Geopolitische Auswirkungen

Why organisations work with Carmen Reinhart Her book This Time Is Different, built on 800 years of financial crisis data across 66 countries gives boards and investment committees a rigorous, empirically grounded framework for stress-testing assumptions about debt, inflation, and contagion that no shorter-horizon analysis can replicate. She has held decision-making authority inside each of the three institutions that matter most when crises hit: the IMF Research Department during the 1990s emerging-market crises, Bear Stearns during its formative years as a fixed-income house, and the World Bank during the COVID-19 sovereign debt emergency. Her peer-reviewed research on capital flow cycles, exchange rate regimes, and China’s overseas lending, published in the American Economic Review and Quarterly Journal of Economics provides organisations with evidence-based analysis rather than commentary. She translates systemic economic risk into the decisions boards and CFOs actually face: when elevated debt becomes a structural constraint on growth, how to read early-warning signals in capital markets, and why apparently unprecedented shocks tend to follow familiar historical scripts. Biography highlights Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System, Harvard Kennedy School Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, World Bank Group, 2020–2022 Senior Policy Advisor and Deputy Director, IMF Research Department Chief Economist and Vice President, Bear Stearns Co-author, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (with Kenneth Rogoff) – Paul A. Samuelson Award winner; CFR Arthur Ross Book Award, Gold Medal; translated into 20+ languages Elected member, Group of Thirty; Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics, Bank of Spain, 2018; NABE Adam Smith Award, 2018 Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of St Andrews, 2023 Ranked among the world’s top economists by Research Papers in Economics (RePec); listed among Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers and Bloomberg Markets Most Influential 50 in Finance Biography Financial crises follow patterns. That argument, demonstrated across 800 years of data and 66 countries in This Time Is Different, is the empirical foundation on which Carmen Reinhart built one of the most cited bodies of research in modern economics. The book, co-authored with Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, won the Paul A. Samuelson Award and the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award Gold Medal, and has been translated into more than 20 languages. Reinhart holds the Minos A. Zombanakis Professorship of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School. She served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group from 2020 to 2022, leading the Development Economics Department at a moment of historically acute sovereign debt strain across developing economies. Earlier she was Senior Policy Advisor and Deputy Director in the IMF Research Department during the Asian and Latin American crisis cycles of the 1990s, and before that Chief Economist at Bear Stearns; a career that spans academic scholarship, active market practice, and multilateral policy responsibility in equal measure. Her research record covers capital flow cycles, exchange rate regimes, banking and sovereign debt crises, inflation, and contagion. A seminal paper with Graciela Kaminsky, published in the American Economic Review in 1999, identified the “twin crises” dynamic: the tendency for banking and currency crises to amplify one another, which became a standard reference in crisis analysis. More recent work on China’s overseas lending, co-authored with Sebastian Horn and Christoph Trebesch for the National Bureau of Economic Research, has directly shaped policy debates on developing-economy debt sustainability. Reinhart is an elected member of the Group of Thirty and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She received the King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics from the Bank of Spain and the NABE Adam Smith Award in 2018, and an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of St Andrews in 2023. Her analysis is published in Foreign Affairs, and her work is covered in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Key speaking topics Sovereign debt and financial crisis dynamics Global capital flows and exchange rate risk Post-crisis recovery and debt overhang Emerging-market and advanced-economy financial stability China’s overseas lending and developing-economy debt Historical patterns of boom, bust, and contagion International financial governance and multilateral institutions Ideal for CFOs, treasurers, and investment committees managing exposure to global economic risk Central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and multilateral institutions Board-level audiences in financial services and global corporates monitoring debt and capital market conditions Government and senior policy audiences focused on fiscal sustainability and financial system resilience Audience outcomes A historically grounded framework for recognising when current debt, inflation, or capital flow conditions mirror pre-crisis patterns Understanding of the structural mechanics that distinguish short-term economic disruption from prolonged sovereign debt impairment Sharper reading of emerging-market and advanced-economy risk through the lens of capital flow cycles and contagion effects Insight into how multilateral institutions – the IMF and World Bank – actually operate under pressure, and where their constraints lie A working model for applying long-run economic evidence to near-term organisational and investment decisions

Why organisations work with Carrie Gracie Two decades reporting from inside China, including the role of BBC News’ first China Editor based in Beijing, give her a read on Party politics and economic policy that few Western commentators can match. She translates Chinese political signals into the questions a board actually needs to answer: market access, supply chain exposure, regulatory direction, and the real shape of the US-China contest. Her Peabody-winning “White Horse Village” reporting, a decade-long series tracking one community through China’s modernisation, is evidence of the long-horizon judgement she brings to shorter-cycle corporate questions. On a separate brief, her public resignation from the BBC over unequal pay, and the £361,000 settlement she donated to the Fawcett Society and Equal Pay Advice Service, make her one of the few speakers who has forced structural change at a named employer and can talk about it first-hand. She is a working broadcaster, not an academic: she handles live Q&A with senior audiences, difficult journalists, and hostile questions with the composure of someone who has presented BBC News on air for over a decade. Biography highlights Former BBC News China Editor (2013 to 2018), based in Beijing, and the first person to hold that role 33-year career at the BBC as correspondent, presenter, and editor, including Beijing bureau chief and presenter of BBC News Channel and the BBC World Service programme “The Interview” Peabody Award for the “White Horse Village” documentary series following a Chinese village through a decade of modernisation Author of “Equal: A Story of Women, Men and Money” (Virago, Little Brown) Resigned as BBC China Editor in January 2018 over unequal pay; the BBC issued a public apology and back pay settlement, which she donated in full (£361,000) to the Fawcett Society and the Equal Pay Advice Service Educated at Hertford College, Oxford (PPE) and the University of Westminster (BA Chinese); honorary graduate of the University of Exeter (2022) Biography The BBC’s first China Editor was appointed in 2013 and based in Beijing. The job was created because Western news organisations had concluded that China could no longer be covered as a regional story. Carrie Gracie held that role until January 2018, and she had already been reporting from China, on and off, for more than twenty years before it was given to her. Her reporting record in the country is unusually long for a Western journalist. She taught English and economics in Yantai and Chongqing in the mid-1980s, before joining the BBC. She covered the death of Deng Xiaoping, the 1997 Hong Kong handover, and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Her “White Horse Village” series, which tracked a single village in Chongqing through a decade of displacement and rebuilding, won a Peabody Award for the way it read national policy through one community. That long-horizon approach is what senior audiences draw on now. She reads Chinese political and economic signals with the eye of a reporter who has watched Party congresses, five-year plans, and leadership transitions over multiple cycles. For boards exposed to Chinese markets or supply chains, this is closer to intelligence than commentary. She has a second, distinct body of work. In January 2018 she resigned as China Editor after learning that male international editors were paid substantially more for equivalent jobs. The BBC apologised publicly, backdated her pay, and Gracie donated the full £361,000 to the Fawcett Society and the Equal Pay Advice Service. Her book “Equal: A Story of Women, Men and Money” (Virago) is the account of that case and what it took to force an institution to move. Key speaking topics China’s political direction under Xi Jinping US-China strategic competition Geopolitical risk for boards and supply chains Chinese economy and market access Media, free speech, and authoritarian states Gender pay equality and institutional accountability Equal pay as a governance issue Ideal for Boards and executive committees with significant exposure to China or Asia-Pacific markets CROs, general counsel, and strategy leads pressure-testing geopolitical scenarios CHROs and reward committees reviewing pay equity, transparency, and disclosure practice Leadership audiences at financial services, industrial, technology, and consumer firms navigating the US-China contest Audience outcomes A clearer read on how Beijing makes decisions and what that means for the next three to five years of market access and regulatory risk A sharper set of questions to take into the next board or strategy review on China exposure An unvarnished account of how pay inequality survives inside a high-profile, regulated employer, and what actually shifted the institution A working journalist’s framework for distinguishing signal from noise in Chinese state communications Confidence to brief non-specialist colleagues on the commercial stakes of the US-China relationship

Why organisations work with Caspar Veldkamp Direct working experience as the foreign minister of an EU member state during the 2025 NATO summit year, including hosting the first NATO summit ever held in the Netherlands. A documented record of policy principle: he resigned the foreign ministry over the cabinet’s refusal to advance further measures on Israel, and authored the EU review proposal that bears his name. Constituency-level experience of China at the EBRD board, now extended into the EU’s most senior diplomatic post in Beijing from summer 2026. Frontline diplomatic service through two of Europe’s hardest decades of crisis: ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2015 and to Greece during the Eurozone and migration emergencies. Comfort moving between the transatlantic and Brussels frames, grounded in early service on Senator Richard Lugar’s staff and political counsellor work in Washington. Biography highlights Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, 2024 to 2025. EU Ambassador to China designate, taking up post in Beijing in summer 2026. Board Director, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, London, 2020 to 2023. Ambassador of the Netherlands to Israel (2011 to 2015) and to Greece (2015 to 2019). Hosted the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague. Author of “the Caspar proposal” for EU review of the EU to Israel Association Agreement. Biography The cabinet meeting on 22 August 2025 ended with the Dutch foreign minister resigning his post. Caspar Veldkamp had proposed further measures on Israel over the conduct of the war in Gaza, including an import ban on goods from settlements in the occupied territories. The cabinet would not move. He left office the same evening, and the New Social Contract ministers followed him out in solidarity. It was the kind of public exit that explains in one moment what a leader’s working principle is. The career that led there is unusually broad for a sitting politician. Veldkamp ran the Dutch embassies in Israel from 2011 to 2015 and in Greece from 2015 to 2019, the second through the Eurozone and migration crises. Between politics and diplomacy he sat on the EBRD board in London for three years, with constituency responsibility for the Netherlands, China, Mongolia, North Macedonia and Armenia, chairing the Board Steering Group during a period of governance reform and active climate and Ukraine work. As foreign minister he hosted the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, the first summit held in the Netherlands. He argued publicly that the two-percent NATO defence benchmark was no longer adequate, backed sustained military support for Ukraine, and authored what came to be called the Caspar proposal: a formal EU review of Israel’s compliance with the EU to Israel Association Agreement. The proposal drew broader member state support than expected and reframed the conversation inside the bloc. In summer 2026 he takes up the post of European Union Ambassador to China, the first Dutch national appointed to the role. For organisations sitting on China exposure, transatlantic supply chain decisions, or the next round of EU sanctions logic, the perspective he carries into Beijing is the one boards are now looking to brief against. Key speaking topics European geopolitics and EU foreign policy NATO, transatlantic security and Ukraine EU to China relations and the Brussels view of Beijing Sanctions, ESG and the Middle East Diplomacy under coalition and parliamentary constraint Crisis-period leadership in foreign ministries and embassies Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material China, Israel or Russia exposure CEO and CFO offsites focused on geopolitical scenario planning Banking, insurance and energy leadership teams sizing sanctions and policy risk Public affairs, government relations and risk leadership functions Audience outcomes A clearer read on how EU foreign policy decisions are actually formed across capitals. A working framework for what the next phase of EU to China relations is likely to demand of European businesses. Specific reference points on Ukraine support, NATO posture and the trajectory of sanctions logic into 2026 and beyond. A first-person account of holding a foreign ministry under coalition strain, useful for any leader managing decisions that carry public principle as well as commercial weight.

