Speakers

Society faces critically entrenched and complex problems. Nicholas Brooke strongly believes in the power of collective intelligence and co-creation to solve them. As Founder and Executive Director of The Synergist, Nicholas crafted the vision, team, culture, and methodology to host and manage multi-stakeholder and collaborative platforms towards achieving just this: acting as an agile backbone to catalyse stakeholder alignment, direction, and execution of international, co-created programs to incubate and accelerate co-created strategies. This vision and journey started the day Nicholas became a father for the second time. That day, he became a caregiver for the first time. Nicholas’ youngest child was born with cerebral palsy. This immediately presented his family and him with a broad host of challenges, encompassing: decision-making about medications and devices related to epilepsy; understanding neurological pathways; undergoing complex orthopaedic surgeries and other invasive interventions; adopting mobility devices; seeking digital support; addressing educational obstacles; dealing with health insurances and reimbursement problems (including a court case); and tackling everyday accessibility and societal barriers. This transformative journey led Nicholas and his family to establish the "Ensemble en Chemin" Foundation, dedicated to providing support for individuals with cerebral palsy (CP); it has already resulted in the creation of a specialized school catering to 50+ children. Combining this deeply personal journey with his professional vision, he oversaw the launch of several health-related programs under The Synergist. These include Patient Focused Medicines Development (PFMD) - for which he also acts as Executive Director - a pre-competitive, global, collaborative, and multi-stakeholder platform dedicated to driving innovation with systematic patient engagement in health systems, including the entire lifecycle of medicines, devices, and health services. Other shared-value health programs - all of which bring together key actors from across the private-public spectrum - include: From Testing to Targeted Treatment (FT3), Motherhood Collective Impact, IHI-Guide MRD, IMI-Conception, IMI-Paradigm, and IMI-Gravitate. In addition to being an economist by training and a broad system thinker, Nicholas is an expert in digital solutions. Prior to starting The Synergist, he was CEO of an award-winning digital agency delivering cutting-edge strategy to corporations across sectors globally.