Impact géopolitique speakers

Why organisations work with Julie Etchingham She has run the room when the stakes were national. Moderating the head-to-head ITV debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer on 4 June 2024, and every ITV leaders’ debate since 2015, is the reference point clients book against when they need a chair who can hold senior figures to a question. She is a working anchor of ITV News at Ten, not a former one. The political, regulatory and geopolitical stories that affect a board agenda are the stories she is reading, writing and presenting that evening. She brings a documented record on hard reporting. Her ITV Tonight and Exposure work on modern slavery, including Britain’s Secret Slaves filmed in the UK, Nigeria and Italy, won her access to the Vatican and to Pope Francis, whom she was the first British broadcast journalist to interview. She carries the rare credential of being the first woman to win the RTS Television Journalism Presenter of the Year, an award she has now won twice, alongside London Press Club Broadcast Journalist of the Year. Biography highlights Anchor of ITV News at Ten since January 2008, alongside the relaunch with Sir Trevor McDonald. Moderator of the ITV Leaders’ Debate at the 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024 UK general elections, including the Sunak v Starmer head-to-head on 4 June 2024. Presenter of ITV’s Tonight current affairs strand from 2010 to 2022; reporter for ITV’s investigative strand Exposure, including Britain’s Secret Slaves on modern slavery. Royal Television Society Television Journalism Presenter of the Year in 2010 (first woman to win) and 2016; London Press Club Broadcast Journalist of the Year, 2016. President of the Women of the Year Lunch and Awards since 2018; Pro-Chancellor of Birmingham Newman University from October 2023. Cambridge graduate (Newnham College, English); earlier career at BBC (Newsround, Midlands Today, BBC Breakfast News) and Sky News, where she anchored coverage of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and the 7/7 London attacks. Biography The ITV debate studio on 4 June 2024 was the only place a UK prime minister and the leader of the opposition were going to share a stage in front of voters that election. Julie Etchingham chaired the hour live. She had done the same job at every ITV leaders’ debate since 2015, when she became the first woman to moderate a UK general election debate, and again in 2017, 2019 and across the 2022 Conservative leadership contest. That body of work sits on top of a journalism career. Etchingham has anchored ITV News at Ten since the programme’s relaunch with Sir Trevor McDonald in January 2008, and earlier presented Sky News through major breaking stories, including live coverage from Thailand after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and on air as the 7/7 attacks unfolded in London. From 2010 to 2022 she presented ITV’s Tonight current affairs programme, with reporting for the Exposure investigative strand including Britain’s Secret Slaves, filmed across the UK, Nigeria and Italy on modern slavery. The recognition is on the record. The Royal Television Society named her Television Journalism Presenter of the Year in 2010, the first woman to win the award, and again in 2016. The London Press Club named her Broadcast Journalist of the Year the same year. She was the first British broadcast journalist to interview Pope Francis, and has since moderated conferences at the Vatican on modern slavery under his patronage. For corporate audiences, the offer is practical. She moderates leadership conferences, chairs panels and runs on-stage interviews with the same craft she uses in a debate studio, with a working knowledge of UK politics, elections and the media environment around them. The president’s chair at the Women of the Year Lunch since 2018 and the Pro-Chancellorship of Birmingham Newman University from October 2023 are the institutional version of that same role. Key speaking topics UK politics and general elections Conference moderation and on-stage interviewing Leadership communication under public scrutiny Media, public trust and the information environment Modern slavery and human rights reporting Awards hosting and high-profile event chairing Ideal for Annual leadership conferences and partner summits needing a chair who can run a serious agenda with senior political or business figures on stage. Investor days, AGMs and policy forums where the on-stage interview format requires a journalist who knows the brief. Awards dinners and major institutional events where the host carries credibility with the audience. Boards and executive committees using a private session to pressure-test communications around a political or regulatory moment. Audience outcomes A working read on the UK political cycle and the elections, regulatory shifts and media stories most likely to land on the agenda. A sharper sense of how leaders are scrutinised in front of a national audience, drawn from years of moderating debates with prime ministers and party leaders. A different quality of on-stage conversation when Etchingham is chairing: speakers pushed past talking points without losing the room. Specific reference points from front-line news anchoring and investigative work used to illustrate rather than decorate the argument.

