs, MDs and business owners considering how to introduce AI into their organisation. 

It will be particularly relevant for scaleup leaders looking to improve sales, marketing, operations, finance, customer service or product development using AI, and for senior managers responsible for digital transformation, operations, technology, people or strategy. 

It will also be useful for business leaders who have experimented with AI tools but have not yet embedded them properly, advisers, investors and ecosystem partners supporting companies that need to become more AI-ready, and non-technical leaders who want a clear, practical route into AI implementation. 

Why it’s relevant

AI is already changing how businesses operate, compete and grow. For founders and business leaders, the question is no longer whether AI matters. The question is how to use it well. 

Many companies are experimenting with AI, but relatively few have turned experimentation into structured implementation. Some are using tools informally without clear policies, training or measurement. Others are waiting because they feel overwhelmed by the pace of change, uncertain about risks, or unsure where AI will make the biggest difference. 

That creates both a risk and an opportunity. Businesses that learn how to implement AI effectively can reduce manual work, improve decision-making, speed up customer response, strengthen sales and marketing, support better internal processes and free people to focus on higher-value work. 

Businesses that do not engage may find themselves falling behind competitors who are faster, leaner and better informed. 

This session is relevant because it focuses on the practical leadership challenge: how to move from AI curiosity to AI capability. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of where AI can create value in a growing business, and a practical way to identify good AI use cases. 

The session will provide insight into how to move beyond individual tool use into business-wide implementation, while also covering the risks around data, accuracy, security, compliance and staff adoption. 

You will gain ideas for using AI across sales, marketing, operations, customer service, finance and product development, along with guidance on how to prepare teams for AI-enabled ways of working. 

The session will also help you think more clearly about what should be automated, what should be augmented, and what should remain human-led. 

You will leave with practical examples of how businesses are already using AI to improve performance, a starting point for building an AI implementation plan, and greater confidence to take the next step without being overwhelmed by the technology. 

Wellbeing is not separate from performance. This session explores mental health, resilience and recovery through honest lived experience, elite performance insight and the realities of leading under pressure. Attendees will gain practical lessons for founders, leaders and teams navigating demanding environments.

This conversation brings together Andrew Jenkins, Stephanie Millward MBE and Ellie MacDonald—three speakers with powerful, distinct and complementary lived experiences of resilience, adversity and high performance.

Andrew Jenkins is a leadership and resilience specialist who draws on his personal experience of mental health challenges to break stigma and encourage more open, supportive conversations in workplaces.

Stephanie Millward MBE is a Paralympic swimming champion and mindset coach whose journey includes being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 17 and going on to win multiple Paralympic medals through determination, discipline and mental strength.

Ellie MacDonald is an award‑winning PR founder and mental health advocate who has openly shared her experiences of burnout, anxiety and the pressures of entrepreneurship, offering a relatable and practical perspective on sustaining wellbeing while building a business.

Together, they will explore how people manage pressure, recover from difficulty, build confidence and keep moving forward when life or work becomes overwhelming. The session will also examine what leaders and organisations can do to create environments where people feel safe to speak openly, ask for help and look after their mental wellbeing before issues reach a crisis point.

Who Should Attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, senior leaders, people leaders, managers, investors and anyone responsible for building healthier, more resilient teams.

It is especially relevant for those leading through pressure, change or uncertainty, and for organisations that want to take wellbeing seriously—beyond policies, benefits or surface‑level initiatives.

Why It’s Relevant

Mental health and wellbeing directly influence confidence, decision‑making, relationships, energy, performance and retention.

In high‑pressure environments, people often push themselves until they reach their breaking point. Leaders may feel they must appear strong at all times, while teams can struggle quietly with stress, uncertainty, burnout or personal challenges.

This session brings mental health into the leadership and business conversation in a grounded, human and practical way. It reframes wellbeing as a core component of sustainable performance, trust and resilience.

What You’ll Take Away

You will hear honest insight into resilience, recovery, mindset and mental wellbeing from three speakers with diverse lived experiences and performance backgrounds.

You will gain practical lessons on how individuals can recognise pressure earlier, develop healthier coping strategies and build confidence through difficult periods.

You will also leave with a clearer understanding of how leaders can create more open cultures, reduce stigma, support people more effectively and embed wellbeing into the everyday fabric of the organisation—rather than addressing it only when problems arise.

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

About: 

Participants bring a real business challenge and use LEGO® Serious Play® techniques to reframe and explore it from new angles. Through building and storytelling, solutions emerge that traditional brainstorming rarely surfaces.

