Energiewende

Why organisations work with Adjiedj Bakas His analytical framework tracks six categories of structural change simultaneously – economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security – giving leadership teams a coherent map rather than a trend list. No single category is read in isolation; the interactions between them are where the real strategic insight lives. His “#Forwardism” thesis reframes megatrend analysis as a source of opportunity rather than a catalogue of threat. This is a deliberate intellectual stance, not a motivational gloss – it changes how an organisation positions itself in response to disruption. His biography is genuinely differentiating in a field dominated by Western vantage points. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas brings a Global South perspective to questions about the shifting balance of economic and cultural power that most European or American futurists cannot replicate. His material has been tested against the most demanding institutional audiences on the circuit: the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, Shell’s major futures conferences, and central banking and financial institutions across Africa and Asia. A Shell audience of senior executives elected him one of the top two speakers from a field of fifty. His books – including World Megatrends and Beyond the Crisis – have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai, and the intellectual rigour of his framework has earned consistent media recognition from CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. Biography highlights Founder of Trend Office Bakas, Amsterdam – a trendwatching practice serving multinationals, financial institutions and governments internationally Author of more than ten books on global megatrends, distributed across 40+ countries; titles include World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis, Megatrends Europe and #Forwardism Elected Trendwatcher of the Year 2009 and Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 in the Netherlands Covered as a leading voice on global futures by CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Times of India and China Daily Keynote engagements include Shell, Deloitte, Google, Microsoft, ABN AMRO, KPMG, Rabobank, Credit Suisse and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Course material at CEIBS (China Europe International Business School, Shanghai) and Emory University, Atlanta Biography Most organisations run their long-term strategy on a three-to-five year horizon. The megatrends that actually reshape industries – demographic reordering, geopolitical power shifts, energy transitions, technological discontinuities – operate on timescales of twenty years or more. Adjiedj Bakas, founder of Trend Office Bakas in Amsterdam, has spent his career helping senior leaders read those slower, more consequential signals before they arrive as operational emergencies. His body of work – more than ten books published across 40 countries, including World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis and Megatrends Europe – develops a consistent analytical lens across six categories of structural change: economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security. His most recent work, #Forwardism, introduces the concept of “Happynomy” – the argument that the most powerful megatrends are better interpreted as sources of strategic opportunity than as threats to be mitigated. The perspective he brings is shaped by biography as much as by research. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas has a genuinely non-Western vantage point on shifts in global economic and cultural power that most European futurists cannot replicate. His engagements span Shell, Deloitte, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, and financial institutions across Africa, Asia and Europe – audiences for whom a view of the future that goes beyond the Western horizon is not optional. Elected Trendwatcher of the Year in the Netherlands in 2009, his work has been covered by CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. His books have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai and Emory University in Atlanta. Key speaking topics Global megatrends and structural futures Geopolitical power shifts and the rise of the Global South Demographic change and its economic consequences Long-cycle economic forecasting and scenario planning Energy and environmental transitions Technology and innovation futures Opportunity-centred strategic foresight (#Forwardism / Happynomy) Ideal for C-suite and board leaders developing long-range organisational strategy Strategy and foresight teams in multinationals requiring a structured macro-trend framework Financial institutions and investment firms assessing long-term geopolitical and economic risk Government and public-sector organisations navigating demographic and geopolitical change Audience outcomes A structured, six-category framework for mapping structural megatrends across economic, technological, demographic, environmental and geopolitical dimensions Greater confidence in distinguishing long-cycle structural shifts from short-term cyclical noise Exposure to the Global South’s increasing influence on economic and cultural direction – a perspective absent from most standard futures briefings A reframed strategic posture: tools for reading disruption as a source of opportunity rather than purely a risk management challenge A renewed and evidence-based basis for organisational optimism in conditions of uncertainty

Why organisations work with Albert Bosch INVERGROUP, his clean-energy investment platform, has been operational since 2004. That gives him something most adventure speakers lack: an ongoing operator’s view on the energy transition he describes on stage. In 2015, he co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered in the Dakar Rally, the first fully electric vehicle ever to enter the event. A specific, verifiable motorsport-sustainability milestone anchoring his work in real engineering and real risk. The record underwrites the argument. An unassisted 1,152 km crossing from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole, the Seven Summits were completed on first attempts, and over 100 extreme-sports events. When he talks about preparation and setbacks, senior audiences hear a practitioner. He walked away from fossil-fuel motorsport in 2011 because the values stopped aligning. Since then, he has engaged with the sector only through electric-vehicle projects. For audiences weighing sustainability as a strategic commitment, that kind of operating consistency matters. Biography highlights Completed an unassisted coast-to-South Pole Antarctic expedition covering 1,152 km, 98% of it solo Summited Mount Everest in 2010, finishing the Seven Summits challenge with every peak completed on the first attempt Competed in nine Dakar Rallies, two by motorbike and seven by car Co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered in the 2015 Dakar Rally, the first fully electric car ever to enter the event Founder of INVERGROUP (2004), a clean-energy and environmental investment platform Author of six books including “Spirit of Adventure,” “The Future Explorer,” and “Living to Feel Alive.” MBA from ESADE, Barcelona Biography