Why organisations work with Juliet Mann Two decades anchoring live business news on CNN, CNBC, Sky News, Reuters, TRT World and CGTN Europe, which means she can chair a senior panel without rehearsal scaffolding and recover any conversation that starts to slide. A working interviewer’s instinct built on direct exchanges with EU policymakers, with CEOs at Nestle, L’Oreal, Geox and Lafarge, and with figures including Sir James Dyson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Comfortable across the editorial range a serious corporate programme actually demands: macroeconomics, geopolitics, sustainability, digital and entrepreneurship, rather than a single specialism that limits the brief. Current host of CGTN Europe’s The Agenda, a weekly current affairs talk show, which keeps her in daily practice with the format most conferences are trying to emulate on stage. Bilingual in English and French, which matters for pan-European audiences, multinational client events and continental press engagements. Biography highlights Host of The Agenda, CGTN Europe’s weekly current affairs talk show. Former anchor and correspondent for CNN’s Marketplace Europe, the network’s weekly European business programme. Newsroom postings with CNBC, Sky News, TRT World and Reuters in London, Paris, New York and Frankfurt. Interview credits include Sir James Dyson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu (for the BBC), David Beckham (during London’s successful 2012 Olympic bid), and CEOs of Nestle, L’Oreal, Geox and Lafarge. Corporate broadcast credits with EY TV and HSBC TV; podcast A Week in my Flexible Working Life; freelance features for The Daily Telegraph and Economia. Politics degree, University of Bristol; works in English and French. Biography Live business television is the most exposed form of moderation there is. The anchor has to read an executive in real time, hold a line through interruptions, and translate a balance sheet, a geopolitical risk and a customer story into one coherent conversation, on air, with no edit. That is the practice Juliet Mann has been in for more than two decades. She has anchored from the London, Paris, New York and Frankfurt newsrooms of CNBC, CNN, Sky News, TRT World and Reuters. At CNN’s Marketplace Europe she sat opposite EU policymakers and the chief executives of Nestle, L’Oreal, Geox and Lafarge. At Sky News she interviewed David Beckham the morning London won the 2012 Olympics and rode the last transatlantic Concorde. For the BBC she interviewed Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Today she hosts The Agenda, CGTN Europe’s weekly current affairs programme, where the brief is to take a single international story, build a panel around it and keep the conversation tight enough to publish. That is the working repertoire she brings to the corporate stage: chairing a CEO interview, moderating a board-level panel on growth or sustainability, anchoring an awards ceremony, hosting a Brussels policy roundtable. She works in English and French. She prepares like a journalist, not like a host-for-hire, which is the difference clients notice in the room. Key speaking topics Conference hosting and moderation Executive interviews and on-stage CEO conversations Awards ceremonies and corporate compering Panel moderation on business, sustainability and entrepreneurship European policy and EU-facing discussion forums Bilingual English and French event hosting Ideal for Corporate conferences, AGMs and customer summits that need an experienced live business anchor in the chair. Awards ceremonies and gala dinners where presence and pace decide the evening. Board-level panels and CEO fireside formats on sustainability, growth, geopolitics or digital. Pan-European events and Brussels policy forums requiring bilingual English and French hosting. Audience outcomes A programme that runs to time and lands its key messages. Executive interviews that produce substantive, quotable answers rather than rehearsed lines. Panels that stay on the topic the audience came to hear, with each contributor properly drawn in. A professional broadcast register on stage, suitable for filmed content and post-event clips.

Why organisations work with Jürgen Stark He sat on the ECB Governing Council during the eurozone sovereign debt crisis and resigned over the bond-buying programme that followed, giving audiences a first-person account of how the institution actually decides Two terms as Vice President of the Bundesbank and a State Secretary role at the German Federal Ministry of Finance put him inside the negotiations that shaped the Maastricht framework and the Stability and Growth Pact He reads ECB communications as a former author of them, useful for treasurers and CIOs trying to distinguish signalling from substance in central bank language His position is consistently hawkish on inflation and fiscal discipline, a stance organisations seek when they want a counterweight to consensus macro views Biography highlights Member of the Executive Board and Chief Economist of the European Central Bank, 2006 to 2011 Vice President of the Deutsche Bundesbank for two consecutive terms, 1998 to 2006 State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Finance and G7/G8 sherpa to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, 1995 to 1998 Doctorate in economics, University of Tübingen; honorary professor at Eberhard Karls University Tübingen Member of the Amundi Global Advisory Board and the Bertelsmann Stiftung Board of Trustees Biography The September 2011 resignation from the European Central Bank is the most economical way to understand Jürgen Stark’s intellectual position. He left the Governing Council three years before the end of his term, in disagreement with the bond purchases of Italian and Spanish sovereign debt that the ECB had begun under its Securities Markets Programme. The institution attributed his departure to personal reasons; the substantive reason was a disagreement about what a central bank’s mandate actually permits. That disagreement is the through-line of his career. Two terms as Vice President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, from 1998 to 2006, placed him at the centre of German monetary policy across the introduction of the euro and the first decade of eurozone operation. Earlier, as State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Finance, he served as G7 sherpa to Chancellor Helmut Kohl through the period that produced the Stability and Growth Pact. The doctorate from Tübingen and the honorary professorship that followed are the academic anchors of a career that has otherwise been operational. He continues to write and speak on eurozone fiscal architecture, monetary policy, and the institutional credibility of central banks, and sits on the Amundi Global Advisory Board and the Bertelsmann Stiftung Board of Trustees. What he offers a senior audience is not commentary at one remove from the institutions, but the position of someone who held the chief economist’s seat at the ECB during the crisis that defined the modern eurozone, and resigned from it on principle. Key speaking topics European monetary policy and the ECB mandate Eurozone fiscal architecture and the Stability and Growth Pact Inflation, interest rates, and central bank credibility Sovereign debt and the eurozone sovereign debt crisis Macroeconomic outlook for the euro area Central bank communication and market signalling Ideal for Boards, audit committees, and CFOs setting capital allocation policy under eurozone monetary uncertainty Bank treasurers, asset managers, and institutional investors reading ECB and Bundesbank policy direction Public policy and economic forums where a first-person account of ECB Governing Council decisions adds substance to the conversation Audience outcomes A direct reading of how ECB Governing Council decisions are actually arrived at, from someone who sat on it A position on whether current monetary policy is consistent with the institutional mandate set out at Maastricht A clear macro view from a recognised inflation hawk, useful as a counterweight when internal forecasts cluster on consensus The historical context that explains why eurozone fiscal rules exist in the form they do, and where the live tensions sit today