Who should attend: 

Entrepreneurs and SME leaders who feel stuck on a specific challenge - commercial, operational, or people-related. Or those business leaders who are curious about how LSP can help their teams to think more creatively, solve challenges, think bigger and communicate more effectively. 

Why it's relevant:

When we build, we think differently. The tactile, playful nature of LEGO® bypasses the inner critic and unlocks creative thinking that typical problem-solving sessions can sometimes suppress. 

What you'll get from it:

New angles on a live business challenge. A repeatable creative problem-solving technique you can use with your own team. The experience of unlocking ideas you didn't know you had. Oh… and a bunch of LEGO® to take away with you. 

About

Most teams don’t struggle because of lack of talent, they struggle because too much still flows through the founder or leader. This interactive session focuses on the core leadership habits that turn teams from task executors into confident decision-makers and problem solvers.

We’ll explore how to set clear expectations, use coaching to unlock ownership, give feedback that actually drives change, and handle underperformance without creating dependency or avoidance. Along the way, we’ll surface the subtle, often unintentional habits even experienced leaders don’t realise they’ve built, that keep teams reliant. The focus is practical, honest, and immediately applicable.

Who should attend

Founders, managers, and leaders at any stage who want to build teams they can trust to think, decide, and deliver, without constant oversight.

Why it’s relevant

If decisions keep coming back to you, your business won’t scale. Strong leadership isn’t about control-it’s about creating the conditions where people take ownership, move faster, and perform at their best.

What you’ll get

Simple, practical tools and routines you can use straight away to build clarity, accountability, and confidence in your team, so they step up, take ownership, and free you up to focus on growth.

Trust is a performance driver. This session explores how leaders create clarity around roles, expectations and decision-making so teams can move quickly without losing alignment. 

As businesses grow, trust becomes one of the most important enablers of speed, alignment and performance. Without it, decision-making slows down, communication becomes less effective and teams can start to operate with uncertainty rather than confidence. 

This session will explore how founders and leaders build trust at pace by creating clarity around roles, expectations and decision-making behaviours. 

It will look at how strong leadership teams reduce friction, improve accountability and create an environment where people can move quickly without losing alignment. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, executives and team leaders responsible for building effective teams and leading through growth. 

It will be especially relevant for leaders working in fast-moving businesses where pace, complexity and change make trust, clarity and good judgement critical to execution. 

Why it’s relevant

High-trust leadership is not just about culture; it has a direct impact on how well a business performs. When roles are unclear, expectations are inconsistent or decision rights are poorly defined, businesses lose time, create friction and put unnecessary pressure on teams. 

By contrast, strong trust and clarity help organisations move faster, make better decisions and retain good people. 

This session is relevant because many of the problems that emerge as businesses grow are not caused by lack of effort, but by lack of confidence, alignment and clarity in how leadership works. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a practical playbook for building higher-trust leadership, including how to think about decision rights, communication cadence and accountability across teams. 

The session will provide useful frameworks for clarifying responsibilities, improving the quality of leadership interaction and creating conditions where people can operate with more confidence, ownership and speed. 

The US is a major opportunity for consumer brands, but it is not an easy market to enter. This session explores what B2C and D2C businesses need to get right before scaling into the US. 

For many consumer brands, the US represents a huge growth opportunity, but it is also a market where expansion can become expensive, complex and difficult to get right. 

This session with Walmart Marketplace and Infinity Blue will explore what B2C and D2C businesses need to understand before entering the US, from market dynamics and customer expectations to route to market, operational readiness and the realities of scaling successfully. 

It will also be relevant for the tech and solution providers helping brands improve performance, reach customers more effectively and grow with greater confidence. 

Who should attend

This session is for B2C and D2C founders, brand leaders, commercial and growth teams, ecommerce businesses and companies actively considering US expansion. 

It will also be highly relevant for technology providers, platforms and specialist partners whose products and services help consumer brands improve acquisition, conversion, fulfilment, customer experience and overall commercial performance. 

Why it’s relevant

The US is one of the most attractive growth markets in the world for ambitious consumer brands, but success is far from guaranteed. 

Businesses need to think carefully about timing, positioning, customer behaviour, channels, fulfilment, partnerships and scale. 

This session is relevant because it will offer a realistic view of what brands need to get right before making the move, while also highlighting the wider ecosystem of technology and support that can help them perform more effectively in-market. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into the opportunities and challenges of entering the US market, including what brands should consider before they expand, where common mistakes are made and what stronger preparation looks like. 

You will also hear perspectives relevant to the wider consumer growth ecosystem, including the role of technology, data and specialist support in helping brands deliver better results at scale. 

