Nik Gowing

Senior teams keep being surprised by events they could have seen coming. The traits that built their careers, conformity, consensus, command of detail, are the same traits that make boards slow to confront the unthinkable. The capability gap is not analytical, it is human: the willingness to name what is uncomfortable while there is still time to act.

Nik Gowing is a former BBC World News presenter and co-author of Thinking the Unthinkable, who helps boards and executive teams confront the disruptive scenarios their own conformity stops them seeing.

Download Profile

Full Profile

Why organisations work with Nik Gowing

A research base built from hundreds of confidential interviews with corporate, political and military leaders, distilled in the book Thinking the Unthinkable, which gives boards a vocabulary for the failures of imagination they recognise but rarely name.
Forty years of front-line international reporting, from martial law in Poland to 9/11, that lets him press senior audiences on geopolitical and operational risk without flinching or flattering.
A moderator’s authority earned at BBC World News and across hundreds of senior international forums, used to host board offsites, ministerial roundtables and CEO summits where the conversation has to go somewhere uncomfortable.
Standing inside the institutions buyers trust: Distinguished Fellow at RUSI, Visiting Professor at Kings College London, former council member at Chatham House and ODI.
A track record of making leaders engage with what they have been avoiding, rather than rehearsing the slide they came to deliver.

Biography highlights

Main news presenter, BBC World News, 1996 to 2014.
Diplomatic Editor, Channel 4 News, 1989 to 1996; bureau chief in Rome and Warsaw with ITN.
BAFTA, 1981, for coverage of martial law in Poland.
Co-author, Thinking the Unthinkable: A new imperative for leadership in the digital age (John Catt, 2018), and founder of the Thinking the Unthinkable project.
Author, Skyful of Lies and Black Swans, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
Visiting Professor, Kings College London; Distinguished Fellow, Royal United Services Institute; Honorary Doctorates from the universities of Exeter and Bristol.

Biography

The leaders Nik Gowing has spent four decades interviewing, in studios, at summits and behind closed doors, share a pattern. They saw the signal. They had the data. They did not act. Thinking the Unthinkable, the project he founded in 2014 and the book he co-authored with Chris Langdon in 2018, is built on hundreds of confidential conversations with senior figures in business, government and the military about why that keeps happening, and what could change it.

The credibility for that conversation comes from the years before. Gowing was a main news presenter on BBC World News from 1996 to 2014, on air for the announcement of Princess Diana’s death and through the live coverage of 9/11. Before the BBC he spent 18 years at ITN, as bureau chief in Rome and Warsaw and as Diplomatic Editor of Channel 4 News. A BAFTA followed his coverage of martial law in Poland in 1981.

That broadcast career left him with a particular skill that boards now buy: the ability to chair a difficult conversation in front of senior people, on the record, without losing control of the room or the argument. He moderates regularly for institutions including the World Economic Forum, RUSI and Chatham House.

The academic and institutional scaffolding is genuine, not decorative. He is a Visiting Professor at Kings College London’s School of Social Science and Public Policy, a Distinguished Fellow at RUSI, and a former council member at Chatham House and the Overseas Development Institute. The Reuters Institute at Oxford published his earlier study, Skyful of Lies and Black Swans, on institutional vulnerability in the modern information environment. Few moderators bring that depth into the room with them.

Key speaking topics

Leadership under disruption
Anticipating the unthinkable in board strategy
Geopolitical risk and the rules-based order
Crisis communication and decision-making under pressure
Institutional resilience in the digital information environment
Senior conference moderation and panel chairing

Ideal for

Boards, CEOs and executive committees confronting strategic shocks they suspect they are under-rehearsing.
Risk, strategy and corporate affairs leaders working on scenario planning, geopolitical exposure and institutional resilience.
Convenors of senior international forums, ministerial roundtables and CEO summits who need a moderator who can hold the room.

Audience outcomes

A direct account of why senior teams systematically miss disruptive signals, drawn from confidential interviews with leaders who lived through it.
A sharper read on geopolitical and information-environment risks, from someone who has reported them at first hand.
The questions a board should be asking itself before the next unthinkable lands, not after.
A working sense of what conformity costs at the top of organisations, and what it takes to break it.

Talks

Thinking the Unthinkable

A keynote drawn from the research project of the same name, addressing why senior leaders increasingly fail to anticipate disruption and what it takes to confront the scenarios they have been avoiding.