Why organisations work with K D Adamson She has named and framed the shift. Her concept of “nobleization” – the argument that the next phase of business is not globalisation but morally accountable, purpose-led value creation – gives leadership teams a precise, shareable thesis rather than a trend briefing. She challenges the techno-optimist default from a position of intellectual rigour. When AI, automation and digital transformation dominate the conversation, Adamson’s argument that tomorrow is a value problem, not a technology problem reframes the strategic question at board level. This is a harder case to make but her broadcast record on BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN and the Financial Times confirms it holds up under interrogation. Her “Seismotectonic” model gives leaders a practical foresight tool, not just a perspective. The three-movement framework of what changes rapidly, what changes slowly, what appears not to change at all is actionable in strategic planning contexts and transfers directly from a keynote into workshop and executive briefing formats. Her client base spans sectors where the future-of-value argument has immediate strategic urgency including Google, Airbus, Mastercard, CHANEL, Allianz, and PwC, which gives her the commercial credibility to speak to mixed leadership audiences without being narrowed to a single industry vertical. Her ecocentrist positioning is analytically distinct. Placing ecological systems rather than human enterprise at the centre of value creation is not rhetorical positioning. It is the foundation of her ESG and circular economy arguments, and it produces conclusions that differ meaningfully from those of speakers whose sustainability work begins and ends with reporting frameworks. Biography highlights Founder and former CEO, Futurenautics Group; former Futurist, The Futures Agency Author of Shipping and the 800-lb Gorilla (2017), the foundational foresight text on digital transformation in the shipping and maritime industry Broadcast commentator for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN, Financial Times, Al Jazeera, Channel News Asia, and BBC R4 Today Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts; stated member of Chatham House, The Aristotelian Society, the Society of Antiquaries, CERN Open Quantum Institute, and the International Society for the Circular Economy Global client roster includes Google, Airbus, Mastercard, CHANEL, Allianz, PwC, Deloitte, Capgemini, Rolls-Royce, Vodafone, Oracle, and Pfizer Biography The thesis K D Adamson has built over two decades is a direct challenge to the most widely held corporate assumption about the future: that it is, above all, a technology problem. In a landscape where most foresight is organised around what AI, automation, or quantum computing will do to a given industry, Adamson argues that what actually determines where organisations end up is what they believe about value, about purpose, and about who business is ultimately for. Her concept of “nobleization” names this argument precisely. Where globalisation provided the operating logic of the late twentieth century, Adamson contends that the defining shift of the current era is from a global business to a noble one, where ESG, the circular economy, and purpose-led strategy are not peripheral compliance exercises but the competitive architecture of the world arriving. The implication for leadership is significant: the strategic planning tools built for the previous era are no longer sufficient guides. Adamson founded and led Futurenautics Group, where her work on the digital transformation of the shipping and maritime industry made her the sector’s authoritative futurist – a standing substantiated by Shipping and the 800-lb Gorilla (2017), which set the analytical agenda for how one of the world’s most conservative global industries understood its own disruption. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a regular broadcast commentator for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN, the Financial Times, and Al Jazeera, which means her frameworks are tested in real time against the hardest current questions, not only in controlled conference settings. Her “Seismotectonic” model of change, mapping three simultaneous rates of disruption: what changes rapidly, what changes slowly, and what appears not to change at all, gives senior teams a working tool for strategy under deep uncertainty. It is this combination of named intellectual frameworks, commercial range across clients including Google, Airbus, Mastercard, and CHANEL, and the ecocentrist perspective that places ecology rather than enterprise at the centre of value analysis, that separates Adamson from speakers covering adjacent territory. Key speaking topics Future of business value and sustainable transformation The limits of techno-optimism ESG as competitive strategy, not compliance Geopolitics and the end of globalisation AI: belief, systemic risk, and organisational response Leadership beyond control Strategic foresight and scenario planning Ideal for C-suite and board audiences navigating how to reframe business strategy as stakeholder expectations, geopolitical pressures, and ecological imperatives converge Chief Sustainability Officers and strategy leads responsible for translating ESG from reporting obligation into organisational design Global leadership conferences convening senior executives across multiple sectors and geographies, where a macro-systemic perspective is required rather than a sector-specific one Executive leadership teams of multinationals at significant inflection points – where the question is not only operational but concerns organisational identity and the long-term logic of value creation Audience outcomes A named conceptual framework, “nobleization”, for articulating why business strategy must move beyond profit primacy, framed as competitive logic rather than ideology Clarity on why the next wave of disruption is a value problem rather than a technology problem, and what that distinction means for strategic planning and capital allocation A working model for reading simultaneous, differently-paced change: the Seismotectonic framework, applicable in strategy sessions and scenario planning processes A more rigorous way to frame AI risk: focused on collective belief and systemic dependency rather than technical capability alone Greater confidence in articulating an alternative vision of organisational purpose to boards, investors, and internal leadership audiences

