The Psychology
of Engagement 

Dr. Peter Hughes

Dr. Peter Hughes is a specialist in communication psychology with a particular interest in brand psychology. He founded the Cognition Scientific Board, now acknowledged as the UK’s foremost board of advisors with expertise in psychology, neuroscience and statistics.

Peter has managed over 200 research, messaging, segmentation and growth projects for clients in more than 25 countries in EMEA, UAE, US, LATAM and APAC. He has appeared in more than 60 television documentaries, delivers talks and runs workshops in the UK and internationally on psychology, decision science and leadership.

Amit Vyas

Amit Vyas is the Founder & CEO at NEXA based in Dubai, a digital and growth marketing agency, which was founded in 2005 as well as the Founder & CEO at Pure Minds Academy and hold a number of Director/Board positions in the UK, KSA and USA through our business portfolio at NEXA.

Amit is passionate about disruption, driving growth & innovation in the digital marketing and education sectors. With over two decades of experience in leading multi-award-winning teams, his mission is to empower businesses and individuals to achieve their full potential through cutting-edge strategies and transformative learning experiences.

Andrew Thomas

Andrew Thomas is the Managing Director at MAZ NEXA in Riyadh. Andrew is passionate about helping individuals, brands, and businesses grow every day. Whether it’s solving complex challenges, uncovering new opportunities, or driving measurable impact, I’m motivated by seeing real change through our work.

At MAZ NEXA, their diverse team blends strategy, creativity, and technology to deliver meaningful growth. Based in Riyadh, they stay close to our partners across the region — combining local understanding with a global perspective.

With over 15 years in the digital space, they’ve learned how to adapt, innovate, and turn insight into action. Their focus is simple: deliver growth, whatever form it takes. 

Dr. Carl Senior

Carl completed his PhD at the University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Visiting Professor at the Laboratory of Brain & Cognition at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA.

He specialises in the understanding of non-verbal behaviour and the skills, traits, and motives associated with social dominance, power and leadership. He is the Associate Editor for a number of Journals including Cognitive Neuroscience and The Leadership Quarterly.

Carl has published 112 papers in peer reviewed journals and contributed chapters to several books.

In the field of Organisational Psychology, he was one of the first to develop a framework for applying the nominal group technique (NGT) to understanding mechanisms for organisational change in focus groups.

Dr. Sylvia Wong

Sylvia completed her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Birmingham.

She has expertise in database and data warehouse design for data mining, and is experienced in modelling / structuring complex data to facilitate data processing in addition to web-based software development, including the necessary security issues.

She has experience in working with industry to bring about process efficiency and developing new business capability through collaborating with various small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on government-funded knowledge transfer partnership projects.

She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and is passionate about educating next generation Software Engineers.

Dr. Kanimozhi Narayanan

Kani is a work psychologist and a Lecturer in Organisation Behavior with a PhD from University of Edinburgh.

Her research specifically focuses on exploring employee workplace behaviour working across industries and cultures. In addition, her research strength lies within the nature of understanding employee-organisation relationship with majority of her work focusing on leadership, workplace deviance, use of AI/technology for work, neurodiversity and its impact of on organisational behaviour.

Kani's skills are especially relevant for organisations to understand their current culture and how to develop positive change and employee engagement.

Dr. Charlotte Pennington

Charlotte is an experimental social psychologist interested in how people's complex social environments impact upon their health and wellbeing.

One theme of Charlotte's research focuses on the psychological and contextual factors that influence addictive behaviours. For example, she is interested in how people's attention is drawn to environmental cues how this influences their proclivity to (mis)use substances. Another theme of Charlotte's research investigates how people process, remember, and use information in social contexts to explain their own behaviour and that of others ("social cognition"). In particular, Charlotte is interested in how social cognition develops, and is altered, through health and disease.

Charlotte is also an expert in Open Science: she is Aston University's Local Network Lead for the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN), a member of the Framework for Open & Reproducible Research Training (FORRT), and an Action Editor for Registered Reports for Addiction Research & Theory, and Peer Community In.

Charlotte is also the Author of "A Student's Guide to Open Science: How the Replication Crisis can Reform Psychology", published by Open University Press.

Dr. Daniel J. Shaw

Daniel is a social cognitive neuroscientist - a psychologist who uses various neuroimaging techniques to investigate the brain systems that guide and regulate our behaviour in social situations.

Currently, he is developing "hyperscanning" paradigms - interpersonal contexts in which brain function can be measured from two interacting individuals. This allows him to explore the brain systems supporting social behaviour while they operate in real time.