Why organisations work with Chile Eboe-Osuji Led the International Criminal Court through its most politically contested period, including the 2020 US sanctions imposed on the Court’s senior officials. He speaks from direct experience of how international institutions hold together under political pressure. Wrote End of Immunity (2024), published by Prometheus, a study of accountability for heads of state. The book traces the legal history from Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles through Nuremberg to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It gives boards and policy teams a grounded read on where prosecutions of sitting leaders are heading. Has judged at the appellate level and prosecuted at the trial level, across the ICC, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Holds academic appointments at Stanford Law School, Harvard’s Carr Center, and UCLA. Very few voices in the field speak from both the bench and the prosecution table. First ICC official, current or former, to receive the Goler T. Butcher Medal from the American Society of International Law. It is the field’s most recognised honour for contributions to international human rights law. Serves as a sitting judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice since April 2025. His commentary on international law reflects active judicial practice. Biography highlights 4th President of the International Criminal Court, 2018 to 2021; ICC judge from 2012 to 2021 Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice, sworn in April 2025 Former Legal Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights under Navi Pillay (2010-2012); earlier senior prosecution counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, including the Charles Taylor appeals Author of End of Immunity (2024) and International Law and Sexual Violence in Armed Conflicts (2012); editor of Protecting Humanity (2010) Goler T. Butcher Medal, American Society of International Law (2022); first ICC official, current or former, to receive the honour Herman Phleger Visiting Professor at Stanford Law School; Senior Fellow at the Carr Center, Harvard Kennedy School; Paul Martin Senior Professor at the University of Windsor Biography In 2020, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the most senior officials of the International Criminal Court, including the Court’s Prosecutor. The Court’s President at the time was Chile Eboe-Osuji. His answer was to hold the Court’s course and defend its mandate publicly, including on BBC HARDtalk with Stephen Sackur and at the Council on Foreign Relations. He came to the presidency as a career international lawyer. Earlier he had been senior prosecution counsel at the UN tribunals for Rwanda and Sierra Leone, including the Charles Taylor appeal. He then served as Legal Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva under Navi Pillay. Elected to the ICC bench in 2011, he presided over the Kenya cases and the Gbagbo and Blé Goudé appeals before becoming President in 2018. His 2024 book End of Immunity, published by Prometheus, is the work he has been building toward across his career. It traces the legal history of head-of-state accountability from Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles through Nuremberg to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Rules making leaders answerable for aggression and crimes against humanity rest on foundations far older than contemporary politics. Those rules matter to anyone whose organisation operates across borders. Since leaving the ICC he has taught at Stanford, UCLA, and Harvard’s Carr Center, and held the Paul Martin Senior Professorship at the University of Windsor. He was appointed to the bench of the Caribbean Court of Justice in January 2025 and sworn in that April. For leadership teams trying to understand how international law is actually read by the people who decide it, few voices carry more weight. Key speaking topics International law and the rules-based global order Accountability for heads of state and political leaders Geopolitical risk and armed conflict Sanctions, sovereignty, and state immunity Prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity The International Criminal Court and the future of international justice Ideal for Boards and executive teams at organisations operating across multiple jurisdictions Chief Risk Officers, General Counsel, and heads of political-risk functions with exposure to sanctions regimes and cross-border conflict Policy leaders and public-affairs executives at firms whose business is shaped by state action and international law Institutional investors and capital allocators pricing geopolitical risk into cross-border decisions Audience outcomes An authoritative read on where international criminal law is heading, from someone who has written both the rulings and the books A grounded sense of why state accountability, sanctions, and head-of-state prosecution are relevant to commercial decisions The vocabulary to discuss live geopolitical situations (Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa) with legal precision A direct answer to the question most boards are now asking: is the rules-based international order actually holding?

