Elfried Samba, the Co-Founder and CEO of Butterfly Effect, will be a keynote speaker at this year’s B2B Marketing Exchange (B2BMX), powered by Advertising Week
Titled Building a Sexy Brand in an Unsexy Industry, Samba makes the case for human-to-human brand building as the most powerful growth lever in modern B2B. As paid media becomes more expensive and less reliable, the brands pulling ahead are those that turn attention into trust, trust into community, and community into revenue.
Attendees will leave with a clear, practical framework for community insurance – the signals, behaviors, and habits that help brands defend against volatility, build belief at scale, and grow even when performance marketing stops performing. This isn’t about vibes or vanity metrics. It’s about building trust like a system and capitalizing on it.
Samaba’s Bio
Elfried brings first-hand operating experience to the stage. Butterfly Effect is a community-centric marketing agency that helps brands grow through community-driven marketing, culture, and creativity. His agency works with brands including Netflix, Bumble, Formula E, Square, LinkedIn, Adobe, and Vodafone, helping them build community-powered growth engines that compound over time.
As former Global Head of Social Content at Gymshark, he helped scale the brand’s fitness community from 1.5 million to over 20 million followers, contributing to its rise to a £1.4 billion valuation alongside giants like Nike and Lululemon. Additionally, Elfried is one of LinkedIn’s most influential creators, with a fast-growing audience built by applying the same community-first principles in real time – proving that the rules of brand, community, and trust work just as powerfully in B2B as they do in consumer culture.
Keynotes from Evans, Faus
Samaba joins two previous announced keynote speakers: Benedict Evans and Ashley Faus.
Benedict Evans, one of the most trusted and influential independent analysts in technology, will headline B2B Marketing Exchange (B2BMX) 2026, powered by Advertising Week. With more than two decades spent analyzing the forces that truly move markets, Evans is known for cutting through noise to reveal what matters. In this must-see session, Benedict will move beyond hype to unpack how AI is fundamentally reshaping technology, media, and the way B2B teams go to market, giving you the macro perspective needed to make smarter decisions in 2026 and beyond.
Ashley Faus is set to deliver a keynote address for B2BMX 2026, the premier event tailored for marketing and sales practitioners ready to reimagine their approach to revenue generation. A marketer, writer, and speaker, Faus’ keynote is focused on how trust is the one thing you can’t outsource or automate As marketers think about how to adapt the journey, workflows, and metrics in the age of AI, Faus stressed they need to remember that it’s still about connecting with the humans behind the screen. In her session, attendees will explore frameworks, tactics, and real-world examples to help build trust to win the hearts, minds, and wallets of our audience.
