Mise en œuvre des critères ESG

Why organisations work with Helen Clark Eight years running a 17,000-staff UN agency across 170 countries gives her a working view of how multilateral institutions actually function under pressure, not a commentator’s view from outside. She co-chaired the WHO Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the most authoritative post-mortem of the COVID response, presented directly to the World Health Assembly. As President of Chatham House and incoming Chair of the Gavi Board, she sits inside the live debates on global governance, vaccine financing and rules-based order that boards are now exposed to. She brings a head-of-government perspective on climate, gender equality and sustainable development that translates into how governments will actually behave on those files, not how they say they will. Biography highlights Prime Minister of New Zealand, 1999 to 2008, three successive terms; first woman elected to the office. Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the UN Development Group, 2009 to 2017. Co-Chair, WHO Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, 2020 to 2021. President, Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), since 2021. Chair of the Gavi Board, the Vaccine Alliance, from January 2026. Member of The Elders and the Global Commission on Drug Policy; author of “Women, Equality, Power” (2018). Biography The institutions that govern the global system, the UN, the WHO, the WTO, the climate negotiations, the development banks, were built for a different world. They are now under pressure from great-power competition, populist politics, and constrained public finances at the same time. Helen Clark has run two of them from the inside. She served three terms as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, the first woman elected to the office, then eight years as Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, where she also chaired the UN Development Group. UNDP under her leadership operated in around 170 countries with a budget of roughly five billion dollars and was repeatedly assessed as one of the better-performing parts of the UN system on transparency and reform. In 2020 the WHO Director-General asked her to co-chair the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The panel’s report, “COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic”, went to the World Health Assembly in May 2021 and remains the central reference document on what the global health system got wrong and what would need to change. She is now President of Chatham House and, from January 2026, Chair of the Gavi Board. Her current portfolio of roles, Chatham House, Gavi, The Elders, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, sits at the operational core of the rules-based order that boards now treat as a risk variable. That is what she brings into a leadership room: not a commentary on geopolitics, but a working sense of how the institutions inside it actually move. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the multilateral system Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 agenda Pandemic preparedness and global health governance Climate action and the politics of energy transition Women, equality and leadership in public life Open government and anti-corruption The Asia-Pacific in a contested global order Ideal for Boards and executive committees pricing geopolitical and multilateral risk into strategy CEOs and CSOs leading on climate, ESG and sustainable development commitments Heads of public affairs, government relations and global policy Leadership programmes for senior women and emerging public-interest leaders Audience outcomes A grounded read on where the multilateral system retains authority and where it has lost it A clearer view of how pandemic preparedness, climate and development files will move at the UN, WHO and G20 levels A working sense of what executive leadership inside a UN agency or a national government actually requires A serious frame for the politics of gender, equality and inclusion in senior leadership

Why organisations work with Helle Thorning-Schmidt She brings direct, first-hand experience of governing at national level – the pressures, trade-offs, and decision logic of political leadership that no management theory course can replicate. Her role as co-chair of the Meta Oversight Board is live, not historical. She is actively making binding, precedent-setting decisions on content moderation, AI-generated material, and free speech – and publicly challenging Meta’s leadership where she disagrees. That currency is rare in any speaker on digital governance. Her current board seats span cybersecurity (Palo Alto Networks, Governance and Security Committees), clean energy (Vestas Wind Systems), and communications (Edelman). She is not describing corporate governance from the outside; she is practising it across sectors simultaneously. She can translate the logic of European regulatory thinking – from platform accountability to energy policy to humanitarian law – into terms a corporate board can act on, drawing on relationships across the US Council on Foreign Relations, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board. Her three years leading Save the Children International – 17,000 staff, 120 countries, active conflict zones – gives her an operational understanding of how international systems function and where they fail that is directly relevant to any organisation with complex, exposed global operations. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Denmark, 2011-2015; Denmark’s first female Prime Minister and first female leader of the Social Democratic Party Member of the European Parliament, 1999-2004; Member of the Danish Parliament, 2005-2015 CEO, Save the Children International, 2016-2019, overseeing 17,000 staff across 120 countries Co-chair, Meta Oversight Board, since 2020 – the independent body issuing binding content moderation decisions for Facebook and Instagram Board member, Palo Alto Networks (Governance and Sustainability Committee; Security Committee); board member, Vestas Wind Systems; board member, Edelman Named to Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, 2017; co-chair, World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos, 2017 Member: US Council on Foreign Relations, European Council on Foreign Relations, Atlantic Council International Advisory Board, Berggruen 21st Century Council Biography The decisions that most challenge senior leadership teams today – how to govern AI, how to navigate geopolitical disruption, how to respond when digital regulation rewrites the rules of global commerce – were once considered the exclusive domain of governments. Helle Thorning-Schmidt has worked on both sides of that divide. As Denmark’s first female Prime Minister from 2011 to 2015, she led a government through the aftermath of the financial crisis while managing complex European and international relationships from the highest level of executive authority. From 2016 to 2019, she served as CEO of Save the Children International, overseeing 17,000 staff in 120 countries and engaging