Work Smart · Live Well
Vanessa Aradia is a human-centred AI strategist and advocate: accountant, TEDx speaker, author and educator with thirty years across the accounting and tax industry. Her proposition is simple. AI must serve humanity, strengthen communities and respect the natural world.
TEDx Speaker·Head of L&D, ICB·30 Years in Accounting & Tax
01The Book
The Book
A field guide for a future that is fast, complex, and extraordinary.
A practical guide to smarter working and sustainable living, bringing the professional and the personal together in one integrated framework for modern life.
As heard at TEDx: The Age of the Human. Work Smart, Live Well.
Buy the book02Human-Centred AI
The people affected by these technologies deserve a meaningful voice in shaping their future. Vanessa works for that outcome on four connected fronts: publishing original ideas, speaking on international stages, convening communities, and contributing evidence to policy and governance.
“Community capability is AI's final mile.”From her TEDx talk · The Age of the Human
AI literacy, safeguarding, and children's participation in decisions about the technologies affecting them.
Transparent environmental reporting, responsible resource consumption, and evidence of environmental benefit.
Meaningful involvement in AI decisions, and access to the capabilities needed to benefit from them.
How professional education and lifelong learning should evolve as AI changes occupations.
Public accountability, independent scrutiny, and measurable social outcomes from AI development.
In Development · Discussion Paper
Ensuring AI progress becomes human progress.
Who benefits from AI development? Who has a meaningful say in its governance? How does it affect human capability, opportunity and independence? What are its social and environmental consequences? And how should progress be measured beyond productivity? A discussion paper exploring these five questions is in development, and researchers, educators, community organisations and governance specialists are invited to critique the early draft.
Request the discussion draft →03Work with Vanessa
From the TEDx stage to Accountex London and international panels, Vanessa speaks, teaches and coaches on AI, future skills and human-centred change. Four ways to work together:
Keynotes
The Age of the Human, live on your stage: a keynote for mixed audiences about capability, technology and building a working life worth living. People leave hopeful, inspired and ready to act.
Book a keynote →Workshops & Event Days
Practical, evidence-led workshops and full event days on future skills, AI capability and human-centred change, built around your people rather than slideware.
Plan a workshop →Coaching
Presentation and stage-presence coaching for people with a message worth hearing: aspiring speakers, and leaders and professionals who present as part of their work.
Ask about coaching →Presentations & Consulting
Conference panels, advisory boards and policy work across AI governance, human capability, learning and assessment: evidence submissions, standards conversations and in-house presentations.
Start a conversation →Signature talks
Her signature keynote, straight from the TEDx stage: what automation and augmentation really mean for professional value, and why the age of the machine resolves into the age of the human.
The capabilities that matter most in a world of AI and automation, and why every one of them is human. As heard at Accountex London.
How global advances in AI become meaningful in everyday life, and why community capability determines whether technology strengthens human agency.
A framework for leading change that actually lasts, combining leadership, learning and human-centred design.
On stage in 2026
Sep 23Panel Assessment in a Changing WorldTPAC Oct 17TEDx · Delivered The Age of the Human. Work Smart, Live Well.TEDx Doncaster Women Nov 16Keynote Adding Value to BusinessThe Bookkeepers Summit ListenKeynote · May The Six Human Skills That CountAccountex London · Podcast“I thought I was hiring an exceptional learning professional — what I actually hired was a force. Almost every conversation with her ends in a genuine mic-drop moment.”
“Vanessa has the ability to speak on issues in a way that not only informs but also inspires her audience. She is able to take difficult and complex ideas and express them in a way that people can easily understand.”
“She doesn't just think about how to do things better—she thinks about entirely new ways to create value. Her work on the AI Academy is a perfect example of innovation that actually serves people.”
“Her sessions brought together real practical value, plain English insight, and a genuine willingness to help people think differently about their work, their organisations, and the opportunities in front of them.”
04The TEDx Story
On 17 October 2026, Vanessa stepped onto the red dot at TEDx Doncaster Women with The Age of the Human. Work Smart, Live Well. The talk makes the case that as machine intelligence becomes universal, human value migrates to judgement, accountability and attention, and that building a life around those is a choice available to everyone.