Leadership in extreme environments is different from leadership in difficulty. In difficulty, the variables are still countable. In an extreme environment, the variables keep moving and the team keeps paying a cost for every error. That is the territory Albert Bosch has spent three decades studying from the inside. The record is specific. Bosch crossed from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole unassisted, covering 1,152 km with 98% of the journey solo. He reached the summit of Everest in 2010, closing out a Seven Summits campaign in which every peak went on the first attempt. He has nine Dakar Rallies to his name. In 2015, he co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered, the first fully electric car to enter that event. A working business sits behind the adventure CV. Bosch founded INVERGROUP in 2004, a platform for clean-energy and environmental projects, and has run it since. That gives his keynotes a grain of commercial reality, because he is still managing a live portfolio on the questions he speaks about. He has written six books in the same territory. “Spirit of Adventure” examines the seven factors that separate ambitious projects from failed ones. “The Future Explorer” addresses the leadership attitudes required in unsettled conditions. “Living to Feel Alive” retells the Antarctic crossing as a study in sustained commitment. The work he does on stage carries into material that audiences can keep. Key speaking topics Leadership under extreme pressure and uncertainty Decision-making in complex environments Resilience and recovery from setback Sustainable leadership and the energy transition Team performance in high-stakes conditions Entrepreneurship and long-horizon risk Leading change when plans break Ideal for CEOs, COOs and transformation leads driving high-stakes strategic shifts Senior teams going through restructuring, integration, or major operational change CSOs and energy-transition teams setting a sustainability position they will have to operate, not just announce Leadership groups whose strategy requires sustained commitment against market or macro pressure Audience outcomes Specific reference points for decision-making when information is incomplete and stakes are real A sharper internal language for preparation, setback and recovery A more honest read on when sustainability claims support strategy and when they collapse under operating pressure A clearer sense of which behaviours separate teams that complete ambitious projects from teams that stall

Why organisations work with Alex Cicelsky His 2024 peer-reviewed paper in MRS Energy and Sustainability on Lightweight Straw and Clay Blocks – a self-supporting, carbon-sequestering insulation material fabricated from post-harvest crop residue – is one of the few published, field-tested proofs of concept for low-embodied-carbon construction, giving sustainability teams a citable alternative to conventional materials. He brings thirty years of active construction experience in extreme desert conditions from Kibbutz Lotan’s carbon-neutral EcoCampus: a monitored, measurable, functioning built environment – not a model, but a standing result. His work connects supply chain sustainability to concrete materials decisions: agricultural waste, natural binders, and thermal building performance are his research domain, not a framing device. For organisations whose sustainability commitments have not yet reached their built-environment procurement, he provides both the science of what is possible and a living demonstration of what has already been built. For sustainability education programmes, his curriculum experience spans the Green Apprenticeship at Kibbutz Lotan – a globally recognised programme that has trained hundreds of practitioners in ecological design, natural building, and permaculture across decades of continuous operation. Biography highlights Co-founder and core faculty member, Center for Creative Ecology, Kibbutz Lotan – a carbon-neutral EcoCampus in Israel’s Arava Valley desert and internationally recognised sustainability education centre Founding member, Kibbutz Lotan; member community of the Global Ecovillage Network PhD researcher, Department of Energy Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; BSc in Soil and Water Sciences and Environmental Quality in Agriculture, Hebrew University Faculty of Agriculture Published in MRS Energy and Sustainability (2024): peer-reviewed research on Lightweight Straw and Clay Blocks – carbon-sequestering construction insulation derived from post-harvest wheat straw Center for Creative Ecology: Israel Ministry of Environment Shield Award for Environmental Education (2000); Global Ecovillage Network Ecovillage Excellence Prize (2006) Lectures at universities and professional seminars internationally on ecological design, sustainable construction, and regenerative systems Biography Buildings carry two kinds of carbon footprint: what they consume after occupation, and what was spent building them. The second, larger figure is fixed at construction and is invisible to most operational sustainability programmes. Alex Cicelsky has spent three decades designing, constructing, and researching structures that address both – in one of the world’s most demanding climates. He is co-founder and core faculty of the Center for Creative Ecology at Kibbutz Lotan, a carbon-neutral desert community in Israel’s Arava Valley and a member of the Global Ecovillage Network. The Centre’s EcoCampus, designed and monitored by Cicelsky and his colleagues, operates as a live demonstration and research site. It has been recognised by the Israel Ministry of Environment and the Global Ecovillage Network for its contribution to environmental education, and its buildings have been the subject of formal post-occupancy research. That research has produced peer-reviewed results. A 2024 paper in MRS Energy and Sustainability – co-authored with colleagues at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where Cicelsky holds a PhD research affiliation in the Department of Energy Engineering – documents the thermal and mechanical performance of Lightweight Straw and Clay Blocks (LSCBs). Fabricated from post-harvest wheat straw bound with clay, LSCBs are self-supporting and carbon-sequestering. In field tests against autoclaved aerated concrete and expanded polystyrene, they demonstrated superior thermal performance in extreme summer heat, with a two-hour thermal lag that reduced peak indoor temperatures measurably below ambient. The practical implication for any organisation with ESG commitments that extend to its built environment is direct: the materials exist, the performance has been independently measured, and the construction has been done. What Cicelsky brings to a serious sustainability conversation is not a proposition but a record. Key speaking topics Embodied carbon in the built environment Natural and low-carbon construction materials Ecological design and permaculture systems Carbon sequestration through agricultural-waste materials Regenerative community and ecovillage development Sustainable building in extreme climates ESG strategy and the built environment Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads responsible for Scope 3 and built-environment carbon reporting Real estate, infrastructure, and facilities teams developing low-carbon construction or procurement strategies Sustainability education programmes at universities and professional bodies Organisations and communities developing regenerative development or ecovillage frameworks Audience outcomes A clear understanding of embodied carbon in construction and why it falls outside most current ESG reporting frameworks Awareness of peer-reviewed materials alternatives – including agricultural-waste insulation blocks – that reduce and sequester carbon in new construction A working reference point in the Kibbutz Lotan EcoCampus: a carbon-neutral built environment designed, constructed, and monitored over thirty years in an extreme desert climate Practical orientation to permaculture design as an organising framework for regenerative buildings and communities A sharper understanding of the gap between operational efficiency targets and whole-life carbon commitments – and what closing it requires at the procurement stage

