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Klisman Murati

Boards and investment committees are making capital decisions on geopolitical assumptions that no longer hold. The categories most institutions still use to assess country risk and global exposure were built for a system that is fracturing. Misreading the new map costs capital and market position.

Why organisations work with Klisman Murati The Global Power Index, a proprietary quantitative model assessing 194 countries across ten dimensions of national power and 30 years of data. Clients drawing on it include NATO, the European Commission, Shell, JP Morgan, and HSBC. A documented forecasting record. The GPI signalled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Germany’s 2024 recession before consensus, and informs the way shipping, energy, and capital-allocation leaders read their geopolitical exposure. Two frameworks that give boards a shared language for hard problems: geo-risk, his term for reading political, technological, demographic, and capital forces as one compounding system, and segmented polarity, his alternative to the developed and emerging categories for seeing where capability is actually accumulating. A live read on where power is moving rather than a retrospective. He brings specific current calls, from Gulf capital as a new power centre to India’s climb from 24th to 6th on the index since 1994, and why blocs like BRICS cohere in some domains and fragment in others. A multidisciplinary lens that single-discipline analysts cannot replicate. His training spans anthropology, political economy, energy policy, security studies, and financial crime, which is what allows him to read AI, protectionism, capital flows, and demographic change as one connected system. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Pareto Economics, the London-based strategic intelligence firm behind the Global Power Index Creator of the Global Power Index, built on 88 variables and more than 500,000 data points, with a methodology developed alongside Dr Karim Abadir, Emeritus Professor of Financial Econometrics at Imperial College London Originator of the geo-risk and segmented polarity frameworks, the latter set out in his macro thesis How to Think in First Principles About Global Affairs and the basis of his forthcoming book, Segmented Polarity: Why the World’s Most Important Economies Are Being Dangerously Misread Forecasts arriving ahead of consensus include Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Germany’s 2024 recession Clients include NATO, the European Commission, Shell, JP Morgan, HSBC, Vanguard, Telia, and Stena Bulk, with audiences in more than 120 countries Visiting Professor at the Helsinki Geoeconomics Institute; commentator across BBC, Al Jazeera, CGTN, the Financial Times, and Investment Week; author of more than 250 published articles Biography Pareto Economics called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Germany’s 2024 recession ahead of consensus. Behind those calls sits the Global Power Index, a proprietary model of 194 countries built on more than 85 variables and over half a million data points across 30 years. Klisman Murati founded the firm in 2017 to fix a specific failure in country-risk analysis. Conventional models rank economies by income thresholds and credit ratings. The GPI instead measures capability across ten structural dimensions, from energy and critical-minerals security to industrial capacity, technological leadership, human capital, and financial resilience, and reads each on two axes: where a country stands today, and how fast it is moving. The methodology was built with Dr Karim Abadir, Emeritus Professor of Financial Econometrics at Imperial College London. His work rests on two ideas. Geo-risk treats geopolitics, globalisation, technology, and societal change as a single compounding system rather than separate stories. Segmented polarity, the basis of his forthcoming book of the same name, replaces both the developed-and-emerging divide and the catch-all of multipolarity with a sharper read of how countries actually accumulate power, selectively, in the domains where they can compete. Both let leaders price change before it reaches consensus. That work has put him in the room with the people allocating capital under geopolitical exposure: NATO, the European Commission, Shell, JP Morgan, HSBC, Vanguard, Stena Bulk, and Telia, with audiences in more than 120 countries. His current reads from the index include Gulf capital as a new power centre, India’s climb from 24th to 6th place since 1994, and why groupings like BRICS hold together in some domains and fragment in others. Key speaking topics Geoeconomic strategy and country risk The Global Power Index and quantitative country forecasting Geo-risk and the compounding of political, technological, and capital forces Segmented polarity and emerging-market reassessment Geopolitical risk and capital allocation Fragmentation of the global trade and investment order AI, protectionism, and the redistribution of global power Long-horizon strategic foresight Ideal for Boards, investment committees, and CIOs setting country and exposure strategy in a fracturing global order Asset managers and family offices repositioning capital ahead of geopolitical shocks Corporate strategy leadership in energy, shipping, financial services, and technology with material cross-border exposure Policymakers and government officials shaping long-horizon economic and security strategy Audience outcomes A clearer view of which forces will actually shape the next five to ten years, separated from headline noise A working framework for pricing geopolitical risk into specific capital allocation, market entry, and exposure decisions Specific signals to track in their own industry, sector, or geography, drawn directly from the GPI’s underlying data Replacement of outdated categories like “emerging markets” with a sharper, data-driven read of country capability

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Konstantin von Eggert

Boards that depend on Russia, the Baltics, or the wider post-Soviet space need more than headline analysis. They need someone who has worked inside Russian newsrooms, sat across the table from the Kremlin as a Western corporate, and still files weekly from outside the country. The gap between sanctioned narratives and operating reality is where bad decisions happen.

