Manchester’s symbol is the worker bee

Corporate Athlete, Business Provocateur, Speaker, and Author

Brad Waldron will host the Leadership Forum, guiding us through the day and keeping the conversation moving between sessions.

A multi-award-winning Vistage speaker, Brad entertains, provokes, and challenges leaders and organisations looking for new pathways to growth — and he brings that same energy to the stage as our host. He has a proven track record of helping others succeed, drawing on a rare mix of insight, humour, and practical strategies that lift performance and productivity.

Former CEO of Oxygen Learning and regional managing director of the Covey Leadership Centre, Brad takes on the challenges and opportunities that decide how quickly leaders and teams grow. He works with blue-chip companies, SMEs, and charities, including Sony, Microsoft, Fujitsu, McCann Worldgroup, Flywire, Iron Mountain, BlackRock, Barclaycard, L'Oréal, and Warner Bros.

A native Australian who has spent more of his life abroad than at home — Aussies consider him a tourist — Brad has also competed at the top of his sport, winning three national titles and one international title.

As National Head of our Employment team, I understand the commercial realities of running a business. My role is to be a trusted advisor, providing strategic and commercial legal advice (and not a lesson on the law).

I work in partnership with clients as an integral part of their own team to understand their business and their objectives. I help them to navigate their employment law and HR issues with a solutions driven approach, while mitigating risk.

I advise on the full range of employment law issues, with a particular focus on large scale projects including:

• Support on corporate transactions
• Restructures
• Senior executive and Board issues
• Complex employee relations issues
• Employment Tribunal litigation
• Shareholder/employment disputes.

I build long-lasting relationships with clients, and my particular strength is to understand complex areas of employment law and/or complex factual scenarios and to provide commercial driven advice (without sitting on the fence) in plain English.

Clients don’t just have to take my word for it. Chambers and Partners(Opens in a new tab) and Legal 500(Opens in a new tab) (both leading independent legal guides) also recognise me as an expert in my field. Legal 500 ranks me as a Leading Partner, and Chambers and Partners have referred to me as “… a unique partner who leads the employment function, but who continues to provide exceptional counsel on complex employment advice."

Burnout rarely announces itself at the top — the very traits that build a successful leader are the ones that hide it. And by the time it bites, everyone already knows the advice: sleep, boundaries, delegate. Knowing was never the problem.

Prolonged stress downgrades the very part of the brain you'd need to act on what you know — which is why willpower and another wellbeing webinar don't work. And the right response depends entirely on what's actually driving your burnout, so generic advice misses.

In this evidence-informed keynote, Consultant Psychiatrist and TV Doctor Dr Tharaka Gunarathne (Dr T) brings the discipline he calls Clinical Clarity to burnout: separating the external pressures every leader faces from the internal patterns that decide how hard they land. Then he hands the room a single tool they keep — a repeatable loop to diagnose the driver, decide what to accept versus solve, and commit to the next move.

Not another list of tips. A method for clarity — so leaders leave knowing what's driving their burnout, and what to do when back at the office.

Key takeaways

Recognise anytime where you sit on the burnout triangle — energy, emotion and efficacy — before it costs you your edge
Understand why the same pressures burn out one leader and barely touch another, and the internal drivers behind it

See why knowing the advice isn't enough — and what actually closes the gap between knowing and doing

Use Dr T's Clarity Loop™️ to diagnose the driver, sort what to accept from what to solve, and choose the right leadership move
Leave able to answer three questions: what's happening, what's driving it, and what do I do next

Dr Tharaka Gunarathne (Dr T) is a medical doctor, Consultant Psychiatrist and behavioural analyst, known to television audiences for reading the contestants on The Traitors and Big Brother.

He now brings that same psychiatrist's lens to leadership — helping leaders see what is really going on beneath the surface of organisational behaviour, so they solve the real problem rather than the apparent one. He calls it Clinical Clarity: when you understand what's genuinely happening with people, you are positioned to decide and act more wisely.

A triple TEDx speaker, Dr T works with FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 organisations globally and has been speaking on the Vistage circuit since 2019, working with hundreds of members across the UK and  internationally. He is known for pairing clinical rigour with warmth and humour — leaving audiences both genuinely seen and armed with something they can use immediately.

Joe Nellis is Emeritus Professor of Global Economy, following a distinguished career at the Cranfield School of Management, where, over more than four decades, he helped shape the School’s teaching, research, and academic leadership. His career combines academic rigour with real-world relevance, earning him international recognition for scholarship and impact.

Joe has published 20 research and subject-based books and over 200 academic and practitioner journal articles. His research analyses business developments in a changing world, covering the macroeconomy, the role of government, the impact of technology, and societal and demographic trends. He is a frequent contributor to a wide range of national and international conferences and a consultant in the areas of economic and business analysis, strategy formulation, and management development. He has also consulted for several government departments and public sector organisations. He is currently an Economic Adviser to MHA, a member of Baker Tilly International.

His expertise centres on macroeconomic analysis, public finance, and economic policy, with a strong focus on decision-making under uncertainty. A trusted adviser to senior leaders across business, government, and the public sector, Joe is known for turning complexity into insight that informs strategy.

In the 2024 New Year Honours, Joe was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to education, economics, business, and charity.