Why organisations work with Alok Sharma He chaired the negotiation that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact, working with nearly 200 governments. Few advisors can read multilateral climate dynamics from inside the chair. As Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, he is actively shaping how private capital is mobilised for transition, not commenting on it from a distance. His vantage spans Cabinet, COP, the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, Conservation International and Oxford Martin School, giving boards a single voice across policy, philanthropy, science and finance. TIME named him in the 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for his work mobilising transition finance, a credible external benchmark of current relevance. A 16-year investment banking career in London, Stockholm and Frankfurt gives him the financial fluency to discuss transition with CFOs and treasurers in their own language. Biography highlights President of COP26, Glasgow 2021, the conference that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact Former UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and previously Secretary of State for International Development Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, appointed by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation in 2025 Visiting Fellow, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Co-Chair, Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council; Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International KCMG, 2023 New Year Honours, for services to tackling climate change; created Baron Sharma of Reading, 2024; named to TIME 100 Climate, 2025 Biography The Glasgow Climate Pact was negotiated in a room with delegations from nearly 200 countries. Alok Sharma chaired that room as President of COP26. The pact, agreed in November 2021, kept the 1.5 degree goal in formal reach and pulled coal and fossil fuel subsidies into a UN climate text for the first time. Before COP, he was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and earlier Secretary of State for International Development. The route there was unusual for a climate principal: chartered accountant at Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte, then sixteen years in investment banking with Nikko Securities and Enskilda Securities across London, Stockholm and Frankfurt. That financial background sits behind his current work on capital flows. He now chairs the UK Transition Finance Council, set up by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation to make the UK a leading market for high integrity transition finance. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, Co-Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, and a Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International. TIME named him to its 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for that body of work. For boards, the value is the through-line. He has held the pen on a multilateral climate text, sat in a UK Cabinet making industrial policy, and now sits in the room where transition finance rules are being written. He was made KCMG in the 2023 New Year Honours and elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Sharma of Reading in 2024. Key speaking topics Transition finance and capital allocation under net zero Climate diplomacy and the post-Paris multilateral system Energy transition and industrial strategy COP outcomes and what they mean for corporate strategy Geopolitics of climate, including US, EU and emerging market dynamics ESG under regulatory and political pressure Ideal for Boards, CEOs and CFOs reconciling net zero commitments with capital plans Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of ESG and transition leads inside financial institutions Investor and asset owner audiences working on transition portfolios Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on climate and industrial strategy Audience outcomes A clear read of where multilateral climate policy stands after COP26 to today, from someone who chaired the room A grounded view of how transition finance is actually being structured in the UK and globally A senior-level perspective on how climate intersects with geopolitics, industrial policy and capital markets Specific signals to track for boards making transition-linked decisions over the next planning cycle

Why organisations work with Ana Palacio She has held executive authority inside three of the systems organisations most need to understand – the EU’s legislative and treaty-making bodies, the World Bank Group, and the energy infrastructure sector – not as an adviser, but as a principal. That changes the character of the analysis. Her standing argument is specific: energy security cannot be separated from geopolitical alignment. As a board director of Enagás (IBEX 35), where she chairs the Sustainability Committee, she is applying that argument under fiduciary conditions – not as commentary. Her monthly column in Project Syndicate and weekly column in El Mundo give her a verifiable track record of public positions on live geopolitical events. Audiences can test her analysis against what she has actually said, not just what she claims to believe. She participated directly in drafting the European Constitution as a member of the Presidium of the Convention for the Future of Europe. Her understanding of how EU institutions are built – and how they fail – is first-hand, not textbook. Her Georgetown course, “Global Powers Institutions and Governance,” signals a structured analytical framework behind her commentary on geopolitics – not anecdote, but architecture. Biography highlights First woman to serve as Spain’s Foreign Minister (2002-2004); at the time, the most senior governmental role held by a woman in the Spanish government Member of the Presidium of the Convention for the Future of Europe; Head of the Spanish Delegation to the EU’s Intergovernmental Conference – participated directly in drafting the European Constitution Senior VP and General Counsel, World Bank Group; Secretary-General, ICSID (2006-2008) Independent Leading Director, Enagás (IBEX 35), Chair of its Sustainability Committee; Director, Ecoener; board member, PharmaMar Visiting Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; course: “Global