Why organisations work with Christian Havrehed He has operated inside the Sino-Western seam at every level: management consulting at L.E.K., MD roles in Hong Kong and Shanghai with KPMG, Allianz and VIKING, and a two-person expedition partnership that lasted 70 days at sea. Mandarin fluency lets him work directly with Chinese stakeholders in the room, not through a translator, which materially changes the quality of preparation and post-meeting reading. The Atlantic row with Sun Haibin is a documented case study in trust-building under pressure, published in three languages and over 20,000 copies, that he uses to make cross-cultural failure modes concrete. He is qualified to challenge the comforting Western assumption that cultural difference can be managed with a framework imported from headquarters. For boards weighing China exposure, he brings a credible inside-and-outside view that few Western speakers can match without a state affiliation that constrains them. Biography highlights 20 years working in China, including managing director roles with KPMG, Allianz, and VIKING Life-Saving Equipment in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Former consultant at L.E.K. Consulting, London. BA Joint Hons. in Chinese Language and Western Management Studies, Durham University, with study at Renmin University, Beijing. Author of “Beijing to Barbados in a Rowboat”, published in English, Chinese, and Danish; over 20,000 copies sold. First Dane to row an ocean: 3,000-mile Atlantic crossing in 2001 with Chinese ex-soldier Sun Haibin. Founder of the Yantu Project; Adventure Ambassador for Engage with China and Eyesea; member of The Explorers Club. Biography China is no longer a question of market entry. It is a question of whether senior teams can lead partnerships, joint ventures, and supply relationships where the other side does not share their assumptions about risk, hierarchy, or time. That is the ground Christian Havrehed has worked for two decades. After reading Chinese at Durham University and studying at Renmin University in Beijing, he moved into management consulting at L.E.K. in London, then ran businesses inside China and Hong Kong as managing director with KPMG, Allianz, and VIKING Life-Saving Equipment. He speaks Mandarin in commercial settings, which changes the texture of every conversation he is part of. In 2001 he rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic with Sun Haibin, a former Chinese PLA soldier and Communist Party member, becoming the first Dane and the first Chinese citizen respectively to row an ocean. The story, told in “Beijing to Barbados in a Rowboat”, is published in three languages and used by Havrehed as a working case study in what trust actually requires when the contract runs out and the weather turns. For senior leaders, the value is practical. He challenges the soft-skills framing of cross-cultural work and treats it as a leadership problem with real commercial consequences: deal terms misread, partners disengaged, talent lost. His Yantu Project, founded in 2000, has been the spine of this work since long before China became a board-level agenda item in the West. Key speaking topics Sino-Western leadership and partnership Cross-cultural collaboration in joint ventures Trust-building under operational pressure China market strategy and stakeholder engagement Risk-taking and decision-making in unfamiliar conditions Sustainability and citizen science through expedition Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material China exposure Country leaders, regional MDs, and joint-venture sponsors operating in or with Greater China Heads of strategy, M&A, and partnerships evaluating Asia-Pacific deals Senior teams running multinational cross-border programmes where cultural fluency is operationally load-bearing Audience outcomes A clearer view of where Sino-Western partnerships actually fail, drawn from inside both sides of the seam. Specific, named examples of trust-building behaviours that hold up when conditions deteriorate. A direct challenge to standard cultural-intelligence frameworks imported from Western HQ. Practical reframing of risk-taking as an organisational capability, not a personality trait. A more grounded basis for boardroom conversations about China exposure, partnership terms, and joint-venture governance.

Why organisations work with Christiana Figueres She ran the Paris Agreement negotiation directly – not as a consultant or commentator, but as the UN official accountable for the outcome. The political dynamics, the pressure points, and the coalition mechanics she describes are firsthand. Her “Stubborn Optimism” framework, introduced in The Future We Choose (Penguin Random House, 2020), gives leadership teams a named, deployable posture for climate action – one that moves beyond paralysis without slipping into greenwashing. She holds board positions at ACCIONA and ACCIONA Energía, placing her at the intersection of executive decision-making and large-scale energy transition – not just policy theory. The Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation awarded her the Great Negotiator Award in 2022 – the same honour previously given to figures who shaped international law and treaty architecture. For leadership teams navigating multi-stakeholder climate commitments, that credential is directly relevant. Her network spans 195 national governments, financial institutions, and private sector actors – the precise ecosystem any organisation must understand when building a serious climate governance position. Biography highlights Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2010-2016 Principal architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement – unanimous adoption by 195 sovereign nations 2022 Great Negotiator Award, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School Co-author, The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimists’ Guide to the Climate Crisis (Penguin Random House, 2020) Honorary DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire), 2022; Legion of Honor of France, 2015 Fortune #7, World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, 2016; Time Top 100 Most Influential Leaders, 2016; Nature Journal Top 10, 2015 (ranked first) Chair, The Earthshot Prize Foundation, 2021-2026; Board member, ACCIONA and ACCIONA Energía Graduate of Swarthmore College and the London School of Economics; honorary doctorates from Yale, Georgetown, University of Edinburgh, and University of Massachusetts; named to BBC 100 Women list, 2023 Biography In December 2015, 195 nations unanimously adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change. The UN official responsible for making that outcome possible was Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC from 2010 to 2016 – appointed six months after the catastrophic collapse of the Copenhagen summit, when the prospect of a global accord looked remote. The process she built over those six years is now documented in a Harvard Law School case study. What distinguished it was a systematic approach to coalition-building: drawing together governments, financial institutions, faith communities, scientists, and private sector actors through a model of collaborative diplomacy that broke the political deadlock that had stalled climate negotiations for a decade. The Harvard Program on Negotiation recognised this with the Great Negotiator Award in 2022 – placing her alongside figures who have shaped international law and treaty architecture. Her published work extends the argument beyond diplomacy. The Future We Choose (Penguin Random House, 2020), co-authored with Tom Rivett-Carnac, introduces “Stubborn Optimism” as a named framework for climate leadership – a gritty, reality-grounded mindset that allows executives and institutions to act decisively without being paralysed by the scale of the problem. Her TED talk on the concept has reached a wide professional audience, and the three-part structure of the book – mindsets, choices, actions – has become a practical reference point for organisations setting net-zero strategy. Figueres co-founded Global Optimism, co-hosts the Outrage + Optimism podcast, and serves on the boards of ACCIONA and ACCIONA Energía. She holds honorary doctorates from Yale, Georgetown, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Massachusetts, and was named an Honorary DBE in 2022. Key speaking topics Global climate governance and the Paris Agreement Corporate net-zero strategy and climate risk Collaborative diplomacy and multi-stakeholder negotiation ESG strategy and climate-related regulatory exposure Energy transition policy and renewable energy investment Stubborn Optimism as a leadership framework Climate science communication and public persuasion Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives setting or stress-testing net-zero commitments Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leadership teams navigating disclosure requirements Government affairs and public policy functions tracking international climate regulation Financial institutions building climate-aligned investment frameworks Audience outcomes A working model of how global climate policy is made – and where corporate strategy intersects with it Direct insight into the negotiation architecture behind the Paris Agreement and its implications for current climate commitments A named, practical framework – Stubborn Optimism – for sustaining organisational climate action without paralysis or performance Clearer understanding of where international climate governance is heading and what that means for regulation, capital allocation, and competitive positioning Greater confidence in engaging regulators, investors, and international institutions on climate strategy