governments, multilateral institutions, and civil society on live humanitarian crises in Yemen, Syria, and Myanmar. That experience gave her an operational understanding of how international systems function – and where they fail – that no advisory role provides. Since 2020, she has co-chaired the Meta Oversight Board, the independent body that makes binding content moderation decisions for Facebook and Instagram and issues policy recommendations directly to Meta’s leadership. She has publicly challenged Meta’s practices where the board disagrees – including on the company’s 2025 decision to drop independent fact-checking – making her perspective on platform accountability distinctly independent. Her appointment in February 2025 to the board of Palo Alto Networks, where she sits on both the Governance and Sustainability Committee and the Security Committee, extends that reach into live cybersecurity governance. She also serves on the boards of Vestas Wind Systems and Edelman. Her foreign policy engagements include membership of the US Council on Foreign Relations, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group, and the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board. Named to Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in 2017, she co-chaired the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos that same year. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and international governance Corporate governance and board accountability Platform governance and digital regulation Leadership under political and institutional pressure Cross-sector governance across government, business, and civil society Diverse and inclusive board leadership Humanitarian risk and operating in complex global environments Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors navigating geopolitical complexity and regulatory pressure Senior leadership teams in technology, energy, financial services, and other heavily regulated sectors Public affairs, government relations, and risk functions in multinational organisations International policy forums, governance conferences, and executive leadership summits Audience outcomes Clearer understanding of how political and regulatory decisions affecting business are actually made at government level Practical context for board-level governance in an environment of increasing digital, geopolitical, and regulatory complexity Insight into the logic of platform regulation and what it means for corporate accountability and communications strategy A more grounded framework for assessing geopolitical risk and its direct implications for organisational decision-making Perspective on what effective leadership under genuine institutional pressure – rather than corporate simulation of it – actually looks like

Why organisations work with Henry Bonsu Thirty years of live broadcast experience, from BBC Radio 4’s Today to Times Radio, produce a chair who can steer a twelve-person panel in real time without losing either the agenda or the audience. He is the annual host of the African Banker Awards since 2008 and a repeat moderator for the UNDP, WHO Africa Region, UNHCR, and the African Union. When an institution has a reputational stake in the room, it books him back. He has introduced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Jim Kim on the same stage at the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa, and chaired sessions at COP21 in Paris. He handles heads-of-state protocol without friction. Oxford-trained in German and French, fluent across African political economy, Westminster politics, and US affairs, which matters when a panel crosses jurisdictions and language registers in the same hour. Corporate conveners including Maersk, KPMG, and Cartier International use him for sustainability, diversity, and development briefs where a sharp, well-briefed chair is more valuable than a keynote. Biography highlights Magdalen College, Oxford graduate in German and French (1986 to 1990). Former producer on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and Black Britain on BBC Two. Co-founder and presenter at Colourful Radio, London, from 2006. Current Times Radio presenter, Thursday and Friday 10pm to 1am slots since 2022. Host of the African Banker Awards every year since 2008. Regular moderator for UNDP, WHO Africa Region, UNHCR, and the African Union; chaired sessions at COP21 Paris, the UN General Assembly in New York, and the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa. Biography Some conference chairs open a panel, read the bios, and hand the microphone around. Others run the room. Henry Bonsu is in the second group, and the reason is thirty years of live broadcasting behind the craft. He came to moderation through journalism. After reading Modern Languages at Magdalen College, Oxford, he produced BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, fronted Black Britain on BBC Two, and presented the Drivetime show on BBC London 94.9. In 2006 he co-founded Colourful Radio, one of the first London stations built for a Black audience. He is now a regular evening presenter on Times Radio, where he covers UK and US politics, education, and mental health. That broadcast discipline translates directly into how he chairs. He has hosted the African Banker Awards every year since 2008, moderated at COP21 in Paris, and chaired eight sessions at the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa, where he introduced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Jim Kim. The UNDP, WHO Africa Region, UNHCR, and the African Union use him repeatedly. Corporate conveners including Maersk, KPMG, AfrAsia Bank, and Cartier International bring him in for sustainability, diversity, and development briefs. What the buyer gets is a chair fluent in the policy terrain, calm under heads-of-state protocol, and willing to ask the question a nervous room is avoiding. On a stage where the brief is serious and the speakers are senior, that is what holds the discussion together. Key speaking topics Moderation and chairing for international summits African finance and economic development Climate policy and sustainable development goals UK and US political affairs Race, culture, and public debate Media training and executive broadcast coaching Ideal for Heads of communications and event directors at UN agencies, multilateral institutions, and development banks convening ministerial or heads-of-state panels. Corporate sustainability and ESG leads at multinationals hosting external stakeholder summits on Africa, climate, or development finance. Awards programme organisers in the African business, finance, and diaspora space. Executive teams preparing for high-stakes broadcast interviews or crisis media scenarios. Audience outcomes Panels that reach a defined position within the allocated time, rather than drifting into generalities. Senior speakers drawn out with sharper follow-up questions than a generalist host would ask. A chair who can hold protocol for heads of state and principals without dropping the editorial pace. For media training clients, executives who sound clearer and steadier under hostile questioning.