AI has created opportunity, excitement and noise in the fundraising market. This session explores what investors are really looking for, how founders can stand out, and what credible investment readiness looks like in the age of AI. 

AI is changing the fundraising landscape for founders and growth businesses. As more companies position themselves around AI, and as investors become both more interested and more discerning, the bar is shifting. 

This session will explore what investors are really looking for, how founders should think about positioning, traction and credibility, and what it now takes to stand out in a market where almost every pitch references AI in some way. 

It will focus on how to communicate AI clearly, avoid overclaiming, demonstrate real commercial potential and show why the business is defensible, investable and capable of creating lasting value. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs and senior leaders in early-stage and scaling businesses who are raising investment now or expect to in the future. 

It will be particularly relevant for businesses building AI-led products or services, as well as companies using AI as part of a broader commercial proposition and wanting to understand how that will be viewed by investors. 

Why it’s relevant

AI has changed both the opportunities and the noise in the investment market. More businesses are presenting themselves as AI-enabled, but investors are becoming more disciplined about what is real, what is defensible and what creates genuine value. 

Founders need to understand how to talk about AI with clarity, how to avoid overclaiming, and how to demonstrate commercial potential in a more crowded and more scrutinised market. 

This session is relevant because it will help businesses understand how fundraising expectations are evolving and what credible investment readiness looks like in this environment. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into how investors are evaluating AI-related opportunities, what makes a business compelling in the current market, and how founders should position their story, traction and ambition. 

The session will also explore common mistakes, how to communicate AI credibly, and what businesses need to do to raise money more effectively in a fast-moving investment landscape. 

A fireside chat with an Olympian exploring what it takes to perform under pressure, prepare for major moments, recover from setbacks and sustain excellence over time, with lessons for founders, leaders and growing teams. 

This fireside chat will explore the mindset, preparation and discipline behind Olympic-level performance. 

The conversation will look at what it takes to compete at the highest level, how elite performers manage pressure, how they prepare for defining moments, and how they respond when things do not go to plan. 

It will also explore the people and systems behind performance, from coaching and feedback to team culture, resilience, recovery and the ability to keep improving over time. 

While rooted in the experience of an Olympian, the session will draw out practical lessons for founders, leaders and businesses: how to stay focused, make better decisions under pressure, build resilience, maintain standards and perform when the stakes are high. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, entrepreneurs, senior leaders, investors, team leaders and anyone interested in performance, resilience and leadership. 

It will be especially relevant for people leading through pressure, building high-performing teams, navigating uncertainty or trying to sustain ambition over a long and demanding journey. 

Why it’s relevant

Olympic performance is built over years, but often tested in moments. That combination of long-term preparation and high-pressure execution has strong relevance for business leaders. 

Founders and leaders also have to perform under pressure, stay disciplined through uncertainty, recover from setbacks and make decisions when the outcome matters. 

This session is relevant because it brings a high-performance perspective into the business context, helping attendees think differently about preparation, mindset, resilience and the conditions that allow people and teams to perform at their best. 

What you’ll take away

You will hear practical insight into how elite performers prepare, focus, manage pressure and recover from setbacks. 

The conversation will offer lessons on discipline, motivation, resilience, teamwork and sustaining performance over time. 

You will leave with a stronger understanding of how Olympic-level habits and thinking can be applied to leadership, culture and day-to-day business performance  

About: 

A hands-on working session for twelve scaling founders, hosted by Daniella Wainwright. Founders self-score their business against three drivers - the numbers buyers and backers trust, the operating value drivers that move a multiple, and the founder's highest-value work. 

Who should attend: 

Just twelve spaces available for scaling SME founders who are looking for practical tips to take back to their businesses and use to start moving it forward.

Why it matters: 

Most leadership content gives you frameworks but not the time, focus or peers to apply them. This is a rare working session where you score your business honestly, pressure-test your priorities, and walk out with a one-page plan you'll actually use to make meaningful progress.

What they will get:

Using Mentimeter and a printed Value Multiplier Scorecard, founders identify the three highest-leverage moves they can make in the next 90 days and pressure-test their plans with peers in the room. 

The North has talent.

The North has businesses.

The North has universities, colleges, funders, combined authorities and employers.

Yet employers still struggle to recruit. Young people still struggle to access opportunities they didn't know existed. Founders still struggle to build the right networks and connections.

At the same time, significant investment continues to flow into employability, entrepreneurship, social mobility and future talent initiatives.

So what's getting in the way?