Why organisations work with Christoph M. Schmidt Seven years chairing the German Council of Economic Experts, the body that formally advises the federal government, gives him a working command of how policy is actually made in Berlin and Brussels. As co-chair of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts, he reads the Paris-Berlin axis from inside the room, useful for any business whose European strategy depends on it. His research sits where most boardroom questions now live: energy transition economics, CO2 pricing design, labour market structure, and inequality. He has published on all of them. Project Syndicate columnist and contributor to the World Economic Forum Agenda and Brookings, which means audiences are getting a voice already trusted by the serious business press. Recipient of the Gustav Stolper Award (2016), given by the Verein fuer Socialpolitik for economists who shape public debate with empirical work, not rhetoric. Biography highlights President of RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen since 2002. Chair for Economic Policy and Applied Econometrics, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum. Chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts, 2013 to 2020. Co-chairman of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts since 2020. Gustav Stolper Award (2016); honorary doctorate, Leibniz Universitaet Hannover (2019). Ph.D. in Economics, Princeton University; CEPR Fellow; IZA Research Fellow. Biography The German Council of Economic Experts exists to tell the federal government what the data actually says, in writing, every year. Christoph M. Schmidt chaired that body from 2013 to 2020, which means he authored or co-authored seven annual reports that shaped how Berlin framed growth, fiscal policy, labour reform, and the energy transition. He has been President of RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen since 2002, while holding the Chair for Economic Policy and Applied Econometrics at Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum. The combination is unusual. RWI is one of Germany’s largest economic research institutes; Bochum keeps him teaching and publishing the empirical work that gives the policy voice its weight. Since 2020 he has served as co-chairman of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts, a body set up to surface where the two largest eurozone economies can cooperate and where they cannot. For any executive team with European exposure, that bilateral view is rarely available from a single speaker. His training is Princeton applied econometrics, with a Ph.D. supervised in the Alfred P. Sloan tradition. The research output covers energy and CO2 pricing, labour markets, health, and inequality. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate, the World Economic Forum Agenda, and Brookings. The Gustav Stolper Award, given in 2016 by the Verein fuer Socialpolitik, recognises economists who translate serious empirical work into public debate. Schmidt is one of the few German economists to have done both at the scale the award implies. Key speaking topics European economic policy and the Franco-German axis Energy transition economics and CO2 pricing German and European labour market reform Income and wealth inequality Fiscal policy and debt sustainability in the eurozone The role of evidence-based economic advice in democracies Productivity and structural change in advanced economies Ideal for Boards and executive teams with European operations weighing the fiscal, energy, and labour policy outlook CFOs, strategy leads, and government affairs teams briefing on eurozone direction Investor audiences and policy forums examining the Franco-German economic relationship Industrial and energy sector leadership assessing the real cost trajectory of the transition Audience outcomes A sharper read on where German and European economic policy is heading and why A working framework for thinking about CO2 pricing, energy cost pass-through, and competitiveness A clearer view of the Franco-German policy interface and what it means for European business decisions A sense of which reform debates carry durable weight and which are political theatre Direct engagement with an economist who has sat inside the machinery of federal advice

Why organisations work with Clare McDonnell She is the voice that announces the news to the UK on BBC Radio 5 Live Drive each evening, and she brings that same authority and composure to a corporate stage. She presents Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 and anchored Newsday on the BBC World Service, which means she can interview a chief executive, a campaigner, and a minister inside the same hour without losing the audience. She has covered live, unscripted moments of national consequence including the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the resignations of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, which is the kind of pressure that makes a conference room feel manageable. She moves from a five-thousand-seat venue at ExCeL London to a small charity dinner without changing register, which is what awards hosts and panel chairs are actually paid for. She is a working journalist, not a former one, which means panellists are interviewed by someone who is still asking questions of national figures every weekday. Biography highlights Daily presenter, BBC Radio 5 Live Drive. Regular presenter, BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour. Original launch presenter, BBC 6 Music, March 2002 to March 2010. Anchor, Newsday, BBC World Service; presenter on the Global News podcast. Reporter, BBC One’s The One Show; former reporter on BBC Three’s Liquid News. Sports presenting credits include the Wimbledon Championships and the UEFA Women’s European Football Championships. Biography The presenter of BBC Radio 5 Live Drive is, for several million UK listeners each weekday evening, the voice that explains the news as it happens. Clare McDonnell has held that chair through Westminster confidence votes, two Conservative leadership exits, and the moment she announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II live on national radio. She is also a regular presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, anchored Newsday on the BBC World Service, and presents on the Global News podcast, the BBC’s most-downloaded news podcast. She was one of the original launch presenters of BBC 6 Music in 2002 and reported on BBC Three’s Liquid News before moving into mainstream news and sports anchoring, including the Wimbledon Championships and the UEFA Women’s European Football Championships. For organisations, the relevant point is the craft. Hosting a conference is not the same job as presenting a radio show, but it draws on the same muscles: keeping a panel honest, hearing what was actually said, moving an audience through a long programme without losing them, and asking the question the room is thinking but cannot phrase. McDonnell does that work daily on live national radio. She has covered enough unpredictable moments to be unbothered by the small ones that derail a conference: a missing panellist, a slide deck that fails, a CEO who answers a different question. The pressure of a corporate stage is, for her, the easier version of a Tuesday at five. She is represented by Knight Ayton Management and chairs panels, hosts awards, and moderates audience Q and As from the ExCeL Arena in London to small charity events. Key speaking topics Awards hosting Panel moderation Live event hosting Audience Q and A chairing Conference and gala hosting UK and global news interviews Ideal for Awards ceremonies looking for a host with national broadcast presence. Leadership conferences needing a panel chair who can interview chief executives and policy figures. Corporate galas and customer events where the host carries the evening across multiple segments. Charity dinners and advocacy events that need a host with newsroom credibility. Audience outcomes A programme that runs to time without feeling rushed. Panels that stay on the question the audience cares about, not the answer the speaker prepared. Senior figures interviewed in a way that gets a real answer, not a press line. An audience that feels addressed by someone they recognise from national radio. A host who absorbs the unexpected without the audience noticing.