Powers Institutions and Governance” Monthly columnist, Project Syndicate; weekly columnist, El Mundo (Spain’s second-largest national daily) Sandra Day O’Connor Justice Prize (2016); Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Georgetown University; Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, France (2016) Biography Most organisations encounter geopolitics through external briefings. Decisions, however, are made by people who have never been inside the institutions being analysed. Ana Palacio has been inside three of them – and not as a visitor. As a Member of the European Parliament, Palacio chaired the Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee and the Conference of Committee Chairs, the Parliament’s most senior legislative coordination body. As Head of the Spanish Delegation to the EU’s Intergovernmental Conference and a member of the Presidium of the Convention for the Future of Europe, she participated directly in drafting the European Constitution. As Senior VP and General Counsel of the World Bank Group and Secretary-General of ICSID, she oversaw the legal and institutional architecture through which international investment disputes are resolved. These are not entries on a CV. They are the systems that shape the operating environment for global business. Her most specific intellectual contribution sits at the intersection of energy and geopolitics. Across a monthly column in Project Syndicate and a weekly column in El Mundo, Palacio has made a consistent and testable argument: that energy security is a geopolitical question, not a transition management one – and that the EU’s failure to build a genuine energy union represents a structural vulnerability, one that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made impossible to ignore. She makes this argument as the Independent Leading Director of Enagás, Spain’s IBEX 35-listed gas infrastructure operator, where she chairs the Sustainability Committee. The position is not academic. At Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, she teaches “Global Powers Institutions and Governance.” For organisations trying to move from geopolitical awareness to strategic decision-making, that is precisely the capability gap her work addresses. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the fracturing international order Energy security as strategic risk European Union policy and strategic sovereignty International institutions and global governance Transatlantic relations and regulatory divergence Political risk and long-horizon investment decisions ESG strategy through a geopolitical lens Ideal for Board directors and C-suite leaders making investment and capital allocation decisions in politically exposed markets Government affairs, regulatory strategy, and public policy functions in multinational organisations Energy, infrastructure, and financial services organisations navigating geopolitical and regulatory exposure Senior leadership forums focused on EU policy, transatlantic dynamics, or geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A working framework for distinguishing structural shifts in the international order from short-term political noise – applicable to investment and strategy decisions A clearer understanding of how international institutions (EU, World Bank, multilateral bodies) actually function – and how their decisions create or foreclose market and regulatory conditions A geopolitically grounded perspective on energy security: why supply chain, infrastructure, and transition decisions cannot be separated from strategic alignment Sharper context for evaluating transatlantic dynamics, including EU-US regulatory divergence, trade frameworks, and the political pressures reshaping multilateral cooperation A more rigorous basis for incorporating political risk into board-level decision-making – with the same analytical discipline applied to financial and operational risk

Why organisations work with Angela Barnes She is a sitting business editor, not a retired one. The Euronews remit means she walks into a room with the same week’s markets, policy and corporate stories already loaded. The Big Question is a CEO-interview franchise she writes and presents every week. Boards hiring her for a fireside or on-stage interview are hiring a format she runs as a day job. Her reporting reach spans Sky News, CNBC (including East Tech West), ITV, Yahoo Finance and The Telegraph, which gives her fluency across markets, technology and energy without a single-sector tell. She has moderated for the IMF and the Paris Finance Forum, so the step up to finance-ministry-level panels does not require coaching. The technology background from Sky Swipe and CNBC East Tech West means a tech-and-AI panel does not need a separate host. Biography highlights Managing Editor of Business, Euronews, Brussels Anchor and interviewer, The Big Question, Euronews Over a decade at Sky News as producer, reporter and presenter, including the Swipe technology show Contributor credits at CNBC (East Tech West), ITV, IG, Yahoo Finance and The Telegraph Moderator credits include the IMF and the Paris Finance Forum Described by Ireland’s Better Business magazine as “one of Europe’s most prominent news figures” Biography The Big Question goes out weekly on Euronews. Angela Barnes writes it, produces the conversation and puts the questions to a rolling cast of chief executives, ministers and investors. That is the core of her working life, and it is why she is in demand on stage. Barnes runs business, markets and economics for Euronews from Brussels, which puts her inside the policy bloodstream of the European Union and within a short flight of the financial centres her audience trades in. Before Euronews she spent more than a decade at Sky News as a producer, reporter and presenter, including on the Swipe technology programme, and has contributed to CNBC’s East Tech West, ITV, IG, Yahoo Finance and The Telegraph. As a moderator she has worked with the IMF and the Paris Finance Forum, which means the vocabulary of sovereign balance sheets, energy transition finance and central-bank communication is already familiar. Ireland’s Better Business magazine called her “one of Europe’s most prominent news figures.” The practical point for a board hiring a host: the person on stage has done the interview that morning, on camera, with someone senior, and will do another one next week. That keeps the questions current and the pace sharp. Key speaking topics Global markets and the macro picture Energy markets and the energy transition European economic and political risk Technology, AI and the platform economy Central bank policy and financial stability Corporate strategy and CEO accountability Business journalism and media strategy Ideal for Annual conferences and investor days needing a moderator who can interview a CEO and a finance minister in the same programme Financial services, energy and technology clients hosting C-suite and board-level forums Public-sector and multilateral convenings on economic policy, trade and transition finance Audience outcomes A panel or fireside that stays on point because the host has read the file and the morning’s news Senior guests stretched on the questions that matter, without hostility, so the audience learns something new A running thread between sessions that ties markets, policy and technology into one narrative for the day A tighter run of show, because a working editor manages time on air for a living

