Kate Ancketill

Kate Ancketill is a leading global retail and business futurist and speaker, exploring consumer trends, brands, hospitality, technology and societal change.

For 25 years, Kate ran London-based business futurist consultancy GDR Creative Intelligence, acting as innovation partner to more than 100 of the world’s largest brands – including P&G, Tesco, Sephora, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Pepsi, LVMH and Coca-Cola.

Named Best AI & Future Technology Speaker at the 2025 Speaker Awards and one of BizTech Magazine’s Top 30 IT Influencers in 2024, she continues to bring those same signals directly to conference stages, corporate summits and executive boardrooms worldwide.

What sets Kate apart is where she looks. Most speakers stay inside one industry’s news cycle; Kate reads them all as a single picture – a bank learning from beauty, a retailer borrowing a loyalty trick from mobile gaming, a hotel’s customer flow reshaping an automotive showroom.

It’s not a framework or a checklist – after 25 years of paying attention across every sector at once, she simply notices the connections other people miss.

“FASCINATING AND SCARY 9.25/10”
Owen James: A Meeting of Minds conference

Every keynote is built from the same lens – the signal, the technology making it real, and the macro forces that decide whether it lasts – and can be delivered as a 30–45 minute conference session, a webinar, a panel contribution, or a half-day interactive board briefing.

As the NRF’s Martine Reardon, CMO & EVP of Content and Retail Strategy, puts it: “Kate gets among the highest feedback for speakers at the NRF Big Show every year — that’s why we’ve invited her to give the trends keynote for ten years running.”

Book Kate Ancketill, and your audience will walk away with concrete trends for the next three to five years, real global case studies behind each one, and ideas they’re still implementing months later.

Kate’s areas of expertise include:

• Futurism
• Consumer Trends
• The Metaverse
• Artificial Intelligence
• New Technologies
• Disruptive Business Models
• Sustainability
• Customer Experience
• Retail
• Hospitality
• E-commerce Trends
• Marketing & Brands
• Digital Media
• Post-Pandemic Retail & Hospitality
• Virtual Commerce

Keynote Speeches by Kate Ancketill include:

• Why everyone should become a futurist.
• Trends fit for the future: The surprising secret of persistently brilliant retail brands.
• AI’s role in transforming retail – why we can’t live without it, and how to mitigate the dangers.
• The future of customer service. What can professional services learn from the fastmoving retail industry.
• The Metaverse: why brands should care about the virtual world.
• The Big Disruptors: Prioritising Retail Strategies
• Sustainable brands: a practical guide to a future that works for the planet, people, and profit.
• The Circular Economy: Regenerative models that work.
• Loyalty, payment and NFTs: New models of customer engagement.
• What every retail sector can learn from innovation in FinTech.
• How Innovation in Customer Experience is the Heart of Future Growth.
• The Future of Beauty and Wellness.
• Longevity and the future of ageing.