Why organisations work with Karl Pilny Three decades of operating inside Asian deal rooms, not commentary from the outside. He opened Coudert Brothers’ Berlin office in 1995 and has structured M&A and joint ventures between European, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Indian companies since the late 1980s. A published long-range thesis on Asia. Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018) sets out his case that four of the five most powerful economies will soon be Asian, with implications boards can act on. Legal and commercial fluency in the same person. PhD from the Max Planck Institute for International Intellectual Property, professorship at bbw Hochschule Berlin, and a working life spent advising entrepreneurs and family offices through asia21 GmbH. Delivery in German, English and Japanese. Few European Asia speakers can hold a Tokyo board conversation in the language of the room. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Director, asia21 GmbH, Zurich (since 2006). Professor of International Technology Transfer Management, bbw Hochschule Berlin (since 2018). Author of Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018), nominated for the getAbstract International Book Award 2020. Author of the Das asiatische Jahrhundert trilogy and the Investment Guide Asien. Former resident partner at Coudert Brothers, where he opened the Berlin office in 1995; later Managing Partner Germany at Travers Smith. PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Japan Department; former lecturer at the universities of Kyoto and Osaka. Biography Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018) argued that four of the five most powerful economies would soon be Asian, and that European companies were already late to price the shift. The book was nominated for the getAbstract International Book Award in 2020. It set out the case that Karl Pilny had been making for years in board rooms across Germany, Switzerland and Japan. That argument is anchored in unusual depth of practice. After a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for International Intellectual Property and a teaching post in German law at Kyoto and Osaka, he spent a decade as a partner at Coudert Brothers, opening the firm’s Berlin office in 1995. He went on to lead Travers Smith’s German practice before founding asia21 GmbH in Zurich in 2006, advising entrepreneurs, family offices and corporates on investment into and out of Asia. The work spans renewable energy, infrastructure, financial services and consumer goods, and the books span a wider field still: the Das asiatische Jahrhundert trilogy, the Investment Guide Asien, and the political thrillers Japan Inc. and Korea Inc. Since 2018 he has held a professorship in International Technology Transfer Management at bbw Hochschule Berlin, where he teaches on innovation leadership in Asian companies and on digitalisation. For European leadership teams the value is direct. He has structured the deals, written the long-range analysis and worked in the languages. He can take a board through the political risk in a China exposure, the cultural mechanics of a Japanese joint venture and the capital flows reshaping Southeast Asia in a single session. Key speaking topics Asia macroeconomic trajectories to 2030 China, Japan, Korea and India political risk Cross-border M&A and joint ventures in Asia Investment strategy for European corporates and family offices Renewable energy and infrastructure capital flows in Asia Technology transfer and IP between Europe and Asia Cross-cultural negotiation with Asian counterparties Ideal for Boards and executive committees of European corporates with material Asia exposure Chief strategy officers, corporate development and M&A leads working on Asian deals Family offices, foundations and institutional investors allocating into emerging Asia Industry conferences on energy transition, infrastructure and financial services touching Asia Audience outcomes A defensible read on where capital, technology and political weight are moving across Asia to 2030 Specific implications for European market entry, joint ventures and M&A in China, Japan, Korea and India A sharper view of cross-cultural risk in Asian deal structures, drawn from named cases A framework for sequencing Asia exposure across sectors, from renewables to consumer goods

Why organisations work with Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg He has held two of the most consequential portfolios in a G7 cabinet, Economics and Technology then Defence, and can speak to how policy is actually made inside those rooms rather than how it is reported. He led the largest structural reform of the Bundeswehr since 1955, including the suspension of conscription, which gives him a working view of how political decisions translate into institutional change at scale. His advisory firm Spitzberg Partners places him in continuous dialogue with European and US corporates, investors and policymakers, so the read he brings to a board is current rather than historical. His CSIS affiliation in Washington and his German political base give him a genuinely transatlantic vantage point, which matters for companies whose risk now sits across both jurisdictions. He addresses his 2011 resignation and the plagiarism scandal openly when relevant, which removes a question buyers would otherwise have and lets the commercial conversation proceed without ambiguity. Biography highlights Federal Minister of Defence of Germany, 2009 to 2011, under Chancellor Angela Merkel. Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Technology, 2009. Member of the Bundestag for Kulmbach, 2002 to 2011, re-elected in 2009 with 68.1 percent, the highest national share that cycle. Chairman and Founder of Spitzberg Partners LLC, a New York advisory and investment firm. Distinguished Statesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. Author of “Vorerst gescheitert” (2011), “3 Sekunden” (2023), “3 Worte” (2025), and co-host of the “Gysi gegen Guttenberg” podcast with Gregor Gysi since 2023. Biography Two cabinet posts in one year is unusual in any G7 government. Guttenberg took Economic Affairs and Technology in February 2009 and Defence in October 2009, becoming the youngest German Defence Minister of the post-war era at 37. The Defence role placed him at the centre of Germany’s most contested security questions, from the Afghanistan deployment to the long-delayed restructuring of the Bundeswehr. The reform he led suspended conscription and moved Germany toward a smaller professional force of around 165,000 active personnel, the most significant structural change to the armed forces since their founding in 1955. He also broke a long-standing political convention by describing the Afghanistan operation as a war rather than a stabilisation mission, and established the Combat Action Medal of the Bundeswehr in November 2010. He resigned all political offices on 1 March 2011 after the University of Bayreuth revoked his 2007 doctorate over extensive plagiarism in his dissertation on European constitutional law. He addressed the episode in book-length form with Die Zeit editor-in-chief Giovanni di Lorenzo later