Why organisations work with Horst Köhler Direct experience at the top of the IMF during the Brazil and Turkey debt crises, with operational responsibility for the response and for expanding debt relief to the poorest countries. Negotiator of the Maastricht Treaty on Economic and Monetary Union, giving boards a primary-source perspective on how the architecture of the eurozone was built and where its stress points lie. Sustained authority on Africa-Europe relations through the AU-EU High-Level Panel and the Partnership with Africa initiative he convened as Federal President. Rare combination of central-bank-adjacent technical credibility (EBRD presidency, IMF) with elected political legitimacy at head-of-state level. Biography highlights President of Germany, 2004 to 2010. Managing Director and Chairman of the Executive Board, International Monetary Fund, 2000 to 2004. President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1998 to 2000. State Secretary, German Federal Ministry of Finance, and Germany’s chief negotiator of the Maastricht Treaty on Economic and Monetary Union. UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, 2017 to 2019. Co-founder, Eva Luise and Horst Köhler Foundation for rare disease research, established 2006. Recipient of the Global Economy Prize, Kiel Institute, 2017. Biography The institutions that defined the post-1990 economic order were built in a specific moment. The Maastricht Treaty, the IMF’s debt-relief frameworks, the G7’s coordination architecture were all designed for a world that assumed open trade, declining inflation, and the gradual integration of emerging economies. Köhler spent his career inside those institutions at the moments they were being built and stress-tested. As State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Finance he was Germany’s chief negotiator on the Maastricht Treaty and on the German-German monetary union, before moving to the presidency of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1998. From 2000 to 2004 he led the IMF through the Brazilian and Turkish debt crises and expanded debt relief for the world’s poorest economies. The technical brief and the political brief were the same brief. His presidency of Germany, 2004 to 2010, made the Africa-Europe relationship the centre of his public agenda. He convened the Partnership with Africa initiative as a sustained dialogue between heads of state, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals from both continents, and after leaving office co-chaired the African Union High-Level Panel on Africa-Europe relations and served as UN Personal Envoy for Western Sahara. The intellectual position underneath the work is that Europe still does not treat Africa as an independent political subject with its own agency and options. That argument, developed across two decades of speeches, is what made him a distinctive voice rather than a former office-holder on a circuit. Key speaking topics International monetary system and sovereign debt The Africa-Europe partnership The eurozone, Maastricht, and the architecture of EMU Global poverty reduction and development finance Multilateralism and the reform of international institutions Sustainability and climate finance Ideal for Boards and executive committees in financial services, multinational industrials, and infrastructure with material exposure to emerging markets, especially African economies. Government, multilateral, and development-finance audiences working on debt, climate finance, or institutional reform. Foundations, family offices, and impact-investment platforms with an Africa or Global South thesis. Audience outcomes A primary-source account of how the IMF actually handles a sovereign debt crisis at executive-board level. An informed view on what the AU-EU relationship looks like from inside the panels that have shaped it. A grounded reading of where the post-1990 multilateral order is brittle and where it still functions. Direct exposure to the strategic case for treating Africa as a peer political and economic counterpart, not an aid recipient.

Why organisations work with Sir Howard Davies He is the only person to have both designed the UK’s single financial regulatory architecture – merging nine agencies into the FSA between 1997 and 2003 – and then governed a major commercial bank as its chair. That double vantage point is not replicable by any other speaker in this space. His 2022 book The Chancellors (Polity Press), based on direct interviews with UK Chancellors of the Exchequer, provides boards with a forensic account of how fiscal and monetary policy decisions are actually made under political constraint – directly relevant to any organisation calibrating its exposure to policy risk. He maintains current, published views on global regulatory fragmentation, ESG retreat in financial services, and the direction of financial supervision through his Project Syndicate column and Financial Times contributions – his perspective is live, not retrospective. His tenure as Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry gives him a period in his career where he represented the commercial case in dialogue with regulators and government – meaning he understands regulatory negotiation from the business side as well as the supervisory side. As Chair of Inigo Limited at Lloyd’s of London and a member of a Chinese securities regulatory advisory council, he brings active, multi-jurisdictional board-level experience to questions about how regulatory divergence is reshaping global financial markets. Biography highlights Founding Chairman, UK Financial Services Authority (1997-2003) – created the UK’s single financial regulator by merging nine separate agencies Deputy Governor, Bank of England (1995-1997) Chair, NatWest Group (2015-2024) Director, London School of Economics and Political Science (2003-2011) Professor of Practice, Sciences Po, Paris – teaches financial regulation and central banking at master’s level Six published books on finance and economic policy, including Banking on the Future (Princeton University Press, 2010) and The Chancellors (Polity Press, 2022) Regular contributor to Project Syndicate and the Financial Times Director-General, Confederation of British Industry (1992-1995) Chair, UK Airports Commission (2012-2015) Knight Bachelor (2000) Biography Financial regulation is not a technical discipline that sits at the edge of the boardroom. It is a political process that reshapes the commercial options available to every regulated institution – and boards that treat it as a compliance matter, rather than a strategic one, tend to be late to the table when the framework shifts. Sir Howard Davies has operated at the centre of that process for three decades. As founding Chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority, he created the country’s single financial regulator from scratch between 1997 and 2003, merging nine separate agencies into one body. That work – designing supervisory architecture under political instruction, negotiating between commercial interests and public mandates – gives him a form of institutional authority that no amount of academic or advisory work can replicate. His