Why organisations work with Daisy McAndrew She has chaired panels, awards and leadership forums for clients including Samsung, HPE and ABTA, and returns to the same rooms because she reads a stage the way a lobby journalist reads a division lobby. Thirty years inside Westminster, first as a Commons researcher and Liberal Democrat press secretary, then as a BBC and ITV News political and economics correspondent, gives her a working map of how UK policy actually gets made. She can interview a chief executive, a cabinet minister or a customer keynote without a script change, which matters when a board-level event pivots on the day. She combines a broadcaster’s discipline about time and tone with the subject authority of a former national Economics Editor, so she can run a technical panel on rates, trade or regulation without deferring to the panellists. NBC News retains her as Royal Commentator, which signals that US networks trust her on camera at short notice under live political conditions. Biography highlights Former Chief Political Correspondent, Economics Editor and Special Correspondent, ITV News (2005 to 2012). Former co-presenter, BBC Daily Politics, alongside Andrew Neil, and presenter of Yesterday in Parliament, BBC Radio 4. Former Press Secretary to Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy. Former Editor of The House Magazine, Westminster’s weekly parliamentary publication. Royal Commentator for NBC News, United States. Former Vice-Chair, Internews Europe, the international media-development charity. Biography Westminster is not a neutral place to report from. Understanding how a tax change, a whip’s decision or a regulatory signal translates into a market move takes years of standing in the same corridors as the people making those calls. That is the ground Daisy McAndrew has covered for three decades. She began in the House of Commons as an MP’s researcher at nineteen, edited The House Magazine in the mid-1990s, and was Press Secretary to Charles Kennedy when he led the Liberal Democrats. Moving to broadcasting, she co-presented BBC’s Daily Politics with Andrew Neil before ITV News hired her as Chief Political Correspondent in 2005, then promoted her to Economics Editor in 2008. She reported the credit crunch and the subsequent recession from across the UK, and filed extended pieces on the French and German economies. She left ITV as its most senior female reporter. Her corporate work sits on the same foundation. She chairs conferences, moderates board-level panels, and hosts awards for clients including Samsung, HPE and ABTA, and is rebooked for the reason senior buyers rebook anyone: she runs the room. An executive chair can hand her a late script change, a difficult CEO, or a technical panel on trade or monetary policy and trust the output. She is NBC News’s Royal Commentator in the United States, was Vice-Chair of the Internews Europe trustee board until June 2023, and edited The Politics Companion for Chrysalis Books. Key speaking topics UK politics and government UK economic policy and the business environment Political risk for corporate and investor audiences Media, political communication and the British press The British Royal Family and soft-power coverage Conference hosting, panel moderation and awards chairing Ideal for Boards, investor conferences and CEO forums wanting a UK political and economic read they can act on CCOs, heads of public affairs and government relations teams briefing leadership on policy exposure Industry trade bodies and regulated-sector conferences needing a chair who can handle ministers, executives and journalists on the same stage Internal leadership summits and awards where the host must carry scripted and unscripted segments with equal authority Audience outcomes A clearer read on which Westminster and Whitehall developments actually change commercial conditions, and which do not. A sharper sense of how political communication works from the inside, from lobby briefings to Downing Street signalling. On-stage interviews, panels and awards segments that land on time, on message and with the right tension held between speakers. Context on UK economic policy drawn from first-hand reporting on the credit crunch, recession recovery and successive fiscal cycles. A senior journalistic presence that steadies a room when the agenda, speaker line-up or news cycle shifts on the day.

