Sam Conniff

Professional rule breaker
Sam Conniff

The raves Sam ran as a teenager, held under a banner of Saving The World, showed him his need for a purpose greater than himself. The post-rave-running startup that began in his bedroom became the Bafta and Cannes winning activist content studio, Don’t Panic.

The first business plan he wrote became Livity, a future thinking creative agency staffed by the young people who were the early adopters of the content we now see every day on our phones. It won a Business of The Year prize and was awarded by successive Prime Ministers and even The Queen for social innovation and supporting young people.

His NGO in Youth Development grew from Live Magazine in London to becoming Digify Africa, operating from Jo’bug to Lagos to Nairobi providing hundreds of thousands of young people across the UK and Africa with Digital Skills.

The book he wrote after stepping back from being CEO became an international best seller and launched a global movement of Pirates, rewriting the rules of life, society and work.

Sam turned down an MBE in 2020 in an open letter to the Queen suggesting an update to the honours system to move it away from its ‘colonial past’.

And, as a consultant, Sam currently advises Mercedes, Red Bull, Tate & Lyle and Rolex on sustainability, accountability and what he calls Professional Rule Breaking.

Sam Conniff