Ben & Jerry’s Co-Founder Ben Cohen Among Wide-Ranging SXSW London 2026 Speaker Lineup

SXSW London is back in 2026 with a fresh batch of expert speakers lined up.

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream co-founder Ben Cohen will make an appearance to discuss freeing his socially-oriented brand from Unilever and how social mission remains at the heart of commercial success, the conference confirmed Wednesday. The activist is vocal on social, political and humanitarian issues — including the Israel-Gaza war — and has spoken publicly about butting heads with Ben & Jerry’s parent company Unilever.

Cohen is set to talk under SXSW’s Change Makers banner alongside Thomas Cwik, chief technologist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who will explore his decades of knowledge in strategic thinking about robotic space exploration and climate change.

The event also confirmed the attendance of Ioannis Antonoglou, co-founder and CTO of Reflection AI, whose work on autonomous coding agents garnered a recent £2 billion ($2.65bn) investment to accelerate AGI and superintelligence. He’ll discuss “AI and the New Human Experience” with fellow industry members such as Joleen Liang, CEO of Squirrel AI North America and co-founder of Squirrel AI, and Victor Riparbelli, CEO and co-founder of Synthesia.

Elsewhere, Made in Chelsea and presenter-podcaster Jamie Laing will appear to talk about founding his candy business Candy Kittens, and Arsenal Women’s soccer player Lotte Wubben-Moy is expected to discuss women in leadership and the intersection of sports and culture.

SXSW London uniquely celebrates high profile leaders, who are also domain experts. This means that the 2026 edition “will deepen the festival’s promise to deliver distinctive and material insights to leaders looking for ways to build a new and better future.”

Tickets are now on sale for its second edition, taking place Jun. 1-6, 2026. A comprehensive list of speakers along with talent from the worlds of music, film, television and the visual arts will be released in early 2026. Check out the speakers confirmed Wednesday below.

Change Makers

Ben Cohen, Co-Founder of Ben & Jerry’s and storied activist
Thomas Cwik, Chief Technologist, NASA JPL – exploring his decades of knowledge in strategic thinking about robotic space exploration and climate change.

AI and the New Human Experience

Ioannis Antonoglou, Co-Founder and CTO, Reflection AI
Sviat Dulianinov, CEO, Bright Machines
Joleen Liang, CEO of Squirrel AI North America and Co-Founder, Squirrel AI
Josh Payne, CEO Nscale
Victor Riparbelli, CEO & Co-Founder, Synthesia
Hovhannes Avoyan, Founder & CEO, Picsart

Frontier Technologies

Dr. Stephanie Kuku, Chief Knowledge Officer, Conceivable Life Sciences
Gloria Mark, Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics, University of California Irvine
Ashley Pilipiszyn, CEO and Founder, BESXAR

Marketing and Advertising

Cristina Diezhandino, CMO, Diageo
Jamie Laing, Founder, Candy Kittens, Jampot Productions & Tuckshop and Ed Sweet-Williams, CEO, Candy Kittens
Martin Sorrell, Founder & Executive Chairman, S4 Capital

Society Rewired

Lotte Wubben-Moy, Footballer, Arsenal

Venture

Harry Stebbings, CEO, 20VC