Ben Afia is a leading brand and AI strategist with over thirty years’ experience helping organisations navigate change and stay distinctive in an AI-driven world. With more and more teams using AI models, many businesses risk sounding the same. Ben works with marketing and leadership teams to explain how AI can improve output while also ensuring they keep what makes them different. As a speaker, he has delivered keynotes at a range of events, including leadership offsites, marketing conferences and CEO/board-level events across energy, finance, healthcare and telecoms.
Ben's expertise rests on three decades of building brands and leading culture transformation for organisations including Vodafone, Aviva, Google, AirBP, E.ON, Boots, Aldermore Bank and Legal & General. His work has included transforming customer service for 1,000 Vodafone agents (boosting NPS by 15–20 points), training 20,000 people across 28 countries for Aviva, and reaching 16,000 people through E.ON’s culture transformation.
Ben is currently leading a multi-year programme for a Fortune 500 life science company, transforming their ninety-page brand governance documents into a team of AI agents that marketers can actually use. Rolling out to 400 marketers, the programme will also be backed by training and change management. In addition, Ben is the author of 'The Human Business: How to Love Your Customers So They Love You Back', an alumnus of SmarterX’s AI Academy and a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association.
Ben offers a variety of keynotes and workshops, including 'How to Stop AI from Erasing Your Brand', 'Your Next Hire Won’t Be Human', and the hands-on workshop 'Brief. Build. Back'. Each one leaves audiences clear on what to do about AI and confident enough to do it. Book Ben Afia via Champions Speakers to help your team get all the benefits of AI while keeping what makes them different!
Books
The Human Business: How to love your customers so they love you back
Ben Afia's official speaking topics are listed below:
- The AI Efficiency Trap - What happens when AI makes every company faster, cheaper and exactly the same?
- Your Next Hire Won’t Be Human - How to redesign work, lead human-AI teams and decide what people should still own
- How to Stop AI from Erasing Your Brand - Protect what makes your business different while competitors disappear into a sea of sameness
- Stop Experimenting. Start Changing the Business - Turn scattered AI pilots into better performance, confident people and lasting change
- Train AI to Sound Like You, Not Everyone Else - Capture your culture, knowledge and judgement so your difference scales with AI
- From 90 Documents to AI People Actually Use - How to turn forgotten guidance into practical agents that help people do better work
- 2024 - Co-founder and Brand Director of Humanova
- 2024 - Head of Marketing and Customer Experience at UrbanChain
- 2023 - Creative Director of DNV
- 2019 - Customer Experience Transformation Specialist for Aldermore Bank
- 2012 - Brand Strategy, Tone of Voice, Customer Experience, Change Management Specialist for Vodafone
- 2010 - Culture and Brand Strategy Specialist for bp
- 2008 - Brand Strategy, Tone of Voice, Change Management, Customer Experience Specialist for Aviva
- 2004 - Founder and Director of 26:Membership Organisation
- 2001 - Brand Strategist for Boots
- 1991 - Graduated from the University of Reading with a degree in Archaeology
How to hire Ben Afia
Contact the Champions Speakers Agency to provisionally enquire about hiring Ben Afia for your next event, today. To get in touch, simply call an official booking agent on 0207 1010 553 or email us at [email protected] for more information.
** We do NOT accept requests for autographs, signed merchandise, fan mail, birthday messages or any other non-commercial contact with the speakers or acts. Each speaker on the website may not have necessarily worked with Champions in the past but are known to perform such engagements within the industry.