that year. In 2019 he completed a PhD at the University of Southampton on correspondent banking, supervised by the economist Richard Werner. The second career is built on transatlantic policy and capital. Spitzberg Partners, which he founded in 2013, advises corporates and investors on European and international political, economic, technology and security issues. He has been a Distinguished Statesman at CSIS in Washington since 2011, and holds advisory positions including Barrick Gold and Ripple Labs. In Germany his public voice now travels through Focus columns, n-tv documentaries, and the weekly Gysi gegen Guttenberg podcast with the veteran left-wing politician Gregor Gysi, launched in 2023. Key speaking topics Transatlantic relations and the US-Europe policy agenda Geopolitical risk for boards and investors Defence, security and the future of NATO Technology policy, cybersecurity and digital sovereignty European economic and political outlook Political risk in financial services and fintech Ideal for Boards and investment committees pricing geopolitical and policy risk into capital allocation CEOs and corporate strategy leads with material exposure across the US, Germany and the wider EU Defence, security and aerospace industry leadership groups Financial services and fintech executives navigating regulation, sanctions and digital asset policy Audience outcomes A clearer read on how Washington, Berlin and Brussels are likely to move on the security, trade and technology files that affect their business A working framework for assessing political risk alongside commercial risk, drawn from inside ministerial decision-making A sharper view of the transatlantic relationship and where it is likely to fracture or hold A direct, on-the-record response to the questions boards usually ask privately about his 2011 resignation, when relevant to the brief

Why organisations work with Katie Pilbeam She has anchored live financial television, including a weekly business programme she produced herself, which means she can carry a market-facing conversation without an earpiece feeding her the next question. She has interviewed Christine Lagarde, Steve Wozniak, Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan on camera. The standard for senior-stage moderation is set by that calibre of guest. Twelve editions of the Geneva Forex Events and recurring London Stock Exchange conferences mean buyers are hiring a known quantity in the trading and capital-markets circuit, not a generalist host. NCTJ-trained, with rolling news experience on the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Ukraine-Russia war and the 2023 NATO summit, so a geopolitical brief does not need to be simplified to fit her. Biography highlights Main news anchor in Moscow for four years, producing and presenting her own weekly business programme, Venture Capital. News and business presenter credits at Reuters TV, TRT World, TalkTV, IG Markets, London Live News and Proactive Investors. Earlier business-presenting roles at Dukascopy TV in Geneva and IG Trading Group in London. Feature reporting from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the St Petersburg Economic Forum, the Shanghai Financial Forum and the Sochi Winter Olympics. Anchored rolling coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Ukraine-Russia war, the Wagner rebellion and the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius. NCTJ-qualified journalist, English Literature graduate of the University of Southampton. Biography A finance summit at the London Stock Exchange or a forex conference in Geneva does not need a celebrity host. It needs someone who can read a Bloomberg ticker on camera, follow a central banker into the detail, and run a panel of traders without losing the audience in the back row. That has been Katie Pilbeam’s working brief for more than a decade. She trained as an NCTJ-qualified print journalist before moving into financial television, first at Dukascopy TV in Geneva and IG Trading Group in London. Four years as a main anchor in Moscow followed, where she produced and presented her own weekly business programme, Venture Capital, alongside long shifts on rolling news. The on-air catalogue since has been heavily geopolitical and market-facing: Reuters TV, TRT World, TalkTV, IG Markets, Proactive Investors, and feature shows from Davos, the St Petersburg Economic Forum and the Shanghai Financial Forum. She has anchored rolling coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Ukraine-Russia war, the Wagner group rebellion and the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius. The interview list is the cleanest proof point: Christine Lagarde, Steve Wozniak, Boris Johnson, Sadiq Khan, Donald Trump. Conference buyers are hiring the same instinct that produces those exchanges live, applied to their CEO, their regulator, or their keynote guest. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and panel hosting Financial markets and trading Global business news Geopolitics and international affairs Awards and gala hosting Live event anchoring Ideal for Banks, asset managers and exchanges running flagship client conferences Financial services firms hosting trading, forex or capital-markets events Corporate communications teams running CEO interviews, AGMs or investor days Conference organisers in geopolitics, foreign policy and international business Audience outcomes A senior panel that stays on its strongest material instead of drifting into platitudes Live interviews with principals that produce usable broadcast and social clips A host who can absorb a last-minute change of running order, guest or news event without breaking the room A market-fluent moderator who can press a CFO or central banker on substance, not just on tone

Why organisations work with Kim Campbell She has held the top job. Few speakers can describe cabinet decision-making, defence policy, and the politics of succession from inside the Prime Minister’s office of a G7 country. She was the first woman to serve as Defence Minister of any NATO member state, which gives boards a substantive perspective on gender, authority, and security policy that does not collapse into commentary. She built a working leadership institution from scratch: the Peter Lougheed Leadership College at the University of Alberta, where she served as Founding Principal from 2014 to 2018. She has spent two decades inside the leading global networks for former heads of government and democratic reform, including Club de Madrid, where she was Secretary General, and the World Movement for Democracy, where she chaired the steering committee. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour, recognising lifetime contribution rather than a single role. Biography highlights 19th Prime Minister of Canada and the first woman to hold the office. First woman to serve as Defence Minister of any NATO member state. Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada; passed reforms to gun control and the law of sexual assault. Canadian Consul General in Los Angeles, 1996 to 2000. Taught at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2001 to 2004. Founding Principal, Peter Lougheed Leadership College, University of Alberta, 2014 to 2018. Secretary General of Club de Madrid, 2004 to 2006; founding member of the organisation. Chair, Council of Women World Leaders, 1999 to 2003. President, International Women’s Forum, 2003 to 2005. Companion of the Order of Canada (2008); Order of British Columbia (2012). Author of Time and Chance: The Political Memoirs of Canada’s First Woman Prime Minister. Biography Most discussions of leadership skip the part that matters most to boards: what happens when authority meets resistance, and the leader is held accountable for the result. Kim Campbell has lived that sequence. She became Canada’s 19th Prime Minister in June 1993, lost the autumn election in one of the heaviest defeats in Canadian political history, and then spent the following three decades doing the harder work of building the institutions that produce the next generation of leaders. Before the premiership she ran two of the most demanding portfolios in any cabinet. As Minister of Justice and Attorney General she carried gun control reform and a substantive overhaul of sexual assault law through Parliament. As Minister of National Defence in 1993 she became the first woman to hold that role in any NATO country, attending the alliance’s defence ministers’ meetings during a period of rapid post-Cold War repositioning. The post-government work is what gives her current perspective its weight. She served as Canadian Consul General in Los Angeles, taught at the Harvard Kennedy School from 2001 to 2004, and chaired the Council of Women World Leaders. As a founding member and later Secretary General of Club de Madrid, she sits inside the world’s principal network of former heads of government working on democratic reform. She chaired the World Movement for Democracy’s steering committee from 2008 to 2015. Her most concrete recent project is institutional. From 2014 to 2018 she was Founding Principal of the Peter Lougheed Leadership College at the University of Alberta, designing and launching an undergraduate leadership programme intended to compete with the best in the world. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the Order of British Columbia. Key speaking topics Political leadership and executive decision-making Democratic institutions and the conditions for legitimacy Gender, authority, and women in political leadership Defence and security policy Climate change as a governance and stability problem Leadership formation and the design of leadership programmes Canadian and international politics Ideal for Boards and executive committees stress-testing strategy against political risk Government, civil service, and public sector leadership programmes Audiences building or sponsoring leadership development institutions Conferences on women’s leadership where the brief calls for first-hand executive experience Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how cabinets, central government, and party politics actually decide A substantive view on gender and political authority from the first woman to lead a G7 country A working framework for what makes leadership legitimate when institutions are under strain A grounded read on democratic backsliding from someone who has worked inside the leading reform networks for two decades

Why organisations work with Kirsty Lang She has interviewed at the highest level for BBC Radio 4 Front Row, BBC World News and Channel 4 News, which means she can pressure-test a CEO, minister or artist on stage without losing the room. Her foreign-correspondent grounding, including covering the 1989 revolutions and the Balkans wars from Budapest for the BBC World Service, gives her real authority on geopolitics, conflict and Europe. She brings governance credibility from the inside of major institutions: Chair of Global Witness, Chair of BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, and two full terms as a Trustee and Non-Executive Director of the British Council. She is fluent across two often-separated worlds, hard news and the arts, which makes her the right chair for philanthropy, soft power and cultural-diplomacy conversations that cross both. She has chaired and moderated for organisations including EY, IBM, the WHO, NICE, the Bosch Foundation and the British Medical Association, so the moderating brief is familiar territory rather than a stretch. Biography highlights Lead presenter, BBC Radio 4 Front Row, for 19 years (2003 to 2022). Host, BBC Radio 4 Round Britain Quiz, from 2022. Chair of the Board, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. Chair of the Board, Global Witness, from January 2024. Trustee and Non-Executive Director, British Council, 2014 to 2020 (two full terms). Chair of judges, Orange Prize for Fiction, 2008. Visiting professor, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, 2012. Biography The Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. Kirsty Lang was the BBC World Service’s Central European correspondent in Budapest, reporting the revolutions across the region and, soon after, the wars in the former Yugoslavia. That decade of foreign reporting, including a stint as Paris correspondent for The Sunday Times, sits underneath everything she does on a stage today. She moved into anchor roles at Channel 4 News between 1998 and 2002, then returned to the BBC to launch BBC Four’s evening news. For 19 years, from 2003 to 2022, she was a lead presenter of Front Row on BBC Radio 4, the network’s flagship arts and culture programme, interviewing writers, artists, film-makers and policymakers nightly. Since 2022 she has hosted Round Britain Quiz on the same network. Her governance record gives her an unusual second register. She chairs the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, served two full terms as a Trustee and Non-Executive Director of the British Council between 2014 and 2020, and in January 2024 became Chair of the Global Witness Board, the international NGO investigating environmental and human rights abuses linked to natural-resource exploitation. That mix is what organisations book her for. She moves between hard news, the arts, and institutional governance with equal command, which is why she is asked to chair conferences for clients including EY, IBM, the World Health Organization, NICE, the British Medical Association and the Bosch Foundation. Key speaking topics International affairs and Europe Soft power and cultural relations Philanthropy and the third sector The arts and cultural policy Storytelling and narrative Conference moderation and panel chairing Media interview craft Ideal for Boards and senior leadership convenings on international affairs, soft power or cultural diplomacy. Foundations, NGOs and cultural institutions running flagship donor, trustee or stakeholder events. Multi-stakeholder conferences in healthcare, professional services and policy that need a chair who can hold expert panels to account. Awards ceremonies, literary festivals and high-profile interview formats with named guests. Audience outcomes A conference programme that surfaces the actual argument, because the chair has read the brief and can press the panel. On-stage interviews that reach the difficult questions without alienating the guest. Audience engagement sustained across long-form sessions through pace, follow-up and editorial judgement. Cross-disciplinary conversations, including geopolitics with culture, or policy with philanthropy, kept coherent for a senior audience.