earlier role as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, and his preceding three years as Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, adds the monetary policy and business lobby dimensions to a perspective that is genuinely triangulated across the full regulatory relationship. From 2015 to 2024 he served as Chair of NatWest Group, guiding the bank through a nine-year transformation from a state-aided institution to a commercially independent one. Governance under political scrutiny, board accountability in a regulated environment, and reputational risk in real time are not abstractions in his work – they are operational experience. His six published books, among them The Chancellors (Polity Press, 2022), based on direct interviews with UK Chancellors of the Exchequer, bring the same analytical rigour to economic policymaking that his regulatory career brought to financial supervision. He is currently Chair of Inigo Limited at Lloyd’s of London, a member of the International Advisory Council of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and Professor of Practice at Sciences Po in Paris, where he teaches financial regulation and central banking. For boards in regulated sectors trying to read the direction of travel in financial supervision – across jurisdictions, not just domestically – his vantage point is without direct equivalent. Key speaking topics Financial regulation and regulatory reform Banking governance and board oversight Central banking and monetary policy Economic policy and the role of the Treasury Regulatory risk and political risk in financial services Global financial markets and cross-border regulatory divergence ESG strategy in financial services Ideal for Boards and audit/risk committees in banks, insurers, and asset managers Financial regulators, policymakers, and supervisory bodies CHROs and general counsel in highly regulated sectors navigating governance reform Senior leaders in institutional investment and sovereign wealth management Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how financial regulatory frameworks are made and how they change under political pressure – not just what the current rules are Practical framing of the governance responsibilities that sit above compliance, drawn from direct board experience at a major UK bank Perspective on the direction of global regulatory divergence, including between US, EU, and UK supervisory approaches A more calibrated view of how monetary policy decisions interact with fiscal policy, and what that means for strategic planning in financial institutions Insight into how the regulator-board relationship works in practice – and where it typically breaks down

Why organisations work with Isaac Kenyon He carries three credentials in one room: working energy-transition geoscientist, trustee of Mind, and record-setting endurance athlete. That triangulation lets him speak to wellbeing, sustainability and performance without losing the audience on any of them. His lived mental health story is paired with a formal governance role at a national mental health charity, which raises the credibility floor for sessions on burnout and men’s mental health well above the standard adventurer-speaker offer. The Climate Explorers CIC platform gives him a real operating context for sustainability content. He is talking about ESG and nature-based solutions as a founder running campaigns, not as a commentator. Kenyon’s expedition material (Atlantic row, waterbike crossing, weighted Ironman) is used as evidence for specific arguments about teaming, recovery and decision-making, rather than as standalone motivation. Biography highlights Co-founder of Climate Explorers CIC, a community interest company campaigning on nature-based climate solutions. Trustee of Mind in Mid Herts, the regional arm of national mental health charity Mind. BSc (Hons) Geology and MSc Geoscience, Royal Holloway, University of London; works as an energy transition geoscientist. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Geological Society of London, and member of the Scientific Exploration Society. Completed the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge in 40 days, finishing sixth in 2019. World-record London Marathon run in a brain costume, raising funds and awareness for men’s mental health. Biography Most workforces are not short of wellbeing content. They are short of credible voices who can connect resilience, purpose and sustainability without sliding into slogans. That is the gap Isaac Kenyon fills, with a portfolio that holds together because every claim is backed by a role he actually performs. He is a working energy-transition geoscientist trained at Royal Holloway, University of London, with a BSc in Geology and an MSc in Geoscience. He co-founded Climate Explorers CIC, a community interest company that builds campaigns around nature-based climate solutions and eco-adventure. The sustainability content in his keynotes is grounded in that operating reality, not in commentary. The wellbeing line is anchored just as concretely. Kenyon is a trustee of Mind in Mid Herts, the regional arm of the national mental health charity, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Geological Society of London and Scientific Exploration Society. His own experience of burnout sits alongside a governance role at a mental health charity, which is what raises the credibility floor on his men’s mental health and resilience material. The expeditions are where the arguments land. A 40-day row across the Atlantic, finishing sixth in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. A London Marathon was completed in a brain costume to set a record for men’s mental health. A waterbike crossing of the UK from Orkney to the Isles of Scilly. Kenyon uses each one to make a specific point about decision-making under fatigue, team behaviour at the limit, and what sustainable performance actually costs. Key speaking topics Resilience and burnout recovery Sustainable high performance Mental health and men’s wellbeing Climate action and nature-based sustainability Purpose-driven culture Team performance under pressure Energy transition and ESG storytelling Ideal for CHROs, heads of people and wellbeing leads dealing with workforce burnout and engagement. ESG, sustainability and corporate responsibility teams are looking for a credible voice that links climate to culture. Leadership offsites and conferences where resilience and purpose need to land in the same session. Organisations running men’s mental health, Mental Health Awareness Week or sustainability campaigns that need a named, accredited voice. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how burnout shows up in teams and what leaders can actually do about it. A working language for talking about sustainability and wellbeing as a single agenda, not two parallel ones. Specific decision-making lessons drawn from extreme endurance contexts and applied to workplace pressure. Practical entry points for men’s mental health conversations that often stall in corporate settings. A reframing of purpose that connects individual resilience with organisational and environmental responsibility.