Why organisations work with Konstantin von Eggert Three decades of first-hand reporting from inside Russia, including running the BBC Russian Service Moscow bureau as Editor-in-Chief from 1998 to 2009. A rare dual perspective: editor of a major Western newsroom in Moscow and former Vice-President for Public and Government Affairs at ExxonMobil Russia, so he understands both how the Kremlin signals and how Western corporates absorb those signals. Honorary MBE from Queen Elizabeth II and Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Lithuania, both awarded in 2008, mark a credibility recognised on both sides of the Russia-West divide. Bilingual moderator and host (Russian and English) with on-air experience at BBC, Kommersant FM, and TV Rain, so he can chair sensitive conversations as well as deliver the keynote. Writes weekly for Deutsche Welle from Vilnius, which means his commentary stays current with Russian domestic politics, Baltic security, and the post-2022 risk landscape. Biography highlights Editor-in-Chief, BBC Russian Service Moscow bureau, 1998 to 2009. Vice-President for Public and Government Affairs, ExxonMobil Russia Inc., 2009 to 2010. Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Kommersant FM, Russia’s first 24-hour news station, 2010 to 2015. Program host and political commentator, TV Rain, 2016 to 2018. Columnist and program host, Deutsche Welle, based in Vilnius since 2016. Honorary MBE (2008) and Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Lithuania (2008); Member of Chatham House. Biography Russia is one of the few country files where the gap between official narrative and operating reality is large enough to wreck a strategy. Reading it well requires sources, language, and a feel for how the Kremlin actually communicates. Konstantin von Eggert has spent more than thirty years inside that gap. He ran the BBC Russian Service Moscow bureau as Editor-in-Chief from 1998 to 2009, after starting as a reporter at the Moscow daily Kuranty in 1990 and serving as Diplomatic Correspondent and Deputy Foreign Editor at Izvestia. In 2008 Queen Elizabeth II appointed him an Honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire for his work at the BBC. The same year he received the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Lithuania. What makes his perspective unusual is the year he spent on the other side of the table. From 2009 to 2010 he was Vice-President for Public and Government Affairs at ExxonMobil Russia Inc., responsible for relations with the Russian government and political and economic analysis for one of the world’s largest investors in the country. He then returned to Russian media as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Kommersant FM, and later as a program host at the independent channel TV Rain. Since 2016 he has been based in Vilnius, writing a weekly column on Russian affairs and the Baltic States for Deutsche Welle and consulting on communications, reputation, and political risk for investors in Russia and the post-Soviet space. He is a Member of Chatham House and has served on the editorial boards of Pro et Contra at the Carnegie Moscow Centre and the Security Index quarterly. He holds an honours MA in history and Arabic from the Moscow University Institute of Asian and African Studies and speaks English, French, and Arabic. Key speaking topics Russia under Putin: domestic politics and foreign policy Geopolitics of the post-Soviet space Baltic security and the European frontline Sanctions, energy, and Western corporate exposure to Russia Information, propaganda, and independent media inside Russia Political risk for investors in Russia and the CIS Ideal for Boards and executive teams of multinationals with residual Russia, CIS, or Baltic exposure Energy, commodities, and infrastructure leadership teams reassessing political risk Defence, foreign affairs, and security policy audiences Conferences and private gatherings that need a bilingual (Russian and English) chair or moderator on Russia or geopolitical themes Audience outcomes A clearer read of how decisions are actually taken in the Kremlin and how its signals are designed to be received. A sharper view of the post-2022 risk picture for Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. An informed sense of where Western corporates have historically misread Russia, drawn from inside ExxonMobil’s government affairs operation. Concrete reference points on Russian media, propaganda, and the space that remains for independent reporting.

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Kumi Naidoo

Corporate sustainability commitments are increasingly tested by the gap between stated ambition and operational reality. The organisations most exposed are those that have made public climate and human rights pledges while remaining structurally tied to fossil fuel value chains. The harder question – one that very few institutions have frameworks to answer – is who bears accountability when those commitments are measured not against peer benchmarks, but against the lived consequences in the communities most affected.

Why organisations work with Kumi Naidoo He is the only person to have led both Greenpeace International and Amnesty International – giving him an institutional authority on climate accountability and human rights that no commentator or academic can match. His argument that climate justice and human rights are operationally inseparable – not just rhetorically linked – gives ESG and sustainability leaders a more defensible intellectual framework under stakeholder and regulatory scrutiny. He led Greenpeace’s shift from a single-issue environmental organisation toward a broader justice and equity platform, a strategic reorientation directly relevant to organisations navigating the social dimensions of net-zero transition. His current presidency of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative means he speaks from inside active diplomatic and civil society negotiations – not from the sidelines of the energy transition debate. His memoir Letters to My Mother (2022), which won the HSS 2023 Non-Fiction Award from South Africa’s National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, demonstrates a capacity to make complex moral and political arguments compelling to general audiences – a quality that translates directly to boardroom and conference settings. Biography highlights Rhodes Scholar; DPhil in Political Sociology, Magdalen College, University of Oxford First person from the Global South to lead Greenpeace International, serving as International Executive Director (2009-2015) Secretary-General, Amnesty International (2018-2019) Secretary-General and CEO, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation (1998-2008) President, Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative (appointed 2024) Professor of Practice, Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University; Payne Distinguished Lecturer, Stanford University; Visiting Fellow and Honorary Fellow, Magdalen College, Oxford Letters to My Mother: The Making of a Troublemaker (Jacana Media, 2022) – winner, HSS 2023 Non-Fiction Award, National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences Five honorary doctorates, including from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Adelaide Biography Kumi Naidoo has led Greenpeace International and Amnesty International, consecutively, and at their most consequential periods. That combination of institutional authority, across the two domains most directly challenging corporate environmental and human rights claims, is what makes him a different kind of voice in board and executive conversations on accountability. His argument is a structural one. Climate change is not an environmental problem with equity implications. It is a justice problem with environmental consequences – and the organisations most exposed are those that have separated their sustainability commitments from their human rights responsibilities. He made this case from inside two of the world’s largest civil society institutions before it became the language of regulators and investors. The trajectory behind that argument runs from anti-apartheid organising in Durban at age fifteen, through a Rhodes Scholarship and doctorate in political sociology at Oxford’s Magdalen College, to a decade building civil society infrastructure at CIVICUS across more than a hundred countries. Each stage added a different kind of institutional credibility – as a practitioner of civil disobedience, as a builder of global coalitions, and as a senior executive managing large, politically exposed organisations in contested environments. Today, as President of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative – a live diplomatic campaign to create binding international commitments on fossil fuel phase-out – Naidoo brings organisations not a retrospective perspective but an active one. His work sits at the point where corporate strategy, geopolitical risk, and civil society pressure intersect. His memoir Letters to My Mother (2022), winner of the HSS Non-Fiction Award, adds a further dimension: the capacity to communicate urgent, uncomfortable arguments with clarity and human force. Key speaking topics Climate justice and the geopolitics of energy transition Human rights accountability in corporate strategy ESG beyond compliance – from commitment to consequence Civil society, civic space, and the future of advocacy Ethical leadership under political and institutional pressure The Global South and the terms of a just transition Activism, storytelling, and the power of “artivism.” Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers, ESG leads, and boards navigating net-zero commitments under stakeholder scrutiny Senior executives in energy, extractives, finance, and supply chains are facing civil society and regulatory pressure CHROs and governance leaders working at the intersection of human rights due diligence and business operations Conferences focused on responsible business, global risk, or the political economy of climate transition Audience outcomes A clearer framework for understanding why climate and human rights accountability are operationally connected, not just rhetorically linked Concrete perspective on how civil society assesses and challenges corporate climate commitments – from someone who has led those challenges at the highest level Greater awareness of how the energy transition is being experienced and contested in the Global South, and what that means for organisations with global exposure A more grounded understanding of what “accountability” means when it moves from annual reports into legal, diplomatic, and activist arenas Insight into how to communicate complex moral and political arguments in ways that move people to action – drawing on Naidoo’s experience leading large institutions through contested public debates