Why organisations work with Kirsty Wark Thirty-one consecutive years on BBC Newsnight, the highest-pressure interview chair in British current affairs, brings a discipline of questioning that few corporate moderators can match. BAFTA Fellowship (2025) and Royal Television Society lifetime achievement award (2024) signal a level of public recognition that lends weight to an event where the chair is visible alongside the principals. Long-established moderation credit with serious institutions including Deutsche Bank, Investec, Lloyds TSB, Procter and Gamble and the Cambridge MIT Institute, indicating a track record in commercially sensitive rooms. Comfortable holding senior political and business figures on the record without losing room temperature, a specific craft built across decades of live broadcast. Biography highlights Presenter of BBC Newsnight, 1993 to 2024, the programme’s longest-serving anchor. BAFTA Fellowship, 2025 British Academy Television Awards. Royal Television Society lifetime achievement award, RTS Journalism Awards, 2024. Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2017. Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of St Andrews, 2023. Author of “The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle” (Two Roads, 2014), shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year. Founder of Wark Clements, the production company behind arts and current affairs strands including “Words With Wark” and “Restless Nation”. Biography Newsnight closed its desk on her in 2024 after thirty-one years. Few broadcasters in any market have sat in the same interview chair for that long, across that many political cycles, with that level of consistent editorial weight. The chair itself is the credential. Wark’s commercial value to corporate audiences sits in the same craft. She moderates, chairs and interviews at the level senior boards are used to seeing in flagship current affairs. The discipline of holding a principal on a single question, of moving a panel through a contested topic without losing the room, of taking an audience question and translating it back into something the speaker can usefully address, was built across decades on Newsnight, The Late Show and BBC Two arts programming. The public recognition is unambiguous. The BAFTA Fellowship in 2025 sits alongside the Royal Television Society lifetime achievement honour from 2024, Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of St Andrews. Her corporate moderation roster, Deutsche Bank, Investec, Lloyds TSB, Procter and Gamble, Statoil, the Cambridge MIT Institute and the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative among them, indicates clients who book her for rooms where the chair has to carry the same authority as the speakers on stage. She also writes fiction. Her debut novel, “The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle”, was published by Two Roads in 2014 and shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award, a side credential that signals range and a working ear for narrative, useful in any room where the format moves between interview, panel and audience exchange. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and panel chairing Interview-format keynotes and fireside conversations Awards hosting and ceremonial presenting Media scrutiny and leadership communication UK political reporting and current affairs analysis Scottish public life, arts and culture Ideal for Annual leadership conferences and investor events requiring a moderator with broadcast-level authority Awards nights, gala dinners and ceremonial events with a principal-speaker line-up Fireside-format keynotes where a senior executive or external figure is interviewed on stage Sensitive panels on regulatory, political or reputational topics needing a chair the room will trust Audience outcomes A panel or interview that lands the substantive content rather than drifting into platitude Senior speakers handled with the same composure they would expect from a flagship broadcast interview Audience questions translated into useful exchanges, not lost to the room A ceremonial event that holds its pace and authority across the full running order

Why organisations work with Kishore Mahbubani His analysis comes from Singapore’s structural position: a small, open economy that has always had to navigate between great powers without the luxury of strategic illusion. That vantage point produces insight unavailable from inside either Washington or Beijing. His ten books – including Has China Won?, Has the West Lost It?, and The Great Convergence, selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2013 – give audiences a proven intellectual framework, not commentary. Leaders leave with a model for thinking, not just a briefing. He operated inside the machinery of global governance at its highest level – UN Security Council President in 2001 and 2002, Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the UN across two postings spanning two decades – during some of the most consequential shifts in the post-Cold War order. His argument that Western strategic errors, not Chinese aggression, are the primary driver of geopolitical instability gives boards and executive teams a more analytically useful starting point for risk decisions than the standard Western-media frame. Named by Foreign Policy magazine as a Top Global Thinker in both 2010 and 2011, and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019, his standing as a public intellectual is verifiable and specific – not attributed to unnamed rankings. Biography highlights Two-time Singapore Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1984-1989 and 1998-2004); President of the UN Security Council, January 2001 and May 2002 Former Permanent Secretary, Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with earlier posting to Cambodia during the 1973-74 war Founding Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (2004-2017) Author of ten books including Has China Won? (2020), Has the West Lost It? (2018), and The Great Convergence (2013, selected by the Financial Times as one of its best books of the year) Elected honorary international member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019); Foreign Policy Top Global Thinker (2010 and 2011); Prospect Top 50 World Thinkers (2014) Regular contributor to Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post; described by Foreign Policy as “the muse of the Asian century” Biography The geopolitical assumptions that shaped corporate strategy for two decades are fragmenting. China’s economic weight, the contested legitimacy of multilateral institutions, and the competing logics of Washington and Beijing are forcing organisations to rethink how they read the world. Very few people have been inside the machinery of that world – at the UN Security Council table, in bilateral diplomacy, and in sustained academic output across three decades – long enough to explain what the structural shift actually means. Kishore Mahbubani spent 33 years in Singapore’s foreign service, culminating in two terms as Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as President of the UN Security Council in 2001 and 2002. He also served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Singapore’s position – an open, trade-dependent city-state that cannot align itself exclusively with either Washington or Beijing – shaped an analytical disposition that is genuinely non-aligned. That is not a diplomatic posture; it is an intellectual asset. From 2004 to 2017 he built the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore into a leading institution, then turned to full-time writing and research. His ten books – from Can Asians Think? in 1998 to Has China Won? in 2020 and the memoir Living the Asian Century in 2024 – constitute a sustained intellectual project: arguing that the West’s two-century dominance was a historical anomaly, and that the world needs new frameworks for a genuinely multipolar order. The Great Convergence was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2013. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was described by Foreign Policy magazine as “the muse of the Asian century.” What distinguishes his value to senior audiences is not simply that he has held senior positions – many speakers have – but that he has argued a consistent, testable thesis about global power across four decades, in public, against the prevailing consensus. For boards and leadership teams navigating the US-China contest, that track record is the credential that matters. Key speaking topics US-China strategic competition Asia’s return to global economic centrality The future of multilateral institutions and global governance Geopolitical risk and corporate strategy Non-Western perspectives on the international order Singapore and Southeast Asia as strategic bellwethers Ideal for Corporate boards and C-suite teams with significant Asia-Pacific exposure or market decisions pending Financial services, investment, and asset management organisations pricing geopolitical risk Government and public sector leaders navigating multilateral relationships Strategy and scenario planning teams stress-testing assumptions about the global order Audience outcomes A working analytical model for the US-China contest – beyond news-cycle commentary Clearer understanding of how Asia’s rise is reshaping trade, technology standards, and institutional allegiances A non-Western frame for interpreting geopolitical signals that most Western analysis misreads Specific historical parallels and precedents for managing great-power transitions A more calibrated vocabulary for internal strategic conversations about geopolitical exposure

Why organisations work with Kjell A. Nordstrom The «Karaoke Capitalism» framework names a specific competitive failure – the institutional imitation produced by benchmarking and best practice – that most strategy teams recognise but lack precise language to challenge or dismantle. His «multi-urban corporation» thesis, developed in Urban Express, gives multinationals a practical alternative to national market segmentation: a model for deciding where to compete based on urban density, talent pools, and city-level economic power rather than country borders. His argument that urbanisation and the feminisation of skilled workforces are structural economic forces – not social policy questions – translates demographic change into a direct input for strategic planning and talent decisions. Three decades of advisory work with large multinationals and the UK government, grounded in academic research into the internationalisation of firms, means his structural arguments have been pressure-tested against real strategic decisions at board level. Funky Business, translated into 33 languages and ranked among the greatest business books ever published, demonstrates that his frameworks have been tested and adopted in every major market – giving leadership teams confidence the thinking travels beyond any single regional or cultural context. Biography highlights PhD in International Business, Stockholm School of Economics (1991); former Assistant Professor at the Institute of International Business (IIB), same institution Co-author of Funky Business: Talent Makes Capital Dance, translated into 33 languages and ranked 16th greatest business book of all time; co-author of Karaoke Capitalism and Funky Business Forever with Jonas Ridderstrale Co-author of Urban Express and Momentum with Per Schlingmann; sole author of The Monkey and the Money: A History of Capitalism (Bokförlaget Stolpe, 2023) Ranked #9 in the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers (2005); featured in multiple subsequent editions of the ranking Advisory and consulting work with large multinational corporations and the UK government Media appearances across CNN, CNBC, Fortune, Fast Company, Time Magazine, and the Financial Times; keynote presentations delivered in over 100 countries Biography The rules of competitive strategy seemed settled for most of the twentieth century. Identify a national market. Deploy capital and scale. Benchmark against rivals. Kjell A. Nordstrom, a Swedish economist with a PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics, has spent three decades building the case that those rules are losing their purchase – and that the structural forces displacing them are more powerful than most boards have yet absorbed. His 2000 book Funky Business, co-authored with Jonas Ridderstrale, argued that talent, not capital, had become the decisive competitive input. The book became an international bestseller in 33 languages and was ranked among the 16 greatest business books ever published. The follow-up, Karaoke Capitalism (2003), named a specific organisational failure: benchmarking and best practice had trained entire industries to imitate rather than differentiate, producing what the authors called a karaoke economy of second-rate cover versions. Both books remain in active circulation in serious management conversations. His subsequent work extended the analytical frame outward. Urban Express (2014), co-authored with Per Schlingmann, argued that multinationals are becoming multi-urban corporations. Cities, not nations, are the primary economic units of the coming decades, and an educated, urban, female workforce is the dominant skilled labour pool of the near future. Momentum (2023) examined how pandemic, geopolitical rupture, and climate pressure are accelerating this structural shift and what it demands from the next generation of leaders. Ranked #9 in the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers (2005), and a regular presence in Fortune, the Financial Times, and on CNN, Nordstrom has advised large multinationals and the UK government on strategy and globalisation. His value in a boardroom conversation is specific: not scenario planning or trend forecasting, but structural argument about which forces are deterministic, and which are merely plausible. Key speaking topics Globalisation and competitive strategy Urbanisation and the rise of the multi-urban corporation The karaoke economy: imitation as competitive liability Talent as the primary driver of competitive advantage Demographic change as structural economic force The long-run trajectory of capitalism Crisis, geopolitical rupture, and strategic response Ideal for Executive and board-level strategy sessions at multinational organisations Government and public policy leaders navigating structural economic transformation Strategy, corporate development, and planning functions reviewing long-term competitive positioning International leadership forums and global business summits Audience outcomes A structural framework for identifying which macro forces are actually reshaping competition in their sector Language for naming and challenging institutional imitation within their own organisation A working understanding of the multi-urban corporation thesis and its implications for market entry and talent strategy Clearer thinking on how urbanisation and demographic change translate into actionable strategic planning inputs A longer-range perspective on the current moment in capitalism’s evolution and what it demands from senior leadership