Why organisations work with Anna Gumbau She arrives at the room already inside the file. Her day job is reporting on EU climate and energy policy for outlets including Euractiv, Energy Monitor, and FORESIGHT Climate and Energy, so panel guidance is editorial rather than scripted. She moves comfortably between Brussels institutions, industry associations, and consumer-side stakeholders, with named-client work for the European Commission, Eurelectric, SolarPower Europe, BEUC, and the European Committee of the Regions. She works in five languages, English, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Italian, which makes her a single hire across pan-European events that would otherwise need swapped chairs. Her former role as Brussels correspondent for Carbon Pulse, covering the EU ETS and the Fit for 55 package, means she can chair sessions on carbon markets and Green Deal implementation without needing a translator into policy language. She runs The Green Light, a coaching initiative for women in climate and energy, which gives her a credible second register for women-in-leadership and inclusion sessions at energy-sector events. Biography highlights Brussels-based energy and climate journalist, with published work in Euractiv, Deutsche Welle, El Pais, Energy Monitor, FORESIGHT Climate and Energy, and Carbon Pulse. Former Brussels correspondent for Carbon Pulse on the EU ETS and Fit for 55, and former energy reporter at Interfax Global Energy Services in London. Member of the Moderating.EU roster and a listed moderator on Parliament Events for the 2024 and 2026 Circular Economy Forums. Moderation clients include the European Commission, European Committee of the Regions, EPP Group, Eurelectric, SolarPower Europe, BEUC, Volvo Cars, Booking.com, and EIT Raw Materials. Founder of The Green Light, a coaching initiative supporting women working in climate and energy. Working languages: English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian. Biography EU climate and energy policy now sets the operating envelope for entire industries, from power generation to mobility to consumer goods, and the events built around it have become harder to chair well. The room is mixed: Commission officials, industry associations, NGOs, and corporate sustainability leads, each with their own vocabulary and their own red lines. Holding that conversation requires a chair who can read the politics of the file in real time. That is the working surface Anna Gumbau has spent her journalism career on. As a freelance reporter she has written for Euractiv, Deutsche Welle, El Pais, Energy Monitor, FORESIGHT Climate and Energy, and Carbon Pulse, where she was Brussels correspondent covering the EU Emissions Trading System and the Fit for 55 package. Before that she reported on energy from London with Interfax Global Energy Services. The reporting is the source material she moderates from, not a credential separate from it. Her client list reflects that positioning. Sessions for the European Commission, the European Committee of the Regions, the EPP Group, Eurelectric, SolarPower Europe, BEUC, Volvo Cars, Booking.com, and EIT Raw Materials cover the full institutional and industry span of the EU energy and circular economy debate. The Parliament Magazine has used her as moderator for its Circular Economy Forum in both 2024 and 2026. A second strand sits alongside the policy work. Through The Green Light, an initiative she founded for women in climate and energy, she coaches and mentors women working in those sectors, and that lens carries into chair work on women’s leadership and inclusion in industry events. She works in English, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Italian, which is what allows a single chair across the pan-European programme rather than a different name on each language track. Key speaking topics Energy transition and EU climate policy Circular economy and resource policy European Green Deal implementation Carbon markets and the EU Emissions Trading System Sustainability in industry and consumer sectors Women in climate and energy leadership Ideal for Corporate sustainability, public affairs, and regulatory affairs teams hosting EU-facing events Industry associations and trade bodies in power, mobility, and raw materials running policy conferences EU institutions, agencies, and political groups commissioning panels, forums, and award ceremonies Multilingual pan-European corporate events that need a single chair across English, Spanish, French, and Italian Audience outcomes A panel where the contested points in the file are surfaced and pressure-tested, not deferred Clearer separation between policy direction, industry positioning, and unresolved political risk on the topic Time held, speakers balanced, and questions from the floor handled inside a defined run order A read on how the Brussels conversation on the session topic is moving, from someone reporting on it day to day

Why organisations work with Arthur Kay He has done the work he speaks about. Bio-bean turned London’s waste coffee grounds into biofuel that powered London buses through a Shell and Argent Energy partnership. Skyroom is building key-worker homes in the airspace above existing London buildings, backed by a £100m fund he raised. He sits where urban climate policy is set. Board roles at Transport for London and the Royal Academy of Engineering, plus chairing the Academy’s Sustainability and Climate Roundtable, give him an inside view of how UK infrastructure and engineering capital is being directed. His book Roadkill, co-authored with Professor Dame Henrietta Moore and published by Wiley in 2025, was named a Financial Times Best Environment, Science and Technology Book of the year. It gives boards a defensible reference point on car dependency, urban land use and the real cost of mobility decisions. He translates between three audiences that most speakers can only address one of: investors evaluating climate-linked capital allocation, public-sector clients commissioning infrastructure, and operators running businesses that depend on both. Biography highlights The founder of Bio-bean, the clean technology company that recycled waste coffee grounds into biofuels and biomass pellets, acquired the company in 2023. Founder and CEO of Skyroom and founder of the £100m Key Worker Homes Fund, building affordable homes for key workers in the airspace above existing London buildings. Honorary Associate Professor at UCL Institute for Global Prosperity; architecture degree from UCL Bartlett School of Architecture and entrepreneurship study at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Co-author with Professor Dame Henrietta Moore of Roadkill: Unveiling the True Cost of Our Toxic Relationship with Cars (Wiley, 2025), named a Financial Times Best Environment, Science and Technology Book of 2025. Board Member of Transport for London, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Museum of the Home and Fast Forward 2030; Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering Sustainability and Climate Roundtable. Recognised as a UN Sustainable Development Goals Pioneer, The Guardian