Preparing a message for that stage teaches you how an idea becomes a talk. Now Vanessa is bringing that craft to others: she is creating TEDx Women 2027, developing twelve speakers between March and October 2027, each coached through her Speaker Coaching Programme.
If you have a message worth hearing and a stage you want to earn, the programme is open for enquiries.
05Events & Community
Two growing homes for the Work Smart, Live Well community: live event days, and a collective for the people who build capability.
Live Events · 2027 Series
A four-act 2027 series on how work is changing and what we do next: hands-on workshops, evening keynotes and panels, from AI in your business to Doncaster 2035. Four dates, March to November.
See the 2027 programme →Community
For the people shaping how we learn and work: a community-led gathering for L&D, HR, OD and capability professionals. Thoughtful practice, meaningful connection, and a full day together at Yorkshire Wildlife Park this January.
Explore the Collective →06The Newsletter
Membership
A monthly members' edition that goes deeper than the free Weekly: full frameworks and tools to use with your team, the white paper series first, members-only posts, and priority access to workshops and event days.
Become a memberThe free Saturday Weekly below is your sample of what members receive.
Free to read · your weekly sample
White Paper · New This Month
Skills, assessment reform and the pursuit of vocational parity in professional education.
White Paper
Scarcity, capability and professional value when machine intelligence becomes universal.
Free Guide
Eight practical chapters, eight tools you keep, and one 90-day plan.
Every Saturday
A short dose of inspiration on work, wellbeing and the human side of AI.
Latest Issue
What happens to attention and recovery after the handover: AI process vigilance and the design of trustworthy delegation.
Watch
Read & Listen
07Projects
Community data, national movements, global policy. Everything grows from the same root: technology in service of human flourishing.
National Movement · Founded by Vanessa Aradia
“You plant the seed, AI helps it grow.”
A national movement and digital platform helping communities grow food, restore nature and build resilience from the ground up. A Work Smart, Live Well CIC initiative.
Hands-on AI capability programmes for accountants and bookkeepers. Ethical, practical, human-centred.
View course → Interactive ToolHow resilient is your home? A free six-minute assessment across food, water, energy, money, climate and preparedness, with your Home Resilience Score and five priority actions.
Take the free assessment → Capability ProgrammeA six-month national challenge where participants build and evidence future-ready skills through real community action.
Visit futureskillschallenge.com →Contributing to the UN Working Group on People-Centred Smart Cities in the AI Era, following the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.
A community-focused exploration of AI's role in human flourishing. Stories, frameworks and practical wisdom.
Discover →Co-founding data literacy and citizen science initiatives that put data power back in community hands.
Grassroots environmental policy, sustainability planning and community-led change in Doncaster.
Shaping how AI literacy is embedded into professional learning and development frameworks across the sector.
Working with communities and organisations to end gender-based violence and build safer, more equitable societies.
Get involved →08The Change Model
Change has become the backdrop of our lives. LETGO™ is a practical five-step model that helps individuals and teams unlearn old patterns and grow new ones that stick.
Leadership · Teams · Personal Development
Explore the model at letgomoves.com →09About Vanessa
Vanessa works as a human-centred AI strategist and advocate across AI governance, human capability, community inclusion and sustainable futures. One focus runs through all of it: making sure technological change strengthens human judgement, ethical reasoning and wellbeing.
She works across education and professional services organisations, helping them rethink how they develop people, structure work and build cultures where both innovation and sustainability matter. Her background spans learning design, leadership development, payroll and accountancy.
Vanessa is Head of L&D at the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, founder of TCW Accounting Solutions, and speaks regularly at UK and international conferences on AI, future skills and human-centred change.
30
Years of Accounting & Tax Industry Experience
ICB
Head of Global L&D
TEDx
Speaker
Published Author
10Contact
Keynotes, workshops, coaching, membership, or a conversation about change, AI and sustainability. Every message gets read.
Substack
Work Smart, Live Well WeeklyYouTube
Watch Vanessa's talks