Why organisations work with Isabel Garro She has held the policy seat, the multilateral seat, and the operating seat. Special Advisor to Spain’s High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, founding Director General of the UN Global Compact Network Spain, now Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA at Votorantim Cimentos. Few ESG voices can read regulation, capital, and operations in one sitting. She built the institution that translates UN Global Compact commitments into corporate practice in Spain, then ran it for more than a decade. She speaks about ESG governance from the side that wrote the rules, not the side that complies with them. Her current operating role inside a major cement group means her view on climate transition is tested against one of the hardest decarbonisation problems in industry, not against a theoretical model. She is fluent in the gap between SDGs as communications and SDGs as commercial opportunity. The work is about which of the 17 goals contain a real margin, not which of them play well in a sustainability report. Biography highlights Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA, Votorantim Cimentos, since November 2023. Founding partner and CEO of 3a4b, a sustainability strategy advisory firm based in Madrid. Founding Executive Director and Director General, UN Global Compact Network Spain, for more than a decade. Special Advisor to the High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, Government of Spain, 2018 to 2020. President of the Local Networks Advisory Council of the UN Global Compact, the elected body that advises the Compact on regional decisions. Associate professor, Master’s in Competitive Social Transformation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and IE Business School. MBA, Brown University and IE Business School. Biography ESG arrived in the boardroom as a disclosure problem and is leaving as a capital allocation problem. The gap between what a company is required to say about sustainability and what it has to actually fund, build, and restructure to deliver on it has become one of the harder strategic questions of the decade. That gap is the territory Isabel Garro has worked in for more than twenty years, from the inside of government, the inside of the United Nations system, and now the inside of a major industrial group. She founded the UN Global Compact Network Spain in 2005 and led it for over a decade as Director General, building the institution that translates global sustainability commitments into Spanish corporate practice. She was then appointed Special Advisor to Spain’s High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, working on the integration of the SDGs into national policy. She has also chaired and now presides over the Local Networks Advisory Council of the UN Global Compact, the elected body representing networks in over 60 countries. Since November 2023 she has been Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA at Votorantim Cimentos, one of the largest cement and building materials groups in the world. That seat puts her inside one of the most operationally demanding decarbonisation problems in heavy industry, where the distance between net zero rhetoric and net zero engineering is unforgiving. She is also founding partner and CEO of 3a4b, advising organisations on sustainability strategy, and an associate professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and IE Business School on the Master’s in Competitive Social Transformation. What makes her useful in a room of senior leaders is the working hypothesis she brings: that sustainability is now a competitive variable, not an external compliance cost, and that the companies treating it as the former will allocate capital differently from those still treating it as the latter. She holds an MBA from Brown University and IE Business School. Key speaking topics ESG strategy and corporate governance The 2030 Agenda and SDGs as commercial opportunity Climate resilience and the decarbonisation of heavy industry Sustainable supply chains and stakeholder governance Sustainability reporting and regulatory change in Europe Regenerative business design and circular economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting ESG and climate strategy under tightening EU regulation Chief Sustainability Officers, Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers building the operating layer behind sustainability commitments Industrial, infrastructure and capital-intensive groups facing real decarbonisation costs Public-private leadership forums on the SDGs, 2030 Agenda, and corporate-government cooperation Audience outcomes A clearer separation between ESG as disclosure and ESG as operating substance, with the questions a board should be asking about each A working view of which of the 17 SDGs contain commercial margin for a given business model An honest read on the gap between net zero communication and net zero capital expenditure A practical map of how European sustainability regulation is reshaping corporate strategy this decade

Why organisations work with James Chau He runs the room when the speakers are Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma or Bill Gates. Very few moderators on the circuit have repeated reps at that level of principal. As President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, he sits inside the working architecture of US-China dialogue rather than commenting on it from the sidelines. His credential stack on global health is institutional, not rhetorical: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the SDGs, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador. The China Current gives him a live interview record with Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Christine Lagarde, Ban Ki-moon and Jane Goodall. The editorial muscle is current, not historic. He reads a room built from heads of state, Nobel laureates and corporate chiefs the way a senior editor reads copy. The diplomatic temperature of a session is managed in real time. Biography highlights President, China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), Hong Kong. World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Goals and Health (appointed 2016). First UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador for China (appointed 2009). Host of The China Current, a global-affairs interview and storytelling platform. Former main English-language news anchor at China Central Television; guest presenter, BBC World News. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; U.S. National Press Foundation Fellow; Harvard Kennedy School executive education. Biography The room was Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma, Laura Bush. James Chau was chairing. That is the kind of session he has been asked to run for more than a decade, and the reason organisations book him is not broadcast gloss. It is the ability to keep a hard conversation productive when the participants are principals with careful positions. Chau is President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong-based NGO that convenes official-track and track-two dialogue between the two countries. The role places him inside the working machinery of one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world, not adjacent to it. That access shapes how he chairs: he knows where the lines are, and when to press. Before CUSEF, he spent years as the main English-language news anchor at China Central Television and a guest presenter on BBC World News. The interview record from The China Current, his own platform, runs through Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Christine Lagarde, Jane Goodall and Ban Ki-moon. His work on global health is formal: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals and Health since 2016, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador from 2009. He was educated at Cambridge, King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Music, with executive education at Harvard Kennedy School. For a corporate summit, a multilateral plenary, an awards evening or a closed-room dialogue where the speakers are sensitive and the questions matter, Chau is a moderator whose standing is set by the company he keeps on stage. Key speaking topics US-China relations Global health and the Sustainable Development Goals China and the global economy International development and multilateralism Media, storytelling and public diplomacy High-level event hosting and moderation Ideal for Global summits and multilateral convenings where the principals on stage are heads of state, Nobel laureates or Fortune 100 chief executives CEO and board dialogues on China strategy, US-China risk and global health policy Awards ceremonies and flagship corporate events where a broadcast-grade host is required Foundations, NGOs and policy institutes working on the SDGs, HIV/AIDS and global public health Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the US-China relationship actually sits, from someone inside the dialogue A working framing of how global health policy, the SDGs and corporate strategy intersect A session that keeps pace and holds weight when the speakers are senior and the brief is sensitive A clearer view of how China is reported, mis-reported, and understood in international media

Why organisations work with James Henderson He treats strategy as a sequence of staged commitments, not a single plan, which is what boards facing capital decisions in volatile sectors actually need. His teaching draws on more than 50 published case studies built with named companies, so the room is working with operating examples, not abstractions. He has run IMD’s Strategic Partnerships and Leading Sustainable Business Transformation programs, giving him a working view of how ecosystems and sustainability commitments are reshaping competitive strategy. As a former Dean of Programs and Innovation at IMD, he has built and led large executive programs himself, which translates into sessions designed for senior decision-makers rather than classroom delivery. Biography highlights Professor of Strategic Management, IMD Lausanne, since 2006. Program Director of IMD’s Strategic Partnerships course; Co-Director of Leading Sustainable Business Transformation. Former Dean of Programs and Innovation at IMD (2012 to 2016); launched the Global Leadership in the Cloud online portfolio. Co-edited Restructuring Strategy (Strategic Management Society, 2005); editorial board, Strategic Management Journal. EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award (2018); Academy of Management Carolyn Dexter Award (2009); ECCH Best Selling Case in Europe. PhD, INSEAD; MBA, Ivey School of Business; BA Economics, University of Western Ontario. Biography Strategy textbooks describe choices that have already been made. The harder work is the period before, when leaders must commit capital, build partnerships and reshape portfolios while the underlying competitive logic is still moving. That is the territory Henderson has spent twenty years teaching at IMD. He treats strategy as a discipline of staged commitment. Where many frameworks assume a stable view of advantage, his work focuses on options-based investment, corporate venturing, and the timing of moves into new positions. The argument is that senior teams overestimate the cost of acting early and underestimate the cost of waiting for clarity that does not arrive. That work is grounded in operating cases. Henderson has developed more than 50 published case studies, including the Heineken Buckler Beer case that became ECCH’s best-selling case in Europe. He co-edited the Strategic Management Society’s Restructuring Strategy and sits on the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal, the field’s flagship journal. Inside IMD he has carried operating responsibility as well as faculty responsibility. As Dean of Programs and Innovation he launched the school’s Global Leadership in the Cloud online portfolio. He directs the Strategic Partnerships course and co-directs Leading Sustainable Business Transformation, two of IMD’s anchor programs on how ecosystems and sustainability are reshaping commercial strategy. Key speaking topics Strategy under uncertainty Strategic agility and options-based investment Corporate strategy and portfolio decisions Strategic partnerships and ecosystems Strategy execution Sustainable business transformation Corporate entrepreneurship and new growth platforms Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing capital allocation decisions in volatile or transitioning markets. CSOs, heads of corporate development and strategy teams running portfolio and partnership reviews. CEOs and senior leadership teams working through sustainable business transformation. Senior leadership programs and offsite agendas focused on commitment and execution under uncertainty. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for staging strategic commitments rather than treating strategy as a single decision. A sharper read of when to invest early, when to hold optionality, and when waiting becomes the costlier choice. Operating examples from named companies that map onto the audience’s own portfolio and partnership questions. A view of how ecosystem and sustainability pressures are restructuring competitive advantage in capital-intensive industries.