Sustainable Business Leader of the Year, MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 and Forbes 30 Under 30. Biography London’s buses spent part of 2017 running on a fuel made from used coffee grounds. The company behind it, Bio-bean, industrialised what had been a student thesis at UCL: every spent coffee puck in the city contains usable energy, and a clean technology business could collect, process and sell it back to fleets through partners like Shell and Argent Energy. Arthur Kay founded that company. It was later acquired in 2023. The follow-on venture, Skyroom, takes the same posture toward another stuck problem. Cities cannot build enough homes for the key workers who run them, and ground-level land is exhausted. Skyroom builds in the airspace above existing buildings and finances the work through a £100m fund Kay raised. Both ventures share an instinct: treat the unused output of a city as inventory, then engineer a route to market. That track record sits alongside formal positions inside the institutions that direct UK urban policy. Kay is a Board Member of Transport for London, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Museum of the Home and Fast Forward 2030, and chairs the Academy’s Sustainability and Climate Roundtable. He is an Honorary Associate Professor at UCL Institute for Global Prosperity, with a degree in architecture from UCL Bartlett and an entrepreneurship study at Stanford. His 2025 book with Professor Dame Henrietta Moore, Roadkill, published by Wiley and named a Financial Times Best Environment, Science and Technology Book of the year, makes the operating argument plain. Car dependency is not a cultural quirk; it is a recurring transfer of money, land and health out of cities, paid in instalments by the people who live in them. The book is the clearest expression of how Kay thinks about climate: as a question of where capital, infrastructure and policy actually land, not where they are stated to be heading. Key speaking topics Sustainable cities and the built environment The economics of car dependency and urban mobility Climate-aligned capital allocation and infrastructure The circular economy in practice Housing, key workers and affordability in major cities Founding and scaling clean technology ventures The transition from net zero commitment to operating delivery Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting climate, ESG and infrastructure strategy CFOs, Chief Sustainability Officers and Heads of Real Estate are evaluating capital allocation against decarbonisation goals Property, mobility, energy and city-government audiences responsible for built-environment decisions Investors and corporate venture teams assessing climate-tech founders and ventures Audience outcomes A clearer view of where the gap between net zero commitment and capital plan is widest, and which decisions close it A working vocabulary for evaluating sustainability claims by what is built and financed, not what is announced Concrete examples from Bio-bean, Skyroom and the Roadkill thesis that translate climate ambition into operating reality A practical sense of which sustainability ventures and partnerships are worth backing, told by someone who has been on both sides of the table

Why organisations work with Bertrand Piccard The Solar Impulse Foundation’s portfolio of more than 1,000 independently certified, profitable environmental solutions gives organisations a verified, searchable evidence base – not an aspiration but a commercially assessed library of technologies available today, spanning energy, construction, mobility, agriculture, and industry. His “qualitative growth” framework – articulated in his book RÉALISTE – gives leaders a specific language for presenting sustainability to boards, investors, and governments as a source of economic development rather than a compliance cost. Few speakers can point to a named framework, a published thesis, and twenty years of testing it with heads of state and global executives. As a trained psychiatrist, Piccard applies behavioural insight to the structural reason sustainability arguments fail at decision-making level: not a lack of belief, but the absence of a financial narrative that aligns with existing incentive structures. His diagnosis is precise – and so is the alternative he offers. His advisory roles – Special Advisor to the European Commission and member of the European Investment Bank’s Climate and Environment Advisory Council – provide direct intelligence on the regulatory and financial frameworks that will shape corporate energy transition decisions this decade. The Solar Impulse round-the-world flight covered 43,000 km on commercially available solar technology alone. Organisations working through assumptions about what clean energy can realistically deliver hear this not as a metaphor but as an audit: the gap between what these technologies can do and what most boards believe they can do is not a future problem. Biography highlights Completed the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, Breitling Orbiter 3, with Brian Jones (1999) – the longest flight in aviation history by both distance and duration at that time Co-initiated and piloted Solar Impulse: the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the globe (2016, 43,000 km, zero fuel), with André Borschberg Founder and Chairman, Solar Impulse Foundation – has certified more than 1,000 clean and profitable environmental solutions via the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label UN Champions of the Earth Award (2012, UNEP); UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment; Special Advisor to the European Commission; member, European Investment Bank Climate and Environment Advisory Council Mungo Park Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2018); Harmon Trophy; FAI Gold Air Medal; holds 22 FAI world records in solar and electric aviation categories Author of RÉALISTE, The Greatest Adventure, and Changer d’Altitude; keynote speaker at the United Nations, World Economic Forum, TED, and major UN Climate Change Conferences Biography The argument Bertrand Piccard has advanced for two decades is specific: ecology and economy are not opposites. Clean technology is where the next generation of industrial value is being created. His Solar Impulse Foundation has certified more than 1,000 profitable environmental solutions – available today – to demonstrate that the energy transition is already a market, not a future aspiration. The Solar Impulse round-the-world flight – 43,000 km with zero fuel, completed with André Borschberg in 2016 – was designed to carry a message as much as a pilot. When Piccard landed in Abu Dhabi, the point was not the distance but the technology: every solar system and electric motor that had just circled the planet was commercially available. Most organisations had simply not been shown a coherent financial case for using it. That case is the work of the Solar Impulse Foundation, which Piccard founded and chairs. The Foundation’s Efficient Solution Label certifies technologies, products, and processes across energy, construction, mobility, agriculture, and industry – providing governments, corporations, and investors with a vetted evidence base for capital and policy decisions. His advisory roles extend this work directly into