Why organisations work with Dalia Marin Her peer-reviewed research links automation, trade-policy uncertainty, and reshoring in a single empirical model, giving leadership teams a defensible basis for supply-chain decisions rather than a narrative. She translates between the Brussels and Berlin policy worlds and the corporate boardroom, drawing on advisory work with the European Commission, the EBRD, and the IMF. Her Project Syndicate column is a running public reference point on deglobalisation, German deindustrialisation, and the labour-market consequences of AI, read by policy and business readers across Europe. She is one of the few senior economists who has tracked the German industrial model, and the Eastern European production network around it, continuously since the 1990s. That long view matters when companies are re-assessing the same geographies. Biography highlights Chair in International Economics, TUM School of Management, Technical University of Munich. Non-resident Fellow at Bruegel and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. Former Professor of International Economics at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (1998 to 2017). Co-editor of “The Organization of Firms in a Global Economy” (Harvard University Press, 2008) with Elhanan Helpman and Thierry Verdier. Co-author of “Global Value Chains in a World of Uncertainty and Automation”, Journal of International Economics, 2025. Visiting appointments at Harvard, Stanford, NYU Stern, the IMF, the NBER, and the European University Institute. Project Syndicate columnist on deglobalisation, industrial policy, and the future of the German economic model. Biography The reshoring debate has moved past the slogan stage. Firms are actually pulling production back to high-income economies, and the economic literature is starting to explain why. Trade-policy uncertainty and cheaper industrial robots, working together, are restructuring global supply chains in ways that a decade of offshoring logic did not anticipate. That is the core argument of Marin’s recent work, co-authored in the Journal of International Economics in 2025. Her research shows that exposure to uncertainty in developing-country suppliers pushes production back to high-income countries, but only where robots have made it economically feasible. For a senior operations or strategy audience, this is a usable frame: reshoring is not a political mood, it is a measurable response to two forces that can be modelled. The wider body of work runs through Bruegel, CEPR, and a sustained Project Syndicate column. She has written continuously on the German economic model, the Eastern European production network built around it, and the inflationary and labour-market consequences of a partial retreat from globalisation. Her advisory work with the European Commission, the EBRD, and the IMF sits alongside the academic record rather than replacing it. She was Chair in International Economics at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich for almost two decades before moving to TUM. Visiting appointments at Harvard, Stanford, NYU Stern, the IMF, and the NBER place her inside the network of economists who set the terms of the trade-policy debate. The value for a corporate audience is that she can connect that technical conversation to the question actually on the table: what does the next decade of supply-chain strategy look like when the old globalisation assumptions no longer hold. Key speaking topics Deglobalisation and the restructuring of global supply chains Automation, robots, and reshoring The German economic model and European competitiveness International trade policy and geopolitical risk Multinational firms and the organisation of global production Industrial policy in Europe and the United States Inflation, labour markets, and the economics of deglobalisation Ideal for Boards and executive committees reassessing supply-chain footprint in light of tariffs, geopolitical risk, and automation CSOs, Heads of Strategy, and COOs responsible for manufacturing and sourcing decisions in industrial and export-led businesses Policy forums, investor conferences, and economic summits focused on Europe, Germany, and the future of global trade Senior leadership in financial institutions and multinational corporates with significant exposure to Eastern Europe and the German industrial base Audience outcomes A clear read of the empirical evidence on reshoring, automation, and trade-policy uncertainty, rather than the headline narrative A sharper view of where the German economic model is strong and where it is exposed, with implications for anyone doing business across the European industrial network A working framework for assessing which parts of a supply chain are candidates for reshoring and which are not A grounded perspective on the macro-economic consequences of deglobalisation, including effects on inflation and labour markets Language and evidence that senior leaders can use in their own board conversations on geopolitical and trade exposure

Why organisations work with Dambisa Moyo Few macroeconomists hold simultaneous directorships at companies of the scale of Chevron, Starbucks, and Condé Nast. From that seat she has spent two decades answering the question now on every board’s table: where the next dollar goes when the old growth assumptions stop working. Her four New York Times bestsellers gave decision-makers a vocabulary for the questions that now dominate board agendas: aid dependency, the West’s structural decline, China’s resource strategy, the failure of democratic capitalism to deliver growth, and how boards themselves should function. As Chair of the Economic Club of New York, she convenes the forum where Fed chairs, heads of state, and Fortune 500 CEOs publicly debate the economy. That puts her at the centre of the conversations her clients are trying to anticipate. She is a serving member of the House of Lords as Baroness Moyo of Knightsbridge, which gives her a working line of sight into how policy, regulation, and geopolitics actually move. Her training is unusually broad for a public macro voice: a DPhil in Economics from Oxford, an MPA from Harvard Kennedy, plus eight years inside Goldman Sachs research. Audiences get a practitioner, not a commentator. Biography highlights DPhil in Economics, St Antony’s College, Oxford; MPA, Harvard Kennedy School Eight years at Goldman Sachs in research; two years at the World Bank Chair of the Economic Club of New York; current board director at Chevron, Condé Nast, and Starbucks; member of the Oxford University Endowment Investment Committee; trustee of the National Geographic Society Prior public-company boards include Barclays, SABMiller, Barrick Gold, 3M, and Seagate Technology Life peer in the United Kingdom House of Lords as Baroness Moyo of Knightsbridge (created 2022) Author of Dead Aid, How the West Was Lost, Winner Take All, Edge of Chaos, and How Boards Work; recipient of the Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award (2013) and TIME 100 (2009) Biography The argument that ran through forty years of cheap goods, cheap money and integrated supply chains has stopped working. Capital allocators now have to price geopolitics into every decision, and most of the management vocabulary they grew up with was built for a different world. Dambisa Moyo’s career has been spent on exactly this fault line. Her first book, Dead Aid, took on the development consensus and argued that aid dependency was choking African growth. How the West Was Lost and Winner Take All extended the argument into the structural decline of advanced economies and China’s strategic accumulation of commodities. Edge of Chaos asked whether liberal democracies can still deliver economic