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Kwasi Kwarteng

Markets now discipline governments faster than electorates do. A single fiscal statement, a single central bank misstep, a single energy shock can reprice a currency, raise borrowing costs, and force a strategy rewrite inside a week. Boards need to understand how political decisions become balance sheet events, and how to plan capital allocation when that link has shortened.

Why organisations work with Kwasi Kwarteng A first-person account of running HM Treasury during the September 2022 sterling and gilts crisis, with the candour of someone who has since written and spoken openly about what the markets did and why. Three years inside UK energy policy as Secretary of State at BEIS, including offshore wind auction reform and the Sizewell C nuclear decision, useful for any board pricing the gap between net zero ambition and capital reality. A Cambridge PhD in economic history with four published books on empire, debt and Thatcherism, giving long-cycle context to the inflation, sovereign debt and currency questions now back on board agendas. A vantage point shared by very few speakers in the market: cabinet-level decision making and post-government reflection on what political and market forces actually constrain a Chancellor. Biography highlights Chancellor of the Exchequer, September to October 2022. Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2021 to 2022. Member of Parliament for Spelthorne, 2010 to 2024; first Black Conservative MP and first Black Conservative to attend Cabinet. PhD in economic history, Trinity College, Cambridge; Kennedy Scholar at Harvard; Newcastle Scholar at Eton. Author of Ghosts of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2011), War and Gold (2014), Thatcher’s Trial (2015); co-author of Britannia Unchained (2012). Biography The September 2022 mini-budget is one of the cleanest case studies of political risk hitting a balance sheet that any boardroom will see this decade. Sterling fell to a record low against the dollar within days. Gilt yields spiked, the Bank of England intervened in the long-dated market, and a sitting government reversed almost every line of its own fiscal statement inside a month. Kwasi Kwarteng was the Chancellor who delivered it. He has since written and spoken openly about the episode, the orthodoxy he was challenging, and the market mechanics that overran the politics. That post-government candour, paired with the seat he occupied, is rare. Most former finance ministers either defend the record or disappear. He does neither. The credentials behind the role matter for serious audiences. Trinity College, Cambridge, a PhD in economic history on the 1690s recoinage crisis, a Kennedy Scholarship at Harvard, and four published books on empire, debt and Thatcher’s economic statecraft. Ghosts of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2011) reads imperial collapse as a story of individual improvisation rather than coherent design. War and Gold traces five hundred years of money, debt and speculation. The historian’s frame is what gives his account of 2022 weight beyond political memoir. His earlier ministerial brief at BEIS sits directly inside the energy transition conversation that now dominates capital allocation discussions. Annual offshore wind auction rounds, the UK’s first Innovation Strategy, and the Sizewell C nuclear funding decision were taken on his watch. For a board working through the gap between stated net zero policy and the cost of capital required to deliver it, that operational experience is unusually concrete. Key speaking topics UK and global macroeconomic policy Sovereign debt, currency and central bank credibility Energy transition and net zero policy UK politics and Whitehall decision-making Geopolitics, trade and post-Brexit positioning Empire, money and the long history of capital Ideal for Board and CFO audiences pricing political and fiscal risk into capital decisions. Energy, utilities and infrastructure leaders working through the policy-to-capital gap on net zero. Asset managers, banks and corporate treasury functions reading sovereign and currency risk. Senior public affairs and government relations teams operating across UK and EU policy. Audience outcomes A first-person read of how the September 2022 fiscal statement moved through markets and what it says about sovereign credibility today. A historian’s longer view of debt, currency and empire applied to current macro questions. Specific UK policy detail on offshore wind, nuclear and industrial strategy from inside the relevant department. A clearer mental model of how political decisions translate into balance sheet outcomes, and how quickly.

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Levison Wood

Most leadership advice assumes a stable operating environment that is no longer reliably available. Teams are being asked to make consequential decisions with incomplete information, in conditions that change faster than the planning cycle, and on terrain no one in the room has crossed before. The question is no longer how to optimise a known route. It is how to keep a team moving, intact and clear-headed when the route itself keeps shifting.

