Greg Hoffman is one of the keynote speakers who will participate in the next edition of South Summit, the tech event taking place in Madrid from 4 to 6 June 2025.
Hoffman has led Nike’s transformational marketing, design and innovation initiatives for nearly three decades, all of which have helped position the brand as a global benchmark in creativity and branding. He has authored some of Nike’s most memorable campaigns, including the iconic video featuring Ronaldinho showing off his skills with a new pair of boots, juggling and hitting the crossbar – a video that went down in history as the first viral YouTube video, surpassing one million views. As Nike’s chief marketing officer, Hoffman left an indelible mark not only on the brand’s communication strategies, but also on the iconic product launches and personal branding of its most famous athletes.
After leaving Nike in 2020, Greg Hoffman (pictured) founded Modern Arena, a platform dedicated to helping build purpose-driven brands and generate social impact through creativity. He has since worked with startups, non-profits and giants such as Apple, Google, Netflix, Lego and Target, helping them create strong emotional connections through branding and creativity.
Four major themes
Greg Hoffman’s participation joins a line-up of top-notch speakers such as Dennis Hong, a UCLA professor and one of the world’s foremost experts on robotics, whom the Washington Post Magazine called ‘the Leonardo da Vinci of robots’. Among his revolutionary creations are the first car designed for the blind and the robot starring in the Netflix film The Electric State.
Hong will join international entrepreneurs and investors to discuss key topics under the four new content tracks of South Summit 2025: Humanity 2.0, Sustainable action, Growth and tech horizons. The Humanity 2.0 track will explore how technological advances must align with the needs of humanity and the planet. Prominent speakers in this track include Mikayel Vardanyan, co-founder and COO of Picsart, and Dennis Hong himself.
The Sustainable action section will focus on innovative solutions in areas such as energy, climate technology, agritech and resource management. Among the featured voices: Marci Zaroff, founder and CEO of EcoFashion Group, and Christophe Williams, founder and CEO of Naked Energy.
The Growth track highlights how startups, investors and companies can stimulate talent and foster an innovation ecosystem with positive impact. Experts such as Kim Perell, founder and CEO of 100.co, and Ed Soo, CTO of Lenovo, will participate.
Finally, Tech horizon will feature speakers such as Adriana Hoppenbrouwer-Pereira, co-founder of The Fabricant, and Hrish Lotlikar, co-founder and CEO of SuperWorld, who will discuss how emerging and disruptive technologies, including biotechnology, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, are transforming industries, companies and lives.
All these speakers together with entrepreneurs, investors and representatives of major corporations will come together at the South Summit 2025 under the theme ‘In Motion’ that characterises this edition, with the aim of leading a global movement with a purpose, promoting innovative solutions to current challenges and generating a positive impact on the planet, economy and society.
In its previous edition, South Summit Madrid brought together more than 18,000 participants from 133 countries, including 6,500 entrepreneurs, 26 international unicorns such as BlaBlaCar, Creditas, Globant and Waze, six thousand representatives from global companies and more than two thousand investors managing portfolios worth more than $500 billion (an increase of $174 billion over the previous year). This year, the South Summit in Madrid, which is co-organised with IE University, which also integrates the startup competition, and of which Startupbusiness is media partner, aims to exceed these numbers and strengthen its position as a meeting point to promote new ways of collaboration between entrepreneurs and high-impact investment funds, with the aim of accelerating innovation and sustainable development on a global scale.
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