This wouldn't be a panel. It would be an invite-only roundtable bringing together business leaders, funders, combined authorities, education providers and organisations working directly with future talent.

The objective would be to explore a simple question:

If we've got the talent, the investment and the intent, why do the same challenges keep showing up?

Early growth often depends on the founder. This session explores how businesses turn sales momentum into a structured, repeatable revenue engine that can scale. 

In the early stages of a business, growth often depends on the founder’s energy, network and personal ability to win customers. That can work well at first, but it rarely scales. 

As a business grows, revenue needs to become less dependent on individual effort and more driven by a clear commercial model, disciplined pipeline management, stronger handovers and a more joined-up approach across sales, marketing and operations. 

This session will explore how businesses make that transition, and what it takes to build a revenue engine that is structured, repeatable and capable of supporting sustained growth. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CROs, VP Sales leaders, RevOps professionals and marketing leaders responsible for driving commercial performance. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses that have grown through founder-led selling and are now trying to build stronger processes, clearer accountability and a more scalable route to revenue. 

Why it’s relevant

One of the biggest challenges for growing businesses is moving from opportunistic sales success to consistent commercial performance. Founder-led selling can generate early traction, but it often depends too heavily on personal relationships, instinct and informal ways of working. 

That becomes harder to sustain as teams grow, expectations rise and investors look for evidence of repeatability. Businesses that can professionalise revenue, with a clear ideal customer profile, better pipeline discipline and stronger alignment across teams, are far better placed to scale successfully and attract both capital and talent. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into how to move from heroic selling to a more predictable revenue model. 

The session will cover the foundations of commercial repeatability, including defining the right ideal customer profile, building stronger pipeline discipline, improving enablement and creating better handovers between functions. 

You will leave with a clearer roadmap for turning early sales momentum into a more reliable and scalable revenue engine. 

The creative industries are a major UK strength, but many creative businesses still struggle to access the right capital. This session explores what investors need to understand, what founders need to evidence, and how to build greater confidence between capital and creativity. 

The UK’s creative industries are one of the country’s most distinctive economic strengths, spanning film, TV, games, music, fashion, design, advertising, immersive media, content, digital creativity and creative technology. 

They generate valuable intellectual property, global cultural influence, export potential, skilled employment and new forms of technology-enabled growth. Yet many creative businesses still struggle to access the right kind of investment. 

Some investors see the sector as difficult to understand, too project-based, too reliant on talent, or harder to scale than software or deep tech. At the same time, many creative founders are not always clear on what investors need to see: repeatable revenue, strong margins, credible IP, commercial discipline, scalable models, management capability and a clear route to growth. 

This session will bring together Creative UK, investors and creative founders to explore how the investment gap can be closed. It will look at why the creative industries represent a serious investment opportunity, what investors need to understand about the sector, and what creative founders can do to become more investable. 

The discussion will focus on practical ways to build confidence between capital and creativity, helping more creative businesses access the funding they need to grow. 

Who should attend

This session is for creative founders looking to raise investment or prepare their business for future funding, as well as investors who want to understand the commercial opportunity in the creative industries. 

It will be relevant for angels, VCs, family offices, funds, banks and alternative finance providers interested in growth sectors beyond traditional tech. 

It will also be valuable for founders and leaders in film, TV, games, music, fashion, content, design, marketing, media, immersive, digital and createch businesses, particularly those looking to move from project income to more scalable revenue models. 

The session will also be useful for ecosystem builders, combined authorities, local authorities, universities and advisers supporting creative clusters, studios, agencies, cultural organisations and creative entrepreneurs. 

Why it’s relevant

The creative industries are economically significant, but the investment conversation around the sector is often too narrow. 

Creative businesses can be rich in intellectual property, brand value, audience insight, talent, content, community and global market potential, but those assets are not always understood or valued properly by mainstream investors. 

There is also a growing opportunity around createch, where creativity meets advanced technology. As creative businesses become more digital, data-led and technology-enabled, the potential for scalable models, new markets and investable growth becomes stronger. 

At the same time, creative excellence alone is not enough. Investors need to see how the business makes money, where growth will come from, how IP is protected, whether revenue is repeatable, and whether the team can scale. 

This session is relevant because it tackles both sides of the challenge. For investors, it will demystify the creative industries and show where investable opportunities exist. For founders, it will explain what funders look for and how to build a more credible, commercially robust investment proposition. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of why the creative industries represent a serious investment opportunity, and how investors assess creative businesses in practice. 

The session will provide insight into what makes a creative business investable, including how founders can present revenue, IP, audiences, growth potential and risk more effectively. 