Why organisations work with Levison Wood He has tested leadership and team principles under conditions where failure has a real cost, including a 4,250-mile walk along the Nile and a circumnavigation of the Arabian Peninsula through Iraq, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. His military background as a Parachute Regiment captain in Afghanistan gives him a working framework for decision-making under pressure that translates cleanly into commercial settings. “The Art of Exploration” sets out a usable structure on curiosity, resilience and team behaviour that boards and senior teams can apply, rather than a set of war stories. He brings a credible outside perspective on geopolitics and operating in unfamiliar environments, drawn from on-the-ground work in regions most leaders only read about. Bureau-listed clients including Bosch, Nokia, Diageo, Bank of America and Virgin indicate a track record with senior commercial audiences rather than only event circuits. Biography highlights Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Fellow of the Explorers Club, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Chancellor of Staffordshire University, installed May 2024. Honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University and the University of Nottingham. Author of bestselling titles including “Walking the Nile”, “Walking the Himalayas”, “Arabia”, “The Last Giants” and “The Art of Exploration”. “Walking the Himalayas” named Adventure Travel Book of the Year at the 2016 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards. Producer and presenter of major documentary series for Channel 4, including “Walking the Nile”, “Walking the Himalayas”, “Walking the Americas” and “Arabia with Levison Wood”. Biography The first ever expedition to walk the length of the Nile began in December 2013, in the Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda, and finished nine months and 4,250 miles later in the Mediterranean. The walker was Levison Wood, a former Parachute Regiment captain who had served in Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul, and who had decided that exploration was a more honest test of the same disciplines. What separates his work from adventure storytelling is the operating logic underneath it. Walking through Iraq, Yemen, Syria, the Empty Quarter and the Darien Gap forces specific decisions about risk, team composition, local intelligence and when to abandon a plan. Those decisions are recognisable to anyone running a complex programme in a volatile environment. He has put the framework on paper. “The Art of Exploration”, published in 2021, sets out how curiosity, resilience and small-team discipline operate when the route is unknown, and is the basis of his keynote of the same name. His other books, including “Walking the Himalayas”, which won the Edward Stanford Adventure Travel Book of the Year in 2016, and “Arabia”, treat the expeditions as case material rather than autobiography. The institutions have followed. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Explorers Club, holds honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University and the University of Nottingham, and was installed as Chancellor of Staffordshire University in May 2024. Senior corporate audiences at Bosch, Nokia, Diageo, Bank of America and Virgin have booked the same body of work. Key speaking topics Leadership under uncertainty Decision-making in complex environments Team performance and small-team discipline Resilience and recovery from setback Risk assessment and mitigation Curiosity as a leadership practice Geopolitics and operating in unfamiliar regions Ideal for CEOs and executive teams setting strategy in volatile or unfamiliar markets. Operations, transformation and programme leaders responsible for delivery under shifting conditions. Leadership development audiences in financial services, industrials and consumer businesses. Boards and senior offsites looking for an outside perspective on risk and decision-making. Audience outcomes A working sense of how experienced operators make decisions when information is incomplete and the environment keeps moving. Specific examples of how small teams hold together under sustained pressure, drawn from named expeditions across the Nile, the Himalayas and the Arabian Peninsula. A sharper view of how to identify, weigh and live with material risk rather than try to remove it. A reframed sense of curiosity and adaptability as operational disciplines, not personality traits. A vocabulary for talking about resilience that does not collapse into motivational language.

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Lewis Dartnell

Most leadership teams cannot articulate the basic scientific systems that their business depends on. When resources tighten, supply chains fracture or new technologies arrive faster than the strategy cycle, the gap between executive intuition and physical reality becomes a serious commercial risk. Foresight at this depth is rare, and almost never delivered with clarity.

Why organisations work with Lewis Dartnell Translates planetary-scale science into commercial foresight that leadership teams can actually use in strategy work. Author of The Knowledge, a Sunday Times bestseller built around a question every operator should be able to answer: which technologies in your value chain are foundational, and which are replaceable. Connects geology, biology and climate to the present-day shape of supply chains, geopolitics and consumer behaviour, drawing on the Origins thesis translated into thirty languages. Brings broadcast-grade communication craft from BBC Horizon, Stargazing Live and a main-stage TED talk, calibrated for board and executive audiences, not lecture rooms. One of a small number of working research scientists who can hold a 45-minute keynote at the level required by a CEO offsite without losing scientific rigour. Biography highlights Professor of Science Communication, University of Westminster. PhD in Astrobiology, University College London. Former UK Space Agency Research Fellow at the University of Leicester. Author of The Knowledge, Origins, and Being Human, plus Life in the Universe and a guide to the solar system; Sunday Times bestsellers translated into more than thirty languages. Main-stage TED speaker (TED2015) and regular BBC presenter across Horizon, The Sky at Night and Stargazing Live. Bylines and contributions in The Guardian, The Times, New Scientist and The Daily Telegraph. Scientific consultant on HBO Max’s Station Eleven and on Brian Cox documentaries. Biography Modern organisations sit on top of scientific systems that almost no one in the room can explain. Energy, materials, communication networks, food chains, the climate envelope they operate within. When those systems shift, the strategic consequences arrive quickly, and the executive team often lacks the language to see them coming. Lewis Dartnell’s work attacks that gap directly. The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch, a Sunday Times bestseller, asks which technologies a civilisation would have to recover first, and why. It is a thought experiment with a hard commercial edge. Strip away the assumptions, and what is actually foundational? A copy sits on the surface of the moon. The book has been adopted as a thinking tool in industries that depend on long-horizon decisions. Origins extended the argument to geology, plate tectonics and climate as drivers of human history, and has been translated into thirty languages. Being Human, his most recent book, examines how human biology and psychology continue to shape political, economic and consumer behaviour. The through-line is consistent: deep scientific structure explaining surface-level outcomes that boards spend their time arguing about. He holds a chair in science communication at the University of Westminster after research roles at University College London and the UK Space Agency programme at Leicester. His broadcast work for the BBC, his TED talk and his scientific consultancy on shows such as Station Eleven mean he speaks at a register designed for general audiences without losing the underlying rigour. For a senior leadership team trying to think clearly about technology, resources and the next twenty years, he is one of a small number of speakers who can hold both ends at once. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight and first-principles thinking Resilience and civilisational technology Long-range science and the future of business Geopolitics, resources and climate Space exploration and the commercial space economy Astrobiology and the search for life Human biology and behaviour as commercial forces Science communication and clear thinking Ideal for Board offsites and CEO leadership summits requiring scientific perspective on long-range risk CSOs, heads of strategy and corporate development teams running scenario work Innovation, R&D and technology leadership groups CHRO and leadership development audiences building first-principles thinking capability Audience outcomes A sharper view of which technologies and resources are foundational to the business, and which are substitutable A grounded understanding of the planetary and biological forces shaping geopolitics, supply chains and consumer behaviour A working vocabulary for long-range scientific risk that senior teams can use in their own strategy conversations A more disciplined first-principles approach to questioning assumptions inside the organisation Genuine intellectual engagement from senior audiences who normally tune out of “future trends” content

