David Sloly
I help organisations unlock sustainable growth by aligning strategic clarity, compelling narrative and intelligent technology. My work sits at the intersection of creative technology, behaviour and systems thinking.
Through my B2B growth agency, HarveyDavid, I design, implement and maintain the technologies and content that support sustainable B2B growth. The work is grounded in a simple belief: real growth doesn’t come from doing more, but from doing better, through clearer focus on what already works, stronger human connection with the audiences that matter most, and thoughtful use of AI to scale what is already effective, bringing humanity and technology together.
Alongside HarveyDavid, I write, speak, and appear as a podcast guest on storytelling, innovation, and intelligent technology. Much of my work explores how emerging tools are reshaping communication, decision-making, and creativity, and how to use them with judgment and humanity. I’ve delivered talks and keynotes for organisations and platforms, including TEDx, SXSW Austin, Texas, the MIX conference, Natural History Consortium, Google, Microsoft, and The Prince’s Trust UK. Most recently, I’ve been presenting my talk, 'Truth, Lies and AI Hype,' to senior leadership teams who want a clear, practical understanding of the real-world impact of artificial intelligence on strategy, performance, and decision-making.
I’ve deepened my engagement with artificial intelligence through study at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Bringing that learning together with my background in broadcast comedy, I created Made in AI, the world’s first AI co-created podcast sitcom, now being developed as an animated series. The project follows an AI robot family that has been abandoned by their manufacturers and left to navigate the real world. Alongside my creative practice, I have contributed to cultural and policy discussions on AI, including a recent collaboration with King’s College London on creativity, labour and copyright.
My career has been deliberately nonlinear. After a period of travelling, where I became deeply interested in people’s stories and how they shape behaviour, I began my professional journey with a BBC bursary and moved into radio and television production. I worked on projects for Radio Caroline, MTV, BBC Radio 1, and the Pepsi Network Chart Show before joining the launch team at Heart FM in London. I later helped revitalise the Kiss FM brand as producer of Steve Jackson’s Morning Glory. During that time, our team earned a Sony Gold Award and a MOBO, and the show was named by The Guardian as one of the UK’s most influential radio programmes. This period cemented my interest in storytelling, audiences, and how ideas move people at scale.
After studying at D&AD, I became a Creative Director at a global marketing agency. Wanting a deeper understanding of how people think, decide and change, I later studied behavioural economics and went on to found a behavioural change company. This led to the design and delivery of transformation programmes for international organisations operating in West Africa.
Alongside my work in strategy and behaviour, I’ve maintained a long-standing relationship with electronic music, as a DJ and as someone drawn to understanding how systems function beneath the surface. From an early age, I learned by dismantling and rebuilding radios, watches and electronic equipment, developing an instinct for structure, pattern and cause and effect. That early way of engaging with machines continues to inform how I think about complexity and shapes my creative and professional work today. I was involved in prototyping some of the earliest digital DJ and broadcast systems in the UK and Ibiza, performed at venues such as Pacha, Space and Café Mambo, taught at Point Blank Music School in London, contributed to a radio training mission for producers working within OSCE programmes, and DJed at youth initiatives supported by NATO in conflict-affected regions. I also studied at STEIM in Amsterdam, an independent centre for research and development of instruments and tools for performers in the electronic performance arts.
Music has remained an important parallel thread in my creative life. More recently, I’ve returned to music through Lux Nova, a collaborative project with my wife that reveals hidden musical patterns embedded within large datasets from NASA and the European Space Agency. Notes from Your Universe, the first soundscape from the project, draws on data from major astronomical events and missions, including giant solar storms, the Voyager 1 mission, and spikes in high-energy electrons and protons, shaping latent musical material into immersive compositions that allow vast systems to be experienced as sound rather than information.
My writing includes Zoom! The Faster Way to Make Your Business Idea Happen, which was featured in The Independent’s Top Ten Business Books, as well as Mash Up! How to Use Your Multiple Skills to Give You an Edge, Make Money, and Be Happier and Why You Need a Business Story and How to Create It. Earlier in my career, I wrote several widely used DJ guides, including Basic DJ Techniques.
I sit on the board of Strange Thoughts and Arcade Strange, a tech-led creative activations agency, where I contribute to its mission to use technology for joy. In 2025, I joined the Caples Awards jury, judging AI-driven creative work from around the world. Across all of this work, the consistent thread has been helping people turn ideas into action through storytelling, creativity, and technology.
I live in Bristol with my family and continue to draw inspiration from the city’s creative energy and independent spirit. I also volunteer with the Bristol Speakers Club, sharing my experience in speaking, communication and storytelling.