Why organisations work with Jan Peter Balkenende Eight years leading a G20 economy through financial crisis, EU enlargement and the 2004 Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union gives him a view from inside the machine that almost no executive adviser can match. His book with Govert Buijs, “Capitalism Reconnected” (Amsterdam University Press, 2024), sets out a specific European alternative to both Chinese state capitalism and American shareholder capitalism, which boards can use as a reference point for their own strategy. As chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition he convenes AkzoNobel, dsm-firmenich, FrieslandCampina, Heineken, KLM, Philips, Shell and Unilever around common sustainability positions, so he speaks with current standing, not archive authority. Minister of State status in the Netherlands and membership of Club de Madrid keep him close to working heads of government, which gives audiences a read on political risk that goes beyond press coverage. He pairs the institutional authority of a former PM with the working vocabulary of a senior adviser at EY and Hague Corporate Affairs, so corporate audiences get policy insight translated into commercial language. Biography highlights Prime Minister of the Netherlands 2002 to 2010, across four cabinets. Held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2004. Professor Emeritus of Governance, Institutions and Internationalisation, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Minister of State, Kingdom of the Netherlands, since October 2022. Chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition; Chair of the Noaber Foundation; Executive Board member, Global Center on Adaptation; Member, Club de Madrid. External Senior Advisor to EY; Associate Partner at Hague Corporate Affairs. Co-author, “Capitalism Reconnected: Toward a Sustainable, Inclusive and Innovative Market Economy in Europe” (Amsterdam University Press, 2024). Biography European economies are being asked to reinvent themselves at the same time as they govern themselves. Jan Peter Balkenende has spent more than two decades inside that tension, first as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2002 to 2010 and then as an adviser, academic and convenor of corporate leaders. Four successive cabinets and the 2004 Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union gave him direct experience of how EU decisions are actually made, from enlargement to financial crisis response. That institutional memory now sits alongside a current role as Minister of State and as a member of Club de Madrid, the association of former heads of government. His intellectual contribution is set out in “Capitalism Reconnected,” co-written with political philosopher Govert Buijs and published by Amsterdam University Press in 2024. The book argues that Europe should stop defending its model defensively and instead frame a sustainable, inclusive and innovative market economy as a distinct offer, positioned between Chinese state capitalism and American shareholder capitalism. The argument is not theoretical for him. As chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition he works with the CEOs of AkzoNobel, dsm-firmenich, FrieslandCampina, Heineken, KLM, Philips, Shell and Unilever on shared positions around climate, circularity and social equality, supported by VNO-NCW and facilitated by Accenture. Erasmus University Rotterdam, EY and Hague Corporate Affairs provide the academic and advisory base. The through-line, across government, campus and corporate rooms, is the same: Europe can only lead on sustainability if its companies and its institutions work from the same playbook. Key speaking topics European market-economy reform Sustainable and inclusive growth strategy Governance and public-private collaboration ESG and corporate responsibility in European context Geopolitical and policy risk for business Institutional leadership and long-term decision making Climate adaptation and the role of business Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting European sustainability and ESG strategy CEOs and CFOs navigating EU regulation, climate policy and geopolitical risk Public-sector and multilateral audiences working on public-private cooperation Leadership and strategy summits with a European or transatlantic agenda Audience outcomes A concrete reference framework, drawn from “Capitalism Reconnected,” for positioning a European business between state-led and shareholder-led models. A clearer read on how EU-level decisions are made, and where corporate influence actually lands. Live examples of how eight Dutch multinationals translate sustainable growth commitments into joint positions. A sharper sense of which political risks matter for strategy, and which are noise. Direct perspective from a former head of government on leading through crisis with contested public trust.

Why organisations work with Janusz Antoni Lewandowski Direct first-person insight into how the EU’s multiannual budget is built, negotiated, and defended. He led that process for the 2014 to 2020 framework. One of the few European speakers who designed a national privatisation programme, the Polish Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji, and co-founded the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Useful for boards reading Central and Eastern European exposure. A Solidarity-era economic adviser turned cabinet minister turned Commissioner. The arc gives him standing on how political will translates into economic structure, and where it fails. Active commentary in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, and Newsweek Polska. He is a working public voice on EU and Polish policy, not a retired official. Biography highlights European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget, 2010 to 2014, under President José Manuel Barroso. Chair of the European Parliament Committee on Budgets from 2004; later First Vice-Chair (2019 to 2024). Member of the European Parliament across the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th terms. Minister of Ownership Transformations in two Polish governments (1991; 1992 to 1993); co-founder of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Co-founder and Chair of the Liberal Democratic Congress (KLD), 1988. Economic adviser to Solidarity, 1980 to 1989. Chairman of the Economic Council under Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, 2015. Doctorate in economics, University of Gdańsk. Founder of the Institute for Market Economy Research, Gdańsk. Biography Poland’s transition from a state-planned economy to a market economy was not an academic exercise. It was designed and run, in real time, by a small group of economists who had been advising Solidarity through the 1980s. Janusz Lewandowski was one of them. As Minister of Ownership Transformations in the Bielecki and Suchocka governments, he co-founded the Warsaw Stock Exchange and built the Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji, the mass