Belinda Parmar OBE

As CEO of The Empathy Business and a Non Executive Director for the Ministry of Defence, Belinda has spent two decades helping global organisations including Lexus, Lloyds Bank, Barclays Bank, AGL, Toyota, Aston Martin, and AB InBev turn empathy from a soft aspiration into a hard commercial advantage. Her Empathy & Empowerment Programme for one bank where she trained over 200 Fraud & Complaints advisors, delivered a 9% uplift in net promoter rates and a 7.5% reduction in call handling times. Her work with AGL produced a 20.9% reduction in customer complaints and $1.7 million in cost savings. Her Global Empathy Index, published in the Harvard Business Review, connects empathy rankings directly to earnings, productivity, and retention.

As AI absorbs more cognitive work, Belinda helps leaders identify what only humans can do and build it deliberately.

A qualified barrister, OBE recipient, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, she is currently writing a leadership playbook for Penguin Random House on turning empathy into a
practical toolkit for the AI era.

Audiences leave with a framework for making the leadership calls AI cannot make for them and the confidence to lead the transition rather than be led by it.

Speech Topic: Human Leadership in an AI World

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the way we live and work, yet it cannot replicate the essence of what makes us human: our ability to connect, to feel, and to lead with empathy. In this keynote, Belinda Parmar OBE explores what human leadership means in an AI-driven world, drawing on her experience working with organisations across the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the UK, and how leaders navigate complexity where trust, technology, and human judgement collide.

Belinda will answer three big questions:

1. Can AI fake feelings, and what does that mean for trust in organisations?
2. How can leaders use empathy as a measurable, practical tool rather than a soft skill?
3. What does human leadership look like in the age of algorithms, automation, and constant change?