policy: he is Special Advisor to the European Commission and a member of the European Investment Bank’s Climate and Environment Advisory Council, positions that give him current intelligence on the regulatory environment shaping energy transition this decade. Trained as a psychiatrist, Piccard applies behavioural insight to the precise reason sustainability strategies fail at board level: the financial argument is missing. His book RÉALISTE sets out the case for his named framework – “qualitative growth” – as a practical alternative to both degrowth and unlimited consumption. The Climate Impulse project, a hydrogen-powered aircraft designed for a non-stop round-the-world flight, is his current proof-of-concept: another first, built to demonstrate what the next generation of clean technology can already do. Key speaking topics Clean technology and the commercial case for energy transition Qualitative growth: sustainability as an economic strategy The Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label and cleantech certification Climate policy, regulation, and the role of business Mission-driven leadership and the explorer’s mindset The psychology of organisational change and resistance to transition Hydrogen and the future of sustainable aviation Ideal for Boards and C-suites working through the commercial and investment case for energy transition Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads under pressure to translate environmental commitments into language investors and boards will act on Government and policy audiences involved in clean energy planning, regulatory design, or climate target-setting Global executive leadership summits where the intersection of sustainability, growth strategy, and industrial policy is on the agenda Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of the sustainability-profitability relationship – with a specific named framework, “qualitative growth,” that can be used internally to move the conversation forward Awareness of a verified portfolio of more than 1,000 commercially available clean technologies, and how the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label works as a practical decision-making tool A clear diagnosis of why sustainability arguments typically fail at board and investment level – and what to substitute for the standard cost-and-compliance framing Insight into the European and global regulatory and financial architecture that will shape energy transition investment decisions over the next decade A more precise distinction between sustainability as an organisational cost and sustainability as a source of new industrial markets – presented with the proof points to make that argument to investors, regulators, and governments

Why organisations work with Carl Bildt He negotiated the Dayton Peace Accords as EU Special Envoy and went on to serve as the first High Representative in Bosnia. Few speakers have personally built a post-war political settlement from the inside. He has run a European country, then run its foreign policy through the Russian invasion of Georgia, the Arab Spring and the launch of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. The view from a head of government and a foreign minister, in the same career, is rare on the geopolitics circuit. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, the largest pan-European foreign policy network. Briefings are informed by a continent-wide research operation, not one capital’s perspective. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post and is widely cited on Ukraine, Russia, China and transatlantic strategy. Audiences get the published thinker, not a generic former politician. He sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation and was its first non-US trustee, giving him a working relationship with the US strategic research establishment that most European speakers do not have. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Sweden, 1991 to 1994. Foreign Minister of Sweden, 2006 to 2014. EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia and co-chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference, 1995. First High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995 to 1997. UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans, 1999 to 2001. Co-Chair, European Council on Foreign Relations. Board of Trustees, RAND Corporation. Senior Adviser to the Wallenberg Foundations. Author, “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Columnist for Project Syndicate, contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Biography The European security order that boards have priced into their strategy for thirty years is being rewritten in real time. Ukraine, sanctions regimes, US policy swings and renewed Chinese pressure are no longer foreign-affairs reading. They feed directly into capital allocation, country risk and supply chain decisions in Berlin, Paris, London and Stockholm. Carl Bildt has watched this shift from inside the rooms where it has been argued out. As Prime Minister of Sweden in the early 1990s, he led the negotiation of Sweden’s accession to the European Union. As EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia, he co-chaired the Dayton Peace Conference and then served as the first High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, building a peace settlement on the ground. Returning to office as Foreign Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014, he was one of the architects of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and a vocal European voice through Russia’s war in Georgia and the early years of the Ukraine crisis. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation, and writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post. His “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” remains one of the few first-person accounts of building a post-war political order in Europe. Audiences book him for what that experience yields now: a direct, unsentimental read on Russia, the transatlantic relationship and the trajectory of the European project under pressure. Key speaking topics European geopolitics and the future of the EU The transatlantic relationship and US foreign policy Russia, Ukraine and the post-1989 security order China and the global rules-based system Sanctions, political risk and country exposure Post-conflict diplomacy and peace negotiation Northern European and Nordic political economy Ideal for Board and executive team off-sites where geopolitical risk has become a strategic variable International banks, asset managers and insurers reviewing country and sanctions exposure Industrial and energy groups with material exposure to Europe, Russia, Ukraine or China Public affairs, policy and government relations leadership in multinationals Audience outcomes A current, named read on Russia, Ukraine and the trajectory of European security from someone who has been in the room. A clearer view of how transatlantic policy shifts under successive US administrations translate into European corporate exposure. A working framework for thinking about sanctions, energy and supply chain risk through a geopolitical, not just regulatory, lens. A sense of where the EU is going as a foreign and security actor, from a head of government who negotiated his country into it.

