As the force behind the UK’s fastest-rising cultural juggernaut SXSW London — and with a past that includes brands like Secret Cinema and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s entertainment empire — Max Alexander is taking a different approach to brand leadership — one that’s more fluid, more involved, and deeply connected to the culture itself. The festival returns to Shoreditch from 1–6 June 2026, this year, marking the second edition of SXSW London and its most ambitious program yet. Rather than standing at the front of the room and delegating, Alexander will no doubt be most comfortable being part of the room — delivering value through participation, not position.
Last year’s inaugural edition drew a visit from His Majesty The King, underscoring the festival’s rising cultural significance.
And as the landscape of business continues to rapidly evolve, I’d say there’s more room for different types of brand leadership than ever before. Many of these newer forms of leadership are already driving results. I’m thinking of culturally relevant brands like Skims, Glossier, or Fear of God — that are smaller, faster, and more entrepreneurial than we’ve ever seen before.
Here are the four lessons we can learn from the CEO of SXSW London, as it catapults into its second year.
Produce, Don’t Just Preside
At SXSW London, Alexander doesn’t just lead from the sidelines; he’s on the floor, in the sessions, providing solutions if needed, seeing around the corner before it’s happened. It’s definitely a producer-style form of leadership — hands-on, adaptive, embedded.
And in an entrepreneurial environment like SXSW London, it makes sense. That’s exactly the leadership style that sustains momentum: less orchestration, more co-creation — and ultimately, it’s what’s driven a real impact and propelled the festival into it’s second year in London. The speed, experimentation, and interdisciplinary nature of SXSW London as essentially a start-up with the power of a hefty brand name behind it, demand leadership that’s in the flow, not above it.
And it might well be a a dynamic reflected by upcoming SXSW London 2026 speaker Thomas Cwik, Chief Technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose leadership on robotic space exploration is no doubt embedded in the process.
Regardless, research increasingly supports this shift. Studies on leader–member exchange show that high-quality relational closeness between leaders and teams predicts stronger performance and innovation. Similarly, research on functional proximity finds that leaders who stay close to their teams — without micromanaging — are perceived as more effective and trusted.
Leading from the middle were not necessarily representative of the case studies we learned at my Alma mater, Harvard Business School — but in creative and brand-centric organizations, like SXSW London, I’d say it’s the space where trust and speed coexist.
Embrace The Creative Mess
If there’s one thing an environment like SXSW London embodies, it’s creative friction. Multiple disciplines collide — in fact the first SXSW London’s overarching theme was Beautiful Collisions — timelines shift, and order becomes a flexible concept. Instead of trying to tame that chaos, Alexander chooses to move with it.
Interestingly, the Founder and CEO of , Hovhannes Avoyan’s platform is also built on this very idea — that creativity thrives when you remove the guardrails and let millions experiment in real time.
It’s a leadership style that prizes progress over perfection — and I believe the approach fuels greater innovation. Because it’s an environment that allows risk taking. And as a result, taking creative risks are not a threat to credibility but become a tool for discovery.
When it comes to leadership, I’ve emphasized the power of vulnerability in The Kim Kardashian Principle. And decades of research, from Google’s Project Aristotle to Amy Edmondson’s studies at Harvard, show that teams perform best when they can take risks, voice opinions, and succeed without fear of failing.
Meta-analyses on error management training echo these insights: brands that normalize and analyze mistakes — rather than weaponize them — consistently outperform those that don’t, especially in creative and fast-changing environments.
At SXSW London, Alexander has clearly created a philosophy where that feels built in. It comes second nature to him. Experimentation isn’t just celebrated; it’s expected but the outcome is never perfection, in leadership or anywhere else — it’s motion.
Compassion Is A Metric
That same adaptability of thought extends to how Alexander leads people. Creative cultures are demanding, and he can personally relate to that and the pressures he has felt over the years. Brand ambassadors require emotional stamina, vulnerability, and resilience. Which means compassion isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s part of the infrastructure.
Upcoming 2026 SXSW London 2026 speaker Joleen Liang, CEO of Squirrel AI North America, whose work explores the evolving relationship between AI and the learner experience, might well further address the role of the humanistic component in AI learning.
Alexander’s aim at SXSW London is to build an environment where compassion and candor can coexist. Where people are safe to stretch and feel supported when they stumble. And it’s an approach that aligns with a growing body of evidence around compassionate leadership. A review of 41 studies over two decades identified six consistent traits — empathy, openness, well-being, inclusiveness, integrity, and respect — all tied to measurable gains in engagement and retention.
But most interestingly, this leadership style reveals that compassion isn’t a softness but it’s actually a strategy. A strategy that I’d argue might well provide creative organizations with the ultimate competitive edge.
Profit With Purpose
And perhaps the most defining mark of Alexander’s leadership is despite the challenges of launching SXSW London in its first year and the significant expectations, Alexander is uninterested in putting profits over people and genuinely believes both can live together.
How exactly? He doesn’t have a text book answer to that — its more based on intuition and that’s enough for him. As a result, SXSW London is aiming to become a creative ecosystem that reaches beyond entertainment or education to engage with technology, sustainability, and social change — while still operating as a business.
It’s no doubt a philosophy shared by Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, whose decades-long fight to preserve the brand’s social mission shows how purpose can indeed anchor brand success, and who will also be speaking at the festival.
A meta-analysis by NYU Stern of over 1,000 studies found that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives are either neutral or positive in their financial impact. Similarly, research from London Business School showed that firms recognized for strong employee cultures outperformed peers by 3.5% per year over 25 years (Journal of Financial Economics).
Profit and purpose aren’t opposing forces at SXSW London — they’re reinforcing ones. And maybe that’s the quiet revolution at play: a form of leadership that’s less about authority and more about authenticity. Less hierarchy, more humanity.
The New Equation Of Leadership
There is no doubt that the more established and spotlighted models of leadership — defined by predictability and hierarchy — are still highly effective for certain established brands. We will also hear from the CMO of Diageo, Cristina Diezhandino who was present at the first SXSW London festival. And we also know that today, creativity moves faster than strategy, and culture shifts faster than companies. The dynamic of how businesses operate — and the people they hire, their wants, and their needs — has fundamentally changed.
Add to that a new class of leader emerging — those who began as participants in culture, not gatekeepers of it. From Kim Kardashian and Rihanna to Emma Chamberlain and Jaden Smith, these figures aren’t just building billion-dollar brands; they’re redefining what leadership looks like.
And their greatest asset? Their proximity to audiences — collapsing the distance between influence and authority.
So maybe leadership isn’t about status or image anymore. Maybe it’s about influence and intimacy — about how close you’re willing to stand to the chaos you create.
And if Max Alexander is any indication, I’d say the question every leader should be asking is this: when everything around you demands certainty, do you still have the courage to stay fluid?
Named Esquire’s Influencer of the Year, Jeetendr Sehdev is a media personality and leading voice in fashion, entertainment, and influence, and author of the New York Times bestselling phenomenon The Kim Kardashian Principle: Why Shameless Sells (and How to Do It Right.)