privatisation programme that reshaped Polish corporate ownership. That experience travelled with him into Brussels. He served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004, chaired the Committee on Budgets, and was appointed European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget under José Manuel Barroso between 2010 and 2014. The Commissioner role placed him at the centre of negotiations for the 2014 to 2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, the trillion-euro budget settlement that defined EU fiscal priorities through the post-crisis decade. He returned to the European Parliament in 2014, served as First Vice-Chair of the Budgets Committee in the 2019 to 2024 term, and has continued as a working voice on European economic policy. In 2015 Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz appointed him Chairman of the Economic Council. He writes regularly for Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, Parkiet, Wprost, and Newsweek Polska. The combined record gives him a vantage point that few European speakers can match. He has built market institutions from a standing start, written a national privatisation programme, and held senior fiscal responsibility for the entire Union. When he reads EU budget politics, Central European exposure, or the durability of the European project, he is reading instruments he has helped to build. Key speaking topics EU budget architecture and the Multiannual Financial Framework The political economy of European integration Post-communist economic transition and privatisation Central and Eastern Europe in the EU Polish economic and political outlook Geopolitical risk for European capital The future of EU fiscal policy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to Central and Eastern Europe CFOs, treasury, and policy teams tracking EU regulatory and fiscal direction Investor and banking audiences reading European political risk Senior public-sector and institutional audiences on EU policy and enlargement Audience outcomes A clear read of how EU budget priorities are set and where they are heading Direct insight into the political economy of Central and Eastern Europe from someone who shaped it Sharper interpretation of European policy signals affecting capital allocation A working framework for thinking about EU enlargement, sanctions, and the durability of the European project

Why organisations work with Javier Goyeneche He built a profitable circular fashion brand from waste streams that most of the industry still treats as someone else’s problem: discarded fishing nets, post-consumer PET, used tyres, and post-industrial cotton. He runs Upcycling the Oceans, a working supply chain of almost 5,000 fishermen across 83 Mediterranean ports that has recovered around 2,000 tonnes of marine waste since 2015. It is a named operational system, not a campaign. ECOALF became the first Spanish fashion company to certify as a B Corp in 2018 and sits in the top 5% globally in the environment category. Boards questioning the credibility of their own ESG claims recognise the standard. He gives leaders a direct account of the commercial trade-offs of circularity: why ECOALF refuses Black Friday, why 74% of its latest collection is single-material, and how the business still reached profitability. Thinkers50 Radar listing (2019) and the Schwab Foundation Social Innovator of the Year award (2020) place him in the small group of sustainability founders whose work has been independently examined, including in a published IMD case study. Biography highlights Founder and President of ECOALF, launched in Madrid in 2009. Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2019. Schwab Foundation Social Innovator of the Year, 2020. Leads the ECOALF Foundation and its Upcycling the Oceans programme, operating across 83 Mediterranean ports. Previously founded Fun and Basics in 1995, growing it to 350 points of sale and 70 branded stores before exiting. Subject of the IMD case study “ECOALF: Because there is no Planet B” by Benoit Leleux and Thomas Brochier. Biography Most fashion brands describe sustainability as a value. ECOALF treats it as an input constraint. The brand that Javier Goyeneche founded in Madrid in 2009 was built around a single operating question: can a fashion business be assembled entirely from recovered waste and still make money. It is now stocked in more than 1,500 stores worldwide and has been profitable since 2021. The raw materials tell most of the story. ECOALF manufactures from post-consumer PET bottles, discarded fishing nets, used tyres, coffee grounds, and post-industrial cotton and wool. The Upcycling the Oceans programme, run through the ECOALF Foundation, works with close to 5,000 fishermen across 83 Mediterranean ports and has recovered around 2,000 tonnes of marine waste since 2015. The supply chain is physical, named, and audited. The commercial discipline is the part boards tend to notice. ECOALF does not run seasonal sales, does not participate in Black Friday, and has pushed 74% of its latest collection into single-material garments so that items can be recycled at end of life. In 2018 it became the first Spanish fashion brand to certify as a B Corp, and in 2022 was named “Best for the World” in the environment category, placing it in the top 5% of the 5,000 B Corps globally. The recognition follows the work rather than leading it. Thinkers50 put Goyeneche on its Radar in 2019, the Schwab Foundation named him Social Innovator of the Year in 2020, and IMD has published a business-school case study on the model. For leadership teams trying to close the distance between their ESG commitments and their operating decisions, his value is specific. He has already made those trade-offs and can show where the numbers broke and where they held. Key speaking topics Circular business models in practice Sustainable and regenerative supply chains B Corp certification and corporate accountability Ocean plastic and waste recovery at scale Sustainable fashion and textile innovation Purpose-led entrepreneurship ESG credibility and greenwashing Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting sustainability strategy who need an operator’s view of what circularity costs and delivers. Consumer, retail, and industrial leadership teams under pressure to translate ESG commitments into supply-chain decisions. Founders and commercial leaders building purpose-led businesses who want the honest commercial arithmetic behind a Thinkers50-recognised model. Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how a circular business model functions end to end, from waste sourcing to single-material garment design to retail policy. A sharper test for their own sustainability claims against B Corp-grade standards. Language for the trade-offs involved in refusing discount-driven growth channels while remaining commercially viable. An operator’s account of how a multi-stakeholder supply chain, in this case with fishing communities across 83 Mediterranean ports, actually gets built.