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Lewis Goodall

UK political risk no longer behaves like a quarterly variable. Regulation, fiscal direction, and public sentiment now shift on weekly news cycles, and most boards are reading those shifts through the same headlines as everyone else. The gap between Westminster signal and corporate response has become a real source of strategic error.

Why organisations work with Lewis Goodall He covers UK politics daily from inside the story, not from the academic perimeter, which means his read on Westminster, Whitehall, and the parties is current rather than retrospective. His investigative work on the 2020 A-level algorithm helped force a national policy reversal and earned an Orwell Prize nomination, which is a specific, verifiable proof of judgment under pressure. He co-hosts The News Agents, the British Podcast Awards 2023 Best Daily Podcast, giving him a working command of how political narrative is set, contested, and consumed. He has reported across Brexit, four general elections, and successive prime ministers, and can translate that pattern recognition into clear implications for regulated and public-facing sectors. His book Left for Dead? on the modern Labour Party is a serious piece of political analysis, not a media memoir, which gives boards confidence that the on-air voice is backed by genuine intellectual work. Biography highlights Analysis and Investigations Editor at Global, the parent company of LBC and Classic FM. Co-host of The News Agents with Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel, winner of Best Daily Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2023. Presenter of Sunday with Lewis Goodall, LBC’s flagship Sunday political programme. Former Policy Editor of BBC Newsnight and former political correspondent at Sky News. Author of Left for Dead?: The Strange Death and Rebirth of the Labour Party (William Collins, 2018). Orwell Prize nominee in 2021 for investigative reporting on the A-level grading scandal. Biography The 2020 A-level grading scandal began as a technical story about an algorithm. It became, in part because of sustained reporting by Lewis Goodall at BBC Newsnight, a national policy reversal and a case study in how data systems fail in public administration. That work was nominated for an Orwell Prize in 2021 and remains the clearest illustration of what he does on a working day. His route to that story is unusual for British political journalism. He read History and Politics at St John’s College, Oxford, worked as a policy researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and moved into broadcasting via Sky News and then Newsnight. The policy training is visible in how he frames questions, which is closer to a regulatory analyst than a Westminster reporter. In 2022 he left the BBC to help launch The News Agents, the daily news podcast he co-hosts with Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel. It won Best Daily Podcast at the 2023 British Podcast Awards. He also presents Sunday with Lewis Goodall, LBC’s flagship Sunday politics programme, and serves as Analysis and Investigations Editor at Global. His book Left for Dead?: The Strange Death and Rebirth of the Labour Party (William Collins, 2018) traces the collapse of New Labour and the rise and fall of the Corbyn project. For boards exposed to UK political risk, the value of his perspective is concrete: he reads the parties, the policy machine, and the press as a single connected system, and he reports on it every day. Key speaking topics UK political risk and regulatory direction The state of the Labour and Conservative parties Elections, polling, and electoral realignment Brexit’s continuing economic and policy aftermath Public policy formation in Whitehall Investigative journalism and algorithmic accountability The UK media landscape and political narrative Ideal for Boards and executive teams in regulated sectors needing a current read on UK political risk. Public affairs, policy, and corporate affairs leaders briefing C-suites on electoral and regulatory direction. Financial services, energy, and infrastructure firms with material exposure to UK government policy. Annual conferences in politics, economics, and current affairs that need a serious working journalist on stage. Audience outcomes A working read on the current state of UK politics from someone inside the daily news cycle. A clearer view of how regulation and policy are forming inside Whitehall, not just announced. Pattern recognition on elections, party direction, and the signals worth tracking. A more critical read of the media stories shaping public and political opinion. Better questions to take back to internal political risk and public affairs functions.

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Linda Yueh

Boards are being asked to make capital decisions inside a fractured global system: tariffs, currency swings, sanctions exposure, and the slow tail of post-pandemic debt. Most economic commentary either oversimplifies the shock or buries it in jargon. Leaders need a clear read on what is cyclical, what is structural, and what to do about each.

