John Thornhill
FT Innovation Editor and Founder of FT Forums

John Thornhill is innovation editor at the Financial Times and author of an award-winning column on the impact of technology. He was previously the FT's deputy editor from 2012 to 2016 during which time he founded The 125 (now FT Forums) in the news organisation's 125th anniversary year.

John joined the FT as a graduate trainee in 1988 and worked in London as a City reporter, retail correspondent and Lex columnist. After moving to Moscow in 1994 he covered Russia’s transformation to a quasi-market economy and the rise of Vladimir Putin. He then became Asia editor and foreign news editor, responsible for coverage of the Iraq war.

John moved to Paris in 2004 as Paris bureau chief and subsequently editor of the European edition. He returned to London in 2009 to become news editor and then deputy editor. During his time at the FT John has reported from 36 countries and interviewed 16 heads of state, including Putin, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Lee Kuan Yew as well as many corporate leaders, including Bill Gates and Dara Khosrowshahi.

Last year John founded and launched Sifted, a new FT-backed media site for Europe's startup community. He is also the host of the FT's Tech Tonic podcast which has featured - among others - Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Yuval Noah Harari, Martha Lane Fox and Garry Kasparov. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Satya Nadella
CEO, Microsoft

Satya Nadella is chief executive officer of Microsoft. Before being named CEO in February 2014, Satya held leadership roles in both enterprise and consumer businesses across the company.

Joining Microsoft in 1992, Satya quickly became known as a leader who could span a breadth of technologies and businesses to transform some of Microsoft’s biggest product offerings. Most recently, he was executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group. In this role he led the transformation to the cloud infrastructure and services business, which outperformed the market and took share from competition. Previously, Satya led R&D for the Online Services Division and was vice president of the Microsoft Business Division. Before joining Microsoft, Satya was a member of the technology staff at Sun Microsystems.

Satya earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Mangalore University, a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago. He serves on the board of trustees to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and his alma mater the University of Chicago, as well as the Starbucks board of directors.