Successful car parking businesses rely on strong relationships. Whether with colleagues, clients, suppliers, competitors, investors or others, having a network built on deep relationships means you have people who will refer you, advocate for you, offer advice, and provide support in whatever way you need.

In this talk, Andy explores the fundamentals of building, nurturing and leveraging strong professional relationships.

During the session, he will explore:

• How to develop a professional relationships strategy without people feeling ‘networked’ by you
• Where are the gaps in your professional relationships?
• The 7 Stages of Professional Relationships and understanding why people would want to help you
• How we develop, and lose, trust
• The more engaging alternative to 'The Elevator Pitch'
• What stops us from asking for help
• Knowing how to make it easy for your connections to support you when they are ready to.

About Andy

Andy Lopata is an internationally recognised authority on Relationship Intelligence, trust and human-centred leadership in the age of AI. Named to the 2026 Thinkers50 Coaches50, recognising 50 of the world’s most influential executive coaches, Andy has spent nearly 30 years helping leaders and organisations strengthen the professional relationships that drive collaboration, influence and performance.

As organisations accelerate their adoption of AI, Andy’s work addresses an increasingly important leadership challenge: how to embrace the opportunities technology offers without weakening the human relationships on which successful organisations depend. He helps leaders balance AI with HI, Human Interaction, so that people continue to build trust, collaborate across silos, influence effectively and access the insight and support around them.

Andy is the creator of The Relationship Matrix, a practical framework that helps leaders identify, strengthen and leverage the relationships most critical to their objectives. His work combines strategic insight with practical tools that enable people to build trust, influence without authority and create stronger cultures of collaboration.

The author of six books, including Connected Leadership and The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring, co-authored with fellow Coaches50 honouree Dr Ruth Gotian, Andy is a regular contributor to Psychology Today and has written for Harvard Business Review, including contributing a chapter to the HBR Guide to Retaining Your Best People.

Andy is a Fellow of both the Professional Speaking Association and the Learning and Performance Institute. He has worked with organisations including Google, PayPal, Harrods, the BBC, HSBC and Saïd Business School, as well as governments and leadership teams around the world.

Through his keynotes, masterclasses, mentoring and advisory work, Andy combines thought-provoking insight, engaging storytelling and immediately applicable ideas to help people rethink the role professional relationships play in leadership and organisational success