Why organisations work with Linda Yueh A published framework for spotting and mitigating financial crashes, drawn from her book The Great Crashes and applied directly to board-level risk and capital allocation conversations. Sitting non-executive director on three FTSE 100 boards (Rentokil Initial, SEGRO, Standard Chartered), which means she reads the macro picture the way a director has to read it, not the way a commentator does. Direct working experience with the World Bank, European Commission, Asian Development Bank and the UK Treasury review panel, which lets her translate policy direction into commercial implication. A China specialism with academic depth: D.Phil. economics at Oxford, former Visiting Professor of Economics at Peking University, and author of China’s Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower (Oxford University Press). Broadcaster’s instinct for clarity, sharpened by years as Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News and Economics Editor at Bloomberg Television, so the analysis lands with a non-specialist audience. Biography highlights Fellow in Economics, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, and Adjunct Professor of Economics, London Business School. CBE for Services to Economics, King’s New Year’s Honours List 2023. Author/editor of 11 books, including The Great Crashes (Penguin Business), selected by the Financial Times as one of the Best New Books in Economics. Non-Executive Director of Rentokil Initial, SEGRO, and Standard Chartered; Chair of Baillie Gifford’s Schiehallion Fund. Former Chief Business Correspondent, BBC News, presenting Talking Business with Linda Yueh; former Economics Editor, Bloomberg Television. Associate Fellow, Chatham House; columnist for The Times, the Financial Times and The New York Times; advisor to the World Economic Forum, World Bank, European Commission and Asian Development Bank. Biography The financial crashes of the past forty years all rhyme. Currency crises in the 1980s, Japan’s housing bust, the dot-com unwind, 2008 and the pandemic each followed a recognisable arc, and in The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them, Linda Yueh sets out a three-step framework that boards and policymakers can use to read the early signals. Penguin Business published it in 2023 and the Financial Times selected it as one of its Best New Books in Economics. The analysis is grounded in serious academic work. Yueh holds a D.Phil. in economics from the University of Oxford, where she is Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, and she is Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School. Her earlier book The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today was named one of The Times’s Business Books of the Year, and the US edition was a Newsweek Best Book of the Year. China’s Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower was published by Oxford University Press. What separates her from most academic economists is the directness of her commercial vantage point. She sits as a non-executive director on the boards of Rentokil Initial, SEGRO and Standard Chartered, and chairs Baillie Gifford’s Schiehallion Fund Ltd. She has advised the World Bank, the European Commission, the Asian Development Bank, the World Economic Forum and the UK Treasury review panel, and she is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House. She communicates for a living. As Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News she hosted Talking Business with Linda Yueh, and before that she was Economics Editor at Bloomberg Television. She writes regularly for The Times, the Financial Times and The New York Times. In 2023 she was appointed CBE for Services to Economics. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook and macroeconomic risk Financial crashes and crisis prevention China’s economic rise and US-China-Europe relations Geopolitics, trade and the global rules-based order Currency markets and financial stability Economic ideas and policy innovation Ideal for Board and audit committee sessions on macro risk, capital allocation and crisis preparedness Executive offsites for FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and large privately held firms with material China or emerging-market exposure Investor conferences and asset management forums needing a credible economist on global outlook CFO, treasury and risk leadership audiences working through currency, rate cycle and political risk decisions Audience outcomes A working read on where the global economy is in the cycle and which signals matter for the next twelve to thirty-six months A structured way to think about the early indicators of financial crises, drawn from a published historical framework A clearer view of China’s growth trajectory and the commercial consequences of US, EU and UK policy responses Confidence to take that view back into a board or investment committee and defend it

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Lizzy Burden

Boardroom conversations about the economy, monetary policy and political risk now sit at the centre of strategy, not at the edge of it. Most senior audiences want a host who can put a Chancellor, a central banker and a chief executive in the same conversation and get straight, useful answers. The scarce skill is the journalist who can do that without flattening the substance.

Why organisations work with Lizzy Burden She anchors Bloomberg’s Daybreak Europe across television and radio, which means she walks into a room already briefed on the morning’s market-moving stories rather than the previous week’s headlines. She has interviewed the UK Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Shadow Chancellor, FTSE 100 chief executives, Nobel laureate economists and Bank of England policymakers, so she is comfortable pressing senior figures without losing the room. She has hosted at the CBI annual conference, Chatham House, Founders Forum, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, and the Conservative and Labour Party conferences, which is the working ground of corporate and policy audiences. As a non-executive director of Creative Access, she brings genuine governance experience on diversity in the creative industries, not a topic talk borrowed for the occasion. She also writes the Readout newsletter and hosts the Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast, so the same voice clients book on stage is already in their feed. Biography highlights UK Correspondent, Bloomberg TV; anchor of Daybreak Europe on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio. Host of the daily Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast and author of the Readout newsletter. Named one of MHP’s 30 Journalists to Watch. Non-executive director, Creative Access, appointed November 2023. Previously economics writer at The Telegraph and Bloomberg News; earlier graduate trainee at The Times. History graduate, University of Cambridge. Biography Bloomberg’s Daybreak Europe goes on air before most of the City has reached its desk, and the job of the anchor is to set the day’s agenda for European investors in the hour the markets need it most. That is the platform Lizzy Burden runs. She is Bloomberg TV’s UK Correspondent, the host of the television and radio editions of Daybreak Europe, the host of the daily Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast, and the writer of the Readout newsletter. The reporting record is what gives her the authority to host senior corporate and political audiences. She has interviewed the UK Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Shadow Chancellor, FTSE 100 chief executives, Nobel laureate economists and Bank of England policymakers, and has filed from Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, the Bank of England and the Elysee Palace on monetary policy decisions, multiple prime ministerial transitions, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Brexit, the US-China trade war and the war in Ukraine. Her event work sits squarely inside that beat. She has hosted at the CBI annual conference, Chatham House, Founders Forum, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum and the Conservative and Labour Party conferences, the venues where senior business and policy audiences gather. She came to Bloomberg via The Times graduate scheme and economics writing roles at The Telegraph and Bloomberg News, after reading history at the University of Cambridge. Outside the studio, she serves as a non-executive director at Creative Access, the organisation that works to widen representation in the creative industries. MHP has named her one of its 30 Journalists to Watch. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster Monetary policy and the Bank of England Global economic outlook Geopolitics and political risk Conference hosting and on-stage interviews Diversity in the creative industries Media and journalism Ideal for Corporate conferences and AGMs that need a credible host across politics, markets and macro-economics. Boards, leadership offsites and investor events that want a Bloomberg-grade interviewer for sessions with senior policymakers or chief executives. Industry summits and policy forums seeking a moderator who can run plenary panels and one-to-one stage interviews. DEI-focused convenings looking for a working journalist with board-level governance experience on representation. Audience outcomes A clear read of the UK political and economic stories most likely to shape the next twelve months, drawn from Bloomberg’s daily output. Sharper sessions on stage, because she briefs hard and presses guests on the questions the audience came to hear answered. A working sense of how monetary policy, Westminster decisions and global political risk connect to corporate strategy. A rare combination of macro-economic fluency and lived experience of widening representation in a creative industry.

