James Ridgway is Co-Founder and CTO of The Curve, a technology consultancy that helps ambitious organisations turn technology into measurable business outcomes. Sometimes the technology is the problem. More often, it isn't, and knowing the difference is where the real work begins. James has spent his career helping senior leaders understand which one they're dealing with, then building the systems, teams, and architecture to fix it. James is known for his ability to challenge clients constructively, getting into the details quickly and surfacing the real problem behind the stated one. Whether he's in a board room presenting to directors or trustees, working alongside a commercial director on a transformation programme, or unpicking a cross-functional operational issue, he brings the same combination of technical depth and business pragmatism – translating what's possible into language executive teams can act on. His approach is grounded in a simple philosophy: simplify, test, and bias towards action. James is wary of unchecked assumptions and the analysis paralysis they create. He'd rather run a lean experiment, look at actual outcomes, and adapt – an ethos that reflects The Curve's wider obsession with productivity and the disciplined pursuit of what genuinely matters. James and his co-founder Paul started The Curve after scaling a global telematics platform from a small founding team to more than 120 people, serving blue chip insurers across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. That journey meant solving problems at every layer of the stack – but just as importantly, the business, process, and people problems that come with rapid scale. The Curve is the distillation of that experience: a consultancy built to be a trusted partner throughout a client's technology journey, focused on doing a good job, building things that drive productivity, and creating lasting impact.

David Shapton has had parallel careers in media technology as a CTO and a writer for over thirty years. After eight years working in copyright, his career in digital media began in the late 1980s, when he co-designed the world’s first DSP-based digital audio mixing console. He was CTO at Litelogic, European President of Atomos, Content Partner at Grithouse Agency, Director of Communications at Hedge, and co-founder and Editor-in-Chief at RedShark Media. He now advises individuals and organisations on their approach to AI and hyper-exponential technology change. David’s university training in philosophy has (finally!) reached peak relevance in his writings about AI and its relationship to fundamentals such as authenticity, consciousness, intelligence, awareness, and belief vs. knowledge. He runs workshops and is a public speaker on the nature of AI and the risks of not fully understanding what AI is, rather than what it does. He has written over 1,300 published articles. David is writing a book called “How To Understand Today”, which may never be finished because it is going out of date faster than he can write it.