Why organisations work with Charlie Luxton He runs a working practice, Charlie Luxton Design, whose built work includes the Hook Norton Community Land Trust Passivhaus scheme, so his sustainability argument is grounded in projects he has actually delivered, not a consultancy deck. Two decades of mainstream broadcasting on More4, Channel 5, and BBC platforms have trained him to explain embodied carbon, retrofit, and energy performance to non-specialist audiences without losing technical substance. He speaks credibly across the full stack of a property or ESG conversation: design, materials, regulation, occupant behaviour, and cost, which is unusual for a single speaker. He is a comfortable host and awards presenter as well as a keynote voice, so clients running built-environment or sustainability conferences can use him in more than one role across an event. His perspective is practitioner-first: what works on a real site in the UK climate, at a realistic budget, with real trades and supply chains, which senior buyers in property, construction, and corporate real estate recognise as scarce. Biography highlights Director of Charlie Luxton Design, an Oxfordshire architectural practice focused on energy-efficient residential work. BA in Architecture, Oxford Brookes University; MA, Royal College of Art, London. Lead presenter on More4’s Building the Dream and Homes by the Sea, and presenter on Channel 5’s Build a New Life in the Country. Architect for the Hook Norton Community Land Trust, a twelve-home Passivhaus-standard community-led housing scheme. Co-author with Sally Bevan of Restored to Glory (BBC Books, 2005), the book accompanying the BBC restoration series. Has delivered talks through professional bodies including RIBA Gloucestershire on embodied carbon in buildings. Biography The built environment is responsible for a significant share of global carbon emissions, and the gap between pledges and delivered projects is where most organisations are now stuck. Architects who actually build at that intersection, and who can describe the work in plain language, are rare. That is the space Charlie Luxton occupies. He runs Charlie Luxton Design from North Oxfordshire, a practice dedicated to energy-efficient homes that use local materials and respond to local climate. The studio’s work includes the Hook Norton Community Land Trust scheme, twelve Passivhaus-standard homes developed with a community-led trust in the village where the practice is based. It is a concrete example of the low-energy, community-scale housing model the sustainability conversation often describes in the abstract. Alongside the practice, he has spent more than twenty years on UK television, presenting Building the Dream and Homes by the Sea for More4 and Build a New Life in the Country for Channel 5, with earlier credits including BBC Three’s Dreamspaces. That broadcasting background is why organisations book him: he can take a technical topic like embodied carbon or retrofit and hold a general audience without simplifying the substance. He trained at Oxford Brookes and the Royal College of Art and co-authored Restored to Glory with Sally Bevan for BBC Books. For corporate audiences this produces something specific. Real-estate, construction, and ESG conversations often split between policy speakers who have not built anything and technical specialists who cannot hold a room. Luxton bridges the two, which is useful when a leadership team has committed to a sustainability target and now has to make decisions about what they actually build or lease. Key speaking topics Sustainable architecture and low-carbon buildings Embodied carbon and the built environment Retrofit, energy performance, and the existing UK housing stock Passivhaus and community-led housing Design, materials, and local climate The future of construction Property, homes, and how people live Ideal for Property, construction, and real-estate leadership audiences setting net-zero and retrofit strategy ESG, sustainability, and corporate real-estate teams inside large corporates Housing associations, local authorities, and community trusts working on low-carbon housing delivery Built-environment conferences and awards requiring a credible host with technical authority Audience outcomes A clear read on where embodied and operational carbon actually sit in a building project, and which decisions move the number. A practical sense of what Passivhaus, retrofit, and low-energy design look like once built, drawn from delivered UK projects. Confidence to interrogate sustainability claims made by designers, developers, and suppliers in their own supply chain. A more realistic view of cost, trade-offs, and timescales in low-carbon building, as opposed to the brochure version.

Why organisations work with Chris Goodall His book Possible: Ways to Net Zero provides a sector-by-sector analysis of 16 specific technical challenges – from green hydrogen storage to decarbonising steel and cement – giving executive teams a structured, evidence-based account of what net zero delivery actually requires, not just what it aspires to. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Pictet Clean Energy Fund in Geneva, advising institutional capital on the technologies he researches and writes about – his perspective is shaped by what serious investors are actually backing, not by policy advocacy. Carbon Commentary – his long-running newsletter, part of the Guardian Environment Network – has tracked real-world clean energy deployment data independently for over a decade. Executives and investors treat it as a check on sector claims rather than a source of promotional commentary. Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was named an FT Books of the Year, establishing a track record of translating complex energy systems into analysis that serious non-specialist audiences can act on. He covers hard-to-abate sectors – aviation, agriculture, heavy industry – where most advisers produce high-level ambition; Goodall engages with specific technologies and deployment realities. Biography highlights Author of seven books on energy and climate published over 17 years, with Possible: Ways to Net Zero (Profile Books, 2024) as the most recent Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate named an FT Books of the Year What We Need to Do Now shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation Member of the Advisory Board, Pictet Clean Energy Fund, Geneva Publisher of Carbon Commentary – long-running energy transition newsletter and website, part of the Guardian Environment Network Contributor to The Guardian, The Independent and The Ecologist Alumnus of the University of Cambridge and Harvard Business School (MBA) Biography Chris Goodall has spent nearly two decades tracking the energy transition – not as a trend to describe, but as a set of specific, solvable technical and economic problems. His most recent book, Possible: Ways to Net Zero (Profile Books, 2024), takes that argument to its logical conclusion: mapping 16 distinct challenges on the path to carbon neutrality, from the decarbonisation of steel and cement to green hydrogen storage and climate-resilient agriculture. That analytical discipline is tested against real capital. Goodall sits on the Advisory Board of the Pictet Clean Energy Fund in Geneva, where institutional investors are deploying money into the technologies he researches. It is a position that keeps his work anchored in what is commercially viable now, rather than what might be viable in a decade. Most energy transition commentary collapses that distinction. His Carbon Commentary platform – part of the Guardian Environment Network – has tracked clean energy deployment data independently for over a decade. It has earned a readership among executives and investors precisely because it does not represent a corporate or consultancy position. Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was an FT Books of the Year; What We Need to Do Now was shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation. Goodall read at the University of Cambridge and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He brings to board-level audiences something the energy transition conversation rarely produces: an independent, data-grounded account of what is technically and financially achievable – and what is not. Key speaking topics Net zero pathways and energy system transformation Decarbonisation technologies: hydrogen, storage, renewables deployment Hard-to-abate sectors: steel, cement, aviation, agriculture Clean energy investment and technology readiness Climate policy, regulation and corporate strategy Electric vehicles and charging infrastructure Grid infrastructure and the limits of the energy transition Ideal for Boards and executive teams building credible net zero strategies Energy, infrastructure and sustainability investors Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leaders in energy-intensive industries Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads navigating the capital implications of decarbonisation Audience outcomes A clearer picture of which decarbonisation technologies are deployment-ready and which remain speculative A realistic, sector-specific understanding of what net zero delivery actually requires operationally Greater confidence in evaluating clean energy investment claims against independent evidence Insight into the policy and regulatory risks shaping energy transition timelines A framework for moving from corporate climate ambition to credible, technology-grounded action