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Lord Kim Darroch

Boards used to treat geopolitics as background noise. It is now a line item in capital allocation, supply chain design, and sanctions exposure. Most leadership teams have no one in the room who has actually negotiated with the White House, sat inside a National Security Council, or watched a transatlantic alliance fracture from the inside.

Why organisations work with Kim Darroch A first-hand reading of US, EU, and UK political dynamics from someone who has sat opposite the people now setting policy, not a commentator interpreting from the outside. A decade at the operational core of UK national security and European policy, covering Brexit, the Trump administration, Russian aggression in Ukraine, the rise of Daesh, and the Libya collapse. Author of Collateral Damage, the most senior insider account of the UK-US relationship under the first Trump presidency, published by HarperCollins and reviewed in Foreign Affairs. A career-long perspective on the transatlantic alliance at the moment it is under the most pressure since the Cold War, useful for boards exposed to US, European, and China risk in the same quarter. Biography highlights British Ambassador to the United States, 2016 to 2019. National Security Adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, 2012 to 2015. UK Permanent Representative to the European Union, 2007 to 2011. Head of the Cabinet Office European Secretariat and EU adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2004 to 2007. Crossbench life peer, House of Lords; Chairperson, Best for Britain. Author, Collateral Damage: Britain, America and Europe in the Age of Trump (HarperCollins, 2020). KCMG (2008). Biography The British Ambassador to Washington is meant to be the cable channel between Downing Street and the White House. In July 2019, Kim Darroch’s frank diplomatic cables about the Trump administration were leaked to the British press, and the post became untenable. He resigned, closing a forty-year career in HM Diplomatic Service from inside the most public diplomatic incident in modern British memory. That career was built at the centre of UK foreign policy. As National Security Adviser to David Cameron from 2012 to 2015, he chaired the brief covering Daesh in Iraq and Syria, Russian operations in Ukraine, and the collapse of state authority in Libya. Before that he was UK Permanent Representative to the European Union, and before that Tony Blair’s senior EU adviser inside the Cabinet Office. Few living British diplomats have held that range of senior posts in sequence. His memoir, Collateral Damage, is the closest thing to a Washington-side account of how the UK read the Trump administration through Brexit and the early trade negotiations. Foreign Affairs reviewed it; HarperCollins published it in the UK and PublicAffairs in the US. He served as a Resident Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics in spring 2020 and now sits as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, chairing Best for Britain. What boards get from him is unusual at the senior diplomatic level. He speaks operationally about how Washington, Brussels, and Whitehall actually decide, who holds the file, what moves the principal, where the brittle points are. That is the reading senior executives need when they are asked to price political risk into a five-year plan. Key speaking topics US politics and the Washington decision-making system The transatlantic alliance under strain The war in Ukraine and European security China, the US, and strategic competition UK foreign policy after Brexit Geopolitical risk for boards and investors Ideal for Boards and audit committees pricing political and sanctions exposure into strategy CEOs and CFOs of multinationals with significant US, European, or China revenue General counsel, government affairs, and strategy heads reading regulatory and trade risk Investor and asset management audiences exposed to sovereign and policy risk Audience outcomes A grounded reading of the current US administration’s foreign policy trajectory from someone who has worked with the principals. A clearer view of where the transatlantic alliance is brittle and where it still holds. The questions a senior leadership team should be asking its risk function about geopolitics, not the headlines. A sharper sense of how Washington, Brussels, and London actually negotiate, useful when planning lobbying, market entry, or sanctions response.

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Lt. General H.R. McMaster

Boards are being asked to take real positions on China exposure, Russia, sanctions regimes, and the next conflict before the analyst notes catch up. Most leadership teams have no internal capacity to read state-level competition with confidence. The cost of getting it wrong now sits in revenue lines, not just risk registers.

