Meet Our Experts
A unique team of professionals with decades of experience in every aspect of thought leadership creation.
Dave Light
Boston, USA
Veteran editorial executive, corporate trainer, and director of content development for business and technology thought leadership.
Dave has nearly thirty years’ experience as a content developer and editorial executive, working for leading university-based publications and a Fortune 500 consulting and technology-services firm.
Working collaboratively with senior business, marketing, and research leaders, Dave has published articles in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, The Wall Street Journal, Rotman Magazine, Ivey Business Journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review, The European Business Review and other journals.
At Accenture’s strategic think tank, Dave worked in collaboration with the global head of thought leadership and the chief strategy officer to develop the company’s strategic business ideas for publication. As chief editor for Accenture’s research wing, he led the creation of a new team of senior editors in Boston, New York, London, and Singapore. Dave served as faculty for the thought leadership course at the firm’s corporate training center and led workshops in Europe and the U.S. on structured idea development and persuasive communication.
Dave studied Russian history, language, and literature in college and graduate school. He lives near Boston with his wife and has two adult children in New York City.
Armen Ovanessoff
London, UK; São Paulo, Brazil; Yerevan, Armenia
Consultant, Trainer, Researcher and Writer; helping global leaders from business, government and civil society to prepare for the future.
Armen's research has cut across economics, business, technology and society, and featured in global tier-1 journals, such as the Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. His opinions and insights have been featured across the world’s leading media publications, and he is a frequent speaker and moderator at events. He has decades of experience in multi-stakeholder environments like the G7/B7, G20/B20, OECD and World Economic Forum, including formal roles representing the voice of business to G20 governments.
Armen's immersive training programmes and workshops have stimulated hundreds of leaders to boost their performance – for example, after his revamping of Accenture’s Thought Leadership Training, the company climbed to No 1 in independent global rankings. He has coached dozens of senior leaders to make an impact on high-profile global platforms.
Armen established Accenture’s think tank in Latin America, which he ran from São Paulo, Brazil, for five years. He also set up and led the firm’s think tank in India, based in New Delhi, for three years; as well as helping to build the firm’s think tank in China.
Armen was, briefly, a strategy consultant. His undergraduate and graduate degrees are in the fields of operational research and system dynamics, attained with distinction and merit from the London School of Economics & Political Science. He also holds qualifications from the Prague University of Economics and from the Institut d’Etudes Commerciales Supérieures de Strasbourg.
Athena Peppes
London, UK
Futurist consultant and speaker; helping executives to reimagine the future of their organizations and create new growth.
Athena is a futurist consultant and speaker. She advises large global organizations, consultancies and policymakers on economic and technological futures, applying foresight frameworks to organizational strategy. Her topics include AI, neurotechnology, space technology, new economic frontiers, and business transformation. Her purpose as a futurist is to enable senior leaders to anticipate emerging challenges and create new growth.
Athena started her career as an economist and dedicated over a decade at Accenture advising businesses on emerging trends. She co-founded the company’s Business Futures approach used at innovation hubs, inspiring executive teams into action and leading to strategy engagements of $30m+. She helped a semiconductor company triple its revenue and profitability. She has led multiple teams to develop thought leadership projects on AI, digital skills, the future of economic growth and business transformation, contributing to Accenture’s ranking as #1 in thought leadership.
Her insights have contributed to 50+ reports, articles and points of views on topics related to the future of business. Athena has published in Harvard Business Review, Rotman Magazine, Thunderbird International Business Review, and The European Business Review, and her thought leadership has featured as the speaking platform for business leaders at the World Economic Forum, B20, W20, IBEC and CBI. She has presented her findings to client teams and externally at conferences such as Chatham House. Athena believes foresight enables executives to reimagine their organizations' future and thrive amid rapid change. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA), holds an MSc in Economics from the University of York, and lives in London.
Mark Purdy
London, UK
Chief economist, thought leader, and advisor on issues at the intersection of technology, economics and business.
Mark has almost 29 years' experience as an economist in business, government and consultancy, including twenty years as chief economist at one of the world’s largest technology consultancy companies. He is Managing Director of Purdy & Associates, an independent consultancy focusing on economic and technology policy issues. He is also a Senior Advisor at Frontier Economics and a Principal Analyst at Information Services Group (ISG), where his work has involved multiple projects on AI, data, and intelligent automation.
Mark has published widely in tier-1 business and media publications such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, The Straits Times and The South China Morning Post. His recent articles have covered topics such as the impact of generative AI on decision making, the rise of the prompt economy, customer experiences in the metaverse, the impact of the AI data bonanza on geo-strategic competition, and the future of contactless commerce.
Mark was the originator of Accenture’s Business Futures program. He also led Accenture’s pathbreaking series of studies on AI as the Future of Growth, presenting the findings at conferences in Latin America and Europe. Prior to that, he was an economic advisor at the U.K. Competition Commission, the Consumers’ Association (where he focused on telecoms regulation and competition policy), and Ireland’s National Economic and Social Council. He has a B.A. (Hons) and a master’s degree in economics from Trinity College, Dublin.
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