You will also hear where creative businesses can scale beyond project-by-project income, what types of capital may be available, and where misunderstandings often arise between founders and funders. 

The session will help attendees understand how to build greater confidence between capital and creativity, and how creative talent, IP and audience value can be turned into more sustainable, investable businesses. 

Looking for your next great investment opportunity? Then Join us for an exclusive session that dives deep into the future of life sciences. This is your chance to explore groundbreaking innovations and investment opportunities that are set to reshape the industry. Speakers will unveil cutting-edge developments in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare technology. Discover how these innovations are addressing pressing global health challenges and driving sustainable growth. Whether you're an experienced investor or new to the life science sector, this session will provide a showcase of exciting innovation in the sector.

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

About the Session
• This session will walk you through how to protect, value, and unlock the financial potential of your intellectual property (“IP”). It will focus on how IP can be used as a core driver of business value and an asset to secure funding.

What We Will Cover
• Understanding Intellectual Property
• What IP is, the different types available, and why protecting it is essential to building and preserving business value
• Valuing IP in a Commercial Context
• How IP is assessed in practice, and how a structured valuation approach can strengthen your position with investors and lenders
• Using IP to Access Funding
• How businesses can use their IP to support growth and investment plans

Why It’s Relevant
• Many businesses underestimate the value of their intellectual property or find it difficult to use it when seeking finance. As lending and investment approaches continue to evolve, being able to present IP as a credible, measurable asset is becoming increasingly important. This session provides a clearer understanding of how IP can support funding conversations and growth

What You’ll Take Away
• A clear understanding of how IP contributes to overall business value
• Practical insight into how IP is assessed and valued commercially
• Knowledge of how to use IP to access both equity and debt funding
• Awareness of how well-protected and actively managed IP can strengthen competitive advantage
• Insight into innovative funding approaches

Who Should Attend
• Founders, entrepreneurs, and scale-up businesses
• SMEs with established or developing intellectual property
• Business owners looking to raise funding for growth
• Innovation-led companies (technology, life sciences, creative sectors, etc.)
• Advisors supporting clients with strategy, funding, or IP

What it's about

AI won't eat your dinner. But the business down the road will eat your breakfast, lunch and dinner while you're still deciding what to do next.

This isn't about typing faster into Copilot or buying Claude Max. It's how you add capacity, capability and speed in the next 90 days. Creating the time for you and your team to do what you're great at.

Who should attend

You're already using AI. The problem is it's only drafting your emails and tidying your notes. This is for Founders and Directors who want to move past that, to where AI adds real capacity, but don't know how to get there.

Why they should attend

The gap is opening now.

In every market a few businesses are already using AI to do more with the same team. They're not replacing people. They're pulling ahead. The risk isn't AI taking your job. It's a competitor building a lead while you sit on the fence.

Forty five minutes that could save you a year of guessing.

What you'll takeaway

• A bullet proof evaluation of your AI strategy
• A methodology for knowing exactly where to start
• Where you can get leverage tomorrow, in 30 days and in 90 days
• Rock solid examples of what other companies are doing to spark ideas

Drawing on lessons from global sport, media and startup leadership, Sharon Fuller explores how brands cut through, build audiences and create something people genuinely care about. 

Sharon Fuller has travelled the world working across different countries, sports and audiences, with experience spanning major global organisations and startup leadership. 

This session will draw on lessons from her career across the BBC, Red Bull, the NBA and her own startup, Original Version, to explore how brands connect with people, stand out in crowded markets and build something people genuinely care about. 

It will also look at why the sports industry needs disruption, where change has happened across Sharon’s career, and how leaders can prioritise the work that creates the greatest impact. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, marketers, brand leaders, commercial teams, media professionals and anyone responsible for growing an audience, customer base or following. 

It will be relevant to businesses of all sizes looking to strengthen engagement, build visibility and create stronger market impact. 

Why it’s relevant

In crowded markets, attention is hard to earn and even harder to sustain. Great brands are not built simply by being visible; they are built by understanding audiences, creating relevance and giving people a reason to care. 

Sport offers powerful lessons because it sits at the intersection of identity, emotion, community, content, performance and commercial growth. 

This session is relevant because those lessons apply well beyond sport, particularly for businesses trying to build stronger audience relationships, improve engagement and create more distinctive brands. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into how audiences are built, why some brands and organisations cut through more effectively than others, and what it takes to create impact in highly competitive environments. 

You will also hear behind-the-scenes lessons from a remarkable career spanning global sport, media and startup leadership, with takeaways that apply well beyond the sports world.