Why organisations work with H. R. McMaster A National Security Advisor’s view of how the United States, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea actually behave, drawn from the seat where the options are written, not from outside the room. A historian’s discipline applied to current events. His PhD-grade work on Vietnam decision-making in Dereliction of Duty is the same lens he turns on present-day strategic mistakes. Direct argument over diplomatic hedge. McMaster takes positions, names countries and policies, and explains the reasoning, which is what boards under sanctions and supply-chain pressure actually need. Thirty-four years of command experience translated into language executives use. He speaks about decision-making under contact with the enemy, not as metaphor, but as a method that maps onto leadership in volatile markets. A working policy interlocutor. Through Battlegrounds with H.R. McMaster at the Hoover Institution he is in regular conversation with serving and former heads of state, defence ministers and intelligence chiefs, which keeps his read of the system current. Biography highlights 25th National Security Advisor of the United States, 2017 to 2018. Retired US Army lieutenant general after a 34-year career; awarded the Silver Star for action at the Battle of 73 Easting in the Gulf War. Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Author of three bestsellers: Dereliction of Duty, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, and At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House. Named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People and Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders. Host of Battlegrounds with H.R. McMaster, the Hoover Institution’s policy interview series with serving and former heads of state and senior officials. Biography The seats where US strategy is actually written are small. McMaster has occupied two of them: command of an armoured cavalry troop in combat, and the office of National Security Advisor in the White House. That combination is what makes his read of geopolitical risk practical for boards rather than ornamental. His Gulf War record is part of the public file. As a captain in February 1991, his Eagle Troop destroyed 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers and 30 trucks at the Battle of 73 Easting in 23 minutes, without losing a soldier. He was awarded the Silver Star. He went on to command the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar in 2005 and 2006, work that informed the US shift in counterinsurgency doctrine under General Petraeus. The intellectual record runs in parallel. Dereliction of Duty, drawn from his University of North Carolina PhD, dissected how the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to challenge the political logic that produced the Vietnam War, and is still on US military reading lists. Battlegrounds, published in 2020, sets out how the United States misread China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, South Asia and the cyber domain over two decades. At War with Ourselves, the 2024 New York Times bestseller, is his account of running the National Security Council under the Trump administration. Today he is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and lectures at the Graduate School of Business. Through the Battlegrounds interview series he keeps a working line into serving heads of state, defence ministers and intelligence chiefs, which is the substantive update boards want when they ask what is actually happening between Washington, Beijing, Moscow and Tehran. Key speaking topics Geopolitical competition with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea US foreign policy and national security strategy Decision-making under uncertainty and contact Leadership in high-stakes, ambiguous environments Risk to global commerce from state-level conflict Cyber, technology and the future of national power History as a discipline for present strategic choice Ideal for Boards and executive committees stress-testing China exposure, sanctions risk, and country strategy CEOs, CFOs and chief strategy officers setting capital allocation against geopolitical scenarios General counsel, chief risk officers and heads of government affairs Defence, aerospace, energy, financial services and technology leadership audiences with direct geopolitical exposure Audience outcomes A clearer read of how the United States and its rivals actually make strategic decisions, and where that points next. A working framework for thinking about competition with China and Russia that goes beyond headlines. Sharper questions for the company’s own scenario planning, sanctions exposure and supply-chain assumptions. A historian’s perspective on why strategic mistakes repeat, applied to decisions the audience is currently making. Confidence to take a position on geopolitical risk inside the company, rather than outsourcing it to consultants.

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Lucrezia Millarini

Senior conferences live or die on the person at the front of the room. A weak chair lets panels drift, mishandles sensitive subject matter, and leaves the audience remembering the awkwardness rather than the argument. Boards investing in flagship events need a host who can hold a complex agenda, push speakers without bruising them, and make the room feel that the conversation is in safe hands.

Why organisations work with Lucrezia Millarini Fifteen years of live anchoring at ITV News, including the ITV News at Ten and the network’s breaking news announcement of the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, translates directly into composure on stage when a session goes off script. Background in law before journalism: a Bristol law degree and barrister training, useful when chairing panels on regulation, policy, or geopolitics, where the questioning needs to land precisely. Genuine breadth across hard news and softer territory. She has reported from the Grenfell inquiry coverage and co-hosted ITV’s Mental Health Special with Martin Lewis, so audiences trust her to handle difficult subject matter without slipping into either solemnity or gloss. Recognisable network face for UK audiences. Booking her signals to delegates that the event is serious enough to warrant a household-name anchor at the lectern. Biography highlights Anchor, ITV News: ITV Lunchtime News, ITV Evening News and ITV News at Ten. Presenter, ITV London evening bulletin; regular reporter for ITV’s documentary series On Assignment. Reported on the RTS award-winning ITV coverage of the Grenfell Tower Fire. Co-host, The Martin Lewis Money Show: Live Mental Health Special and Mortgage Crisis Special. Law graduate, Bristol University; barrister training; postgraduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism, City University, London. Patron, Dogs on the Street and Support Dogs; supporter of Alzheimer’s Society campaigns. Biography Live news anchoring is the closest analogue in television to chairing a senior conference. The host has a fixed window, a moving brief, contributors who may go long or off-piste, and an audience that expects clarity without theatrics. Lucrezia Millarini has done that work on ITV News for more than fifteen years, across the Lunchtime News, the Evening News and the News at Ten. Her route in matters. She read law at Bristol and trained as a barrister before moving to journalism via a postgraduate diploma at City University. That legal grounding shows up in how she questions panellists on regulation, policy and geopolitics, where loose framing produces loose answers. The range of stories she has handled on air is proof of the point for sensitive corporate sessions. She fronted ITV’s RTS award-winning coverage of the Grenfell Tower Fire, broke the news of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in a special announcement in April 2021, and was part of ITV’s team at the Windsor wedding of Harry and Meghan. She has co-hosted ITV’s Mental Health Special with Martin Lewis, and reports for the network’s foreign affairs documentary strand, On Assignment. Corporate clients book her for conference chairing, panel moderation and award hosting. The recurring feedback is composure on stage, warmth with contributors, and a refusal to let a panel meander. For organisations putting a flagship event in front of customers, regulators or the board, those are the variables that actually decide whether the day lands. Key speaking topics Conference chairing and panel moderation Award ceremony and gala hosting Geopolitics and current affairs Mental health and wellbeing in the workplace Media, journalism and the modern newsroom Women in leadership and career conversations Ideal for Boards and CEOs commissioning a flagship customer, investor or industry conference where the chair has to hold the room. CHROs and internal communications leads running town halls or all-hands sessions on sensitive topics, including mental health and restructuring. Awards organisers and gala hosts want a recognisable UK broadcast face at the lectern. Audience outcomes A conference agenda that lands as a coherent argument rather than a sequence of unrelated talks. Panels in which the senior contributors are pushed on the points that matter without the session losing pace. Sessions on sensitive subjects, mental health, restructuring, and geopolitical risk, are handled with the steadiness audiences associate with live news. A day that delegates remember for the substance of the conversation, not for the moments that went wrong.