growth at all. The books are not adjacent to her speaking; they are the speaking. The credentials behind the argument are unusual. A DPhil in Economics from Oxford and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy, eight years inside Goldman Sachs research, simultaneous directorships at Chevron, Condé Nast, and Starbucks, a seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Moyo of Knightsbridge, and, since 2026, the chair of the Economic Club of New York. The combination is rare because it spans rooms that usually do not talk to each other: the academy, the trading floor, the boardroom, and the forum where they meet in public. What makes her useful in a leadership setting is that she has had to act on her own analysis. The question of how to allocate capital across China exposure, energy transition timelines and political risk is not a thought experiment for her; it is the agenda of the boards she sits on. How Boards Work, her most recent book, was written from that seat. Key speaking topics Global macroeconomics and capital allocation Geopolitics and the future of globalisation China and the contest for resources Democracy, governance and economic growth Energy transition and the cost of capital Corporate governance and how boards should function Emerging markets and frontier investment Ideal for Boards and investment committees pricing geopolitical and macro risk into capital decisions CEOs, CFOs and Chief Strategy Officers reassessing China exposure, supply chain footprint and growth assumptions Asset managers, family offices and institutional investors setting long-horizon allocation strategy Senior leadership offsites where the economic and geopolitical context for the next plan is the agenda Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how geopolitical fracture, sanctions regimes and energy transition are reshaping the cost of capital A defensible view on China’s resource strategy and what it implies for Western corporates and investors A working framework for how boards should govern in a more politicised, slower-growth global economy Confidence to challenge consensus assumptions about globalisation, growth and aid that no longer hold

Why organisations work with Dame Wendy Hall Direct line of sight into where AI rules are heading. Hall sat on the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Body that wrote “Governing AI for Humanity”, and co-chaired the UK government’s 2017 AI Review with Jerome Pesenti. A framework for the geopolitics of digital infrastructure. Her book with Kieron O’Hara, “Four Internets”, sets out the competing Silicon Valley, Brussels, Washington and Beijing models that determine where data and AI capability can actually be deployed. Engineering credibility, not commentary. Her team at Southampton built the Microcosm hypermedia system in the mid 1980s, before the Web existed, which gives her arguments about platform design a foundation most policy voices lack. She can explain how AI systems actually produce their outputs to a board with no technical background. That is the subject of her next book, “AI Explained” (Wiley, September 2026), written for exactly that reader. Standing inside the institutions that boards now have to follow. Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, President of the British Science Association from September 2026, former Chair of the Ada Lovelace Institute, founding co-director of the Web Science Research Initiative with Tim Berners-Lee. Biography highlights Regius Professor of Computer Science, a Crown appointment, and Director of the Web Science Institute, University of Southampton; co-founder of the Web Science Research Initiative with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt. Member, UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence; contributor to “Governing AI for Humanity” (2024). Co-chair of the UK government’s independent AI Review with Jerome Pesenti, “Growing the artificial intelligence industry in the UK” (2017), and the UK’s first AI Skills Champion. Co-author, with Kieron O’Hara, of “Four Internets: Data, Geopolitics, and the Governance of Cyberspace”, Oxford University Press, 2021; co-author, with Pete Rai, of “AI Explained: A Guide for Non-Technical Readers”, Wiley, September 2026. Managing Director of the Web Science Trust; President of the British Science Association for 2026-27; Co-Editor-in-Chief of Royal Society Open Science; co-chair of the ACM Publications Board. Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire; Fellow of the Royal Society; Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, which awarded her its Sir Frank Whittle Medal in 2026; first non-North American President of the Association for Computing Machinery. Biography The teams writing the rules for AI and digital infrastructure are small, and they sit inside a handful of governments and multilateral bodies. Most boards now have to operate within those rules without much access to the people drafting them. Dame Wendy Hall is one of those people. She co-chaired the UK government’s 2017 AI Review with Jerome Pesenti, “Growing the artificial intelligence industry in the UK”, which set the structure of the country’s AI strategy. She became the UK’s first AI Skills Champion the following year. In 2023 the UN Secretary-General appointed her to the High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, which delivered “Governing AI for Humanity” in 2024. She chaired the Ada Lovelace Institute from 2020 to 2023. The policy work rests on three decades of original computer science. Her team at Southampton built Microcosm, a hypermedia system, in the mid 1980s, before the Web existed. In 2006 she co-founded the Web Science Research Initiative with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt. Web Science, the field she helped establish, treats the Internet and AI as social systems shaped by politics, power, and human behaviour as much as by code. She is now Regius Professor of Computer Science at Southampton, a title conferred by the Crown, and directs the university’s Web Science Institute. Her book with Kieron O’Hara, “Four Internets” (Oxford University Press, 2021, with a foreword by Vint Cerf), maps the four competing value systems, Silicon Valley, Brussels, Washington and Beijing, that now determine where data flows, where AI can be trained, and where products can be sold. Senior teams come back to it when they have to make a capital decision about where to put a data centre or a model. Her next book, “AI Explained: A Guide for Non-Technical Readers”, is published by Wiley in September 2026, the same month she takes office as President of the British Science Association. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence policy and governance The geopolitics of data and digital infrastructure Web Science and sociotechnical systems AI strategy for national and corporate competitiveness Internet governance and platform regulation Women in technology and the AI skills pipeline Ideal for Boards and executive committees making capital allocation decisions on AI, data and digital infrastructure Chief technology, chief data and chief AI officers responsible for defensible deployment Government, regulator and multilateral audiences working on AI and Internet governance University and research leadership shaping national AI strategy and skills Audience outcomes A working map of the four competing models of Internet governance and what each means for cross-border data and AI A sharper read of where UN, EU, UK, US and Chinese AI rules are converging and diverging A view of AI strategy that connects technical reality, regulation and national competitiveness A first-hand account of how independent AI reviews and advisory bodies are drafted and how to influence them