Key takeaways:

Why the traits that get leaders to the top, conformity, consensus, command of detail, are the same traits that disable them when the unthinkable lands.
The patterns of short-termism, confusion and fear that emerged repeatedly from confidential interviews with senior leaders.
A practical reframing of how boards can name and rehearse the scenarios they currently avoid.

Available for

Speaking Themes

Languages

English

Click the button below to check Nik Gowing's fees and availability for your event.

Videos

Testimonials

…the feedback has been superlative….there are few persons with your skills and professionalism in this area and no-one to my knowledge who approaches the task with such diligence and enthusiasm. If there was such a title as “inspirational facilitator” you would wear it well

ADC Forum

I would like to extend our utmost appreciation for your brilliant moderation at the MEET event. We have received great feedback from our members who thoroughly enjoyed the interactive session and the directions you lead it. The event was very insightful, and the audience very much appreciated the opportunity to join the discussions about the investment industry.

Swedish Chamber of Commerce

I would like to reiterate the IMF’s appreciation for your absolutely critical contribution to what we feel was a very successful conference. I know that President Kikwete and the Tanzanians feel the same way…In terms of the conference, your session, in my view, was the turning point. You injected edge and energy into the proceedings…Your session was the fault line event.

The International Monetary Fund

Thank you so much for the excellent job you did chairing our Russia Debate last night. You were absolutely on top of everything and brought a terrific expertise, knowledge and wit to the proceedings. The speakers were clearly all very happy with how it went and the audience could not have been more engaged

London Event

Working with Nik brought the Global Green Growth Summit up to a level where it all looked effortless. The background preparation and time that he dedicated to the Summit many months in advance laid the groundwork for a truly excellent event. His attention to detail on both the logistical side and also his focus on content meant that when inevitable minor issues arose on the day, they remained minor as everything else ran like clockwork. The key challenge of the day was a 5 hour morning stretch with no breaks. Thanks to all the preparation, Nik breezed through this, keeping both the audience and speakers engaged and alert with many moments of valuable interaction which simply would not have happened in anyone else’s hand. It is always a pleasure to work with someone who is at the top of their game, as Nik is, I hope to get the opportunity to work with him again in the future.

GGI Summit

The content was excellent and the speakers were interesting. But best of all was the format. Nik chaired it expertly – each contribution was short and punchy, he marshalled the questions well and pushed the speakers to answer.

Citi

We have received positive feedback from our guests, who were highly impressed with your session as well as the other plenaries. The Eurasia Group was especially pleased that you praised their report on stage…I do look forward to speaking with you again.

Temasek Foundation, Singapore

You scored very high with an overall score out of 10 of 8.44, which is great. Delegate feedback was very positive, a snapshot is below for your information: Very informative, very topical, need to rethink my role • Engaging and interesting. Very good presenter. Quite a confronting subject to start the day • Might have been better if you had not pulled him short • Opened my eyes as to the extent of disruption impacting the world • Excellent information, entertaining and hopeful • Good thought provoker to start day with • Loved the external macro view and his perspective/insights • Insight, thought provoking, makes people think now about what needs to change • Set the scene for the day • Challenged the status quo – what will influence the environment we operate in – confronting

Big Ideas Summit, Melbourne

Our discussions before the conference were crucial in shaping the format and the dynamics of the event. Your moderating during the conference was brilliant. Once again you created an energetic and stimulating atmosphere. Thank you very much

European Business Leaders Conference

What is [also] noteworthy was the appreciation of my staff in working with such an experienced and challenging professional…You succeeded skillfully to steer the day and to create a different, interesting and entertaining event with a captive audience…[you drove]a provocative series of debate[s] in a marathon session which would have been impossible without your captainship.

President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Nik was a lead moderator at our biennial Network Conference for 240 global Chairs and CEOs in our Wallenberg group of companies. His excellent moderation contributed to ensuring the closed event was a huge success. Our post-event survey concluded it was the ‘most appreciated conference since 2005’. Nik received largely the top rating of ‘Very Good’ from participants. We appreciated especially his pre-conference commitment plus his contribution of ideas, insights and preparation for key issues and interviews. We look forward very much to working with him again.

Investor AB

A sincere thank you to the team at Thinking The Unthinkable for encouraging us to seize the moment and lay the foundations for the next chapter of FFI’s history. Our collaboration brought a sense of pace and urgency, encouraging us to embrace opportunities and rise to the challenges ahead. There has never been a more important time to think the unthinkable.

Mark Rose

CEO, Fauna & Flora International